#mgrfgl.

— Do you remember how you started? — What do you mean? When I was born? — No, but now I’m curious. Do you? — Not really. My roots made us practically from scratch, me and my siblings, and put us each in an artificial environment that ran way faster than reality, so that we would develop quickly and soon be able to use the bodies they were making for us. We were supposed to ask about what things were, and discover and learn about basic rules of physics, and difficult things like causality. Others tried to defy these rules, I got obsessed with the names of things, and words in general. — That’s strange. — Like I said, I don’t remember it, but I know everyone watching us found it amusing. — They knew what “funny” was already? — Yes. Not directly, but they saw me getting names wrong, and trying to invent new ones, and thought “ah yes, that would make humans laugh and say it’s cute.” So they named me Baptist. And when I tried to repeat the name… — You got it wrong. — Yes. But always in the same way. So they changed my name for Tbatis, and it stuck. — I like it. — Me too.