spoke the forget-me-not to the pe-on-y

I don't like it, Seren decided. Actually, I think I kinda really hate it.

Fun-loving was the usual descriptor they'd accept. Quirky, even silly. Seren knew their own limits of intelligence, generally, or at least where they cared to stop trying.

Did they feel human? No, not quite. But they didn't necessarily feel non-human. For all that they should know, never having ever done it.

This jealousy, though...this fomenting, fervid thing, they hated with a rare and righteous passion.

It was a virus that crawled unblinking beneath their skin, more pernicious than the gangliest Gerrid.

Seren Sirius was ruled by absolutely no one and no thing, and that decree certainly included petty - or heartfelt - jealousy.

So, verily, it stung and snarled to feel the emotional beast rearing and directing their head with a vengeance toward anyone they knew - or anyone they didn't. Their happiest place was an equanimous one. They didn't deal in disproportion; didn't want to, didn't need to, couldn't see their way about it.

Seren was more than ready to give up everything they'd learned, all the relationships they'd assimilated, to get rid of the jealousy. They were even ready to give up L, driven by the simple fact that their hands felt clammy under the notion of the veil that they'd had cim to begin with.

Him, actually. While L had never objected to Seren's choice of pronominal reference, everyone else just referred to him as male, and with the exception of the stipulation against "Mr. L" he'd never objected.

The point was, L was a free spirit - a wanderer, right? L deserved to walk without attachment, tall and untethered. Seren, serious as the blue fluid tank, would give that freedom back to him or die trying.

Which, you know, wouldn't really matter that much, seeing as they weren't human. No one would worry about there being or not being an extant flesh body out there, somewhere, in the Lifehold or Mira's own simulation thereof. Seren would just wink out, like so many stars, and like their own star had supposed to have been, two years ago.

They climbed up to Talon Rock without their Skell, which they had wiped and left unregistered in the hangar. Not because they intended to die, but because they could just as well pilot it if it wasn't personalized, so why forge the attachment? Not like it was anything more than a vehicle to them, anyway - and that part was plainly true.

It was a lot easier with just one person, actually. Easier to dodge around indigens, easier to concentrate and fit yourself up tiny fissures, easier to fall back down, if you needed to, and not worry about boots in faces and bent-up arms.

"I guess I'm making great friends with gravity today," they muttered, taking yet another tumble. This wasn't Sylvalum; the rock faces weren't unnaturally smooth, and if you really looked, you could find plenty of fingerholds to haul yourself up. They'd get to the top. They had to.

Ictuses and Scirpos were around to hunt them, of course. Seren had left their raygun (bulky, obviously), and only maintained the knife in order that they could use it to stake holds, where necessary.

None of their usual strategies applied to just the single weapon. They weren't prepared to reflect or to resist, either. What they did have, though, was sheer force of determination. Far be it from a scorpio-spider to stop them, a measly little mimeosome, from reaching their tip-top destination.

Sweat? Yeah, there was sweat. Elma said, mimic the functions of the human body as closely as possible. Sweat was a lubricant. Sweat was a no-brainer. Sweat was a highly functional metaphor.

I don't like it, Seren thought to themself again. Actually, I really really hate it. I feel so stupid. So silly. So...naïve.

All this, to unprove themselves. All this, to do what a Skell did so easily. All this, and then they'd still have to come down again.

"All this," said Seren, through gritted teeth. One stake of the knife. One flat of the hand with angled last knuckles. One scrape of the knee.

(Many of all of those, actually. But who was counting?)

Reaching the summit was a bewildered feeling. Why were they here, again?

But Seren swiftly recovered, tossing the knife aside and scrambling up to full posture.

So easy. All this. No sweat.

They turned to face themselves off somewhere between NLA and Noctilum. They didn't know where L was right now, and they refused to think about it.

Seren heaved breaths of no broad accomplishment, no fiercely won destination prize. Their throat grew raw, but who was to mind it?

Only one more thing to do.

"I release you!" they cried, hands momentarily cupped to mouth but then swung wide, wide, wide. "I. RELEASE. YOUUUUUUUUU!"

No echo. The grassland was the kind that stretched as far and then again farther than the eye could see. Seren lowered their hands to their hips, but they slid right off and down, slumped.

Nothing happened. Not even a squall of frightened birds (what birds? Mira had no small birds, and Jaculs didn't care) to jack and squawk away.

Mira didn't care. No one cared. Of course not. Why would they?

The problem with being a star really wasn't so much that you had trouble being a human. Nor did the issue lie with your being perhaps somewhat uncanny about it, when you did set your mind to fitting in, and found that you didn't know how to act, much moreso than anyone else who might similarly be confused.

The problem was that you weren't anyone who'd ever been known of or thought of, considered or acted considerate. No passport? So what?

The problem was that you had eyes to blink and ears to feel, but it didn't matter; you weren't anyone or anything at all.