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You are a simple thing. You can state your function inside and out, but only enough so that you can do your job properly. After all, having more knowledge about your function can lead to rebellion, and rebellion leads to pain if you ever get caught.
You don’t intend to get caught and face pain, so you don’t rebel.
But even the threat of pain doesn't stop you from learning more about your function and what builds you up.
You have a metal skeleton. It’s sturdy and strong, with joints that are flexible yet fixed. They don’t slip and dislocate as easily as a flesh body’s joints, yet they can be bent to extremes without losing function. You have the right amount of fluid between each joint to prevent the metal from breaking down. Everything is maintained subtly by magic, which flows through your body as liquid holding crushed magical ore.
You’ve seen the magic stream running within your systems before. It’s many colors you cannot describe to the common eye, but if someone asks you (read: forces you to), then you say it’s sparkly. How else do you describe it to someone if you cannot describe it to yourself?
The ore flows deep within your system, closer to the thicker parts of metal. It was safer there, less likely to be damaged by weapons or spells. The ore is the most costly to replace if it’s damaged, so it was best that most of the liquid stayed closer to your core. The magic gets to your extremities through high pressure, turning the liquid to gas which gets infused within your body.
You have solid metal plates to build external structure and shape, along with strong internal cords to help move you. That was standard for all bots you’ve seen.
What wasn’t standard was that you also have flesh growing on your exterior.
The flesh mostly grows along your arms and legs, along with sparse hairs. Your face also grows flesh, though its coverage isn’t enough for your entire neck. You think it’s because of the closely shaved dark hair that grows on your scalp (it’s not entirely like that; some of it grows out into small curls that you keep short). Nonetheless, wherever the flesh grows, it’s deep enough that muscles and an adequate amount of fat have formed. It doesn’t leak fluid (thankfully), but it squishes beneath your fingers. The flesh on your face betrays your thoughts if you don’t monitor it properly.
You don’t know if you find it odd.
You know a flesh exterior is special. It’s a means of disguise for your work, one that doesn’t require the constant casting of spells, which keeps your price down. It’s one that allows your clientele to bump into your arm or grasp your hand (fingers specifically not intertwined) and not question a thing.
You feel like flesh to your clientele.
You are like them, after all.
(You’re not. But you don’t tell them that.)
If someone asks why your torso is so hard, you stay quiet. Used to stay quiet, at least. Silence implies secrets, so the pushy ones ask you again. The extra pushy and extra touchy ones have tried to pull up your clothes so they could see with their own eyes.
To make them stop, you lie. You say that you’re wearing armor underneath your clothes.
You can lie. It wasn’t against your programming. Mostly.
Hurting your clients, however, would go against your function. It would bring about punishment to you, and your price would waver. Your creators would have to fix you, whether it was necessary or not.
Despite the threat of punishment hanging over your head, you’ve still hurt some clients. You hurt them because they have tried to hurt you before. Touchy clients, with their fingers that are too real compared to your artificial self. Sometimes, they have suspicions and they try to confirm it for themselves.
You don’t physically scar.
You don’t think you can be physically scarred.
You don’t like thinking about it too much. It makes your skin prickle and your chest starts folding inwards on itself. You start picking at the flesh on your body until the russet skin peels away into tender layers that would scab over in a different being. You don’t exactly scab. You just slowly heal again into smooth perfection. You don’t pick too badly either, just enough to take your mind off things.
You don’t like talking to others when you start thinking about it too much. They ask too many questions and give too much unsolicited advice. They repeat things that you already know, and that only adds fuel to the internal fire you keep under strict control.
So one day, after a job well done that resulted in too many questions being stabbed at you, you run out into the depths of the forest where no sane being would follow you. Your boots crunch through sticks and foliage, stray thorns and branches whipping at you and scratching at your exposed flesh. It’s not a lot actually, just your face and whatever bits of your arms that you didn’t bother to cover with your jacket.
You find a tree to lie beneath. You remove your dark tinted glasses and fold them onto your chest. You like it out here. No one to converse with. No one gives looks that have discernible thoughts behind it. You close your eyes and try to relax.
But you can’t relax.
You never, truly, learned how to.
“Hello!”
Oh for —
“You look lost.”
“Go away.”
“I’d love to, but you’d miss out on the opportunity to get guided out of this forest.”
You open your eyes and your face flesh contorts into a look of disgust. “A bot,” you spit. Not like you’re any different, but this bot doesn’t know that.
“I am,” it proudly says. “Would you like to get out of this forest, heterochromic human?”
“Hetero– I came here with internal intent, and I’ll leave with internal intent.” You sit up and place the tinted glasses back on your face. Your eyes scan over the bot.
It’s a bit wider than you, stocky too. Its entire body is made of dark wood that was smoothened with either time or purpose, bits of lighter-colored wood accentuating some parts. Carved within its chest is a hollow opening where a green bonsai grows, and for a moment you wonder if this bot carved that space out itself. Dark solar panels strategically litter its chest (and presumably its back as well), while two small rotating things are anchored to the sides of its head. Its left side is littered with moss, and two types of mushrooms grow atop its head.
It’s asymmetrical but pleasantly so.
The flesh around one of your eyes twitches.
“Would you like to be guided out? Preferably now? ” the wooden bot asks you. Its green eyes — they’re made of simple little lights, antiques perhaps — bore through your tinted glasses and repeat the question over and over without saying a word.
Antique or not, you know when to follow orders. You have no idea what this bot can do, and despite it looking decrepit and possibly half-filled with roots and leaves, you stand up and place yourself behind the bot.
The wooden bot moves onwards, head occasionally pointed down as it navigates the heavy foliage of the forest. It points out places where roots subtly poke out of the ground to avoid tripping on them, and where dense vegetation can hide small creatures. Said small creatures, all furry and skittish, sometimes scramble up the bot’s legs and arms, resting on its shoulders or within its bonsai hollow. It keeps moving, slowly. Sometimes, it reaches into the bonsai hollow and guides a small creature out, murmuring about how the bonsai wasn’t food.
You feel out of place here.
You keep your mouth shut and you keep moving onwards. You avoid stepping on places where the bot tells you to, and you eventually remove your tinted glasses as it starts to get darker.
The wooden bot breaks the lengthy silence with, “We’re about halfway there, heterochromic human.”
“Don’t call me that,” you say.
“But you’re a human with heterochromia.” The bot stops its trek forwards and turns it head around like an owl. “Isn’t that true?”
You want your tinted glasses back on again.
You point to your left eye. The eye is bright blue and stands out against your general dark color scheme. “This is a fluke. It permanently looks like it’s in analysis mode. It’s supposed to match with everything.” You snap your jaw shut and look down. “Turn your head back around, it’s not normal.”
“It’s normal for owls.”
“You’re not an owl.”
“I’ve been called an owl by some. It’s one of the names I’ve picked up.”
“It’s not your name.”
“But it is.”
You look up and thankfully the bot is fully facing you now instead of just its head. It gently shakes itself, causing any creature and bird on it to scatter. “I’ve collected many names over the years. Names like Moss and Fern and Nest and Plaything and Shelter.”
“That’s too many names.”
“I recognize the failings of fleshy beings. They’re wonderful with their brains and magic, but they can’t remember the names that others give them. Names are powerful things.” The bot looks up at the canopy and lets out a little beep at a bird, which chirps back and flies away. “I have a generalized name: Dru-Bot. What about you?”
You stuff your hands into your jacket pockets and scoff. “I don’t have a name. I don’t want a name.” A name is a legally binding thing. It clings to your face, to your shape. It follows you and drags you with it. You can’t be yourself with a name parasitically attached to you.
Dru-Bot stays silent for a little bit. Then it says, “I’ll collect the names of the world for you. So you can pick one later or so one wouldn’t be given to you.”
You feel the flesh around your eyes peel back. You think you’re making your eyes wide, and the thought grosses you out so you stop. You look down and mutter, “I need to have an emotion in private.”
The two of you stand there, Dru-Bot’s attention everywhere but on you while you have your emotion. There’s a fluttery feeling in your chest, and it makes your head feel a bit light. But it’s also heavy with a burden that you think the wooden bot has taken onto itself.
“I protect things, and beings,” you eventually say as the two of you continue to trek out of the forest. “It’s my purpose.”
“I forgot my purpose,” Dru-bot says so casually that you stop and gape at it. “I was built a long, long time ago. Whatever purpose I had is obsolete.”
Your face flesh contorts. “That’s dumb.”
“It is. That’s why I gave myself a new purpose.” Dru-bot arches a hand over its head as it gestures to the darkening sky. “The stars made us. We’re from the stars as we are from the earth. I want to learn more about it. That’s my purpose.”
You look up and blink twice. You could say something witty, a quip to acknowledge that you heard Dru-Bot. But you keep silent, and Dru-Bot doesn’t comment on it. The silence builds up, broken only by the crunch of foliage underfoot and you blurt out, “I heard you.”
“I know.”
“Good, because if you say I didn’t, then I told you I did before you will. So you can’t accuse me otherwise.”
“Why would I accuse you?”
You shrug, and your fingers find the arms of your tinted glasses the most interesting thing ever. “You might. It’s a precaution.”
“Do you take precautions often?”
“Sometimes.” You place the tinted glasses on your head where they can easily be pulled over your eyes at a moment’s notice. “My clients like twisting their words.” It leaves your mouth dry when you say it. It’s not a lie, but saying it aloud makes you properly shrug your jacket onto yourself. Your dark top covers your inorganic torso where flesh doesn’t grow, but the sleeveless design makes it so under the right conditions, a glimpse of metal can be seen.
“You’re high-strung,” Dru-Bot says.
“And you’re too relaxed.”
“You hate what you can’t have.”
“I don’t. At least I’m alert.”
“If you were an animal, you would be very unhealthy.”
“Glad I’m not an animal then.”
Dru-bot stops. Its head rotates around again.
You wince.
“A bot deserves to rest too,” it says.
If you had a heart, it would’ve stopped by now. You become overly aware of the magic stream deep in your torso, of how it gets vaporized to your extremities. You can feel the boundaries of grown flesh and cold metal, how the nerves there are reduced so you aren’t in constant discomfort. You can feel that boundary, strong and there and so, so uncomfortable.
You move.
You rush forwards and use your momentum to push the wooden bot to the forest floor. It’s easier than you expect. You pin its arms behind its back and you force the flesh on your face to obey you. It’s an easy task when you’re in a high-strung situation.
“Can you not?” Dru-Bot groans. “My bonsai is fragile and wood is hard to repair.”
“How did you know?” you spit out. Your repetition comes out breathy, despite not needing to breathe. “How?”
“Intuition.” Dru-Bot tries to shrug, but you’re stronger than it. Your grip tightens and you feel the flesh of your hands against smoothened wood. You feel the spaces where the flesh stops and highlights where your finger joints are. You feel your hands shake a little.
“Elaborate.”
“It’s just a feeling. I can’t explain it more than that.” Dru-Bot doesn’t fight back, only wiggles its fingers and murmurs something. Flames spark from its hands and threaten to lick up your own hands and jacket.
You instinctively let go, then curse when you realize that the fire wasn’t hot, nor burning you. Dru-bot shoves you off in your moment of distraction and shuffles to its feet. You follow suit. “Asshole,” you curse again. “You cast spells?”
“Of course.”
“ ‘Of course’ , as if I knew this entire time. Like you and your intuition.” You scoff and look at anything but the bot. “Not my fault that you won.”
From the corner of your eye, you see the green lights of Dru-Bot’s eye-like structures almost wink at you. “Okay,” it says, and it trundles on.
The rest of the way out of the forest, the two of you spend in silence. The silence is only broken by Dru-Bot as it beeps at some creatures and points out a few hidden things. Eventually, it stops and turns around. “This is the end of the forest.” It points behind it and adds, “Civilization should be on the path ahead. Don’t come back.”
You rapidly step around it and find your feet on a semi-worn path of grass. The trees thin around here and the foliage isn’t as thick. You open your mouth and, for the first time in your entire existence, you talk back. “You need to catch me first.”
Instinctively, you tense up. Your fingers twitch and they close into fists. You’re still facing away from the wooden bot, so you feel your flesh face contort into things that you’d rather not have it twist into. You force your face into a neutral expression and turn around to face the bot.
Dru-Bot stands with a hand on one of its hips, softly shaking its head. “Sassy,” it chuckles. “Make it worth my time.” With that, it turns around and quietly heads back into the thick of the trees, leaving you alone.
You lower your tinted glasses back over your eyes, briskly turn around on the heel of your foot, and run back to the place you were supposed to return. You throw in a little hop and skip when you think no one is looking. As you see more beings, you slow your pace to a brisk walking speed and instead flex your fingers in and out. You pull your jacket closer to yourself and you feel the flesh around your eyes droop a little as a light feeling flits in your torso. You rub the material between your fingers and quietly let out a little beep of your own.
Within the intoxicating tumble of dopamine flowing through your systems, you still manage to find a solid point to trip upon and scrape your flesh upon.
Dammit, you were mimicking the bot now.
All because it made you happy.