Chapter 19: I Still Like Being Called Kiddo
“What do you mean you have one more stop you want to make?” Gramps said, sounding exhausted even if he did nothing other than stand around during her fitting. “We just spent hours at Olina’s; we really should get back.”
“Well, Hugh hasn’t arrived yet, so we still have some time,” she said. The imaginary smile was clear in her voice. They had just spent hours at Olina’s doing fittings and trying on all sorts of clothes. With people who had existed for thousands of vols, there were so many styles. Not even just time period styles but different planet and race styles. It had been a wonderful experience and the first real time she had actually felt good in this body. She still didn’t like the automaton body, but Olina had a way with clothes that gave the illusion of a shape that actually felt good. It wasn’t nearly as curvy as she desired to be, but there was shape now.
Looking down, she looked at the outfit she was now wearing and felt so much glee. She looked like a femme Victorian mechanic, ready to dive into all things greasy, oily, and metal. These weren’t Heather’s clothes as those would still take a few days to alter, but these clothes had come off the rack and only required the minutest of tailoring to give her the shape she so desperately wanted. Since they were also new clothes, the fabrics were made with more advanced cloth that repelled stains much more effectively and made it far easier to wash them out if they were stubborn. By no means was her new wardrobe complete, but she came out of the shop with enough articles to mix and match a number of outfits.
“I’m sorry if all the waiting around was boring for you.” That was something she felt bad about, but the deed was done. What she wanted to do next would not take nearly as long as that. At least she hoped.
“Not so much boring as it was flashback inducing.”
She looked up from her clothes and back to Gramps. “What do you mean?”
Closing his eyes for a moment, Gramps took a deep breath. “My mother isn’t the best when it comes to letting other people do what they want. Whenever I saw her as a kid, she would spend hours dressing me up, taking me shopping, and showing me off to her ‘friends’. All I wanted to do was go home to Pa and his shop. Gods, I ripped off those fancy clothes so fast when I got back to Pa’s shop.”
“Oh, I’m really sorry.” Now she truly felt bad for putting Gramps through that. “I’m sorry; if I had known, I wouldn’t have spent so much time there…”
“It’s okay, Kiddo. It’s not like I was the one getting dressed up. I’m just going to stick with my jumps. Feels so much better this way.”
“I won’t ever ask you to wear anything else.” She knew how important clothes could be, and if jumps made Gramps feel good, then who was she to ask any different of him? “Alright, I need to find a map, or maybe you can point me in the right direction.”
“Where would that be?” He didn’t sound the most thrilled, but he didn’t sound as if he was going to tell her no.
“A library. I want to check out some books on ancients to learn more about my pe—them.” Maybe it wasn’t the smartest thing to openly call ancients her people. Luckily, it didn’t seem that many people on the busy street were paying much attention to a random ‘automaton’. So much so that, not for the first time, someone bumped into her without saying anything apologetic. “I don’t like crowds…”
“That’s actually a very reasonable thing to want. Alright, Kiddo, follow me.”
~~~
“We don’t let automatons check out books,” the librarian at the front desk said.
“Well, then it’s a good thing I’m not a damn automaton. Now can I please get a card and check out these books?”
“You di—”
“I swear, if—”
“—sagree wi—”
“—you finish that se—”
“—th this stat—”
“—ntence I wi—”
“—ement.”
There was deep anger inside of her, and she knew the more people tried to shut her down, the bigger the anger would grow. Right now wasn’t the time to let it out. She needed something from this person, so she was going to deal with this calmly. “By Eternity, look, I’m not an automaton. I don’t like that I have to use this body to get around and interact with people, and I am growing to despise the fact that every single person I have met since having no other choice than to use this body has tried to shut me down, but it’s all I’ve got. Please… I just want to check out books and read them like a normal person again.” At the end of her little speech, it was audibly clear that she was crying a little.
The librarian looked a little taken aback by her words, and she wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. There were an uncomfortable amount of seconds before the librarian finally spoke again. “I’m going to need a name for the card ID.”
“Motherfucker…” she mumbled. Was a name she wasn’t ready to figure out going to be the thing that held her back in this life? Without intending to, she reached up to wipe at tears that didn’t exist and then caught herself after the fact. “I can’t even wipe tears away anymore. Can I just put a last name? I haven’t… I haven’t figured out who I am now after…”
“I-I’m sorry,” they said uncomfortably, “but I can’t give you a card without a first name. The system won’t let me do it.”
Looking up at the ceiling, as if to help hold in nonexistent tears, she tried to think of what to do. The decision not to use the name she had used in the simulation was already made, but what name did she give now? “Will I be able to change it later?”
“Of course.”
That took a bit of the pressure off, but it still felt like a big thing she had to decide on the spot. Maybe she should go find Gramps in the mechanics section and ask him. Would that be weird to ask him for a name? He was her gramps after all… It would feel awkward if she left and came back though. It was just a temporary name, so how hard could it be to come up with one? What names did she like?
Throwing up her hands a little, she found herself saying, “Avalyn. Avalyn Rys.” Would Gramps be upset with her using his last name? He was her Gramps, but it was adoptive, and she didn’t know how this culture treated such things. The librarian raised an eyebrow at her, looking a little confused. “What? I like old-fashioned names.”
They looked skeptical but simply asked, “How do you spell it?”
After a minute or two of filling out other information, some of which she had to fake for the moment, she was holding her very own library card. Was this actually as big of a moment as it felt to her? It was just a library card, but to her it signified so much more. It meant she was a person, even though she knew she was going to have to constantly prove that to people. The name on the card stood out to her, and she was unsure if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but as far as the library was concerned, that was her name.
“I could be Avalyn,” she mumbled to herself. “Or I could at least try it for now. I need a name.”
“Like history?” The librarian asked as they scanned through the stack of books she brought up.
“Hm?” She looked at the books, her mind lagging on processing what the question was. “Oh, yeah.” Though half the stack consisted of books on the topic of the ancients, there were some general history books as well. Soon enough she was going to run into awkward moments and look like an idiot when she didn’t know something this civilization thought of as general knowledge, so she was trying to get ahead of that. “I like accumulating lots of random knowledge.” Doing so was going to be scary easy now since she had a perfect memory; the only thing that would hold her back was her reading speed. She may be a writer, but she wasn’t a fast reader.
“Hey, Kiddo.” Gramps walked up to the counter with a book of his own to check out. “That’s a lot of books.”
“I know, but I want to learn. I’ll make time to read them that won’t interfere with fixing Stargazer.” Maybe she could do it when Gramps ate, because she was really starting to get upset about the inability to even so much as taste anything. All she wanted was to taste a fresh strawberry again. “Are strawberries a thing here?” Gramps shrugged, which clearly told her he didn’t even know what those were. “I’ll find some at some point.” If she ever got a body that could eat and taste, maybe she should add a small hydroponics area to Stargazer.
“Alright, Avalyn, you’re all set,” the librarian said, pushing the stack of books over to her.
Being called by a name for the first time was a very strange feeling. A good feeling. A wonderful feeling. There was a hint of sour in the sweet, however. A new name truly was an acknowledgment that she was moving on from what she had thought was her life. A deep part of her also told her this was moving on from having thought of herself as human, but why was that? Avalyn was a human name, or at least it must have been back in the Kenana era. Right?
“Thank you,” Avalyn said, picking up her stack of books. Turning to Gramps, she found him looking at her with a raised eyebrow. If she had been flesh and blood, she was sure her face would have turned red at that moment. “What book did you pick?” He held it up to her. “I do not understand that language.” Understand it she might not, but the picture on the front being ship schematics made it clear what the book was about.
“It’s Elven.” Which in no way resembled Elven as she had known it in the simulation. “I’ll have to sit down and teach you sometime soon.”
“I’m terrible at learning different languages,” she admitted. “I only know common. Wait, no, I also know Melcarna.”1Not sure I want to fall into the trap of having to italicize the word every time she says it correctly, but at least for the first time I will. She shivered a little at the feeling of regent instincts having taken over to tell her the language of her people. At least the common language of the ancients.
“What the drak is Melcarna?” Though Gramps got the word right, he didn’t get the proper accent with which she had said it.
“Please watch your language in the library, sir.”
“Giff, I’m sorry. Damn it. No… Please forgive me.”
The librarian sighed. “Just let me check you out,” they said, holding out their hand for the book.
It wasn’t long before the pair were back out on the streets, heading to the closest bus stop. Even though Avalyn wasn’t looking at Gramps, she could feel his eyes on her. Was it the name thing? Or was it the clothes?
“So, Avalyn?”
It was the name thing. Thank Eternity her face couldn’t actually blush, because she would be bright red. “I just needed to put a name down for a card. It was just the name that came to mind, and I like old names.”
“What do you mean old?”
Finally, she looked over to Gramps. “Isn’t it an old human name? It was a name from my simulation. It means hazelnut.”
“I’ve never heard of a name like that before, and I have no idea what a hazelnut is,” he answered honestly.
That gave her a little pause. Not that Gramps didn’t know what a hazelnut was, but that the name didn’t sound familiar to him. Then again, he was still thousands of vol removed from when the name would have been used. What if it wasn’t a human name, but an ancients’ name? The simulation had given her a lot of frames of reference for the world she now found herself in, but it had mainly been human related, not ancients. Maybe that assumption was wrong…
There was one person who could answer her questions, but Avalyn had no idea if asking her goddess was appropriate. Ancients she might be, but she didn’t know much, if anything, about her people’s culture and how they treated relationships with gods. Who else was there to ask questions though? Even if she braved asking her goddess questions, when would she get the chance to? Would she have to do it in person, or would prayers work?
“Would you like me to call you that?”
“Hm?” she asked, finally being drawn out of her thoughts.
“Do you want me to call you Avalyn?”
Metal hands fiddled with the fabric of her new clothes, still unable to actually get the sense of touch that would be soothing. “I… maybe. I still like being called Kiddo, but we can also try Avalyn.”
“We can try whatever name you want, Avalyn.”