August came awake all at once, startled into consciousness by Melon’s render bursting into existence within his mind and moving towards him. He sat forward in almost the same instant, reaching for the bamboo ceiling of his temporary lean-to in an attempt to figure out how much room he actually had—and hit nothing but air because he’d fallen asleep, sitting up against the pillar itself. There were dozens of nails scattered on his lap and the surrounding ground, whittled down over the course of what had probably been four or five hours and long after everyone else had gone to sleep.

“I’m so sorry,” Melon managed. “I wasn’t doing anything—I was just—I wasn’t sure if you were awake or not.”

August reached up to rub the back of his hand against his eyes, doing his best to clear away the remnants of grit. The shift made him very aware that the slumped position had left him with what would probably be a lasting ache in his neck and back.

“Morning, Melon,” August said, unable to generate anywhere near as much energy to match her. “It’s probably good that you did wake me up—if I’d slept like that for any longer, I might have ended up stuck like this.”

He leant his head back against the pillar to actually get eyes on her for the first time

“You’re not—” Melon tried, “You really do sleep without a PDI.”

Melon seemed to be having a far more difficult time than the others at disassociating his appearance from the race of beings that had created her—or at least, she was putting more of a voice to her confusion. It wasn’t quite so grating as Kalter’s initial animosity had been, but it certainly felt about as difficult for him to navigate.

“I don’t really have the same fear of discontinuity or whatever that made the Gaians freak out,” August said, fighting through a yawn. “I suppose I am worried about something eating us in the middle of the night, but a camera isn’t going to do anything to stop that—that’s what the walls are for.”

He reached down and scattered the mess of nails off his lap before his mind had actually caught up to what he was doing—and then grunted in annoyance because he was forced to start picking them all up, one after another.

“That was your first night back amongst the land of the living,” August said in an attempt to drag her back into the conversation. “Did you sleep alright?”

“I—I’m not sure,” Melon said, taking a careful step forward. “It’s been so long since I’ve done it that I’m not sure if it was good or bad.”

A thought that was simultaneously depressing and horrifying—a combination he could have done without discovering the existence of.

“Maybe give it a few days, and if you figure out which it is, I’d be interested to know,” August said, “I’ve gotten kind of used to being the first one awake—are you an early riser?”

August made a good deal of progress with the scattered nails, to the point where he was struggling to keep them from falling out of his hand—he dropped them into his inventory to free himself up to get the rest.

“It was part of my assignment to make myself available for when Junil first woke, as she often had requests for me around that time,” Melon said, fiddling with her twine belt. “I suppose that much has stayed with me, even after all of this time.”

August felt a bit uncomfortable at the words—and at the sudden suspicion that he might be being treated as some kind of fill-in for the Gaian woman.

“That’s not why you came to find me so early, was it?” August asked, “You weren’t trying to make yourself—available? Before I woke up or something?”

Melon looked a bit pressed at the question, or perhaps she could see the sheer hesitance he had and was responding to that. Her eyes darted around for a moment—apparently searching for an answer to his question behind the surrounding pillars and avoiding making any sort of eye contact.

“This is—the situation is very different from what I am familiar with,” Melon said, her voice exceedingly careful, “I’m not sure about how I should act or the tasks I will be expected to complete, so I wanted to make sure I was—in the area—in the event that my presence was needed—for something?”

Melon kind of trailed off at the end, the final word pitched high—and tinged with something that wasn’t exactly hopeful—expectant? All of it made his skin crawl.

“Melon, I know I keep saying it, but I’m not Gaian,” August said after a moment. “This situation doesn’t make sense to any of us, not really, but you shouldn’t be deferring to me like this—”

August trailed off at the look of rising panic on her face—he held up a hand, palm facing outwards in what he hoped was the universal gesture to stop, and not some secret Gaian hand sign for ‘please continue to freak the fuck out.’

“Let me paint you a picture of the situation we are all in, and then we’ll see if you can figure out where you fit in it—without me telling you what to do, because I’m not going to do that,” August said, keeping his voice gentle. “First, I don’t know anything about Gaia, the people who live on it, or the culture you come from—other than what Rittan and the others have told me in the last week.”

Melon set about wringing her hands, picking at her leafy clothing, and showing about half a dozen different signs that she was uncomfortable with how everything had gone so far—another discovered benefit of having so many limbs, you could apparently maximise your coping behaviours to the fullest extent.

“The things I say, the way I say them, the reason I say them—all of that is coming from my personality, derived from my culture, my people, and my planet,” August said, prefacing it. “I’m very uncomfortable with the existence of a whole servant-class, and with all of the inequality that goes along with something like that.”

Melon kind of pulled one of her arms up against her chest as if she wanted to say something, and he was pretty sure what it was.

“I know you’re doing the exact same thing as I am, pulling from a set of expectations and responses, built up from living within your own culture—so I’m not angry, upset, or frustrated, or anything else negative, because I understand why,” August said, abandoning the rest of the nails, in order to rise to his feet. “I’m not sure there is a right answer here because telling you to work within my framework is unfair—but I’m also never, ever going to allow any of you to slot me into the role of master.”

August reached up to lay a hand again his neck, rolling his shoulder to try and alleviate the horrible ache he’d developed from sleeping against the stupid pillar.

“You’re refusing the role?” Melon mumbled. “Then how am I supposed to know how to act with you?”

“If we’re sticking with the same analogy, you could always pick a different role for me to fill in your worldview,” August said, “To that end, what role have you given to Rittan, Kalter, Haiko and Boko?”

“Servant,” Melon said.

“Uh—I should have expected that, but somehow I didn’t,” August said, blowing a breath out of his nose. “You knew Haiko back when you were both on Hekaton, right? Did you enjoy talking to her?”

“Yes,” Melon admitted. “But that didn’t happen very often.”

“If a Child of Gaia pointed a finger at your head and demanded you to give Haiko an additional role—one that wasn’t servant,” August said, “What would it be?”

“Acquaintance?” Melon tried.

August laughed out loud before he could really help himself, and Melon looked even more puzzled at his reaction.

“That is absolutely arctic, and I kind of wish she heard you say that,” August said, shaking his head. “Okay, problem solved, the two of us are now acquaintances—feel free to upgrade it to friend if you decide you can actually tolerate me.”

“I can’t do that,” Melon protested.

“Melon,” August wondered. “Are you saying you can’t tolerate me or that you don’t want to be my friend?”