Rose Blumen ~ Exogignesthai

590. Doubts and Philosophy, 7

(Rose)While Blume grows herself into shape with endless precautions, Nokarlık and I grow these colourful vegetables into aquariums we built together.

Even Nue helped a little from the top of her pupped. It’s getting fleshier, but less and less human looking oddly. Nok knows best anyway.

The colourful sponges actually move around in the water. Which means despite their simple or floral shapes, they are indeed more animals than plants. I think. I might be wrong.

And thankfully, Nok can digest them fine. It was a little harder for me though when I tried.

As for Nue, and her numerous puppets, what they eat is a form of swampy water in its nest.

We were invited there the other day. It looked very alien to me.

Its nest is like a pile of giant broken sea shells, then cluttered, glued and sculpted, carved into a labyrinthine and hollow structure made of sharp edges and nacres.

This place is a work of art in a way. The puppet isn’t made to wander through it obviously. Nue puts it to sleep in one of the puddles in the lower levels.

With my daughter we discover a sleeping zoo in these red basements full of edges where Nue can crawl and stand.

Nue had been collecting and assembling all sorts of things.

Mostly smaller mammals, but also fishes, reptiles, and things hard to define. Maybe mistaken hybrids of different animal parts that Nue thought came only from one.

Nue we understand has many levels of biological works. She has a well-oiled process to craft a puppet.

Her first level of engineering is the mechanical reassembly of the bones. Sometimes with mistakes but good observation overall.

Then Nue builds flesh and nerves, riding it like a puppet, testing it.

Then, when it’s optimised...

Nue shows her treasure to Nok, whom it obviously trusts now.

Nue builds and feeds muscles and nerves from the organic soup that floods these puddles from tanks below her house.

However its last engineering level, akin to my sister, is to create independent life.

And Nue just showed her precious reactor that allows it to create brains.

It looks like a pile of flesh, of organs that moves, glossy and warm. It’s disgusting. But there’s the glow of an artefact of condensed T.I. there I can see. It has a treasure indeed. And uses it rather well, to ignite and craft spreading structures of neural systems, quickly becoming fit for purpose. Colour me impressed.

Nue is a kind of slug with unknown origins to me. It’s clearly alone here. And these works are not exactly means of reproduction anyway.

Well, I’m one talking about that matter...

I leave Nue and Nokarlık to play together in this maze of bones and flesh. It looks rather awful for modern tastes in there, and smells like gastric acids, but it’s not a bad place. Nokarlık can learn more about life and the world outside with Nue here than I might be able to teach her at home.

They can both learn a lot from each other. Even I could probably learn a thing or two from them. But that matters less right now. As much as I enjoy doing research over T.I., I don’t have a real passion or ambition like others daiûa tend to.

My insane twelve labours are over, you know. Though some of them will linger on.

I leave my child to play at her friend’s house, and I return to Blume across the peaceful city.

~

R – How are you doing?

B – Almost over.

Her voice comes from her human body now. It’s still mostly hidden through plant tissues. But I have a fair guess at what she will look like.

As I glance aside, noticing the wilting floras, I understand her T.I. structure and real brain have already begun collapsing.

So her body already is animated, for that’s what she is now, and nothing more.

What she was has already wilted away and disappeared.

R – Are you scared?

B – A little... But I ain’t dead yet!

R – My my, such a tongue!

I’m looking forward to the chance of sparing with her, even though I know I will get my butt handed to me.

A hand stretches out from the cradle of this fleshy pod, wet, and flickers my forehead.

B – I already can.

R – Still inside my mind, ain’t cha?

B – You’re easy to read, dear Rose by my side.

My aging face still smiles to her sharp tongue like long ago.

One more dance as she says, for Rose Blume. We’re one and the same.

~

N – Ros! Ros!

R – What is it my sweet?

The following words are mostly incoherent, but I understand what she conveys. She’s so happy.

Nue gave her a handful of dry bones from a small animal.

Whom but her would be excited by that gift?

Porous treasure sparking her imagination. Your aunt would be proud. At least I am.

Nue also gifted her some kind of glue in pouch to make ligaments from. It’s a puzzle to build your own... thingy. Whatever they could be called aside puppets. They’re other forms of homunculi Madam Shelley might have considered. They don’t speak though. Yet.

Nokarlık is so happy it warms me up very dearly. And she will speak normally soon enough, my young monster.

Together we try to build the animal that once was, and what it will become.

Ah. I just realised it.

B – Hm?

R – It’s just like you and me Blume.

In a different form, another life repurposes the previous ones.

My sister found her philosophical stone to create life out of inert matter and recopy it faster than ever.

I like to think I found my philosophical enlightenment there, regarding life and death.

Even though it’s still a form of circle I’m following.

I like this reminder that when a rose wither, another can bloom. Everything dies, to feed and make room for the next lives to come.

I enjoyed these seasonal thoughts as I played with my daughter, crafting her very first doll.

~