A Tale Of Two Systems [Trinity] [Morning]

"Trinity! It's me, Selenus!" Well, who else would it be, really? "I'm coming in!"

Selenus non-chalantly opened the door to Trinity's room. Well, to be completely fair, it was now sort of his room too, since he kinda slept there and lounged about there and... browsed the internet in there and... you get the point. It was roomy enough, but he'd found out through first-hand experience that sometimes Trinity got a little bit too comfortable around him; probably a result of her borderline absurd levels of innocence. Whatever, it's not like Selenus really minded beyond the simplest of ways one could mind something. "Sorry you had to be part of that... kerfuffle down there..." Selenus would say as he looked at Trinity in a mixture of lamentation and focus. "...but whatever. Things are clear now, so I was hoping we could have a little chat that I've been itching to have."

Selenus sighed both internally and externally. "I know you trust me and respect me, but... when I say you, I mean Trinity. I've never met each of you individually alone before, only your cumulated amalgamation." It was hard for him to admit it, but he felt that the curiosity was too great to contain it any longer. "Alyster, Myrna... Nola..." It was hard for Selenus to use that name again, after he'd found out that the one he called Nola wasn't Nola at all. "Do... do each of you know me? Do you know who I am? Are we... friends?"

When Selenus walked in Trinity was in the middle of changing, but she didn't seem to mind as she simply continued to change as he walked in, slipping out of her clothing and taking out some clothing to change into, and as she slipped on new underwear as he started to talk to her, he apologized for the issue that happened as she looked back at him turning to face him still undressed as she was holding her pants, and she tilted her head a bit as she was listening and he asked if they could talk as well and she nodded as she walked to a chair still not wearing anything other then her panties as she looked to her robodog friend.

"Very well what would you like to talk about?" she asked as she looked at him as she started to slip the pants on, wriggling into it as she listened to what he had to say and as she finished slipping her pants on she looked back to him, she found it an odd question as she got back up and walked to her dresser as she started to look for a shirt to wear.

"The first time you met us, that was Nola you talked to the most, but as we realized we had no reason to stand alone we let Us take over....we are as you said an Amalgamation, you have met all of us through us, however I understand your trepidation...but I can say that we all trust you, we all see you as our friend, We talk for the group, what we say is what they all feel" she gently placed a hand on his head before grabbing a shirt and slipping into it though it got stuck over her head, but she actually just kept talking as she put her shirt on finally

"Though what happened with Gabe Has caused Nola to go silent....hearing him call us demons...she hasn't spoken since..." she mentioned.

Selenus wanted to tiptoe around anything that could potentially imply or direct towards the true nature of Trinity's various facets: Multiple Personality Disorder. All the symptoms were there, and what exactly caused it was painfully clear, but apparently all alters in the system believed that they truly were siblings. That's not how Chimera-ism worked, and Selenus knew this: The only possibility regarding the fates of the real Myrna and Alister Allaway... was death by conceptive assimilation in the womb. The fact that the person they were assimilated into grew up to develop a case of MPD where her mind and psyche were split into herself and her deceased siblings... was beyond ironic and tragic. Still, even if they weren't the real Myrna and Alister, they were a Myrna and an Alister, undeniably people in their own right, even if they were created off of the broken pieces of a little girl's Psyche and confined to a body not their personal own. He could see why Gabe would think of them as demons, from his point of view since not many people know the facts about MPD and how it's actually multiple minds inhabiting the same brain, but it still could not excuse the damage he caused to Nola.

"Is that so?" Selenus pondered. If Nola was having internal conflicts, then Selenus thought maybe he could do something about it. "Trinity, I need to talk to Nola. Can you put her in command of the body?" He wondered if the only reason the three alters were able to conglomerate into a single mind was because of th context behind Nola's particular instance of dissociative identity disorder. Come to think of it, who's to say Nola even was the host personality? For all he knew she was an alter, and either Myrna or Alister were the real host, or hell, maybe there was even more alters than that and not even they knew!

Listening to Moonies request Trinity seemed to go still for a moment, her eyes seeming to focus on something off in the distance. In her mind she was standing in the mental construct of her room, looking to the three there, Myrna and Alister attentive as usual, and Nola....quietly sitting in the corner hugging a plushy of Selenus as she stayed there curled up and not wanting to do anything at all, she hadn't even been giving any input at all during the whole time since Gabe called them demons and has been not contributing at all to anything at all.

Trinity turned to the representation of Nola "Nola you are needed" she said simply as she looked to the girl who was currently curled in the corner.

"She's been totally unresponsive since Gabe insulted us....I think she trusted him..." Alister said as he sat there with his arms crossed.

"She did take what he said a lot harder then the rest of us....I don't think she is used to things like that...maybe give her time" She said to Trinity who nodded a moment.

"Very well however Selenus wanted to talk to her to ask something of her I believe but if she is unresponsive then I will tell him...." she explained but then was cut off by the sudden movement of Nola in the corner.

"Selenus wants to talk to me?......o...okay.....i'll go..." the once quiet Nola muttered as she looked over at them.

Back in the real world only a few moments had passed before Trinity blinked and seemed to shrink a little, a look of sadness on her face as she sat on the bed and curled up a bit "Y....yes?" she asked as she sat there looking like she expected to be yelled at, or insulted once again, a far cry from the way the Nola persona had acted before during the breakfast.

After a bit of waiting, Selenus was greeted by the sight of what was clearly the body of the child he knew, but being controlled by a mind clearly foreign to it. Or, at the very least, it seemed to be foreign to it in his eyes, because everything about the child's body mannerisms and language was way off, off enough to throw Selenus for a loop. The first and most prominently glaring issue Selenus noticed was the fact that the child was showing fear. Emoting. Trinity would never do that, which assured him that she whom he was dealing with was somebody entirely now. It was weird... meeting somebody for the first time after having spent so much time with them. Paradoxical, even. Selenus would keep quiet for a few moments before speaking. "...Hello." Despite what Trinity claimed, Selenus found it very hard to believe that they knew each other. Even if they shared memories, he doubted they all shared the exact same feelings and emotions. "...do you know my name? What do you think of me?" He would ask in a sad, yet  polite and concerned tone. Selenus honestly didn't know why he was so afraid at the prospect of Nola not knowing him, but he doubted it only went as far as to be a by-product of simple name-related complications. He wasn't even sure why he was so willing to open up to Trinity and accept them into his life so easily. Perhaps it was mere loneliness, perhaps he wanted somebody to protect so he could feel useful, or maybe he was just trying to replace a familial void left behind by someone close to him who became a target of the government's endless greed. Regardless of whatever it truly was, the fact remained that seeing the fearful, emotion-showing child in front of him that took up the space where the child he knew used to be a few seconds ago... it terrified and made him incredibly sad. If Selenus were capable of crying, this would've been the point where he would have had to make an effort not to lagrimate. But he wouldn't have cried in mourning of his gone friend, however. No, he would've cried for the blindness he displayed towards the newcomer. "...but most importantly, who are you?"

The cowering form of Nola looked at Selenus as he said hello she gave a small smile "Hello....y..yes I know you..." she said as she looked at him visibly relaxing but not quite the same Nola as before and as he asked she seemed to get a sad look on her face, not sad because she didn't know as she answered him "Your name is Selenus....We met you in the garden talking about flowers and things, We like you and trust you....your the first person we could be true with.." she said as she seemed to know what the next question would be and as the words left Selenus she seemed to get depressed once more.

"I'm Nola...D...don't you know me?....we...fought together...you helped me...when I found out about my pawns...you were there...and I know...your looking for your father...and I want to help....e..even if you don't know..w..who I am.." she looked sadly at the ground and sniffling a bit at the thought that he might not think he knows her.

"Even...if you don't think you know me....I..I trust you...I know you...even...even if you think....if you think I might just be a demon too....I would still help you..." she curled up a bit, the thought that even Selenus might think of her as just a demon scaring her more then Gabe thinking she was.

Selenus would allow Nola to finish speaking before doing or saying anything else. To see Trinity - or, at least, a significant part of her - emote so freely was bizarre and confusing, but at the same time tragic and heart-wrenching for the context in which she was emoting. As much as he tried to remain unbiased towards most things, seeing a little girl - but above all, a friend - practically on the hanging edge of tears proved to be more powerful than his will to remain uncoddling. After Nola finished her thought and curled up halfway, Selenus would place his head on her lap and nuzzle her torso (being careful of his sharp edges). "I can't disprove the possibility that you might be a demon..." He began and gave a brief pause to think his next words through. "You might not be lucky enough to possess the... default living conditions of a regular human, but... that doesn't change the fact that you're a good person." Not that demons weren't people, as yesterday's... escapade managed to show. Some of them were nice creatures, it seemed. "You don't ever have to call my trust in you into question, Nola. Good people are good people, regardless of whether they're human, demon, chimera or another. No matter what you are, above all you are my friend."

As Selenus nuzzled her gently Nola hugged him and gave a gentle smile at the kind gesture, but as he talked and said the word demon her breath noticeably caught in her throat and her entire body tensed as if she had been struck, his next words seemed to do little to relax the small girl and she seemed to let out a whimper, though she was trying to hide the sound as she essentially hugged his head. His next words however seemed to make the girl whimper a bit louder, he wasn't acknowledging that she was human, but he called her a good person, she was hoping to hear that he at least thought she was human, that he KNEW she was human.

Her small hope dashed so thoroughly she let out a ragged breath, at the very least he confirmed that she was his friend, but Nola wasn't sure....he wouldn't consider her human....did that mean he considered her a demon....all because one person said so? all because of how she was? she just stayed hugging him scared that if she did let go he would just...leave...and it would just be her and her siblings once more, he said he didn't care, but...she needed some assurance that someone she considered a friend seen her as human, as what she was, not just assumed she was something else, and even as she hugged him she was starting to cry "...y....you d...don't th...think..i....I'm h...human?..." she whimpered.

It appears that wasn't the best thing to say... regardless, Selenus had no regrets, as he would've only felt worse had he lied to Nola about his thoughts on her. This didn't mean, however, that it did not break his figurative heart to see her so damaged. He sighed, and reared up a bit, yet his head did not leave Nola's embrace. "I don't know what you are, Nola. I don't know what anybody is. For so many years I've had to struggle with what exactly being human means, and the only answer I've gotten out of it is that I don't know what it means in the slightest. Look at me, for example:" Some might have said that Selenus had some severe identity problems, and Freud would've certainly had a field trip with the robot dog's psyche, but in his mind nothing could be further from the truth. To Selenus, the notion that he had identity problems was absurd, as he knew perfectly well what he was: "I'm a freak, Nola. Look at me, I have the instincts of a wolf, the body of a robot, the design of a weapon and the mind of a human. No matter how much people tell me that I'm a person, I can't help but roll my figurative eyes because... it's simply not true! I'm a monster, Nola!"

Selenus used his tail to bring Nola closer to his head, in what was the closest thing he could pull off to "returning the hug" at the moment. "I wish I could call myself human, Nola, but that'd be a lie, and I'd also like to call myself a person... but how can I do that when I can't even figure out what being a person means?" His grip on Nola lightened, but at the same time his head nuzzled her further. "Yet at the same time... I can't ignore the fact that in this society, you are only what people label you as..." No matter how hard you tried to ascertain that you are defined by your actions rather than your title... "...that's why, Nola, no matter what society labels you, and no matter what you are; human, demon, or whatever else... I'll stay by your side, and protect you with my life. Surely the life of a monster such as me is worth much less than the life of a child like you, right?" Especially when the child has so little of it left...

She listened to the robo dog as he spoke and as he made his point she nodded silently as she held onto him nuzzling the top of his head a bit but as he mentioned his life was worth less then hers and she shook her head "no...it's not...and if your a monster...then I am one too..." she said in an almost pouty tone as she hugged him tighter not wanting to let go at the moment and if you are what your labeled then I am labeling you my puppy...."[/color] she seemed to have gone from crying to pouty as she sat there holding him and not wanting to let go at the moment, as she kept him as close to her as she could mange.

"your a lot nicer then a lot of people I have met, and your always welling to protect people......and you forgot what weapons where first made for....they were made for the reason of protection...not to harm...people just messed up the meaning....that's all" she said as she gently kissed the top of his head.

All these words of encouragement and comfort... Selenus didn't feel like he deserved them, but at the same time he felt that rejecting them would be an insult to Nola and Trinity as a whole. It was weird, he hadn't felt like such since he'd been separated from Newman, and there was really only one person before Newman that he also held this sentiment with, so how come a girl (Well, group of kids, really) he'd known for so little had managed to rouse that same feeling of desire to protect that had only awakened in the closest of friends before? Selenus would like to say that he understands human psychology miles upon miles better than any normal regular robot would, but for the first time in years... Selenus couldn't comprehend his own mind. He was stumped...

...but what about the others? Could he say the same about them, and could they say the same about him? He had to know, and there was really only one way to find out. "Nola..." He began, gently sliding his head off from her hands after Nola had kissed it. "...thank you for caring about me. I needed to hear that. Do you think I could tak to Myrna now? If it's not too much trouble..."

Nola looked at Selenus as he backed away and asked his question, she was blushing a bit now and she shook her head a moment "I..don't want to go yet...." and she gave a cute little pout as she gently reached out and held onto Selenus' nose, or what counted for it anyway but after a moment she nodded a little it was obvious what he wanted to talk about now that Nola had already talked to him about it "But...okay..." she then closed her eyes and after a moment they opened once more. a small smile on he face, a gentle almost motherly one as she looked at Selenus.

"She's talking again....I don't really know how to thank you but...thank you..." she said with a bright smile "Though I think she wants to try and make something later....but anyway what did you want to talk with me about?" she smiled to the robot dog her hand resting on his nose and gently rubbing it as she hummed, it was quite obvious that there was quite the difference between the two people, Myrna being far more calm and collected then ether of the other two, and as she sat there she seemed notice a smudge on Selenus' nose which she gently wiped away as she waited for him to speak. What ever inner worry there had been clearly gone now that one third of them was back to normal.

Selenus unintentionally fidgeted a bit as Myrna wiped the smudge from his snout. "Nothing in particular, it's just... we've never really sat down and talked.. in fact, I don't think we've ever talked one-on-one without the rest of them, period. Despite that, because of Trinity, I can't help but consider you a friend... which makes me feel... some unusual emotions." Really, this entire meeting of theirs was only started because Selenus wanted to know if it was possible to be somebody's friend without ever having met them. What Selenus imagined Nola, Myrna and Alister felt was something akin to growing fond of a TV show or Videogame character: You begin to grow closer to them and consider them your friend despite never having had any interactions with them. You care about their passions and struggles, which in turn makes them your friend in your eyes, but can the same be said about them? Of course, Selenus had nothing AGAINST Nola, Myrna or Alister, but it remained to be seen whether the child he'd met, Trinity, was all of them or none of them.

"Talking again? She wasn't talking before?"

Myrna seemed to keep the gentle smile on her face as he explained his confusion and she nodded a bit she seemed to be the more mature of them "I guess I can understand that, we are not really normal by any standards, even compared to someone as unique as you people would consider us odd I suppose....but...I can say that I do think of you as a close friend Selenus, Trinity...is all three of us...but she is also herself...it's hard to explain....but if I could use what I have been learning about computers since I have a feeling that is something that we both understand.." she said with a smile to him as she continued to give her example taking a piece of paper to help keep the info strait.

"You see we are like the drives in a computer.....the body would be the computer and each of us would be A, M, N, and T drives...and while we are all part of the same whole...and share a lot of the same information, we are still different people in the end of it all....we share information and experiences...just cone one of us is hurt doesn't mean the others don't feel it, damage to one hurts us all...we just all react to it differently..." she finished as she showed him a drawing of a basic computer function tree that went along with her explanation.

Then once Selenus asked his question she sighed a bit and placed a hand to her cheek looking away a bit "Ever since the incident at breakfast Nola has...changed....she had cut herself of from me and Alister...even Trinity had problems contacting her....and when we finally managed it she....wasn't the same....she didn't talk at all and just moved to the corner...." as she said that she couldn't help but look at the corner of the physical room that Nola tended to stay in in her mental construct "She just...lays there hugging a representation of you...she's not the same at all even now...but at least now she is talking again...but she's....slightly disconnected from the rest of us still...and...two new ones showed up..." she finished as she looked back to Selenus a bit sad she had a good Idea about what might be contributing to what was happening, they were getting old...old for a Chimera anyway, but she didn't want to bring up the fact that it could just be a symptom of their inevitable mental collapse..if that happened first anyway, she wasn't to sure of what would go first, though..she honestly hoped it would be their body not their mind, but the incident before seemed to have done something to her. "I....don't think she is the exact same Nola..." she said finally to explain.

So the morning's events had managed to stress her as far as to modify one of her alters... she must really have trusted gabe for his distrust to be potent enough to do something of that magnitude to her psyche. Selenus wondered just what exactly they'd done on their own time that she trusted him with such way-forward tenacity. "I see. It's a shame that she had to go through that. "Nola... I know now that you can see and hear me even when you're not actively in control of the body, so... I'm sorry. I didn't realize it meant that much to you." The canine spoke to Nola through the currently present Myrna. If what she said about all of them being present at once was true, she could hear him just fine, right? He certainly hoped she could, because he had now confirmed one thing: though he couldn't speak for the other two, Nola was undoubtedly his friend.

Wait, huh? "Two new ones? What do you mean, two new ones? How come two new siblings just... popped into existance?" He knew perfectly well how: When MPD systems are exposed to grievous stress, there's a strong chance that their psyche won't hold together and it'll fragment into even more alters than before... but Trinity honestly believed these were her real siblings, and once again, Selenus refused to be the one to strip that belief from her right now.