Self Preservation
Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2019 11:18 pm
Frost 2, 119
As he'd practiced time and time again under the watchful eyes and attentive ears of Miss Holzknecht, he settled his mind, stilled his breathing, and pulled up into the forefront of his thoughts: motion. It had taken weeks just to pin down what the concept even really meant to him. He'd never had to meditate over such things as "how do I move my hand" nor "why is it I move forward precisely when I want to". Motion was an intrinsic part of his nature, but it was not an intrinsic part of the would be golem's. Everything had to be imprinted upon the small, nearly shimmering crystal that sat ready in the circle opposite his own.
At first, all Foma allowed to pass between himself and the dragonshard were memories. The feeling of his own body when he rose in the morning, the jar and jostle of one foot after the other, the strain of weight against his arms, the constant pressure of his body ever pressing down into his legs and feet... sensation after sensation. As with most memories, pain was absent, but he impressed upon them, upon himself, the intent behind each and every action. Movement, then, became more than just "that which moves". Slowly, he worked his way through the memories again, only this time that inner voice all creatures gifted with speech and thought possessed murmured low commands, giving the words meaning in form, function, and even feeling.
And it continued, over and over again.
After motion came observation: not only the function and application of sight and hearing but an intense desire to do so. He focused on the specific commands, even speaking them aloud with careful and uniform repetition. Wake up. Fetch. Go to sleep. Wake up. Fetch. Go to sleep. A seemingly endless cycle of voices, pictures, memories... each and every image dutifully linked to the word it for which it was meant.
Hours passed, but Foma remained within his circle, eyes shut for focus, ears hearing nothing but the sounds of his own murmured voice and steady breathing. The concepts slowly solidified themselves, and he started into the physical form of motion itself, moving about the small area he'd allotted himself, setting things down, picking things up, standing and sitting, bending legs and arms... had he any focus left to worry about his surroundings, he might have noticed Miss Holzknecht's watchful eyes surveying his progress, occasionally dropping to jot down a note or two here and there while her pocket watch ticked steadily onward counting the minutes as they waltzed on into hours.
It was now time for what was, perhaps, the most extensive and exhaustive of this particular imprinting process, Foma neither stuttered nor faltered in his approach.
Bread. An image of a roll, of a slice, of a loaf, each carefully pulled from his memory and offered up the hungry shard of crystal on the other end of thought. Each picture was paired with its proper word at first. Bread. Shoes. Pocket watch. Cheese. Coat. He steadily expanded the vocabulary, the hours pressing into one another as he murmured each one, paired with an image, and moved on. Then, once he'd reached the end of that memorized and well-worn list he'd built up in his head, he started over. This time each word and its image was paired with a memory.
Bread could be and was eaten. Any confusion over what bread might be need only take an observant eye, a study of what was put into the mouth and of what was hard on the outside and soft within and what was called "bread" by those whom the core would serve. Shoes were worn. They were tight and of leather. They were loos and of linen. They slipped on over feet, sat still and empty by a door or forgotten in a room. They were called "shoes", one was called "shoe", and they always matched.
Each word gained new concepts, new memories, and he could feel that gaping, empty thing across from him beginning to fill.
Self-preservation was the last of the concepts to be imprinted, and Foma focused first on "pain". Fire, ice, and acid burned. Sharp edges cut. Blunt and heavy weights battered and bruised. Falls shattered. Each held it own memory, though these memories weren't quite as vibrant as those that came before them. They were meant to allow for the most basic of considerations: to follow orders in the way least likely to bring damage to oneself.
With dangers gradually cemented, he started into simple logic. Fire, ice, and acid burned so don't touch them. Sharp edges cut so avoid them. Blunt and heavy weights battered and bruised so move out of their way. Each danger was met with a primitive response, sometimes two or three. He continued, reiterating each danger and its solution, never once allowing his thoughts to wander into fear or apprehension or anxiety; three things he had no desire to instill within the core.
Nearly there, nearly finished, Foma forced his thoughts to focus on his task at hand. He reviewed each concept, each word, each internal lesson. He ensured the core, like his own mind, was aware of the border between the world and self, the body and those bodies around it. And soon, he could feel that emptiness filled. There was no more he could teach it, no space left for it to learn.
Gently, he knelt down upon the ground, pressed the gem of Miss Holzknecht's ring to the innermost edge of the circle, and breathed a sigh of relief as he felt the Minding come to a close. The pictographs he had spent so long creating faded even before he opened his eyes, but the golem's core and all its own neatly, carefully scrawled symbols remained, filled to the brim with information.
"You went to quickly through its vocabulary." Miss Holzknecht wasted no time in approaching him, her slight arms crossed but expression not quite mirrored. "And it's going to have the most miserable time navigating around a candle, as you neglected to mention it at all."
Finally able to focus on himself for the first time in hours, Foma found his neck aching, stomach grumbling, and mind weary. "Candles weren't something you-"
"Told you to practice?" she interrupted, face now properly matching her crossed posture. "Of course not, because that's something you should have realized would be important."
Another test. Another failed test. Even still, it did little to abate the general warmth that filled him at the realization he'd just completed his first, true imprinting. "You're absolutely right. My mistake, miss."
"Yes, of course I am. Now, let's test it out, shall we?"
It wasn't really a suggestion, but Foma would have done so even if it had been. He stepped forward eagerly and gingerly plucked the little crystal from the ground. Miss Holzknecht waved him over to her own workbench, whereupon sat a neatly carved wooden figure whose chest had been hollowed out. It was roughly the size of a human toddler, and would have been composed entirely of wooden lures were it not for Miss Holzknecht's insistence that she handle the golem's fingers and hands, coating them in an elegant shroud that she assured him she'd teach at some point in the not too distance future.
"Here we go," Foma muttered to himself as he gingerly set the crystal into the wooden golem's chest.
For several seconds, the wooden creature's unblinking glass eyes stared blindly up towards the ceiling. Foma glanced towards Miss Holzknecht, a question on his lips, but she merely raised a brow. "Have you forgotten its activation phrase already, Mister Kozlov?"
Ears and cheeks flushing an embarrassed shade of red, Foma nodded, cleared his throat, and stated plainly and clearly, "Wake up."
The small marbles seemed to take on a brighter sheen, but the wooden figure remained where it was.
Without needing another prompt from Miss Holzknecht, Foma spoke again, his eyes bright with both excitement and curiosity. "Stand up."
Little wooden legs shivered and shook. Tiny wooden fingers quietly clacked against the surface of the table. Then, slowly, it seemed to gain control over its limbs. The legs stopped shaking. The arms started to bend and, soon, it was standing straight up in the middle of the desk, wobbling here and there but catching itself with a bend of its little wooden knees or old wave of its little wooden arm.
A great, beaming smile spread over Foma's face as he turned to grin at Miss Holzknect.
"Run," she casually offered in a pitying sigh.
Before Foma could react, the little wooden creature launched itself off of the table and out into the air. There was the briefest of moments wherein Foma tried to catch it, but it slipped between his hands and instead crashed to floor. The core popped out of its chest, skid across the floor, and bounced off the opposite wall with a small, pathetic tink.
"And that, Mister Kozlov, is why it is unwise to save the concept of self-preservation for last."
As he'd practiced time and time again under the watchful eyes and attentive ears of Miss Holzknecht, he settled his mind, stilled his breathing, and pulled up into the forefront of his thoughts: motion. It had taken weeks just to pin down what the concept even really meant to him. He'd never had to meditate over such things as "how do I move my hand" nor "why is it I move forward precisely when I want to". Motion was an intrinsic part of his nature, but it was not an intrinsic part of the would be golem's. Everything had to be imprinted upon the small, nearly shimmering crystal that sat ready in the circle opposite his own.
At first, all Foma allowed to pass between himself and the dragonshard were memories. The feeling of his own body when he rose in the morning, the jar and jostle of one foot after the other, the strain of weight against his arms, the constant pressure of his body ever pressing down into his legs and feet... sensation after sensation. As with most memories, pain was absent, but he impressed upon them, upon himself, the intent behind each and every action. Movement, then, became more than just "that which moves". Slowly, he worked his way through the memories again, only this time that inner voice all creatures gifted with speech and thought possessed murmured low commands, giving the words meaning in form, function, and even feeling.
And it continued, over and over again.
After motion came observation: not only the function and application of sight and hearing but an intense desire to do so. He focused on the specific commands, even speaking them aloud with careful and uniform repetition. Wake up. Fetch. Go to sleep. Wake up. Fetch. Go to sleep. A seemingly endless cycle of voices, pictures, memories... each and every image dutifully linked to the word it for which it was meant.
Hours passed, but Foma remained within his circle, eyes shut for focus, ears hearing nothing but the sounds of his own murmured voice and steady breathing. The concepts slowly solidified themselves, and he started into the physical form of motion itself, moving about the small area he'd allotted himself, setting things down, picking things up, standing and sitting, bending legs and arms... had he any focus left to worry about his surroundings, he might have noticed Miss Holzknecht's watchful eyes surveying his progress, occasionally dropping to jot down a note or two here and there while her pocket watch ticked steadily onward counting the minutes as they waltzed on into hours.
It was now time for what was, perhaps, the most extensive and exhaustive of this particular imprinting process, Foma neither stuttered nor faltered in his approach.
Bread. An image of a roll, of a slice, of a loaf, each carefully pulled from his memory and offered up the hungry shard of crystal on the other end of thought. Each picture was paired with its proper word at first. Bread. Shoes. Pocket watch. Cheese. Coat. He steadily expanded the vocabulary, the hours pressing into one another as he murmured each one, paired with an image, and moved on. Then, once he'd reached the end of that memorized and well-worn list he'd built up in his head, he started over. This time each word and its image was paired with a memory.
Bread could be and was eaten. Any confusion over what bread might be need only take an observant eye, a study of what was put into the mouth and of what was hard on the outside and soft within and what was called "bread" by those whom the core would serve. Shoes were worn. They were tight and of leather. They were loos and of linen. They slipped on over feet, sat still and empty by a door or forgotten in a room. They were called "shoes", one was called "shoe", and they always matched.
Each word gained new concepts, new memories, and he could feel that gaping, empty thing across from him beginning to fill.
Self-preservation was the last of the concepts to be imprinted, and Foma focused first on "pain". Fire, ice, and acid burned. Sharp edges cut. Blunt and heavy weights battered and bruised. Falls shattered. Each held it own memory, though these memories weren't quite as vibrant as those that came before them. They were meant to allow for the most basic of considerations: to follow orders in the way least likely to bring damage to oneself.
With dangers gradually cemented, he started into simple logic. Fire, ice, and acid burned so don't touch them. Sharp edges cut so avoid them. Blunt and heavy weights battered and bruised so move out of their way. Each danger was met with a primitive response, sometimes two or three. He continued, reiterating each danger and its solution, never once allowing his thoughts to wander into fear or apprehension or anxiety; three things he had no desire to instill within the core.
Nearly there, nearly finished, Foma forced his thoughts to focus on his task at hand. He reviewed each concept, each word, each internal lesson. He ensured the core, like his own mind, was aware of the border between the world and self, the body and those bodies around it. And soon, he could feel that emptiness filled. There was no more he could teach it, no space left for it to learn.
Gently, he knelt down upon the ground, pressed the gem of Miss Holzknecht's ring to the innermost edge of the circle, and breathed a sigh of relief as he felt the Minding come to a close. The pictographs he had spent so long creating faded even before he opened his eyes, but the golem's core and all its own neatly, carefully scrawled symbols remained, filled to the brim with information.
"You went to quickly through its vocabulary." Miss Holzknecht wasted no time in approaching him, her slight arms crossed but expression not quite mirrored. "And it's going to have the most miserable time navigating around a candle, as you neglected to mention it at all."
Finally able to focus on himself for the first time in hours, Foma found his neck aching, stomach grumbling, and mind weary. "Candles weren't something you-"
"Told you to practice?" she interrupted, face now properly matching her crossed posture. "Of course not, because that's something you should have realized would be important."
Another test. Another failed test. Even still, it did little to abate the general warmth that filled him at the realization he'd just completed his first, true imprinting. "You're absolutely right. My mistake, miss."
"Yes, of course I am. Now, let's test it out, shall we?"
It wasn't really a suggestion, but Foma would have done so even if it had been. He stepped forward eagerly and gingerly plucked the little crystal from the ground. Miss Holzknecht waved him over to her own workbench, whereupon sat a neatly carved wooden figure whose chest had been hollowed out. It was roughly the size of a human toddler, and would have been composed entirely of wooden lures were it not for Miss Holzknecht's insistence that she handle the golem's fingers and hands, coating them in an elegant shroud that she assured him she'd teach at some point in the not too distance future.
"Here we go," Foma muttered to himself as he gingerly set the crystal into the wooden golem's chest.
For several seconds, the wooden creature's unblinking glass eyes stared blindly up towards the ceiling. Foma glanced towards Miss Holzknecht, a question on his lips, but she merely raised a brow. "Have you forgotten its activation phrase already, Mister Kozlov?"
Ears and cheeks flushing an embarrassed shade of red, Foma nodded, cleared his throat, and stated plainly and clearly, "Wake up."
The small marbles seemed to take on a brighter sheen, but the wooden figure remained where it was.
Without needing another prompt from Miss Holzknecht, Foma spoke again, his eyes bright with both excitement and curiosity. "Stand up."
Little wooden legs shivered and shook. Tiny wooden fingers quietly clacked against the surface of the table. Then, slowly, it seemed to gain control over its limbs. The legs stopped shaking. The arms started to bend and, soon, it was standing straight up in the middle of the desk, wobbling here and there but catching itself with a bend of its little wooden knees or old wave of its little wooden arm.
A great, beaming smile spread over Foma's face as he turned to grin at Miss Holzknect.
"Run," she casually offered in a pitying sigh.
Before Foma could react, the little wooden creature launched itself off of the table and out into the air. There was the briefest of moments wherein Foma tried to catch it, but it slipped between his hands and instead crashed to floor. The core popped out of its chest, skid across the floor, and bounced off the opposite wall with a small, pathetic tink.
"And that, Mister Kozlov, is why it is unwise to save the concept of self-preservation for last."
