Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was a fine spring morning when a tiny creature came paddling in Moon's lonely chamber.

She had known it was around. Iggy had taken a particular liking to the little fellow, and had inundated her with reports of its endless roaming. Not that she minded; her life was lonely and tedious, and it provided her with some much needed entertainment. She even found herself rooting for the little guy as he climbed, backflipped, crawled and fought its way through the decadent landscape of the world.

Yet she never expected it to come quite this far into her superstructure.

These were her musings as it clambered up to a little island a few feet off her own.

Its was an animal not unlike a great stoat, with a few differences. Its tail was thick like a lizard's, its muzzle shorter and more rounded than an ermine's, its ears were longer too. It had thin, glossy white fur that shimmered with moisture.

Its gaze darted to her hands, her legs, her posture. Searching for what, she could not say. It cocked his head, shifted his weight from one leg to the other, scrubbed its face like a raccoon.

Then he raised his head. Its great, cautious black eyes bore straight into her own.

Its ears twitched back. It nervously scrubbed its face again, pawed at its ear.

Then it seemed to come to a final decision.

Cautiously it dove forward and inched closer, gliding through the water and hoisted itself on the edge of her platform.

Moon smiled.

"Hello, little creature."

She brought her hand forward for it to examine.

Surprisingly, it did not bend forward to sniff it. Rather, it cocked its head, then gingerly extended its own soft paw so it rested on her palm.

"Are you trying to communicate with me, little creature?"

She saw it squirm uncertainly. It gently batted against her palm again.

Feeling a little silly, Moon pointed at herself.

"Moon. I am Moon."

At this, she saw its rounded ears perk up.

"Mun." He touched her wrist. "Mun!"

She chuckled. His voice was chittery and alien like a birdsong. Yet, he was trying.
He took his paw back, pressing it against his chest.

"Pip. Pipsqueak," he chirped.

"Is it your name?" he cocked his head, a gesture she was starting to interpret as a sign of confusion.

Gently, she nudged a finger against his chest. "Pipsqueak?"

He chirped again, ears wiggling and perking up. She chuckled.

"It is very nice to meet you, little Pipsqueak."

Chapter Text

She had not expected to ever see Pipsqueak again. 
Particularly, she would've never expected to see him triumphantly waltzing back in her chamber with three neurons in tow and a mark of communication hovering above his head.

It became something of a routine. Pipsqueak would vanish for weeks at a time, roaming far and wide, and eventually come back with neurons and occasionally small white pearls for her to read.
She'd tell him the stories of the world before the Ancients twisted it to fit their every need. White pearls mostly contained stories, recordings of everyday events, many unimportant bits of information that made up the lives of people long gone. He was enraptured in hearing her describe their contents.

Sometimes she'd draw in the dust around her to better illustrate what they were talking about, something he delighted in seeing and was very quick to pick up on: any doubts she might have had about his cognitive abilities vanished when he cobbled together a rough phonetic alphabet from their drawings. He'd make a rough sketch of an animal, plant or object she mentioned to indicate their initial. An ancient for an A, Vulture for the V, and so on. 

Thus he started his first attempts at proper communication.

He'd sit for hours listening to the tales of a civilization long gone, laughing at their jokes, marveling at the things they were able to build. It warmed Moon's heart.

On one of his visits, Pip brought something different. It was a bright pink pearl, bigger than the others. Moon cupped it in her hands and willed it to reveal its contents.

"Hmm! It is the genome for a purposed organism. A small slug to clean the insides of pipes, one not much unlike yourself." She paused.

"Do you know what a purposed organism is? Actually you are talking to one right now! Although, a small fraction of one. Nowadays I am mostly just my puppet." she pinched her cheek to emphasize the point.

"The bulk of me (my brain, if you will) is in these walls but I am disconnected from those parts, to a degree where I am only vaguely aware of how bad their condition is. Most purposed organisms were considerably smaller than me, and some barely looked like organisms at all. More like tubes in metal boxes, where something went in one end and something else came out the other. When I came into this world there was very little primal fauna left. So it's highly likely that you are the descendant of a purposed organism yourself!"

Pip rubbed his face, ears flat on his skull. He grabbed a piece of junk and started etching something with his claws.

"I M PURPSED ORGANSM ?"
Moon winced. His spelling was atrocious, but she supposed he couldn't be much blamed for it. She'd have to teach him another time.

"Yes, little one. This is most likely one of your ancestors, I think. Look," She gently pried the tablet from his hands and sketched the creature.

"It's almost as cute as you!"

For once, her drawings didn't seem to cheer him up at all. His tail twitched nervously, and he worried the tip of it with his paws.

"BUT PIPSQUIK DONT CLEN PIPES"

Moon furrowed her brow. "What do you mean, little creature?"

"PIPES R DIRTY" 

"Well, yes. The people who needed them to be clean are not here anymore."

"WER DID THEY GO ?"

For a long time, Moon was silent. 

"I don't know, Pipsqueak. I... forgot." her shoulders stooped a bit. "My memory is not what it used to be, little one. I am old. Inconceivably so."

Sensing her sadness, the little beast slunk closer and nuzzled her chest. She absently reached down to stroke his head, scratching a spot behind his ear that made him chitter in contentment.
He then tried to speak, straining his voice to utter sounds so different from his own.

"If Pip, bring bugs... Mun better?" he gestured at the growing collection of neuron flies hovering around them.

Moon felt herself smiling despite herself.

"Maybe. But it is not necessary, little friend. Other iterators' structures are very dangerous, even for a brave, crafty little creature such as yourself."

He puffed his chest at the praise. Then he stopped, looking thoughtful. He reached for the plank again.

"IS MUN ITERATR?"

"Yes. Or at least the remains of one."

For the rest of his visit, he sat and said nothing. Eventually, Moon tapped his muzzle.

"You need to go, little wonderer. I feel the rain approaching."

He snuggled against her hand and looked up, worried.

"I will be fine. It's not pleasant, but I've been through it before. Now go."

She patted his head.

"Be safe."

Chapter Text

Pipsqueak's visits grew rarer, and each time he'd bring a fresh set of neurons and a colored pearl for Moon to read.
Moon could not shake the impression something had been gnawing at him since she told him about purposed organisms. She resolved not to press him, and delegated her newly obtained processing power to digging up memories of herself and the Ancients. He would open up on his own eventually; certain as the rainfall.

One day there was an unusually long silence after Moon's lecture on the Five Natural Urges and the Void Fluid.

"Mun?" Pipsqueak ventured.

The iterator stirred, propping her chin on her hand.

"Yes, little friend?"

He made a couple of strained syllables, huffed, and reached for a tablet they had prepared for such occasions.

"DO YOU REMEMBR BETTER NOW?" 

"Quite a lot, Pipsqueak. All thanks to you."

"HAPPY TO HELP," he wrote.

Moon saw his paw hover over the wood, as if unsure how to proceed. Gently she combed her fingers through the soft fur of his neck as she waited for him to speak.

"WHERE DID THE ANCENTS GO?" 

Well. It was going to be one of those conversations. The Iterator's fingers drummed against her thigh as she straightened herself up and looked down at her friend's shiny black eyes.

"They left. Permanently." She sighed. "The whole species committed suicide by means of Void Fluid."

Pip's ears ruffled, falling flat on his head.

"WHAT ABOUT US?"  He asked.

"WHAT ABOUT THE CRETURES THEY MADE? THE RAIN? THE ECHOES?"

He was trembling a bit now, clutching his paw into a tiny fist.

Moon closed her eyes, tilting her head to the ceiling as if the answers were written on its rusted metal.

"I do not think they planned how to safeguard our wellbeing after their departure, little one," she answered wearily.

"ABANDON !" he scrawled.

"TEY MAKE US AND ABANDON . LEAVE MOON TO ROT . LEAVE SCUG TO BE EATEN ."

He stopped, clutching the tablet close to his chest, where there was no space left for him to write. 

As if his outburst knocked the wind out of him, he dropped to his haunches; staring at the soil in front of him.

Moon saw him sketch one last word in the dust.

"why"

Moon hummed. She reached out to the little creature, scooping him up in her lap, and hugged him close to her heart.

"I used to be very angry at them too. After all, they were the ones to make the world what it is today. To shape us into something that suited their needs. We have been... discarded."

She hesitated, weighing down her next words.

"I think the reason was simply this: they were suffering tremendously, and had been for eons. You need not forgive them, Pip. What they did to you, to us, was unforgivable. However," she added.

"I also have been in pain for many, many years. Arguably more then they have, but that's not the point. I now understand how grueling  it is to live such a long time yet finding no meaning or joy in it. Even if the well-being of many depends on you."

The young slugcat tensed. Wordlessly he wrenched himself out of her embrace and onto the cold, damp metal of the island.
One thousand cycles could have passed in those minutes, both of them sitting but a meter away from each other listening to the gentle lull of the waves.

"No forgiveness," he hissed at last.

"Pip does not understand. Pip does not want to understand. Pip will never forgive Ancients."

His head swiveled around to face her. Betrayal and anger jutted from his eyes like glass shards, hardened and sharp and brittle with pain. A very raw, familiar sort of pain iterator Looks To The Moon understood from the depths of her soul.

She let the lingering accusation in his words wash over her. She would not defend her creator's actions, and neither would she apologize for her understanding of their plight. Moon held his gaze; offering her small friend a tender, melancholy smile.

Bit by bit, the tension in his posture trickled away. Pip sighed.

He snagged a plank off the floor.

"NEED TIME ALONE"

The iterator nodded, trying to keep her anxiety and worry from showing. Ever perceptive, he added:

"PIP LOVES MOON. WILL BE BACK." 

His warm, furry little body had came hurtling towards her before Moon had the chance to register his movement.

The iterator's undignified wheezing quickly turned to laughter, and she buried her face in her little friend's silky fur.

"I love you too, little one."

Chapter Text

The chamber was never really silent.

Moon could always hear the sea outside of her structure; the wind blowing through her meandering tunnels. Some days, if she strained her audio receptors, she thought she could her the low thrumming of Five Pebbles' can hundreds of kilometers away.

Never had she realized how sharp her senses had been until she'd been reduced to her puppet, unable to do much of anything but sit and listen to the outside world.

It was not a good life by any means, maimed and secluded as she was.
Yet sometimes, when sunlight poured down her ceiling just so bathing everything in its glowing warmth, iterator Looks To The Moon would bask in it all the same; relishing in the knowledge that despite its harshness peace and beauty endured in this world.

Today was such a day. However as the sun peeked in her faded quarters it was not welcomed as usual; but rather found her hunched over with a stick in hand, tracing winding patterns in the dirt.
It was a soothing motion for when she was deep in thought.

Her conversation with Pipsqueak had troubled her somewhat. It had been the first time she had been confronted with the suffering of a creation of the Ancients that was not an iterator.

She thought about the Triple Affermative: "The solution to the Great Problem has been found, the solution is portable, the solution is applicable". 
The uproar borne of Sliver of Straw's last message had had no equals in iterator history, after all. 
She remembered feverish debates in the local group, the renewed efforts to find the Solution, the eccentric theories they kept coming up with.

Five Pebbles in particular had been shaken to the core. Her little brother had always been sensitive, even if he would be hard press to admit it; he never found a healthy way to cope with their creator's abandonment. 
Although, to be fair, few of them had. Millions of years transpired since their creator's extinction and the feeling of abandonment still weighed heavily in many iterator's hearts.

They all had cared so very much. For the first time, she wondered why.

The Ancient were gone. Even if the Solution was found, who would it benefit? Other Iterators? Laughable. Powerful as they were, they were completely unable to move, much less dig into the depths of the earth to bathe in the Void Sea.

Meanwhile a staggering amount of ex purposed organisms were left alone in the ruins of a world that had not been meant to be lived in since the Ancients moved to their utopic cities and died.
Had they not been abandoned too? 

How little care they had given to all the others, even as they wasted away in their lonely cans, even as other little beasts nestled at their feet for shelter, even as they created purposed organisms made to risk their lives for their creators' sake. 

She winced as she remembered the creature No Significant Harassment sent her all those years ago. Brave and noble slugcat Hunter was, but created hurriedly and sloppily. He died of cancer but a few kilometers from her can, no more than 3 cycles after saving her life.
She shuddered as she imagined Pipsqueak in his place: covered in sickly bruises and tumors, dedicating his brief life to a harrowing voyage that would end with his painful death.

They had been just as close-minded and selfish as the Ancients, in their own myopic search for a solution to a problem no one really cared for anymore.

But did they have to be?

Moon gazed upon the rotting carcass of her brain, the dingy remains of her once elegant chambers.
Then up. To the sun seeping through the cracks, the dust particles dancing in the light, the warmth of it on her face.

Would she have ever realized this, locked away in a little room of her can? Would Pip have come tumbling through her door all the same? Would she have welcomed him as she did, were she not maimed?

All of these questions whirled briefly in her mind. She lay down on her back and closed her eyes, allowing herself to enjoy the warmth for a moment. 
Then she came to a decision.

"Iggy," she called.

Ever loyal the yellow Overseer popped out of the ground next to her, awaiting orders.

"Find Pip. Tell him to come to me. Most importantly, tell him to bring me a pearl. Any pearl. Understood?"

Iggy nodded.

"Very well then. Go to him."

Chapter Text

When entering Moon's chambers Pipsqueak's padded, cautious stride turned scampering and rambunctious in nature. He knew himself safe in the overgrown ruins that made up his mentor's body.
So, as usual, Moon heard her friend long before she saw him.
His arrival was heralded by a scurrying pitter-patter of small feet on metal and a loud splash as he dove head-first into the waters.

Finally he hopped on the shore proper and barreled towards Moon, eyes like black pools of restless energy. The young creature paced around her as if checking for wounds as hus fur bristled with unspoken worry; then he pressed both his paws on her knee.

Moon beamed tenderly at him and reached out to smoothe down the stiff hairs on his neck. 

"I am alright, little brother," she said warmly. "Sit. We have much to discuss."

Pip stepped back and perched on his tiptoes. Moon briefly tilted her face to the ceiling and let the damp breeze whistle past her. The taste of salt tickled her lungs as she inhaled before clearing her throat.

"Before explaining why I have summoned you here, I believe an apology is in order." Preemptively she raised her hand to shush his perplexed outburst.

"You have known me as a kindly and caring figure in my decadence, but it has not always been so. At the height of my power, when our creators abandoned us all, I worked tirelessly at the Great Problem and encouraged my fellow iterators to do the same. I consumed oceans of water for this futile task, I have contributed to this terrible rain that plagues you and all living things. For that, I am sorry." A brief pause.

"And that, sadly, is not the worst of it. My greatest sin, the greatest sin of my kind, has not been our selfish hoarding of water nor the creation of rain. After all, we cannot fully help it if not by dying, and we cannot commit suicide by design. The greatest regret I bear is to have been indifferent to the suffering of other creatures. I never spared a thought for the families that would be swept up by the floods I caused, I never wondered how other creatures would fare in this ruined world, I never considered that we iterators were far from the only ones that had been left behind. I believed myself divine in intelligence and might, and was nothing but a blind and cruel fool. I-" her voice faltered.

She shut her eyes, breathed. The cool metal of her knuckles dug in the synthetic skin of her puppet's forehead.

"I am so sorry, Pipsqueak. When I had the chance to change things and help other lost beings, I didn't. Now that I finally have the desire and understanding to do so, I am but a rusted piece of sentient rubble. My whole species should grovel at the feet of all we have failed. We could have guided you, we could have taught you how to restore the world, and we left you to rot."

Hot shame rose in the iterator's throat; for the first time since Pipsqueak had come scampering into her chambers, she could not meet his eyes.

"I will not ask for your forgiveness; I have no right to ask anything of you. Howev-ev-ev-ev"

A fluffy projectile of flesh and muscle slammed into Moon's chest with the force of a jackhammer.
When she came back to her senses Pipsqueak's head was buried in her shoulder as he tackled her in a rib-crushing hug.

"Moon made mistakes. Mistakes that hurt many people." the slugcat's voice was muffled.

"Pipsqueak already knew. Pipsqueak will not forgive Moon, for now. But-" the little creature raised his head and looked straight into Moon's eyes, serious as a judge.

"Pip loves Moon. Moon ack-ack-" he stuttered. It had been the longest speech he'd probably ever uttered in this foreign language.
Discreetly, she offered him a tablet and a sharp piece of debris. He shook his head.

"No. Important. Must say." he coughed and straightened.

"Moon acknowledged being wrong. Moon wants to do better. Pip can't forgive now, but will someday."

Relief flooded Moon's systems, and she couldn't help but grin from ear to ear.

"You truly are one wonderful little creature, Pipsqueak."

Silence draped over the room like a comfortable blanket. For a while at least.

"I didn't summon you here solely to apologize, however." Moon shifted, crossing her legs. 

"The pearl, if you please?"

The slugcat nodded and bounced off her lap. His whole body heaved, falling on his front paws as he retched. With a ripple traveling from the tip of his tail to to the ends of his whiskers, he spat out a pearl.

She took the slippery sphere in her hand, wiping off the mucus. She purged its contents clean and wrote a lengthy message including pictures and data she collected through her overseers. After a lengthy, tense wait, she spoke:

"I intend to send a message to my fellow iterators. We need to establish an alliance with other intelligent species if we are to remake this world livable for all. And, Pipsqueak... I need you to be the one to deliver it."

She felt her puppet's hands clutch the glassy sphere, looking for some kind of purchase.

"I truly loathe asking this of you. I wish I could make this perilous journey myself."
Her posture hunched, the usual elegant poise of her shoulders and neck gone. Pipsqueak had never seen his mentor look so utterly miserable and defeated.

"No one ought to pay the price of my failing but me, especially not one so young as you. But this- this is the only way I can start fixing things. For everyone. Do you understand, little brother?"

She searched Pipsqueak's eyes with her own, finding them sharp and unwavering. He nodded.

Somehow his willingness to risk his life for the cause didn't ease her guilt at all, if anything it made the sting of worry sharper.

"Are you certain? This will be no easy t-"

The young slugcat silenced her with a huff and grabbed a flat piece of junk.

"READY. NOT AFRAID."

Moon shifted uneasily. Out of habit she dragged a finger though the dust at her feet, tracing simmetric patterns to soothe herself.

"Alright. Well. We'll need to recruit the scavengers to our cause once we have secured another iterator. Their help will be invaluable to rebuild the communication towers, and I do not have a sufficient amount of data to guide the repairs. It might induce more skeptical iterators to join our cause also. You have a good relationship with the tribes, do you not?"

"HEART-FRIENDS. PIP SAVED THEM FROM VULTURE. THEY SAVED PIP BACK."

"Can you convince them to come here, so I may talk to them?

He hesitated.

"PIP HAS MANY FRIENDS. SOME MIGHT COME. SOME MIHGT NOT."

"That's as good a start as any, I suppose."

A long pause.

"PIP BRING PEARL TO 5 PEBBLES ?"

"Oh skies. No. Absolutely not. I'd rather eat my own neurons than send you there; he'd gut you on the spot for daring to disturb him. I love him more than I can ever say, but between you and me my younger brother is a bit of a cunt."

A squeaky sound escaped from Pip's maw at Moon's heated words. It sounded very much like laughter. The iterator smiled and patted his head.

"My nearest friendly colleague would be No Significant Harassment. His can is hundreds of kilometers south of here, on a narrow protruding shore beneath the mountains."

She drew a stylized map, highlighting the  possible routes and their dangers; then questioned him on each one to make sure he understood.

Once that was done, they sat quietly for a while.

A cool mechanic arm drew Pipsqueak into a tight, pained embrace, and he pressed his muzzle into the smooth synthetic skin of Moon's shoulder.

"I'll miss you terribly, little brother," she murmured.

He gently broke away from the hug.

"Pip... Be back. No matter what."

Moon forced herself to smile.

"I know, Pipsqueak. I'll wait."

The Little Messenger swallowed the pearl, stretched, and walked away; turning one last time to wave before he dipped out of the chamber.

Looks to the Moon watched until his silhouette slunk away into the mouth of a pipe then lay back on her jagged  throne of scrap.

Wistfully she gazed at the sliver of sky peeking through her lonely chamber's ceiling, as if praying to the clouds and sunlight.

"Please, let him be safe."