Blue

By Karen Hart

Disclaimer: In no way do I own any part of the Xenosaga series, nor do I make any money from this or other fanfictions. I write these stories for love of the game(s), nothing more.
He could make the strangest things occur to her.

This time it was blue, like clear water stretched as far as one's sensors could see. Pale bits were added in her Encephalon; perhaps they were whitecaps floating lazily on the surface. Blue and white merged together into the afternoon sky, only a few clouds in evidence.

A system error. She had never been to any ocean, nor stood under any blue sky. There was no reason for her to be constructing this scene. She deleted the image and focused her diverted attention back to the bridge's forward window, and quickly forgot. No change in the swirling vortex that was hyperspace. No change in the lifesigns of the Elsa's crew. But as she scanned her eyes shifted over to him and she was assailed by cool, gentle blue.

She had been submerged in water, long ago. Was it long ago? Hair darkened by the sea rose around her, spread out in untangled waves while she struggled up to the surface. Bubbles escaped the corners of her mouth, precious, vital air. Gone now. She'd have to surface soon, but oh! how comfortable it felt there, the water gentle and soft against her skin. She could stay under for another minute, couldn't she? She was good at holding her breath, in those days.

Those days? She ran a quick check, to see if anyone had downloaded new data into her since she'd commandeered the ship. The search brought up no new data and now she was left wondering if there was an error in her operating system. Perhaps some of her coding was corrupted, and it prompted her to run unnecessary diagnostics checks. Confusion in an artificial construct such as the KP-X was undesirable. She revolved to find Shion as soon as possible, and request a more complete analysis.

There was nothing to do but maintain her watch on the bridge. Her duty. Her orders. She played them back again, for certainty's sake, and then scanned the area once she was satisfied that there were no ambiguities in her orders ("Go to the bridge and perform a sensor sweep around the area. Report any findings to the Captain.."), checking for any anomalies. There were none, though when she turned her attention to him she was overcome by an unusual fascination by the color blue.

She laid beside him on the cool sand while water ran over her toes—thank heaven it was summer and the water was warm. Her dress was soaked. Sand was getting in places that were best described as uncomfortable and inconvenient. But he was there with her, and two of his fingers interlaced with hers, and the sand seemed a minor irritation. The sun beat down on them in full force and he rolled over and looked at her and said he was sorry. She did not know why. But he always said things like that, and she would smile and shake her head. It was how they were.

This was not an appropriate logic path, and she resolved to erase the scene from her Encephalon construction program, and divert her attention back to the forward window and the crew, and perform a quick scan of the area and the crew. Before she could do any of that she was assailed by the ping of internal alarms going off, the closest thing she had to an instinct.

Gnosis. But the distraction was as good as deletion, the needed memory diverted once again, and she had no interest in blue after that.