Not A Robot
Author's Note: So, since I wrote the super-short Miego oneshot, I've decided to write one story for each canon pairing. I'm pretty sure Aura/Metis is a canon pairing, and if it isn't, too bad.
Aura had never cared for smiling.
She rarely felt happy herself, so why smile for the benefit of others?
After all, emotions made people weak, didn't they? Every war that had ever been fought was based in emotion – in anger, in greed, in passion. It wasn't worth the happy moments if everything burned to ashes in the end.
She hadn't had many friends as a child – back when she had tried to care and smile and be friendly to others. No matter what she did, other kids had avoided her, feared her, laughed at her and beaten her up.
It's not like her parents cared that she was alone. Some days, Aura thought if she said she killed ten children and strung them up in front of the old folk's home, her parents still wouldn't care. All they cared about was sweet little Simon, who smiled and laughed and played by the rules.
It was that, every day she told herself that she didn't need people, she felt a little emptier inside. Some little part of her, the part of herself that she despised, wanted someone who cared, somebody that actually gave a crap about anything she thought. And every little thing she hoped and wished and dreamed of seemed to distance her from society even more.
And then, one day, as cliché as it may sound, everything changed.
Her science class took a class trip to a robotics lab, of intricate machines that moved and responded to human interaction. When Aura grudgingly waved (at the teacher's request), the robots waved back and smiled at her. Somewhere in the background, a young woman adjusting one of the robots waved at Aura as well.
And, oddly, it was the first day Aura had felt happy in a very long time.
She felt pathetic for thinking this, but, to be honest, that was the first time anyone had cared enough to wave back at her – not that she waved often.
That was the day that Aura decided that she liked robots better than people.
A few short years later, she left the house and found herself working an internship in the robotics lab at the Space Center. She was shaking, her hands sweating and her shirt glued to her back. Why should they give a job to her, abrasive, sarcastic outcast that she was?
Well, apparently that was exactly what they were looking for. A woman as mechanical as the machines she created.
So for her first week, there she sat in the robotics lab, tinkering with previously created robots and creating new robots entirely (which would aid her in the post-apocalyptic robot uprising).
And then, the next Monday, that woman showed up.
"That woman" was the one who had waved at her, the only person whose face she actually cared to remember because this stranger was the only one who'd ever seemed to give a crap about her, no matter how meaningless that crap may have been.
She smiled and introduced herself as Metis Cykes. Aura said nothing.
She told her a little about herself and asked Aura to do the same. Aura said nothing.
Finally, she turned around, looking a little put out. This time, Aura said something.
"…Aura Blackquill."
Metis turned back to look at her, held out her hand, and smiled.
"It's nice to meet you, Ms. Blackquill."
"It's… nice to meet you too, Ms. Cykes."
For the first time, someone had actually listened.