AUgust2024 21 Absurd Tragedy (Alexa, Yelv)

a/n: In which I mostly ignore the prompt. Yelv has a proposition. Alexa declines.

"Shut your mouth, Alexa said in shock.

"Why?" Yelv asked. He was standing on the ground next to the skell, looking up at her, his head cocked to one side. "Are you worried you'll drop a screw into it?"

"No! Not that!" She focused on her work again.

"Because I could spit it out."

"I meant, about what you said. Don't say things like that. It's horrible."

"Unless I swallowed the screw," Yelv continued. Then he realized that the conversation was going in a different direction. "What did I say, exactly?" He wished he could scratch his head; that sometimes helped him understand unexplained situations. Unfortunately his hands were busy holding Alexa's toolbox. That was the only part of him that was busy, so he'd naturally started shooting the breeze while she was working.

Alexa deftly started tapping something on the back of the skell with something else that whined sharply each time. It was too noisy to keep talking, so he waited until she gave a satisfied grunt and jumped down to take back her tool kit.

"So, what did I say that I shouldn't have? Because Eleonora told me to start keeping a list," Yelv said comfortably.

"It's okay," said Alexa, flicking drill bits rapidly into place. "It's just a terrible idea, when you think about it, having hundreds of Alexas filling the city."

"Why?" asked Yelv. "If you're worried about having to build them, maybe we could turn you into an Orphe and then you could just split in two a couple dozen times."

"You're not making it more appealing."

"I dunno," Yelv continued. "You're nice and cheerful and you seem like you'd get along with yourself. Yourselves. You'd have people to talk about skells with and then you'd all go out on missions and then come back. It'd be nice to see a bunch of sunshine faces around NLA for a change."

"Aw, you're sweet," she said, flashing a smile as bright as he'd described. "And the chance to core dump over skells is as tasty as you make it sound. But all of those extra selves would be miserable. Having a couple dozen could be fun, but not if we replaced the whole population."

"But why not?" Yelv trotted behind her when she walked into the Outfitters hangar. "I mean, okay, you aren't beefy like yours truly, but if you double up your teams, I bet you'd do as good as me." He paused, glad to scratch his head. "Wait, did I just accidentally insult you?"

"Not enough to sting," said Alexa, sliding the kit into her locker. "The problem with a theoretical City of New Las Alexas is the horror of resource scarcity. It could reach starvation levels and the suffering would be immeasurable."

"Not enough mescal," Yelv guessed.

"Not enough skells," she corrected.

a/n: Definitely failed the prompt but I am very pleased with New Las Alexas.

Next up: Orphan. Not Orphe.