a dawn through the cracked ceiling

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."