Her Masterpiece (hiatus for now)

Wordless Thank You

(So... Huge problems readers... I have discovered honkai impact, like I know about it but I have spent the better part of the last week reading about it, watching videos, and edits, enough for me to basically glean the story about it and be hopelessly obsessed with the Herrscher of sentience Senti and Herrscher of void Sirin when she controlled Kiana... That speaks about my type of fictional woman but whatever... So now there is a risk that not only will I inspire myself from genshin like some ppl guessed but also honkai impact... No I am not reviving Herrschers in this story but... Some might recognize things momentarily)

(Pray for me, I don't want to download another game like that, I already am obsessed with Wuthering Waves and I am bad at it, I don't need another obsessing... *Searching up playthrough on youtube*)

Ruan Mei wondered if they had ever talked this much before she ran off, Nihl and her.

With the little critters it was... Easier to abandon them, let's say it how it was, she discarded them without thinking twice until she found herself here and now. They might have yearned for her love, something she couldn't much reciprocate in the way they wished.

But this.

This person empty of a emotions had been harder as she could express those feeling, even if not through feelings, in a different way. Words could be put behind actions instead of meows only. Nihl had her own want to be recognized by their common creator and it had shown itself in a willingness to do anything that Ruan Mei had witnessed.

Well, she knew about this long ago, which is why she hid behind the facade of failure to stay far from her, to not see those actions and those words being silences by distance.

They were right, Herta and anyone else she heard whisper or talk about this. People that didn't know the truth found her odd but with her own way of showing what she wanted.

"There is many way in which you are different my dear creation." Bringing a hand to her face. With the cold neutral look on her face people would expect a tense jaw and flexed muscles but even through her gloves, all Ruan Mei could think was soft.

Pulling that hand away and flicking towards a screen, data lighting up on it. Just as she could download someone biology in her mind, she could as easily display it.

She knew destroying all those notes that day in emotional turmoil would be a loss and yet she had still done it, depriving Nihl of a way to learn about herself if it was not through experiments with Herta. The thin but ever present needle of guilt twitched in her heart.

Watching Nihl step closer, eyes wracking over the data streams.

Ruan Mei stood back, letting her have a moment.

"She is not her." She thought back to Herta's words, causing a fur of the eyebrows to mare across her face.

No... Indeed, but even now it was hard to not see her in Nihl, since after all, she was the reason she existed... And yet.

Failure, she heard it a few time. She had said it only once, talking about failure to have the wanted results but Nihl casually would throw out how much of a failure she was, making it part of her identity.

Yes and no, Ruan Mei failed to create what she wanted but she also did succeed in making a life, the face of someone she knew that would never be her but it was still someone in the long run... Someone she was meant to be responsible for.

It would be a long road but at least the first step was made: acceptance.

"I might have failed to give you emotions." She said softly. "The exact opposite of the critters who have too many... But there is so much about you that could have made you the perfect human." Nihl meeting her gaze with those empty eyes of hers as she stepped closer to the display.

A masterpiece she wouldn't say, but not a failure in the sense Nihl believed either.

"You've never asked yourself why such a wound." Brushing her fingers over the bandages. "Stopped bleeding so fast or why you won't require twitches?"

"I don't believe I have seen others injured or if they were, they were taken away, I did not find care in them."

"How logical and expected... I never would have wanted you hurt, you were meant to be a masterpiece." Realizing what she is saying doesn't sound so good but she had decided to not be  a liar so she didn't have others words to use there. "In some places yes it is a failure not completely Nihl."

"I'm a failure and not at the same time."

"I tried to make her but you are nothing like her. No memories, no habits, no emotions, nothing that showed I was in anyway close to succeeding except this face and body of yours." Sure Nihl heard of this mysterious she, she is not a stupid woman, she had been there to watch Ruan Mei blow a gasket that day when she realized she failed but all she knew it was someone she shared features with and that they must have been important. That's all and she didn't care to ask more. "But making your skin less susceptible to injury, your bones be stronger, your muscles tiring less, inhuman insurance, those reflexes, that quick thinking, that healing ability... Those were by design. Those were not mistakes nor failures, they came out perfectly how I wanted it."

Taking a deep breath.

"I admit, you are not what I wanted out of this. You are nothing like her... You're left handed, are cold, are a night owl... You are but a hollow shell, a sickening copy..." Sticking her pointer in the soft spot under Nihl's chin to tilt her head up more. "But that doesn't make you a failure. You might never be her and that would make me a fool to believe that you could be. You are yourself, your own person and that in itself, is magnificent."

Ruan Mei might say it but it would take much longer until she fully accepts that but it would be unjust to not try after the damage she has already done with her selfish actions.

"Failure was setting to high of expectations in a project I might have always felt was doomed to fail. I didn't make her, that's certain but I made YOU. So stop dragging it through the dirt by undermining that."

Dropping her hand and cupping them behind her back... Hmm, she needs to look up to look in her eyes... She never realized that... Maybe because she never took the time to do that.

Nihl knew Ruan Mei didn't truly believe some of her own words, she could tell she couldn't yet let go of this her but who was she to blame her creator for anything.

But lacking emotions, she had no idea how to convey what she wanted as even in her case it felt like words were the wrong medium, even so, she knew she needed to give an answer of sorts.

A finger twitching before she raised her hand, gently grabbing Ruan Mei's hand at the wrist and pulled it in front, pointer rubbing against the back of it.

Yeah... This seemed good to Nihl.

A little wordless thank you in a way a person that couldn't feel could think of showing it without words.