Artificial Life

Sentience

In a manor, located about 373 miles away from the Lower Slum District's Auction House and well into the Grand High Class soil, a raven haired man paced about within his spacious living room.

'I probably should have called Angel...' He mused, stroking his chin with a pensive look set upon his face. 'He must be looking for me.'

However, his thoughts were soon cut short when a clump pertaining of sapphire and golden feathers fell in a heap right by his feet. With his lips twitching upwards at the corner's, the blue-eyed raven nudged the clump with his shoe.

"Are you serious, Marie? Climbing the rafters again, now were we?" He teased, releasing a few controlled huffs of air that could probably count as chuckles when the SongBird rose indignantly to her feet.

"I was not climbing the rafters!" She scoffed, smoothing out her wings' primary sapphire feathers and secondary gold ones until they all went back to their normal positions, as if their bearer had never taken a fall and gotten them mused up in the process in the first place.

"Then, pray tell, what were you doing?"

"I was... Err, I was.." Marie stumbled, nervously twitching her long, plumed snake like tail slightly at the tip. She tried to come up with a valuable excuse, yet she came up blank every time she attempted to formulate one. "Ugh! Just shut up, Ethan!" Cried the Bird, a faint, embarrassed blush staining her cheeks, making her blue eye- markings stand out more.

The Owner, now identified as Ethan, smirked in a cocky fashion, albeit soft around the edges with a sort of fondness lurking there. "Sorry, princess," he quipped, not looking at all sorry, though.

Soon, however, his playful smirk turned into a serious exoression. "Now, Marie," he started, earning the attention of the platinum haired girl. She instantly straightened, knowing that what Ethan was about to say had to be of utmost importance if he had called her by her name in that tone. "You have to remember. When we are alone, you can call me by my first name, but as soon as we go through those doors," he motioned towards the living room's threshold, where the front entrance lay a few ways away, "you must not forget to call me Owner or Owner Smithson. Understood?"

His SongBird nodded in comprehension.

Usually, when SongBirds called their Owners by their first names when in public, it was considered a sign of utmost disrespect. This was also looked down upon severely to the point where one could lose a job or status should their Bird do such a thing. Unless the pair were to be Bonded, then the titles should always be used, lest the SongBird be 'confiscated' from its Owner and taken to be 're-educated.'

"Now that that's out of the way," Ethan sighed, pulling slightly on his suit cuffs to remove any wrinkles from them, "Go and get dressed in your traveling clothe. We're going to the Slums."

Marie winced, already dreading the semipermanent moist air that hung around the Lower Districts due to the ever present rain clouds that covered the twin suns; Poltrix, the medium sized white star that pulsed somewhat weakly with pale solar flares, and Acirexm, the younger, same sized red star, who, in addition, made up the main source of solar light for New Earth.

"Do I have to go?" She objected. "My hair will get all fluffy and ugly afterwards, and we have that gala party tonight!"

"Oh shush, Marie," Smithson replied, rolling his eyes although inside he was mentally chuckling. "Get going now," he scolded when he noticed the platinum girl was still standing there, making shooing notions with his hands.