Sarina spends the next day trailing along after Donatello, making good work of her newly discovered "confusion", constantly asking questions about what's going on around her, and while he finds it exhausting, he welcomes the distraction from his everyday boredom. She asks about the Space Heroes pinball machine and the hockey table, to which it's swiftly explained that they're games and that they're made for having fun. She spends three hours playing pinball, breaking the high score and confirming that the next time Casey shows up in the lair, he won't be happy.
She also asks about the behaviours of her fellow teenagers, like the noises that Michelangelo makes when he drinks soda too fast—a burp, she learns—and why Raphael keeps punching that strange sack that looks like a person, but not. She learns about the use of a punching bag, but bruises her knuckles when she tries to hit it and serves to make Raphael's day all the more amusing. While Donatello checks for breaks, she engages him in conversation about what he's discovered about the Kraang and, when she finds his grey areas, she fills in the gaps.
She tries to speak with Destiny, Leonardo, and Master Splinter when she sees them, but they always seem far too busy and she decides against disturbing them. Instead, she observes Splinter's meditation in secret until Donatello requests that she stop, at which point she diverts her attention to watching Leonardo work on a notebook titled "Shredder Takedown". He eventually asks her to give him some space so that he can focus, so she obliges and switches to watching Destiny read. She's quick to realize that Destiny's favourites include Shakespeare. The wolf mutant eventually offers her a book of her own and Sarina spends hours reading about Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, and anything else that Destiny has in her collection.
The most shocking thing for everyone in the lair is that for someone who's obviously so intelligent in matters of the extraordinary, Sarina knows very little of the ordinary.
Once the turtles and Destiny return from their nighttime patrol with little news and a black cloud dangling over all of their heads, Splinter decides that it's about time that they have a movie night. It isn't long before the mutants are huddled around the TV, swathed in blankets with their faces stuffed with pizza and chips, the entirety of the lair dark save for the TV light and the lights coming off Sarina's body.
Sarina doesn't eat and she doesn't take a blanket. She sits next to Donatello and lets her attention dart from the colourful characters on screen to the food to the others around her to the darkened surroundings and back to the TV. She stops her wandering eyes on one of the boxes of pizza by Michelangelo, her lips pursed.
"May I try some of that sustenance?" she asks, pointing at the pizza.
"Sure, here!" Michelangelo says, scooping up a slice and tossing it to her. "Pepperoni; nice and simple."
Sarina gazes at the food, her eyes flashing. "Strange: a circular food, cut into triangles, and placed in a square box. It shouldn't work, and yet..." She brings it to her mouth and takes a tiny bite, chewing slowly as the flavours mingle on her palate. Her eyes widen. "Yet, it works! Oh my, does it ever work!" She tears off another ravenous chunk and gulps it down, taking another and another without regard for the possibility of scalding her tongue.
"Pizza is, in my humble opinion, one of the best foods to ever exist," Leonardo admits with a laugh as he nibbles at his own slice.
"Here here!" Destiny crows, toasting his words with a potato chip.
Sarina finishes her piece, crust and all, then leans back and nods once. Donatello glances sideways at her just as her mouth twitches slightly at the right corner. A ghost of a smile passes his lips before he continues watching the movie.
"Raphael, please pass the three-cheese pizza," Splinter requests.
Raphael lifts the box and hands it to his Sensei with a brief look over his shoulder. Splinter removes a slice with his chopsticks and hands the box back. He starts to eat. Sarina observes this with an arched eyebrow.
YOU ARE READING
Emotionless Mutation (Book Three)
Fanfiction"However, you say I am human in a sense, that my body is simply fused with the robot that I have been raised to believe I am. Could you teach me...emotion?" The Kraang tried to take over the city of New York twice, and only once did they succeed. Th...
