Chapter Text
Working with Ena was a strange affair.
Froggy had worked with her for many years, and it had taken a long time to figure out her… different manner of speaking. Everything was mixed up but still made sense if you really thought about it. At this point he was the only one currently in the workforce that could fully decipher what Ena was saying half the time. Which could be a pain in the ass, but he was trying to teach the others his craft, so hopefully it wasn’t for long. Meanwhile, in return , Ena had been trying to learn Spit terminology by verbatim, a more universally understood dialect here in the Lamps. Her efforts were slow to bear fruit but the work attempts were evident. She would now stop talking when she noticed a confused expression and try to reword whatever she was trying to explain. Didn't seem like a lot at a glance, but the ENAS were a breed that used hyper expressive body language or none at all, so her picking up on more subtle body language now was a triumph.
Their communication skills had gotten so much better between them, and Froggy was so used to her idiosyncrasies that when he and Ena were talking after their work shift one day and she suddenly locked up, it wasn't unusual. She froze and switched sides all the time.
Only she didn't switch sides, she just froze, staring into space. She was quiet and still. So unlike Ena that Froggy paused as well.
He waited. It was a tried and true method when Ena did something new. He hasn't had to do it in a while…
Ten seconds pass. She doesn't move.
No. Wait. Her face was, but she was just staring at where the ceiling met the wall. Froggy double checked that nothing was there before watching her again. She seemed to be reacting to something. Her cheek would twitch, like she was wanting to talk… or she was talking… just not here. Her brows dropped and raised. Her mouth switched from side to side, as if her two halves were having their own thoughts…
Ten more seconds later Froggy spoke.
“Ena?”
She was normally quick to respond. She didn't even look at him.
“Ena!”
Her hands clenched and her brows dropped, but she didn't seem to hear him.
So he reached out and lightly tugged on her shirt sleeve.
“En-”
“Ah!” Ena’s meanie side snapped back to the current timeline, slapping Froggy's hand away on reflex. “Hands off the merchandise! Authorized personnel only!”
Fair enough.
“Yoh, Ena! You need to log vacation time if you're gonna fly off like that!” Froggy jokes, trying to use some of her vernacular in case she was still a bit out of it. “We need someone to cover your shift in this conversation.”
“Ahhhhhhh-” She glitched, speech stuttering. She flickered again, then straightened back up, her red half taking over again.“Oh! I apologize Froggy!” Ena said, batting one side of her head like she was trying to clean some water out of her ear. “I'm afraid I crossed signals in the stream and got a strange reception.”
“Strange reception?” Froggy echoed, tilting his head.
“Yes, it transported me to a new location… and I felt a great wave of self depreciation…” Ena muttered, eyes trailing back up to the spot on the ceiling before she physically used her hands to push her gaze back down. “I’m so sorry for rudely leaving the conversation.”
Froggy hummed, struggling to understand what she was trying to tell him before he chopped one hand into his other's palm. “Oh! This got something to do with your, ahhh, ohh, what's it called- OH! Hivemind!?”
Something Ena had told him a long time ago was that her kind worked on a hivemind system. The ƎNAS race was mentally connected, but they were each individuals with their own lives. They only communicated when they were in range, so another Ena had to be in a Lamp nearby. Hopefully not another troublemaking one that his coworker would be mistaken for… again.
“It seems that we have a new cog in the vicinity…” Ena frowned. ‘“It's odd though. She doesn't even have her teeth fully cut out yet, but she's… loose. Rattling around like a penny in a dryer! Why is there no tether?”
“Tether?” Froggy coked his head. He tried to think of another meaning to all the words she just said, or what they meant all put together. “ A cog with no teeth? Wait, do you mean… it's a new Ena?” He blinked. “Like brand new, right off the presses?”
“ She's still in her factory default setting alright.”
So pretty new then.
A new Ena came about very rarely. Froggy had no idea how the ƎNAS reproduced, especially since gender was just a word to them. They were an asexual lot, physical touch reproduction just wasn't how they bred, though asexual didn’t mean asexuality. They apparently could acquire the ‘tools’ to become intimate if they willingly wanted to. It's just not where baby ƎNAS came from, not that they were ever babies in their growth cycle.
Froggy groaned and scratched his head roughly. Thinking about this made his head hurt. Now he was curious where new ƎNAS came from, but asking Ena would just make more problems. He could see her questioning him in return. Why did he want to know? Did he want to copulate with her? Where did baby Frogs come from?!
Best to save them both the trouble.
Looking back up he could see Ena was still physically fighting herself to stay in the moment, rather than drift back to mentally connect with this new Ena. The fact that there was one in range, this far out on the edge of the Light was odd.
“Well, is she ok?” He asked instead.
Ena blinked at him. “Ahhhh….” They shuttered, then white took over. “HELL NO! She’s splitting apart at the seams!”
“Oh, that's bad.”
“H-horrible! Terrible! A-a-aw-w-” More twitching, she switches back to red. “Aw-awfully concerning!” She put her hands on her hips but her head started spinning on its own. “She’s not had her teeth cut for goodness sake, no wonder she’s such a wreck! It must be difficult when you don’t have a space of your own to fit in! ”
He was starting to understand what she was saying better. Apparently the ƎNAS saw themselves as cogs in the hivemind machine. A new one had to have their teeth cut… The teeth were the edges of the cog right, the parts that interlinked with the other parts of the machine. So cutting their teeth ment… honing them. To find a place and fit into the machine. Was that a forcible process or more of a nurturing, child rearing system? Letting their teeth cut on their own but supervised? Seemed like the latter.
“Alright, if the issue is that their teeth aren’t cut, why don’t you go do that?” Froggy suggested, scratching his chin.
Ena did a double take at him before meanie Ena shouted at him. “Do I look like a dentist to you!?”
“Dentist?”
Oh, who better to cut teeth, he supposed.
“I ain’t dentist material!” Ena snapped, starting to pace. “I-I can’t! Not after… Not when I…” She flickered, turning to look like a pale corpse, then a dark green, armless, soulless entity, before clipping back to normal. “No… I can’t… corrupt her worse than she already is.”
That was… new… and horrifying.
It was times like this that he had to remember that Ena was old. Older than him. Older than most of the Lamp dwellers alive. She was an elder… Eldritch? She had likely lived ten more lives than he had.
And some of them were hell apparently.
“So there are no… dentists you can talk to?” Froggy suggested next wearily.
Ena’s head stopped to turn and look at him, but her body kept pacing, even if her head didn’t follow. “I am unsure.” Red admitted, looking sheepish. “I have avoided my-” She flickered, voice changing to sound like an old Ai voice script reader. “ ~ ђ ๏ ๓ є Շ ๏ ฬภ~” Then it went back to normal. “-for a good number of cycles. I rarely connect fully with another stream, it's for the best, but I feel their presence still, shifted like flour through a sieve…” She narrowed her eyes. “They sometimes reach out to ME from the hive for voting, but I abstain.”
“WHAT!? But voting is a privilege!” Froggy snapped, stomping his foot. “It's your duty as a citizen!”
“I no longer self-identify as a citizen.”
Ena left it at that.
“Why would they order a new cog with no dentist in sight?! She has no goals! No job! Not even a resume!!” White snapped, little megaphone flying. “She’s off, galavanting like an astronaut, stuck in the orbit of a junk planet! She can’t get away! She doesn't know any better!” She groans. “She doesn't know how to find good veggies!”
“HUH?!”
“All she’s intaking is junk! I told her she needs veggies! She-” Ena seemed to stop, taking in Froggy’s confused expression before humming. “Ahhh.” Red took over. “Veggies… are things that are good FOR you. Even if they don’t always taste good.”
“Yes, yes.” Froggy nodded along.
“J-junk is not good for you, but it tastes good!”
“I know…” Froggy just frowned when Ena looked frustrated. She was trying to explain it to him…. Hmmm. “Do you… always find YOUR veggies?”
“Of course! I’m blessed to do so everyday!” Ena nodded quickly. “It's not every lifetime you get good veggies! I will keep you all close!”
You all-
“Wait, am I a veggie?” Froggy asked, putting a hand to his chest.
“Naturally!”
Ok… So Veggies were people? No. There was junk too… Veggies were good people. So if this new Ena was intaking only junk, then she was with not so good people….
Wait, did Ena just give him a compliment?!
“This space junk doesn't even say our name right!” Ena’s white half scowled. “They let Ena go through any door, into any lamp! No safety precautions at all! Not OSHA certified!” Red took over again. “This Ena’s mind is scattered by intoxication. Semi-corrupted by peer pressure! She can’t regulate her temperatures alone… She needs a dentist!”
“To help her cut her teeth.” Froggy nodded with her.
Red stopped to look at him again, with a smile. “That's what I like about you! You can read!”
Froggy couldn’t help but smile back.
After a second Ena clicked and sighed, rolling her shoulders as she usually did idly. “She's just on the edge of my perimeter. She and her JUNK are surely at the Wish ceremony of the Great Runas.”
“That time of decade already?” Froggy asked, checking his wrist watch. He shook it a little to see if it was still working. “Good grief.”
“Time is stagnant to me.” Meanie muttered under her breath before Red quickly took back over. “At any rate, I should try and contact the hive. See if someone can come check on her. I don’t think she even knew what the hive connection was. She thought she was hearing voices. Very concerning.” She grunted.
“Well keep an eye on her while she’s in range I guess.” Froggy muttered. “Just don’t slack on your work!”
“Agreed!” Red said quickly. “Work comes first! The little cog second!”
Well he didn’t say that, but oh well. He watched as Ena walked off to make the call to her … hive? ђ ๏ ๓ є Շ ๏ ฬภ? Whatever.
For some reason he knew this wouldn’t be the end of it though.