Love's a gimmick

[Elias Tate]

/bewildered

If not a human and not the golem's possible soul growing source and not a prince, then WHO are we talking about?

...is it not a person?

[Paxton Ames]

Perhaps my response was too cryptic.

It is you.

[Elias Tate]

Me?

...

It could have something to do with the process of placing your souls into the golem body...?
Maybe in creating a single person from two souls, we threw off the balance.

[Paxton Ames]

Perhaps. You are the expert, after all.

I can only tell you how I feel.

[Elias Tate]

How is that again?
Incomplete? Unsettled?

Because of me?

[Paxton Ames]

No, it is the opposite

When I do not see you
I feel incomplete

[Elias Tate]

Oh.
Why does that make me a little sad to hear?

Sigh.
We must have messed something up somehow.
I'm sorry.

[Paxton Ames]

Perhaps creating a defective golem makes you unhappy.

Although I would venture to say that the fault is with Keith, since he was so quick to take responsibility for my creation. But I would prefer not to be deactivated by him.

I will let you deactivate me. The King will understand that I need to be fixed.

[Elias Tate]

No. I don't think so. I don't see you as defective.

Is it unbearable enough to warrant deactivation?

[Paxton Ames]

You do not see me as being defective? But this is not normal, surely.

It is not
Pleasant

[Elias Tate]

Perfection was never my goal.
That was Keith.

I think his goal in creating you was to see what happened when the two halves of a soul mate were no longer separated by a body. I admit I thought it was an interesting question to explore. But maybe there's a reason soul mates aren't bound together in a single body...


I'll do what I can then, whether it means deactivation or something else.

[Paxton Ames]

Thank you. I know I am in very capable hands.

Whatever this feeling is, I hope it will not interfere with my mission here. Do you think there is a chance that it will?

[Elias Tate]

No, I don't think so.

It's a sense of loneliness? Emptiness?
I feel that way all the time and I'm still capable of work. :)

Anyway, if it's connected to me, maybe it'll lessen when I'm there.

[Paxton Ames]

You feel it too? But you are not a golem...

You cannot stay with me all the time. When you leave, the feeling will return.

[Elias Tate]

My dear... golems aren't naturally supposed to feel anything, even loneliness and emptiness. What you're feeling is coming from the soul part of you. The part of you that used to be like me.

As for your problem.

Well...
That's not technically true.
There are ways to ensure it doesn't. Deactivation is the last resort. But there are other ways. Keith showed me how to chip a soul. If I chipped mine and gave you a part of it, maybe that would fix it.

But...
I'm still trying to parse out why that's the issue at all. Because all of this would mean...
But it can't mean that
I'm not sure, I still need to check some things.