So what, exactly, do you do when you are lost? Try to get your bearings, of course! I am an Explorer - getting lost is my stock and trade. When I was Made I was taught that - on my father's knee, in a way. But in the intervening time between then and now, I'd learned a thing or two and that there should be another step to that process. Being lost isn't so terrible - I've spent most of my life that way. No, being homeless is worse. Being without a centerpoint is terrible.

Step one for me was to make where I currently was my home. Breastmilk, my best friend on this world, made that so much easier. She didn't talk much to me, just saw me squirming to sit up some irrelevant amount of time after she'd bathed me. Kindly, warm hands braced my bare back and concerned eyes watched me carefully. I could only move a bit before purple spots danced in my vision as my Maintenance Program told me, on the level of instinct and intuition, that I had come perilously close to losing this instance of me and dying, that I was in recovery mode.

Oh. Right. Well ok, fair enough.

I didn't say that of course - I just leaned against my Bestie and wheezed until the warning went away on its own, its purpose served. Maintenance seemed to get the picture - and provided me with options. I needed to replenish, desperately - and part of me knew that meant I needed to eat, to drink. Maintenance could make the enzymes and proteins I needed if I provided it the right stuff.

The rumble of my belly needed no translation at all.

Breastmilk showed her teeth and her eyes wrinkled at the corners in a smile, and in that moment I guess I could see why others of her people thought she was a knockout. Her six eyes were like shining, golden-brown jewels on a crown, symmetrical, positioned radially on the upper half of her pale, smooth face above her mouth, which split from the center in four directions. Part of me saw the needle teeth in that maw and thought 'danger', but I was experienced... and knew that those weren't for slicing, for cutting or piercing, but for holding. Her tongue would be the real star in a mouth like that, and it was a bluish purple as it shaped noises for her, made her voice come clear, phalanges and little subclusters of wriggling cilia each doing their part to give her soft soprano voice its shape.

"That is the sound of a hungry Ears, I think!" she said, and her voice was a cheerful chirping thing that reminded me of bird song in the best way. Social nudged me a bit - told me that she felt responsible for my well being. My Interpreter also chimed in, and told me that she liked me, with 80% certainty. I could only smile weakly at her, and nod while affirming that yes, I was hungry.

Nodding, Breastmilk just scooped me up and cradled me against her torso with one of her three arms with a soft trill of "Come along then, Ears. It is time to eat~!" and what was I going to do, resist?

Oh no, she's giving me what I desperately wanted!

Some things are universal, like I said before. People need a place where food that isn't going to struggle can be set before it is consumed, and social creatures like to eat with others. Enter, the humble Table! Chairs aren't universal, in design or need, but I knew a dinner table when I saw one.

She didn't have chairs - and so she simply set me on the floor as she moved to get things for, presumably, us to eat. Her movements were hesitant though - like she was loath to leave me there like that. Again Interpreter chimed in - she wasn't sure I'd be ok like this, bare like that on her floor.

To put my bestie at ease, I sat up and crossed my legs, elbows supported on my knees, ears slicked back and easy. "I will be alright here" I added, and she gave me another Morton smile before bustling into her kitchen. I just tried to blink away the purple spots and let Maintenance chastise me.

Maybe the Mortons were primitive, but they had home living down to an art. Breastmilk was someone of standing, Social informed me - someone important to her tribe. She had a lot of things in her kitchen, a lot of plants growing into the walls and many little sacks of things she reached into or squeezed gently. I was in no position at all to do more than wiggle my nose at the scents that mounted from the Morton's kitchen as she put together a meal for us. A bit of sharp-scented 'Water' was drawn from a sack into what looked like the shell of a creature, and a pinch of something was pulled from another bag to be carefully sprinkled in.

I watched in wonder as the chemical reaction took place with all the casual ease of someone turning on a stove, and the silty sulfuric acid boiled. How, I had no idea. The smell was enough to make my Analyzer go into fits though - toxic! Toxic!

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Sometimes, I liked to think of the Programs in my head as little versions of myself, busily going about their purposes inside my head and body as if it were a tiny starship. This declaration by the little labcoat wearing Analyzer made the others go into a brief panic! Imagine, if you will, a bunch of tiny rabbits in labcoats, in overalls, or in dresses running around in a panic!

Adaptation, which I imagined as one of the little rabbits in overalls, roused from its rest, and briefly got into a fistfight with Maintenance, another overalls rabbit, because it needed all -- ALL -- available resources to keep repairing me! Analyzer piled in, meek as it was, and sternly informed Maintenance that if I didn't Adapt to this, I would be in a lot worse shape. Priorities sorted, Adaptation rallied the troops, so to speak. Tiny rabbits with little worker hats... moving... to...

At some point I'd fallen over and Breastmilk had moved to my side. Her eyes were huge and round on her brow, and my ears could only barely hear the panicked cry of "Ears!!!" as Social, one of the ones in a dress, in its unrelenting way, in tandem with Interpreter, another labcoat wearer, quite unconcerned, told me she was scared, and that my safety and well being were her concern. Adaptation was hard at work, but Maintenance was definitely unhappy - my vision was dark, and external processes had been shut off, and hard. Balance? I clearly didn't need that. Hearing? Minimum capacity. Vision? Minimum. Analysis must have been pushed into a closet or something by the burly Maintenance, because it wasn't doing business at the moment, while Social and Interpreter had clearly put a chair under the door of my consciousness because they were loud and clear as things happened inside me.

"m... fine... just... need... a moment" I managed, voice weak as filters came into place, and my nose, my throat, and my eyes stung in the vapors from the boiling pot of acid in Breastmilk's kitchen. The smell was going from unbearable... to awful... to bad by stages, but, Status, an official looking little bun in a labcoat, informed me I was crashing again. Maintenance was pleading that I needed to shut down, at least for a little while, and with that... I began to fade again.

Fear, Interpreter told me as Breastmilk trembled and my bestie's eyes looked round as balls in her head. Not of you, for you, said Social, agreeing. Maintenance was battering down the door of my consciousness with cries of 'shut it down! Now! Shut it down!', but for now, the two locked in there were still doing their jobs dutifully, despite the impending dark. I couldn't bear the thought, but... what could I do but give a hint?

"Smells bad.. getting... used to it" I managed, and Breastmilk looked sharply at the stove. Even half-conscious as I was, I could see she was sharp - she got it. She got up again, and set up a kind of curtain. She came back, and scooped me up against her. She was warm... and her pale skin was very sweet against my streaming face as she carried me somewhere, and laid me in softness.

I woke later. Time had passed, and I had no idea how much, but there was still a... a pleasant odor in the air from Breastmilk's cooking, and there were voices.

"So Ears will survive?" said a tenor, male voice in the burbling trill of Morton speech.

"I do not know. I think so, but she -" came Breastmilk's soft soprano.

"She?" said another male voice, this one deeper and grumbly sounding, like a purring combustion engine.

"Yes leader, she, I am certain - she is balanced for now."

The deeper voice, Leader I guessed, made an affirmative noise. "We have not seen another like Ears before, Sunwatcher?"

The tenor voice, Sunwatcher, who sounded familiar to me now that I was waking up, made another affirmative noise. "No, no others. Not ever. Storyteller does not know either, or Hunter. Ears is the Only that we have seen." and Interpreter thought he sounded stressed. Why? How? Social would need more to go on.

Leader was not stressed or concerned, that was clear. Breastmilk was, and in the same way as Sunwatcher - concern for me?

"She can speak?" Leader asked, and Breastmilk must have nodded because he continued

"That is good. She can talk to Storyteller, and I would like to talk to Ears as well. Keep the children away, Breastmilk, we do not know Ears well, I do not want them to see her yet." he said, and that seemed to be that. Strange sounds followed, and Interpreter told me they were eating.

An unhappy noise escaped my throat despite my best efforts, brought from Maintenance with feeling, and there was a pause in the meal as Breastmilk's heavy footfalls made their way into the bower she'd placed me into. The curtain into the room was drawn aside, and warm brown light flooded the space, revealing it to be full of simple pillows made from stuffed... things, each vaguely oblong and soft. This must be what a Morton bed was like, and I had to say I approved wholeheartedly. The golden glow of my bestie's eyes lit on me with a complicated expression that Interpreter called concern and amusement.

"Hungry?" She asked ironically, and I smiled meekly, acutely embarrassed. I felt my throat burble and it hurt a little after the vapors earlier as I tried, and failed once to speak. I felt a fair bit worse than I had when I first woke up for the bath, but hunger outweighed that by quite a bit.

"Yes please" I tried again and this time managed to say. Breastmilk again scooped me up against her torso, showing such care and gentleness as she did so that it warmed me inside. I didn't need my Social Program to tell me she cared, but in the way of Social it did anyhow as she carried me into the light, and the presence of the two male Mortons.