Pygmalion

[suneater]

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyy." It drew out that one, after a few staccato aay aays. It remained there on the mattress, still bouncing a bit, watching as Nero moved across the warehouse. It watched, head tilting slightly to one side, as he fumbled with the container. It watched him put the thing into his mouth. It watched his jaw work, watched it swallow. The shape of the thing had changed, it noticed, when Nero moved it close.

It was close enough that the scent of the meat and cheese flooded his nostrils. It's eyes widened reflexively, and it suddenly inhaled sharply through its nose. The bouncing became agitated, and it began to croon, "OooooooooooOooooooooOooooooooo Ooo Ooo!". It breathed in again.

Scent was the sense most connected to memory. It knew this thing was good. It smelled good. It didn't quite understand the working lunches or childhood lunch boxes that the scent conjured, but it understood that it liked this thing. It liked it a lot. Its mouth was wet now, very wet.

It tentatively reached for the thing, and when Nero allowed him, it snatched it away from him and brought it in for closer inspection. He inspected it from every angle. He sniffed it several times. Finally, it slowly moved it toward its mouth. At first it only put it in, not sure what else to do. Even that was interesting. There were new textures there, and its first foray into taste. It closed its mouth, like it had seen Nero do, but it didn't quite understand the role of its teeth in tearing the thing into more manageable pieces. It pulled it out and found the shape unchanged. "Ooh!" it declared urgently, looking to Nero. "Ooh!"

Its frenetic bouncing had calmed while it contended with the sandwich, but now an echo of it returned in the form of it shaking the sandwich. Pieces of meat and cheese slid free and fell to the ground, and it froze completely, staring down at the mess it had made. It quickly looked at what remained of the sandwich and, using the fingers of one hand, pried it apart, staring in wonder at the deconstruction it had wrought.

[Trillian]

Nero sat and watched, not condemning the mess, barely even looking at it. He said nothing, wanted to interfere with nothing through this process. How fascinating that Leon would investigate the food before eating it - closer to an adult's appreciate of new discoveries than a babe's, for babies liberally shoved everything their hands fell upon into their mouths. And within the mouth was the greatest appreciation of touch and texture. Bully for nature.

But Leon was not a thing of nature, he was a product of science - of forced connections and harnessing of life's energy. But he lived! Look at him now, breathing and moving and making sounds and figuring out a way to eat. There was another sandwich in the container. Nero picked it up and slowly began the process of eating it - not really hungry for he was too excited to be hungry... but to provide a more established example.