"Do you all have books?" she asked.
"Define?"
"Books, collections of paper with words printed on them. Bound into a hard collection. To read for entertainment or education?"
"Like stories and legends and tales?" he asked.
She nodded. "Exactly. The written words, where the stories have been collected and published for people to read at their leisure."
"We have stories. Do you like stories?" he asked.
"I was thinking more about Gianna. That's what she did back on Earth. She wrote stories for people to enjoy. Entertainment. I was wondering if there was a way she could do that here."
The path they were headed down came to a fork.
Tina just headed to the right, which seemed to lead more into the trees. It was a path less traveled, because more of the grasses were taller and the path was narrower. It was more isolated.
And she like that.
"There are ways to write stories," Kolvin said. "I do not know much about it, but I know that it is possible. Master System would have more knowledge about these things."
"Master System. You still have not connected to that? Is there something you need to do? Turn something on or off?"
"A hard reboot would not be advised."
"Why not?"
"That would involve me dying."
Tina choked. "Well, we don't want that."
As they weaved in and out of the trees, they talked. It was small talk. It was comfortable. She liked Kolvin's logical side, he made sense in his way about things.
They came around some trees. One was fallen over, between two that looked very much like something she would have wanted to use as her personal chair when she was a kid.
"This would make a great bench," she said as she ran her hand over the wood. "Too bad we don't have something to carve it with."
Kolvin held out his arm. From his hand appeared this kind of gun looking thing.
"Kolvin?"
She took a step back as he approached the downed tree trunk.
"This would work," he said, and brought it over to the wood. He pressed a few controls, and this red laser came out, one end straight across, and another one curved along the bottom. It made Tina think of a crazily modified lightsaber type of doodad.
The lasers started to hum.
"What are you going to do?"
"This," he said and started running the laser over the wood. Pieces of wood flew into the air as he carved the wood, though really, it didn't look like any kind of carving she'd ever seen. It was like he was burning it, but not.
He ran the device up and down in different directions. With a surprisingly artistic eye, he sculpted the wood into a seat, smoothing off the top so that the wood wouldn't give splinters.
"That is amazing," Tina said as she watched. "That would have taken weeks. Maybe months to do."
"Have a seat," he said.
They both sat down on the bench, and for her, at least, it was the perfect height. For him? It was probably a bit low. But it was wide enough for them both to sit together, and it felt almost perfect. She reached over and patted his leg. Today he wore more of those space pants that were loose on him and didn't show off much.
