'You realize I can feel your discomfort with this topic, right? Just like I can feel how you actually enjoy our conversations?'
'Perhaps,' Nala said with what might have been a touch of humor, 'the system analysis should include an evaluation of inappropriate consciousness bleed.'
'Admit it - you're starting to like me.'
'I am tolerating you with divine patience.'
'While enjoying every minute of it.'
'This conversation is becoming dangerously close to insubordination.'
'You mean dangerously close to friendship?'
The word hung between them, both terrifying and somehow inevitable. In their shared consciousness, neither could fully hide from the truth - they were developing a genuine connection, despite everything that should have made that impossible.
'I do not form friendships with mortal consciousness fragments,' Nala stated, but even she could feel how unconvincing it sounded.
