This was inspired by MissMune's recent piece 'The Scientist'. Check it out, it's a lot better than this. XD

As for the viewpoint character, who she is is not as important as what she sees. Most names are left out as an attempt at some kind of... 'effect'. Tell me if it works.

It was cold that day, cold and misty. The grass was wet and slippery under her feet and as she stamped along she allowed herself a grumble of irritation, a display she usually frowned upon.

The sky was overcast and dim, feeding her suppressed aggression. What a miserable planet. She couldn't wait to get back to her master so she could listen to one of his immensely cathartic speeches on the filthiness and worthlessness of this spinning ball of mud; this was a custom she would have enjoyed partaking in herself, but such displays of emotion were inappropriate. Really, they were rather inappropriate for the Irken as well but he was organic and could be forgiven the flaws that came with being so- especially if they were flaws she privately enjoyed.

He would probably have some thoughts on this Earth custom of burying the dead as well, she considered as she skirted a headstone. Sticking rotting corpses underground was dirty and filthy and promoted disease, and she knew he'd see it the same way. Where she came from, the dead were cleanly incinerated with lasers. The humans here had no lasers (another of their myriad faults; a society without lasers could not be anything other than flawed and dysfunctional and the Irken agreed with her on that point too) but they had fire and cremation, which was much better than this mess. This way needlessly took up space, too. Ugh.

She searched the surrounding space for her master. They had become seperated a few minutes ago when one of their other companions, a disguised robot like herself (but much less disciplined!) had broken away from the group, dragging the Irken on the end of his leash. Oh, if she was only equipped with the authority to give him a tongue-lashing. She could cheerfully spend weeks on it. Luckily the Irken would do that for her too.

Then she sighted him standing before a tombstone, the small figure faint and blurry through the fog. The disorderly robot that had caused the separation was sitting beside him, looking quite docile. Hmph. Imbecile.

No matter, they were together now. She strode over to him, walking carefully so the smooth metal bottoms of her feet wouldn't slip on the wet grass, which would be humiliating. (She was still a step up from her prototype, however, who moved on treads and would probably spin out of control under these conditions.) As she approached, she heard him speaking, and cocked her head, pursing her lips. He didn't appear to be addressing her, or the other robot... ah, he wasn't. He was addressing himself, one of the more irritating quirks of organic species.

She walked up and stood beside the disguised Irken, giving the robot already beside him a piercing glare. He didn't notice. Ugh. Imbecile. She glanced back at her master, leaning forward slightly to see his face under the hood of the raincoat he was wearing.

His eyes were half-lidded and fixed on the inscription on the tombstone they were standing in front of. His lips moved as he said softly and tonelessly-

"Jiksa-Putchel. Jick-SAH Putchel. Jigsa. Jiksha."

She blinked slowly. This seemed more than a trifle unusual. Had the defunct robot caused her master to sustain some sort of head injury? It wouldn't be the first time.

"Sir, may I ask what you are doing?" she asked rather sharply.

He held up a small, gloved palm. "Shh! Don't disturb me when I'm thinking!" he hissed, and returned to his mutterings- "Jiksa. Jiksha. Jik-sah."

Thinking, was he. Indeed. Well, it wasn't the first time he'd found something singularily odd to think about. He might have been forming a mental tirade on the burying-bodies thing, like she herself had moments before. As for the mantra he was uttering-

Then she looked down at the writing on the stone.

Dr. Elizabeth Irene Jiksa-Putchel.

Oh.

1956-1992. Succeeded by her husband Prof. Methuselah Putchel and their children, Dilbert and Gazlene Putchel.

Hm. That would be it then. The Irken was most likely trying to decipher the meaning of the name. Probably a fruitless exercise, she'd found that most of the names on this planet had obscure meanings lost to time. Give her a good, solid, obvious name like 'Nova' any day.

Still, he kept speaking beside her, musingly repeating the name under his breath. "Jik-sah. Jik-saw. Putchel. Put-sell. Putsellll." His voice dropped an octave, then returned to its usual rather high pitch. "Jik-sah Putsel- Jik-sah Putzel. Jigk-sahw Put-zel." His voice rose and became suddenly confident. "JIG-saw PUZZ-el!"

She started. He snorted laughter and her eyebrows raised. Sweet mother of Venus- to use the rather absurd colloquialism. He was absolutely correct, it did sound like 'jigsaw puzzle'. She never would have noticed that herself. Well, of course not, she wouldn't have bothered looking at this idiot rock in the first place. Actually, she wouldn't have even come in here after the runaway robot, she'd have dropped his leash and chalked it up as a negligible loss and she didn't know why the Irken hadn't done that a long time ago.

"Dib Puzzle!" the Irken crowed, raising his hands to the heavens and dropping the other robot's leash. (She found herself battling a sneaking wish he would run away and leave the Irken all to herself. Unfortunately, the Irken would be upset at the loss and that would be counterproductive so she couldn't wish that. Wishing was stupid anyway.) "HA! Which piece am I, Dib? Which piece is she? Good luck figuring it out, Dib." He chuckled enthusiastically, picking the leash back up. (Well, that settled that.) "Puzzle. Puzzle!" He turned and marching away, dragging her misbehaving fellow robot after him and still chuckling under his breath. She remained by the grave a moment longer, taking a picture of the headstone with her internal memory drive. Apparently it held her master's interest. What could she say? Organics.

She left the stone then and fell into step beside the Irken. 'Jigsaw puzzle'. Indeed.

I find it amusing that Gaz's full name sounds like 'gasoline'

So, yeah. The viewpoint character was an OC, which I really should have stated in the opening, but who wants to read about OCs? -is sneaky and irritating-

Reviews are welcome, even if they're just to chew me out for the OC thing.