Space, you might imagine, is big.
Oh, Paradox Space is bigger in concept, a universe can’t conceptually compare to something containing universes, but the whole bit about the chaotic flow of time makes it feel crowded. You sail through it in your spaceship, one not constructed around the concept of paradox, dodging distortions, seeing new scenery every few minutes – refuse, horrorterrors, glimpses of what may be other realities.
Then you finally come to the Eighth Skaian Gate, at the final edges of Skaia’s realm – your Skaia’s realm, the realization is sinking in more profoundly than before – even before it had begun to dim.
There aren’t any shadows at this point, in time, in space. Just the gate. The only one large enough to get everyone and everything you hoped to save back to Earth.
Or something like that.
No, real space is filled with stars… but they don’t move. For weeks the instruments say your ship is moving, the numbers change with just the right lack of imagination, math scrawled on paper littering the decks and the patterns of the stars tell you that the dot in the distance must be Earth, or something adjacent to it.
And, part cat or not – everyone aboard this ship have had their motivations reduced to not being bored out of their respective skulls.
~
Roxy sat on the bridge of the ship, leaning against the forward window. Trying not to stare at the expanse. Helplessly staring at the expanse. She raised her chin from her knees to scratch at it through blue fabric. She ached from inactivity. The flat metal she rested on gouged at her rear. She should move. She had some idea of how long she had been sitting here, but desperately tried to block it out. She did wonder how long it had been since her stomach had growled. Again. And wondered if she could die of hunger.
She wondered if she could grow hair over whatever places in her body and go around “technically naked” like some cartoon character.
She sat.
She had ran out of queries for the databases – the ones stuck in her head – days ago. Probably. About what Earth would be like. Nothing in the records understood the question. About what god-tier powers might and might not work after their session collapsed. They didn’t know. How to ensure her teleportation worked – and the data that came up was just wrong. There was nothing about the Green Sun in it. There was nothing about the Green Sun, period. She was left wondering if any of the data crammed in her brain was actually useful outside the game – or if being outside the game had polluted the information.
She wondered if she should pop back to the Green Sun, check on those in stasis. A thought that was immediately followed with fear. Even if this ship felt slow, it was moving a decent fraction of the speed of light – she couldn’t. If she popped back into reality outside the ship…
No. They had planned this out, weeks ago, before the attack on Prospit. She could test her teleportation once they were back on Earth – on a known place. Until then, they had that hole – that weird cooking pan thing, that linked you with the Green sun wherever you were. Which, thankfully, still DID work, and theoretically meant Roxy could carry people to and from the game’s session in a 4-step trip, if an emergency arose.
Not that the database had any reassuring references to what had become of the session after Skaia cooled. Though “Black hole” seemed to be the most likely option.
“Rocshe!”
A shout from behind finally startled Roxy out of her ruminations.
“It… it cake!” Meenah, who seemed to be taking to English with a decent speed, held up a filled desert dish as she swam toward the front of the ship. The troll – the young troll – hadn’t quite distinguished a god-tier’s flight from a seadweller’s swimming. It probably didn’t matter too much – she was hard enough to catch regardless.
“aw, thanks fins!” Roxy took the plate and fork offered and slid off the console, just to make sure falling crumbs didn’t gum up anything important.
“I is Meenah!” the troll giggled.
“yu so is meenah” She sliced of a bit of the wedge of cake and chewed for a moment. While it was pretty sweet – as was Jane’s wont – it at least it didn’t feel weird going down, “did yu bake this cake?”
“Yep!” The little troll noticed her beige cloak wasn’t quite straight, and tried to fix it. She didn’t realize that this could have just a mental command, but nobody was anxious to teach her anything about mental commands.
“all by yeasself?”
Meenah paused, “Jahnie )(elped. The first is…” she mumbled a bit, “Not wet? What is?”
“dry.”
“The first is dry.”
“ah, too bad den. this one is p good though,” Roxy grabbed the rest of the slice and theatrically chomped it down to Meenah’s giggles.
“We to Rocshe home yet?” Meenah swam up to the front window, looking various directions.
“nope, we still got a log way to go. see?” Roxy guided Meenah’s gaze to a hazy yellowish dot, “that ones called jupiter. once we get close – when its gets rlly big in the window – it shuld be just three more days. or nights. until home.”
As Meenah pressed her nose up to the glass, the thought crossed Roxy’s mind that they would going a lot faster if they weren’t being cruising with the engines off, being cautious of another Battleship Condescension patrolling somewhere out there, hoping to be detected as some interstellar rock if it was.
“Oh Kay. Then….” Meenah smeared the face-print on the glass, trying to clean it, before turning back, “Meenah is… dry. Can Rocshe give Meenah water?”
“ah yes. lets go see what we can do about that,” Roxy offered her hand, which Meenah used to – In a move no landlubber would have thought of – flip up onto the other girls’ shoulders, in something like riding piggyback.
~
It had also been discussed, before the Prospit attack, of where the infantilized Condesce would not be allowed to go on the ship – namely, her old chambers, with it large pool, and her old exercise room. This actually had not turned out to be a problem – either rooms’ security measures were enough that neither the Kids nor Meenah could get in – at least not without Roxy’s teleportation, when she was confident to use it again.
Nor was Mr. Crocker – Jane’s Dad – able to enter, but was uninterested, sequestering himself these days. Which was sort of understandable, as Roxy wove through halls filled with carapaces at different levels of wakefulness. A single nod To Jake in some sort of baggy shirt, which he didn’t return, because he also happened to be sprawled out snoring among the carapaces along her route.
“how dry ya feelins?”
Meenah hummed a bit, “This dry”, she held her hands out three times the width of Roxy’s head.
“okay,” Roxy tried to get in line for one of the Alchemiters, just to find the line disappear before her. She sighed. At least the carapaces would line up in the same order when she was done – though it was a little disconcerting that the few white pawns on board had segregated themselves into their own alchemeter line.
As Meenah continued sitting on her shoulders, Roxy’s hands flew over the controls – round bowl of water (no more manual card selection, thank you very much), double size, double size, double size, authorize. After a moment of noise, she scooped up the container and flew off to someplace a bit more private – forgoing walking to more easily manage the heavy sloshing bowl and the troll on her back.
There were two advantages of heading right back to the ship’s bridge – the fact that, even after the weeks en route, no carapace dared to stray there yet, so it was quiet, and the fact that it still was constructed to be waterproof as the rest of the ship, even with the tinkering that had happened to the controls since… well, the controls had seen better days.
As soon as Roxy set down the bowl, Meenah dove into it. Water splashed over the curved rim, and continued to splash, as the troll swam in tight circles.
Not exactly Contortion, per Roxy’s definition, but it was sort of good to see that the adult troll’s stretching abilities were based on something, not solely picked up over the many long sweeps of her life.
Roxy chuckled to herself of the thought of Condy wedged in a bowl that size… then. Oh. She wanted to do it. Herself. No. Nothing that might make Meenah remember anything more. They agreed. She tried to distract herself as the troll continued to swim, taking quick inventory of the contents of her sylladex. Which, honestly, as much as it had been rifled through the past months, accumulated odds and ends reduced to a stack of cards to remind her in case she needed to pull something from the void at a minute’s notice – the last weeks of boredom hadn’t included much random pulling stuff from her ass to file away for later. Literally, figuratively.
But the old stuff was there. The body. The adult form of the troll before her. The original. She couldn’t do anything with that. Not tell anyone. Not get rid of it. It was HER secret to keep. No, just leave everything stowed.
Meenah was slowing down in the bowl. Roxy shuffled up on her knees, tapped on the glass. After a moment to remember that the human couldn’t hear her talk underwater, her head popped out “What Rocshe want? To swim?”
“mebby in a bit, hon, but im feelin a little tired. how bout yu?”
“Tired, mebby.” the troll looked at her her dripping hands for a moment – the human wasn’t quite sure if there was a reason for this – then crawled out of the bowl in a wet tumble. The troll’s god-tiered clothes dried almost immediately, while her skin and hair remained sopping wet. With some practised misdirection, Roxy pulled a towel from the air behind the troll and bundled her up, scooping a troll burrito over her shoulder.
“i culd so be a mom” she whispered, just a little too loudly, as she carried an already sleeping troll to Officers’ Quarters.
~
Jane was there. In one of the otherwise open Officer’s Quarters sections. Leaning against one of the bunks, in an out-of-place beige three piece suit, the jacket from the chair she had abandoned to one of many stacks of paper, a laptop opened up beside her. She held her tongue as Roxy set the troll down, but was on Roxy’s literal tail as soon as she stepped outside the cabin and into the carapace-strewn hall.
“He still won’t stop using that damnable typewriter. I even tried to alchemise one that would save to a USB stick, but he won’t use it,” Jane shoved a typewritten sheet of paper into Roxy’s face, “I mean look at this.”
Roxy’s eyes scanned a few lines, “bcak to the jokebook already? he dint finnish the auta… autobiography, did he?”
“Of course not.” The draft was quickly filed away in her sylladex, “And yes, I noticed your guffaws, that’s about an average quality page. Anyways. Do you think you could… void in something that could save to files? Wordpad, anything. I can’t get him away from the thing long enough for a proper alchemy session,” she sighed loudly, “And I want to encourage him, I really do, but I can’t keep staring at this hooey long enough to retype all of it.”
“i think ya need a rouge fer that. ruse. distraktion… and… oh, wait. yeah ill proll need to use the thinger myself a bit to get the typey feel rite, but i cn prolly get you a digital ver. an if not my catstincts ll take over and like, whoops, its in space.”
“Thanks. Oh -” she perked up noticeably in the less lived-in bridge air, “Was the cake alright? I assume Meenah got to you before the whole thing was gone.”
“p guud, yeah. lil heaver than yu usually make, tho.”
“Well, I’ve got to convince her not to eat the whole thing. She is starting to put on weight – which, some isn’t bad, I’d assume, but… We all need to pay attention to our limits. So I’m trying to make her feel full. More fiber. We should really have established meal times, though. It’s been had to convince everybody else to come consistently when you haven’t been showing up.”
Roxy upended the bowl the troll had abandoned earlier – half full, thankfully no tinge of magenta in the water this time. Released water seeped into hidden drains and whatever water reclamation facilities the ship had, taking a bit of broken etch-a-sketch glitter with it, “uh hmm.”
“I don’t know if she really likes- uh- Roxy? I know that look. I’m not keeping you from doing anything, I hope.”
“that look?”
“If you wanna stretch instead of talk, go right ahead. Though I guess I assumed you were doing that a lot already with as much time as you’ve spent on the bridge.”
“nah, mostly zonin out, wishin this ship had a hollerdek. sorta lost my motivation, ya know,” She was rolling her shoulders in circles, starting into deep knee bends, “mebbe I should wait until im on an empty stomach again?”
“Is… that actually a concern?”
“a lil. like, i don’t think you evr sat in onna farty sessh,” Roxy watched Jane’s face for through a number of expressions of varying levels of understanding and disgust, “i mean, thats bad enough. if somthing were ta keep running thru the pipes and demamdin room – if things just dont settle down – its horrible. but if its jus durin warmup it aint too bad,” Jane just buried her face in both hands at this point, “but yaint sopposed to go swimming after eating either so…”
“Roxy.”
“yeah?”
“That’s another thing that is not. My. Fetish.”
“hokay, hokay. cross that one off the list,” Roxy put her hands up in mock surrender – waiting a few moments – for Jane to uncover her face and see it.
And then a few more.
“Is this some other fetish I’m being tested for?”
Roxy trembled a bit in response, Jane could have imagined a suppressed chuckle, but otherwise the girl in blue was still as a stone.
Jane gave out a loud sigh, “If you don’t move I’m gonna zap you”, then, just to be safe, checked if she was still alive with her god-tier powers, “You really should be eating more-” then, after another moment with no response, Jane’s brow furrowed, “Lalonde, what are you doing?”
Roxy gave a loud gasp, and after a moment to breathe, “i membered why i started fasting. a fish trick that dirky reminded me of, figured it would be faster to train in an empy stomach,” another moment for breath, “and probably forgot jus why i wasnt eatin a week ago, ye know, after stopin the breath stuff, only so many things you wanna die of.”
“Dirk-“
“he thouht i should kno about it,” she shrugged, “and i did?”
Jane ignored Roxy for a moment, trying to think just what ‘fish trick’ Roxy could be referring to, “Empty stomach… Yeah there was some – what – bare-bellied blade catching Condy did during training sessions? I can see him having more of a memory of that then me. You’re not saying you can do that now, are you?”
“not this quick. but – oh wait, yu couldnt actually see it could you,” In a blink, Roxy’s god-tiered threads had altered shape, changing to something more… performance oriented. Poofy shorts with a low waistline that entirely hid the outline of her thighs, a cropped blouse with short, puffy sleeves – The combination of which Jane was quite sure was to emphasize just how much torso and how few ribs the catgirl managed to have. Jane had seen the template for it many times – but Roxy’s version only a few.
“Oh, it’s training then, is it?” Jane made a show of loosening her tie and casting off her jacket – the latter which disappeared mid-air, her own suit replaced with a similar preforming outfit. It went more green than her normal god-tier beige, was puffy in the thighs and shoulders, had a panel of cloth around her waist compared to Roxy’s field of skin. A much more conservative affair.
“i spose – you think dem boys will ever let us see thier versions?”
“I caught a glimpse of Dirk’s once. So many ribbons. At least… I think those were an intentional part of the design. I never actually saw him train with … Her in it. Anyways, what is it I need to see?”
“hokay,” Roxy took a second to gather herself again, “now theres either the slow crafty whay of brethin out or there’s the meme brethe,” Roxy bent forward the slightest bit, hands on knees.
“What is the meme-“
Jane was interrupted by a tremendous breathy bellow from somewhere deep in Roxy, quickly followed by an explosive breath out. “now yr turn!”
“Are you serious?”
“nothin? janie, you rlly gotta lern your future meme history one of these days. but actually? pretty good quick warmup? anyways… no, wait, did i still have that camera? i havnt rlly…”
“I’ve got my phone’s camera, if you really need documentation.” it was quickly pulled from Jane’s captchalogue, “I’m standing here doing nothing anyways,” she held the phone towards Roxy, “Ready.”
Roxy gave a few measured breaths, and finally exhaling at not quite the previous volume, stood up straight and her waist visibly shrunk as her remaining ribs expanded. She snaked one arm behind her head to five a little wave of presentation from the side. The effect was her looking surprisingly more skeletal around the midsection than she had just moments before.
“So you can hold your breath like that for a bit, right?” Jane circled, taking a few pictures, noting the weird angle her chest plunged in after her ribs, Roxy nodded in response. “A few minutes? I can touch?” Roxy seemed to count on fingers for a moment, then out swivelled out an oddly exposed hip – dark taught skin making Jane think she was somehow seeing inside Roxy for a half a second.
Jane tried to frame her hand on the screen as she reached in to touch, “We only really did get a perspective of the blade-catching thing from reflections off the blade, you know…” her mind blanked for a moment, “A fish-eye view? No.” Jane had actually felt the ridges Roxy’s pelvis before, through clothes and sinew, but this was just… weird. It was too close to the effect of someone having painted a skeleton. Or coated it with foam. Neither quite seemed an appropriate description. Hints of stretch marks in the skin – all the marks seemed pretty new. Since Roxy’s last resurrection, Jane’s instincts told her.
But… even if abdomen was thin, but there was still plenty of muscle there, not quite stretched, but in sort of a forced relaxation. Roxy’s waist was still almost as wide left-to-right as her normal proportions, but had become as shallow from front to back as the girl’s spine was thick.
Not speaking Jane looked back up at Roxy’s eyes, following proceedings, looking the slightest bit fatigued. She made a motion, bringing her hands in a circle, about Roxy’s waist level, whispering “May I?”
Roxy gave as big of a smile as she could – stopping when there was the slight sound of air being sucked in between her teeth.
Jane remembered the phone, wondering what to do with it for a moment before fur brushed against her hands. Realizing what was being attempted, she switched it over to video, and guided Roxy’s tail into what she hoped was a firm embrace of the device.
Roxy’s sides collapsed at the pressure of Jane’s freed hands – Roxy felt a little unbalanced, opting to lean into Jane and brace her hands on her knees, rather than float.
“Just tell me when to stop. Anything. Long blink. Slow release, I remember.” Roxy just squinted at Jane and leaned a little closer.
Jane’s fingers were already touching around the … well, Catgirl’s waist, for lack of a better term. Jane staggered her fingertips and tried to draw tighter. “You know, I realize now… I could of hurt you a lot of times before you god-tiered. I… well, even if Condy wasn’t a subtle person, at least she helped me realize that I really need to pay attention to that… to what’s going on. I’m really sorry I didn’t before.”
Roxy’s chest gave a little heave. Not exactly a chuckle.
“Roxy, you need to breathe soon. Do you want me to let go before?”
Her eyelids were starting to flutter – the phone bearing tail was jerking a bit. But, she shook her head no.
“Slowly then.”
Organs still displacing lungs, air still flowed in, shallow breaths. Roxy cheeks got a bit more color to them, and it was a few moments before she tried to speak.
“frik.”
Jane laughed, but it was weird. She felt the weight of Roxy’s innards pressing down her thumbs, the intestines twitching.
“i wonner what would hapen if yu killed me like this. would i cum bak skinny to adapt? in two pieces?”
“Lego lady, have to assemble yourself in the morning.”
“pfff”
“It might make swivelling around the waist easier,” Jane mock-speculated, “I’m sure your backbending would be… troublesome.”
“oh… ok, we gonna have to do a controlled release. imma huff puff, and let you know wnta start letting go…”
“Got it.”
The breath out wasn’t very impressive, but Jane did feel some of the pressure lifting off her thumbs. She got a nod from Roxy, and started to slowly release – a little too slowly, because Roxy made a quick circle with her forehead. Fast forward, get on with it.
As soon as her hands were free – Jane moved them up to support under her shoulders. A long slow breath in. And Roxy was back to normal. Mostly.
“Um… let’s sit you down. And.” Jane caught her phone form Roxy’s tail and stowed it away, “Not to alarm you. But there are some grey patches on your skin. Um… grip marks, by the look of it,” Jane wasn’t trying to sound too apologetic, but notes of it did slip through.
“thats happened. once or twice. its in the db. i cn slip into the void a little bit, apparently. not like, shrink, or anything, but as a protective thing.”
“So… I really could have snapped you in half? And not killed you?”
“i rely dont want ta see if thats what would happen, ya know?”
Jane scoffed, “But that’s different that phasing your knee through your head – or whatever that was.”
“yea sounds op, but i dont make the rules, i jus report them.”
Jane thought for a moment, “I wouldn’t, like, burst into seeds or something when trapped, would I? That’s not a Maid of life thing. Just to be sure.”
“lemme check -” over a few silent moments the last of the grey on her midriff faded away to brown – “nah. i got mebby some astral projection type stuff, but… yeah thats you not dirk. double-u t f mans. but yeah come back for more info when you need to be a ghost i guess, locked records.”
Jane lifted her glasses and pinched her nose, “You know, that’s messed up. I mean, we were trained in our powers, right? Weren’t we? Condy should have known about stuff like this.”
“polymorphic – ehh no wiat, self writing code, mdear. she couldnt have known all of it. cause our actions change whats possible… evn if some things never are. possible, i meen.”
“Still… it makes me wonder. If she wasn’t intentionally holding out one us. Keeping one step ahead.” Jane gazed out the window at the stars for a moment. “You can’t like, void-hack some alternate … fish … out of existence if we end up finding her, could you? Whatever Earth we’re going to find is still going to be effected by some version of her.”
“probs? yes? tho it be easier to hack an anti fish, a bigegr fish, in. but that all… seems sort of evil, if you know what i mean? like, reducing the univers to a wonky fix fic. even if were gods or whatevs, people got lives, coices, consequences. if i just fix our problem instead of facin it – wel, why we got reality then? idunno. jus life is sorta pointless if everything goes rite all the time.”
“Didn’t you write fanfics sometimes?”
“hey, wrong sort of bored here. an yes, an wernt you just complaing a lil while ago about having to edit stuff? mines worse. half of it I wrote…” Roxy paused, “its been a mont since I had a drink. i think thats a record,” Roxy looked down at her belly, “I think i should get somthin more in here though. let the testins settle right.”
“Test… Ah. Intestines. Yeah. But food I can help with. I could even cook up some beans, if you think some gas in the pipes could help.” Jane took a deep breath, preparing herself for the smell of the halls.
“gas… like, inflatin,” Roxy levelled two finger guns at Jane.
“Are you taking kinks again? No.”
“janie, if you don’t figure out any kinks other den beards, yr gonna be in troube… nyways, lemme just- oh wait, still gotta,” the empty, now almost dry fishbowl finally reestablished itself on the top or Roxy’s TODO list, “jane, one more thing befroe eatin,” She dragged the almost-dry bowl away from the drain lines, “if I can’t get out, yes, ill take the beans, but iffi cant get out wait til ther cooked before bustin me out.”
Jane paused, fine with a slight delay before dealing with the spinning doors that apparently constituted an airlock.
The bowl had barely given Meenah enough space to skim around the walls – and there was twice as much Roxy. She grabbed the rim of the bowl, considering her options. “imagine ifi could do a split al the way into this thing…”
“‘All the way?’”
“like, legs on the edge an crotch to the ground. i meen, not the prettiest thing, sorta hard to get the rest in after. an frontbendin -” Roxy pondered aloud, “thats just like, fetal position, or my feetd get stuck between my back an the glass… so… backbend?” After another moment of hesitation, she leaned down into the bowl and, craning her head first to the right, then deciding on the left, she pressed her face against the glass. She pulled out for a moment, fed her left arm in, and moving her shoulder at an angle that made Jane cringe, ran that arm around the bottom edge of the bowl, before smooshing her face into the glass yet again.
She closed her her eyes and focused for a moment, the glass by her mouth fogging and defogging from the humidity of her breath. Then slowly her chest drooped into the bowl, doing it’s best to continue pressing against the curved glass wall, filling it with fabric and distorted skin, her right hand’s grip adjusting on the edge, and knees bending at ever stranger angles as she tried to compensate for the feelings of her own shifting mass.
Eventually her feet left the ground, and she was just kicking in the air. A groan came from the bowl as she tried to settle long bones in… somewhere. But, as disoriented as she was, she couldn’t figure out just where that somewhere could be, kicking around with legs and a hand half-hanging over the bowl’s edge.
“You need help, don’t you, hun?” Jane walked around to try and catch Roxy’s eyes, but there were shut. She got a whine back in response, and Roxy stopped trying to kick something further into place.
That was a yes.
Jane took the calves under one arm, and first cleaned up the tail that has wound it’s way through the mess, “If this thing were any smaller you wouldn’t even have room for legs… yikes,” She pressed the catgirl harder against the glass, and eased one knee into the center of the loop of fabric and flesh, then worked the other past the top edge of the bowl – finally feeding the right arm into the center of the loop as well.
She stood back and appraised the girl under glass, “Well, you’re in,” Thinking a moment, Jane got out her phone an snapped a few quick pictures, “You sure you want to stay in there while I do up some beans?”
“ueh,” came a small voice.
“Alright… back in a few.”
Roxy heard the muffled sound of the door from the bridge opening and closing.
~
It would be considered meditation, as opposed to zoning out, Roxy thought to herself. She was focusing on her body, trying to learn what exactly this position was, no cheating with God Powers. Well, as much as that was possible.
There was some rattling in the ship. Not the engines – it was somewhere on the lower decks. Maybe Dirk working in the docking bay.
The door opened again. Roxy couldn’t quite tell how much time had passed. But – no footsteps.
“Hey. No water here. Rocshe not swimming!”
“eyyyyyy….” Drat. Drat. Drat.
“Meenah want to swim again. Out! Get out!”
“i uhhh…” How exactly do you tell a kid to just wait a few minutes? When you can’t really breathe to begin with?
Then Meenah was jumping. On her. Granted, the weight wasn’t much compared to her older self, but either that kid could really jump, or she was flying up and falling down. It would hurt as the troll slammed into Roxy – for a moment – then there was a release. And another slam.
Meenah jumped like this for – how long? Minutes? An Hour? Before Jane’s scream was heard. The child was thrown at Jake – who had woke up to the yell – but wasn’t allowed on the bridge.
His presence wouldn’t make anything better.
~
It wasn’t like Roxy had gone unconscious. She had felt Jane tugging her put of the bowl, laying her on the ground… Massaging her, but that felt weird too. She really, she didn’t feel like she was properly there for… a while. She finally accepted Jane trying to feed her beans.
“You… Can understand me, right?” Jane was blowing off the still steaming baked beans, one spoonful at a time.
“Earlier – those grey marks at your waist. It was like that all over… You honestly looked a bit like silly putty in there. I don’t know just how you didn’t die. Just… all over. I’m not even sure you had proper eyes or… for a while… yeesh.”
Roxy felt at her face. That… her hand seemed crooked, she tried to straighten it – lopsided. Greyish. She felt at her face.
“jane. i dont have a nos.”
“It’s… your face is plumper. Than before. I’m sure it will come back.” Jane’s voice was shaky. “You… can look it up, right? This is just another void power, right?”
Roxy did. “yeah… this could fit. i sund wierd, rite?”
“Your sluring? Hardly noticable.”
There was a tiny knock on the door. “Can Meenah come in?” It was Jake’s voice.
“yeh, send the bugger in.”
The troll looked like she knew she was in the slightest bit of trouble. Not that Roxy saw it – Jane was looking somewhere near the door she wasn’t facing.
“Rocshe was not swimming,” came a small voice.
“nope.”
“Rocshe… break. No do that. It bad. It…” She mumbled some word that didn’t sound like it belonged anywhere near English.
“meenah. what i was doing was doing – my bending – was just fine. yu gotta be careful with people.”
“Nooooo,” the troll flapped her arms, repeating the harsh sounding word, “you stay that way.”
“meenah, im jus fine, see,” Roxy kicked up a leg and draped it behind her head effortlessly, managing to appear under Jane’s arm without her noticingl “im carful, i practice. its fine if yu practice. if yr gentle.”
The troll hugged herself tightly, uncomfortable.
“d yu wanna practice with me?” Roxy tried to brighten up.
The troll shook her head vigorously, “break.”
Jane spoke up, “Meenah, the only time Roxy got hurt that I have seen – and she didn’t break – is when I wasn’t careful with her during her exercises.”
“exur…”
“Ex – er – si – zes.”
“Exersizis. So no break?”
“yepp. no breaking me,” Roxy lowered the leg, “id bet youd be pretty good at exercizes too.”
“but…”
“id make sure yu dont break.”
___
Space, why you got to be so boring.
I mean, maybe if the ship didn’t have artificial gravity… but everybody can fly anyways…
Illustrations by Jesseth
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