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[deuceoftears]

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[deuceoftears]

"There's no up or down, in space. Only momentum. It's a bit like swimming, but moreso. Floating, more than flying, because you don't have to keep yourself up."

He doesn't let go, though, of her or of the handhold, letting her adjust to the view and the weightless sensation of it before anything else.

[todayiwas]

Justine, grateful and overwhelmed, rubs her face with one hand, almost like she might cry. Instead, she focuses on his words. Momentum, he says, and she suddenly sees herself drifting off into nothing.

The feeling isn't as terrifying as she feels it should be.

She rights herself with a breath and reaches out, around him, for a handhold to take herself.

"Show me," she says, eager rather than demanding.

[deuceoftears]

"Normally, when you walk, you are pushing off the ground, but constantly being pushed back down. In null-g, you can push off from anything, and then you keep going until you get to something that stops you. The grey elements are fully stationary, but everything else will move a little if you collide with it."

He flips himself around easily, sets his feet against the side of the stairs at an odd angle, knees folded up.

"You want to orient the lines of your body to whatever you're aiming at. Shoulders, hips, legs. Then -"

He kicks out gently, soaring in a clear, straight line to the nearest grey shape, a kind of beveled menger cube the size of a large car, and grabs it before colliding face first, executing a little jackknife to bring himself sideways against it so he can look back at her.

[todayiwas]

She watches, sharp and attentive, drawing her skirt up around her waist, revealing the tight blue trousers underneath. She gathers fabric in a bunch with one hand and positions her feet like he did.

She angles herself a little, hesitates to adjust, then pushes off with a laugh, a yelp, almost forgetting to grab into the cube in her delight.

"Jedao, Jedao, that was - " She laughs again, delighted, thrilled.

She puts her feet on the cube and points to another in the distance.

"There. Go!"

And with a giggle, she pushes off again. It isn't a race...but also, in a way, it is.

[deuceoftears]

He bounces off after her, although she'll still make it to the next post a little before he does - but this time he doesn't grab it, jackknifing a little so that he can kick off at a new angle with most of the momentum of the collision conserved.

[todayiwas]

She lets out a playful cry of protest, scrambling to try and follow. Predictably, the push off is sloppy and she misses the next mark entirely, her momentum carrying her to another hold a ways away.

She holds dearly to it, giggling as her feet tumble over her head in the most undignified way.

[deuceoftears]

He ricochets a few times, sometimes off shapes that drift gently away in his wake, to bring him roughly in parallel with her again.

"Mademoiselle, I believe you are a natural," he tells her as she tumbles.

[todayiwas]

"Ah! You tease!" she laughs, righting herself and clinging desperately to her little hold. But as she pushes hair from her face, she gives him a genuine smile.

"Thank you, Jedao. This has been a wonderful experience."

[deuceoftears]

"The most common mistake beginners make is pushing off too gently, and ending up drifting short of their target with nothing else to push on," he explains.

For all her wild imperfect aim, she is doing better than most dirtside-raised cadets, who had far more thorough instructions before hand.

"When falling and flying are the same, better to be fearless than cautious." And it seems that is very much her style.

[todayiwas]

"There is nothing to fear here. There is nothing to fret about. The only thing I feared at home was - "

She pauses, pulling herself atop the hold so she can push her skirts down.

"Not knowing, I suppose. What do you fear?"

[deuceoftears]

"Oh, the boring sorts of things. Making mistakes I can't fix. Being lied to, being unwanted. I fear hurting people when I didn't mean to," he says honestly.

[todayiwas]

She rests her cheek against her hand, letting her feet float behind her. "I fear that, too. Being unwanted. Were you unwanted once?"

[deuceoftears]

"For most of my life, before the barge." It's an old ache, but no longer such a sharp one. "And the person who did want me...I didn't want to serve."

He sounds wistful, more than anything, a gentle melancholy.

[todayiwas]

She pushes off slower this time, drifting over to him. "Did you have to serve him?"

[deuceoftears]

"For a little while. I needed to wait for the right moment to kill him."

Somber, rather than victorious. He orients himself to face her and lets go, trusting in his own inertia not to drift out of range of the post.

[todayiwas]

"I see. And you were successful in that? What did you do when you were free?"

She reaches out for the post, or for him, whichever she drifts closer to.

[deuceoftears]

When she grips him, she gives him a little of her own momentum; they rotate slowly in place.

"Ah, yes and no. I did kill him, but someone else took me prisoner after. I was...quiet, for some time. And then the Admiral offered me a place here."

[todayiwas]

She holds fast to him, but there isn't the frantic excitement of before. She's simply existing here with him. Calm.

"So you weren't able to escape that time? Have you ever been free?"

[deuceoftears]

They turn, slowly, together. Jedao doesn't mind it.

"To be fair, I did not try very hard," he admits wryly. "I was tired, and - somewhat infamous, and I wasn't treated badly, overall. It was easier to stay where I was put than go on the run somewhere. I consider myself free here. I can go, if I want. But I like the work, and the people, and the place."

[todayiwas]

"I like the work and the people and the place, too," she admits.

"I am more - free here than I ever was at home. I don't want to go home after this," she admits. "When I graduate, I want to - to explore. To know everything. To learn everything. To meet people and learn how they are, how they think, how they feel."

[deuceoftears]

"I won't go back to the place I came from, either. I think your plan sounds wonderful."

[todayiwas]

She pulls back and gestures out to the expanse of the Enclosure. "This is what I want, Jedao. Now I have something new to learn and research and discover."

[deuceoftears]

"I'll teach you the program names, you can do all the exercises, if you want. But you have to show me somewhere I haven't been, too," he suggests.

[todayiwas]

She nods once, then pauses. "How do I know what you haven't seen?" she wonders, frowning. "You have so much."

[deuceoftears]

He waves at the dark sky outside the bubble.

"I've always lived in places like this. It was in port, while living on the barge, that I saw rain in person for the first time. The world you know is as strange to me as mine is for you."