DECK 12; THE GYMNASIUM

[do_your_duty]

She's not very social.
It's not that she hasn't ever been.

She had good compatriots in her regiments on the Command Carriers. It wasn't the same on Moya. It was a small ship, but there were spaces she could not ignore nor avoid. Not remove the knowledge it was populated with only a handful of escaped criminals. (That she's just as much one of them now.)

The Enterprise is different than both. Larger than Moya, but much smaller than a Command Carrier. More than the small crew of prisoners, but crawling with civilians. On a mission of 'peace,' yet laden with weapons. But it does have some things in common with Moya.

The first. They each have a good training room.
The second. Aeryn Sun spends a lot of time there.
The third. There is only so much time you can do that.

Even if "time" is a weeken or a quarter cycle. Half a cycle. Which is why she's sitting on the floor now, looking at the empty room, every still, waiting apparatus. (The hum of the ship, beneath her, under it all, is different, too. She can tell, because the sound she's looking for, that something in her is feeling for, isn't there.)

(She knows that makes her more different than those three now, too.)

Comments

[fallaces_sunt]

Ever since that nonsense around April Fools Day, Natasha has... Well, if not fully embraced the fact that taking down someone not baseline human somewhat showed that she wasn't baseline human herself, then at least acknowledged she could hit the gym a bit more with martial arts and not tip people off that she wasn't harmless.

But today she enters the room and stops, glancing at Aeryn and then the room again. The other woman is alone.

Hmm.

"Meditating?" she asks, finally.

[do_your_duty]

Aeryn's not sure why she's surprised by the voice. Even if the ship is crawling with people, even if she heard the footsteps, it doesn't automatically reach this conclusion. A lot of people are too nosy for their own good, and a lot of people pass right on by, and it'd be a lie to say she's not glad of it more than half the time. She's not sure where she is between those right now.

Aeryn's gaze leaves the opposite side of the room, to find the woman's face. Natasha's face.

"Not here." But she doesn't clarify if she means this room, or this universe, or the floor.

[fallaces_sunt]

She inclines her head at that, just in acknowledgement and nothing else, and then pulls her hair back into a high ponytail as if the non-committal answer hadn't been followed by a pause.

"Want me to find another space, or don't really care?"

[do_your_duty]

Aeryn shook her head without any hesitation, her focus narrowing back together to the singular point of Natasha. "No."

She didn't need the whole room to herself. It was no more or less like having the whole ship, or the whole universe. She wanted to rub at her face, but she didn't raise her hand. Or even let her shoulders tighten. Instead she reached out to lay it flat on the ground, and levered herself up from the floor. "It wasn't important. I can move if you need the area."

[fallaces_sunt]

"I don't need all of it," Natasha says, walking further into the room and then stepping to the side to slip off her shoes. She's dressed for practice: yoga pants, a t-shirt, her breasts flattened slightly with a sports-bra with enough support for her to actually move.

"All that's free are the punching bags, got sick of staying in the same spot."

The bags are useful, very much so. But Natasha's always moved when she's fought, and besides, there are other things she needs to practice.

[do_your_duty]

"It gets tedious." Aeryn says to the pants she's brushing off as much as the comment before it.

Not so much punching things, but punching something that never changes. It's makes something itch under her skin. (More than the missing hum. It's new. It's ignorable. It's not supposed to be there at all). She can almost ignore that one. But she is a soldier, born and bred. The lack of altercation on this vessel bound for peace and exploration is even more tedious.

Moya's crew, especially with John at the bumbling helm, had constantly fallen into having to run for their lives and fire fights to keep themselves alive, out of harm, or to beat the wrong person back. But this place.

[whereishe]

Yuna found the gym to be a soothing place to work out. She didn't draw on any magic or otherworldly skills. Instead she choose to push her body and her limits while going through basic martial art forms. She stopped when she saw Aeryn sitting in the middle of the floor.

Her footsteps were early light as walked over towards the woman sitting in the room. Yuna didn't know her but that never stopped her from saying hello in the past. She moved in front of the woman to make sure she wasn't interrupting when she spoke.

"Are you okay?"

[do_your_duty]

"Yes." It's a simple answer.

She's in one piece. She isn't wounded. She isn't suffering.

Given her focus during this 'time,' is in closer to peak performance than she's been in months.

Than, she's been since she was classified as Irreversible Contaminated and was stripped of being a Peacekeeper. Losing all the rights and responsibilities of that life. Without losing the stigma and assumption of being one, being what mattered most to her in the world, just based on her opinions and carriage and dress. But she was still here.

Here. Where no one, except John, even knew what the Peacekeepers were. Which was nothing like anything here.

[whereishe]

Yuna hummed softly at the answer. It was curious that she wasn't upset considering that Yuna sort of disrupted her thoughts. She watched the woman for a few seconds longer before moving to place some of her things against the wall. There were some things that she never went without like her bag or sphere grid.

She dropped the things to the side keeping her gaze trained along the stark walls.

"Sorry if I disrupted you." Yuna smiled over at Aeryn. "I don't think we've met." At least not formally.

"I'm Yuna." Yuna knew what it was like to not be known for what you are. She was both grateful and saddened that no one could truly understand her world or Yuna's place in it. She's talked to some but it wasn't the same as having someone from there.

[do_your_duty]

After the beat of a second, Aeryn finally moved again. Without moving anything below a small shift of her shoulder, her head turning to find where the younger girl was and take her in. What she'd said was true. Aeryn didn't go out of her way, and she'd known she was bound to run into more of them, sooner or later.

"We haven't." Beat. "Aeryn." Even if her minds complains, even near a cycle later. It should be Aeryn Sun. It should be said to her as Officer. Both hard, forthright, ready. The name is still right, but the years of association she has with what it means and where it belongs is distorted.

[whereishe]

Aeryn was still a pretty name and Yuna found herself smiling as she fussed with her things. Her mismatched gaze looked over to her. "Nice to meet you. Do you work out in here often?"

Yuna was used to talking with others and while her question felt a little awkward she looked at ease in the situation. Yuna liked meeting new people. She was sure she had seen Aeryn around but when the ship was so big it was no wonder she hadn't run into everyone just yet.

"I guess, what I mean to ask, is it alright if I join you?" She'd come back later if she was interrupting. It's not like Yuna didn't have an abundance of time on the ship. "I've been practicing forms a friend showed me." She wasn't very good just yet.

[general_chang]

He looked at the woman sitting on the floor, looking as if someone had simply left her there with a promise to come back if she behaved herself.

He didn't waste much more time looking at her before heading to the nearest bag.

[do_your_duty]

Aeryn remained steady and still. Head forward, gaze focused, posture rigid.

Passerby's were not her concern, but then very little on this ship fell into such.

[general_chang]

Chang wasn't interested in her very much either, hitting the bag with inhuman strength until it started to rock off its hinges. Certainly, if it were simply designed for humans it would have been gone already.

Chang was very frustrated living here.

[do_your_duty]

The new person at the bags adds right into the rest of everything she blend,
The people moving in the aerobics room. Those circling in the martial arts area.

Enough noise that it should drown out everything else, but she was raised on Command Carriers with fifty thousand. It's a drop in the bucket. It is a conduit to keep her thoughts focused, while only asking her to organize what they are into categories before dismissing them. She could always go see what trouble John or Rygal have inevitably fallen into during her absence. Maybe even should.

[theycallmetodd]

During the months Todd and Aeryn Sun shared quarters, they did not see much of each other. This suited the old Wraith fine, preferring at least initially to keep to himself during the rare times he wasn't holed up in the ship's lab. Just silent nods in greeting when they crossed paths, each on their way to their own destination.

Figures, then, that it is only when he's been suddenly assigned a new room and have moved out that the Wraith feels at all motivated to talk.

The gym has become a place for regular visits, slotted in between shifts at the sick bay and whatever other little projects he can come up with to help pass the time. Today, though, it seems to offer something other than just exercise, as seeing his former roommate sitting still as a statue there, alone and silent, brings him to a pause upon entering. He walks over silently on bare feet, coming to a stop beside her. He's dressed for exercise in loose black clothes, white hair tied back in a sloppy tail at the nape of his neck, and with the usual heavy black coat nowhere to be seen.

"Aeryn Sun." His two-toned voice is calm, and only mildly inquiring. "Are you well?"

[do_your_duty]

The voice is the same as ever, though they had talked rarely. Which suited both of them. Aeryn still hasn't met her new roommate, but she wonders at percentage of how likely she'll be at getting that lucky again. Her muscles are tight, but it is nothing about stress. If anything she's as relaxed as she ever gets.

"Well enough." She's still in one piece, but she's still on this ship, too.

There's a pause, before she looks up, but only her gaze and not her head or shoulders. "You?"

[theycallmetodd]

There's a vague, noncommittal sound before he speaks up to answer properly. "As well as can be expected under the circumstances." He's made no secret of the fact that he absolutely hates being stuck on this ship. He'll make the best of it, but if he's ever given a chance to go home, or to get back at Q for this, he will.

"Would you prefer to be left alone?" He himself had, for a time. But Wraith are not solitary creatures by nature, and the longer he stays here, separated from his Hive and his people, the more he feels the need to seek out others. Humans and other races are not a good substitute for his own kin, but it better than isolation.

[do_your_duty]

She'd been glad not to end up with someone who was as John called himself gah-ung-hoe about this whole situation. She'd probably have wished for death or a war hundreds cycles over if she'd had to room with him. His enthusiasm was at once disgusting and distressing as it was curious.

It didn't change the fact she was even further from her world, her life, and her people.

"Same ship, new day." Aeryn said, just about as noncommittal. In a lot of ways he reminded her of Booker and other soldiers. He wasn't great to look at, and John freaked out about that to her annoyance and eye-rolling at his constant loud reactions to thing, but there were worse looking things in the universe, even in Peacekeeper Space.

So long as he didn't get too close, or touch her, and it stayed like this, she didn't care.

"I'd prefer not to be here."

Ship. Universe. Gym. It didn't matter which one he took it for.

[theycallmetodd]

She wasn't talking about the gym, that much was clear. If it was that simple, she could just get up and leave. They may not have talked much, but the Wraith still had an impression of Aeryn Sun to be a very capable woman, and strongly doubted she would be one to remain somewhere she didn't want to be. If she could help it.

More likely then that she held the same position as he did, that she did not much like having been taken from her world against her will, to then be trapped here. It was completely baffling to the old Wraith, that some could approach this with a fair degree of excitement.

He gave an agreeing hum. "I am of the same opinion, myself." Hopefully it wouldn't last forever, but it had been long enough already. And she had already been there when he arrived, from what he could understand. "How long have you been here?"

[never_felt_better]

"Hey stranger."

John's leaning in the doorway, arms folded and ankles crossed. You'd think by now he's learned not to interrupt her when she's training, but John's survival instincts still aren't what they could be. Besides, she's not training. She's sitting.

Which is ... weird.

He straightens up and moseys into the room. It's not that he's missed carting her all over the ship, but, well, if he was willing to approach her former roommate (who looks like he could eat his soul in two seconds flat) just to find out how she is, then ... yeah, he's missed her. He sits cross-legged on the mat directly across from her, and rests his elbows on his thighs. "Did you get my invitation to the potluck? 'Cuz I'm still waiting on your RSVP."

[do_your_duty]

Unlike the other people who've passed her, some with no mind and some who have tried to talk to her, Aeryn actually looks over at John's voice. She hasn't been avoiding him exactly. But she's not going to let herself make a crutch out him being the only person she knows on this ship. Especially when he can't stop being glad and unable to shut up about being here, when she hasn't found more than a handful of microts where she even wanted to be right there.

Her shoulders roll back, even if her back straightens, but she doesn't look away from him as he sits down.

She hates the part of her that feels relieved to see his face. Interested in what he'll say or do. Invested.

Even when he opens his mouth and his first sentence out makes her wrinkle up her face entirely. Sharp, doubtful, patronizing, and confused. Firstly, because she hasn't a clue what this paut-luahck is, and, because it is John, and being John, and being that she's been sparse and uninterested in this crew and this ship, she has, it could be something she's missed around the ship, with the way these people keep gathering to do things, or it could be John just using more of the jibberish she hasn't a clue what is. "What are you talking about now?"

[never_felt_better]

Aeryn's got nothing to worry about. John would never tell anyone that she straightens a little whenever he's around, or tracks him with her eyes, or gives him more attention than most other people get. Partly because he doesn't always notice himself, and partly because he's not sure which he likes more: that, or the way her brow crinkles and her lip curls whenever he says something she thinks is ridiculous.

Besides, a Crichton never kisses and tells.

"Nothing," he says, a lazy grin on his face. "Haven't seen much of you lately. I'm beginning to think I'm not your favorite human anymore."

[do_your_duty]

"I do have a thousand more to choose from now," Aeryn says without missing a beat, or looking regretful in the least.

All implication to the contrary that there is much more she could decide on now. The limitations on the situation she found herself in previously, with only one bumbling human at her disposal to judge on whether she found him sound or not, now dropped away. With a whole regiment of a crew in competition for impressing her with skills John has time and time, again, displayed he does not have.

Not that she's take the time or interest to focus on any of them.





Not that she's ever saying she's taken the time or interest to choose John above all of them.

[never_felt_better]

"Yeah, but you'd actually have to get to know one of them before you could do that," John quips, giving her a pointed look. At least his variety of a pointed look. They don't always have the same definition for these things.

And okay, maybe her words unsettle him a little. Because it's possible, right? Now that he's not the only game in town; now that she can see what other humans are like. And heeeeeere's Johnny, so far magnet to every Peacekeeper threat and hostile alien in the uncharted territories. But hey, he's got nice eyes.

"Look, I didn't come here to fight," he says, shaking his head. "I just wanted to make sure you're all right. I know this place, uh, it isn't ideal for you. But you hanging back, keeping to yourself, is ... well, Aeryn, it's weird. It's really, really weird."

Like, really weird.