"...I'd do it for you, but with the difference in our hardness, it'll be easier on you to do it yourself."
The comment is hardly intended as a slight--Padparadscha is, as always, a pragmatist--but Antarcticite cannot help but flinch and look aside. Wordlessly, they tug off their damp uniform again and fold it neatly aside, then step beneath one of the shower heads to wash the last remnants of their powder from their structure. It's a surreal experience, watching the water cascade across their arms and carry away with it the powder that they last remember applying to themselves in the clinic on Earth. But that isn't so, is it? They can remember the Chord Shore, and Phosphophyllite in their strange alloy prison, and the Lunarian arrow that struck and shattered them. This powder must be some creation of the Dreaming's; there is no good reason to feel the loss of it so keenly.
When they are finished, they stand translucent before Padparadscha, self-consciously folding their arms across their chest and averting their still quite blue eyes to the side. "It feels strange to be like this," they admit uncomfortably.
no subject
The comment is hardly intended as a slight--Padparadscha is, as always, a pragmatist--but Antarcticite cannot help but flinch and look aside. Wordlessly, they tug off their damp uniform again and fold it neatly aside, then step beneath one of the shower heads to wash the last remnants of their powder from their structure. It's a surreal experience, watching the water cascade across their arms and carry away with it the powder that they last remember applying to themselves in the clinic on Earth. But that isn't so, is it? They can remember the Chord Shore, and Phosphophyllite in their strange alloy prison, and the Lunarian arrow that struck and shattered them. This powder must be some creation of the Dreaming's; there is no good reason to feel the loss of it so keenly.
When they are finished, they stand translucent before Padparadscha, self-consciously folding their arms across their chest and averting their still quite blue eyes to the side. "It feels strange to be like this," they admit uncomfortably.