"I didn't know they gave piloting license to florets," Daisy remarked over her shoulder. She gripped her t-shirt by the hem and lifted it over her head. Beneath it, her broad muscular body revealed itself. She had a large torso, though no larger than her massive limbs suggested already. Dozens of scars and knicks adorned her ribs and abdomen, of all kinds of sizes and depth and age. They were far more concentrated at and below a point about nine inches down from the base of her neck. Behind her, the muscular woman's blue-haired future connivent Selce leaned against a wall with his arms crossed. His face bore a gently bemused smirk. 

"They generally don't, no," he replied softly, "but I, much like you, am a special case." Daisy chuckled as she stood up straight and rotated her shoulders a few times each. It felt good to unwind her muscles, no matter how much her years of fighting had left them cursed with a perpetual state of minor fatigue. Something caught Selce's attention and he turned his face towards her back. "That's an impressive tattoo on your back. You get it all at once?" 

"Damn straight," Daisy answered as she unbuckled the jeans she was wearing. She removed a belt- which was largely aesthetic, as the pants were tailor made for her- and dropped it to the floor along with her two already discarded garments. Daisy stepped out from the crumpled heap of denim and removed a black pair of boy shorts next, leaving her in just a plain black sports bra. Selce respectfully averted his gaze in favor of examining his own fingers. "A gentleman, are you?" Asked Daisy with something of a sting in her tone. "There are many who would call you the luckiest man in the galaxy right now." 

"And they would say so, aware of the implications," muttered Selce, his voice infused with a knife's edge bite uncommon to florets. Daisy liked that about the Genesis Moon: Selce, Leaf, and Avel were all hildebrands in their own right. It seemed to her that Thunder had a type. 

"Implications?" Asked Daisy, plucking her bra from her body in a single motion without bothering to unhook it. She held it in front of her, undid the clasps, and dropped it. 

"That seeing a naked traitor is worth having your entire nervous system hijacked forever," said Selce with a bit of haughty disdain. "Going by their metrics, of course, not mine. I could hardly label as 'traitor' the only Terran to-"

"Kill an affini?"

"Defy the accord, take a planet from them, and avoid handing it over to them or the affini, actually. In my opinion, that's the more impressive accomplishment by far."

"I didn't take Fresch. The working class did, together." 

"True. But I have my doubts that the Accord wouldn't have fought harder to reclaim it if their troops weren't scared shitless of the eight foot tall batshit insane demigod who led them." Daisy placed herself in the bathtub and turned the faucet. Water poured out of it. Steam poured out almost as quickly. Selce surely must have noticed she was sitting more or less in the fetal position, but he gave no indication one way or the other. He glanced at the steam, at how hard she'd cranked the dial into the red, and rapidly grew concerned. "Jesus, are you trying to hurt yourself?"

"I hate cold water," Daisy didn't growl so much as she muttered. She had not been prepared to have that quirk of hers pressed- perhaps mentioning her inability to wash her own back had been a mistake. Selce went quiet for a moment and then sighed and walked over to the bathtub. He took position kneeling over next to it, his pinchably smooth face and soft gentle features inches away from her. He wasn't attractive to her in the slightest but he reminded her of the kind college boys who would illegally feed the homeless after their shifts back in her home city. That alone made him a comforting presence when his hawklike eyes weren't poised to perform a dissection. 

"If you insist. Just no…like, getting burned okay? Thunder isn't as paranoid about…floret proofing things as most of his kind." 

"And thank god for that," muttered Daisy as she grabbed a bar of soap. The room trembled in an odd pattern. She frowned. "So do any of you know why the entire station just…does that sometimes?" 

"I suspect he's snoring," mumbled Selce. He took one hand to his perfectly hairless chin and rubbed it with two fingers, genuinely lost in thought. "Have I told you my little owner theory?"

"Is that some kind of floret joke I'm too feral to understand?" 

"No, just- a dumb pun." Selce watched Daisy lather herself. She was robotic, methodical- Daisy flinched touching certain parts of her body. He took note of each such instance, deeply invested in learning about the bulldog he was tasked with tending to. "You know…pet theory, owner theory. Cause he's…you know."

"Your delivery is subpar."

"So I've been told. Anyway, my theory is that the body we think is him doesn't even have his core. I suspect that his actual core is built into the ship somehow- a superdense planet core structure in its center giving it gravity, perhaps- and that world tree is like, a plug or something." Both Terrans laughed, at the ridiculousness of the suggestion but also at the knowledge that this was Thunder, and that one could never truly rule out the idea that Thunder might attempt something just because it was "outlandish" or "impossible." Selce shrugged. "The tremors appear to be a result of him snoring, though. He apparently sleeps like a dolphin most of the time-"

"The FUCK is a dolphin?" Asked Daisy, her sense of annoyance and confusion exaggerated on purpose. Selce stifled down a laugh before he gave his answer. 

"An old species from Terra. Aquatic. Apparently only half their brain would go to sleep at a time. Presumably the other half could still operate their body decently well on its own, because otherwise that doesn't seem like much of an advantage." Selce was quiet for a moment as Daisy grabbed a big squishy towel-like, sponge-like thing and used it to wash down her front. Yet more flinching. He took note of which spots prompted these as well. 

"Some war hero I am," Daisy joked under her breath as she finished. "Can't even bathe myself." 

"Can't wash your back," Selce gently replied, "and we all have our limits. You can't exactly save mankind by scrubbing between your shoulders, and if you had to for some arbitrary reason then I'm sure someone else would gladly offer to help. Such as…literally all of Fresch, I'm sure." Daisy rolled her eyes sarcastically but appreciated the supportive words nonetheless. He took the soap and began to glide it up and down across her back. It was scarred as well, though far less than her abdomen. He traced along her spine, rubbed under her shoulder blades, around along her armpits. Her skin was rough, as was to be expected, even where it didn't have blotches of scar tissue. "It's like a shark…" he muttered quietly.

"You're killing me with all these fantastical animal comparisons, shotty," Daisy joked. 

"Sorry," said Selce, his attention still devoted to performing maintenance on the hulking body sitting in front of him. "Sharks were another aquatic species from Terra. Famously, their body was smooth in one direction but rough enough to cut you going in the other." He finished applying the soap to Daisy's back and placed the bar to the side. "Hardly accurate to compare me to a sawed-off shotgun, though. I'm actually fairly tall, and very skinny." 

"Oh, right," Daisy chuckled. She hadn't heard someone say "shotty" and mean "shotgun" for a hot minute. She'd forgotten that it wasn't just a synonym for "shorty." He grabbed the washcloth device and started scrubbing her back with it. It had a fuzzy, soft, wet texture that she wasn't especially fond of, but she didn't care enough to ask Thunder for a different one. Besides, it did the job quickly and efficiently. Selce covered her back with methodical attention, and he did so while taking care not to touch any of her deepest scars. This annoyed her, because it felt uncomfortably close to being pitied. She knew it wasn't, she knew Selce wasn't that kind of guy, but it barely even hurt. 

On the other hand, the involuntary flinching invited memories. Unpleasant ones. Just thinking about that opened the door to some of the surface level ones. The doctor whose children she threatened in order to get him to operate on two dying kids, the depravity of the rich scum who faced death and became their worst possible selves, nights spent dumpster diving so that she could better hide how little of her appetite her parents could actually sate with their meager income…

Signing onto work in a coal mine at fifteen. 

The mine collapsed.

How many brave men with children sacrificed themselves so she could live?

Daisy gripped the edge of the bathtub tighter. It was a subtle motion, almost imperceptible, honed by practice to hide that she was hurting with all the expertise of a wounded animal concealing from predators it would be an easy meal. But Selce's eyes were sharp, honed themselves by a lifetime watching the circles of the ravenous elite. He could tell right away, and his care paused just long enough that Daisy knew he did. She could feel him growing worried.

"Is something amiss, miss?" He asked. It was funny, seeing someone so small acting protective towards her. 

"I don't want your pity, Selce." She was not angry, and her voice made that perfectly clear. It had no anger, nor any ill intent. She was simply stating facts.

"I don't pity you," Selce answered in kind. What was that bear trap in his skull thinking, she wondered? "You're the least pitiable human being who has ever lived."

"I know that you don't," answered Daisy, "but you're dancing around my scars. Most of them don't hurt. Those that do, I can handle. Do your duty, sir. Please." Selce smiled a bit, not that Daisy would have seen it. 

"Very well, Daisy. Are there any spots I should avoid?" Daisy lifted an arm to point, but couldn't rotate her shoulder far enough to do it. After a moment of stiff shaking and agitated grunts, her arm fell back by her side and vanished into the hot bathwater with a splash. 

"My neck. That's all."

"Very well. I apologize if it seemed I was belittling you," said Selce as he wrung out the device and poured fresh water into it from the faucet, "You're the greatest warrior the Accord had to offer, and nobody could ever take that from you." Daisy nodded absently. A dark shadow fell over her face. Selce went over her back again, covering her scars this time. He was gentler with them than with her skin, but not by much. Did he think she wouldn't notice, or was he not even doing that on purpose?

Daisy flinched as the worst scars brought her back for a split second each to their point of origin. Ammunition that the police fired into crowds of strikers, tears in her flank left by blows from batons, cuts inflicted by the knives of fascist thugs eager to assist private strikebreaking corporations. Each scar on her body had a story, and many of those stories she could recite from memory. When, at fifteen, someone who abused her friend pulled a knife after she intervened. When, at twelve, she saw an older kid fall from a fence and tried to catch them. 

Daisy frowned.

"You stopped."

"You're very tense, miss. It's unusual for you," Selce whispered. "Are you alright?" 

"God, the affini won't even let me angst alone in the shower, what is the POINT if I can't lesbian properly!" Selce laughed. So did Daisy, a bit. 

"So I'm to continue, then?" Asked Selce.

"Rip and care," Daisy said as she tapped her fingertips at the side of the tub, "until it is done."

"Very well, miss. I'll do as you ask." He got back to work and finished tending to Daisy's back. Once his task was complete, he put his tool aside and traced a single gloved hand up along Daisy's spine, lifting it away before he got to her neck. "That tattoo is amazing, I know I said that already, but my compliments to its artist. They were good at their craft."

"Good old Molly," Daisy said, her tone implying an inside joke, as she shut off the water. "I'll let her know if I ever speak to her again. Now go, your job here is done."

"So it is, ma'am," Selce agreed. He stood up, bowed to show respect, then pivoted and trotted merrily out of the room. On his way out he paused, standing in the doorway, with one hand on the doorknob. "Shall I lock it?" Daisy nodded. Selce locked the door with a flick of his finger and then continued on his way. The door closed gently behind him. 

Daisy collapsed onto her back. The water surged up along her back and over her neck, the shock of which left her to clench her entire body in powerful discomfort. There, with hot steamy water up to her ears and the tips of her wet hair floating, she stared up at the smooth ceiling. 

She started out as a poor child of a poor family in the slums. Cursed with an obnoxiously large body even from birth, she forced her mother to get a C-section they couldn't afford. If not for the connections she made growing up, her parents would both have been thrown into debtor's prison. Her parents had never once begrudged her for it, even as the visiting debt collectors became harder and harder to ignore. Knowing his father used public transportation and could perform his job with just his arms, they smashed his ankle once as punishment. The debts only grew, no matter how much they tried to save, no matter how much extra they poured into their payments when they could…

And Daisy was not an inexpensive child. She ate a lot. Far more than they could afford. She made friends at school by beating up bullies, and their parents had given hers money and extra food whenever they could, but…

Daisy raised a hand in front of her and made a fist. That she had been nourished enough to grow to her adult size unimpeded, in spite of everything, could be called nothing less than a miracle. But…

"There's no such thing as miracles." 

She lifted her head higher, even though it became sore in an instant and would hurt later. 

She owed so much to the people of Fresch. The Accord would say otherwise, perhaps even Fresch would say otherwise, but her hometown knew better. Her mother and father knew better. The debt collectors who saw her growth and used it as evidence her parents were hiding money from them knew better. The parents who helped her because she helped their children knew better. 

Daisy closed her eyes, aiming to shut out a single memory that was fighting towards the front. Where the impacts of the others were a punch, a kick, a bat striking the jaw, this one was an icicle five feet thick threatening to pierce through the leg, slice an artery, and suck the heat directly from her blood and bones. 

Daisy plunged her head underwater. It was hot, extremely hot, not quite painful but definitely shocking to have in her face like that. The memory vanished into bubbles as she shot back up, her hair drenched. 

She was here. She was now.