Quiet Waking and Worrisome Query
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I stir to wakefulness, eyes blinking open to be harrassed by stray hair. Raising a hand, I shove it backward over my ear, and open my eyes again, looking around and relocating myself in the world around me.

I sit up, looking around Ash-me’s bedroom. My discarded jumpsuit is there, crumpled on the floor. A wardrobe on the left of the door is the main other piece of furniture in the room.

I stretch, then get up and walk over to the wardrobe. Inside are a handful of other jumpsuits, identical in appearance, and a set of military-style dress clothes. Even with the very comfortable environment of the watch room, we are technically a military installation, it seems. I have the vague memory of there not having been a war in this universe since the Mars colony agreed to the peace deal, back before extra-solar colonies had been established. That’s cool, nice for them, and all, but I was getting an uncomfortable feeling about the main plot I was going to be in for: all the evidence suggested first contact with warlike aliens. Do I even want to see if that is the case? I mean, I guess so – the character interactions are very comfortable so far. And just standing here is very comfortable, too.

I put on a new jumpsuit, as well as new underwear, since my previous set had become slightly damp with sweat. I emerge from my bedroom into the main space of our quarters, to find Sylvie already up and about, sitting on a couch in front of a screen to my left, reading from a small tablet computer. The smell of coffee wafts into my face as I enter the room, and I follow it like a zombie to my right, where a small kitchen area is embedded into a recess, cupboards aplenty with a fridge, a small multi-mode oven, and a dishwashing unit filling out the rest of the wall space.

“Des and Alex are floating the possibility of a game night,” Sylvie calls just a little bit too loudly, without looking up at me directly. “You up for it?”

“And why not?” I ask in return, “Yeah, let’s do it.” Playing a game within a game is always hilarious, even if this game seems to be far more tangible and refined in its mechanics. “Any games in particular that you all are planning?”

“Nothing in particular, so we’ll probably end up messing around in Brother Combat.”

Ah, the unlicensed multiverse-famous fighting game, lovely. “Sounds fine by me,” as I grab a container of leftover pasta-and-cheese and stuff it in the oven, setting it for a minute of microwave warming. The buzz of the heating mechanism drills into my head, as I stand and watch the little plate spin. This is exactly why I don’t tend to wake up, if I can help it. I can’t usually help it. I heave a sigh, and a smile flits onto my face. At least it feels good to stand, to breathe, to talk. Why can’t life always feel like this?

The oven beeps it’s completion, and I pop open the door and bask in the lovely smell of melting cheese. Grabbing a fork and my food, I scurry over to the couch and curl up into the corner of it, my knees making a little fortress for me and my food. Sylvie looks up at me from her tablet, and grins.

“What are you looking at?” I ask, digging in.

“Oh, just, a light novel. A heartwarming and comedic exploration of gender stuff. Nothing really worth reading, but why should that stop me?”

“Gender stuff, huh. Is... is that a weird euphemism or something?”

“No, like, figuring out oneself sort of gender stuff. We’ve talked about this before, haven’t we?”

“Yeah, I guess,” I nod, chewing on a wonderfully tasty forkful of cheesy pasta. I definitely hadn’t heard of this before. Still, thinking about it, I couldn’t help but furrow my brow. You didn’t have to figure yourself out because you already were yourself, right? ...Right?

“That’s a pretty thoughtful look you’ve got there.” Sylvia’s expression is pure compassion. “You don’t want to try being a guy a bit?”

“What? No! That’d be weird!” I shook my head and tried to nestle down into a tighter ball, only to find I already was as spherically packed as I could get while still being able to eat.

“Not that weird. You wouldn’t even be my first friend to figure out they needed to go that way.”

“I don’t want to be a guy, though.” And yeah, Ash-me doesn’t. Her life is pretty good, and she is a pretty comfortable girl. Nothing weird going on here.

Sylvie looks me in the eye. “You are being weirdly defensive. Just share whatever you need to, okay, Ash?”

“What, I’m not hiding anything! But, yeah, okay. I will.”

“Look, I’ll send you the link to this thing, you can read it for yourself and, if nothing else, enjoy yourself while you refamiliarise yourself with what ‘identity’ means.”

I didn’t reply, deciding that just eating my food was the best choice at the moment. We sit for a minute in relative silence, Sylvie occasionally giggling at her light novel, me occasionally humming as I relish the flavour of my food. I finish it far too quickly, but I feel satisfied even so.

Chucking the empty plate onto the table in front of the couch, I wrap my arms around my legs and huddle into a tighter ball. The way my limbs all fit together feels wonderful – I honestly could not point to a moment I had felt anything like this happy before, at least about my body. “So, you going to play anyone in particular tonight?”

Sylvie looks up, trying to hide a grin. “You want to pick my counters, hmm?”

“I haven’t looked at the counters in ages. I couldn’t give a counter if you asked me!”

“I’ll probably just stick to random, to be honest. Random minus Queen Mango, I mean. I really do only have an anti-main.”

“Yeah, that’s a real thing. I know I’ve done well as her once, but I’m not sure that wasn’t a bug.” I reply. I know exactly who Queen Mango is, even if the name has been changed probably not quite far enough for copyright law to be totally happy.

“You have usually done well with the Naught Armour, at least. I never seem to get the flow of anyone.”

“Remember to stick with characters, Syl,” I rub my chin across my knees. “One match usually isn’t enough to find your footing, even with your perfect character. Even the best pros need warm-ups before their matches.”

“I’ll try, I guess?”

“I know you can beat all of us,” I encourage. “Though, if Alex is on his game again, you’ll have to put up with only beating the rest of us, and getting whooped just the same.”

“Or we can just ban him from Admiral Hawk.”

“Maybe we’ll just ban him entirely,” I laugh. “You’ll figure it out, I’m sure of it.”

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