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[arrownomore]

When Cissie had first signed up for the cardio class, she had figured it would be a breeze. She had been a superhero and an Olympic athlete and up to the point she'd been sucked to the island, she had still been keeping in reasonably good shape. As she'd discovered at the very first class, she had been dead wrong

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[patration]

While Zhuge felt that he had personally done rather well in adjusting to island life, and the fact that the culture of Tabula Rasa apparently fell more in line with times thousands of years after his own, one detail he had yet to grow accustomed to was how very revealing many outfits people wore around the island were. Growing up in a small village, of course he'd seen children running around in the summer heat, stripping themselves of clothing and playing around in the mud- he'd even enjoyed doing so a great deal himself, before protocol dictated that he always wear robes fitting his position in court. But there was a difference, he had to admit, between running around as kids, and seeing relatively matured women walking around and baring so much skin

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"Hey!" In spite of herself, Cissie had been slowly drifting into a nap and Zhuge happening by now was perfect timing and exactly the sort of distraction she needed to keep from dozing off.

She waved at him happily and scrambled up to return his bow as best she could. She still wasn't really clear on if she needed to or not, but it seemed like it was the right thing to do so that was that. "I'm doing okay. I've been running all morning and I was just taking a break. How are you?"

[patration]

Zhuge watched Cissie bow with great interest and amusement all at once; while it would have been an easy thing to reassure her of the fact that there was no need for her to bow to him and that the gesture was simply one he'd grown up with (he didn't place too much stock in it, but habits died hard), watching her make the attempt was too endearing.

"Oh, if you are taking break, maybe I should not... ah, make trouble?" Zhuge asked, unable to think of the proper term to refer to his having interrupted her relaxation. "But I am fine, thank you. There are almost no bad day while I am here. This place is very happy."

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"No, no," Cissie reassured him. "You're not making any trouble at all, I promise! I'm glad you happened to come by. You saved me from falling asleep and regretting it later."

She flopped back on the sand again and patted the space next to her. She really ought to stay standing and do some stretches to make sure her muscles stayed loose but she wanted to give her a feet a rest, and besides - she liked talking to Zhuge. "Come and sit with me?"

[patration]

One of the little pleasures Zhuge had taken to in recent days was watching the many films that the bookshelf provided for use with the projector. In particular, he'd collected many Chinese films, the majority of which seemed to call upon the dynastic age (he found this curious; European films did not always look to the monarchies of old, nor did Americans try to look to colonial times, and yet the Chinese clung to a culture and an age long past), and often could not help but chuckle along at how affected all of it was, riddled with inaccuracies. He'd found certain lines repeated many times over as well, and one of these he chose to use then, bowing his head again.

"I would be honored," he smiled, before settling down on the sand. The good thing about wearing so many robes, he thought to himself, was that the gritty grains never slipped anywhere uncomfortable- there was too much fabric in the way. "What have you been doing today? You look very relax."

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"Running all over the place," Cissie answered. "In the literal sense, I mean. It's my morning routine and all. I get up and go running for about an hour or so. It gives me something to do, you know? It's nice to be here and all but sometimes I get so restless."

She paused and offered him a smile, hoping she hadn't gone too fast for him again. He was doing really well at learning English - so much better than she would be if she had to learn his language but she knew she tended to speak really fast sometimes and that probably made things harder on him then they really should be.

[patration]

Although Zhuge did his best to keep active, he couldn't imagine putting an hour's worth of time into a workout every morning, and so his brows raised in slight surprise. He knew that, on the whole, both men and women had a great more opportunity in later centuries to pursue what they liked, that women were no longer kept to domestic activities and men not necessarily pushed out to war or into a classroom. He had to admit, however- he was surprised by just how many people took advantage of the freedom.

"An hour," he repeated with an impressed nod. "You must be much more strong than me. When I am home, I travel on horse." He held both hands briefly in front of him to mimic holding a horse's reins.

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Cissie tilted her head, appraising him. He outweighed her and had a few inches on her in the bargain but that didn't necessarily mean anything. She was probably quicker but anything else would be hard to say without seeing him in action.

"I don't know about that. I mean, yeah, I've got the muscles from archery and all the running but that's a whole different kind of thing. I could outrun you, maybe, but I don't even know how to ride a horse. You could totally outride me."

[patration]

She didn't agree with his assessment right away. That was good. While Zhuge certainly hoped that he hadn't given Cissie, or anyone else on the island, a reason to believe that he was any sort of a threat, the smarter thing to do was always never to underestimate. Overestimating could be just as dangerous, under certain circumstances, but Zhuge knew that humanity tended more towards the first than the second.

"I can only ride faster than you if I find a horse that like me," Zhuge countered in turn, playfully. "Horse is a big... ah..." His nose wrinkled just a touch.

"Horse give big part to riding."

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"That's actually one thing I never had lessons in," Cissie remarked thoughtfully. "Just about everything else, sure, but not horse riding. My mom didn't see the point and I couldn't really argue with her."

In a way, she supposed her mom had a point. There weren't exactly many superheroes running around on a horse and learning archery was tricky enough without putting a horse into the equation. All the same, it was one of the things she had always wanted to do, right up there with cooking something without setting it on fire and figuring out who she was.

"But I can see how that would make sense, though, doing better if the horse likes you. It's got to be all about the relationship and stuff, right? If you get along and all of that."

[patration]

In the amount of time that Zhuge had spent on the island, he was finding that most people engaged in a much greater number of activities than the average person from his homeland. Cissie was apparently no exception. On a certain level, Zhuge envied that ability, the way that one could pick and choose what they felt was interesting or relevant to their lives and run away with it entirely. Zhuge never had the luxury, quickly determined to be someone skilled in tactics and thus put to the task of overseeing even something as great and far-reaching as war. It placed him in a good position for a lifelong career, of course- that, Zhuge could not argue with.

But it had been limiting too, in its own way, which Zhuge was only able to counter at all because he'd had the skill and fortune to join the court.

His eyes narrowed.

"Your... mom?" he asked, before pausing, pulling from his memory. "Is this the same meaning as your mother? And what does superheroes mean?"

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"Mom is another word for for mother, yeah," Cissie answered, feeling a sinking pit in her stomach. Not for the mother thing, that totally made sense he would ask that but the superhero thing. She hadn't meant to mention anything about that. It might not be a big deal here, but it was to her and she didn't want to blurt that out to just anyone, no matter how nice they might be.

"Superheroes... well. In my world, there are people who have special powers and things, like running really fast, flying, super strength. Not me, I'm just an regular girl but they are out there."

[patration]

Certain people wore tension on their expressions. A taut jaw here, a dusting of cheeks there- people had tells, and it had long since been Zhuge's job to try and spot them wherever he could. But on the island, what made such a process more difficult was the fact that Zhuge didn't know very well the pool of experiences and perspectives that people had. Even the sorts of traits that Cissie listed just then felt beyond the scope of what Zhuge had ever known in the previous stage of his life. The one before the island.

"But what... separate talent from power?" he asked curiously, finding that to be the line most blurred.

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That was a really good question and it was something Cissie had been thinking about on and off for awhile. You had people like Batman who could hold his own against metahumans and more often that not even win despite being an "ordinary" person. There were people like her mother who were maybe fairly decent with a weapon at one time but just didn't have what it took to be a successful superhero. Then you had Kon, who was a clone of Superman and Cassie, who had her powers given to her by Zeus.

"Well, I kind of look like at it like degrees," she answered. "Like, I can maybe run run a mile in about five or six minutes or so. I know someone who, if he had his powers here, could run around the whole world in that time. Probably even less."

[patration]

Zhuge had never been much of a person who enjoyed attaching labels to people. It was a heavy practice in China, of course. People had titles, and there was a hierarchy in practically every trade, every town, and even within the family. But there seemed something especially pernicious in using a descriptor that not only alluded to one's general daily activities, but also proclaimed mastery over it. He'd been called a hero himself, and on multiple occasions- maybe it was excusable, maybe his role in ending the war merited just that- but assigning any value to the accomplishment seemed difficult to grasp.

But maybe other societies made it work.

"I understand," he nodded slowly, brow knit in thought as he turned his gaze out over the ocean. After a pause, he asked, without turning his gaze, "Do you want to be superhero?"

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That was a question Cissie had asked herself over and over and she still didn't have the answers. At first, she had done it because of her mother then it was to spite her and lord it over her that she was actually competent at being Arrowette. She had quit after she had nearly killed a man but now... now she felt like she was getting some perspective on things.

"I don't know," she replied slowly. "I know that I can be good at it and if I worked really hard, I could be great and hold my own. But I want to do it for the right reason, you know? Not because of my mother or because of my friends or because of anything else. I should want to do it because it is the best thing to be done, it's what needs to be done but I don't know if I'm there yet. I don't know if I'll ever be there yet."