Ushas and Findthee go exploring

[rani_ushas]

Who: Ushas and Findthee Swing. Others are welcome to encounter them!
What: Ushas finished helped Findthee finish his trigonometry homework and now he's holding up his end of the deal: going exploring on the Barge with her. Whether he likes it or not.
Where: All about the Barge.
When: Kid Flood, day one.
Warnings: Are you kidding me?

Comments

[pleasesmirk]

Swing was worrying about his homework still. He wasn't sure if letting her help counted as cheating, and if the teachers would notice. Oh, they always noticed. Always.

He also wasn't a great fan of exploring places, preferring the familiar, but Ushas seemed nice, if a bit... annoying, so he supposed he'd go along. Besides, he'd never been asked to go anywhere with a girl. Ever. In the history of anything.

"I wonderwhat's... rightat the top...ofthe... stairs? It's...along way...up."

[rani_ushas]

"It's not that far," Ushas answered with an eyeroll. "There's got to be a deck or an observation room or something somewhere. Maybe that's what's up there."

Taking the stairs two at a time-a stretch for her short legs, but going any slower would have been inefficient-she hurried up to see.

[pleasesmirk]

Swing, in an effort to keep up, was skipping the odd step here and there, but had no discerinble pattern, just occasionally missed one out, "Hopefully... wemight be ableto see...wherewe are...and howtoget home?"

He was hopeful. Although the people here seemed nicer than the kids at the Assassins' Guild, but he wasn't telling that to anyone. Especially not a girl.

[rani_ushas]

Ushas stopped on a step and turned around to give Findthee an incredulous look. And since she was three steps ahead of him, it was more like giving the top of his head the look.

"Why would you want to go home before you've even had a proper look about?"

[pleasesmirk]

Swing shrugged, "I like...home." He frowned. No he didn't, not really, he just preferred it to strange, new, worrying places, "It's... everything's so strange...here."

[rani_ushas]

Eyeroll, again. "But that's what makes it fun," she said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "I had the boring old Academy mapped within a month after I started there, and they won't let me explore any of the other buildings in the Capitol. Here we can go-" and each of the next three words was punctuated by another bound up the stairs, "-wherever. We. Want."

At the top of the stairs, she craned her neck to look at the sign on the door she found there. "It's the deck!" she said excitedly. "Come on, Findthee!"

[pleasesmirk]

"But...what'swrong with the... Academy?" Swing bounded up the stairs after her and took one look at the door before stepping out, "I...arewe really...inspace?"

He figured he ought to check, and she ought to know.

[rani_ushas]

Ushas paused with her hand on the door handle. "The Academy is boring and it's full of boring old people and boring books and boring homework and the only way you can do anything interesting is if you're clever." It was pretty obvious that she classified herself as "clever".

She pushed open the door and stepped through, stopping with a gasp. "Oh. Look, Findthee, we're in ... we're in ..."

Abruptly she ran to the railing, standing on her toes to peer over the edge. "It's like space and the Vortex all in one!" she exclaimed, her voice filled with awe.

[pleasesmirk]

Swing was about to answer Ushas when they stepped outside. He paused right in his tracks. To be honest, he was a little terrified. Not that he was going to show it. No, he was an assassin, and braver than this. He swallowed hard and stared at it all.

"What's... what's thevortex?" He walked over to where she was, very nervously, not really wanting to look over the edge.

[rani_ushas]

Ushas rested her elbows on the railing, looking out into the swirling worlds in the void.

"The Vortex connects all of Time and Space. It's what Time Lords travel through. One day I'm going to travel the Vortex and I'm going to see everything in the universe."

She was silent for a minute, then she said quietly, "I had to look at it."

[pleasesmirk]

Swing was still apprehensive, but took a couple of steps closer when she said that, even if he was scared. It was the very definition of the unknown all around him.

"What was itlike? Like...this?"

[rani_ushas]

"It was bigger than this," she said. "It was everything, all of creation, and I looked into it and it-"

looked back and found its way into her tiny head and whispered yes, you are better than all of-

"It was amazing," she said finally, and turned to beam at Findthee. "But this is just as amazing."

[pleasesmirk]

Swing listened in a quiet awe, not quite sure how to respond to that, and ended up curiously staring over the edge, even if he was gripping that rail very hard. "You couldlook... intosomething... likethat." He'd vaguely heard of wizards who had a book about the creation of the Disc, but that could be made up.

"Maybeyou were...rightabout... that superior...thing."

There's a long pause as Swing studies the darkness a little, "Doesn't...itscareyou?"

[rani_ushas]

"No," she said confidently. "I'm going to be a proper Time Lady when I grow up. I'm not scared by a silly old Vortex." She looked at him. "What are you going to be?"

[pleasesmirk]

Swing nodded, "I'mglad you're... doing the Time...Lady thing, then." He glanced over at her and ruffled his hair a little, a bit worried, because he wasn't sure he'd actually pull it off. "I'mgoing... tobe an Assassin whenI graduate."

[rani_ushas]

"How does that work?" she asked. "Do people hire you and say here, assassinate this guy for me? How do you do it? Is that why you were doing homework about poisons and knives?"