On my first day as a woman, I learned that I like:
A blank space in the workbook awaited her answer.
On my first day as a woman, I learned that I will not miss:
A second blank space awaited the same answer.
An entire roadmap had been laid out in the book's appendix, for the days, then weeks, then months and years that followed, the slow dismemberment of one identity followed by the rebuild of another. Nothing could be crueller than the militant kindness of a Senshi who thought she was doing the right thing. Turn that into a plural and you had a recipe for a nightmare.
Gaige lay on her couch, drumming it over in her mind, rapping her fingers on a plastic table.
On a whim, whether optimistic that she could go back, or pessimistic that she'd need it when she did, she searched for the book's distaff counterpart, a Guide for the New Man.
Nothing.
A few self-help groups clustered together in the corners of some websites, with the makings of something useful, but nothing published or lionised as the one true path to a happy unintentional manhood.
Daryl did have a point.
The words 'Jet' and 'Cybernetics expert' didn't usually appear in the same sentence. Not without ' required expensive repairs by a pre-eminent' somewhere in between.
Gaige spent the morning trialling her new clothes, trying to find something that fit mind and body – whatever was least uncomfortable to wear.
Looking at herself in the mirror sent alien shivers up her spine, but she didn't have to look at silk underwear beneath a denim jacket and a pair of jeans that took a few hard tugs and a bounce to get over her hips.
She padded around on the balls of her feet, refusing to bother with shoes despite the tension in her ankles. It felt natural – stable.
She trialled her balance again, cybernetic systems keeping her rock solid on one foot, almost imperceptible twitches of her muscles right up to the point where gravity would no longer be denied.
The body caught itself with automatic grace before Gaige had fully registered the toppling sensation.
She stood, breathing. Gaige stepped backwards. One last thing to try.
One. Two. Three running steps and she pitched forward. He fingers touched the cold concrete floor, pirhouetting her body through the air, to land deftly on the balls of her feet, ankles absorbing the shock.
Her chest bounced once as a reminder.
“Wow,” Gaige breathed, gazing down at her fingers.
Never let it be said that she couldn't at least appreciate the mechanics. The puppet operated on a level far above his own body.
A chime from the door snagged her attention.
She begged the real world to leave her alone with her body.
The door chime insisted once more.
A single breath steeled her will. The door stretched away as she strode towards it, giving her long seconds to reconsider, to feel the eyes beyond the door crawl across her skin.
Her hand grasped the latch, pulling the door open with a squawk.
Her body relaxed the moment she recognised the woman looking up at her,
“Kotono!”
“Have we met?” she grinned in return.
“Um....” Gaige’s mind backpedalled, grasping for an excuse. “I read about you,” her lips found one before her mind.
“Hopefully it was something good,”Kotono’s grin broadened into a vulpine smirk. “Well, I live down the next passage so I thought I'd drop by and welcome our newest arrival.”
A nudge of her head indicated in the direction. Her eyes remained fixed on a spot over Gaige’s shoulder, betraying her true desires
“Well, ah, come inside and I'll make tea,”
She stepped back. Kotono stepped forward, heels tock-tocking on the concrete floor. Gaige couldn’t help but steal a glance as the woman stepped past, enjoying the perks of a taller vantage point. A shrug of Kotono’s shoulders warned her that she’d been spotted.
Taking a breath, she followed the woman inside. The door squeaked shut behind her, latching locked.
“Now we can drop the act,” Kotono breathed, turning to face. “So, do I call you Gaige, or Mackie?”
Gaige forced a rueful smile, one of her hands finding its way to her hip. “If I'm going to be called Gaige for the next few weeks I better get used to it.”
Her stomach turned. Kotono’s body tensed.
“Alright, Gaige,” she said, trying the name on for size.
Gaige forced a smile. “Tea?” she offered.
“Oolong,”
Gaige blinked.
“Whatever you have will be fine,”
Kotono made herself comfortable on a couch, bare thighs sliding across each other as she crossed her legs. Gaige felt her own legs rub in sympathy, swallowing the lump rising up her throat.
Had Kotono worn that on purpose?
She tried to suppress the thought, buying herself searching through the open kitchenette for anything that resembled tea. A press door nudged against her breast, drawing a shudder up her spine and a simultaneous giggle from Kotono.
“So, how're you feeling?”
Gaige glared at her.
“Really weird,” she answered. Her hands pressed against her chest. “I didn't realise how much these things would move,”
“We all went through it, said Kotono mildly, just enough to lull Gaige into turning around. “And if you say what I think you're thinking I'll kill you.”
“I didn't say a word.”
“But you thought it.” Kotono glowered down. “You've had them for two days and already you're bullying the naturals.”
Her lips pursed into a thick pout “It's not like I wanted them...”
Silence. Kotono held the stare long enough for the kettle to start boiling.
The mask cracked. Laughter burst out,
Gaige came within a moment of murdering her for it.
“Got you, Gaige”
“Damn it.”
She closed her eyes, letting her forehead rest against the cool steel panelling of the cupboard.
“You need to work on your cattiness,” Kotono advised.
Gaige glanced back at her. “Cattiness?”
“The feminine art of making yourself feel a lot better, by making a lot of other people feel slightly worse,” Kotono explained with a sage-like finger in the air.
“Sounds like bullying to me,”
“It is a little.” She admitted. “So you only do it with your friends because you know where their limits are. That's the art, cattiness without bitchiness.”
Gaige said nothing, focusing herself on the fine arts of making instant tea while not brushing parts of herself with her arms.
“Guys do it to!”
“The difference being guys are both in on the joke,” she snapped, harder than she meant.
“Both women are too. It's a matter of boundaries”
Gaige said nothing, filling two steaming cups with scalding water. Tea brewed along with her temper. Kotono’s gaze never left her back.
“There's no real trick to being a woman or a man, it's just life,” said Kotono. “Find those things that make you feel good about yourself and don't be afraid do them, whatever they are.”
Obviously she didn’t get it. Gaige remained silent.
Fuck.
In a diamond-bullet moment, she remembered all the times the women of her life had given her The Silence. Without ever explaining why or what, it was the moment when you knew she was mad at you and you had to do something to make it up even though you had no idea what so it had to be something big to cover every possibility.
And there she stood, doing it like a master.
Her mind scrambled for something to say, to not be that person….
Kotono beat her to it.
“There's no sense in being miserable just to prove your manhood. Nobody doubts that...”
It cut far harder than she expected. Her tongue snapped.
“But I need to at least try, or people'll think I wanted it or something.”
Kotono’s jaw slacked open. Enlightment had just swooped down and slapped her hard in the face.
“What'd I say?” Gaige wondered.
Kotono’s shoulders fell, the expression on her face into something that could almost fall
“Something more women would understand than you think, Gaige.”
She stood there, secretly grateful that she didn’t. Two cups of fresh tea steamed on the counter beside her. A few short moments and a long breath helped her face the conversation coming.
Gaige crossed the floor, calmly placing both cups on the table. One without milk for Kotono, one with for herself.
“Thanks,” said Kotono, mild surprise passing across her face.
Gaige’s body found it’s natural comfortable position when she sat down, legs sliding over each other, mirroring the woman opposite. Kotono took her cup in both hands, bringing it to her lips.
Gaige allowed hers to steam.
“So how do you feel?” Kotono asked again, her voice softer.
“Weird,” Gaige gave the same answer. “It’s really hard to describe it more than that..”
She felt herself look up, expecting an answer.
“You’re dealing with it very well,” Kotono said. “Better than I think I would.”
“Maybe. It doesn’t feel like I am. I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel, really.”
“Neither do I.” Kotono looked down at the reflection swimming on the surface of her black tea. “But I think, I’d be scared more than anything.”
“A little,” Gaige admitted, feel her body crush down into itself. “Of a lot of things.”
“Like what?”
Her mind mind cracked.
“Like not really being me.” Words seeped from her mouth “Like my Sister might’ve screwed up and doesn’t know. Like I’ll never go back or I might not want to go back or that people will find out it’s really me and….” The seep roared into a torent
She sniffed, her eyes moistening. Her body shook as she spiralled
“Gaige….Mackie.” Hearing his real name stopped him dead, staring at her “You’ve been attacked. You’ve been violated. Your identity’s been torn apart. However you feel, it’s OK to feel that way.”
“They killed me and now….”Gaige’s breath spasmed, her mind crashing to a halt at the moment of impact.
“I can prove you’re still you.”
Kotono’s face carried a sweetling smile, comfortable as plush doll. Soft hands clasped together.
Gaige’s eyes blinked themselves clear. “How,” she breath.
“Daryl told me she saw you in a flight suit earlier. That you took that racer out for a spin,”
The smile mutated into a cheeky smirk.
“Well yeah,” Gaige’s legs tightened together, recalling the sensation of the flightsuit. “If I didn’t get back into the cockpit, I’d be scared of it for the rest of my life. It’d be harder next time, so I had to.”
Kotono leant forward, over her mug. Her eyes gleamed. “It’d beat you.”
Gaige sat up. “Yeah.”
Kotono’s eyes narrowed. “She told me about the flightsuit.”
Her voice slipped down to a whisper, sharing a secret.
Gaige’s arms crossed. “Well, I had to wear it, or I wouldn’t be able to fly?”
Kotono smirked. You just triggered my trap card. Her arms crossed in triumph.
“So, flying is more important to you, than worrying about a few people in the landing bay watch you stroll to the locker room in a skintight flightsuit. It’s more important that worrying about anyone seeing you as a woman.”
Gaige felt her cheeks flush. She looked away, focusing on the wall. “I didn’t think of it like that. I just felt so good, I guess I forgot.”
Hopefully she’d believe that.
Gaige looked up
“The only way this will destroy your identity is if you let it.”Kotono took a breath, struggling to be magnanimous in victory. “If you let it stop you doing the things you want to do, or trying what you want to try, because those are the things that make you who really are.”
Dammit.
Gaige wheeled it around. “What’d you do, if you woke up as a man tomorrow?”
Kotono giggled. “Once I got over the shock? Maybe another woman.”
“Really?”
“Well, yeah.” Her shoulders shrugged laconically. “I’d want to know what guys get out of it.”
And that sounded almost like an accusation. Gaige cringed, her stomach turning.
“You don’t think you’d be creeped out?”
The idea sickened her.
She snorted. “After having a penis inside me, I think I could manage having one outside.”
Gaige’s jaw slacked open.
Kotono help up a single finger, driving the point home with a few short taps against empty space. “And if you think women won’t ever get pervy about men, you’re in for a sharp lesson.”
Gaige scowled at her. “I know what women are like.”
“Oh,” Kotono loomed forward, ready to hoover up the story.
“I live with my sister…”
She decided against telling her of time time she’d walked in on her own sister, straddling herself with empty tins of turtle turtle wax and a buffing wheel.
If only to avoid the next obvious tease.
And the idea churning in the pit of her stomach.
A long gulp of cooling tea swallowed it.
“I see…” said Kotono after a few moments. “Well, after a few years with a body like hers I suppose I’d find it hard too.”
Her smile hid behind a slurp from her mug, draining the last of the tea.
“Now what?” Gaige finally broke the silence.
“Do whatever you want.” Kotono answered, placing the cup on the table in front of her.
Gaige gazed down at her own reflection swimming in the dark tea.
“Easier said,” she breathed. The weight on her chest hung heavy.
“I get it.” Said Kotono, taking a moment to gather thoughts. “Look. This has happened to you, you can’t change that. This violated you. And you’re scared and frightened and it’s looming in your head and you don’t want to loose what little bit of yourself you have left.”
She took a breath. Gaighe opened her mouth to try and interrupt. Kotono leant forward, closing her down.
“But you can still beat it, by not letting it rule you. Don’t let it change your mind, don’t let it deny you the things you enjoy, and don’t let it keep you from trying new things, or discovering new things to like about yourself.”
“Am…” Gaige managed.
Kotono glared, eyes turning hard. “You win by moving forward and not letting it hold you down, you lose a little every time you turn away until you find yourself months down the line still curled into a ball hoping it’ll go away while instead it, and whoever did it, sit gloating in the back of your mind.”
Turned her own personal success against her. How cruel. “That’s nasty,” Gaige said to her tea.
“But it’s true.” Kotono took a breath. “Thanks for the tea.”
--
The suit made a deliberate effort to become as tight as possible, finding its way into every uncomfortable crevice. She ignored it as she crossed the hangar, letting her long stride carry her inexorably forward.
Eyes stared.
Every gaze crawled across her body, eyes like thousand of legs skittering across her skin. Whispers whirled around. It gnawed inside her. Maybe this wasn’t exactly what Kotono meant.
Her Sister stared straight through her with a look like they’d never met before in their life.
“I’m a Pilot,” Gaige declared, silencing everyone.
Nobody dared dispute that. This is who I am still.
“That’s why you got the job,” Jet answered.
----
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
A blank space in the workbook awaited her answer.
On my first day as a woman, I learned that I will not miss:
A second blank space awaited the same answer.
An entire roadmap had been laid out in the book's appendix, for the days, then weeks, then months and years that followed, the slow dismemberment of one identity followed by the rebuild of another. Nothing could be crueller than the militant kindness of a Senshi who thought she was doing the right thing. Turn that into a plural and you had a recipe for a nightmare.
Gaige lay on her couch, drumming it over in her mind, rapping her fingers on a plastic table.
On a whim, whether optimistic that she could go back, or pessimistic that she'd need it when she did, she searched for the book's distaff counterpart, a Guide for the New Man.
Nothing.
A few self-help groups clustered together in the corners of some websites, with the makings of something useful, but nothing published or lionised as the one true path to a happy unintentional manhood.
Daryl did have a point.
The words 'Jet' and 'Cybernetics expert' didn't usually appear in the same sentence. Not without ' required expensive repairs by a pre-eminent' somewhere in between.
Gaige spent the morning trialling her new clothes, trying to find something that fit mind and body – whatever was least uncomfortable to wear.
Looking at herself in the mirror sent alien shivers up her spine, but she didn't have to look at silk underwear beneath a denim jacket and a pair of jeans that took a few hard tugs and a bounce to get over her hips.
She padded around on the balls of her feet, refusing to bother with shoes despite the tension in her ankles. It felt natural – stable.
She trialled her balance again, cybernetic systems keeping her rock solid on one foot, almost imperceptible twitches of her muscles right up to the point where gravity would no longer be denied.
The body caught itself with automatic grace before Gaige had fully registered the toppling sensation.
She stood, breathing. Gaige stepped backwards. One last thing to try.
One. Two. Three running steps and she pitched forward. He fingers touched the cold concrete floor, pirhouetting her body through the air, to land deftly on the balls of her feet, ankles absorbing the shock.
Her chest bounced once as a reminder.
“Wow,” Gaige breathed, gazing down at her fingers.
Never let it be said that she couldn't at least appreciate the mechanics. The puppet operated on a level far above his own body.
A chime from the door snagged her attention.
She begged the real world to leave her alone with her body.
The door chime insisted once more.
A single breath steeled her will. The door stretched away as she strode towards it, giving her long seconds to reconsider, to feel the eyes beyond the door crawl across her skin.
Her hand grasped the latch, pulling the door open with a squawk.
Her body relaxed the moment she recognised the woman looking up at her,
“Kotono!”
“Have we met?” she grinned in return.
“Um....” Gaige’s mind backpedalled, grasping for an excuse. “I read about you,” her lips found one before her mind.
“Hopefully it was something good,”Kotono’s grin broadened into a vulpine smirk. “Well, I live down the next passage so I thought I'd drop by and welcome our newest arrival.”
A nudge of her head indicated in the direction. Her eyes remained fixed on a spot over Gaige’s shoulder, betraying her true desires
“Well, ah, come inside and I'll make tea,”
She stepped back. Kotono stepped forward, heels tock-tocking on the concrete floor. Gaige couldn’t help but steal a glance as the woman stepped past, enjoying the perks of a taller vantage point. A shrug of Kotono’s shoulders warned her that she’d been spotted.
Taking a breath, she followed the woman inside. The door squeaked shut behind her, latching locked.
“Now we can drop the act,” Kotono breathed, turning to face. “So, do I call you Gaige, or Mackie?”
Gaige forced a rueful smile, one of her hands finding its way to her hip. “If I'm going to be called Gaige for the next few weeks I better get used to it.”
Her stomach turned. Kotono’s body tensed.
“Alright, Gaige,” she said, trying the name on for size.
Gaige forced a smile. “Tea?” she offered.
“Oolong,”
Gaige blinked.
“Whatever you have will be fine,”
Kotono made herself comfortable on a couch, bare thighs sliding across each other as she crossed her legs. Gaige felt her own legs rub in sympathy, swallowing the lump rising up her throat.
Had Kotono worn that on purpose?
She tried to suppress the thought, buying herself searching through the open kitchenette for anything that resembled tea. A press door nudged against her breast, drawing a shudder up her spine and a simultaneous giggle from Kotono.
“So, how're you feeling?”
Gaige glared at her.
“Really weird,” she answered. Her hands pressed against her chest. “I didn't realise how much these things would move,”
“We all went through it, said Kotono mildly, just enough to lull Gaige into turning around. “And if you say what I think you're thinking I'll kill you.”
“I didn't say a word.”
“But you thought it.” Kotono glowered down. “You've had them for two days and already you're bullying the naturals.”
Her lips pursed into a thick pout “It's not like I wanted them...”
Silence. Kotono held the stare long enough for the kettle to start boiling.
The mask cracked. Laughter burst out,
Gaige came within a moment of murdering her for it.
“Got you, Gaige”
“Damn it.”
She closed her eyes, letting her forehead rest against the cool steel panelling of the cupboard.
“You need to work on your cattiness,” Kotono advised.
Gaige glanced back at her. “Cattiness?”
“The feminine art of making yourself feel a lot better, by making a lot of other people feel slightly worse,” Kotono explained with a sage-like finger in the air.
“Sounds like bullying to me,”
“It is a little.” She admitted. “So you only do it with your friends because you know where their limits are. That's the art, cattiness without bitchiness.”
Gaige said nothing, focusing herself on the fine arts of making instant tea while not brushing parts of herself with her arms.
“Guys do it to!”
“The difference being guys are both in on the joke,” she snapped, harder than she meant.
“Both women are too. It's a matter of boundaries”
Gaige said nothing, filling two steaming cups with scalding water. Tea brewed along with her temper. Kotono’s gaze never left her back.
“There's no real trick to being a woman or a man, it's just life,” said Kotono. “Find those things that make you feel good about yourself and don't be afraid do them, whatever they are.”
Obviously she didn’t get it. Gaige remained silent.
Fuck.
In a diamond-bullet moment, she remembered all the times the women of her life had given her The Silence. Without ever explaining why or what, it was the moment when you knew she was mad at you and you had to do something to make it up even though you had no idea what so it had to be something big to cover every possibility.
And there she stood, doing it like a master.
Her mind scrambled for something to say, to not be that person….
Kotono beat her to it.
“There's no sense in being miserable just to prove your manhood. Nobody doubts that...”
It cut far harder than she expected. Her tongue snapped.
“But I need to at least try, or people'll think I wanted it or something.”
Kotono’s jaw slacked open. Enlightment had just swooped down and slapped her hard in the face.
“What'd I say?” Gaige wondered.
Kotono’s shoulders fell, the expression on her face into something that could almost fall
“Something more women would understand than you think, Gaige.”
She stood there, secretly grateful that she didn’t. Two cups of fresh tea steamed on the counter beside her. A few short moments and a long breath helped her face the conversation coming.
Gaige crossed the floor, calmly placing both cups on the table. One without milk for Kotono, one with for herself.
“Thanks,” said Kotono, mild surprise passing across her face.
Gaige’s body found it’s natural comfortable position when she sat down, legs sliding over each other, mirroring the woman opposite. Kotono took her cup in both hands, bringing it to her lips.
Gaige allowed hers to steam.
“So how do you feel?” Kotono asked again, her voice softer.
“Weird,” Gaige gave the same answer. “It’s really hard to describe it more than that..”
She felt herself look up, expecting an answer.
“You’re dealing with it very well,” Kotono said. “Better than I think I would.”
“Maybe. It doesn’t feel like I am. I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel, really.”
“Neither do I.” Kotono looked down at the reflection swimming on the surface of her black tea. “But I think, I’d be scared more than anything.”
“A little,” Gaige admitted, feel her body crush down into itself. “Of a lot of things.”
“Like what?”
Her mind mind cracked.
“Like not really being me.” Words seeped from her mouth “Like my Sister might’ve screwed up and doesn’t know. Like I’ll never go back or I might not want to go back or that people will find out it’s really me and….” The seep roared into a torent
She sniffed, her eyes moistening. Her body shook as she spiralled
“Gaige….Mackie.” Hearing his real name stopped him dead, staring at her “You’ve been attacked. You’ve been violated. Your identity’s been torn apart. However you feel, it’s OK to feel that way.”
“They killed me and now….”Gaige’s breath spasmed, her mind crashing to a halt at the moment of impact.
“I can prove you’re still you.”
Kotono’s face carried a sweetling smile, comfortable as plush doll. Soft hands clasped together.
Gaige’s eyes blinked themselves clear. “How,” she breath.
“Daryl told me she saw you in a flight suit earlier. That you took that racer out for a spin,”
The smile mutated into a cheeky smirk.
“Well yeah,” Gaige’s legs tightened together, recalling the sensation of the flightsuit. “If I didn’t get back into the cockpit, I’d be scared of it for the rest of my life. It’d be harder next time, so I had to.”
Kotono leant forward, over her mug. Her eyes gleamed. “It’d beat you.”
Gaige sat up. “Yeah.”
Kotono’s eyes narrowed. “She told me about the flightsuit.”
Her voice slipped down to a whisper, sharing a secret.
Gaige’s arms crossed. “Well, I had to wear it, or I wouldn’t be able to fly?”
Kotono smirked. You just triggered my trap card. Her arms crossed in triumph.
“So, flying is more important to you, than worrying about a few people in the landing bay watch you stroll to the locker room in a skintight flightsuit. It’s more important that worrying about anyone seeing you as a woman.”
Gaige felt her cheeks flush. She looked away, focusing on the wall. “I didn’t think of it like that. I just felt so good, I guess I forgot.”
Hopefully she’d believe that.
Gaige looked up
“The only way this will destroy your identity is if you let it.”Kotono took a breath, struggling to be magnanimous in victory. “If you let it stop you doing the things you want to do, or trying what you want to try, because those are the things that make you who really are.”
Dammit.
Gaige wheeled it around. “What’d you do, if you woke up as a man tomorrow?”
Kotono giggled. “Once I got over the shock? Maybe another woman.”
“Really?”
“Well, yeah.” Her shoulders shrugged laconically. “I’d want to know what guys get out of it.”
And that sounded almost like an accusation. Gaige cringed, her stomach turning.
“You don’t think you’d be creeped out?”
The idea sickened her.
She snorted. “After having a penis inside me, I think I could manage having one outside.”
Gaige’s jaw slacked open.
Kotono help up a single finger, driving the point home with a few short taps against empty space. “And if you think women won’t ever get pervy about men, you’re in for a sharp lesson.”
Gaige scowled at her. “I know what women are like.”
“Oh,” Kotono loomed forward, ready to hoover up the story.
“I live with my sister…”
She decided against telling her of time time she’d walked in on her own sister, straddling herself with empty tins of turtle turtle wax and a buffing wheel.
If only to avoid the next obvious tease.
And the idea churning in the pit of her stomach.
A long gulp of cooling tea swallowed it.
“I see…” said Kotono after a few moments. “Well, after a few years with a body like hers I suppose I’d find it hard too.”
Her smile hid behind a slurp from her mug, draining the last of the tea.
“Now what?” Gaige finally broke the silence.
“Do whatever you want.” Kotono answered, placing the cup on the table in front of her.
Gaige gazed down at her own reflection swimming in the dark tea.
“Easier said,” she breathed. The weight on her chest hung heavy.
“I get it.” Said Kotono, taking a moment to gather thoughts. “Look. This has happened to you, you can’t change that. This violated you. And you’re scared and frightened and it’s looming in your head and you don’t want to loose what little bit of yourself you have left.”
She took a breath. Gaighe opened her mouth to try and interrupt. Kotono leant forward, closing her down.
“But you can still beat it, by not letting it rule you. Don’t let it change your mind, don’t let it deny you the things you enjoy, and don’t let it keep you from trying new things, or discovering new things to like about yourself.”
“Am…” Gaige managed.
Kotono glared, eyes turning hard. “You win by moving forward and not letting it hold you down, you lose a little every time you turn away until you find yourself months down the line still curled into a ball hoping it’ll go away while instead it, and whoever did it, sit gloating in the back of your mind.”
Turned her own personal success against her. How cruel. “That’s nasty,” Gaige said to her tea.
“But it’s true.” Kotono took a breath. “Thanks for the tea.”
--
The suit made a deliberate effort to become as tight as possible, finding its way into every uncomfortable crevice. She ignored it as she crossed the hangar, letting her long stride carry her inexorably forward.
Eyes stared.
Every gaze crawled across her body, eyes like thousand of legs skittering across her skin. Whispers whirled around. It gnawed inside her. Maybe this wasn’t exactly what Kotono meant.
Her Sister stared straight through her with a look like they’d never met before in their life.
“I’m a Pilot,” Gaige declared, silencing everyone.
Nobody dared dispute that. This is who I am still.
“That’s why you got the job,” Jet answered.
----
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?