Bond

Solidarity

There was absolutely little light in space, that's what's Marselie thought.

Despite that poor revelation, there stood an abundance of thick windows between her and the bare rest of outer space. Marselie itched to look out the windows but decided to hold herself back until Kellon finished speaking to her.

Her stomach dropped at the thought of the windows splintering into so many fractures that she would be rendered helpless; absorbed into the endless black. The only things that told her the tall panels weren't walls were that the ship's architecture spread far enough to peek up from the bottom of the window.

That and the pinpricks of light extending their limbs towards her from worlds away.

The wider, lower levels of the Grappler, seemed to be created with the strategic purpose of creating layers and stacks to look like steps that led to nowhere.

Lights in windows far off below them flickered and snapped, drawing Marselie's attention. But she couldn't be so sure.

Everything now seemed like a sick joke on the eyes.

She inched ever closer to the windows...

"That, Marselie," Kellon pointed out loudly enough to interrupt her thoughts, " is how we're going to eradicate every evil being in the breathing universe."

Kellon gave his faux finish proudly, beaming to the teeth. Marselie, embarrassed that she deliberately blocked out his voice, flushed instantly with color and retook her position beside him, away from the window.

Hands folded behind his back, Kellon glanced down at the girl's head, which was not much further down than his own.

"Sorry," she muttered, her eyes still stuck in the world outside the windows. "But you under-"

"I understand," Kellon replied at the same time.

They shared a mutually warm, mutually awkward smile, but Marselie's heart was not clamoring for any type of introduction at the moment.

"I've never seen anything like it," she said, her voice soft and measured.

She swelled with hope when her Bond gestured towards the glass. "Go ahead. I'll wait."

Marselie attempted to contain her glee, but the fog undulating on the windows was evidence enough of her pure excitement.

Kellon saw himself in her and gave her the respect he wished he had received when he was Initiated.

He had just fed her curiosity; a thing that, for Marselie, was starved for longer than it should be.

Stepping back, he waited patiently as her eyes spanned the insurmountable plane of stars and planets still as far away as if you were watching the night sky from Earth's floor.

He watched the wisp of a girl hold herself at a safe distance, cradling her fragile frame in scrawny arms.

Marselie's eyes seemed more than distant, though, and saw something he could not. Her lips remained pursed and her brow concentrated enough to make Kellon believe she was on the verge of crying. Or perhaps she was just very confused as to how fast her life had changed in the last hour. He settled for the latter.

She noticed he was staring quite intently.

"What?" Marselie replied a moment sooner than Kellon thought she would.

Her eyes widened to the likes of innocent moons: newly formed and undiscovered by overbearing asteroids or comets. Kellon had seen this expression many times before. It was one of a student immersing herself in worlds she altogether knew and worlds she had yet to uncover the true nature of.