Gymnastics Orphans And Jellyfish
Gymnastics, Orphans, and Jellyfish
Summary: Nine and Castor exercise while talking about family, and the nature of life.
Date: PHD015
Related Logs: Laundry And Robots
Players:
Nine..Eileithyia..Castor..

The gym is all but deserted, which is how Nine prefers it. She's in sweatpants rolled up to the knee, bare, then, to the toe, and her undershirt. She's got a leg hooked through a gymnastics ring and is dangling a decent height above th e floor, spinning slowly in place, her other leg and both arms drooping downward.

Castor steps into the gym dressed in sweats. He was about to walk up to the punching bag but he spots Nine and says to himself, "How in all of the fraking Universe can that not hurt." he says to himself softly. He says to the woman, "Nine, it's good to see you. How are you doing up there?" Castor walks over to a bench and begins to wrap his hands with tape.

Nine stretches out her hooked leg, looking for all the world like the move should make her tumble to the ground, but she quickly hooks her heel twice around the rope, inching upward toward the ceiling, "I've been taking lessons from Crucible," she reports as she crawls toward the ceiling using only her feet.

Castor takes a moment to watch this in disbelief, "Well, it sounds like he was a good teacher. Did you program him to teach you to climb or are you just copying him?" He finishes putting tape on his left hand and he begins working on his right hand.

Nine winds and unwinds the rope around each ankle in turn as her knees bend and unbend, taking her in a smooth, spider-like ascent toward the ceiling, upside-down. "He likes me. He shows me his ways."

Castor consider this for a moment and says, "Well, we learn from those we can." He asks, "May I ask you something, the other night when we had our discussion. You seemed to dislike what Cygnus had to say about Cylons. If it is okay, could you tell me what you think about them?" His tone is curious and non-judgemental.

Nine is silent a moment. "I…" she begins, "I think, that if it had been us? If we had been enslaved by the Cylons, treated as… less than human. If we rose up, if we killed them all? We would say that we were heroes."

Castor simply nods, "History is always written by the victor. Fair enough."

"It's just like…" Nine spins slowly on the rope, halting her ascent. "It's like people have just forgotten that we're the bad guy here, or we would be to any impartial observer. And we still think of them the same fraking way. We still dehumanize them, consider them -less- than us. And just prove that they were right about us all along."

She slipped into the Gym. She was in for a work out, and hd a small regime it seemed, Eileithyia headed to the the free weights. She nodded to her head to the others in the gym, trying to be polite.

Castor puts on his left glove, "Fair enough also. Though, what about now. We may be the last human beings left alive. I'm not saying your wrong, violence leads to violence, but where do you think we will go from here?" He gets his left glove on. "I ask because it seems like you have a unique perspective on all of this." Again the tone is curious.

"Where we go from here isn't up to me," Nine points out, hanging from the ceiling by a rope wound around an ankle. "But the people on this ship will fight back. Clinging to their hate and their bias. Rage until the last."

Castor finally has his gloves on begins to throw a series of punches onto the punching bag. While he is breathing, "Yeah, but do you think the Cylons hate us too? Killing off 12 Colonies worth of people is something that takes emotion, anger, and rage. Do you really think if just lay down arms they will let us go?" Again, even through the punches his tone is respectful and conversational, if not a bit grunty from the punches to the bag.

Castor thinks shakes his head but his eyes stay on the bag, 1 POW, 2 POW, "No, I don't think so. Not yet. So long as we've got breath we've got hope." 3, POW.

"I just want to meet one before I die," Nine murmurs from her nest near the ceiling. "I never have gotten to meet one."

Castor keeps punching with a three punch combo in repetition, "Why…" one, "is" two", "that?" three.

"Why is what?" Nine asks.

Castor stops punching for a moment, "Why is it that you want to meet a Cylon? It might kill you." His tone is still conversational.

"I always have," Nine replies. "They're really very remarkable," she adds quietly. "And maybe I'd have a chance to talk to them a little."

Castor takes a moment to consider this and really drinks it in before he says, "Suppose your right, what do you think it would have to say. I haven't seen any except for the ones in museums. I don't know if they can talk. Though I do know that they want us dead." He pauses for a long moment and says, "Who knows maybe you'll get your chance to meet some friendly Cylon someday. Though if you see one, do me one favor, run when it starts shooting."

Nine shrugs. "I don't think I can outrun bullets at all," she notes.

Castor takes a moment to wonder if Cylons can be friendly toward people. He begins punching again, "Then duck and cover." Pow, pow, "Call for the marines." Pow, pow, pow, "Just be careful…" pow, pow, "you know. Like I said everyone on this ship needs you. Especially your friends on the ship including Crucible."

"I was actually hoping… hoping that I might get one of them to take care of him after they kill us," Nine smiles at the thought. "He'll be safe with them."

Castor keeps punching the punching bag but says, "Well, if you built him, wouldn't you be his mother. So, don't you think he'd be better off with you?"

"Not when I'm dead," Nine replies. "And I'm just, you know, an ugly bag of mostly water. I'd die eventually, even if the cylons don't kill me. Which they will."

Castor stops punching and he takes his gloves off walking to Nine, "First off you are not an ugly bag of bones. Secondly, you have to hold on to hope. Anything is possible you know….and consider this, our bodies aren't very different from machines so what does that say about whatever created us maybe its the Lords, maybe it is something else, frak, maybe it is all an accident but I will tell you this much. You deserve to live just as much as you think the Cylons do." This time his tone is calmer though less conversational.

Nine is up near the ceiling. Castor might climb up after her, but it'd put a lot of pressure on her ankle. "We're just like… Jellyfish with legs."

Castor takes a moment to consider that as he watches Nine climb, "I've never seen a jellyfish climb." He then continues looking up. "Do you know how complex the human body is?" He takes a moment to think, "So in school I wasn't a great student but I remember a teacher once said there was enough mitochondrial energy in our body that we could run a city for a day. I doubt a Cylon can do that."

"You don't think that a Cylon can power a city for a day?" Nine asks Castor.

Castor shakes his head, "I doubt it. I mean from what we know from the war they couldn't." He remembers who he is talking to and says, "I'm not saying we are better…we are just, different. We are beautiful too. We aren't just jelly fish. Think about it, what has a jelly fish ever made? It was human beings who made the Cylons."

"Jellyfish with delusions of grandeur," Nine specifies. "Our intelligence is just another path of evolution. Like stingers."

Castor smirks, "How do you feel about jelly fish?"

"Panic. Primordial fear. Squishy, squishy. Stinglicious," Nine free associates vaguely from the ceiling.

Castor is starting to wonder if Nine isn't part monkey, "So, you don't think highly of Jellyfish?"
"I guess they've done well enough for themselves," Nine answers.

Castor then asks, "Okay…" he wipes some sweat from his head and begins to untape his hands, "How do you feel about human beings?"

"They think too much of themselves," Nine muses softly, bending up at the waist to grab the rope with both hands and begin to slide down. "Which is too bad, because there are some… there are some who really are kind of awesome."

Castor considers this assessment and chuckles slightly, "Yeah, I suppose that's true." He then begins to wonder, "Do you think the Cylons are the same way?"

Nine continues to slide down, finally just letting go and then grabbing onto the ring at the end of the rope before she drops down to the mat on her bare feet. "I don't know. I've never met one. I'd like to think… not being trapped in these fleshsacks… they have less of a need to delude themselves about their own importance. But I could be wrong."

Castor considers this for a moment and then says, "Well, if we can do it they can do it. After all we made them." He gufaws slightly. "So maybe they do the same."

"Well, I guess we'll see, then," Nine seems content to leave it at that.

Castor shakes his head, "Well, I hope not. I'd really rather not find out myself." He then asks, "May I ask a person question about your family, Nine?"

"What do you want to know?" Nine asks cautiously, moving slowly across a mat before turning a cartwheel, then another.

Castor asks, "Did you spend your childhood with them?" His tone is quiet and slightly melancholic.

"Mhm," Nine replies simply, turning a third cartwheel and then doing a handstand.

Castor asks again quietly, "Did you spend your childhood with them, yes or no?" His tone is still quiet and slightly melancholic.

"Mhm," Nine answers again, tipping backward to land flat on her back on the mat, staring up at the ceiling.

Castor changes subjects, "Never mind, it was a rude question to ask." He then changes tracks, "How is work going?"

Nine shrugs her shoulders. "It's work."

Castor nods, "Acctually, you know what I do want to know if you grew up with you family." He pauses and says, "I lost mine when I was young and well, I was wondering if you were a kindred spirit."

"What I tell you three times is true," Nine replies.

Castor seems confused, "But you only went mhm twice." He then says, "Nevermind, just please don't tell anyone okay.
"I grew up with my mom and dad and little sister," Nine tells him. "And sometimes with my uncle."

Castor gives a melancholic smile, "Sounds good." He then takes a breath, "I'll say this much. My parents died when I was young…my brother died a lot later after that." The words don't come out of his mouth easily. "So, I thought maybe we had something in common and I don't know why."

"Well… we're all orphans, now, aren't we?" Nine whispers.

Castor considers this for a moment drinking it all in and he says, "Yeah, yeah. I suppose we are." He then begins to think, "Then I know, I mean, I've felt the weight that some people are hiding from." He looks at Nine, "Thank you."

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