It was as always everything Aleph was promised and more.

The reef sparkled all around her except where her friend’s body obscured her view.

Directly above where the black shade of Tunie’s feathers was backlit by flickering sparks and flashes that shined around their edges. Straight across a great eye with a black cavern of a pupil big enough to lose aleph and her little bubble inside, watching her to make sure she would be safe.

She was tethered by a kind of basket of woven material that she could not translate as anything much more clear then ‘snot’ from her friend. But the structural properties and tolerances of it were clear and easy to grasp in the language of Ships so she knew it would hold.

And even if it broke her friend had many other feathers waiting to catch her.

She watched the reef, slowly turning around her and sat in the middle of the cushioning of the bubble walker as it dangled in front of Tunie’s eye from the shaft of one of the feathers overhead.

There was a sensation of utter stillness to it hilariously.

Here she was accelerating to speeds once thought impossible to attain by terrans, but there was hardly any sensation of movement. Her inner ears were delighted by the sensation of ‘downward’ and the sky even under the intense speed they had already obtained was so distant she could not see any change.

She had brought a few carefully constructed ‘wings’ with her. They were crude approximations, banded with the most light reflective and light absorbing materials she could find (Which turned out to be literal aluminum foil and a can of amazingly black paint. But she had the freedom to frame things in her own mind as she wanted!).

Tunie had told her the stuff in that hold was ‘leftover no longer useful crew toys’. So it was probably fine with Pylo if she borrowed it.

It was crude though, She had to tilt them instead of being able to actually change the reflective properties on the fly.

She also only had two of them, instead of the literal thousands of feathers her friend possessed. But that was fine she only had two eyes with significantly less focal range then her friend too. The wings were sufficient for basic ‘speech’ if she was particularly acrobatic and thought carefully through her motions.

Well less speech and more the barest hint of intonation and direction. But it was enough for asking to be reeled back in, making the Ship equivalent of appreciative noises, nods and question marks. Oh and a lot of pointing, which was useful because she could ask what Tunie was trying to direct her attention too.

She moved slowly, with extreme precision and tension, waving the faux-feathers around and twisting her wrists. Making half turns and sudden stops so that she could flash and flap the wings around in her bubble in front of the eye of her audience.

After each exchange she would always flare them out in a manner that technically signaled a minute amount of “alert pointing direction’ but was an agreed upon ‘syllable-analogue’ that Tunie and her agreed to for showing that she was ready to receive a response from the ship.

The first time they had done this Aleph had been completely lost. Tunie had used far too much of her massive real estate for terran eyes to follow the thread of flickering, flashing white and black feathers. But now her friend had settled into a much smaller flickering of patterns that circled around the main eye of focus.

It was very broad strokes, and Aleph was pretty sure that it was over-exaggerated and extremely obvious to make it easier for her. Also the ‘scale’ was a lot like the most gentle and quiet of whispers considering the distances Ships usually had to be recognized at. But even Pylo seemed impressed (Well more baffled and surprised that Aleph was still working so ‘incredibly hard’ at this but it was like being impressed), and from what she'd gathered about sirens that was quite a feat.

It took a lot of concentration and at first she had needed to bring a scratch pad to take notes, but it was getting easier. After she was sure she had the sense of it Aleph took up her wings again and spun and twisted in the little fluttering black and white flashing dance that signaled acknowledgement and then twisted and threw her arms out again to signal the direction and orientation she was going to look along with an interval.

Those were really hard and she was still not able to actually communicate them properly even with the resonance facilitated translation box’s direct interface unless she spent days working at it. She had been forced to make a kind of pidgin signal for seconds, minutes and hours that were ‘rooted’ to Tunie’s acceleration clock to more easily do the math.

It apparently was horrible grammar and a little rude/silly but the ship had accepted it as ‘diminutive-drive-less-friend-mannerism-forgiveness’. Well except as something like ballet and ballistic trajectory math.

Aleph’s head started hurting whenever she tried to explain Tunie’s jokes and adorable mannerisms to Omega, Quarti seemed to get it (maybe). But the depth of it just did not do her friend justice. There were nuances and wonders too it. Aleph was pretty sure she learned more about physics from just talking to Tunie then anyone native to Terra KNEW.

And that was just in the grammar and the way that the language found certain things self evident.

And on top of all of that Tunie was a wonderful person besides.

She peered into the space and twinkling dark, trying to let her eyes soak in the details and to maybe even see and feel the subtle shifting beyond that of her friend’s survey spin. She moved in slow smooth flicks and twists. Confirming her health and safety to Tunie even as she let her mind still.

Everything had to slow down out here. She could not talk at the pace that she was used too with tunie. And every word had to be a precision exercise in dance and focus. There was nothing out here that she would be able to notice to distract her. There was not even any sound but her own breathing and heartbeat.

Inside Tunie there was always some kind of motion, or the allure of a resonance connection. But out here she was well outside her own range (although she heard that Quarti and Omega could manage through some kind of soul trick).

Alone and with her friend, sitting in stillness and rushing faster then her mind could grasp.

Dangling in a bubble by a string of snot under the shelter of a single feather.

They were rushing towards the very edges of light, to heights of speed that would distort time and space.

And it was quite possibly the quietest most serene and silent place she had ever found in her entire life.

She danced in the silence, speaking softest of whispers that she was okay with flickering wings of black and white until her totems pinged that her time was up.

Class was starting soon and she had to get back before they worried about her.