Work Text:
The jellyfish drift about in their little saltwater enclosure.
There's hardly any light in the room Bort raises them in. Nothing, aside from the glow of their more luminescent brethren that lights up the floor and walls of their watery enclosure as they swim about. Bobbing lights bounce about in the water and occasionally off each other, and Bort keeps a careful eye on making sure none of their legs tangle as they feed off the little algae and microplankton gathered at the surface of the water.
They puff up and down, their legs wave about like Bort's hair once did on particularly windy days, back on Earth. When they bring a hand up to run fingers through short, cropped hair, they dismiss the thought of their Earth days before that spiral leads anywhere else. These jellyfish seem to get enough joy from wrapping up in each other, rather in a gem's hair.
The room is pitch dark, aside from the mini rainbows radiating light from the pool of saltwater. Bort's eyes are easily drawn to the lightshow of jellyfish before their eyes, and there is little reason to pay attention to anything else in the dark room.
The fingertips of their gloves are coated in the saltwater. Bort can't tell if the water is warm nor cold. The thermometer to the side of the enclosure can tell well enough, but they still begin to peel the glove off their arm before clenching a fist once, then twice. This new powder has proven itself well, but the worry of getting this new powder into the enclosure still lingers.
The way one particulary chromatic jellyfish bounces around reminds Bort of a certain someone. They tentatively brush their fingers against the surface of the saltwater, then raise their hand up to eye-level before rubbing their fingers together. The power doesn't budge—Moon technology is truly something else.
Moon technology. Moon ideals. Moon people—Lunarians—are so much different, so much more influential than Bort could have ever imagined. Because here they sit, tending to jellyfish rather dwelling on the flaws of their last battle or the possibilities of the next. The rainbow colors dance around before their eyes, but the tones are still so unlike their sibling's, tones refracting off the sun until a rainbow of their own danced around their head in a blinding, beautiful halo.
Bort reaches into the water. The temperature is perfect—at least, they think so, considering an immortal being like them would require no use of sensing temperature. The jellyfish are soon to wrap around Bort's bare hand, smooth membranes brushing against their powdered skin.
Here, Bort has their own rainbow. One that doesn't recklessly put itself in danger or entertain little fantasies, one that doesn't speak its mind not because it's stubborn, but because there are no thought processes to be had in the first place.
One that doesn't speak to Bort, nor encourage them, nor muse about simple, trivial happenings that Bort could dismiss because it didn't pertain to battle.
The infinite colors bounce around their hand. Endlessly drifting from one wall of their enclosure to the next, without a goal in sight.