“-funnily the artificial buoyancy is the reason we had to land here in the first place,” Semper continues to ramble, “though we have that fixed now! So I’ll actually be able to show you! The mechanics say we’ll be able to test it tomorrow!”

Oh.

“So that means you’ll be leaving,” Mourn says.

He goes quiet, responding eventually with, “yes.”

Yes he will be leaving, this tiny little fox so full of enthusiasm, joy, passion. She knew he would eventually leave, so why did she get close?

This stupid fox, his energy magnetic.

“The captain probably won't attend the test flight?” he moves on. “It will probably just be me the mechanics, you could -”

“I think I love you.”

He stops.

Letting out a soft, “oh.”

Just beneath his breath, barely audible.

“I’m sorry,” Mourn sighs.

She shouldn’t have said that, and so why did she say that? It was a hurtful thing to say, she just doesn’t want to lose him. To lose having this, to lose his excitement, his enthusiasm. To lose these conversations, to lose someone who treats her as a person, who doesn’t dumb down what they say to her, who doesn’t assume that she’s just a dumb large brute.

Someone who doesn't treat her as what she is.

A slave.

“I think that I love you?” Semper replies.

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