Chapter Text
Gym Chalk coated Rivet’s hand. She had a goal in mind to do three sets of five reps on her pull up bar. It was her typical routine, one she never had to struggle with before. A single hand reached up to grab the bar with a steady grip, and she drew a long breath.
“Come on Rivet, Get it together. You’ve done this in your sleep.”
A faint jolt shoots though her shoulder as her body instinctively commands a complete pair of arms to fight the resistance. With a hiss, she forces the present one to lift her upwards, ignoring the imbalance on her wrist as she does so. Her bicep burns with the effort of two, and she makes one...
Two...
On the third rep, her arm tires and goes slack, and her grip slips from the sudden drop which sends her to the gym mat with a harsh thud. She lands on her tail at an odd angle that elicits quiet discomfort. A growl of frustration escapes from her, it’s not the first time she tried to do this today, or even this month. Yet she still fails to do a single set of her basic exercise.
“Hmph. I Lost my grip. Need more chalk.”
Again, she applies chalk. Again, she firmly grips the bar with a death grip. But this time she doesn’t even complete a single rep, her chin doesn’t even reach above the bar when her arm fails this time. She lands flat on the mat and contemplates in exasperation as she glares up at the bar. A few loose strands of hair have fallen on her face, which she blows away.
“Fine. I’ll be back tomorrow Mr. Bar!”
She lays there for a moment to assess what she can still do, and it occurs to her she hadn’t done her biweekly run yet. Her weight shifts awkwardly and she stumbles back onto her feet, her arm struggling to support her. She slips on her running shoes with just her feet, something that has become routine in over the last month. Sargasso isn’t exactly a safe place to run around, and she has since settled on doing laps on the gelatonium refinery platforms.
As she emerges from her hideout, she sees that the Morts are busy today, as they always are. They work on pumps, moving equipment and whatnot, but always stop to give her an affectionate wave as she passes by. A smile forces its way to her lips to greet them as she runs past. Sometimes, their eyes linger on her a moment too long for her to not notice, as they have since her incident. She ignores it and keeps running, focused on every step and every breath that keeps her on track.
This was the only part of her routine unhindered by her condition. The sense of speed and freedom as she dashed across platforms brought her a comforting sense of normalcy. As her heart pumped, she found herself not wanting to stop, to exist in this moment as long as she could endure. Despite the choking humidity and heat of the swamp, she pushed herself onward even as her lungs and legs ached. Eventually her timer signaled her to stop, and she reluctantly came to a still, mouth open and chest heaving in and out.
One hour, over six miles.
“Not bad. Lets try seven next time.”
A pair of Morts waddle up to her with a tray of lemonade, faces aglow with joy, “Nice job Rivet! Ya’ doing much better than we ever could. Want some refreshment? Ya’ favorite!”
Rivet shook her head through her heavy breaths, and reaches for the cool pitcher laden with icy lemonade. She stops as she leans forwards. An uneasy sensation ran through her stomach, as the strain of her sprint had caught up to her.
The pitcher stays on the tray as a frown spreads on her face. “Sorry Mort, I think I need to settle down first. Thanks anyway, very sweet of you!”
The pair of Morts quickly nod in unison, “Of course dear, We’ll leave it on this crate here for ya’!”
Even upon doing so they linger, their eyes subtly shift between her face and her arm. Her stomach clenches and the nausea gets worse, she leans onto the nearby crate and squeezes her eyes shut as she waits for the urge to vomit pass. Her tongue rakes the roof of her mouth, feeling the dryness of it as the sensation in her stomach gradually fades.
One of the Morts asks, “You okay their Rivet? Ya’ look a little-”
Rivet’s eyes shoot open and she flashes a smile at them, “I’m fine Mort, Really! See? I just ran over six miles, I’m doing much better!”
She nods her head enthusiastically, even if agitates her stomach again. They shrug their shoulders as they watch her stand upright again, “Well, ya’ just look... different ya’ know? We know It’s not easy… If ya’ need anything-”
They receive a thumbs up from Rivet, “Relax Mort, it’s temporary. Once I get this all settled, I’ll be back to my old ass kicking self!”
They don’t give a thumbs up back, and one cocks an eyebrow instead, “Okay, but if you really need anything…”
Her smile falters, “I’ll be fine. Temporary, remember?”
They look at each other for a moment, a thought passes between them, and then they reluctantly return to their duties on the platform. Gradually, once her stomach settles back down, Rivet pours a glass of lemonade and nurses on it. The chilly liquid soothing her throat, and she savors the tangy sour-sweetness. The Morts toiled away as Rivet watched on and observed them climb and lift their heavy equipment with practiced ease that made her ache in a way she couldn’t explain.
Once she finishes her drink, she gets an idea and tries to lift the tray with one arm. It’s unsteady on her palm, with the ice cubes clinking around madly in the pitcher. Confident in her balance she slowly walks over to the pair of Morts as they work.
As she approaches she calls out, “Hey, Mort? would you like your lemonade back-”
The tray slips out of her grasp and it falls onto the platform in a cacophony of metal and broken glass, which leaves a wet and sticky mess of lemonade on the platform. Rivet gasps and tries to pick up the shards, only to stop when she accidentally gives herself a small cut.
The Morts rush over to help her, “Rivet! Are you okay, you really shouldn’t have-”
Rivet’s cheeks flush with a mix of embarrassment and frustration, “I’m fine! I’m fine. I was just trying to return the favor. I’m sorry Mort.”
The Morts shake their heads as they sweep up the glass, their attention more focused on her, “No Worries Rivet. Things happen, Right?”
The ice cubes began to rapidly melt on the metal surface, The vicious rays of hot sunlight causes them to disappear right before her eyes. She feels a jab of empathetic familiarity at the sight, and she looks away from the mess, “Right.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Cool water cleansed the sweat off Rivet’s back, and the white noise of water against tile brought a calm sensation to her as she performed stretches against the shower wall. She could still feel it, the tingle of water drops on a limb that should be there. It felt so real that she thought she could look to her side and still see it there, as it should be. She indulges, and does so.
It’s not there.
Her stomach drops, if only for a moment. She looks away, and examines the tile instead, observing the subtle hairline cracks in the white porcelain. The shade is almost identical to her own fur color, she notes. A sigh escapes her that she refuses to acknowledge. She fiddles with her silver earrings as water runs through her hair, where the locks droop past her eye.
“It’s getting a bit long… I’ll need to trim it soon... Somehow.”
A shiver runs through her as the water’s coldness clings to her fur, and she promptly turns it off. She pulls a pair of towels from an adjacent rack and struggles to wrap one around her as sits on a stool she keeps in the bathroom now. Simple tasks she took for granted were a workout of their own now, sometimes she had stretch and twist to reach the hard to get places with her one arm. She growled when she reached her tail, the towel raking by some of the matted spots in her bushy tail she couldn’t reach which stung as the clumps were tugged.
Clothes were difficult too, and she often opted to go commando because the effort was just too much, often settling for elastic waistband pants and a tanktop. Even the logistics of getting her tail through her pants were a hassle, and sometimes she just left it in whichever pant leg it got stuck in if she wasn’t being active. This was one of those times, and she had done it often enough were she felt tolerably comfortable walking around without the balance of her tail. Her stomach rumbled, evidently lemonade wasn’t going to be enough today.
A raid conducted on her mini fridge revealed what she already expected, not much of anything that hadn’t expired, aside from what the Morts gave her from time to time. Dry foods would have to do for tonight; With a protein bar, banana, and a couple of colorful and assorted puffoid shaped supplements being her meal. Her teeth proved more useful than ever, by ripping through the banana peel and packaging, and holding the vitamin bottle while she popped the cap off.
For a while she just sat on her couch eating the bland foods that kept her going, fixated on what she will try to achieve tomorrow. She cradles her notebook in her lap and stared at the to do list she wrote down this morning. It taunted her with the tasks she was not able to complete today; Push ups 10 and 3. Pull ups 5 and 3. And so on.
She looked at prior days. Same thing. Still struggling with those. She ignored them and underlined the improvements. For tomorrow she wrote the same tasks, or to do a little better.
“Doing well at cardio… maybe focus on that.”
She writes; Run seven miles, 4x per week.
She tosses the notebook back onto her coffee table, certain she’ll get all her goals done tomorrow. Doubt crosses her mind but she quickly disposes of it, along with the wrapper and banana peel that are thrown into the waste bin. Holoflicks don’t offer much entertainment, and that’s the downside of living on a remote planet like Sargasso. Safe from prying eyes, but you only get reruns of Lance and Janice season two in exchange. She learned to make do without it a long time ago.
She kept a small but pridefully curated selection of books, magazines, and articles in her Digi-Reader, and she flicked though them with her hand until one caught her interest. Dangerous Power Equipment and You!: A Non-Instructional Guide By Sigma 0426B, She hummed as she started reading through it, fascinated by the many ways that you could harm yourself on shoddy equipment. The section on Kerchu equipment fascinated her due to their former prevalence here on Sargasso, until she saw a section of how a Pyroguard’s poorly protected treads could rip someones arm from their socket.
She skipped that page.
It wasn’t long before her eyes began to droop as the late hours and long day of workouts began to set in. She didn’t really want to got to sleep, but their was no avoiding it either. With a sigh, she set down the reader to go over and flop into her bed. A bottle of sleep medication rested on night stand. She hesitantly picked it up and tapped out a single pill. It was a tiny, round, and had an innocuous white color that she regarded with caution as she nudged it in her palm with her thumb.
“No sleep. Or nightmares?”
She nudges the tiny pill around in her hand in thought. Ultimately, she tilted her head back and swallows it dry.
“Sleep it is. Night nigh-”
The bedding took the fall of her body with a soft thump as the medication took immediate effect, but her consciousness kept falling through the express elevator to her personal hell.