Work Text:
I’m still not used to the gravity here.
I’d taken up fencing classes on the ship to make exercise more interesting. Once we’d decided on Terra and the scientists calculated the gravity factor, we started training with extra layers of clothes to simulate stronger gravity. All it seemed to do was make us sweat even more. We tried weighing down our wrists and ankles with heavy rubber rings, but that was too uneven. Finally, we decided just to keep training. We would adjust to the new gravity when we arrived.
it was hard at first. We breathed harder, sweated more, made more mistakes. The gravity wasn’t much stronger than it had been on the ship, but even a small difference took time to get used to. Eventually, though, we rediscovered our balance. We shifted our stances to stabilize our centers of gravity and dueled with lighter swords.
After we’d gotten settled on Terra, we took the ship out for short exploratory trips to our neighbouring stars and planets. I signed up for one of the trips with a fencing friend so we could fence in the gravity we were used to.
I’d seen videos of Earth astronauts bounding up and down on their moon, where the gravity was much less than it was on Earth. Fencing on the ship again wasn’t like that. It didn’t feel like flying. But it was wonderful all the same to feel like I was walking on little clouds, each step sending me springing me high into the air. It was lucky that we’d brought both our standard sabres and the lighter ones we used on Terra, since the heavier movements we’d developed sent the adjusted sabres flying upwards with every slash and slice.
Terra’s gravity weighed especially heavy on my shoulders when we returned.