Down Time

[The Future Warrior]

For a long time she just laid there, tired and defeated after her embarrassing loss against the combined onslaught of an artificial morning and the omnipresent pull of gravity. Maybe it was just because of her sorry predicament, or maybe she just got lucky with the apartment she'd been assigned, but after a while the floor actually started to seem...pretty comfortable. Saying nothing of the awkward, very, very uncomfortable posture she had ended up in, which ruined any hope of actually enjoying the surprising comfort of laying on the floor in a disheveled heap.

Of course, the muffled, ringing sound of a call coming in over her scouter dashed any hope of that to begin with.

With a groan to announce her displeasure at this entire turn of events for the entire crowd of no one that was around to hear it, she struggled free of the confining cotton embrace she'd gotten herself embarrassingly entangled in, crawling slowly out of the mess of tangled sheets and back to her feet. Steadying herself against the wall for a moment, she shook her head, mess of head tentacles flopping about wildly. Boy, what a way to wake up... She strolled across the room to retrieve her scouter, stretching to work out the stiffness in joints she was almost entirely sure she didn't have (and which would have left more inquiring or aware minds wondering how they could be stiff at all, then) and managing to avoid stumbling over anything in her way. Like the floor. Or air.

Picking up the familiar electronic, she fumbled it into place, securing it to the side of her head by some unknown means. Even she wasn't really sure how it stayed in place. Something about securing to the wearer's ear or something, but she didn't have ears. Probably some kind of weird space-y science-y magic. Maybe because she was made of rubber or something. Then again, the thing that fit over most people's ears did kind of look like a suction cup... Ah, well. Something to worry about later. Call to answer. From her secondary partner, no less. With only two fumbled attempts to get it right, she managed the act of answering it. And she gave a simple, mumbled "Hello..." as a greeting.

"Well, don't sound too thrilled about the wake-up call, now, or anything," came the far too chipper and awake voice of the stormtrooper. Elliot Hunt was not a morning person, but for some reason or other, he was wide awake and in his usual cheery mood. The one that was usually reserved for hours after the clock struck noon. Or when he'd been given good news. "What's got ya so down, Blue?"

"Fell out of bed..." Graowr mumbled, flopping back down to sit on the edge of the bed. "Tried to get away from the sun."

There was a long moment of silence, during which the sounds of the city outside were clearly heard. Screeching of tires as the usual chaos went on in the streets. Glass breaking in the distance. It reminded the blue alien, in the back of her sleepy mind, to see about finding a better place to live, for the times when she was in the city. Which was all of the time, lately.

"Well, hell," came the eventual reply, full of amusement. If nothing else, Hunt was good at filling in a mental image, and the one he'd scrawled up of the current situation was apparently pretty good for a laugh. "Fell out of bed, when?"

"I dunno," Graowr mumbled, running a hand through what passed for her hair, trying to settle it into something that didn't end up falling over her eyes. "Ten minutes ago, I think? Maybe..." She paused, finally bringing both hands up to mess with the unruly mess of tentacles, stretching and twisting them this way and that in aggravation before pulling them taut and over the back of her head. "...maybe fifteen minutes ago. Didn't have my scouter on until you called, wasn't..." There was a faint snap, not at all unlike a rubber band being suddenly released, and the messy mass of blue psuedo-rubber-bubblegum material that made up her body settled into place...kind of. She had managed to fight it into a semblance of obedience, pulled back over her head and out of her face for the moment, at least. The whole experience was a good reminder that it was hard for her to really control her body when she was tired.

"...wasn't really keeping up with the time," she finished, letting her hands drop back to her sides, satisfied for the moment.

"....jeeze, blue, you just now getting up? And people tell me I'm lazy!" Hunt joked. "How long were you up last night?"

"Whaddya mean 'just now' getting up?" she grumbled. "The sun just came up!"

There was dead silence for a good ten seconds. "...blue, it's almost noon. Sun's been up for almost six hours now."

This time, it was the majin's turn to be dead silent, for even longer. Nearly half a minute passed, with her just staring blankly, wide-eyed at the wall in front of her, trying to process that. She wasn't really the best with numbers or time or anything, but she knew a couple things. Noon was twelve o' clock. The sun usually came up around six o' clock, or between five and seven o' clock. Usually. She vaguely recalled some parts of some worlds getting earlier or later sunrises and sunsets for some reason. Something or other to do with curvature of the planet or whatever.

But slowly, it clicked in her head. That just didn't add up at all. And she responded with the only thing that could adequately express her confusion about the matter: "What."