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She was coming together in herself. The course was set and known. She saw it ahead of her and it had come to the point that she was slowing herself and there was no more that could be done. No more last minute maneuvers, no more shifts.

They were too deep into the last leap of the course to change if any of those slow movers turned out to be secret speedsters or hidden weapons.

She would be threading through the obstructions and sinewy fibers of the forest soon after she finished coasting down to match velocity, it was going to feel so slow, she was going to be like a crawling slow-slug inching along the surface in the clingy trails of the reef soon!

As she let her feathers catch on the aether, shedding the heaviness of her speed. Reclaiming a fraction of her spent potencies back in the process. Wreathing herself in exotic flavors and mists that tickled all through her hull and eyes.

She had skimmed the last star’s dangerous breath, and in the process she felt fluffy and fizzy and full of all the lights. Feathers clean and sterile under the intense burn of so many motes of matter slammed against her and burst apart. It was like a lightest of cleansing rinses basking over her in a flash of fiery danger. She was fast though, she had slipped through the treacherous torrents of the star’s forbidden volume swiftly enough as to not invoke its ire.

Yes even such the scrubbing searing burn of all that atmosphere left her all warm and pleasantly toasty.

There were Morale problems in the passengers though, her crew was bestest and dealing with it.

But as they were in the slowing down she knew the talking would be coming. They were now at the part where either she had done her job and everything would be safeness, or evil horrors lurked and would surprise her so fast that everyone and everything would be dead before there was any realizing it.

That was life as a ship and when you were coasting to slow and had no ability to turn there was simply no worth in worrying. She had pushed and tried and very very intensely planned and coursed her way into all the futures and this was the safest she possibly could make it.

So until they entered the gloom and dark and hidden secret crannies of her and her crew’s secretest of ways there would be no point in worry or fear.

The danger was already present and inevitable, or it did not exist. And nothing she or anyone could do would change that.

So now it was time for talking friendly with her passenger friend and her wonderful bestest crew and plan how the next port was going to be her favoritest port. And Oh this was suddenly the best news ever because her crew was promising that in future stops after this next one there was going to be a bath!

Tunie LOVED baths! They were so tingly and tickly and wonderful and she felt so amazing after getting all the little grubbies and nasties and secrets and whispers and other things out of all her corridors and crannies and insides and outsides!

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Baths were the best! But they did not happen often. It meant she had to dump a lot of her cargo and even a bunch of her softer more delicate inside bits that were small and squishy and helped her move cargo or filter the light of her drive into tasty sub-potent grist.

It also was important that she protect her eyes during baths, they could sting her eyes very badly if she got any of the rinsing beams in them. That had happened once and she had to regrow an entirely new eye up from the roots!

Her crew had been so upset that it had happened and the port involved had filled Tunie so full with grist in compensation so she could recover!

Ever since Tunie was extra careful about her eyes during baths and her crew always made sure that she protected them properly with her feathers.

Tunie had the best crew, they always took care of her and it had been so long since she had a proper bath!

She was looking forward to her bath! She very carefully fluffed her feathers extra good to make sure she was slowing down just right and more perfectly than before so they slipped even better into the crannies and chasms of the forest.

And when they were skimming super very slow but also so incredibly fast for being in so tight and squeezey a space she was going to be so extra good at avoiding being grabbed by any of the dark scary grabby things in the deep darkness of the woods where the light of suns could not reach because the forest blocked out all the dark.

Sneaky, sleeky, sweepy fast she would be.

And then zoom across in the hidden nook of the forest’s little pocket of sunlight and then across and down again into the secret place of the port, deep in the woods again!

Tunie would certainly do all of these things, she would do them the bestest because it would make her so much closer to a wonderful frothy plasma of delicious bubbly heat of a bath!

Leaving her insides clean of all random ecological wilderness that were not meant to be there.

Cleansing radiance and light that would make her fresh and new and ready to be filled and planted with all her delicate little selves again. And then stored up with freshly sealed cargo and passengers and crew.

Such rinsing!

Much clean!

And oh the best of ideas suddenly struck her!

She was suddenly sure that after the bath her bestest of best crews would even give her a Brushie on top of it!

She could hardly wait for arriving at the port for her bath.

In fact she guessed her crew would give her a brushie at the next port also!

This was going to be the best stop ever until the next one and the NEXT one when it would be the even bestest more best stop!

Tunie had the best crew!

Brushies and Brushies and Baths and More Brushies?!

Best.

Crew.

Ever!