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This is Rosita. I'll hit you back when I can.

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She doesn't wait for him after that, paying only enough attention to him to not run into him on the road. She's bold, charging ahead at full speed, and getting comfortable with the bike too if the way she first slows to go around turns is any indication, then fishtails when she goes too quickly before figuring it out for the most part. Finds the sweet spot in between.

On a straightway she leans back as far as she can, lets the wind catch at her hair, and breathes.

She wonders if they'll run out of road. She only stops when her arms are numb halfway up to her elbows, and the muscles of her legs are still humming even when she slows and turns off to a side, cutting the engine and letting it glide the last few feet on gravel until she puts her boot down to catch it.

"Impressive," he tells her, and means it, he's grinning as he turns his own engine off. "How do you feel?"

Better, he hopes. If just for a moment.

Sometimes on the ship she feels like she can't breathe; it's difficult to feel that way, though, with the wind whipping into her face like that.

"Been a while since I've been able to burn gas like that," she admits, shaking her hair out rather than looking at him.

"Good," she makes herself say, makes herself admit. "This is good."

A nod. He's glad. "In ports sometimes we get to roam free like this, as fast as we want," he says. "But this can act like a little breath of air when this place is too much."

She listens to the ticking of the hot metal under her, takes a deep breath of air without any hint of decay or civilization on it. Feels sun warming the skin of her face and neck.

"It's hard," she finally says. "The way the mind, the heart, and the body can all want such different things."

But that's as much as she's willing to say about herself. Instead: "Why is half the ship angry enough with you to want to jump you?"

"I got into an argument with my inmate. He hit me; I hit him back. He was a popular warden, so people are protective of him." He shrugs. "This place runs on popularity."

"Society runs on popularity."

It's not exactly resigned, or dismissive, or condemning, but somewhere in the venn diagram center between.

Moreso: "Your inmate." But she doesn't linger. "What was the argument about?"

"Nothing important. He's an easy man to argue with, because he's angry at everything and lacks self control." And Lark has an easy time pissing off people who already run hot.

"So he's an easy target," is what she's hearing.

A laugh. The opposite of that, actually. "No. I resent that he has people coddling him; he's a difficult target. I could name a dozen more vulnerable inmates who get overlooked, who would have been overlooked, who have been in the past."