It was easy to tell when Pidge was up to something.
There was a gravitational anomaly coming from Green Lion's hangar bay, and it was significant enough that an alert popped up on ship's main interface. Allura squinted at the alert before dismissing it, and stood up out of her chair. She already knew who could possibly cause such a thing, but was curious to investigate nonetheless. She needed a break from staring at the massive list of repairs the Castle of Lions needed, anyway.
Two hundred and forty-seven ticks later found her in Green's bay, and the most singular sight of Pidge twirling small marbles through the air made her stop by the door and watch.
The small Paladin had a long, thin baton in each of her hands, directing the pearls dancing in swirls and rhythmic waves above the ground. She had a concentrated looking on her face, her glasses sliding down the bridge of her small nose. Each wave of the batons altered the course of the marbles, which swung in dutiful time with each flick of Pidge's wrists. The tiny balls gleamed in the white light of the hangar bay, and the effect made Pidge's trick look like she was commanding flecks of light to dance at her whim.
Allura watched on, entranced, until finally Pidge forced the batons downward to the ground in a sweeping motion over the marbles, and the balls poured gracefully back into a container that had neat, widely-spaced divots resting on the ground.
Allura clapped her hands, and Pidge immediately jumped in her shoes and turned to look at the Princess. "Oh, bravo, Pidge! That was spectacular!"
"Oh." Pidge rubbed at her her hair and set the batons down on the table beside her, looking embarrassed for having an audience. "Um, thanks. Just testing something out."
Allura walked towards the station Pidge had set up beside the Green Lion. It was well-used and messy and the only place she ever saw Pidge truly relax; it was her home base. "Do you mind sharing what for? That looked… magical," Allura murmured, looking down at the marbles arranged in their rows on the floor.
"I was simulating how atoms interacted," she explained, picking a baton back up. "Well, sort of. The marbles all have magnets in them, as do these rods. Usually the marbles would just push each other away or bond together, but I was trying to keep them moving around with these." She waved the baton over the container of marbles, making them vibrate in place. "I used an anti-grav module to keep them up," she added, pointing to a circular pod resting near her foot that Allura hadn't initially seen, too engrossed in the dancing marbles—the source of the anomaly. "It was just… for fun, you know? And to keep my reflexes sharp."
Allura nodded. "May I try?"
Pidge beamed at her. "Yeah! Here." She handed the batons to Allura and motioned for her to stand next to Pidge. "It's easiest when you're standing like so," she said, bracing her legs apart about shoulder length. "Now I'll toss the marbles up into the anti-grav field, a couple at a time, and you try to keep them from sticking together or launching out of the field."
"Got it."
Pidge picked up the container and grabbed several in her hand. The metal squealed and clicked together as the marbles sat closely in her palm, and then she dashed them into the field. "Try a few, for starters."
Immediately the marbles drew toward each other in pairs, and Allura waved the wand between two magnets close to crashing into one another. The motion sent them flying in opposite directions, and she yelped before just barely keeping them restrained in the small gravity field with the batons. "You make it look so easy," she said, thoroughly impressed.
Pidge's cheeks coloured a delightful rose and she shrugged off the compliment. "Good hand-eye coordination."
Allura was already too engrossed in keeping the marbles in line to respond. If she concentrated, she could see that the marble's poles were labelled with tiny minus and plus symbols, and slowly got the hang of learning which side of the batons were negative and positive. The activity commanded her complete attention, and eventually she was able to master the few marbles floating in front of her.
"Ready for the next batch?" Pidge asked, holding up more.
Allura nodded, and twirled the batons into the oncoming cluster of marbles that Pidge tossed in.
She lost track of everything; time and duty and hunger and any sense of urgency, focused entirely on replicating the same display she had seen Pidge effortlessly create. Occasionally Allura could not keep track of every ball, and to her dismay some bonded together. Pidge would then grab at them, split them apart, and toss back in with an encouraging smile, and expertly caught any that went flying out of the field, almost as if she anticipated the movement of each marble.
Allura was finally able to make them move in a graceful swirl around the field for a few tantalising ticks, and grinned in delight. "See Pidge! Look at them! I'm doing it!"
"Keep going—don't lose focus!"
She was able to keep them dancing for a few more moments before two collided together and sent several others flying off in different directions. The swirl dissolved in random movements, and before long the balls formed an amorphous blob of magnetic marbles, suspended in the air above the anti-grav pod.
"That was pretty good for a first try," Pidge said. Allura brightened her grumpy expression and smiled at the small girl; it's not a competition, she reminded herself.
"Thank you. That was… very fun!" She wiped at her brow, which had a film of sweat coating it, and then checked the time. "Oh, quiznak! We've been here for over five thousand ticks!"
Pidge squinted, quickly converting ticks into human time. "An hour and twenty minutes. Yeah, time flies when you play with these. I didn't mean to make you lose track of time."
She sighed and set the batons down. Responsibilities, duties and worries all came flooding back now that she wasn't focused on the marbles—which she supposed was the point of the exercise. "This was lovely, Pidge. Thank you for sharing this with me. And don't apologise—it was a wonderful break from…" She waved her hand above her. "All of it."
Pidge nodded in understanding. "Of course, Princess. Any time."
"Now I must go and… fix everything," Allura said, casting a forlorn glance towards the door.
"What needs fixing?"
Allura crossed her arms. "If I gave you a list of what isn't in need of repair, it would be much shorter."
"Maybe I can help. I mean, I'm only messing around with this stuff right now. Green's been fully repaired and tuned up, and I don't have much else to do." Pidge pushed her glasses up and quickly cleaned up the game as she talked, and Allura considered the Paladin's offer.
"I think I may take you up on that, Pidge. We could use some expert hands around here."
The girl grinned up at her. "So what's first?"
Allura sighed again, already trying to figure out what problem to tackle first, and then began ticking off the first of many problems that needed tending to. "Well, there's the damaged heating cells on level two, the cryo pods in main hall, the temperature interface Lance broke in the barracks…."