No, no, that's exactly what she is yearning for.

"I...  Thanks, Sable."

"...This is nice."

That's good then, because Sable's yearning for the same.

"Yeah, it is."

Then after a moment she blushes a bit and giggles. "Our old world had a saying that maybe applies, or at least a variant of it, if I can just decide what label we use now. Got any suggestions?"

"Oh, goodness...  Aspiring girlfriends?  I don't know what to call what we're doing here any better than you do, I think.  Words don't readily exist for - something almost like soulmates, except that the situation is such a disaster that that can't be allowed to predominate.  'Partners' would be right, except for the ways in which it's wrong...  But what's the saying you're thinking of?"

"Eheh, the original is 'world hard and cold, tiddy soft and warm,' but there's a variant that subs in 'girlfriend soft and warm' or any other coupley label."

"Well.  I suppose we both are soft and warm.  And any of our given names fit the scansion, as it happens."

Sable laughs and kisses Momo's cheek. "That they do, and that we are. You make this experience a lot better, y'know that?"

"I'm...  Really glad you think so.  You've made this experience quite a lot better than it could have been for me, as well."

Oh goodness.

The snuggling is a nice little break to take, and rest is really quite important.  She settles in, and lets her thoughts drift for a little while.

"...What else could you benefit from practicing, that we haven't already covered with what we've already done..."

"Close combat disarms?  I could probably rig up something fit for purpose."

"...Oh!  Goodness, I don't know why it took me this long to remember - we could start practicing sign language, too."

"Oooh, those are both good ideas. I feel like a change of pace for a bit might be good for us, so maybe the latter?"

"I really agree with you there; let's get started, shall we?"

...Right.  She remembers how she learned sign language.  Now to just turn that around for the Pirates, and hope her ASL can keep up, because her JSL dictionary is, unsurprisingly, in Japanese.

Not like the Pirates would mind learning Japanese too. They'd kinda really love that, honestly. Languages are cool and knowing the language of the girl they're falling for is cool and knowing a language that features in their exomemories (and probably a not insignificant subset of the worlds they'll wind up visiting) is cool.

And she will start teaching the Pirates Japanese soon enough, she's sure - but right now, she can't really say it would be anything but cruel to have given Neo the promise of a language she can use, and then not share it.

She doesn't forget to keep awareness training going while she's teaching, though.  Can the Pirates understand "Someone's falling!  Behind you!" yet?

Fall? Behind?

Oh shit leap for the edge and dive off, using a pair of swing-lines at the bottom for extra acceleration, grab the dummy, then swing under the island and back up to deposit the dummy on the edge.

She might have to ramp up the difficulty, if she wants this to be a real challenge to anything other than their reaction speed, which seems to be honestly pretty good.  Maybe next time she'll do two test dummies at once.  ...Maybe not, though, because that seems like it would be more of a fall-into-the-void risk...

"Good catch!  I'm starting to wonder if I should make this a bit more difficult than just noticing and rescuing one at a time already."

Neo pouts and huffs, then nods. She cobbles together a bit of sign by way of reply, "Need more hard now."

She misses her illusion signs. Learning ASL is great, though.

"I," she considers before waving it away, "We need this to be harder," she signs back, demonstratively - and then follows up by signing "Yes you do.  That is very good."

She practices the way Momo signed it a few times, then sits back down with a nod and leans against her. "Ideas?" she signs. "Could drop multiple?"

"We could drop multiple, yes, but -" she voices the next bit, still signing, but speaking, now, too, as clarity of communication takes precedence over what feels like politeness - "I'm worried that if I do drop two at once you might fall into the void?  I suppose the solution there is to not do quite that, and that if I do, I will hope that you don't have any bad reflexes.  We probably ought to test that somewhere with something beneath, though."

Neo tilts her head thoughtfully and drums her fingers against her thigh for a moment, before signing an idea. "Could drop poles on either side to grab?"