Chapter Text
Jupiter Jones understood she was someone before.
She understood this at a very early age, barely able to make sense of herself as a sentient being, barely able to understand the concept of self, Jupiter had also had the feeling that this was not was the first time of 'being'.
This is new. I am new. But I am not the first.
It wasn't even remembering exactly, not at first.
It wasn't the knowledge of someone before or concrete memories in her mind. It wasn't that simple for her. If she had remembered who she was first, she wouldn't be Jupiter. No matter what her mother called her. If she had really remembered, things would have been different. If it had been Jupiter waking up in her new life with all the pieces that had made her up in the first life, life would have made more sense. She would have taken life as a repeat, done things exactly as that first person had, without alternation, without change of values or morals or actions.
It would have made the Verse a simple, clear cut thing to navigate.
But it wasn't that clean.
It wasn't that easy.
Because being new, meant something. Being new meant growth and understanding things from a different perspective. At four-years-old, Jupiter Jones did not remeber who she was before. It wasn't that concrete, instead, she had… A simple feeling. Deep in her heart. A certainty that no one would be able to shake even if she spoke of it out loud for them to doubt. Before she barely made memories as Jupiter Jones, Jupiter would catch things in the back of her mind that never connected to her small, small world. She remembered no details, not at first.
Just small things.
A flash of impossible sights in her mind eye, a smell that was fantastical, a sensation that contrasted greatly to what she actually knew. It was like being handed a puzzle without a picture for reference. Only pieces are missing, or broken and no longer fit into the other pieces, and you don't even have an idea of what the image was. Only you understood that there was an image with those few pieces you were given. That was what caused Jupiter to understand that she was new, that there was a before. Vague, far off things that didn't really make sense if you looked at it critically. But they were pieces of a greater puzzle, of a something larger than the small life she had as Jupiter Jones. It was enough for Jupiter to understand that the puzzle pieces given to her meant something and that they were something before she had made her life as Jupiter.
Then she remembered being Taller.
Jupiter remembered looking down at people while now all she can do is look up and up. It wasn't just height. It wasn't just the understanding she had been older. It was bigger than that. It was Authority, it had been her place to be Taller.
People were beneath her.
And she remembered liking that. Jupiter remembered the cool glee of watching people scrambled to meet her wants, her demands. The heavy aching feeling of satisfaction as someone scrapped beneath her, trying desperately to get her to like them. Of watching everyone and everything looked up and up at her as she never bothered to look down and down. How she never had to even question that authority, nor have anyone question it in turn. Being Taller felt good, was so easy to like, and so easy to want.
Jupiter, she hated it.
It was... She could only describe it as gross, disgusting to remember being Taller. Because now Jupiter is not Taller, is not looking up and up. She was looking around her, looking next to herself and saw how people lived when they weren't Tall. She watched her mother, her beautiful Mother, Aleska, being looked down at, being seen as lesser because she used her hands and back and sweat to live. And she remembered how she would have never even looked at someone like her mother. And she wanted to sob and ache at that feeling of… Being more than someone else, at remembering being taller and so stupid to never look down. Because being Jupiter was enough for her, more than enough. But it lingered the truth that Jupiter was not the first person she had been. She caught more and more moments- scattered and vague- of who she had been. And she understood that before she was Jupiter, life had been easier. People she remembered, funny looking and not, had treated her well. Had taken her height and authority with a frightful sort of awe that turned her stomach. But she had been unfeeling, she had been cold. She had treated the people who did her every whim and want as worth nothing.
And part of Jupiter Jones wanted to break at the thought of herself being so disconnected to anyone. Part of Jupiter almost broke at remembering being Tall.
Her family, loud and emotional, saved her.
They have neither the time nor the patience to cater to the whims of a little girl as young as she is… And somehow, she liked it better. She loved it. She liked that she no longer had to look down at people, that she can reach out and grab things as she wanted as she needed instead of everyone handing it to her, all the time. That people, especially her mother can tell her no. She knew the person she had been before had never had anyone tell her no. She liked it. The temperance of it, the limitations of it. She is not Tall- she is small and it isn't up to her to make decisions. The independence, the freedom and she liked that she is not looked and looked at for every little thing.
She liked reaching with her own two hands. She liked being told no. Understanding the need for no.
She liked who she was now, not who she had been.