Quinn could still hear Safie's voice faintly in her head—[i][color=green]trust me, Quinn, you're gonna do great things![/color][/i]—when her door was pushed open, and Dahlia nearly [i]lurched[/i] in before coming to settle in next to Quinn and near-instantly passing into dreamland. For a few moments, Quinn was tempted to just lie there. To snuggle in with her sister, forget the rest of the world, fall asleep right next to Dahlia, and go back to the lake with Safie, where it was safe and cozy. But then the chill passed over her again—more insistently this time—and she acknowledged it was past time for her to get up. Shimmying gently out from under the covers, she picked her way to the foot of the bed and crawled over it, careful not to disturb Dahlia. The more rest she got the better. 

She'd been pushing herself like mad for the past week, barely eating, hardly sleeping, and when she did it was in Quinn's room most of the time. It didn't take a genius to figure out [i]why[/i] her sister was doing this, and that knowledge filled Quinn once again with a deep, cloying guilt. Just another one to add on to the pile.

Once she'd managed to extricate herself without waking her, Quinn walked quietly through the open doorway and gently closed it behind her, leaving it a few inches ajar, as was habit. She still hadn't gotten used to the commons being quiet when she awoke. Usually it was filled with the sound of Deelie cooking, and probably humming as she did. But she'd been spending so much time in the sim pods Quinn rarely even saw her anymore unless she crawled into Quinn's bed before or just after she woke, as with today. A sharp pang of loneliness bit her in the side. She missed her sister. She should be making more of an effort to get her out of the sims, or to make her food in the morning the same way she always had for Quinn. She still couldn't cook very well, but even just toast and jam and some fruit would be better than what she'd done so far, which was [i]nothing[/i].

[i][color=ffe63d]Selfish girl.[/color][/i]

Some minutes later, a silent breakfast of buttered toast and poorly-cooked eggs passed by as she forced herself to eat instead of just picking at them. A quick glance at the clock on the wall showed her that it was a quarter past six, and she suppressed a groan. She should be grateful that she'd managed to catch Dahlia awake, not lament the early hour.

Taking a few minutes to shower and roughly double that time if not longer amount to dry and braid her hair, she crept back into her room to pick out clothing for the day, donning it stealthily before taking the jacket that Besca had given her from the hook on her door and tossing it on to complete the look.

So then, she thought as she threw the door to the commons open and stepped out into the hall, what was the first thing she needed to do today?

She needed to have her eval with Docter Follen at some point in the next week, but maybe not today. Or if today, later, when she went to visit Roaki as usual.

She would've liked to spar for a bit, but Dahlia was obviously indisposed, and she didn't know how confident she felt sparring against members of security, or how comfortable they'd feel about sparring with a teenage girl, even if she was a pilot.

She needed to...yeah, that was probably the first order of business.

For the past few days, she'd been making nearly compulsive checks on [i]Ablaze[/i] every day, just to make sure it was always ready just in case she needed to drop [i]right away[/i]. She didn't know what she expected to find; it had always looked just the same, and it probably always would, but still, the hangar called her name. At the very least, she'd started to learn more about hangar staff. It couldn't hurt to say hi to them when she was there.

So, mind made up, she started off towards the elevator. No need to put on her pilot gear today, at least.