Tillie recoiled at the offer, cast a furtive glance back at Ablaze as if it had caught her doing something she shouldn’t. “O-oh, gosh, that’s—well, I appreciate that. I’m thrilled to be working on it, you can bet I’ll be hanging around all the time. W-working, of course! Strictly working. Thank you! Uhm! Really!”

A nervous giggle escaped her. Left unsaid were the silent laws of a place like the Aerie, the hierarchy of the staff, and the expectations laid upon those who could only newly call the station home. Quinn’s offer was kind, but Tillie’s bosses weren’t going to let someone as green as she was have free reign over a Savior, blessing or not. If she showed up here unscheduled she’d be planetside with her junk packed in a box and a resume that would function better as kindling after RISC was done with it.

But, of course, she wasn’t going to say any of that. Not to Quinnlash Loughvein. Quinn, even! The girl seemed so nice, and even without the weight of their unspoken social dynamic heavy on her shoulders, she could never bring herself to reject a gift. For now, she would ride the high of sitting in Ablaze’s cockpit, and being friendly with her favorite pilot, and that would carry her plenty far.

Tillie checked her phone, let out a small, excited sound that she’d find time to be embarrassed about later, alone. “Oop! I’ve gotta log my results then check in with my supervisor,” she said, making her way back onto the lift. “You wanna ride down together, or do you need a bit more time?”

"You wanna ride down together, or do you need a bit more time?"

"Together!"

Quinn's voice came out just a little more vehement than she'd intended it to, and she took a moment to breathe deeply, heart pounding in her ears in the silence. She could feel the great bulk of Ablaze looming behind her, feel its malevolence only barely suppressed. Quinnlash was trying to cut the pressure before it reached Quinn's head, she could feel it. But there was only so much she could do for Quinn, standing so close to the restrained bulk of the Modir as she was. Her mind suddenly shot back to Hovvi, to the hunger she'd felt looking at the creature in the demolished store, and she shivered despite the dull warmth Quinnlash was enwrapping her in.

If Tillie left her all alone up her, she didn't know what she'd do.

"We'll ride down together," she repeated, voice more tempered, at least by a bit.

The ride down passed more subdued than the one up, as Quinn stared dazedly out into the distance. As they stepped off the corrugated metal to the hangar floor once again, farther from the brain and thus the pressure, Quinn had a sudden thought. "Ah... Pulling her phone out of her pocket once again, she tapped the screen a few times, pulling up the camera and turning to Tillie.
"I can take a picture of you, right?"

Met with an enthusiastic approval, Quinn snapped a quick full-body picture of Tillie, plain hangar wall in the background.

A moment passed, and she waved awkwardly. "Ah, uhm, I'll...see you later, Tillie, okay?

With that said, she retreated back towards the elevator to the dorms, eager to escape the ensnaring presence of Ablaze. As she went, she kept her phone out, tappa-tappa-tapping at the screen. Just before she entered the hallway, she tapped the send button. A moment later, an image would pop up on Besca and Dahlia's phones, followed by a brief caption:

this is my new technician tillie. you guys should meet her, she's super nice

Quinn got an answer from Besca before she’d stepped off the elevator. – o yeah ! saw he r resume very samrt! glad u like her wil try 2 meet her soon ! :o) -

From Dahlia there was still no word, but once Quinn had made her way back into the dorms it made sense. Everything was just as she’d left it. Through the crack in her door there was only silence, and Dahlia still flopped down onto the bed, breathing quietly in the dark. How long she’d sleep was unsure, and had varied from day to day. Sometimes it was a mere two or three hours, even less, and others she was dead to the world for half a day.

“Day shmay,” she had said once, teasingly. “We’re in space! No horizon up here!”

To her credit, if not comfort, she was right. Unfortunately for Quinn, that meant there was still no one around to assuage her loneliness. These moments were exceedingly rare before, but more and more each day, circumstances were forcing independence upon her. As she stood in the commons, it became clear that, unless she continued to stand here for hours, there would be no one to come make the decisions of her day for her. This had been true of all the recent days prior as well, and if the trend continued, it would be true tomorrow.

An alien revulsion at the idea of simply waiting tingled beneath her scalp. Ultimately however, the only thing that could move Quinn now was Quinn.

Quinn stood in the middle of the common room, staring at the cracked door that Dahlia slept beyond. And once more, a razor-sharp shard of guilt buried itself in her heart. She was doing it again. Trailing behind Dahlia. Causing problems. Hurting people. Just like at Hovvi. Even now, making her own decisions cut her to the core sometimes, dug into that piece of her that she knew would always be there to some extent: the ignorant child, patiently waiting for mom and dad to come give her dinner.

A bolt of anger shot down her spine, and her lip curled up into a sneer filled with self-disgust. Wasn't she supposed to be a hero pilot now? So, what? She could fight Modir, and Roaki, and Casoban and Helburke by extension. She thought that she could maybe beat her sister in spar now. She already beat her in sims as long as they turned phasing off. But still...

The lunch she'd had before the interview with Mona played back vividly in her mind, and as she felt her stomach turn, she made her way over to her favorite blue chair and sank down into it, closing her eye and letting her body go limp. She'd made Dahlia order for her. Then she'd hurt her. Why couldn't she ever do anything for Dahlia when she was hurting? Especially when it was Quinn's fault anyway?

Why was she like this?

Her thoughts slowed. Why was she like this? And...why? What had happened? She knew her parents had fed her modium ichor for some reason she couldn't understand. She knew that somehow she'd lived though ingesting ichor, and been...fine, if sick. She knew that she had a smaller her within herself, that had been there for who knew how long.

So, she asked herself again: why?

She pulled in a long, slow breath. In.......out. Another. One more. And her eye snapped open.

There was something she needed to do.

But first, breakfast.

Quinn wasn't a particularly good cook, and she knew it. She messed up everything from eggs to soup. But, as she'd reflected that morning, even someone like her could make some toast, butter it, slather it in Dahlia's favorite jam, and cut an apple into slices that she arranged next to it. Into the fridge the plate went, and upon a discarded piece of paper, she wrote:

I made you breakfast, Deelie. It's not as good as yours, but...it's the thought that counts, right? It's in the fridge whenever you want it.

Underneath, she drew a heart, then slid the paper underneath her door so Dahlia would see it when she awoke.

That done, she took another long, long breath. Her heart was hammering in her chest, even harder than it had in Ablaze. Quinnlash was screaming in her head, some blend of fear and fury. But she ignored her as best she could. For months, she'd just...walked after Besca and Dahlia. Giving them more work, dragging them down. She wanted to be better. She wanted to figure out how she could keep moving forward without them, and so how she could walk alongside them instead. But to do that, she wanted...

She wanted answers.

This was a decision that she came to. That she alone could make, and she alone could carry out. Something that she couldn't wait for Besca and Dahlia to do for her, because she knew they never would. Something entirely her own.

So, nestling back down into her chair, she took her phone slowly out of her pocket, and tabbed over to the internet browser. Hand shaking so much she had to restart and delete several times, she finally tapped out what she wanted to search. What she needed to search. And so, heart heavy, blood already freezing in her veins, and taking one last breath, she searched it.

Because she didn't want answers. Not really.

She needed them.

Mr. and Mrs. Loughvein

Over the past weeks Quinn had begun to see the effects of her status as a burgeoning celebrity. People wanted to speak with her—to hear her speak, as though suddenly her opinion on every topic, no matter how mundane, became gospel as the words left her mouth. Regardlessof how she felt, she was famous. She’d seen it on TV, on the news channels and talk shows. She’d seen it at Mona’s, with the gathered crowd, and the hostess herself. She’d seen it on the Aerie, in the eyes of everyone from the heads of medical to the trials in engineering.

And now she was seeing it on her phone, as she typed the words Mr. and Mrs. Loughvein into her search bar, and was met with dozens upon dozens of pages monopolized by the name Quinnlash Loughvein.

[RISC’s new pilot Quinnlash Loughvein maintaining silence after sudden departure from interview…]

[Quinnlash Loughvein refuses to take responsibility for Casoban upset…]

[Minor Houses in Helburke reportedly beseeching Great Houses to retaliate against Runa’s pilot Quinnlash Loughvein…]

[Euseran governor questions whether or not RISC overstepped by sending Quinnlash Loughvein to interfere in Casoban’s duel with Helburke…]

[Is Quinnlash Loughvein a Helburkan plant?...]

[What are Quinnlash Loughvein’s ties to Euseran tech companies?...]

[Quinnlash Loughvein: RISC’s newest pilot? Or last?...]

[St. Senn. Kimimura. Calhan. Merko. Loughvein. Abroix. Wender. Dane. Reos. Brandt. Jayne. Take this personalized quiz now to find out which pilot you are!...]

[Experts React: Dinner with Mona: Quinnlash Loughvein dying of modiotype liver disease?...]

[Steal her look! Quinnlash Loughvein replica eyepatch! 17.99 plus shipping…]

[…Page 63 for an exclusive interview with a Queenshand native claiming to be in a secret relationship with Quinnlash Loughvein…]

[Photos from Aerie Station show RISC pilot Quinnlash Loughvein wheeling Helburkan prisoner across commons. Were national secrets shared?...]

[Team Tensions? Dahlia St. Senn hasn’t spoken to Quinnlash Loughvein at all since interview? Does RISC’s star pilot hate its newest addition?...]

[Quinnlash Loughvein was born on the moon: proof next week.]

It went on. And on. And on. Page after page after page of news articles and speculative pieces, merchandise ads and tabloid garbage. To the world below her, Quinnlash Loughvein was a million different people all existing at once, and all entirely incompatible with each other.

Only on page 15 did she finally see a break in the form.

[Nation’s modiology stars dead? Originally slated to appear at a conference in Queenshand, Locke and Sansean Loughvein cancelled upon hearing that a singularity would be appearing in their hometown of Hovvi. While transportation to the lakeside town was heavily trafficked, sources say the couple, who had been booked a year in advance, were last seen boarding a flight to the neighboring town of Ozzi. It is unknown whether they arrived home before the attack, however, there has been no word from them since.

The conference continued, however many attendees requested refunds upon hearing the keynote speakers would not appear...]

As Quinn scrolled through her phone, she could hardly believe her eyes just how much people were talking about her. How much garbage they were spewing. There were some things that made her wince, like all the speculation attached to the duel and Roaki. There were some things that made her roll her eye, like the three different eyepatches, none of which actually looked like her eyepatch. There were some things that made her chuckle, and she tapped on the link for the pilot quiz. She'd take it later and see if she got herself or Deelie, or...or Safie.

Deep breath in. Deep breath out.

And there were some things that made her eye shoot open in sheer astonishment at the audacity. Secret relationship? Fad diets? Product endorsements I've never seen? Born on the MOON? She kept scrolling, and the results grew wilder and wilder. Until, finally, she saw it.

Locke and Sansean Loughvein... And just like that, they had names.

Locke and Sansean.

And they were...they might be...they could be...dead? They might have died in Hovvi?

Even imagining was...completely alien. Just...just the idea that mom and dad were...dead? Even now, it felt like breaking some kind of universal law. They had been her whole world, her whole reality, for so many years. It was almost hard to fit it into her brain. And something else smacked into her brain along with it, forcing itself in. Like a punch to the face, a lightning bolt to the chest, sending her reeling. Her breathing hitched. No. That had to be wrong.

Deep, sharp breath.

Hand shaking more, she reached back up to the search field. Missed it at first, scrolling past meaningless articles. When her trembling fingers reached, she typed in, Sansean and Locke Loughvein.

Article after article filled the screen. Those about her came first, of course. But they were few and far between as she scrolled down, met with something else entirely.

Genius Modiologists Presumed Dead?

Loughveins Missing After the Hovvi Disaster

Still No Word From Loughveins in Wake of Quinnlash's Duel and Absence - Are They Still Alive?

More and more, and each one she read delivered that same bolt to her chest. She stared at the screen for another moment, then tossed it to the floor and dropped her head into her hands.

She hated her parents. She knew she hated them. They'd done awful things to her for reasons she didn't understand and the search had made no clearer. They'd kept her locked up in one room for her whole life. Fed her poison. By all rights, she hated them with every fiber of her being. The thought of them dead should satisfy her, and she felt Quinnlash's satisfaction and even glee, certainly.

So why, then did that that bolt strike her? Did that thought punch her in the face?

Why did the thought of them dying make her so sad?

And at that thought, her confusion and frustration found their voice and she let out a raw scream, letting her palms muffle it and dull the sharp edges:

"Why do I care?!"

The presence that haunted Quinn faded, satisfied, confused, and soon she was left with silence. Quinnlash didn’t have any answers for her, it seemed, or at least none she thought would help the situation. It was clear enough where she stood with regards to the Loughveins. If an article was posted tomorrow revealing their bodies had been found, there would be a party in the dream that night.

The last, lingering thought left in her wake was the word she so often used whenever they weaseled their way into conversation: Takers.

The quiet didn’t last long. From Quinn’s room there came a raucous thump, a muted, mumbled alarm, and then the hurrying of footsteps. A moment later, Dahlia came bursting through the door.

“Quinn?!” she yelped, eyes wide and heavy with bags. They locked unsteadily onto her, and with steps just as shaky she scrambled over. “What is it? What happened?” Her hands pulled Quinn’s face up, inspecting it, patting down her arms, searching wildly for some sign of injury. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

She wasn’t, not that Dahlia could see, but that didn’t settle her any. She spied the phone discarded on the ground, but didn’t bother with it. The room looked fine, no damage anywhere. No alarms blared. No attack. Still the worry stuck with her, and she looked to Quinn expectantly.

Quinn hadn't really thought of Dahlia when she'd given vent to her frustrated scream. But, she reflected, she should've. As she met Dahlia's eyes with her own, another shard of guilt buried itself in her heart. She looked so tired. So stressed. So worried. Unable to keep eye contact any longer for the stabbing hurt, she dropped her head shamefacedly.

"Y⁠—yeah. I'm...I'm fine. Just..."

She hesitated for a moment. Didn't want to put more on Dahlia. But looking up into her weary silver eyes, she felt herself throwing herself into her sister's arms before she really even realized it, hugging her tight in return. Her eye closed, and she felt a thin stream of tears leaking out.

"I just..."

Another moment of hesitation. Another moment of thinking that she shouldn't burden Dahlia with this. Another moment of self-loathing. But being near Dahlia drew the hurt in her out like nothing else, stripping away the hero pilot, the burdened celebrity, and everything else, and leaving what lay, buried deep, deep down, at the core of Quinn: the lost, scared child.

So when she responded, there was a hint of tears in her voice. "Deelie, they⁠—they could've⁠—they might've⁠—died in Hovvi."

She squeezed the hug tighter, burying her face in her sister's shoulder. "They might be dead. They're probably dead. I'm free of them."

She screwed her eye tighter. "So why⁠—"

And then thickness in her voice turned into sobs.

"Why does it make me sad?"

Dahlia stood bewildered for a moment, reflexively returning the hug. Quinn was okay? She was okay. She was crying—normal, sometimes she did that—but she wasn’t hurt. Scared? No, sad, she heard sad. Sad. Not hurt.

She let out a breath that made her whole body rattle. Relief, mainly, but also the exhaustion catching right up to her. The fog in her mind had parted long enough to determine her sister was alright, and now she could feel it closing again. Quinn was sad about something. Something vague, at least to her, but that was okay. Dahlia was sad about things too. She wanted to say that, but she couldn’t connect those wires quite right. She wanted to ask her what was wrong but couldn’t articulate that, either.

Instead, Dahlia patted Quinn’s head, and resisted the urge to shut her eyes when she leaned her own against it.

“No, it’s okay. It’s okay. No one’s dead,” she said absently. Didn’t sound right. Felt right, but the words were mumbled and directionless, and part of her knew she was responding more with the intent behind them than the words themselves. “No one’s dead. Promise.”

For just a moment, a beautiful, fleeting moment⁠—her sister patting her head, leaning against her, the hug so warm and comforting⁠—everything was right with the world.

And then Dahlia spoke, and the comforting warmth started to burn lower.

Just being there near Dahlia⁠—and the way she was talking, comforting, soft, like a real older sister⁠—was enough to cushion Quinn's pain. But...but the words she was speaking...they didn't sound right. She didn't sound right. She was exhausted. Exhausted. And it was all Quinn's fault.

The warmth burned away, leaving only fading embers, and her sobs stilled then, to shuddering breaths that she could speak through.

"Deelie...Deelie...please..." She squeezed hard enough for her arms to shake, like Dahlia would vanish if she left go. "You..you need sleep, Dahlia. Please. I know..." Her shuddering voice calmed to merely quivering. "I know you're worried about me. That's why you're pushing and pushing and pushing yourself." And then her voice went through another change. Went still, and flat, and hollow. "I'm hurting you again. Again and again and again, I just keep hurting you."

"I'm...I'm sorry..."

Another change then, Dahlia could tell. She felt it in the strength of Quinn’s hug, heard it in the way her voice lost its panic, and then lost everything else with it. She knew it was guilt, even if that realization didn’t quite reach her consciousness. Quinn felt guilty about something, about her. Hurting her. Hurting her? Silly. Utterly silly.

“No, no,” she said, glancing stability for just a moment. “Didn’t hurt me. Never hurt me, Quinn. Nuh-uh. I just…forgot, s’all. Just forgot. No biggie. Sleeping fine, just a lil’ weird.”

She pulled herself away, just enough to look Quinn in the eye. Red, wet-cheeked, stricken with guilt or worry or grief or all; a part of her stung knowing this was the most familiar of her sister’s faces. Dahlia wanted more than anything these days to see her smile. To make sure she was safe enough to smile.

She smiled—like this, see?—and squeezed Quinn’s shoulders. Her eyes ached. “Never sorry to me. I’m not sorry. I wouldn’t change anything. Made you a promise. ‘Cause I wouldn’t change anything.”

Dahlia pulled away a little bit⁠—not far enough to leave Quinn's desperate embrace⁠—and smiled.

"Never sorry to me. I’m not sorry. I wouldn’t change anything. Made you a promise. ‘Cause I wouldn’t change anything."

Quinn stared up at her, almost uncomprehending. Didn't hurt me. Never hurt me, Quinn.

And just like that, the fervent energy that she gripped her sister with wilted and faded, and she just about collapsed into her, resting her face on her shoulder once again. Closing her eye tight, clenching her jaw, she tried her absolute hardest to not cry again. And she almost succeeded. Almost, but not quite. The love that Dahlia showed her. Her burning, cloying guilt. Her...her parents, and the new news that she'd been burdened with. She couldn't hold it forever. And once the first tears came, the floodgates opened, and she wept.

Even so, she kept trying to force words out through it. No matter what her sister said...she still wasn't doing enough. So she kept going, voice small and tremulous, like the pathetic child that she was, deep down.

"I⁠—hic⁠—I made you⁠—sniff break...breakfast. 'S...hrrkkkg...'s in the fridge." Her hug once again turned tight, but less out of desperation this time. It was more out of...

"I⁠—I⁠—I love you, Deelie. I⁠—heugh⁠—I love...love you so much."

Dahlia stayed put, smiling even though she heard Quinn continue to cry. She’d come to know the difference between her spirals and her moments of simply being overwhelmed, and even with the fog closing around her, that sense of panic was abated. The air was warm now, and calm.

“Mmh, breakfast…s’so nice of you. Can’t wait,” she said, laying her head against Quinn’s nest of hair. The hug was comfortable, like a heavy sheet, and she swayed to some pleasant, absent breeze. “M’you too. Promise. You too…”

Long moments passed and Dahlia showed no signs of letting go, though her arms did slacken a bit. Eventually Quinn would feel a bit of weight against her, hear the humming above her fall into gentle breathing. Now and then something loosely inspired by words escaped Dahlia’s mouth. Nothing was intelligible.

Her sister had fallen back to sleep. She stood upright, still swaying rhythmically, a contented smile on her face. Dahlia didn’t really share her dreams—if she had any at all—but if she was dreaming now, Quinn could be certain it was a happy one.

Quinn wasn't a bodybuilder by any means, but the past few months had certainly been rigorous enough for her to pack some muscle on. Enough, at least, to gently wrap Dahlia's arm around her shoulder and carry her into Quinn's room, where she'd been before. She laid her ever-so-delicately down on the bed, being sure not to wake her. She stood there afterwards, looking down at her sister taking long slow sleep breaths, and her heart jerked in her ribcage. I'm sorry, Dahlia. I'm really, really sorry.

And it was making her training a little more difficult too. Dahlia and her sim spars had never been the most useful things, but now she found herself missing the kind of outside-the-box thinking you only got when you were fighting a real person instead of a collection of ones and zeroes. They still could spar; but she would never ask her sister to push herself more than she already was, and looking down at her sleeping form only made that feeling keener.

I wish there was another pilot on the Aerie for stuff like this.

Well, no point wishing for things that she couldn't change. She turned and left her sister, gently closing the door ajar. And she didn't really want another pilot, because being a pilot was painful, and she didn't want anyone else to need to be.

Speaking of sims, actually, she had her own to attend to today as well. She was already stretching the Board's patience. Better not their schedule too. So, shaking her jacket a little bit to resettle it back on shoulders properly, she left the dorms once more.

She was already in the commons when she realized that she was a little hungry, and should've eaten in the dorms. She could go anywhere she wanted, really, but it wasn't the same without Deelie and Besca. Another pang of that sharp, hungry guilt bit into her heart, sinking deep and twisting as she thought about what their lives would be like if she'd never come here. As she thought, she continued towards the sims, until she finally raised her heat to meet the hallway to...

...Medical?

She'd gotten so used to coming here in recent days that her feet had just taken her here on her own. But, she thought, if she was here...she fished the key to Roaki's room out from the chain around her neck. Might as well, right? Really don't want to miss a day, after all.

As she walked through the sterile looking-and smelling hallways of medical, she was barely given a second glance by those around her. She'd become such a regular fixture here, she was more or less expected. Still, it made it easier to get where she was going, at least; everybody knew already where she was going and that dissuading her was a really bad idea, so they just...cleared out of the way along the path to Roaki's room.

...Into which popped, after a moment's consideration on the other side of the door.

"Hey, Roaki!"

Not much had changed over the weeks in this little room. Artificial sunlight still glowed through the blinds in the window. The TV was off, as it always was, and the little table over the bed was pushed aside. Roaki had meekly, bitterly refused any sort of distraction, be it book or phone or cards. She ate scarcely, supplemented by nutrients either in the IV or through vitamins; she wasn’t quite withered, but she’d gained no weight since she’d arrived. What she did when Quinn wasn’t around was anyone’s guess, though when asked she would shrug, and insist she either slept, or just lay in silent thought.

The anger had gone from her. All of her words were blunted, either mumbled or spoken with a softness in shocking contrast to their encounter at the duel. She didn’t’ call Quinn names anymore, didn’t insult Dahlia or Besca. Still she had not met Quinn’s eyes, and rarely did she ever offer conversation of her own will. But almost dutifully, whenever she was questioned, she answered. Even to the rest of the medical staff, who it seemed had inherited her deference to Quinn by proximity.

She’d stopped asking to die. Perhaps Quinn saw that as a step forward, or perhaps it was simply a lack of will to move at all.

Today, like every day, she lay with her head turned to the faux-sun. When Quinn shut the door behind her, she looked up to the ceiling in acknowledgement, before sitting up and turning her eyes to the sheets. The fraying gray curtain of hair fell over her face.

“…Hey.”

Quinn took a long, deep breath as she walked over to the chair that she had become a constant tenant of in the past couple month or so. As it always was, the air in here was thick, stifling. Not physically, of course. But Roaki's soft monotone mumbling dug into her heart every time she heard it. And her thoughts still being stuck on her parents' possible untimely death didn't have her feeling any better. So, unlike usual--very unlike usual--when she sat down, she didn't talk for some time. Instead she just...looked at Roaki. Look at her, and wrestled with her thoughts.

When she finally spoke, it was after almost five minutes had ticked by.

Through the conversations she'd had with Roaki, there was one question that, no matter how she was asked it, she always skirted around. She'd talked about her parents, of course. She'd talked about being kept locked up in one room for sixteen years, never allowed to leave, never even allowed to see out of it. She'd talked about the compact operating table being wheeled into her room, and being put under, only vaguely recalling anything about what had ever happened. She'd talked a lot, at Roaki's questioning. Answered every other question she'd had. Except one.

What she'd never talked about was...the water. But it was on her mind now. And she couldn't get it off.

When she spoke, her voice was most unlike its usual state as seen by Roaki. Gone was the bounce in it, the cheerfulness. There was no anger or sorrow. All that was left was a deep melancholy. "You asked me a while ago why my parents kept me locked up, why they operated on me, and I never told you because I said it was too painful to think about."

She hesitated.

It was still hard to talk about. So, guiltily, sadly, she redirected it outward, in a strange kind of delaying gambit. "Do you still want to know?"

Something was off, Roaki knew it right away. Usually Quinnlash came bursting in loud as anything, eager to talk and pretend—for whatever nebulous reasons she had—as if they did not despise each other. Sometimes it was only for minutes, sometimes it was an hour, sometimes early, others late. She didn’t know what time it was now, but as the silence, usually disallowed to last a handful of moments, stretched into minutes, she knew something was wrong.

Her hand squeezed the sheet in a fist. Is this it? she thought. Had the mask finally slipped off? Had she finally exhausted Quinnlash’s seemingly-endless patience? Or perhaps over the weeks she’d simply gotten everything she needed. Roaki knew silence, knew it well enough to know nothing good came after it. Were these people finally going to start treating her like the enemy?

Evidently not.

When Quinn spoke she sounded different. Sad. That wasn’t anything new. Quinn had cried plenty—Roaki remembered because it infuriated her every time, reminded her she’d lost to a crybaby, that she was worse. This sounded less like ridiculous guilt or sympathy, and more like…nostalgia. The pain of memory.

Roaki had become privy to many of Quinnlash’s feelings, none of which made her any easier to understand. But this—pain. Pain she could understand. Perhaps this was an opportunity, and if she listened closely, she might discover the girl’s true weakness.

Or she’s messing with you, you fucking idiot.

That, she decided, was also a possibility. Weeks spent waiting for the other shoe to drop; was this gravity at work? She supposed it didn’t matter, really. She didn’t have much use for shoes anyway.

“Okay,” she answered. “Sure. Why’d they do it?”

"Okay, sure. Why’d they do it?"

Quinn went quiet again, though this time for only a few moments, as she screwed up her courage, forced herself to think back to Hovvi, and her life. The discovery that water was supposed to be clear was a memory as crisp and clear as it was painful to look back upon, and she sucked a harsh breath in through her teeth.

"When I...when I was a girl--a kid, I mean, or, a few months ago, before the Hovvi Incident." she started slowly, voice stopping and starting as she fought to string her words together properly. "...I thought water was supposed to have a dark tint."

As she went on her voice grew more constant, but also unsteady, shaky, like it always did when she was really upset. Yet she still forged on.

"I had no way of knowing. My...my parents, they didn't tell me anything, they cut off almost the whole internet, they told me everything was normal. Including the water." She closed her eye, taking a few deep, shaky breaths in an attempt to calm herself. "It would've tasted funny too, though I didn't know it at the time, really. Bitter metal and salt brine."

One more deep breath. One more long pause. Her eye grew hot and stung as she fought back tears, holding herself together as her voice quaked.

"...Modium. It was modium."

"They kept me inside so nobody would know and I wouldn't understand." She clung grimly on to her composure, even as her voice grew thick and tears started to build around her eye. "They cut me open to check if my insides were okay." She wasn't sure if that was true, but it was the only thing that made sense. "I didn't—"

She stopped speaking abruptly, and finally, her composure broke. Her thin shoulders quaked.

And she began to quietly cry.

Roaki sat and listened quietly, as was her lot. It sounded like nonsense, honestly, and the more Quinnlash said, the less sense anything made. Modium? Did she really expect her to believe she grew up drinking modium? People died just being near the stuff, you didn’t just drink it. This had to be a trick, then, another ploy to get something out of her. But what? What else was there to say that hadn’t been said already? She had no crucial information for RISC, no deep, national secrets; Helburke wanted her gone just as much as everyone else, no one had ever told her anything she didn’t absolutely need to know.

She considered it might be that strange, miserable sort of cruelty she’d suspected Quinnlash preferred some weeks ago, but if that truly was the case, its purpose had yet to be made clear. IF the rest of her life was really to be spent listening to her enemy complain she wished she’d been back in that cell—at least there the cold would have killed her by now.

Failing that, she had to consider the distant possibility that Quinnlash was telling the truth—or at least that she thought she was. Roaki didn’t believe it for a second. She was well acquainted with the effects of modium, more than most people alive, she wagered. If Quinnlash had really been drinking it her whole life, she’d be dead. She was certain of it.

But, again, if it was true—why?

The possibilities to that question were fractal and endless and made her head hurt. Roaki quickly decided that she didn’t care why. If someone had done that to her, she thought, she would have ripped their kidneys out with her hands. Quinnlash wouldn’t, though. She had a special sort of weakness, and if her persona were to be taken at face-value, then it wouldn’t be at all surprising to find out that she never did anything about it.

God, fuck. But if she’d only stop fucking crying.

“…Okay,” she said, when the silence was long. “Your parents poisoned you. Why would they do that?”

Another long silence followed Roaki's question, with no answer immediately forthcoming. For a brief time, there were only Quinn's soft, hiccupping tears.

Then, a bit later, she gritted her teeth, swiped her arm across her eye, and spoke huskily, "I don't..." The word know was on the tip of her tongue, when she cocked her head to the side as a thought struck her. Because she did know at least a little now. "Or, well...they're, or they were, modiologists. Really, really good modiologists. The most famous in Runa, I think." And maybe more than that; she thought she'd seen some articles in Casobani when she'd run her search.

She rubbed her eye and socket with her hands, and when she pulled them away, she looked down at the floor and spoke softly, giving voice to the thought that had been lurking in the back of her mind since she discovered their modiology: "Maybe I was just a science project."

She wished she could talk about this kind of thing with Besca and Dahlia too. But Dahlia was either asleep or in sims, and she was awake—as seen today—she was certainly in no place to help Quinn work through her own problems. Besca was in the dorm to sleep for three hours and then leave for the bridge before Quinn woke up; they almost only talked over the phone now. So Roaki was...she gave a weak, weedy chuckle. Roaki was her only confidante, and there was something sadly funny about that.

She shook her head vigorously then, doing her best to banish the thoughts. "I didn't mean to lay all that on you." She forced another laugh, still pained but a little less so. "It's just...on my mind today. Sorry."