Quinn's jaw clenched so hard she thought she could hear it creaking.

"By then they either give up, or they keep trying, and settle for the good they can do."

Her fist tightened around her spoon.

They either give up, or they keep trying.

She pulled in a long, deep breath and lifted her head from its staring contest with the remnants of her cereal, staring Besca's eye dead on with an eye swollen and red and rimmed in burgeoning tears, but suddenly filled with a surge of determination as she dug deep into herself and found the oft-neglected steel that was sunk down on her core. That hidden part of her that had kept her fighting against Blotklau. Against three Modir. That had urged her onward more and more, hung on and refused to let go.

Give up, or keep trying.

Quinn found her her voice, thick and strained as it always was when she was trying to hold back tears.

And she found her courage.

"I'm not gonna give up."

She swiped her arm across her face, trying to wipe the tears away. There was a temptation to give up, certainly. Trying to do what she was doing was...it was hard. It was really hard. Her life would've been so much easier, she knew, if she'd just finished Roaki off. Everything would've been so much easier, so much simpler. But just like in her nightmare, any suggestion of that easy, quiet complacency shattered when she met Besca's eye.

Nuh-uh. No giving up. She was going to be someone that Besca, Dahlia, and Safie would be proud of.

"I'm not giving up," she echoed again. "I'm gonna keep trying."

No giving up, and no going back.

Besca didn’t know if Quinn’s resolve—brittle though it seemed—made her happy, or simply deepened that apprehensive pit inside her waiting for something to go wrong. It ought to be the first, she knew, but her own omission of the truth had guaranteed that whatever happened now, she would have to deal with the consequences eventually. So she wasn’t happy, but, she could be sad and loathsome and still be proud.

With a small smile, just about all she could muster, she rested her head against Quinn’s for a moment. “‘Atta girl,” she said. “No quitters here. If you keep goin’, I’ll keep goin’ too. Drag each other if we have to.”

There’d be a lot of that coming, she guessed. But that was okay. She’d lost count of the people who’d dragged her, who she’d dragged, and screamed at, and lost hope in and wished would disappear and now she wished they were still around to torment her. To hate her. To be alive, at least. Time had taught her these days were numbered, some shorter than others, all shorter than most. Pilots didn’t get the luxury of cherry-picking the good from the bad, they just took what they got. Ten years from now, twenty, if she lived that long, Besca would look back on her time with Quinn, and most of the memories she’d have of the girl would be of her in misery, crying, afraid, wishing she was anyone else but who she was. But they would be memories, and she would hold them close, and she would do all she could to make sure they made as many as possible, before…

Sighing, she set her tablet aside, and got up to bring her bowl to the sink. “Guess we both ought to start our days, then,” she said. “Otherwise we’d hide in here forever, and that’d be a waste, hm?”

Quinn's hand finally loosened and she let the spoon drop to the countertop, then picked up the bowl and drank of the last of the cerealized milk with a quick gulp. Setting it back down with a thunk, she let out a soft, satisfied sigh. Then, swiping her hand across her mouth to take out any straggling droplets, she looked back at Besca and nodded.

"Kay, I'm gonna go then, okay? I'll see you and Deelie later!" She didn't sound enthusiastic, exatly; her head and stomach still hurt a little bit. But she knew well enough by now to know that to a pilot, any time she got was something of a luxury.

So, she hopped up from her seat, leaned in to give her favorite grown up one more big hug, then grabbed her jacket from its hook by the door, donned it as always, and threw open the door. Time to go. "Bye, Besca!"

Late morning was an an awkward time on the Aerie, one that she wasn't usually just walking out of the dorms for; she usually woke up earlier. At this time of the day, most people were already either doing their jobs or in bed, with only a paltry few people in the commons when she arrived. Those people did, however, not even hide the fact that they were staring at her this time. She gave a little internal cringe. She didn't remember much about last night, but she vaguely remembered stumbling through the station resting against Besca. It was almost enough to make her not want to go out and face everyone when things got way more crowded. Almost. But, not quite, since she obviously ha things to do. She just tried to be as subtle as she could, and make as few waves as possible.

Thankfully nobody came up to trouble or interrogate her, so she passed with only a few eyes burning into the back of her school as she finally made it to medical.

Though, of course, she was being stared at here too. Of course she was; the news would have spread around the whole station like wildfire. She gave a quite little sigh of frustration, then resolved to ignore the eyes headed her way and just wove through the sterile hallways until finally arriving at one of her havens on the Aerie. She knocked on the nice wooden door, then called out--well, not quietly, but louder than usual: "Doctor Follen?" She paused for a moment as she briefly ran through what she wanted to talk about. How to deal with the rumors, how she was doing now, and of course, what she could do to help Roaki. That sounded about right. "I'm here for my session!"

The door to Follen’s office moved without hardly a whisper of movement on the other side, and there the doctor stood smiling, a perfect portrait of himself. He’d trimmed his beard in, thin and close to his face, kept his hair swept neatly. Follen didn’t wear his coat often, favoring a selection of simple button-ups, and the occasional tie. Very muted, very warm, very comforting. He looked like the sort of person you could approach at any time of the day, for any reason big or small, and given his line of work that was likely intentional.

“Quinn! What a lovely surprise, I wasn’t quite sure when I'd see you next.” He ushered her inside, closing the door behind her to a crack, as she liked. His room was blanket-warm and fresh-scented, almost like citrus. Her chair was settled in the same spot, and as he made his way back across his desk, she could see her file set out. Always ready for her, whenever she needed.

He sat down, elbows propped up, hands folding together. His smile turned contemplative, and his eyes searched her carefully behind his glasses.

“How are you feeling? I hope you’ve recovered a bit since the other day. You seem a little better, and I heard you slept quite heavily. That’s good, now and then we all need a long rest. Tell me, what would you like to talk about, today?”

Going into Follen's office was like stepping into a nice warm bath. As soon as he closed the door, she immediately felt relaxed and at ease; she knew that she could tell him basically anything and he'd never judge her, not one bit. But even then, sometimes words still stuck in her throat when she was talking to him; things that she just felt strange and awkward saying. Like now. She wanted to ask his advice about Roaki, but...it just felt weird for the first thing she talked about to be someone else.

So instead, she talked about something that was about her. Her mood, so recently put at ease, visibly sobered, and she waited for a moment more, putting her thoughts together before she spoke:

"...I think my parents are dead."

Once she said the first thing, the rest came more easily, and she continued, "I never knew their names when I was back...back there. They were just Mom and Dad. But I looked them up yesterday morning. I wanted...I wanted answers. I wanted to know why.

She shivered a bit, and clenched her hands around the arms of the chair. "But I found out that they were coming back to Hovvi when they found out about the singularity opening, and now nobody's seen them since." She sucked in a long, deep breath in an attempt to calm herself. One. Two. Three.

"And...and I know they did really awful things to me," her voice took on a noticeable tremble, "and I should hate them for it. I should be glad that they're gone so they can't hurt anybody else. But...but it makes me sad." For a moment, she thought back to her dream of last night, of Quinnlash telling her it was because she was Mom. Because she dug herself deep into her mind, deep as she could. But Quinn didn't really know exactly what that meant.

Or...no, she knew what it meant. But...

But she was scared.

She wanted Quinnlash to be wrong. Wanted there to be some other reason. And if there was, then it would be Follen who knew.

"I don't understand. Why does it upset me so much?"

Follen listened quietly while Quinn talked. He didn’t interject, didn’t motion for pause, his face never betrayed an ounce of judgement, or sympathy—or no more than was inherent to his naturally kind expression. This was his way in almost all of their sessions; he would sit in silence, or scratch notes in his journal without more than the quickest glance away from her, and simply listen. When she stopped talking, he waited, because often she simply needed a moment to catch her breath and collect her thoughts, and if she ever looked at him with uncertainty, he would nod encouragement, perhaps smile, and let her continue. He seemed to know when she was truly done, perhaps even before she did.

He set his pen down, cleared his throat and folded his hands. “Empathy is difficult, Quinnlash. If you’ve learned anything since Hovvi, I’m sure you’ve learned that. Some people are can feel the sadness of others simply by stepping into a room with them. Some people understand, but choose to ignore it. Some people spend their whole lives trying to build up that sense of connection and humanity, and never quite manage. But you’re in a particularly unique situation, aren’t you? You’re incredibly empathic—between your actions and interactions, I don’t believe anyone would contest that—but you haven’t gotten to develop it. You spent your whole life alone.

“It’s a tragedy of the human condition that time takes our happiest memories away, but our traumas remain. You, I’m sure, remember many of the terrible things that were done to you with perfect clarity. Perhaps, effectively, they are all that you had, and if your parents are truly dead, then, in some ways, now you have nothing. It is a natural reaction to cling to something, good or bad, rather than lose it—because it’s yours. And in that panic you might forget about the things you’ve gained, or might gain.

“Tell me, since you found out about them, have you wanted to be here any less?”

Midway through Follen's reply, Quinn closed her eye, letting him continue as she listened and thought.

It was true, she though. She didn't much like looking back on how she was when she was in the room, but only when she did was when she fully realized how terrible it had been. She reached up unthinkingly and gently stroked a finger along her chest, just beneath her collarbone, where she knew that a long, narrow scar lay. She didn't remember the operations, of course; she'd been knocked out for all of them, and what happened afterwards was all a fuzzy blur. But she deeply and vividly remembered the strange feeling she felt in the pit of her stomach every time she found a new scar, what she realized now was something like fear.

And, she realized immediately afterwards, he was right about the bad memories being all she had of them. Even the fragments of happy memories that she still kept--as was shown in a stark light after she'd visited Roaki last--only caused her distress now. Deep, profound distress. They were things that she perhaps wished she could forget, but they stayed locked in her head nonetheless. Like she couldn't let them go.

But then, of course, came Doctor Follen's last question, and the answer jumped to her lips before her mind could even really register it. "No."

And then, as she caught up to herself, she added quietly, "I can't imagine being anywhere but here ever again."

“An emphatic answer. The idea of losing it seems to upset you, perhaps part of you feels this place is yours now, too. ” Follen said, and in a flick of his wrist pen touched paper and then was set down again. He waited a moment, observed her, gave her the opportunity to speak further if she wished.

When she did not, he went on. “Despite what I said before, the prescription is time. Time to develop your empathy. Time to make good memories—and forget them, for new ones. You spent your life alone, all you have right now are traumas and isolation. Your feelings towards your parents are natural, and they will fade, though the memories of what was done to you may not. Use that to right yourself. Once some time has passed, all you’ll have left of your mother and father will be the truth. Hopefully by then, you’ll have found enough happiness in your new life, that you won’t mourn your old one.

“But, that’s only my hope. I can’t make you promises that aren’t mine to keep—all I can do is help you keep the ones you make to yourself. For now, you need to sit with these feelings, think on them, try to understand them. It may come slowly, you may find no answers at all for quite a while. We’ll continue to keep track, together.”

As Doctor Follen went on, Quinn found herself nodding gently along, as seemed to happen sometimes when he went on for a while and she thought he was right about it. And he was, in the end; she had started to consider the Aerie as hers. Her home. A real home.

That said, she wasn't exactly happy about the only way to heal herself from the scar her parents had left being time. She wasn't surprised by it, but hearing it didn't exactly fill her with happiness, either: she'd always have to live with this on her back. And though Doctor Follen was sure it'd get lighter, she knew that it would never truly go away. The tangled thoughts, the confused feelings, the crushing memories wouldn't ever just go away. They may get less tangled, less confused, less crushing, but a part of her knew full well they would never just leave her be.

"Try to understand them," she murmured to herself, face the picture of doubt as it dipped to look at her shoes. She didn't really understand a good deal of her feelings on the best of days. How long would it take for her to understand ones this potent? She let slip a quiet, almost mournful sigh. If Doctor Follen thought that trying to understand them was important...well, she trusted him. If he thought so, then she'd try as hard as she could. "I guess I can at least try."

A beat passed in silence before she raised her head, meeting Doctor Follen's eyes again. She took a long breath, screwing up her courage for the next question. "I have another question," she said quietly. "It's...it's about Roaki."

Another pause as Doctor Follen kept looking at her, waiting for her to keep going, scratching away at his notepad. "She still seems not to want to live, or at least not care about it." As usual, now that she'd taken the first step talking, the rest came easier afterwards. "You understand people, right? Do you know any way I can...I don't know, help her realize that her life is worth living?" And, tacked on at the very end in a voice barely louder than a whisper, "I don't like seeing her like this."

Follen seemed pleased that she’d agreed to try. It wasn’t the first time he’d suggested a more analyzed approach, and he wasn’t the only one, either. Besca and Dahlia both seemed convinced that the truest, most lasting damages done to Quinn in her childhood were internal—literally, yes, but also figuratively. While knowing she wasn’t in immediate danger of keeling over as a result of whatever horrific experiments had been performed on her, it did little to assuage the pain of watching her fall apart in every other way.

Of course, even having told them about it, looking inward wasn’t the easiest feat when the guiding voice in her mind urged her to give in to her angriest impulses. Quinnlash seemed to want what was best for her—best for them both, really—but some days it also seemed like she didn’t want to be happy, that she wanted to keep them both trapped in a cycle of desperate fury.

If we understand these things, won’t they go away? the question radiated from within her, not mocking, not angry, but almost confused. The edges of her vision darkened ever so slightly. What are we without them?

“Pardon?”

The room returned, and Follen’s voice pushed Quinnlash back beneath the pool of their mind. He looked concerned, though not like she’d been thinking out loud, and more that she wasn’t making any sense. He considered her briefly, but intensely, and then quickly leaned back in his chair as if all was normal.

“I don’t believe that’s possible at this point, Quinn. Apologies, I thought you already knew—the deal was made. We’re delivering her to Casoban within the week.”

“I don’t believe that’s possible at this point, Quinn. Apologies, I thought you already knew—the deal was made. We’re delivering her to Casoban within the week.”

Quinn blinked, and her mouth dropped a little ways open in raw surprise and confusion, like she just...didn't understand the words coming out of Doctor Follen's mouth. Or like they were in a totally different language; so far beyond her scope of understanding all she could t was sit there stupefied for a moment. A deal with Casoban. Delivering Roaki to them.

Letting her die.

Memories played back in her head of every day, when she visited Roaki, the tension in their speech, but at the same time, the kind of respect that they'd built up over the past few weeks.

They were letting her die.

Quinn's mouth moved before her mind could, really, and she found herself standing up in front of the chair braced on the arms, an expression between mulish stubbornness and seething anger no her face. Her emotions were tangled, but the same idea jumped out of all of them, and they all let to the same conclusion

"No. Nuh-uh."

Her voice was razor sharp as she went on: "I'm not gonna let that happen. Casoban can wait!" The confusion had cleared, leaving only frustration and determination. "Roaki doesn't deserve death! And I'm not gonna let her die!" Her mind raced. What could she do. What could she do? As firm as she was, she didn't have a real...

And then she did.

A way to convince Roaki to live.

Roaki clung to being a pilot like nothing else.

"Sims," she murmured.

"Sims!" Her voice was louder, and ever more stubborn now, if possible. "I'm taking her into sims!"

“That…” Follen started, and in his voice was the same tone Quinn had heard many times before. The tone used with children, to ease them into the cruelties of the world and remind them, gently, that reality wouldn’t abide their every fantasy. But it flagged, and he sat quietly for a few moments, staring at her. Then brow went up, and he shrugged with his lips.

“…Technically not against the rules. If you can convince her to go, I don’t see any legalities preventing her from joining you in the sims.”

He got up out of his seat and came around, picking his coat up from the stand. “In fact, why don’t I head down there, and see if I can’t convince whoever’s on duty that I’m trialing some sort of therapy. I doubt I can keep them from telling anyone, but as long as you’re willing to face the consequences.”

A hand found its way onto her shoulder, as soft in touch as his tone had been. “Which there will be, Quinnlash. However this goes, even if it doesn’t work. There will be consequences. Are you okay with that?”

There will be consequences.

No matter how soft Doctor Follen's voice was, and how firm Quinn's conviction was, those four words sent a shock of unease down her spine. She'd been so worried about the Board's retaliation when she just moved Roaki out from holding. This was so much more important and impactful. But no matter what...she had to. She would never, ever forgive herself if she didn't; if she let Roaki die. She took a long, deep breath, steeling and steadying herself. Two breaths. Three.

"I know. I just..." I just hope only I get punished. "...I just couldn't live with myself if I didn't." She gave him a small, sad smile. "You get it, right?"

The she went quiet, and with one more protracted look at Doctor Follen, she slid open the door and left his office, striding purposefully into the foreign ward and ignoring any questing looks. Pulling out the 104 key the thong on her neck, she fitted it into the door, took another deep breath, then shoved it open and dove in.

Her voice was vastly different from what it usually was. It wasn't subdued as it was on occasion. It wasn't cheerful and bouncy the way that she tried to hard to be most of the time around Roaki. Rather, it was fast and low and showed a clear urgency in the sheer tension present in her. Her foot was tapping rapidly on the floor in a way that she didn't know if she'd ever done before, her lips were pressed tightly together, and she moved immediately over to Roaki's bedside, yanking the wheelchair to her instead of taking a seat like she usually did and shifting it over to the bedside as well.

"Roaki, I need you to murder me in sims right now."

The room was as dim and lifeless as it always was, and like every time she’d shown up before, Roaki was still laid out in the bed, turned toward the faux window like she might be sleeping—which she never really was. Usually it took minutes of awkward silence and prodding to get her to even turn around, let alone to speak, but this time was different. Somehow, despite having made herself a clockwork fixture of Roaki’s day, as reliable as the fake sunlight would turn to fake moonlight, Quinn had managed to surprise her.

“Huh?” She bolted upright like a bomb had gone off down the hall, voice bereft of any wilted stoicism. “Fuckin—what? Huh? What the fuck are you talking about?”

Her eyes jumped from the wheelchair, to Quinn, who she rarely even looked towards. Now she was scanning her intently, as if she were looking for whatever wound must have been making her delirious. Seeing none, she decided to take Quinn’s words as they were, which made just as little sense.

“I can’t go to sims. Didn’t you hear? I’m already dead, Casoban’s got dibs.”

"You're not dead yet and I don't give a fuck what Casoban has to say about it." Quinn spat with searing energy. "And there are no laws or rules that says you can't go to sims. So do you want to kill me or not?" Blood boiling, Quinn barely managed to wait for an agreement before she pulled Roaki off the bed where she'd taken residence for the past few weeks, rammed her into the wheelchair, and took off through the open doorway.

Dodging through incredibly confused staffers, nurses, and doctors, Quinn tore through medical, pretty much jogging as she piloted Roaki's wheelchair like an airplane. It was lucky that sparring and training had given her so much more strength and stamina, she though; when she'd first gotten to the Aerie there was no way she could do this. It would be so much slower, and take so much more effort.

As she went, her mind raced. After she got out of medical she'd need to cross almost exactly straight through the common area. She knew Roaki wasn't exactly well-liked at this point, obviously. So she found herself wondering if she should skirt around the edges and try to attract less attention, or if she should just plow through the middle to cut down on time. They only had so much, after all. "Within the week" could mean in an hour for all she knew. And on realizing that, she knew exactly what she'd do. She screwed up her courage. Whatever happened, this was probably going to make Besca and Deelie mad, and she hated that. She'd never intentionally done something that she knew would anger them, she didn't think.

But Roaki's life was more important. So as she emerged from medical, she went straight.

People looked at her with a varying array of expressions which she did her best to ignore as she punched straight through the growing crowd. It wasn't quite lunch time yet, but it was getting there; people were just starting to get off work. She found herself glad that she was hurrying. It'd be harder and harder the more people showed up.

Dodging by the last crowd of hangar staff--was that Tillie?--she finally cleared the commons, very conscious of ever eye in the room on her. Her jaw was clenched tight. From that point it was a brief sojourn through mostly empty hallways to get to sims where she desperately hoped Dahlia wasn't at the moment. It would be...difficult to explain to her at the moment. When she arrived, the technician looked at her, mouth hanging open and eyes wide. She shook her head quickly, trying to catch her breath as her chest heaved. What was it Doctor Follen had said?

"Doctor Follen is trying out a new therapy. Hooking her up. Sorry." With no further explanation, she rushed past him as well, finding all the sim pods empty and breathing a sigh of relief in spite of herself. Still moving quickly, she grunted as she hefted Roaki into one of the pods, shifting her a bit and letting her plugs catch. Proceeding to do the same herself, she gave a harried grin. "Blotklau should still be in the system from training."

The she connected, and Ablaze breathe deep, trying to keep herself calm. She wasn't at all excited to fight Blotklau again, but it had to happen. She closed her eye and made her second and third breaths as she was notified that someone had connected to sims.

Don't help me this time, okay?

Roaki spent the entire trip clutching onto the wheelchair’s armrest with her one hand, stiff and with her eyes wide, too surprised to even speak. People parted the walkways like they were a runaway horse, and she might have cherished their dumb, baffled faces if she didn’t look just like them. The whole way her mind raced for answers and found only more questions, until somehow between blinks she found herself being lowered into one of the sim pods.

The sensation of her plugs connecting to the seat sent nostalgic shudders down her spine. She hadn’t dared hope she’d feel that again. She hadn’t dared hope for anything—that wasn’t the privilege of worms.

But here she lay.

Quinnlash was gone before she could ask her what the hell all this was. But…did she want to know? It could have been a trap, or that stupid commander taking pity on her. Maybe once she booted herself in, the system would fry her and that’d be it; no wasting time rotting in a Casobani cell waiting to be paraded around like a trophy, no nonsense trial, no being ripped into however many pieces they wanted to pass her around as. Was that mercy?

Fine, she thought. Kill me, then.

The pod sealed around her, she took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

She was almost disappointed when she didn’t die. At least then things would have made sense.

Roaki hadn’t done many sims in her brief career as a pilot. Her first duel was also her first day in Blotklau’s cockpit, and despite House Tormont having access to state-of-the-art equipment, she was obviously not allowed anywhere near it. What she’d run were closer to bootleg VR games than military sims, with low visual fidelity and janky tactile feedback—things which had been described to her, which she didn’t understand, but the thing had looked and felt like shit. This was much different.

The world unfurled around her like a topographical map of a place she’d never seen. Woodlands stretched out beneath her, miles upon miles of crisp greens and autumn warmth. A wide river cut the land in two, and ran rapid from a high plateau misted by the cascading waterfall at its face. Mountains ringed the distance, a marriage of natural and digital boundaries, but more sprung up along the raised earth, ranges of five and six with flat tops trailing into jagged heads.

The sun shown above her, so much more real than the dull light that leaked between the blinds of her room. Wind touched her. Roaki had been told that Saviors were dulled to physical sensations, and that the only thing that really reached the pilot was pain. But on her first day and every day after, she swore she could feel the wind kiss her modium skin, and touch the rain inside the lowest clouds, and sweat beneath a high noon sun as sure as she would in her own self.

Some vast distance across from her, Ablaze took shape. Small but potent panic shot through her, and she stared death at the other Savior.

The other savior.

She realized then she was in Blotklau. It wasn’t…exactly right; she could tell certain details were off, but that was how it went with recreations, right? It was still undeniably the same Savior. She closed her fists tight, felt sharp claws dig into her palms. Life hissed through her razor maw. A comms channel was already open, populated by an administrator, herself, and Quinnlash Loughvein. Blotklau’s teeth grated together. She was still waiting for the other shoe to come crashing down.

“What is this, deadgirl?”

"What is this, deadgirl?"

It always amazed Quinn just how real the sims felt. No matter how many times she hopped in, there was always that same thrill; an echo of the freedom she'd felt when she first left her house. It was only months ago, wasn't it? It felt at once like yesterday, and like a distant past life that she'd never even been a part of. She looked up towards the projected sky, admiring the faux sun with Ablaze's terrible maw stretched in some horrific parody of a smile, and appreciating that it sounded like Roaki had a little bit more bite in her now. Taking her into sims had been a good idea. "Even if it's not real and it's just there for training in the end, it's still pretty, huh?"

Rolling her neck and stretching her arms briefly, she dropped her head down and stared levelly back at Blotklau. There was a hint of a cold shiver that was ready to race up and down her spine; the last time she'd seen it face to face like this hadn't been the best of times for anyone involved. But she did her best to ignore it. If she could ignore using the Savior and weapon that had massacred Hovvi, then she could ignore an unpleasant memory.

"You know, I told you I'd tell you what Ablaze meant, but I never did." She let a beat pass, and if she'd been in her own body, she would've probably reached behind her head and adjusted her braid. "After this one, I promise. I'd tell you now, but it kinda takes a while to explain."

She went quiet for a moment, reaching her clawed hand out to grab the sheet, but not pulling yet. Not 'til Roaki did. Her voice was completely lacking in anything like humor or sarcasm. It was sheer quiet sincerity all the way down. "I meant what I said. You don't deserve to die and I'm not gonna let them kill you even if I have to fight the whole world." After another pause, she let humor leak back in there and cocked her massive head in an odd reptilian motion.

"So, you gonna come kill me or not?"

It didn’t make sense. Roaki was so sick of nothing making any sense.

Quinnlash was her enemy, that was true the day she was born, and it would be true until the day she died. Only, that should have been weeks ago, and then it should have been every moment afterwards. Now, it was supposed to be in less than a week. It was going to be over.

She was so, so ready for it to be over.

Since her defeat, more than the grief, and the humiliation, and the abject self-loathing, what Roaki felt most was tired. Fifteen years of cold, lonely pain had wrung her dry, and the only thing keeping her going that whole time had been the lust for revenge, and the thought of her father’s face when she burned his legacy to ash. All she’d wanted was to take House Tormont with her to the grave. She’d dug the hole, she’d butchered the name. All she had to do was get in.

That driving fury was cold now. It lingered soul-deep within her, but she could feel it was lost, meandering without focus, or purpose. What was she without it? A worm, small and broken and unfeeling, meant for the dirt.

Only she wasn’t unfeeling. She wasn’t broken, not now. Not like this. Two feet beneath her, two arms to dig claws into the world and rend it how she pleased. She’d found what parts of her had been lost to the Modir in the Modir and now they were hers again. This body was hers.

This was her.

Blotklau looked up from her hands, looked up at Ablaze. Roaki looked her dead in the eye.

Then she ran.

Heavy, excited breathing broke through Quinn’s comms as Blotklau tore off, not towards her but away. She flattened forest underfoot, every step a quake that grew faster and faster. She reached the river in a full sprint and the breathing stopped as she leapt into an arc over the water and came crashing down on the other side with all the ferocious grace of a wolf, and kept running. Running for the plateau. She ran low, nearly on all fours, just as she had in their duel, and that heavy panting turned quick and elated and giddy, even.

She leapt again at the base of the waterfall and slammed into the rockface behind it. A torrent crashed down on her shoulders, cold heavy shock jolting her from scalp to heel and Roaki let out a vicious laugh. She clawed her way up the surface, tearing down outcroppings, rending stone like clay. At the top her joyous wrath rent the waterfall’s mouth wider, sprayed it like rain to the earth below and pulled herself up, up onto her feet.

There at the apex of this little world, Roaki let out an ecstatic roar that pushed the comms to static. Anger, agony, pure animalistic excitement. When she was finally done, she panted over the mic once again, and while she was certainly exhausted from so long spent inert, what she wasn’t was tired.

“Alright, Quinnlash,” she rasped, and even from digital miles away, Quinn would be able to hear the toothy grin on her breath. “You asked for it.”