When you joined the RISC, and you got stationed on the Aerie, you had to square yourself with the fact that, as long as you had a job, you might never step foot on Illun again. If you were lucky, you might get assigned to the elevator crew, and every now and then you’d get to ship down and spend an afternoon at the loading bay, and maybe sneak off to grab some local food. Some people wouldn’t see a proper sunrise for three, five years—others ten, maybe longer. When you were dealing with the Modir, there wasn’t much room for vacation.

All this to say that, despite having come down to the RISC planet-side HQ to get fired, Besca went straight to a familiar burger-joint just outside of base, and decided to await the Board’s decision there. She’d taken for granted what an ocean shore looked like, and the smell of a cool breeze through a well-kept garden—she wasn’t about to miss out on this.

She ate slow, watched a Sim-Savior-League match on the desaturated television mounted on the wall, and enjoyed what was otherwise a rather pleasant quiet. She’d taken that for granted too. For a place floating in the silent void of space, the Aerie was loud, often, and as its commander, her job was to keep it that way.

Through the window she spotted Follen cross the street, and decided her break was over. If he stepped foot in here, it’d be ruined for her. She took her drink with her and met him outside. It was windy out—something else she wasn’t used to; she had to pull back her hair to keep it out of her face, and Follen’s was whipped out of its normal shape. Still, even now he had the same, indecipherable little grin plastered to his face.

“Well?” she asked, taking a long sip. “Should I expect a trial before they lock me up, or are they just gonna off me in my sleep?”

He chuckled, but didn’t answer. Instead he produced a cigarette from his breast pocket, and a lighter, and they stood there quietly as he took a drag. He brushed his hair back, blinked up at the sky, then took another. Through the smoke, he said: “You’re getting a commendation.”

For the sake of her dignity, Besca refused to choke on her drink, and elected to quietly gag. “That’s…an interesting response to treason.”

“It’s not treason. Not officially. The Board has decided our best course of action is to present a united front, in the face of our treaty’s inevitable collapse.”

“They’re giving up on Casoban?”

He shrugged. “Roaki Tormont was in possession of crucial intelligence relating to Helburke’s Great Houses. You acted under orders to secure her as a RISC asset.”

That was flimsy. Anyone who spent more than a minute around her would realize that the absolute last words that could be attributed to Roaki Tormont were: ‘crucial intelligence’. Then again, their relationship with Helburke couldn’t get any worse, and there was precedent for this sort of thing even more recently with Ghaust.

Difference was, Ghaust had been an asset of actual value. What were they going to do with Roaki?

“Don’t relax too much,” Follen said. “They’ve begun a new search for your replacement. You’re still listed as interim commander, after all.”

“And Quinn?”

Follen moved to take another drag, but Besca swiped the cigarette from his mouth and tossed it aside.

“What. About. Quinn?”

“Hm. The girl defies you at every turn, shelters an enemy, and plunges our country towards what will in all likelihood be its doom, or at least subjugation, and you’re worried about her job?”

“She’s sixteen.”

“Most teenagers just dye their hair.” Follen said, and retrieved another cigarette, turning theatrically away from Besca to light it. “Obviously, they want her gone, but losing her now would break the façade. There’s still two Saviors to fill before they can justifiably retire her, so I imagine she’ll be around longer than you—if not by much. Besides, they’re aware of Dahlia’s…attachment, to her. They’ve asked me to begin conditioning distance between them to help facilitate an eventual split.”

“That won’t work.”

He shrugged again. “I don’t particularly care; I wasn’t going to do it anyway.”

From anyone else, she would have assumed that to be a sign of affection. From Follen it was practically a confession that he was planning something worse.

“So that’s it?” Besca asked. “We just go back to business as usual?”

“We’re losing Casoban, Besca. Runa is about to be alone for the first time, against powers older and richer than we could ever dream of being. Sure, with Dahlia, and Quinn, and whoever else gets roped in we may be able to hold out awhile, but things like this happen in generational increments. Today marks the death of this nation in one fashion or another, and most of the world will be cheering.”

“And yet, you don’t seem the least bit worried.”

“Like I said, this is going to make a lot of people happy.” He flicked his cigarette away and looked down at her, eyes empty behind those pale veneers. “When have you ever known the Modir to let that stand?”

--

News spread quick, and outrage quicker. Casoban, Eusero, and of course Helburke, exploded with indignant anger. How dare Runa deny the Casobani people justice? Who were they to involve themselves? First their own incompetence costs them one of their most beloved pilots, and now they have the audacity to moralize?

Eusero, for their part, would never betray their allies so brazenly.

Even Runans seemed split on the decision. Most seemed to understand this meant the end to their allegiance with Casoban was imminent, and while many found within them a sudden patriotic compassion, many still demanded answers and a change of course. News began to report that investigations into the Board were to begin—which would, undoubtedly, peter off into nothing.

Still, the confusion was there, and a national effort to curb the rising hysteria was in full force by the end of the week. Certain foreign news channels were no longer aired, interviews with Euseran politicians and even pilots were slimmed down, with only a few appearances from high-profile Casobani guests who still favored the treaty.

On the Aerie however, there was no such embargo.

Morning, noon, and night they were bombarded with the consequences of Quinn’s actions, and the effects were noticeable. No one was outright mean, but the heroic air that had seemed to waft from her everywhere she went was wilted, and plenty of the staff regarded her coldly, or with indifference. Most, after all, didn’t know it had been Quinn’s call. The official story disseminated to the country and to RISC was that it was the Board’s, acted through Besca. But people blamed Roaki, and Quinn was openly nice to her, so she was caught in the crossfire.

Roaki, to the surprise of no one, didn’t care. She was in sims almost as often as Dahlia, sometimes without any opponent at all, even simulated ones. Life had returned to her overnight, and while her privileges were still limited, made full use of them. Most days, Quinn could find her exercising in her room, scarfing down whatever meals she was allotted, then pestering her for a duel or five. Rarely was she ever in that bed, and never did she stare into the faux light in the window.

Dahlia’s schedule had only slightly changed. At Besca’s behest, and then orders, she was disallowed from spending her every hour in the simulations. Slowly, her circadian rhythm realigned itself to normalcy, but the dark pits were practically stained around her eyes now, and even when she smiled genuinely, and laughed, and hugged Quinn tightly to tell her she loved her, she seemed tired.

Today was no different. Early to rise, but not earlier than Besca, she woke up to find the woman cooking breakfast.

“Mornin’ Deelie. Mind gettin’ Quinn? Pancakes’re almost done.”

Yawning, stretching, Dahlia made her way over to Quinn’s door, cracked open as was the way. She pushed in just enough to not flood the room with sudden light and made her way over to the bed. A gentle hand nudged Quinn’s shoulder, a sweet voice beckoned her awake.

At the lake, Quinnlash watched invisibly from the shore while Quinn enjoyed the company she’d made for her. She heard Dahlia’s calling, and eagerly faded the dream to an end.

Quinn's arrival into wakefulness was heralded by a long, heavy yawn, and as she blinked the gunk and the vague memory of Safie and Dahlia laughing with her on the lake from her eye, she clasped her hands above her head and arched her back into a deep stretch. She let out a satisfied groan as her back popped, and again as her neck followed suit, then fell limp on her bed again, closed her eye, and mentally prepared herself for the day. After all that she finally rolled to a seated position on the edge of the bed. She gave Dahlia a small smile--they were coming easier and easier these days, she knew, even if laughter had yet to follow--and stood, plodding over to her drawers to find the day's clothing.

Not long afterwards, a black t-shirt and pale gray sweats acquired and donned, she emerged into the kitchen, clutching Dahlia's hand like a child the whole way. She'd been very lonely before, and it had worn on her something fierce; despite all the looks that had been cast her way, it was nice to have Deelie around again more often, she'd missed her a lot and was newly happy again every time they talked.

They hadn't talked much about what had happened when Dahlia was still driving herself to exhaustion in the sims. Quinn didn't have the heart to explain that she'd gotten drunk because she discovered that her parents might be dead and then consciously decided to shatter the treaty like so much glass, but she was pretty sure that Besca had at least mentioned it to her; she'd been treating Quinn a bit more...delicately might be the word.

But you know what else was something that she'd missed a lot? Besca's cooking. As soon as she approached her open door she could smell the pancakes and bacon, and took a deep and appreciative whiff.

She honestly wasn't sure what kind of political hurricane Roaki being made an informant was brewing--given the situation with Casoban, she could imagine it wouldn't be good--but the part of her that was a selfish teenage girl instead of a pilot on whose shoulders the world seemed to hang was just glad that Besca seemed to have more free time to spend with her now. Enough to cook again, at least. Finally releasing Dahlia's hand, she plopped herself down in her customary seat by the range and tilted her head backward and sideways to catch Besca's eye as her braid pooled on the floor.

"Morning, Besca!"

An alien warmth bubbled up from the depths of Quinn’s mind when she took Dahlia’s hand. She wasn’t alone in missing her sister’s company, and though what few memories of her dreams followed her to the waking world were consistently foggy and fleeting, there had been a concerted effort to bring Dahlia to the forefront. When they reached the kitchen and Quinn let go, the warmth shrunk and dissipated.

The food was done. Besca slid the last of the pancakes onto a third plate, tongue struck out between her lips as she focused on stacking the fluffy, golden discs on top of each other. The middle of each pile was dotted with dark spots, which, as she set the plates out on the countertop, Quinn would realize were actually blueberries.

“Morning hun’,” Besca said.

Deelie retrieved a couple bottles from the fridge. Short and fat, labeled plainly as “Supplemental Beverage: Pilot,” they were made by the RISC and shipped up regularly. According to Besca, most places kept their pilots on strict diets alongside their exercise routines, but that was mainly for the sake of appearances. Westwel had done it too, and meals were miserable. Blessedly, at RISC, so long as the pilots kept themselves physically fit, and followed their training schedules, the worst their dietary regulations got were these vitamin shakes.

On a subprint beneath the label was the word: “Vanilla”, which, by now, Quinn could have determined to be more of an opinion than a flavor.

Dahlia didn’t even wait to eat. She cracked the top off hers and downed it all at once, face scrunching up before she tossed it in the trash, and got herself a glass of water. As she took a seat next to Quinn, she flipped on the TV.

A small singularity was forming in Casoban. Following their pyrrhic victory against Helburke, they’d had to replace two pilots. Enavant and Spectre had fully regenerated, and now it seemed Casoban was taking the opportunity to show off. An attempt at showing they were perfectly independent, perhaps.

The two Saviors stood in a field along seaside cliffs. In the far distance a town was so rife with people that the crowd was visible from miles away. A reporter in a corner sub-screen was rattling off the new pilots’ accomplishments in training, scrolling through photos like dogs at a show. Dahlia quickly lost interest, Besca continued to watch out of the corner of her eye.

“Sleep well?”

Dahlia nodded, already chewing a forkful of pancake. Besca knew better than that, even if she was sleeping better now than recently. She still kept a strict leash on how much time the girl spent in sims, but there was more to her exhaustion than sleep deprivation.

“How ‘bout you?” she asked, turning her eye to Quinn. She smiled—she made a point to. Quinn had done something drastic, and the consequences were going to be severe one way or another, but strangely she wasn’t angry. She thought she would be, certainly, but no matter how long she thought about it, she couldn’t bring herself to hold what Quinn had done against her. More than that, she didn’t want Quinn to think she did, either.

Quinn always liked the chocolate shakes more. They were the least bad.

The vanilla ones tasted like chalk and sadness and she honestly didn't know why Dahlia liked them the most. Or...disliked them the least. And the strawberry ones were...well...there was something about them. Quinn didn't know exactly what it was; maybe it was the way it was flavored, or some other ingredient that was absent or covered up in the others. But the first time she drank it--soon after she became a pilot and only a few days on the Aerie--she'd thrown the bottle across the room and stumbled backwards into a corner away from it, face white as a sheet. She hadn't had one since.

So yeah. When she retrieved her shake from the fridge, it was chocolate.

The TV was on now, and she felt a guilty sense of relief that it wasn't about her for once. It was something in Casoban, some smallish singularity. But that sense of relief was ruined in short order, as she gazed at the two saviors over a small town filled with people. Her heart squeezed painfully, and she turned quickly away from it and down to her pancakes.

The first meal that Quinn had ever had on the Aerie had been Besca's pancakes, so they were always a treat. She'd missed them so much in the past few weeks, and tucked into them eagerly, pointedly ignoring what she'd just seen.

"How ‘bout you?"

She jerked in her seat, looking back up at Besca, eye wide. While she was still more cheerful than she'd been in the past few days, absolutely, she was still bouncing her knee, a habit she'd picked up as she'd grown increasingly twitchy. Her stomach was tied up in knots as a matter of course now, and it was just as knotted as she stared up. But after a moment, she grew relaxed, or at least more so. Besca's smile always had that effect on her. She finished chewing her bite of pancakes and made a face as she downed another gulp of her chocolate-adjacent vitamins.

"I slept okay, I guess." She gave a little smile as a fuzzy memory of last night bubbled to the surface of her thoughts. "I had a dream about--" She interrupted herself with a brief head shake, still uncomfortable talking about the lake. A beat of silence passed.

"Well, it was a good dream!"

Besca let Quinn swerve the topic of her dream. There were a lot of things she still didn’t fully understand about the girl, like what went on in that head of hers when she laid down at night. Most people, especially so early on into their piloting careers, were utterly wrecked with nightmares. Some managed to string out their honeymoon phases longer than others, but usually after they’d squared off against the Modir a few times, they began to dread shutting their eyes at the end of the day.

Yet Quinn, who by every account ought to have been entirely unable to sleep for the amount of terror Besca expected her to face at night, sleep soundly and, apparently, pleasantly. She thought about the ‘Little Her’ Quinn had told them about. The thing that came curiously to her in her dreams. Whatever it was, it was undeniably tied to the Circuit—it had to be—which meant that no matter how it presented itself, it was dangerous. But for now there was nothing to be done but to keep her monitored just like they did any other pilot, and thus far she was, diagnostically-speaking, fine.

Things were picking up on the TV. A countdown was displayed at the top of the screen, presumably for when the singularity would open. Besca knew better; the only people with the instruments to most accurately predict it were the analysts in the CSC. Nevertheless, as the clock ticked down, the two newcomers made their way to their Saviors with raucous fanfare. On their way, the broadcaster pulled up a familiar face: a picture of Lucis Abroix. It seemed they were holding some sort of memorial for him.

Besca grimaced and went back to her own meal, nearly finished, and returned her attention to Quinn. “So what’s on your agenda for the day, hun?”

Quinn continued taking small sips of her shake--she had no idea how Dahlia could down 'em in one go--and nibbling on her pancakes as she watched the TV. She did love blueberries; she'd found that of all foods, fruits were probably her favorite. Which was a shame, since it was really hard to get fresh fruit up on the Aerie. Maybe next time she went down for an interview or something she could wheedle Besca into letting her go into a grocery store and stock up or something.

Beside her, Besca twitched.

Quinn was nothing if not attuned to Besca's feelings at this point, and she knew when the woman was upset for sure. So she paid special close attention to what was going on on TV. There was a countdown to the singularity, people were being cheered getting into their Saviors, and--a face was in the corner. She didn't know Casobani so she had no idea what the newscaster was saying, but that didn't stop her reading the name underneath the picture, and when she did, she frowned. She thought it was familiar somehow, but couldn't place it. Lucis. Where had she heard that before? Lucis, Lucis, Lucis...

It didn't come, and she made a small sound of irritation. "Besca?" Her voice was cautious; she didn't want to upset Besca, but her curiosity was fatally piqued now and she couldn't outrun it. So it was slowly, almost meditatively, that she continued.

"Who was Lucis Abroix?"

Stupid of her not to expect this. What, had she believed Quinn could go the rest of her life without hearing his name? That would have been practically impossible for a civilian, let alone a pilot so connected to what had happened to her. And yet, somehow, she’d managed to avoid it this long. Her memories of that night were foggy, scattered. Certain, unfortunate images had stuck with her, but the details seemed to be lost.

Besca could count on two hands the number of people who actually knew what happened in Hovvi, and fewer than that who had seen the footage. Just about none of them worked on the Aerie. She had, of course, been sworn to secrecy for the sake of Runa’s alliance with Casoban—who she wasn’t even certain were aware themselves, even at the highest level. Frankly, she had expected the RISC to try and leverage it against them, but by now either they hadn’t, or the CSC didn’t care.

Either way, hearing people speak Lucis’s name with the same reverence they did Ghaust and Safie turned her stomach. But she’d held her tongue this long, and, really, what would letting go now do for anyone?

“Oh,” Besca said, sighing and shaking her head. “He was one of the pilots who died in Hovvi. Part of the exchange deal we had going on with Casoban.” Her tablet beeped, and she didn’t have to look to know it was the Board. “Speaking of…”

Setting her fork down, Besca donned her coat and came around the counter. She gave Dahlia a quick hug, sharing a knowing glance with her—perhaps the last person on the Aerie who deserved to have to keep such an awful secret. Then she went to Quinn, planted a kiss on top of her head and squeezed her close.

“You both be good, I’ll try to be back for dinner.”

And with that, she went out to face whatever shitstorm was waiting for her today.

Dahlia was finishing up as well, though she seemed to be in less of a hurry. “Think I’m headin’ for the sims. How about you?”

Quinn mulled over what she was being told, blinking a few times as she tried to remember the Hovvi Saviors. But whenever she tried to punch through into her memories of that night she was blocked by a wall of cold shivers. So instead, she shook her head, finished the last of the chocolate-ish vitamin drink, and continued eating with somewhat reduced gusto.

"Think I’m headin’ for the sims. How about you?"

She jerked again as Dahlia spoke, still a little twitchy. But a moment later the twitchiness died, and she looked up at the ceiling in thought. Where was she going?

Only, it wasn't really a question. She already knew where she was going, she'd missed it a few days in a row because of, well, everything, and she felt bad over it. She needed to head down to the hangar, check on her Savior--it was getting easier to call it that--and talk to the hangar staff. It had been a bit since she'd seen them, after all. A part of her was concerned; the hangar had always been a place where people didn't care much about things like Roaki or anything, she always felt welcome there. She supposed she was worried about that changing.

So she dropped her head back down and made eye contact with Dahlia "I'm gonna go down to the hangar, I forgot to do it for the past few days, y'know?"

She let silence hang for one more moment, still thinking a bit about what Besca had said. One of the pilots who died in Hovvi...

"Um, Deelie? Before you go," she paused; it felt a little weird to ask this, and she wasn't quite sure why. Maybe it was the vibe. But still, her curiosity was still running high, and the TV was still showing it anyway. "You knew Lucis, right? What was he like?"

Suddenly, Dahlia wished she’d eaten faster. Then, she felt guilty. Hovvi came to her often, sometimes as a terrifying jolt in the middle of the day, others as a protracted nightmare when she slept. Every time it was the same; she saw the lake roiling, the town burning, she heard thousands of voices screaming in fear. She saw Safie die. She saw her father…

What was she supposed to do? Lie? She couldn’t. Even if she wanted to, she could never bring herself to praise someone like that. But at the same time, what did spilling every detail of Hovvi’s destruction do for anyone? What did Quinn gain listening to Dahlia try to explain it all without breaking down? What did she gain dragging herself through it again?

But she couldn’t lie to Quinn.

“I didn’t like him,” she said flatly. “He got on with everyone, and people liked to be around him. I thought he was a selfish jerk. But he helped Runa for a long time, before…Hovvi.”

Her appetite was gone. She set her fork down and dumped what was left on her plate into the trash, then took it to the kitchen. What would Quinn do in her place? How would she feel about someone like that? Would she be as merciful to Lucis as she was to Roaki? Probably—or at least, she’d handle it better than Dahlia was.

“I’m…I’m sorry. Is it okay if we don’t…talk about this? I didn't...I’m still kinda working through it with Follen. I…I don’t really even know how I feel, yet.” She shrank a bit over the sink. "I'm sorry."

A sick feeling began to roil in Quinn's gut as Dahlia began to shiver apart, bubbling higher with each word until...

"I'm sorry."

Then without really even realizing or processing it, she was on her feet, wrapping her sister in a big hug as her old friend Guilt began to gnaw at her sides. "No, Deelie, no, no," she cooed, doing her best to be a soothing as possibly even though she wasn't very good at it; this had always been Dahlia's job. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked, I'm so so sorry." How dumb could she be? It was a pilot who had died at Hovvi. Sometimes she grew so lost in her own memories of Hovvi that she forgot that it had been Dahlia's home too, much much more than it had ever been her own.

She gave a tighter squeeze, not tight enough to hurt but enough to comfort, she hoped. "You never ever need to apologize to me about anything, Deelie, never ever." Without exception, whenever Dahlia apologized to Quinn she felt a sharp pain in her chest. Why should she be apologized to? And least of all about Hovvi! Hovvi was her fault! All of her sister's traumas and pains were because of her.

She'd almost let herself forget that. She wouldn't do forget it again. She felt a lump beginning to build in her throat and the guilt tore at her skin.

"And if there's ever something you don't want to talk about, you don't need to talk about it, I shouldn't have asked, I'm sorry."

Dahlia hugged Quinn back. She wouldn’t cry—for starters, she didn’t have the energy. Some days it was all she could do to drag herself to the sims, she didn’t have it in her to break down so early in the morning. Besides, Quinn made that easier. However fraught she was some days, having her around made Dahlia feel…safer. More at ease.

Being a pilot was so tumultuous on the best of days. Constants were scarce, and fleeting, and at times Dahlia was scared of how close she and Quinn had become, if for no other reason than she might lose her. For now, though, she was right here.

“You don’t have to be sorry either. We’re both just…tryin’ our best, right? That’s family stuff.” She let her head rest on Quinn’s. “Real family stuff.”

Another few indulgent moments, then Dahlia let go before she could decide to forget about her responsibilities for the day.

“Alright, I’m headin’ out. Wanna do lunch? You can pick a place, just text me whenever you get hungry!” She stuck her tablet in her pocket, threw on that bright yellow jacket from the hanger, and made for the door. “Love you!”

Then she was gone, and Quinn was alone in the dorms.

Well, partly. It was rare for Quinn to ever feel truly alone these days. As Dahlia left, a longing bubbled up in her mind. A chill ghosted down her spine, brief and not uncomfortable, like the touch of a cloud. A sound like distant hoofsteps underlaid the ambient buzzing, and the quiet sound of the TV, a decreasingly strange phenomenon as the days went by.

In the corner of her eye was the flicker of a girl sitting on the counter, absently kicking her legs, vanishing in some imperceptible trick of the light, but not gone. Never gone.

The day had begun.

Quinn sat back into her chair with a thump, taking a long deep breath and trying to purge the cloying guild that tore at her mind and dug little needles into her skin. She was met with...limited success, but it's not like she could just not do things today, as much as she wished. She turned to Roaki's door, wondering if she was up and at sims already or if she was just asleep. After a moment of consideration, she pulled out a piece of paper--Roaki still didn't have a phone--and wrote out in her shaky handwriting,

Roaki,

I went to the hanger to look at my Savior and make sure everything is okay. I should be back soonish and then I can join you in sims if you want.

Love you <3
Quinn

She slid it under the door (distracted enough that she didn't spend time considering that Roaki probably wouldn't be able to reach it, let along read it), headed to the door, grabbed her gray and yellow coat, and set out. At this point she could probably make the brief jaunt to the hangar blindfolded with both legs asleep, she'd gone down it so many times. In fact, she'd gone down it enough times that she didn't even have that stomach-churning anxiety anymore; it had just become another place to go in the routine. It was one of the reasons she'd started this, and she was exceptionally pleased that it had worked.

Forsaking her heat suit once again because it was a pain to change into and it wasn't worth it for just a few minutes in the cockpit, she meandered up the long hallway before emerging into the cavernous space. She took a deep and appreciative whiff; over here, there was none of the horrid smell that she'd grown so afraid of. There was only the smell of ball bearings and engine oil, something that she'd grown to appreciate. The first person that turned to her--her name was Elise, Quinn thought--brought a knot of tension to her stomach once again. If she gave Quinn the same dark stare...

...Well, she expected the dark stare, or at least indifference. Not the huge smile. Elise nudged the person next to her--Quinn didn't remember her name fully but she knew it also began with an E--and she looked up as well, and also smiled and waved.

She panned her eye over the hangar as people began to take note of her. And every single one gave her the same looks that they always had. The tension came unknotted, and she wiped away a tear. Then, after some time to compose herself, she waved back, and began to walk across the floor towards Ablaze.

Her face was spread with a huge smile.

That Quinn’s celebrity status was in flux across the Aerie—and most of Illun, for that matter—was more statement than question. However, in the hangar things were stubbornly unchanged. For certain some of that starry-eyed adoration had mellowed over the months as the crew saw her more often, but unlike some of the staff in security or logistics or wherever else, here none of the faces soured at her.

They were like this with Dahlia as well. For the hangar crew, who spent most of their days laboring over the Saviors, the pilots—at least, the ones they liked—wound up as close as colleagues.

Ablaze stood in its usual spot, flanked by a pair of walls that doubled as supports. Scaffold platforms were wheeled up and anchored around its legs, though only one or two people manned them. It seemed that whatever maintenance was being run on it had already concluded, while down the way, Dragon’s was just starting.

But as she got closer, Quinn could spot a brace fixed to Ablaze’s mouth, holding its mouth open. Had Quinn ever looked into her Savior’s mouth before? Beyond those gleaming razor teeth there seemed to be nothing but blackness. Saliva, dark but not quite so much as modium, dripped in long strands to the ground, vanishing into the drainage system built into the floor.

What sort of horror must it have been, to be eaten by a monster?

It seemed she’d have an answer. A long cable attached to the brace went taut, and slowly, something crawled its way out of Ablaze’s throat. Bright orange and drenched in fluid, limbs thick, hands grasping—it was a person. They wore some sort of hazard suit, holding the cable linked to a harness on their chest with one hand, and a strange device in the other.

Even the passenger in her mind recoiled. Some maniac had gone down inside the Savior? Why? Who?

Suddenly, the alien spelunker seemed to notice Quinn approaching. They jolted, nearly dropping their machine down Ablaze’s throat, and waved with an almost hysteric excitement. They made their way out of the mouth, ducking expertly beneath the teeth and onto one of the platforms. They vanished behind the Savior’s neck, then emerged on the other side, suit undone to their waist, and waved at her again. This time, without layers of modium-resistant material blocking the way, her voice was loud and clear.

“Quinn!”

Quinn watched dumbstruck as the orange figure fell out of her Savior's mouth. She agreed a great deal with Quinnlash on that; who, and why? For what possible reason would someone actually volunteer to be eaten? If a single thing went wrong, then they'd've died exceedingly painfully. Or if the cable had broken and she couldn't get out, or...

Wait, were they waving at Quinn?

Mouth hanging open, she watched the figure slip out of sight around the neck brace platform, and she immediately started moving. Not a run, but absolutely a jog. Who would ever do that? It was insane. What if they...

"Quinn!"

Tillie?

In the space between breaths, fear and worry and memory slammed into Quinn like a sledgehammer, stealing her breath away as her eye shot wide. Her vision flashed back for just a moment, to a darker image of the Savior, from a far off night, and a different young woman. Her pace accelerated until she was moving at a run, sprinting full tilt around Ablaze and smacking the lift button as terrible images of Tillie withering away in modium burned behind her eyes. It felt like it took an eternity to rise as her heart pounded in her throat. Please be okay, she found herself screaming in her head. The piece of her that insisted that Tillie was fine, she was on the Aerie and nobody was hurt--was overshadowed and drowned out by the seething anxiety and fear.

By the time she arrived at the brace platform, her breathes were rattling unsteadily out, her whole body was shaking, and her mind was far away and long ago. She met Tillie's eyes then, huge smile on her face, and with barely a stutter in her steps Quinn cannoned into her and clung on for dear life.

"Tillie Tillie are you--are you okay--are you okay--"

Tillie had had many adjectives attributed to her over the years. Quiet, dorky, boring, pasty, pretty—once, by college boy who stopped talking to her after she’d won the grant they’d both applied for. More recently things had taken a positive tilt; they called her diligent, dependable, antsy, which she chose to interpret as a good thing. But for everything she’d been called, never, not once in her life, had she ever been accused of being ‘sturdy’.

So, when Quinn barreled into her at the closest human’s could reach to mach-speed, despite the girl’s meager stature, she sent both of them sprawling to the floor. Tillie let out a yelp not unlike a small dog, but was too concerned with her immediate fate to be embarrassed.

Her first thought was: Shoot, I’ve upset her somehow and now I’m going to die. After all, everyone she’d ever spoken to about it had told her that pilots were fickle. That the weight of heroism caused them such mental strain they could be given to fits of violence at even the most minor of provocations. However, as she realized that Quinn’s grip around her was not, in fact, an attempt at snapped her spine in half, she considered the idea that she was not in trouble.

“Tillie Tillie are you--are you okay—are you okay—”

Huh?

She felt rather silly then. How could she think Quinn would try to kill her—Quinnlash Loughvein! Yet, somehow just as unlikely in her mind was the idea that the girl would be hugging her so tightly, either. When that reality made itself apparent as well, she felt like her mind might just stop working.

“Eeee—” she said—or squealed, really, as it was not words she produced. Unsure of what to do with her hands, they flittered around like hummingbirds, too afraid to actually touch her and hug back.

Blessedly, her composure did eventually return and she managed to wrestle back her grasp of language. “O-okay? Uhm! Oh gosh, I’m so much more than okay! Wow!” She pulled herself upright, momentarily mortified by the look her supervisor shot her, before they walked off. “I was just, uhm! I was just testing Ablaze’s assimilative functions. I’ve never gotten to perform it myself, it’s exhilarating! Oh—uhm! I’m sorry, were you going to do it yourself? We can totally run it again if you want!”

Quinn had rather not expected to knock Tillie completely over with a tackling hug. And since she'd latched on with a grip born of the pure fear of a child, well, she went right along with her. With a bonk of her head to the ground, a sharp “gneh,” and a shot of aggravation from the no-longer-quite-so-alien voice that called out from within her, she came to the clear-headed realization that she'd thrown herself at Tillie in a way that the woman was evidently clearly unused to. She tore her hands away and stumbled backwards, suddenly conscious that her vision was blurring in a way that she was incredibly, intimately familiar with. She blinked hard a few times, trying to squeeze the tears back as Tillie spoke.

Offering to do the same thing again.

Wondering if Quinn wanted to do it.

Quinn had heard of checking the assimilation functions, but she'd never actually seen it done. She supposed that she technically understood that it meant entering the modir, but just hearing that was clearly not even close to preparing her for the reaction that she'd had. The flickering image of Ablaze staring down at her, cannon primed, teeth bared, resurfaced briefly, and she hissed in a sharp and sudden enhalaation.

Her voice was perhaps a few notes shriller than it usually was when she responded after a moment of dead air perhaps slightly longer than it should've been, and there was a note of fear only barely hidden beneath. “No that's okay don't worry about it you did great Tillie!” She sucked in a few deep breaths and did her best to level herself again, to squeeze that fear and worry out. She guessed it was...

...Well, it certainly wasn't a cure all to say the least. But it definitely helped, as the painful squeezing of her heart slowly slackened, and she threw out a smile that she hoped didn't look as forced as it felt. “I think you did a great job!”

Relieved that she was neither about to die, or worse, annoying Quinn, Tillie pulled herself back up to her feet and brushed herself off. It was so easy to get ahead of herself I this job; some people spent their whole lives only ever seeing a Savior from miles away, behind a military barricade. Here she was, getting to work on them every day, and better than that, working with the pilots too! It absolutely would not do to go about taking such a life for granted.

That said, when Quinn praised her work, she felt her mind shorting out again, and her cheeks went red as her hair. “O-oh gosh, uhm! Wow, really? Well, I had really good teachers, and I watched a lot of those, y’know, instructional videos. But it’s neat stuff! I mean, have you ever seen the inside of one of these guys before?”

She scooped up the device dropped to the ground in their collision, scrolling quickly through dozens of slides of data she’d recorded. She found a page detailing the assimilation rates once everything was said and done, and turned the screen excitedly over to Quinn. It was, really, just a spreadsheet of numbers—albeit all meticulously categorized and color-coded, but numbers nonetheless.

“Look how healthy it is! Like, up here is the regenerative rate, right? And here’s the assimilative rate, here—look at the difference! We dropped tungsten into its stomach, and it converted that into tissue matter way faster than it would have just healed on its own! I mean yeah the rate tanks with larger injuries but still! It’s like alchemy!”

She pulled the device, scrolling again just to double-check herself, only to remember that she was, in fact, party to her favorite pilot.

“Ohmigosh! Uhm! I’m so sorry—how are you? How’s it goin’ today? Anythin’ I can help you with? Anything you need?”

Quinn had learned a few things about the way that she responded to fear and stress while on the Aerie, and she'd started to catalogue what went where so she would know what was going on and what felt like what. After all, she still didn't have the firmest handle on what her emotions were at any given moment, didn't always know the words for them. It had been a strange life she'd lead up to that point, after all.

So it was with that more practiced eye than before that Quinn recognized the bouquet of unpleasant things she was feeling at the moment. Lethagic, twitchy, and suppressing shivers; the aftermath of panic. She reached out one of those slightly shaking hands as Tillie gushed over the data to her--she didn't get it, but at least Tillie looked excited--and rested it gently against the black hide of the monstrous alien, still staring at the almost hypnotic spreadsheets that Tillie bore. She took a deep breath in; then out.

One was all she got before Tillie jumped, and asked Quinn...well, if she needed anything. The girl in question looked up at the ceiling far above in thought. Did she need anything? Well, the short answer was yes. But did she need anything that Tillie could provide?

A few moments later, she started speaking, a bit hesitant, seeming almost shy. "Well," she scuffed her shoe into the ground, “It's been a really hard week." She seemed almost to shrink in front of Tillia as she asked, "So do you think you could..." She swallowed, suddenly conscious of how ridiculous she must sound and look and yet unable to fully stop herself.

"...Could I have another hug, Tillie?"

Tillie blinked. “Huh?”

She realized she must have sounded rather rude, but, in her defense—huh?. The perception of pilots in the public sector versus governmental was often contradictory, but Tillie had always been immune to it. She’d managed to carry that starry-eyed adoration with her from her childhood bedroom all the way up to the Aerie. In part she figured that was due to Runa’s pilots being generally well-liked; certain social histories documented that the earliest batches of a nation’s pilots were often the most well-regarded, followed by the pilots who came in to replace those who were especially ill-regarded. Had she grown up somewhere like Eusero, or Helburke, where pilots were often seen doing less-than-heroic things—case-in-point being their newest guest—she might have had an entirely different view of things.

For instance, she might not have trusted that Quinn really did just want a hug. Thankfully though, Tillie found herself utterly incapable of imagining any other possibility.

“Oh—uhm! Sure! Sure let me just…” she fumbled with the suit, prying it off her legs and feet. “Still sticky, wouldn’t want to—there we go!” Tossing it onto a wheeled table, Tillie darted over and wrapped her arms around Quinn. Another embarrassingly high-pitched sound escaped her, but she ignored it.

The girl wasn’t very tall, all told. It was a bit like hugging her niece. Tillie liked to imagine they’d have gotten on—then again, Quinn could probably get on with just about anyone.

Stepping back, she let out a long, contented sigh. “Gosh, I don’t even know what to say! Some places, people have to pay out the nose just stand near pilots! Uhm! Not that I wouldn’t!”

Quinn leaned lopsided against the railing as Tillie shucked off the antimodium suit. Her heart was still hammering, and showed no real sign of stopping. She'd sprinted across the hangar, of course; that was a given. And at the time, she had been desperately afraid for Tillie. But up here--she didn't know why, she didn't know if it was her or Quinnlash--but she felt like something awful was going to happen. And the faint, vague whiff of modium in the air didn't exactly help matters any.

Ah. Tillie was done taking off the suit, and flung it off into a chair. Then with an astonished smile on her face, she zipped in and scooped Quinn up.

For just a brief moment as her arms engulfed Quinn--the space between pounding heartbeats, the silence between harsh and jagged breaths--everything was right with the world. That feeling of impending good fell away, and the smell faded into obscurity. For that moment, that precious, beautiful moment, there was nothing else in the world but Quinn and Tillie. She squeezed tight, a part of her knowing that the hug would end soon, and that she'd need to face the rest of the world again afterwards. But for that terrifyingly long instant, she felt...

Safe.

Then Tillie let go and stepped away, and the world came rushing back in. She let out a vague half-vocalization of frustration that it had ended, but she was much calmer now. Hugs seemed to have a way of calming her down no matter what the situation, she thought. So it was with a lighter heart that she looked at Tillie again, though she was still shaking a little bit, and gave her a trembling smile as she stammered back into motion.

"You can--anytime--you can hug me--" Her mouth clamped shut on her stuttering and she cringed internally in embarrassment before she tried again:

"Thank you."