“Alright, now, open. Don’t blink.”

Follen leaned in close and shined a light in Quinn’s eye. He had her look up, down, side to side, tugged down on her cheek to look beneath the lids. When that was done, he gently shifted her eyepatch away.

“You might hear some noise in your head for a moment.”

With a surgeon’s grace, he brought a thin, metal prodder up and probed into the empty socket. His unoccupied hand held onto hers; she would know that if she felt scared, all she had to do was squeeze his hand and they would take a moment. But he moved fast today, perhaps it was the adrenaline. Sure enough there was a thin, scraping sound that radiated into her ears from behind, uncomfortable but not painful, followed by the tapping of metal upon metal.

“There we go,” he said, and sat upright before moving the patch back over her eye. He smiled reassuringly. “No signs of growth, not in your eye, not anywhere. You, Ms. Loughvein, are quite resilient.”

Follen got up from his stool and went to the little desk that all of the ward rooms had. He’d taken the opportunity to sneak them into medical through the pilot’s elevator—though it had taken some patience and one or two distractions in the commons. Funnily enough, this was the same room Roaki had been settled in.

While he scribbled notes onto a chart, Dahlia swooped back to Quinn’s side. She’d calmed down considerably, and that frantic fear of loss had eased back into her more general closeness. She smiled, rolled her shoulder with a playful wince.

“Lucky you, huh?”

“Still, best to take it easy for a couple days anyway. Give Ablaze a wide berth until it’s all healed up and the modium is cleaned. No marathon sim sessions, either—though I’m told that goes more for you, Ms. Senn. Otherwise, you two are perfectly healthy.” He flipped the chart closed, but didn’t move for the door just yet. “Now, I don’t know what the schedule is going to be. I assume at some point today you’ll be expected to go make a statement, shake some hands, etcetera. I’d imagine that’s where Besca’s being dragged to right now. Whether you’d like to go get that out of the way, or get yourselves a little rest first, is up to you.”

"You might hear some noise in your head for a moment."

She took a deep breath and concentrated on his hand in hers as he peeled back the eyepatch. As usual, whenever it was touched there was a jolt of discomfort and concern, but she battered through it. Just because she was too much of a coward to look underneath it didn't mean nobody could look; and the two of them had both seen underneath it anyway. There was no reason to be worried, she thought, trying to convince herself it was true.

Ah, and there it was, Doctor Follen was right. A little sound in her head. A clinking sound, of metal against...

Against metal?

Quinn frowned for a moment at that. Doctor Follen had put a solid metal probe into her eye socket. At least, she thought it was solid. It wasn't like she'd seen any kind of machinery on it. So then, if that was the case, if it was just a simple piece of metal...then what had made that sound?

But those thoughts were derailed as Dahlia resumed her position by Quinn's side. Consternation forgotten, Quinn gave a tiny, contended smile and snuggled up next to her, enjoying that warmth of closeness. Especially after the day she'd had. The day they'd both had. "Yeah, lucky me."

Then Doctor Follen went on, and in the end, asked Quinn what she wanted to do. She opened her mouth to say that she would go and rest...

...And then she paused a moment, and thought.

"I think...I'll go give statements and stuff now. If I go lie down now I'm not gonna be able to get up again for a while, and with the whole Casoban thing, I think I'd better talk. I mean, it's my fault--" For once, those words weren't accompanied by guilt digging into her voice; rather, it was very matter-of-fact, "--so what's it gonna look like if I don't?" She pulled away from her sister regretfully, looked up into her eyes. "Are you gonna come too, Deelie?"

“I can confirm that, after the first singularity opened, there was an uncharacteristically brief warning before the subsequent ones opened. We conferred with monitors from both Eusero and Casoban, who observed similar, sudden spikes in activity. While we work on a more comprehensive analysis, I can at least tell you that, as of now, there is no discernable pattern, or rising trend in the rapidity of singularity formations. All data indicates that these incidents are anomalous, and while the RISC will certainly be taking measures to account for them, we do not expect our day-to-day operations, as they relate to the public, to change.

“As for the incident itself, I’ve been informed that pilots Dahlia St. Senn and Quinnlash Loughvein have returned alive and well. Dragon sustained moderate damage, but will be operational in a matter of hours. Ablaze, to my knowledge, is still ready for emergency deployment. Drone footage near Gontiard went dark for approximately seven minutes when the second singularity opened, however satellite recordings confirm that CSC unit Chateau was indeed destroyed in the attack. Damage reports for Saviors in the ESC are at the time unavailable, but all units reportedly returned to their station shortly after the last singularity closed.

“Despite the sudden and dire nature of this attack, I am overjoyed to announce that there were no casualties reported among civilians. No Modir breached the lines of defense, even in the singularities closest to high-population zones. Environmental damages, however, are considerable, and as per the Illun Accords, Runa will be assisting in recovery as Casoban has done for us in the past.

“Today, more than almost any time in history, we proved why these corps are important. Three nations came together to defend humanity from an ancient, existential threat. For a while this afternoon, we were not Runa, or Casoban, or Eusero. We were Illun.

“In a few hours, members of our analytics team will be planet-side to expand on some of the details I—”

The door to the bridge opened, and Besca managed to cut the video feed before she gasped. Quinn and Dahlia walked into the room, which was empty save for herself, and the instant the door shut behind them, she sprinted. An arm went around each of them and pulled them in tight.

“Oh god, oh my god,” she murmured. “You’re both okay.”

Dahlia winced, and Besca recoiled immediately. “Shoot, hun, I’m so sorry. We lost visual on you for a bit when Chateau went down. How bad is it?”

“Not bad. Follen fixed me up.”

She tried not to let that visibly upset her. Instead she kissed Dahlia on the head, then turned to Quinn. She cupped the girl’s face in her hands, looking her over, pleased to see that she was not somehow walking while dead. It struck her that she didn’t really know what to say. That she was afraid? That was likely obvious. Relieved? Probably even more so. Quinn had come back. She’d faced down horrible, unbelievable odds and come back. Again.

“I…” she muttered, sighing as a smile spread over her face. “I am so proud of you, hun.”

For a moment, Quinn didn't move. Couldn't move. Stood poleaxed, because Besca was hugging her, hugging her tight and pulling her in close, and Quinn closed her eye and just let it wash over her. After the day she'd just had, she let herself go almost limp and burrowed her face into the crook of her neck. When just moments later Besca pulled away at Dahlia's wince, Quinn unconsciously reached out her arms just slightly, trying to stay in that warm embrace instead of letting the cold of the world grip her again.

But then Besca leaned in and cupped her cheeks, leaning in. Quinn leaned back.

"I am so proud of you, hun."

It was like hearing that flipped a switch inside of Quinn and she lunged forward, wrapping Besca in a crushing viselock of a hug and starting to ugly cry. She didn't say anything, couldn't say anything, as much as she wanted to.

She had waded through fire, and damnation, and horror, in the span of a few minutes just prior. She'd thought she was going to die. The level of distress that she'd felt, and up until now had still felt to some extent, was something that was difficult to explain to someone that wasn't either a pilot or someone that worked with them. Like a living nightmare.

But in that precise moment, all that she could do was stand there unmoving and let all the stress pour out of her through her eye.

At some point--she wasn't sure when, she'd started talking, rambling. Simple words, simple ideas: thank you, and I love you, and I'm home. It took some minutes for her to calm down and settle to a sniffling, and even longer for her to let go of her death grip on Besca, but even then she stood right next to her, like she could still hug her through proximity. She coughed the tears out of her voice, but it was still kind of reedy; it always took a bit of time for it to recover.

"So--ahem--I think I was supposed to...to give a statement?"

Besca wouldn’t have minded spending the rest of the day like that, ignoring the Aerie, and Casoban, and Eusero. She had a million reasons to despise her job, but it was hard to forget—now especially—that without it, she wouldn’t have…this. These girls. She’d be relegated to analytics, or likely fired, and Dahlia and Quinn would have been at the mercy of whoever the Board thought would be able to twist them the best.

When she was eventually replaced, she hoped they’d remember to hold on to each other like this. Like she wouldn’t be able to.

“Right,” she said, clearing her throat. “Right, yeah, uh—yeah. Just a statement for now, interviews’ll come over the next few days. RNN just wants a word from you both, one on each of their sister stations, so Deelie, you’ll sit over there and Quinn you’ll be right here. I’ll boot up the video call and you’ll both just…well, just tell’em everything’s good. You handled the singularities and you’re glad you got to it before anyone got hurt. PR would like for you to emphasize how Runa stands by its allies no matter the political climate, since they’ll be airing it in Casoban most likely too. Actually they had a script for you but I, uh, tripped and lost it in the trashcan. So you both say whatever you feel like saying, and when you’re done, you just thank them for their time and you close the call, alright?”

With that, Dahlia went across the room to a seat and a screen, covering herself in a jacket first and doing her best to appear as composed as the public was used to seeing her. On Quinn’s end, the screen came on as Besca stepped away.

On the other side, a man in a suit with slicked-back hair sat at a wide desk with an equally-well-dressed woman beside him. Scrolling across a bar on the bottom of the screen was text describing the events—the multiple singularities, the zero civilian casualties.

“Oh!” the man said, surprise clear on his face, albeit briefly. “We’re—okay this is RNN: Now back with you, and we’re joined live by RISC pilot Loughvein, and I’m told on our primary channel, RNN, they’ve just been joined by pilot St. Senn.

“Miss Loughvein! We’re all so glad to see you in one piece, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us. As the footage rolls in, we’re beginning to see just how much bigger this attack was than anticipated. This isn’t your first encounter with these troublingly fast emergences, we’d just like to hear your thoughts on the matter.”

Quinn gulped heavily as she sat down and stared at the blank screen, trying to calm herself down. Last time she'd been on the air had been the disastrous interview with Mona, and she had a gut feeling that a real news network would be harder to deal with than just a talk show. But she tried to swallow that fear, sit up tall, and look like she was far more confident than she was. One breath. Two breaths. Three--

"Oh!"

The last breath left her in a sharp whoosh, and taken aback, she felt that old panic rising. But somehow, miraculously, she held on to the end of the question. And by the time the newscaster got there...

The panic was gone.

Or, not gone, not exactly. It was still very much there. She could still feel it bubbling inside of her, clawing at her stomach, reaching to find a way out. But somehow it felt so much less frightening, so much weaker. Toothless.

And, looking at the camera, Quinn felt that same conviction she'd felt just before the duel, the one that had changed the name from RS-4 to Ablaze. That conviction to light up the world, to make sure everyone in it could rally under her light. And for the first time...she felt like she'd really met that conviction.

The panic and fear just couldn't make it past that wall. So this time when she spoke, her voice wasn't a charade like it had been on Mona's, but nor was it trembling and quavering like it so often seemed to. It was crackled with stress, filled with an unbreakable anxiety, and far beneath it lay hidden a deep, deep undercurrent of seething resentment. It wasn't a clean voice. It wasn't a neat voice.

But it was her voice.

"Won't deny it scares me. The way they just kind of show up, it reminds me of..." She swallowed, but took a deep breath and bulled on past the sudden flash of trepidation. "Hovvi, you know? And then after the duel, everything just happened so fast. It's terrifying." She took a long, slow breath, then set her jaw as she looked the newscaster in the digital eye. "But I've got a duty. I have a job to do. And I know that Casoban doesn't like me, but..." She shook her head slowly, and oh-so-lightly closed her eye. "Just because they don't like me doesn't mean we aren't allies, and it doesn't mean I'm not going to give it my all."

A broad smile came to her face, and her eye popped open. "I'm a pilot because I want to protect people. So that's what I'm gonna do."

“Well, I’m sure everyone watching shares those sentiments. Runa has always adhered stringently to the Accord, even when others haven’t.” The anchor smiled, but there was something in his tone that, having watched her fair share of news channels, Quinn might have picked up on quite quickly. A political angle that made the trajectory of the conversation clear. “There are already reports coming in from certain Casobani and Euseran sources claiming that your fellow pilot, miss St. Senn, may be somewhat to blame for the loss of Chateau.

“Of course, I and I’m sure every level-headed person watching can agree that’s ridiculous. Dragon’s efforts up until we lost video feed were as astounding as ever, and frankly, we don’t believe the ESC has any place to cast aspersions on what happened today. As someone who works closely and often with miss St. Senn, do you believe there’s any justification to the claims that she abided Chateau’s loss, intentionally or otherwise?”

Even if she’d have been able to see it coming, the topic swerved into political unrest so quickly, how could she possibly have avoided it? She hadn’t been back an hour, and already there were people trying to tear down what RISC had done.

Besca stood aside, frowning. For all the work the pilots did in defending Illun, they were weapons foremostly on the international stage. Hammers with which to bludgeon home certain stances, and savagely beat away others. There was no winning against something like this. If she answered, she’d be playing the game the same way everyone else did—right now she would be defending Dahlia, and Runa, but what about next time? What about a month from now? A year? But the fuel that refusing to answer would throw onto a fire like this would be devastating.

Quinn had to say something, and it wasn’t going to stop there.

And she did say something. Something sharp and sudden the instant the question was asked.

"What?"

It wasn't asked with any kind of vehemence or outrage; nothing in her tone spoke of anything resembling anger, or anything of the sort. No, all Quinn's voice carried was innocent, dumb confusion. She blinked a few times, trying to parse out the question, to see if there was any way she possibly could've misinterpreted it and finding nothing. Only a few seconds later did she come to grips with what he'd actually asked, and she cocked her head. "What?" She repeated. "No, of course not. Why would she ever do that?" A beat passed and she went through things in her head again, shaking her head. "Casoban might not like her because of her association with me, but...what would she ever have to gain from that?"

And though Quinn still held on to that confident conviction--it was unshaken--a sticky black dread was slowly building up inside her, coupled with an ember of anger that sparked more than it should've. She could take people calling her awful and evil and in league with Helburke, it would be awful but it was what it was. But Dahlia had never given less than a hundred percent, and the idea that people were starting to blame her for someone else dying...Quinn just found it abhorrent.

She shook her head again, the bemused look on her face turning to a guarded concern. "I'm sorry, it just...doesn't make any sense to me. She's just not the kind of person who would ever do something like that."

The anchors nodded along with her, never interjecting even in the extended silences. That was by design, of course; soundbites of pilots discussing political matters were premium currency in the news world, not just to the station who snagged them, but anyone with the means and measure to use them. Besca could recall a forty-five second clip of one of Westwel’s pilots mentioning offhandedly how he’d gotten pulled over in Eusero once on vacation making the rounds in every country on Illun for four weeks. Tourist regulations shifted almost overnight, and there were calls to bar all travel from Westwel to Eusero and all of its territories.

Quinn defending Dahlia was a no-brainer, would have been right inline with the Board’s script. Problem was, every Casobani and Euseran article would say she was insinuating a conspiracy on their part. 'Quinnlash Loughvein and the RISC think you’re a liar!' More fuel for the fire.

Only when it seemed like Quinn was well and truly finished answering did the anchor jump back in, still nodding along with her. “I think that’s exactly right. Dahlia St. Senn isn’t just a Runan hero, she’s an international hero. And you are, too, of course. In fact, you’ve had a record for helping out across the globe since your first rodeo, so I’d like to hope that your words carry a little more weight there.

“Speaking of, we’re just floored by the footage of you today. Six Modir faced down all on your own. You must be feeling like quite the warrior right about now. Did you feel prepared for that? Do you think RISC’s training helped you be ready for such tough odds, even on short notice like that?”

Once again, there was that warm feeling, sourced both from her and the presence inside her. She really had done something to be proud of, she knew that. But then...

Then she frowned. Not hard, really, not a great deal of anger or frustration. Just...confusion and consternation, and a desire to amend an error. "I--thanks, really, I'm proud of what I did and I definitely never could've done it without my--without the rest of RISC. But...I didn't. Didn't do it all on my own, I mean."

She let a long, heavy breath go as she remembered back to the feeling of being down there all alone, and how certain she was that she was about to die. "I would've--wouldn't have made it back at all if it was just me. I was actually saved by, uhhh..." She pitched her head up towards the ceiling, trying to remember the ESC pilot's full name and coming up blank.

"...an ESC pilot, I think her name was something...Dace? Or Dame?" She shook her head, frustrating at the fact she couldn't remember; it had been such a fraught situation, after all. "I don't remember fully. She gave her callsign as Firebrand, though. She shockdropped between us right when I was going to--" She snapped her finger. "Dane! That's what her name was, Axan Dane! She..." She trailed off.

She would've gone on, she really would've. But only then did she realize that the newscasters' faces had changed. Not a lot; but definitely noticeable. And as she ran again over what she'd said, she realized that she had just--in this political climate--handed the credit for saving her, and so possibly the credit for helping Casoban, to...a Euseran.

Uh oh.

There was waiting silence again, as if the anchors hoped beyond hope that Quinn might suddenly burst out laughing and claim she was joking, that of course she’d had everything under control on her own and there was no way some Euseran vulture could be owed any of the credit. They were on the brink of losing their union with Casoban forever, and surely, surely right now, Quinn would know better than to hand them a reason to trust Eusero over Runa.

Of course, they waited in vain as Quinn’s silence extended far past awkward, and the producers evidently had nothing ready to parry her comments with.

‘Oh god,’ Besca thought. Was it possible to get double-fired? She had a feeling she’d find out soon.

Dashing over, she came up behind Quinn and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Thank you, she said into the camera, best PR face on. “Miss Loughvein is needed for secondary debriefing. Any further comments will come from RISC directly in the next few hours and days.”

“Thank you for—” the anchor started, only for the screen to cut off. Across the room, Dahlia got the signal and started to bring her own statements to a close.

Besca slouched, forehead touched to the top of Quinn’s head, and sighed. “Okay…” she mumbled, eye squeezed shut. “I feel like you know why that probably wasn’t the best thing to say, so, lets just…take a moment. Lets just take a moment.”

Dahlia eventually came over, puzzled look on her face. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

“We’re taking a moment,” Besca said, still leaned against Quinn’s head. “Considering our actions, and reminding ourselves how much we love each other.” Her hands came up, weaving fingers gently into Quinn’s hair and taking hold before softly shaking her head. “So much. So much more than our well-intentioned mistakes.”

“I don’t get it,” she said, coming around to Quinn. “What’d you say?”

“She gave rightful credit to Axan Dane for saving her life and helping her close the singularity,” Besca answered for her, tone flat and just a little bit pained. “Because it’s what happened and it was the right thing to do, and I don’t want you to think I would ever be disappointed in you for doing the right thing.”

Dahlia went wide-eyed. “O-oh. Oh. You thanked Eusero?”

The conversation played back in Quinn's head again, and her body slowly froze over into a shell of lead and ice.

Even as Besca gently rested her forehead on top of Quinn's own crown, she sat still and silent as an ice sculpture in front of the now-blank screen, unable to take back the words that she'd said.

"I feel like you know why that probably wasn’t the best thing to say, so, lets just…take a moment. Lets just take a moment."

She's mad at me.

The thought blindsided Quinn, sending her reeling like being punched. Her breath caught, her eye shot wide. Why had she done that? Why had she done that? Why had she done that? She--she should've--she KNEW--

After that, Dahlia and Besca faded into a strange kind of obscurity above her; she could still nominally hear them and process what they were saying, but felt kind of...separated. Dissociated from it all, like she wasn't really here and she was just daydreaming what was happening. Besca was mad at her. Besca was mad at her, and Dahlia was mad at her too, she could feel it. She'd ruined things. AGAIN. Still she sat there, staring unseeing into the screen, eye wide and scared.

For the first time in weeks, months, she found her hands moving to clutch at her upper arms, felt the nails digging in through the coat. Hot shame welled up in her eye, then began to drip down her face as she silently shook. Her voice, when she tried to speak, was...well, wasn't. It was a thin, reedy, dead thing, almost inaudible but for the fact that the room was now pin-drop silent. An anguished whisper.

<sub>"I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry."

"Please don't hate me."</sub>

Besca knew the signs by now. A part of her was proud of that; years spent as just about the only human connection pilots had after they took this job had prepared her, but Quinn was unique and she’d still managed to learn a lot of her tells quicker than she thought she might. Of course, that pride was soured somewhat by the fact that she’d learned them as a result of the girl being absolutely miserable for most of her life on the Aerie.

Part of her felt guilty. She knew it was her own attitude that was doing this to Quinn, and regardless of what had led them here, she was still just a kid. That said, the absolute maelstrom of shit raging in her head, throwing panic around at the idea of what was waiting for her as soon as she left this room, made it hard to muster herself.

“I don’t hate you,” she said softly, finally picking her head back up. “And I’m not mad, I promise. You learned this from the duel, right? Doing the right thing isn’t always easy? We both did. And I gotta support you when you do it. But, uh, y’know, I’m not a pilot. I’m not so resilient to it all, sometimes it takes the wind outta me.”

She got up, but rubbed a hand on Quinn’s shoulder. Keep contact, don’t leave her alone. Let her work herself through it. Show her there’s an end to what she’s feeling.

“I know it sounds like I’m upset but I promise I’m not. Not with you, anyway. I’m working on it, I know it’s taking a bit, but try to have a little faith in me in the meantime. I wouldn’t rather you be any other way.”

"I wouldn't rather you be any other way."

Quinn's strange dissociative fugue start slowly abated, and she found herself leaning her head towards Besca's hand, cupping it between her cheek and her shoulder. The tears still ran from her eye, of course, but her hands loosened, then dropped. It only took a few minutes, a far cry from what it had been like before, when she'd been new to the Aerie and it would take half an hour to stop this kind of freakout; but it was still long enough for her eye to be puffy, red, and sore with tears cried and uncried.

I know it sounds like I’m upset but I promise I’m not. Not with you, anyway. That's what Besca had said, right? A few moments after that, Quinn spoke again. Her voice was still shaky and trembling like a leaf caught in a hurricane, but it was stronger, more audible, not so filled with the overwhelming self loathing that had screamed through her whisper. "R--really?" And then her mind caught up more with what Besca had said, and she felt the faintest echo of a smile spread across her face like cold honey.

"You...really think I did the right thing?" Her mind fled back to the looks on the newscasters' faces, at the sudden and deafening silence. So more quietly this time, "...It doesn't feel like it." Then a moment later, "Would your life be better if didn't do all of this stuff?"

Besca was quiet for a few moments, which was probably not what Quinn wanted in response to a question like that. In her defense, it was a tough question, and more complex than someone in such a state could likely realize. But, that was alright; it took her a bit but she did eventually figure out her answer.

“It’d be easier,” she said. Dahlia looked at her like she’d just burst into flames, but she motioned her down. “And a heck of a lot simpler, but neither of those are the same as ‘better’. Cause you know what? It would have been easier for you to have just refused to be a pilot. It would have been easier to have just killed Roaki. God, it’d been easier for me to have given up after Hovvi—just throw my hands up and walk away from RISC, and Deelie, and you. My life would be simpler,” she came around and crouched down in front of Quinn, eye to eye. “But not at all better.

“The fact is, Quinn, you cause problems. You don’t think the way most of Illun does; you certainly don’t think the way I do about a lot of things, especially piloting. I still think that’s a good thing. I still think every time you step into that cockpit I end up learning a lesson about how to be better. You make me better.”

“Me too,” Dahlia quietly agreed, taking Besca’s place behind Quinn, hands squeezing her shoulders.

“So, no, hun. No, my life wouldn’t be better. I said I wouldn’t rather you be any other way. I meant it.”

Quinn looked down at her feet as Besca spoke, and against all odds, that warmth flared up again. Just a guttering ember of it, a fading ash of what it had been; but there nonetheless. And at the same time, a very, very familiar sensation began to build in her throat as well: the lump that inevitably presaged tears. Besca crouched in front of her then, and she met her equally singular eye, desperately scanning it for anything like anger or annoyance or frustration and finding...nothing. Nothing at all. Maybe tension, but she was under a lot of stress, and it was buried deep down anyway.

No, the emotions that Quinn saw were...

Caring. Warmth. Concern.

Love.

Dahlia squeezed her shoulder. She closed her eye. They weren't mad at her. Again. No matter how many things she ruined--the duel, the treaty, the attempt to mend the treaty, Hovvi--they just...weren't. The lump in her throat grew thicker. She knew full well that she was about to cry, could feel and see the water starting to swell in her eye, no matter how much she tried to hold them back, to keep some level of composure.

"...Why? Why are you both so...nice to..."

But that attempt was futile, and the sentence went unsaid as she surrendered to the tears. And when they spilled it was like a floodgate; unlike the usual hiccupping sobs, this was a desperate keening wail. In a way that might've been hauntingly familiar, she threw herself into Besca, wrapping around her like a life raft at sea with an eerie echo:

"Please--please don't--don't leave me!"

“‘Course not,” Besca hummed quietly, draping her arms back over Quinn with the rest of what she quickly realized was dwindling energy. That surprised her, and left her just a little bit disappointed with herself; used to be she could truck through a whole week of terrible shit without more than three packs of cigarettes and a gallons of coffee. They weren’t even a few hours out of this mess and already she wanted a nap.

But, well, everyone wanted things. She wasn’t fresh off fighting a handful of Modir.

For now, she’d just have to imagine the coffee. Peeling herself off of Quinn, she ran a hand through the girl’s hair and gave her a smile. “Look, hun, right now isn’t the time to be hard on yourself. You haven’t earned anything like that. What you have earned is rest, and believe me when I tell you that you need to take that whenever you can.

“So here’s what we’re gonna do. Deelie and I will sort all this out for now. I want you to go back to the dorms, and I want you to turn the news off. If anyone calls that isn’t me, you don’t pick up, you’re not available for anything but downtime right now. You’re gonna lie on the couch, or on your bed, and you’re not gonna think about whether or not you messed something up. Instead you’re gonna think about the fact that you just beat a whole lotta monsters, and came home. You’re gonna think about how you get to wake up tomorrow, and you’re gonna wake up the next day too. Hey, okay?”

She planted a small kiss on top of Quinn’s head, then nodded to the door. “Go out that way, should be quieter. Anyone comes up to you, you ignore them—you tell’em Commander Darroh gave you orders. Deelie’s gonna do one more call with me, then I’m sending her down too.”

“Besca—”

“That’s an order too. No buts from either of you.”

Quinn let herself calm down, and slow down, as soon as Besca rested her arms on her back. Nothing, nothing, calmed her down quite like hugging Besca. Her shuddering breaths relaxed into something...well, more stable, at least, and the arms around Besca loosened so that they weren't shaking with how hard they were gripping. Besca was there. Besca was there. Everything was...well, not okay, but better than it could've been, and didn't that matter a whole lot these days?

Finally, at that level of calmish, she managed to listen to Besca, and really appreciate what she said. Go back to the dorms, and just...rest.

...Rest sounded really good, right about now. Maybe if she'd rested before she'd given a statement, she wouldn't have--

Don't think about it, remember?

It wasn't going to be easy to shut the thoughts out, but she would do her absolute best. Because she had beaten a lot of monsters. And she had come home. No matter what, she had to remember that. Maybe she wasn't--

Nuh-uh, don't think about it. You're alive! Everyone's alive! So she finally pulled away from Besca, wiped her eye, and tried to manage a shaky smile. "Uh-huh. I'll...I'll try." With that, she aimed her way at the door Besca had pointed to, turned around one more time to look at the two of them, and slid out.

Eyes followed her. She was being stared out. She dropped her head and moved quickly, ignoring the occasional heckles or questions. She moved quickly and quietly out of a sense of both guilt and fear, and it wasn't long until she arrived at the dorm. She left the TV off, went to flop down on the couch.

She paused, then moved past it to one of the dorm doors, which--after some hesitation--she knocked on.

"Hey, Roaki, can I come in?"

The dorm wasn’t silent. As she drew closer to Roaki’s room she could hear noises, muffled voices talking excitedly about…something. Right at the door, her a tingle spread across her brain—as it always did when they got close to Roaki, some lingering apprehension, a protective wariness forced upon her. Then, among the muffled voices, she heard someone unfamiliar say ‘Quinnlash Loughvein’, followed by a bouncing, like someone hopping up and down on a mattress.

Then she knocked and the sound cut out. Something tumbled to the floor and there was a sharp “Oof!” from inside. Thumping and scrambling, something impacted the door and then it was flung open.

Roaki looked up at her from the ground, leaning on her arm, dressed in a sterile white shirt and black pants tied off at the knees. She looked…well, it was hard for someone with so much modium scarring to look healthy. But she was washed, and though she was still almost bone-pale, she no longer looked as shockingly malnourished as she had in the ward. Her hair fluffed out around her like a pile of down. Silver eyes peered up at her, wide.

“Oi! Deadgirl!” she shouted, as though they weren’t mere feet apart. She whirled, drag-hopping along the floor back to her bed, which had been lowered to the ground despite her protests. A small screen in the wall played muted footage of Ablaze squaring off against the first two Modir.

Roaki pulled herself onto the mattress and pointed as the first was destroyed. “You shot the fuckin’ missiles!” She said, in a weird flux between question and very loud statement. The footage played until the third Modir burst through the smoke and put Ablaze on the defensive. “Hey! But! This part! With the—”

Ablaze kicked out at the Modir, first to the spearman’s shin, then the bladed one’s arm. Roaki mirrored both, flailing the empty pantleg that was actually filled to the knee.

“With the kicking! That’s good! None of the lameass cannon shit! You get in there and you—” She threw out another kick, twisting herself on the bed and flinging out a haymaker with her one arm. “That’s good! That's how it’s done!”

There wasn't a lot that could get Quinn's mind off of whatever she was thinking about, no matter what it was, more than talking to Roaki. Really, just being near her at all made Quinn feel better about herself: the girl had basically come back to life, she was so much more vital and energetic about everything. Quinn had agonized over shattering the treaty with Casoban, but talking with Roaki always reaffirmed that despite the entire world telling her not to, she had done the right thing.

Even as she entered and heard Roaki (very loudly) call her deadgirl, she felt her face almost unwillingly twist into a faint grin. Though she'd first heard the nickname in rather...unpleasant circumstances, it had in relatively short order become almost affectionate; something like Deelie. Quinn didn't really have one of those--well, she had, but she hadn't heard it in a long time and was more than happy to never hear it again--so it was a novel experience to have a friend give her one. She followed after Roaki, letting herself drop limp to the low mattress, content to watch and listen to Roaki. She was just...so exceedingly tired. But even so, she felt that same faint glow inside of her when Roaki so excitedly mimed her movements.

"I dunno," she commented almost offhanded, "I'm pretty partial to my cannon." She wasn't telling the whole truth, obviously; though she'd grown less skittish of it through consistent use, the memory of Hovvi wouldn't be quashed so easily, and it did still evoke a bubbling unease in her gut. But looking back on the phase blast that had annihilated the cannoneer on a molecular level, she felt that same feeling of vicious satisfaction well up from deep within--but at the same time, not of--her.

The cannon was okay, she guessed.

A moment passed before the vague grin grew into something resembling a real smile, and she mimed holding the weapon in question. "I don't even need to use the trigger anymore!"