As much as she loves the Pix, they [i]are[/i] a bit much.

That is to say, she loves them so much--loves their smell, their feel, their competition, the way she can be on top one moment and under someone else's heel the next--but also they run [i]incredibly[/i] hot. Being in a cuddlepile of Pix is to have several miniature furnaces purring into you from every direction. Restrictive in the best way, normally her favorite way to sleep but...

She's not so much [i]hiding[/i] from them as, you know, temporarily avoiding them.

(They'll recover, surely, and she'll make apologies later for not being in the room which is currently more shed fur than bunkhouse. Ropes may be involved, depending on how adeptly she apologizes.)

The ones clustered around the vents are smart, you know? But the [i]smarter[/i] ones--like, say the ones that had a couple years of redshifted time to poke around and unscrew and put things back together--know that there's a magic spot near the ramming prow of the ship, yeah? The armor of the ship's thicker there, with more insulation. It's about as far as you can get from the Engine, which itself puts out a not-inconsiderable-amount of heat. And, most importantly, the vents widen out enough to be comfortable, instead of just tolerable. Less airflow, but it's all hers.

She, admittedly, didn't expect anyone else to know about it. And yet, here Iskarot is, tucking the glowing-edged section of cut-out ventilation shaft back into place behind him.