[IC] Amygdala Circuit

[Lemons]

As she watched Besca and Dahlia walk and run off respectively, Quinn's heart grew leaden in her chest. She suddenly felt terrible, and the way her voice had sounded rewound against her brain. She sounded so...so like—

No. She couldn't think about that right now. She just couldn't. And at the thought, the storm in her head started to drain away. Her stiff grip on the door handle loosened, then released entirely. She closed her eye for a moment. She felt bad for talking that way to Dahlia, and she felt bad for pushing Besca. Both of those were true. But they also weren't really important in the moment. What was important was Roaki. And as she turned back to the cell, she could see that the girl was doing...

Not well would have been a good way to describe her, if perhaps a bit of an understatement. She was so fragile that it made Quinn's chest ache.

"I’m n-not…going. T-this is…where I…belong…"

Wrapping her hands carefully around the bars again, she opened her mouth to interrupt. No, no, you don't belong here. Nobody belongs here, least of all you, she wanted to say, and please, I just want to help you along with it. But before she could get a word in edgewise, Roaki viciously punched the metal bars, setting them a-rattling against Quinn's hands. She looked down, eye wide in alarm, as Roaki continued:

"S-should have k-killed me. Dead…a-anyway. Just l-leave me alone. Let me…die." And then one final sentence to freeze the blood in Quinn's veins:

"D-don’t take…anything else…"

She froze and stiffened, eye widening more in horrified disbelief as another phrase, similar yet so different, played through her head. It was torn from more than a month ago now, but still just as vivid and horrible as the day she'd first screamed it, crying hysterically, in Doctor Follen's office:

Don't send me back!

Tears came to her almost reflexively and she collapsed to a sitting position. Reaching out nearly without thinking, she threaded her arms through the narrow bars (it was a tight fit, but she managed to slip them far enough) and wrapped Roaki's hand in both of her own before she could pull it back. Her eye now was nothing but tender. A lump had formed in her throat immediately alongside her tears, and she needed to fight through it to speak. But fight through it she did.

"Roaki—god—Roaki," she murmured softly, squeezing the small, pale, and freezing hand tight, "I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry, who did this to you...?"

[Mcmolly]

Roaki’s whole body went rigid the moment Quinn seized her hand. Too slow, she was too slow, too cold to react and now she had it. A pit formed in her stomach, a rose up and choked her—spared her the indignity of screaming when her self-sworn oath was momentarily forgotten. Heart pounding in her chest, eyes wide and fixed on their hands, she felt again a memory of panic. It was as strange to her now as it was then, smaller in scale though only just lesser in strength. A feeling she knew not from personal experience, but from inflicting it upon others.

This was what prey felt like.

Her fingers twitched in Quinn’s grasp. She’s gonna take it. The thought came to her like a spear through the gut. She’s gonna take it. She’s gonna take it. She’s gonna take my hand.

But she couldn’t pull away, she wasn’t fast enough. If she tried, and failed, what would Quinn do then? That anger she’d wanted so badly to stoke out of her on the battlefield was suddenly the most terrifying thing in the world. As she sat there, shivering so hard and so deeply that she could not longer tell whether it was from the cold or the fear, she heard words in the back of her head.

A wolf doesn’t have to catch a hare, only outlast it. Their hearts are so small, the fear and the strain of a chase can kill them outright.

Roaki had always thought herself the wolf, but she was sweating through the cold now. She shut her eyes tight, and waited to die a hare’s death.

“Roaki—god—Roaki. I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry, who did this to you...?”

Silence. A long, icy silence.

Roaki opened her eyes. Quinn’s voice…there was something so sincere there, so raw that it couldn’t have been faked. It was pathetic. She sounded like a scared little girl. She sounded like prey, and it was suddenly unbearably infuriating to Roaki that she was the one in the cage. Her heart slowed, and as the panic passed she realized the fear was only part of the reason she was sweating. At some point she’d begun leaning onto the stump of her lost leg, and the pain was finally beginning to reach her.

In that moment she knew that Quinn wasn’t going to hurt her. Yet. She yanked her hand away, the sweat made it easy.

“I did,” she answered. Pathetic as Quinn was, Roaki still couldn’t look at her. She supposed that made her worse. “I d-did it…to m-me. I g-got in…I’m…” her lips curled, sharp teeth scraping her dry lips bloody. “I’m a pilot. I-I’m a p-pilot. I’m a pilot!”

But the more she said it, the less true it seemed. She wasn’t. Not anymore. They’d taken that, too, and she’d have given every ounce of flesh she had left to get it back. Now she’d crawl like a worm for the rest of her life.

Something dripped from her face, dotting the floor. Sweat, she told herself. It was sweat, because she wouldn’t cry for Quinnlash. She wiped her face against her shoulder just to be safe.

“Wh…why? Why didn’t you j-just…kill me?”

[Lemons]

The hand slipped out from Quinn's grasp, and she squeezed her eye shut, pushing out the last few errant tears. When she opened it again she found that Roaki still wasn't looking at her. Her voice was shuddering, stammering, barely able to string words together, and Quinn felt a sudden sharp pain tug at her heart. She was crying, she couldn't talk right. Something horrible had been done to her, and now she was somewhere she didn't seem to understand. A long, slow sigh.

They really were alike, weren't they?

"Wh…why? Why didn’t you j-just…kill me?"

Another jolt of pain through her chest. Roaki...

Quinn was beginning to realize that it wasn't some kind of act she'd put on, it wasn't a grave misunderstanding that the two had, nothing like that. As horrible as it was, it was sinking in that Roaki genuinely didn't understand why Quinn hadn't pulled that final trigger and ended her life. Why she was still alive. Though she didn't struggle to remember the searing pains that had ripped through her during the duel, there was no satisfaction in this. It hurt her, seeing the girl so beaten down, brought so low.

After a few seconds passed, she retracted her arms through the bars again, wrapping them around herself. She stared at Roaki, tiny teardrops still beaded on her eyelashes. "Because..." It hadn't even occurred to her that there would be a question about this from anybody, let alone Roaki. She raced to find a way to explain it, rifling through the disorganized catalogue of thoughts that was crammed together inside her head. A second passed. Two seconds. Three. Finally, she took a long, deep breath.

"...Why would I?"

The bars flickered with memory, turning for just the barest moment into the surface of a black-blue lake, with two imperfect moons reflecting and reflected in each others' lights. She held up her hand to the lake and the memory dissolved, leaving her pressing her hand against the freezing cold metal bars again. "You and me, we're hurt, Roaki. Someone did horrible things to us, and now we're damaged."

She dropped her hand, looking solemnly at the wreck of a child on the other side of the divide. "Killing you would've been wrong. And I only hurt you because I had no other choice." She looked down at her knees, resting on the freezing floor, and her voice lowered to just barely above a whisper. "I'm sorry."

[Mcmolly]

Roaki listened—what else could she do? She sat and listened and every word seemed like it had been spoken in a different language. Quinn was at once the most frightful example of a human being she’d ever seen, and something completely and unrecognizably alien. Pilots didn’t think like this, no one who survived thought like this. Mercy was an insult reserved family and other contemptable rivals, and to be dolled out only when absolutely necessary.

There was nothing necessary about this. Roaki didn’t even know what the duel was fought over, no one had told her. No one ever told her, and she never asked. The needs of a fight were simple: there had to be a winner, and a loser. It ended there. She should have ended there. But she’d been spared—saved, and for what? There was hardly anything left of her to save, and what remained was of use to no one.

No home, no family, no Savior, and a ruined body. Her heart lurched as she realized that she’d been wrong. This was mercy, in its truest and purest form. Punishment of the highest caliber, torture to shame a Great House Inquisitor. A great feat, a blow that would have been felt in her family for generations—had she not been so thoroughly excised from it.

So why the fuck was she apologizing?

“S-stop. Stop s-saying that,” she hissed. “Stop saying y-you’re…s-sorry. No o-one is s-sorry. Not…me. Not y-you. Not a-anyone. Never. L-look at us. You won…I lost.”

You’re a pilot. I’m a worm.

The doors opened again. The woman and the pilot returned, the former wheeling a wheelchair in front of her. Roaki grimaced at the sight of them, looking away. She wanted to argue, but she also wanted to plead with them not to take her away. This cell was cold, and hard, and it was exactly what she deserved, but if they took her back to that place, if they took anything else…

But what right did she have to refuse, now? As a pilot she could boast and threaten and fight for the things she wanted, or against the things she didn’t. Now, by all accounts, she was a corpse-in-waiting. Corpses didn’t get to refuse. They didn’t get to speak, either; it seemed she was just as good at being a corpse as she was a pilot.

She’d had it wrong at the duel. She’d called Quinn “deadgirl”, and now here she was.

The woman—Besca, she thought she’d heard—unlocked her cage and stepped in. Roaki flinched away, and she saw hesitation in Besca’s eye, along with a strange recognition. It was like she was seeing her for the first time.

Carefully, she hoisted Roaki up and set her down in the chair. It was soft, softer than the slab and blanket, softer even than her own bed. A tension eased within her and she felt immediately too vulnerable, but kept her silence.

“I can bring her to medical if you want, hand her off to Follen, then meet you two back at the dorms, or you can take her. Your call, Quinn.”

[Lemons]

Every word Roaki said made Quinn's heart bleed for her, more and more. Soon it was going to fill up and she wouldn't be able to take it anymore. It was horrible. So, so horrible. Win and lose...did it really matter so much?

She guessed it did.

But she was spared the steadily escalating pain as Besca and Dahlia came back. As Besca unlocked the cell and helped Roaki into the wheelchair, Quinn stepped over and gave Dahlia a quick hug and an I'm sorry for yelling at you. Then she turned back and walked in, gently nudging Besca aside and grabbing the wheelchair handles.

She'd realized something midway through her hug; she'd spent the better part of the day being assiduously congratulated on winning the duel, and on "putting that Helburkan mutt in her place," a phrase that made her angry every time she heard it. The people on the Aerie would probably not look fondly on Roaki being there.

And so, "I'll take her. If I'm with her then people might not get as angry with her."

Then she looked up at Besca, and her face betrayed for a moment how nervous she felt. As much of a brave face as she tried to put on—and she was trying very hard—the thought of walking through the people up there with all the hostile glares and yells she knew they would get made her feel a little sick, and she quailed at the though. She hesitated. She didn't want to hurt Besca. She didn't want to hurt her sister either. But she wanted to be alone up there even less. So still looking at Besca, she asked quietly, "Can you come with me? I don't want the two of us to be alone."

Taking the wheelchair and turning again, she jerked slightly. The plate of cake—little picture of a smiling Roaki still shining bright on top—sat in the hall corner by the cell, forgotten. She looked at it and a feeling of sorrow welled up in her. Looking over Roaki's head, she met Dahlia's eyes hopefully. "Dahlia, could you—would you mind taking the cake and putting it back in the fridge?"

I'll give it to her tomorrow, she thought. Then, straining a bit against the unfamiliar weight, she headed back toward the entrance. Doctor Follen would take Roaki if Quinn asked him, right? It bothered and confused her that he'd been so quick to put her down in the cells when she clearly wasn't okay. He'd always been so nice, why would he do that? It didn't quite add up to her.

Then, shaking the thought away, she continued on.

[Mcmolly]

In that brief moment during their hug, Besca heard Dahlia whisper down to Quinn: “I’m so sorry too.”

A relief, for sure. Besca was beginning to understand how well-warranted the outburst had been, but still, the last thing she wanted was to see the girls fight. Dahlia would never fight back, and Quinn would likely hate every minute of it. That the matter had been settled—or at least eased—without love lost, was more than her cynical heart was used to hoping for.

That was, she was learning, the problem.

“Can you come with me? I don't want the two of us to be alone.”

“‘Course, hun,” she said, and saw Roaki’s face twist strangely when she did. Besca frowned. It had taken until she’d stopped, until she’d really looked at her to realize the girl was…well, just that. A girl. She would have thrown Roaki’s application into the bin just as quickly as Quinn’s. And here they both were anyway.

Dahlia retrieved the slice of cake, and together the three of them walked out of holding and into the warmth of the station. They parted at the commons—Dahlia splitting one way, the three of them another—and continued on towards medical.

Suddenly, she wasn’t sure how she felt about handing Roaki off to Follen. The fact that he’d performed the amputation hadn’t sat right with her, but he was the only—and, ironically, the best—choice at the time. Of course, the order for Roaki’s imprisonment had come from on-high, and she’d gotten a stern word about wasting resources on an enemy combatant at all, but she wondered if he truly regrated sending her away. With so much modium in her system, had he the chance, he may very well have kept her in the ward, safe and sound.

As they made their way up to the higher levels, Quinn’s worries were proved true. Eyes followed them, jumping from commander to hero pilot to, finally, the girl in the chair who could only be Roaki Tormont.

The looks were not kind.

No one dared say anything out loud, not with both her and Quinn around, but the whispers were many. Phones came out, the recordings started. She knew by tomorrow there’d be all sorts of videos online, and shortly thereafter, a slew of articles. Helburkan Pilot Paraded through Aerie Station like Hero. Quinnlash Loughvein FORCED to Chauffeur for Enemy Combatant. RISC Diverts Funds, Manpower to Cater to HELBURKAN Pilots.

God, Eusero was going to have a field day.

Their turn into the ward brought them peace, for now. They proceeded down the curving hall in silence until they reached Follen’s door. Three sharp knocks, and a short moment later it opened. There the good doctor stood.

“Commander! Quinn, darling! What a pleasant surprise. What brings you—”

He looked down, to Roaki, who seemed unable or unwilling to look up at him.

“Ah. Is everything alright?”

[Lemons]

Quinn's face was grim by the time they arrived in the medical ward. The looks they'd gotten on their way, she already knew, would stick in her mind for days to come. Looks of confusion, anger, vindictiveness...betrayal.

Roaki hadn't really reacted much, but Quinn knew she'd be uncomfortable with it too. And discomfort was the last thing she needed. So she did her part by glaring (gently this time, more a warning than a rebuke) at people who came too close, or were too loud with their comments. She suddenly wished she'd asked Dahlia to come with them too. She'd never had a problem with crowds of people before today, not really, but so many unfriendly eyes made her skin crawl something fierce.

She hadn't expected to be back in medical again today, she had to admit. And not for a good while yet, unless things got very bad very suddenly and for no good reason. But here she was. The orderlies and nurses were a breath of fresh air, after a fashion; though they were hostile for the most part, they also—medical professionals that they were—bore looks of horror and concern that hid behind that annoyance or disdain.

The two of them didn't talk. The air was thick with...she wasn't sure, but there was some kind of unpleasant tension that was hovering there, as the wheelchair's axles squeaked faintly in the quiet.

Before too long, they came to Doctor Follen's office. As usual, it was comforting to be here. But she was a bit more guarded than usual. It was still niggling at her, that sense that he could have done more for Roaki, and the fact that Roaki refused to look at him—a fact that didn't escape Quinn—didn't make it any better.

"Ah. Is everything alright?"

"No," she replied plainly, not bothering hiding the concern in her voice. "Did you see where they put Roaki? It was horrible." A note of accusation entered her voice and her eye narrowed ever so slightly. "You kept me here for two days for exhaustion. She got a whole leg cut off and growths removed from all over, but she was just thrown down there."

She took a deep breath, steadying her voice again and taking that little bit of aggression out of it. "I know she's technically an enemy, but she's hurt badly, isn't she? She deserves better, and I trust you more than anyone to take care of her."

A beat passed. She looked down at Roaki from where she stood above and behind her. Another beat. A deep breath. She knew this was asking a lot, but...

"...And could you measure her for prosthetics too? You don't need to give them," she added hastily, "but just measurements don't hurt, right?"

[Mcmolly]

Besca watched Follen closely. He had a particular way of dealing with confrontation, depending on who it was and how much they knew. She’d never seen him faced with an accusation he couldn’t skirt, be it by lack of evidence or quality of his “character”. She’d never forget the first time she’d cornered him after Westwel. It had been right here on the Aerie, at the great window in the observatory. She’d asked him who he was, and watched his amicable façade slough away, watched his eyes go hollow, and saw for the first time that her friend was dead. He’d been indistinguishable from the void behind him.

But this was different. He wasn’t being confronted with anything more terrible than what she’d done, and he knew it. There was no need to drop the mask.

“I do know where she was, yes,” he said, meeting her accusatory tone with one that was at once innocent and repentant. “I’m afraid the orders for her arrest came down while I was mid-procedure. Besca alerted me, and I had just enough time to lock the doors to the OR so I could finish up. They would have brought her down there with her leg stapled shut, still riddled with growths.”

His eyes flicked to Besca. She grimaced but didn’t object; he was speaking the truth. It was a harsh truth, but those seemed to be his favorite. Follen thrived in the worst, most hopeless situations, but not in the way a hero would. Rather, he attended his duty with the unflinching resolve of a headsman.

Pulling a small pen-like device from his pocket, he crouched down to look up at Roaki. She turned her head away, but he held the thing up to her and she didn’t bat at it. There was a small beep. He turned it towards him, reading from a tiny screen on its length.

“The chill hasn’t done her any favors, I don’t think. We had to flush the modium out of her system, and judging by the sweating, I’m going to guess that my advice for pain medication went ignored.” He looked up at them, namely to Besca. “I don’t suppose the Board has had a sudden change of heart.”

Besca shook her head.

“Well, I can get her a bed tonight, but it’s not going to do her much good if she ends up right back down there tomorrow.”

She glanced down at Quinn, then to the slumped, quiet form of Roaki. She sighed. “You’re officially under orders to keep her here. If anyone comes to get her, you tell them to call me. I’ll handle the Board.”

“Sure, commander,” he said, a smile on his lips. “And the prosthetics?”

Again she paused, thought. Breathed. “Measurements are fine. Do it yourself, and don’t list it.”

“Yes ma’am, measurements only,” he said, and then winked at Quinn. “Though I do a bit of tinkering in my spare time. There could be some…coincidental overlap.”

Besca wasn’t sure how she felt about the idea of Roaki running around Aerie Station with high-end prosthetics. But, that was a worry for another time—hopefully a very distant time. “That’ll be all,” she said, turning to leave. “Goodnight.”

Follen rose up, nodded. “Goodnight, you two.”

[Lemons]

As Besca and Doctor Follen talked, Quinn relaxed some, releasing her grip on Roaki's wheelchair. Unspeakable relief flooded through her like a balm to the twin burns of anger and suspicion. Doctor Follen had tried his best to help Roaki, he just couldn't because of the Board. And—he was going to take measurements for prosthetics. And to hear him talk, maybe he would even—

But Quinn cut herself off there. That would be too much, right? It was better not to get ahead of herself. But still, Doctor Follen was doing so much, had already done so much even after they had tried to shut him down. She'd been silly to doubt him. He wasn't like that, and she was more confident than ever that he'd take good care of Roaki.

So when he stood to say goodnight, she stepped in instead of out with Besca, slipped carefully between the wheelchair and the wall, and hugged him tight, tears already starting to fill her eye again. "Thank you," she squeaked out. "You're the best."

She clung to him a moment more, eye closed, water seeping slowly into his shirt. When she released him it was sudden, and she once again rejoined Besca, gave him a wave with her eye dried. "Goodnight, Doctor Follen!" Then, "You too, Roaki!"

But as the two of them walked back, she looked towards the ground. Not sharply, just a little bit, a pitch of her head slightly downwards as she mulled over something in her head.

She'd made the decision to keep Roaki safe from that horrible place, and she'd thought that whatever the Board did to her would be worth it just so Roaki didn't have to suffer like that anymore. But what if the Board came after Besca and Doctor Follen instead? She hadn't thought about that. Thinking back to Roaki's face in that holding cell, she shuddered to imagine just leaving her there. She couldn't have. It would just be...it would be cruel, crueler than she could ever stomach. But would they get punished for what she did?

She wouldn't have not helped Roaki. Couldn't have, or she would never have forgiven herself. But she was afraid now, afraid that something terrible would happen to two of the people she cared the most about in the whole world and it would be because of her.

So right as they reached the exit to medical where it joined with the commons, she slowed, then ground to a stop, clinging onto Besca's shirt as she did so. Quinn looked up at her, searching almost desperately for approval and security in her face.

"Did...did I do the right thing, Besca?"

[Mcmolly]

Something lurched in Besca to see Quinn hug Follen like that. She trusted him so completely, and she knew it wasn’t even because she was naïve. He had everyone fooled, and he’d made himself nigh inextricable from the program. Besca wasn’t sure she could have fired him if she tried. But his years of contact with Dahlia hadn’t changed her, and while she’d never forgive him for pushing Quinn into becoming a pilot, she also knew he wasn’t looking for forgiveness.

Quinn, however, seemed unsure.

Did...did I do the right thing?

They were stopped by the exit, and Besca found it almost impossible to meet the doubt in Quinn’s eye. Had she and Dahlia put that there? Was it their own cynicism she saw there, nascent but so ready to grow into the same world view as everyone else’s? The thought didn’t just sadden, it repulsed her. She might very well be about to lose Quinn forever.

So she took a deep breath, and Quinn’s hand. “C’mere, hun. Sit with me.” She led her to a bench by the exit, where their only company were vacant offices and an empty hallway. Still, she kept her voice quiet so that it wouldn’t carry.

“I was ten when I watched my first duel. My father wanted to keep me away from it, but I was stubborn, and just enamored with the Saviors. I’d watched them at singularities before, seen them mulch the monsters and Modir that came through. So I thought, hey, no big deal. I wanna see it. One night I snuck downstairs after he’d gone to bed, and I watched a recording of a bout between the champion of House Liedwald, Herr Raum—they called him the Warbane—and this Euseran Rookie, Dom Cade.”

She shut her eye, leaned her head back against the wall. She could almost see the TV, feel the dark around her. She’d kept the volume low so her father wouldn’t hear, and scooted so close to the screen her eyes hurt.

“Raum was a vet. Inherited his Savior from his mother, and in his first year he settled the Satsuma Dispute by putting her spear through the Savior of a Tohoken heir. Some people like to say wars averted by duels are wars won by the victory. If that was true, Raum had won three wars in ten years. Hard to say what the world would look like right now without him.

“Cade was a kid, barely Dahlia’s age. It was his first duel, and looking back I don’t think he’d been in the cockpit more than a month. The ESC was using him as a primer—fodder, basically, to wear Raum down so they could send their ringer in afterwards to finish the job. ‘Course, they didn’t tell him that, and if he knew it, it didn’t show. I mean, the rookies never care, they’re all just excited to get their shot in the cockpit. They all think they’re gonna be the next Janey Waylen, or Markus Gad, or…Dahlia St. Senn.

“I’ll give Cade that—he wasn’t scared. They caught him on his way out to the Savior and he said a few words. Said he’d do his best, he wanted to make his mom and his little brother proud.” She smirked. “I’ll admit, I had a little crush for a minute. He was cute, charming. Heroic. Everything I thought pilots were supposed to be. Seemed like the whole world knew he was gonna die out there, but me? I was so sure he was gonna win.

“He had this weapon like a ball on a chain, with spikes all over it. Cade was going for his head—bad form to try and mulch a Savior, but it’d made him famous. But Raum kept batting it aside, every strike, slap, slap, slap, like it’s nothing. Toying with him. Then four minutes in, Cade suddenly whips the thing low, and Raum blocked high. The ball took out his knee. When he went down, Cade just…he just went animal on him. Tackled Raum to the ground, took the ball in his hand and wailed on his head. Over and over. The noises that Savior made…” And she heard it, faintly, in the back of her mind. It made her shiver. “I remember the comms got leaked a few weeks later. You could hear Cade just screaming bloody fury. Roaring, cursing. Like Raum was the most evil thing on Illun.

“I didn’t sleep for two days. Spent the next morning crying my eyes out. My dad thought I was dying—I was too embarrassed to admit I was just…sad. Really, really sad. I think it was a long time before I ever saw pilots as heroes again. Cade died the next year, killed by a Tormont or a Donner, I don’t really remember. They took his Savior as recompense for Warbane’s. Don’t know what happened to it—don’t even remember what it’s name was, after.”

Besca looked down at her, smiled, but she knew it was too sad to be warm. “People are born old,” she said. “They live their whole lives and the world doesn’t change one bit. I watched every pilot I’ve ever worked with walk the same path Cade did. Even Deelie. They don’t all like it, but they all do it, ‘cause…they’re old. They’re tired. They don’t want to fight the world and themselves, so they just stop trying. And I don’t blame them.

“I was ready for you to be another Cade. I’d accepted it. I think I’d have been okay with you being another Roaki if it meant you got to live. But you didn’t cave. Maybe that’s ‘cause you don’t have a lifetime of the world’s pressure on your shoulders, maybe it’s just cause that’s who you are deep down. Maybe it’s both. I don’t care. I saw something happen that you’re supposed to stop believing when you’re still little. You made it happen.”

She put an arm around Quinn, pulled her in close and rested her chin on the top of her head. “So yeah, hun. Yeah, you did the right thing. You’re my hero.”

[Lemons]

Quinn played the story in her mind as it was told. A little Besca hunched in front of a TV in the middle of the night, eye—no, eyes, she would've had both then—glued on the screen in fascination, then horror as the fresh-faced rookie Dom Cade slaughtered Herr Raum. She imagined her lying in her bed unable to sleep for days as images of violence flashed through her head. She'd had trouble sleeping after watching her first duel a few weeks back too, and Besca had been a lot younger than she was.

After that her imagination ran dry, though. She couldn't picture Besca crying. She just couldn't. Quinn knew she must've cried at some point, even before she'd just been told point blank that it had happened. She'd been told all about Westwel, and she couldn't fathom a world where Besca wouldn't have cried at least a little then. But even so, she was having trouble fitting it into reality. Besca was just so strong. Too strong to cry.

And then the story ended with Cade dying, just like Raum had. Everyone died in the end.

It was a terrible story, and Besca's sad smile made it even worse.

But then Quinn heard those magic words: "You’re my hero," as Besca held her tight.

Besca's hero?

It was a foreign concept to her. Quinn looked up to Besca so, so much. Up and up and up, until she was like a brilliant star twinkling in the night sky and guiding Quinn home. She was Quinn's hero, more than she could ever describe. So how could Besca look up to her? It made her feel...it made her feel important. And not important to the world, not the way a pilot was important, because as a pilot it wasn't really her that people cared about, it was the Savior. But this wasn't like that, not at all. This made Quinnlash feel important. And she found that she liked that a lot more.

Besca might have been too strong to cry like Quinn imagined. She might not.

But Quinn, as she proceeded to demonstrate when she wrapped her arms around Besca in return, was...decidedly not that strong.

[Mcmolly]

The eyes that followed them back to the dorms were less hostile now, but still curious, confused. No one approached them, and those that drew too close received harsh stares from Besca that kept them at arm’s length. They returned to the dorms unbothered, but she knew come tomorrow there would be questions, and her answers would be unsatisfactory.

“I’ve gotta go topside, try and preempt the storm of crap that’s coming. I’ll be back late, but I’ll see you two in the morning.” Besca hugged her again, and then left her at the door.

Inside, Dahlia was waiting. She seemed a bit surprised that Quinn had come alone, but quickly forgot it, and came hurrying over.

“Quinn I’m so sorry,” she said, speaking fast and high-pitched and written all over her face was a novel of guilt. “I didn’t—I shouldn’t have done that I just…I was…I saw her and you and I didn’t really see her but I should have stopped and looked and I was being so ridiculous. You were being so nice and I just didn’t understand but that’s my fault it’s not your fault and—and—and—”

She gasped in a breath, held it to think. This time she spoke slower. “I’m just really sorry. I’ve been…you just…you mean so much to me. I’ve been so worried about keeping you safe that I never stopped to think that I should be trying to learn from you. That’s not an excuse, it’s just…it’s just how it is. I’ll do better. I’ll really, really try.”

[Lemons]

The look on Dahlia's face made Quinn want to run into her room, hide her face in her pillow out of shame, and never look at her again. This was something that she had very much not expected.

Though perhaps she should have, she thought bitterly. She'd yelled at Dahlia before today. Very, very rarely (once or twice), but it had happened. But this was the first time she'd ever been so...so mean about it. She had just gotten so angry, so fast, she hadn't been able to stop it. She had hurt her sister. And she'd meant to hurt her, even though it was absolutely her own fault in the end. The way she'd called, the way she'd hung up so suddenly, how she knew Dahlia thought of Roaki at the time; what else were she and Besca supposed to think?

She swiped her arm across her face to wipe the remnants of tears from her reddened eye, then looked up at Dahlia. Gently, carefully, Quinn reached down and grasped her hands in her own, lightly rubbing her thumbs in a circle on her sister's palms in what she hoped desperately was comforting instead of unsettling.

"No, Deelie, no," she murmured in reply, breaking off eye contact. She just couldn't bear it anymore.

She released the hands, then sat down on the back of the couch, staring into the kitchen at the half of the cake that Dahlia had made for her, still sitting on the table. "You must've been so worried when I called you like that." She shook her head slowly in both denial and regret, voice turning melancholic. "It was my fault. You have nothing to be sorry for."

[Mcmolly]

Of all the ways Dahlia had expected this to go, hearing Quinn apologize to her had not been one of them. But then, that was silly; of course she’d apologize. Not because she’d done anything wrong—Dahlia was vehemently sure of that—but because it must have felt awful. They weren’t fighting, they weren’t enemies. They were family, and there’d been a misunderstanding.

“No,” Dahlia said, following her to the couch to sit down beside her. “No, there is—and it wasn’t your fault. Quinn, watching you win that duel was…I can’t even describe how relieved I was. I was scared, really scared, and when you’re scared you don’t…you don’t think of the thing that’s scaring you as anything but…well, scary.”

She reached out, flipping Quinn’s braid from behind her. It needed brushing—she’d do that tomorrow. “I don’t. But you do. You did. You saw Roaki for more than just an opponent, you saw her for what she really was. And even when she was sitting on the floor of that cell, completely helpless, I still couldn’t see her as anything but a threat to you. That…that was wrong.

“There’s something wrong with me, Quinn. There’s something wrong with every pilot, and every program, and everyone that thinks what you did wasn’t right, or that what’s happening to her here is.” She could feel it—her eyes growing hot. She held herself together though, even if she was admitting a mistake—perhaps especially because of that—she needed to be the big sister, still. “I don’t ever want you to think I’m not with you. I don’t ever want you to be disappointed in me. And if you are, that’s not your fault, it’s mine. So I mean it. I’m gonna be better. I might mess up, I might not be perfect, but a long time ago I wanted to be just like you, and somewhere along the way I gave up. Now I know I can still try.”

[Lemons]

"I might mess up, I might not be perfect, but a long time ago I wanted to be just like you, and somewhere along the way I gave up. Now I know I can still try."

Quinn blinked, and for a moment she didn't understand. Dahlia...wanted to...be like her?

Her ears were ringing as she stared. Just like before, with Besca, there was a profound sense of disorientation and confusion. Besca may have been her hero, the person who lifted her out of her gray life and splattered it full of brilliant color. Dahlia couldn't quite fill that same role (though she definitely touched it a bit).

No. Dahlia wasn't her hero. But Dahlia was the person she wanted to be like more than anything. She was strong, she was brave, she was kind and gentle and she always looked out for the people she cared about. Quinn wanted to be all of those things. She wanted to live up to Dahlia's example so much. And she didn't know if she ever would, but she'd always try.

And now here she was, dazedly hearing her forever role model talking about how much she wanted to be just like Quinn, and not only that, how much she'd wanted to be just like Quinn for a long time.

A heat began to build within Quinn, a tiny sun in the middle of her chest that spread out through her body, sending tinglies racing up and down her spine. It was incredible. Another feeling that she knew. That she'd felt fragments of over the years, scattered shards of sunlight, but nothing like this. it took her a long time to think of a word for it. How she'd felt deep down when she'd snuck out of her room for the first time, past the fear and the knowledge she was doing something wrong. The rush she felt when she'd solve a puzzle. The brilliant light that had shone within her when she'd cast that fishing rod.

Oh, that's what it was.

It was pride.

She leaned over and wrapped Dahlia in another gentle hug, hoping that some of that wonderful sunshine would pass between them. It was only when she spoke that she realized how warm her voice had suddenly become. It was strange. So much that had happened today was strange. But she had never felt more like Dahlia's sister than she did right then.

"Thank you, Deelie. You're so much better than I deserve."

[Mcmolly]

---

---

It had become familiar, this feeling, ironically so much like waking up. When Quinn opened her eyes that night, she was there again, laying on the boat atop the spread-out towels. The sky was pale blue, darkness receding from the edges eclipsed by the distant forests. Beyond the lake’s cliff-faced rim, a warm orange light was beginning to rise. Though the sun itself wasn’t quite visible yet, it was reflected there in the water, surrounding the boat like a glowing, red-orange pond.

It was at once pleasantly quiet, but if she listened, Quinn could hear the sounds of people on Hovvi’s shore, see little dots of them scattered about the harbor and the beach. Too far for detail, too far to have been heard, really, but there it was anyway. The shadows of Dahlia and Safie laughed and chatted out by the buoy.

Behind her, there was a slight whooshing sound, and a distant splash.

Quinnlash was sat on the railing, fishing pole in her hands. The line was cast out far, though no farther than Quinn could remember having sent her own that day.

Even in the burgeoning daylight she looked gloomy, darkened by shadows cast from nowhere, as if it were still night for her. The only exceptions were here eyes, which were no blacker or lighter than they ever were, and the horns on her head. They’d grown again, ever so slightly, and had begun to branch at their tips. Like the rest of her, they were unaffected by the sun. Instead, they caught moonlight that wasn’t there, and glinted and shimmered like polished white gold.

She glanced sidelong at Quinn. Her knees came up, tucked in close to her chest, and though it should have thrown her wildly off balance back onto the deck, she just hovered there, only tangentially touching the railing.

“You didn’t do it…” she grumbled. “You didn’t kill her.”

[Lemons]

Quinn took a deep breath of the lake air. It was far away now, but still so hauntingly familiar, and a part of her knew that if she wasn't so disconnected from everything in these dreams she would be crushed under the weight of her own sorrow.

But she was disconnected. So instead, she walked up to the railing next to Quinnlash, picked up a fishing pole, and cast it into the lake herself, watching the blunted replacement for a hook zipping out of sight before it plonked into the water. She was silent then, gazing out in the predawn light at the cliffs where once stood a white house.

In the distance she could hear Safie's voice along with Dahlia's, and it cut into her heart even here. There was a quiet certainty in her that no matter how much time passed, that wound would never scab, never heal. She'd never even gotten to say goodbye.

"No," she said simply after some time, "I didn't."

She shook her head. "You said before that she wasn't broken, just bad." For the first time since she'd sat at the railing, she looked back at Quinnlash, eye filled with genuine curiosity. "But you saw her in that cell, right? She's not a taker." The thing that might have once been a hook tugged, the bait that hadn't been there before drawing a fish that swam happily away. "She's had everything taken from her."

Another deep breath. "Every time I think about it, I'm more sure that we the right thing." She unconsciously brushed her fingers, featherlike, across the top of her head where Besca's chin had sat during their embrace. "And they think so too. That counts for something, right?"

[Mcmolly]

Quinnlash shrunk when Quinn came close, curling tighter, angling her pole away like she thought it might be taken from her. Her eyes followed the line Quinn cast out onto the water, watched it plunk beneath the surface and settle. For a long few moments it seemed like there might not be anything in the lake at all, that perhaps Quinnlash was denying her. Did she expect to aggravate her? To goad her into another argument?

No. Quinn could feel that wasn’t the case. The air was warm, the water still and gentle. The sounds in the air were those of happiness, and the unseen dawn promised a long day before the dark returned. No, there was no fight to be had here, tonight.

Quinn’s lure bobbed. Quinnlash eased. Her face was still scrunched into a moody pout, and it didn’t seem like she wanted to hear any excuse or explanation. It was like she’d been denied something herself. Like she’d worked so hard, waited so long, only to come up empty-handed.

But then Quinn mentioned them. The good “them”.

“They didn’t, though,” she said, not so much upset as she was confused. “They thought we had the right idea before. You changed their minds. It shouldn’t have been so easy—it’s not fair. We’re good, aren’t we? We…we didn’t do anything wrong. Why does it feel like we did something wrong?”

[Lemons]

"I think—"

And here Quinn hesitated.

Because it had felt like she'd done something wrong, and there was a sharp and painful edge to the memory of that feeling. It had been brief, so brief, because Besca had taken her aside and told her that what she'd done wasn't wrong. That she'd done the right thing. She kept combing what had happened before she slept, picking and choosing among the words that Besca and Dahlia had scattered through her mind.

"Because..." How would she put this? How could she explain it in a way that Quinnlash would understand? How could she explain it at all, put any of it into words? Did she even know what she wanted to explain?

"...Because the world is full of takers, Quinnlash. They just want to take and take and take. We're starting to realize that, I think. It's wearing on us after only a little while. And it's worn on them for so much longer. So they think everyone is one." Another hesitation while she tried again to reorder her thoughts. As she did so, a thought floated out, a half-remembered phrase from a gentle man's voice. She sighed mournfully."But..."

"...But the window goes both ways, Quinnlash."

"They thought that Roaki was a taker, just like you did, because that's all they knew. But because I didn't kill her, they saw that she wasn't, and changed their minds. And I...I think maybe that's why people make us feel like we did something wrong?"

She looked up into the sky, the perpetual light just before dawn. "I don't know. Not really. But...it's something I should think about."

She reached out and rested her hand carefully on Quinnlash's narrow shoulder. "So...thank you. Really."

[Mcmolly]

It took some time, but as Quinn continued to speak, she could see Quinnlash was listening. Whether or not she was understand was impossible to tell, but gradually, that moodiness left her, and she stared blankly out at the water, at her lure which had yet to catch. Quinn couldn’t see beneath the surface, deep blue as it was past the sun’s reflection, but she might be forgiven for thinking there were hardly any fish at all today.

Though her own line did tug now and then with the nibbles of hungry passersby.

When she reached out and place her hand on Quinnlash’s shoulder, the girl startled, just barely, and turned her head fully towards her. Black eyes wide, she stared between the hand, and Quinn’s face. Back and forth, slow and perplexed, as if she’d never been touched before. Not an entirely strange idea, all things considered.

Eventually she turned back to the water. Her legs uncurled, and she came to sit naturally upon the railing again. The shadows slipped off her like water, leaving her dry and bright, though that light still didn’t quite touch her expression yet. She began to reel her line in again.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you, she said quietly. “I don’t like being angry, it feels a lot like being scared. But Dahlia says you can still be brave when you’re scared. So maybe…maybe it’s the same with being angry. I still think we have to kill evil when we find it. That’s what we are. But…”

Her line rose from the water. At the end was not a dull weight, but a hook whose bait was untouched. Quinnlash’s brow furrowed.

“But maybe there’s not as much evil as we thought…”