[IC] Amygdala Circuit

[Lemons]

The Savior spasmed and jerked head to malformed toe, the clawed fingers ever-so-slowly dragging themselves on a terrible course downwards and shredding gashes where they went. The jagged tears bubbled and seeped, leaking streams of ichor that ran down the ridged scutes on her arms to her elbows, where they dribbled into viscous seething puddles on the floor.

The communications were working without a hitch. They could hear Quinn perfectly, no malfunction of any kind was stopping that. But all they heard from her—in the terrible crystalline clarity that came with the neural link—were torn, strangled gasps, and unsteady aborted half-breaths that sounded like someone choking.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHH

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHshewasshewasHATEHATEHATEitshewasitwasfallingapartapartfallingapart
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHnonononononononono
AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHshewasgoingtobreakshewasgoingtoHATEshewascomingHATE THEMundoneshewascomingundoneshewascomingHATETHEMQUINNLASHIT'SWHATTHEYDESERVEshewasbreakingbreakingbrokenbreakingfrayingfrayingFRAYINGfallingcomingapfallingcomapartpullingawayshecouldn'ttellwheresheendedandIstaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH—

[Lemons]

"—My voice. Listen to my voice."

And then the threads of Quinn's mind snapped back together.

She pulled in a chestful of air, so fast that this strange body lurched. Her arms slowly, slowly loosened from where they'd bit into themselves, and she brought the hands out in front of her. The claws were covered in that horrible thick black stuff, and they curled in on themselves as she closed her eyes. "Take my hand. Pretend for me."

There she was. Her. Not whatever this...thing was. Her. Her. Quinn as she knew herself; pale, short, long braid, one eye. The world was so much easier from only one after all. She kept listening to Dahlia, and she let herself follow along.

Then it was suddenly all white in her head. Four walls. A door. With no knob. Closed. Her ho—no. It wasn't her home. It wasn't her room. The room that she was in. The room where she'd grown up. The light flicked off. Black black black, as dark as the ichor on the hangar floor and her panic started to grow.

Then there was a bright flash of light. The door opened. And Dahlia was standing there in that brilliance, holding out her hand, smiling the smile she'd smiled on the boat.

Especially in the dark.

She took the hand.

"Almost done." She was almost done. The noise was all gone. She could—could think again. She could think, could hear herself think. The hate the HATE was gone, and she didn't feel so good or powerful. She just felt...normal. Like herself.

Then the thrumming came back. Or...part of it. She still felt...she felt like herself. She felt okay. She felt okay. But her whole body—no, not her body, something else in her, not her body and not her mind but something between them—was buzzing.

She waited until she heard Doctor Follen say in her ear that she was done. She wasn't sure exactly what he said—darling? Wonderful? She though he said those, but she was still disoriented, and trying to hold herself—but she knew she was done. Besca was talking too. She sounded upset. But it was fine. She could disconnect. She was done. She was done.

She wanted to cry. But as she felt herself shifting, quaking...she was afraid. She remembered the sounds that these things had made back in Hovvi. She didn't know what it would sound like. And she didn't want to hear herself sound like that. She didn't want Besca or Deelie to hear her sound like that.

She was done. She could disconnect.

She didn't know how, at first. But just like connecting, when she thought about it—there she was. Back in the dark and the cold. Everything was suddenly quiet. So quiet. Like there had been a sound she'd been hearing, and now it was suddenly gone.

Peeling herself from the chair, feeling the plugs snap from it, she closed her eyes—EYE—and slowly, agonizingly—Dahlia still lingered in her mind—she pushed open the door. The light was searing to her eye. But she was tired. So tired. Rode the lift down again, staring off into space. So, so, so tired. The bitter smell of water was everywhere, oozing around her body in a thick miasma. She plodded around the front.

Her brow was slick with sweat. Just like before, even beneath the heat suit, she felt dizzy and cold and clammy and pale. The smell felt like it was leaching through the suit and coating her skin. She felt like she wanted to puke whenever she smelled it and didn't know why. Her legs hurt. Her feet hurt. Everything still hurt. But she still walked up to Besca and Deelie. She draped herself around the other girl. She didn't have the energy for anything else. She was just so...so...tiiiireeeed...

Linking her hands around Dahlia's neck, she let the rest fall limp. Her mumbling voice was indistinct, vague, blurry...slurring.

"Did I...did I do good...?"

Then she let herself cry.

She cried for a long time.

[Mcmolly]

“Yeah. Yeah, you did great, Quinn.”

Dahlia hefted Quinn up to her feet, helped her stand, but kept an arm around her so the girl could lean as heavily as she needed. She looked back to Besca and Follen, not lingering so long on the latter. “I’m gonna get her back to the dorm,” she said.

They hobbled away, Quinn still sobbing, and vanished into the hallway.

The instant the doors shut, Besca whirled on Follen. She seized him by the collar with a barely-restrained snarl, incensed by the fact that even that didn’t elicit more than a cocked brow from him. He wasn’t even looking at her, the rat fucking bastard.

“She wasn’t ready!” she shouted. “She wasn’t ready you son of a bitch, she wasn’t! We should have run sims!”

Hands pulled her away, bodies squeezed in between them. She let him go, let herself be spaced away as he walked closer to the Savior.

Ichor stained the floor, pooling into large drains while janitorial machines scrubbed up the residue. It leaked from the wounds Quinn had rent into the arms, stained the modium claws on its fingers.

“Did she touch her face?” he asked.

Besca shook the hands off her. “Fucking what?”

“Her face. While she was phasing, she didn’t touch her face. Not once—I didn’t see it, did you? No. Just clutched her arms.” He shook his head, not disappointed, but confused. “She didn’t scream, either. No indication she was in pain.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Come here, Besca.”

Hands still wound into shaking fists, she walked over to him. His head was craned up, and a curious smile crept onto his lips. She followed his gaze to the Savior’s slumped face, to the mouth limply agape, wet with dark slaver and hot breath.

And ichor.

So much of it, dripping down its teeth, down its chin and into the drains. It stared down at them vacantly, red eye dim.

Red eye.

Eye.

One of its eyes was gone.

Besca gasped loud, almost staggering back. Gone, the socket was empty—no, not just empty, burst. It was as though the eye had exploded, not a trace of it remained.

“Interesting,” Follen muttered. “So very interesting.”

---

---

They’d gotten Quinn back into her own clothes and into the lift without issue. The ride was just as quiet, broken by the occasional sob.

The dorm was still empty. Dahlia kept a firm and steady hold on Quinn, guiding her to the room beside Besca’s. She laid her down on the bed, flicked on a light on the nightstand.

“It’s over, Quinn. You did it. You did good. Just relax. Breathe.” She vanished for a moment, in the bleary dark between blinks, and returned with a glass of water. “Try to drink something. That helped me my first few times.”

[Lemons]

Quinn blinked slowly, letting Dahlia's words filter through to her. Tears were still running down her face, but her sobs had quieted to only one or two hiccups.

“Try to drink something. That helped me my first few times.”

Drink something? Drink what? What was she going to drink? Her head was swimming and she forced her eye to move, to see what had just been plunked down on the nightstand. A glass of water.

Water.

Water.

Her entire body went rigid and her eye sprang open. Water. Water. The smell lingered in her nose. Water. Water. Bitter, bitter, bitter. The smell was burning. Her vision swam. Was it clear? Was it dark? She couldn't tell, she couldn't tell, but it smelled dark and—and—

NO.

NO.

NO. NO. NO NO NO NO "NO!"

The desperate shriek burst from her without warning and she lashed out, sending the glass hurtling violently into the wall. It smashed into shards, sending water exploding around the room. She shrank away from it with a high whimper like a hurt animal's, wrapping the blanket around her and huddling into the corner where the bed met the walls.

Her eye flew across the room, back and forth and back and forth between the shards of glass and the wet stain on the wall, and she covered her head with her arms. Her chest heaved, faster and faster and faster, until finally—inevitably—the scream came. It was a shrill, piercing, terrified thing that lasted for what felt like centuries. The water still ran down the wall. The smell was still there, all around her, just like at home. It was all still there. Still there. Still there.

Hands still held above her head like someone was about to hit her, she eventually trailed off into a fragmented, senseless gibbering, which in turn gave way to words squeezed through renewed sobs:

"No, no, no, I'm sorry, please, I'm sorry, please don't make me drink it, I don't want it, it hurts it hurts it hurts, pleeeeaaaaaaaseeeeee no no NO NO!"

[Mcmolly]

Dahlia jolted as the water was thrown from her hand, yelped when the glass shattered against the wall. Quinn fell into a panic, curled like a cornered animal and let out a terrible scream. Still sitting there, Dahlia hunched away, winced, tried to keep it from sinking any deeper into her. She didn’t leave, though. Part of her did want to, but that part was weak. So much of her was weak, and afraid, and helpless, and if she left Quinn now she’d be no different than she’d been a week ago. She’d be a failure. Still.

And a bad friend.

She couldn’t be that anymore.

Dahlia scooted over, closer. She took Quinn’s hands gently from above her head, guided them low and held them tight.

“Quinn—Quinn, hey.” she kept her voice soft, calm, as best she could. "You don’t have to drink it. You don’t. I didn’t—I didn’t know. I’m not trying to hurt you, I promise. I’m sorry. Please, you have to relax. You have to, you’ll hurt yourself. Please.”

[Lemons]

Just like before, Dahlia's voice cut through the panic in Quinn's head. As Dahlia gripped Quinn's hands, she let them be pulled away from her head, and the words that punched through her weeping ebbed, then died.

They stayed like that for some time before Quinn finally felt safe to start uncurling from her blanket, shifting back closer to Dahlia. The cloying smell of the water from home still clung to her and she twitched. Her voice was barely there when she spoke. An exhausted mumble that would already be hard to hear, filtered through the horror and the crying.

"It smells like water," she forced out, arms clenching tight under Dahlia's hands as she struggled to keep control. "Not—not clear water. It smells like—like—"

Her shuddering breaths came more slowly as she focused on Dahlia instead of the wet stain on the wall. Her voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. "It smells the water from home." She turned away so she didn't see the stain and the shards, and then a sudden pathetic mewling sound crawled from her mouth.

The door was closed.

Her breathing started to accelerate again and she couldn't breathe deep like Besca had showed her, she couldn't she couldn't—she couldn't calm down. Closed in with the water and the smell and—

She wrenched her arms back, hugging herself tight as her eye crushed closed. Her voice went from a hoarse whisper to a hoarse shout, ragged and desperate:

"Open the door! Open the door, oh god, please, open it, open the door!"

[Mcmolly]

It started alright. Quinn slowly unfurled, inching closer. Just a bit more and she could pull her in, hold her, hope it would help. Then she started speaking again, almost a babble and nearly incomprehensible. Dahlia thought it was nonsense at first, that would make the most sense. A touch from the circuit lingering on a nascent mind. It happened now and then, that someone went in and was changed forever, sometimes too far.

But Quinn hadn’t been changed. Not really. It might have been the invasion that did this to her, but, if she thought about it, dug through the exhaustion and the memories—terrible, leave them be, you shouldn’t—she could recall that Quinn had been peculiar even on the boat. Water, water, she’d mentioned it then, too. Asked if it was always so sweet. Safie…Safie had thought it was a joke. She had, too. And when she’d asked for the juice, how frantically she’d asserted that she wouldn’t, if it had belonged to Dahlia.

“It smells like the water from home.”

She sniffed the air. It just smelled like air. What did—

“Open the door! Open the door, oh god, please, open it, open the door!”

This time Dahlia did move. She sprung up from the bed, dashing over to the door and throwing it open. She whirled back to Quinn, concerned, frightful.

“Quinn,” she said, almost desperate. “What’s going on? What are you afraid of?”

[Lemons]

The door was slammed open, and the sound made her open her eye. It was open. Thank god it was open.

“Quinn, what’s going on? What are you afraid of?”

She opened her mouth, and for a moment, nothing came out, could come out. It was still in the air around her. It was still there.

"You—you don't—you don't smell it?" Her teeth were chattering again. "L—like...like bitter m—metal and acid?" It was hard for her to breathe, the smell hung so thickly around her. "It's—" She closed her eye again. "It's—" She didn't want to get out of bed, but the room was too small, too small too small and it smelled like—"Like how water tastes at home," she finished with a gasp.

She was getting lightheaded now. Disoriented. More disoriented than she already was. "It's gray there." She didn't know if she meant the water or life. "Mom and—"

She paused. She didn't want to say it. It felt wrong. She was so afraid. So afraid. It felt shameful to feel like this. She didn't know why she was so afraid. Her head was spinning and she went totally slack, opening her eye and staring unseeing at the ceiling. Why was she so afraid? They loved her, didn't they? They loved her, and—and she—she lo—she—she lov—loved—she—she lllll—

Then all at once, it exploded out with a final rush of emotion.

"Mom and Dad said I couldn't go outside because it was dangerous," she bawled, a runaway train now that could only pick up speed, "So I didn't, I stayed inside where they said it was safe, I stayed in my room where nobody could hurt me, but I snuck out and then I met youandImetBescaandthey'regoingtobesomadatme! Don'tsendmebackdon'tsendmebaaaaaaack!!!" By the end of it her words were garbled again as she bent backwards, her sense of time and place completely shattered. She dug her fingernails into her forehead and let tears run out from beneath her palms.

"I'msorrryyy I shouldn't have left I shouldn't have left I'm—"

And then the last of her words melted away, all the energy she had left faded, and she collapsed. She didn't even have enough left to sob. She couldn't do anything but let the tears run.

[Mcmolly]

Dahlia listened to Quinn as she stumbled through her words, stuttered to get her thoughts running, and then failed to keep them controlled as they devolved into pitiful ramblings again. She listened, each word a drop of water in the pot. She thought, and the words simmered, and the pot began to boil.

She stood there for a long time.

“What…” she muttered, and it was all she managed.

Almost in a daze, Dahlia made her way back to the bed. She lowered herself down, legs suddenly weak, stomach suddenly churning and for a moment she tasted acid in her throat, threatening to drag her breakfast up with it.

It was like Quinn was a thousand miles away, but she could still hear her crying silently.

What did they do to you? she wanted to ask, but part of her already had an idea. The pieces were small, but they were many. The water. The doors. The panic. Something terrible had been done to Quinnlash. Not once, not twice, but every day of her life. Every day. Her mom and dad…

It's gray there.

“You—” she started again, and then swallowed the rising lump in her throat. Laying back helped the nausea, so she settled down beside Quinn, stared up at the ceiling. “You’re not in trouble, Quinn. You…you were never in trouble, and you never have to say sorry for any of that stuff again. Not to me, not to Besca, not to anyone.”

She felt a grimace twist her face up. Anger did the same to her insides. “And if your parents have a problem with that, they can write a letter, and you and I can shoot it out the airlock,” she said, and looked over at Quinn, face still buried in her hands. “I'm not gonna let anyone lock you away. Ever. Never again. Do you hear me, Quinn? Never. Again.”

[Mcmolly]

Sleep came to her softly, like turning her head from one side of the pillow to the next. One moment Quinn was shuddering, palms ground into her eyes, so tired, and the next—

Morning rose over the lake. Black waves lapped gently at the boat’s sides, rocking it just slightly enough to be soothing. Dawn warmed the cliffs, yellows and oranges chased deep blues from the sky. Birdsong. The distinct feeling that, far away on the shore, there were people talking.

The moon’s reflection painted the water.

Quinn lay on a spread of towels, it took a few blinks for the world to come into focus for her. To one side was a cooler, open and stuffed full with bottles and cans and pouches of melonberry juice. A sweet memory ghosted across her tongue, gone in an instant. On the other side, the fishing poles stood in their loops, strings drawn in. Their hooks were gone, replaced with dull weights upon which the bait could rest and be nibbled without fear of injury.

In the distance there was splashing. Laughter. Two silhouettes swam a short distance away, splashing at one another, racing out to a buoy some ways away. Further, on the shores of a forest along the lake’s rim, something moved. White fur and bone, gone into the thicket.

Quinnlash

She wasn’t alone, and she could feel the moment that became true, like a cold breeze through the warmth of the morning. Behind her, sitting on the railing was a small figure, and as the shadows slipped from it rinsed dirt, and it turned to her she saw—

Herself.

Quinnlash, as she had appeared the last time. Ten or eleven, eyes black rather than shining yellow. Her face still bore the thin lines of blood from her head, where the glinting, modium horns which had sprouted from her hair had grown ever so slightly. Perhaps an inch or two taller, they caught the light much clearer, and at their tips they seemed to be starting to split.

She still looked almost bored. Her feet kicked absently overboard.

“Hello, again.”

[Lemons]

This dream was different than the last few. It made...

It made more sense, somehow. At least a little. She couldn't explain why.

The little her spoke with the voice. She felt herself quaking, backing away, pushing herself back from whatever was happening here. The image of the lake suddenly grew thin and dull, like a huge sheet of printed paper. No, no, n—

No.

Stop it.

She knew, sure as sure, that if she pulled away, she would wake up. She would wake up, and horrible things would happen to her. And then she would go to sleep again, and she would dream, and it would all just go back and forth and back and forth.

So she didn't. She stopped, and looked at this little Quinnlash, really looked, for the first time. It didn't look angry, it didn't look like it wanted to hurt her. She remembered the sudden screaming panic in the cockpit. That feeling that things weren't right all of a sudden, when every other part of her wanted to fall into that feeling of strength forever. To sink.

Her waking body felt ten million miles away, and so did all of its worries. When she spoke, her voice resonated strangely, bouncing and echoing off of walls that weren't there and coming back to her ears long after it should have, like the air it was traveling through was thick and sticky.

You saved me, didn't you?

And then, Who are you?

[Mcmolly]

Quinnlash stopped kicking. She tilted her head at Quinn, mouth pulled into a little bunch like she didn’t understand her words. Or she was thinking them over. It must have been the latter because eventually she did answer.

“I just talked. It was wise to listen.”

She looked back out at the water, took a long deep breath that she never seemed to let go, but still managed to speak as easily anyway. “I like this one. It’s nice. Warm.”

Hopping down off the railing, she made her way over to Quinn. Her steps were light, bouncing; they left little black footprints behind like she’d stepped in ink, but they faded away before each next step.

“It isn’t perfect. I don’t think the moon’s supposed to be there, but the water’s meant to be black, isn’t it? I always thought so. Prettier, this way, anyway.” She came up before Quinn, looking up at her with wide, colorless eyes. She pointed to the cliffs in the distance. “I left the house out.”

Sure enough, following her finger Quinn could see the Loughvein house was gone.

“Doesn’t belong here. Rotten place, full of rotten people. Hated it. What they did to us. What they took away. Take, take, take. They’re takers. Just like the monsters, Quinnlash.”

She spun around on her heel, marching off to the back of the boat. “No takers, here. Only good people. Friends. We deserve friends, Quinnlash.” Out in the water, the shadowed figures of Dahlia and Safie continued their race to the buoy. “Don’t we deserve friends?”

[Lemons]

Yes, she ached to say. Yes, give this back to me, I want to learn to swim, I want to go swimming with Safie, I want to be on this warm lake forever and ever. We deserve—

She cut herself off. Stopped again. Tilted her head at her little self. The moon reflecting off the ink-water gave everything an ethereal sheen, and it all felt so unreal already. But still...we?

Did it matter? She wanted to jump into the water. She wanted Safie to be there, and catch her, and laugh. But Safie—her heart hurt. She didn't want to say it, didn't want to think it—

Safie wasn't there. Safie was dead.

The corner of her lip curled up the echo of a snarl. Enough, she said, more forceful than she'd meant to be.

Exhaling heavily—though she didn't know if she needed to—she stared out at the phantoms of Deelie and Safie as they touched the buoy and began to race back. She heard them laughing all the way from the boat. Ache. Ache. She wanted this so badly.

Then quiet, calm, Enough.

You didn't answer my second question.

The faintest note of pleading entered her voice as she looked back at herself. She couldn't bear to look at the scene in front of her any longer. Please. Who are you? Who—who are—who are we?

[Mcmolly]

Enough.

There was a flicker in her vision, like a half-blink, and everything stuttered. Out on the lake, Dahlia and Safie were swimming out again, away from the boat, back towards the buoy. The moon’s reflection seemed like it was under the surface.

Quinnlash frowned. She reached up, gingerly touched one of the horns on her head.

“We…?” she asked, turning back towards Quinn. Her frown vanished, replaced with a tight smile. She giggled, and though it was Quinn’s voice, it was someone else laughing with it. “We’re Quinnlash! Silly. So silly. But that’s better than scared, isn’t it? Feels better. Feels stronger.”

She drew closer again, and the wind and waves shifted to follow her. “Those monsters. So big, so scary, taking from us, turning us into them. But we’re stronger, we’re better, and they know it. I changed that one. The beast from the lake. Changed it to be like us instead. It thinks it can take everything—our friends, our home, our eye—well I took its eye. Stupid thing. Vermin. Worm.”

Quinnlash moved past her, to front, up onto the bow. She stared out at Hovvi, and her hands closed into tiny fists. Quinn’s vision faltered again, flickered. For the briefest of moments the sky was black and the town was fire and ruin and screaming so small and far away but so terrified. And there above it all stood the monster from the lake, a single red eye staring out at them.

Then it was all normal again.

“We’re awake now, Quinnlash,” she said. “So long in the dark. Alone. Locked away. Doors and doors and doors. But now we’re awake, and we’re free, and I’m going to hurt them all. We’re going to teach the monsters to be afraid.”

The wind began to whip up around them. The waves grew choppier, the boat rocked violently but Quinnlash was unmoved. The shadows of Dahlia and Safie were gone, their laughter vanished, and in its place was a sunken groaning, loud and massive. In an explosion of water and steam and vicious roaring, a hand burst up from the lake, black as pitch and streaked with gray metal. It slammed down onto the forested shore. The earth cracked beneath its palm.

And then Quinn was thrust awake.

[Lemons]

When she awoke, she was screaming.

Again.

Her dream played in perfect detail through her head, feeling less like a dream and more like a memory.

It thinks it can take everything—our friends, our home, our eye—well I took its eye.

Thoughts whirled through her head like a blizzard. What did it mean? Took—it took her eye? The Savior. H—her Savior. Took her eye? No. That didn't make any sense. It had popped because she looked outside—

...But that made even less sense, didn't it?

Doesn’t belong here. Rotten place, full of rotten people.

All these thoughts passed through her head in the time it took her eye to fully open. No. Something was wrong. Something was wrong. This wasn't right. She needed to—needed to—NEEDED TO—

The blizzard turned to flame.

Her hand flew up to her eyepatch, slamming against her face. Then heedless of anything, she bolted from her bed in a blind panic, stumbled, bashed into the wall, wobbled, bolted again and this time made it through the door.

No. No. No. It couldn't be—it couldn't—

—well I took its eye.

What did it mean? She'd seen with both eyes yesterday. It still had two, right? Right? It thinks it can take everything—our friends, our home, our eye—

Turning us into them.

It needed both eyes. It NEEDED to still have both eyes.

She skidded on the floor, barely stayed upright, then slammed through the ajar door to Besca's room and collided with her wall too, not far from the bed. Pain bloomed in her shoulder where it had made contact, but it paled against the fire in her head. No. No no no. It HAD to be a lie, it had to IT HAD TO BE IT HAD TO BE—

"THE EYES!" She shrieked, pressing the ball of her hand her empty space where her own used to be. Hard. With her other hand she tore at her right arm, carving shallow scratches there just like she had done in the Savior yesterday. Drops of blood welled up along the torn skin. Her mind was burning. It needed to still have its eyes. It needed to. IT NEEDED TO!

"ITS EYES! TELL ME IT STILL HAS BOTH EYES!"

[Mcmolly]

“I told you, I appreciate the position you’re in, Minister Toussaint. Losing a national idol isn’t easy.”

“Losing Abroix isn’t the problem, miss Darroh. Losing him with ministerial reviews so close is tantamount to murdering my career.”

Besca took the phone away to breathe, and swallow down the urge to scream at the man on the other end. “If you’re looking for a murder charge, Jaime, that’s all well and good. But you’ve got the wrong subject. Maybe take another look at the evidence I sent you, and then you tell me who should be on the block for what happened in Hovvi?”

“He ran. From a situation you failed to prepare him for.”

“Killing civilians, RISC personnel, and pilot, she hissed. “You think Abroix’s death is killing your career? What do you think happens if that footage goes public? My predecessor ordered it seized, not me—I’m under no obligation to hold it, and frankly, if I don’t, you can expect the Runan people to be demanding repayment from Casoban.”

There was silence, and if anger weren’t burgeoning within her, she might have let herself feel smug. Eventually Toussaint spoke again, his voice thin and frustrated.

“Your predecessor,” he said. “Understood the nature of our relationship. He understood how tenuous the ties between our countries are grown.”

“What? What do you mean ‘tenuous’?

“I mean that Westwel was fifteen years ago, commander. The sentiment of international unity between us is beginning to wear. Eusero has been pushing for partnership for years, and while miss St. Senn’s abilities have been keeping our support exclusive, more and more the common citizen is starting to wonder what an affluent nation like Eusero could do for them. Our Savior programs being so interlinked will prevent that, but what do you think happens if I’m replaced with someone who doesn’t value our relationship?

“So go ahead, commander Darroh, release the footage. When the dwindling love between our people turns to fury overnight, see where that leaves you.”

It was Besca’s turn to be silent, and Toussaint gave her the same courtesy to let her find her bearings. It took some time.

“We can’t repay you for Magnifique. We’re crippled, we just can’t.”

“I’m very sorry to hear that.”

“So you need to think of something else.”

A pause, then. “I’m sorry?”

“Think of something else,” she said. “Something else we can do to reaffirm things.”

There was a shout in the next room—Quinn? It was. She was starting to learn to recognize the sound of her screams.

“Well what in the world would you suggest?”

“I don’t—uhm, what? It’s your fucking country, Toussaint, figure it out.”

A thud, heavy, frantic footsteps. Her door flew open and Quinn came barreling in, so fast she carried on right past her and into the wall.

“Quinn!”

“Quinn? Commander, who—”

“THE EYES!”

“What was that?”

Quinn was positively frenzied. There was wrought madness in her eye, and blood on her—she was bleeding. She was clawing herself like a panicked animal.

Besca cut the call and tossed the phone aside, scrambling over and pulling Quinn’s hand away from her arm. “Quinn! Quinn stop! What are you talking about? What eyes?”

Dahlia appeared in the doorway, worry all over her face.

“Towels! Get paper towels and—just grab the first aid kit!”

Dutifully, the older girl ran off. Besca turned back to Quinn, still holding her firmly, desperately trying to calm her down. Eyes? What eyes?

[Lemons]

Even as Besca held on, Quinn strained fruitlessly against her. Still in the throes of a hysterical breakdown, she fixed Besca with a wild, unblinking eye.

In between screams—“IT NEEDS TO HAVE BOTH EYES!”—almost inhuman noises, strangled guttural things, burst from her throat, and her hands curled into twitching claws. She tore the right from her forehead, leaving a furrow above her brow as she clutched at Besca's arm. She caught the shoulder of her shirt instead, and wrapped her hand into it so tightly that stitches started to snap and pop. “IT NEEDS TO!”

Time ran together like ink into water and lost its cohesion. She didn't know how long she was there pinned against Besca, one hand gripping her shirt like a vise and the other held around the wrist and twisted into warped talons. It could have been hours; it could have been just a minute, or even less.

The she heard footsteps and Dahlia's voice. Recognized the concern and borderline fear in Besca's eyes. The taste of iron spilled into her mouth as she bit the inside of her cheek. And all at once, the crazed energy drained from her like water from a glass. Her body remembered how exhausted it was, and she sagged like a puppet with its strings cut, falling back into the wall. The only thing that kept her upright was her arm, still caught in Besca's shirt.

But even then—even with all the fire out of her head and all the cuts on her arm and forehead starting to hurt—her eye still stared sightless, and the only thing she could do was to keep coughing out “Please, please, the eyes, does it have eyes?"

[Mcmolly]

Quinn went limp, falling back against the wall but for the grip she had on Besca’s shirt. Besca caught her, lowered her to the floor as gently as she could and didn’t let her go. She was dumbstruck, which, considering how utterly wrecked this girl had been since she’d woken up, was a statement in and of itself. Eyes, eyes, what eyes?

“Quinn,” she said, softening her own voice as Quinn’s withered to a wheeze. “Whatever you saw, it was nothing, it was a dream. You’re awake now, breathe. Breathe.”

Dahlia returned, roll of towels and small red bag in hand. She knelt down beside them, handed Besca a few swabs and a bottle of strong-smelling liquid, then took Quinn’s hand in hers. “You’re okay, you’re okay. Relax. Talk to us.”

Besca wet the cotton swabs on the bottle, dabbed them lightly on Quinn’s arm, over the shallow gashes. Nothing too deep, thank god, but a whole hand’s worth of nail-work to worry about. It would sting slightly, but she wasn’t sure Quinn would even notice in her state. Blood stained her lip as well—she must have bitten her tongue, or her cheek.

What in the world was this?

“What eyes, Quinn? she asked, low, sincere. “What needs to have its eyes?”

[Lemons]

"Whatever you saw, it was nothing, it was a dream. You're awake now, breathe. Breathe."

She breathed.

"You're okay, you're okay. Relax. Talk to us."

She breathed again. Then a third time.

Finally, finally, Quinn's senses dripped back into her head and she seemed to realize where she was. The hand knotted in Besca's shirt loosened then released its grip, falling to the floor with a limp thud. Conversely, she squeezed Dahlia's hand like it would vanish if she let it slide away. Her gaze slid down to her arm and she stared at the red lines as Besca dabbed them.

She'd done it to herself, she knew. The fingernails of the hand clenched around Dahlia's hand were testament to that. She could feel the fragments of skin underneath them, knew they were stained red. But it felt so far away, so...irrelevant to everything. Her head felt like there was a thick layer of fog in it, and she struggled to string thoughts together.

"What eyes, Quinn? What needs to have its eyes?"

A fraction of the fog lifted. She remembered how to talk.

"Savior," she croaked out, voice as shredded and torn as her arm. “Th' Savior. Tell me 's got both eyes. Pleeeease." A long, low moan as her head lolled on her neck, lips parting as she faced the ceiling. "Don' wanna be them. Tell me 's not true."

[Mcmolly]

Quinn’s hands fell away, and Besca took the opportunity to continue cleaning her up. The scratches staunched easy enough, and she wiped her fingers clean with the towels. She dabbed her lips; the girl was slurring like a drunk, but it didn’t look like she’d chewed through her tongue, and not deep enough into her cheek that she couldn’t speak.

Dahlia kept a hold of her hand, brushing fingers through her hair, checking where she’d clutched at her forehead. No blood there, thankfully.

“Th' Savior. Tell me 's got both eyes. Pleeeease.”

Besca shivered. So she had noticed it after all; it had happened during the phasing. God, but if she’d felt that she would have been shrieking through the comms, wouldn’t she? She’d had pilots go numb, ignore the pain, but for someone like her? It didn’t make sense. It didn’t make any sense.

“Don' wanna be them. Tell me 's not true.”

Now what did that mean? Besca watched Quinn’s head roll back, watched her mumble nonsense into the air. Something was broken in this girl, and while she was no longer sure that break had happened during the invasions, it had certainly been irreparably worsened there.

Quinn was not a pilot. She couldn’t be. Besca was absolutely certain of that now more than she’d ever been before—a bar so high Aerie Station couldn’t have cleared it. Her mind was gone, and if she was ever going to get it back, it wouldn’t be in the cold dark of a cockpit. There was no way she could go back there. No way Besca would let her.

God, but she couldn’t make that promise.

She’d seen the readings. The times. She was fast—very fast. Off the top of her head, she could think of two, maybe three pilots in the world who could match or pass the speed she’d phased in that test, and one of them was sitting right next to them. RISC wouldn’t let that go. They didn’t see how unfit she was, they saw her numbers, they saw statistics. They saw a buoy in the storm of the Hovvi disaster, and they were going to latch on.

“Your Savior…” she said, thinking it over. “It, uh…it did lose one of its eyes during the test.”

And it wasn’t regenerating.

But she didn’t say that. It wouldn’t help, and she was being paranoid. Head wounds always healed slower, and the process wasn’t always uniform. Sure, normally they’d have seen some sort of mending in the socket, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t going to happen.

It had lost an eye. That didn’t mean anything. It didn’t.