Lemons

Amygdala Circuit

Quinn was quiet for a long time as she looked into Doctor Follen's gentle eyes. Her own eye betrayed the storm inside her, mind churning and grinding like a broken machine, filling up with sparks and smoke.

Things being the way they are, 'just because', is the logic of storms and monsters.

To define yourself by what has happened to you is cruel and unfair.

She opened her mouth, trying to find something to say. She couldn't; the smoke was just too thick. She closed it again. She knew he was wrong. She knew he was wrong so deep in her gut. But she just...couldn't find a way to explain or justify it. A distant and buried region of her mind clogged with smoke and sparks knew that meant something, but the rest of her overwhelmed it, crushing that part of her beneath an avalanche of renewed guilt.

We are not monsters, and we are not guilty. Decide for yourself what you are. Be what you do.

The smoke cleared, just a little. The sparks spat out the smallest bit less furiously, and that distant, muffled piece of her whispered into her ear as though from a great distance: be what you do.

And then again, still just that frail whisper, but persistent, insistent. Drag light into the future, no matter how dark. Set the night ablaze.

She took in a slow, shuddering breath, completely oblivious to the fact that tears were starting to creep down her cheek as her brain collided with itself. She knew she was at fault. That feeling of being at fault—that knowledge that she was at fault—crashed into that idea that what had been done to her and to Hovvi didn't reflect on her, but on the Modir that were hunting her. It seemed so easy. If she thought of it logically, she knew it was true. But still, that guilt bit into her ankles and dragged her down into the muck.

She suddenly realized she was crying almost dazedly—when had that started?—and as she sat up straight, or at least straighter, she swiped an arm across her eye. The crushing despair loosened. But...it still hung over her. Not as lethally, but more than enough to keep the weight pressing down. Like a wire around her neck that was still choking her, even if she could breathe now.

"I'm being stupid, aren't I," she mumbled through the lump in her throat. "I'm sorry...I'll—I'll try harder."

Amygdala Circuit

The long period of silence shook Quinn.

His smile had gone. He'd stopped talking. He'd shut the door. She was getting really nervous now. Nervous that she'd done something wrong. That she'd given him the wrong answer. Her heart began to race as he walked over to her and sat down just next to her. Her eye was wide and scared.

And then he'd started to speak.

She'd never really heard much about Westwel. Besca had talked about it a little every now and then, but it was obvious that she didn't ever really want to. That it hurt her to talk about it. And the last thing Quinn wanted to do was make Besca upset.

It was awful. Horrible. So terrible she almost forgot to breathe. Nineteen million people. It was no wonder Doctor Follen had taken some time to work up to it. It no doubt hurt him just as much as it did Besca; he was just better at covering it up, wasn't he?

But it was fitting he'd mentioned a lightning bolt. Because the final question he'd asked..."The Modir attacked you. Why do you believe that is your fault, and not theirs?"...it hit her like that selfsame bolt.

"Because I—"

She paused. Thinking over the question. Why? Why? Why did she believe it was her fault? Well, because...because...because it just was. Her face was drawn and pale by the time she spoke again. "...They...they were only there for me. If I hadn't..." She trailed off again, voice miserable. Why? Why? Why?

"If I..."

She dropped her head into her hands, muffling her voice. "I don't know," she finally said, almost as though it had been dragged out of her. "I don't know why it's my fault. It just..." She grappled desperately against herself and the guilt that infested her, trying to force herself to understand what Doctor Follen was talking about, what revelation he'd found after the fall of Westwel.

And, evidently, not succeeding very well at it.

"...It just..."

But still, she was...shaken. Why hadn't she blamed the Modir? She didn't understand. Shouldn't they have been the first on the chopping block?

But they weren't. Ablaze wasn't. The swordsman wasn't. Because she knew deep down—deadly certain, as sure as she'd ever been about anything, that the one to blame was her. Maybe the Modir had done the damage, it was true. That, at least, wasn't her doing. But if she hadn't been there, they wouldn't have either. And Modir that weren't there didn't destroy a town and kill all of its inhabitants.

She took her hands from her face, but refused to meet Doctor Follen's eyes in favor of staring shamefaced at the ground, wishing she had a better answer.

"...It just...is."

Amygdala Circuit

Of course Doctor Follen would know that she wasn't being forthcoming. Even if she didn't wear her heart on her face, he always seemed to figure it out. Sometimes it hurt, because he knew how to get to what she was trying to avoid. But there was a kind of happiness that came with unburdening herself to him, even if saying what it was made her feel awful. And...she really did have a lot to talk about. It was just hard.

"W—well," she began haltingly, nearly forcing herself to go past an almost inaudible murmur. She knew that Doctor Follen wouldn't blame her, just like Dahlia and Besca hadn't. And even though she'd told them, it was still burning a hole through her and she didn't quite know why.

"When the swordsman Modir had the sword in the ground next to me, I—he—it—" She was stuttering now, struggling to get the words out. A part of her thought that he wouldn't believe her. That he'd call her crazy. She was half convinced that she was.

Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Doctor Follen would never do that. He'd never hurt her so deeply, she knew with the utmost conviction. If there was anyone she could tell outside of her family, it was him. Another deep breath. And finally, the inevitable third.

"...It s-spoke. To m—me.

"And—and you can ask Besca too!" She sounded almost frantic now. Despite everything, that feeling that he wouldn't believe her was still there. It still clung to her. And it just made it all that much more worse. "it joined the comms! She heard it too! You have to believe me!"

A moment passed. That sudden energy deserted her, and she pulled her legs up onto the chair, just like before. This would be the hard part. The really hard part. It was like picking at a scab. It wasn't that bad to start, but it would just hurt more and more, and once it was done it would bleed for who knows how much longer.

"It...it knew my name, Doctor Follen. It called me by name."

One final deep, deep breath. And then the scab came off.

"It said it—it was h—hunting me. That it had found me there. And that...that it had..." Her voice dropped to a whisper in earnest, hoarse and grating though it was. "That it had found me in Runa." She started shaking violently, more than usual, as the guilt tore back through her. "...It was at...at Hovvi." Her heart turned to lead in her chest and she squeezed her eye shut. Her voice steadily escalated, eventually building up to a pale imitation of a yell:

"It's my fault, Doctor Follen. It's all my fault. They all died because of me. Just because I was there! It's all my fault!"

Amygdala Circuit

Entering Doctor Follen's office was like stepping into a warm shower after a long, sore day, and Quinn immediately felt more at ease. The walk over was...weird. Being looked at like that was still so strange; she wasn't used to having any kind of notoriety. Of course, she was a pilot, but being nodded at by hangar staff occasionally was a whole different ballgame from what it was like now.

Closing the door (almost) and settling down in the seat, she found herself in a strange predicament. One that she'd been in only a handful of times that she could remember. She was tongue-tied with Doctor Follen. The question that she wanted to ask was stuck in her throat, and though she tried to force it out, the harder she tried the less inclined it seemed to be to emerge.

So instead she diverted her attention with one of the other things that had been bothering her. Deeply. Yesterday had been a whirlwind. She hadn't had time to think at all after being released, so she hadn't had time to thing of bad things. But now that things weren't so frantic, the guilt was beginning to seep back. So, she just needed to take it one guilt at a time. One that she'd only just remembered when she was already entering medical.

A part of her was aware that she was just diverting herself away from the real things that were bothering her, but still. This did merit being said. And besides, the silence was growing too long, and Quinn had never been great at hiding how she was feeling. Her face had already twisted the same way it always did when she was thinking about something really unpleasant.

"...I'm sorry I didn't do the dream journal." A deep, shaky breath followed. "Things got really busy and I just...forgot about it. I'll start one after today, I promise."

Amygdala Circuit

Love you too," she echoed as Dahlia left for sims. She was left alone in the dorms. As always, being suddenly alone came with a sudden spike of anxiety, though she'd learned how to manage it by now. Breathe in, breathe out, just like Besca had taught her. It always helped. So letting that anxiety fade away, she rested her elbows on the table and placed her cheeks in her cupped hands, trying and failing to figure out what was going to happen before it did.

"...These requests are expected to hit the desk of the RISC’s Board of Directors together later this evening..."

And just like that, the anxiety came screaming back.

Quinn wasn't an expert on international law. Her only education therein thus far had been a brief crash course on Casobani and Helburkan pilot culture in advance of the duel. But if Roaki were arrested and taken to Helburke for murdering five people...she didn't need a college degree to know what the punishment would be. And if the CSC got ahold of Roaki, well, there was certainly no lost love between her and Casoban. She'd just end up in Helburke in the end anyway. Eusero would use her as a bargaining chip and get her there too, if a little bit later. Just about the only safe place left for her was RISC.

And that was the problem, wasn't it? Quinn felt a sudden knife stab down through her chest. She'd thoughts that she'd been taking a risk just taking Roaki out of holding, and had been worried what the Board would do to the people she cared about as a consequence. But the stakes had suddenly become so much higher.

What would they do in the face of an international incident?

She stood so abruptly that she knocked over her chair and it clattered to the ground behind her as she started pacing.

What should she do?

What could she do?

She didn't want to fail Roaki. She wanted so desperately not to. The girl's haunted eyes from yesterday, her stammering speech, the horror that had visibly shot through her as soon as Quinn had touched her hand and her resignation towards death, they all played back in her head. If she let her go back to Helburke and be killed, she knew right away that she would never be able to forgive herself. The wound would remain within her for the rest of her life. She couldn't, she just couldn't.

But it was becoming increasingly obvious to her how little choice she had in the matter. Her pacing slowed. She stared at the floor. Some hero she was turning out to be. Besca wouldn't be disappointed in her, would she?

She jumped as her reminder alarm rang. Ah. That was right. She had to have her weekly evaluation with Doctor Follen in the next few days, since a few days of the week had been lost from the whole proceedings of the duel. It was almost funny to her, what with all the examining that he'd been doing of her in the past few days. She'd gotten out of the ward just yesterday, after all. But she'd already deferred the last one from her frantic training, and the absolute last thing she wanted to do today was to make the Board angrier by blowing off the schedule that they set for her.

But she didn't mind, and she didn't want to miss it anyway. Doctor Follen was super smart. He would come up with something, maybe. And...he was important, wasn't he? Had some pull with the Board? Maybe he could talk to them somehow.

She didn't know, but it was worth a shot, right?

So mind made up, she picked up that chair, slid on her shoes, turned off the TV, and started off to medical.

...Again.

Amygdala Circuit

Quinn pulled her feet up onto her chair, wrapped her arms around her knees, and held them tight, making eye contact with her sister briefly before looking away. Even though the stove behind her was still warm from Dahlia's cooking, she suddenly felt cold, and she found herself shivering. It was a hard thing to feel, that frigid wind. It reminded her still of her first few days here, a blur of panic and screaming and tears and she felt her breath hitch before she quickly shut it down.

But she was quickly knocked out of her reverie by Dahlia being...well, correct. But that just made sense, if she thought about it for more than a split second. Of course Dahlia would know what Quinn thinking, 'cuz Dahlia was the best. They'd spent so much time together that they were—well, that wasn't quite true. Dahlia was starting to read Quinn. Quinn, on the other hand, wasn't able to quite put together how other people thought in general. Not yet. But if she was close to doing so with anyone, it was definitely Dahlia, beyond a shadow of a doubt.

She looked up at the ceiling, and her brow furrowed. "...Yeah. I don't think they'll do anything to us, I'm important now and you already were." She sounded almost dazed, still. The idea of her being important on the world stage would take some getting used to. She swallowed. "But what about Besca, or Doctor Follen? What about Roaki?" She sighed, long and deep, and a feeling of fear and anger that she was quite familiar with by now welled up within her.

"I'm just afraid they'll take something from us that we can't get back."

Amygdala Circuit

Quinn watched the TV for a moment more before shaking her head vigorously to both chase the cobwebs that lingered from sleep out and divert her attention. Instead she turned and plonked herself down in the chair closest to the oven and stove, which she had steadily begun to consider hers and where Dahlia had put her food. Which, she reflected as she ate, was just tasty as usual. Dahlia had learned how Quinn liked her eggs roundabout the same time as Quinn had herself, and it had rapidly become one of her favorite foods.

The main drawback to her post next to the range, however—well, not usually, but right now, certainly—was that she could see the TV just as clearly as before. The scene that was playing now was one that she knew, if she could still had nightmares, would appear in them: the swordsman impaling Blotklau, her own Savior roaring bloody murder as she dashed towards the two of them.

A shiver passed through her body as Dahlia mentioned the Board. Anxiety was still burning deep within her, lighting a fire and setting her stomach to boiling. How they would react to her blatant disregard for their rules last night was a thought that she'd gone to sleep with, and it hadn't disappeared with the morning.

She delicately placed the fork down on the plate, looking down blankly at the half-eaten toast and eggs (she'd eaten the orange first, because she loved them).

Deep breath. One, then two, then three. If she'd learned one thing yesterday, it was that she could tell Dahlia anything, no matter how trite or awful, and be taken seriously, answered with honesty and compassion.

"...Have you ever broken the Board's rules, Deelie?"

Amygdala Circuit

The first thing Quinn did after her eyes cracked open was yawn. Cavernously.

The second thing she did was stretch, grunting quietly in satisfaction as her joints made pleasant popping sounds.

The second thing she did was frown, still a little muddled from sleep. The TV? Why was the TV saying her name?

Throwing on a gray t-shirt and the same black sweats she'd worn for her phasing test (she'd grown quite attached to them by now, given that they ranked among the first things to really belong to her), she padded over to the door and pushed it open. It was getting easier and easier every day. And her focus was elsewhere anyway.

What??

She was on TV.

And not just her Savior. Her, leaning tiredly against Ablaze's neck. A memory of the exhaustion she'd felt at that moment echoed through her and she flinched. Then it cut to a clip of her backpedaling frantically away from Blotklau as ichor sprayed from countless wounds. The newscaster was saying something about potential hostilities and certain political tension between Runa and Helburke, and she stared for a moment longer, horribly fascinated at seeing her Savior moving in third person. Even now, it still gave her chills.

She turned her head then to Dahlia, cocking her head with an expression of vague worry on her face.

"Why am I on TV, Deelie? It's been days, right?" She looked back at the news. There she was again, making that...surprisingly graceful, now that she looked at it...roll as her cannon blazed. "Is this normal?"

Amygdala Circuit

"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."

Amygdala Circuit

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?"