Lemons

Arknights: 5S

I still gotta work on getting some NPCs written up, but I need to spend my sanity Reed Alter in the event, so there might be a delay.

@Stern Algorithm

Well that's because our Loughshinny is fuckin worth it.

Amygdala Circuit

Quinn's heartbeat, so recently slowed, roared back to life again. One singularity. Two singularities. Three, four, five. And then...Besca spoke over the comms. A piece of Quinn had known what she was going to say before she said it, had known it'd happen before the loudspeaker had crackled. Speaking objectively, it was like a gift from above; if she'd learned anything political from her brief career as a pilot, she knew that this was the perfect way of extending the olive branch and mending relations with Casoban.

All that being said, though, whenever she thought of fighting a modir again--after the disastrous outcome of the duel--she could feel fear and anxiety and any number of other things tearing into her, pulling at her skin, dragging her down and trying to stop her from moving forwards. Moving anywhere. But...but...

There was something else there too.

From deep down within her, a brilliant warmth burned upwards, chasing out the shadows of doubt with...she frowned distractedly, trying to figure out which emotion it--

Joy. It was joy, and a hot and wild anticipation that nearly stole her breath away. She could almost hear the voice resonating out from inside:

This is what we were made to do.

It ripped through her like fire, purging the cloying odor of fear that clung to her and setting her veins alight. And standing there for just a brief moment after Tillie flickered away, she felt her mouth spread in a wide, fierce smile.

These were monsters.

A loud clanging noise of machinery from below, and the spell was broken. Blood still running hot, she whipped around, dashing to the lift and hammering the button, even after it had already started to descend. She hadn't come within ten feet of the ground when she leapt, barely touching the ground before she skidded off again towards the lockers, making it there a few moments after Dahlia. Her breath hissed through her tight teeth, and she near ripped her clothing, taking it off so quickly. It wasn't more than thirty seconds before she was running back up the hallway, this time sweating through the heat suit as she went. She spared a terse "good luck" at her sister before she split off again, back towards Ablaze.

The lift had never taken so long on the trip up.

She trusted that Tillie had done her job, and flung herself into the skullport, barely sparing even the vaguest through at the door as she slammed it closed and hopped into her seat like she'd done it a million times. She closed her eye, and took a deep breath.

This...is what at we were born to do.

Amygdala Circuit

Quinn leaned lopsided against the railing as Tillie shucked off the antimodium suit. Her heart was still hammering, and showed no real sign of stopping. She'd sprinted across the hangar, of course; that was a given. And at the time, she had been desperately afraid for Tillie. But up here--she didn't know why, she didn't know if it was her or Quinnlash--but she felt like something awful was going to happen. And the faint, vague whiff of modium in the air didn't exactly help matters any.

Ah. Tillie was done taking off the suit, and flung it off into a chair. Then with an astonished smile on her face, she zipped in and scooped Quinn up.

For just a brief moment as her arms engulfed Quinn--the space between pounding heartbeats, the silence between harsh and jagged breaths--everything was right with the world. That feeling of impending good fell away, and the smell faded into obscurity. For that moment, that precious, beautiful moment, there was nothing else in the world but Quinn and Tillie. She squeezed tight, a part of her knowing that the hug would end soon, and that she'd need to face the rest of the world again afterwards. But for that terrifyingly long instant, she felt...

Safe.

Then Tillie let go and stepped away, and the world came rushing back in. She let out a vague half-vocalization of frustration that it had ended, but she was much calmer now. Hugs seemed to have a way of calming her down no matter what the situation, she thought. So it was with a lighter heart that she looked at Tillie again, though she was still shaking a little bit, and gave her a trembling smile as she stammered back into motion.

"You can--anytime--you can hug me--" Her mouth clamped shut on her stuttering and she cringed internally in embarrassment before she tried again:

"Thank you."

Arknights: 5S

Aww hell yeah! Can't wait to bounce Ash Girl off someone!

Amygdala Circuit

Quinn had learned a few things about the way that she responded to fear and stress while on the Aerie, and she'd started to catalogue what went where so she would know what was going on and what felt like what. After all, she still didn't have the firmest handle on what her emotions were at any given moment, didn't always know the words for them. It had been a strange life she'd lead up to that point, after all.

So it was with that more practiced eye than before that Quinn recognized the bouquet of unpleasant things she was feeling at the moment. Lethagic, twitchy, and suppressing shivers; the aftermath of panic. She reached out one of those slightly shaking hands as Tillie gushed over the data to her--she didn't get it, but at least Tillie looked excited--and rested it gently against the black hide of the monstrous alien, still staring at the almost hypnotic spreadsheets that Tillie bore. She took a deep breath in; then out.

One was all she got before Tillie jumped, and asked Quinn...well, if she needed anything. The girl in question looked up at the ceiling far above in thought. Did she need anything? Well, the short answer was yes. But did she need anything that Tillie could provide?

A few moments later, she started speaking, a bit hesitant, seeming almost shy. "Well," she scuffed her shoe into the ground, “It's been a really hard week." She seemed almost to shrink in front of Tillia as she asked, "So do you think you could..." She swallowed, suddenly conscious of how ridiculous she must sound and look and yet unable to fully stop herself.

"...Could I have another hug, Tillie?"

Amygdala Circuit

Quinn had rather not expected to knock Tillie completely over with a tackling hug. And since she'd latched on with a grip born of the pure fear of a child, well, she went right along with her. With a bonk of her head to the ground, a sharp “gneh,” and a shot of aggravation from the no-longer-quite-so-alien voice that called out from within her, she came to the clear-headed realization that she'd thrown herself at Tillie in a way that the woman was evidently clearly unused to. She tore her hands away and stumbled backwards, suddenly conscious that her vision was blurring in a way that she was incredibly, intimately familiar with. She blinked hard a few times, trying to squeeze the tears back as Tillie spoke.

Offering to do the same thing again.

Wondering if Quinn wanted to do it.

Quinn had heard of checking the assimilation functions, but she'd never actually seen it done. She supposed that she technically understood that it meant entering the modir, but just hearing that was clearly not even close to preparing her for the reaction that she'd had. The flickering image of Ablaze staring down at her, cannon primed, teeth bared, resurfaced briefly, and she hissed in a sharp and sudden enhalaation.

Her voice was perhaps a few notes shriller than it usually was when she responded after a moment of dead air perhaps slightly longer than it should've been, and there was a note of fear only barely hidden beneath. “No that's okay don't worry about it you did great Tillie!” She sucked in a few deep breaths and did her best to level herself again, to squeeze that fear and worry out. She guessed it was...

...Well, it certainly wasn't a cure all to say the least. But it definitely helped, as the painful squeezing of her heart slowly slackened, and she threw out a smile that she hoped didn't look as forced as it felt. “I think you did a great job!”

Amygdala Circuit

Quinn watched dumbstruck as the orange figure fell out of her Savior's mouth. She agreed a great deal with Quinnlash on that; who, and why? For what possible reason would someone actually volunteer to be eaten? If a single thing went wrong, then they'd've died exceedingly painfully. Or if the cable had broken and she couldn't get out, or...

Wait, were they waving at Quinn?

Mouth hanging open, she watched the figure slip out of sight around the neck brace platform, and she immediately started moving. Not a run, but absolutely a jog. Who would ever do that? It was insane. What if they...

"Quinn!"

Tillie?

In the space between breaths, fear and worry and memory slammed into Quinn like a sledgehammer, stealing her breath away as her eye shot wide. Her vision flashed back for just a moment, to a darker image of the Savior, from a far off night, and a different young woman. Her pace accelerated until she was moving at a run, sprinting full tilt around Ablaze and smacking the lift button as terrible images of Tillie withering away in modium burned behind her eyes. It felt like it took an eternity to rise as her heart pounded in her throat. Please be okay, she found herself screaming in her head. The piece of her that insisted that Tillie was fine, she was on the Aerie and nobody was hurt--was overshadowed and drowned out by the seething anxiety and fear.

By the time she arrived at the brace platform, her breathes were rattling unsteadily out, her whole body was shaking, and her mind was far away and long ago. She met Tillie's eyes then, huge smile on her face, and with barely a stutter in her steps Quinn cannoned into her and clung on for dear life.

"Tillie Tillie are you--are you okay--are you okay--"

Arknights: 5S

Aoife

"Rhodes Island, I'd like to extend the deepest of gratitude to you and request the privilege to join you as an Operator. Wha--? Code name? Um...I guess...Ash Girl will do."

★★★★★★

Operator Profile _______________________________________ Codename: Ash Girl Epithet: The Taran Pariah Real Name: Aoife Eóganachta Age: 21 Class: Guard Branch: Arts Fighter Race: Vouivre Affiliations: Dublinn (formerly) Height: 173 cm Weight: 75 kg Place of Birth: Post-annexation Tara Date of Birth: January 1 Gender: Female Combat Experience: 10 years

Clinical Analysis ______________________________________________________________________ Strength: Excellent Endurance: Excellent Mobility: Standard Arts Adaptability: Outstanding Combat Skill: Excellent Tactical Acumen: Normal Infection Status: Infected Imaging tests show blurry outlines of subject's internal organs, with a high amount of abnormal shadows. Her circulatory system shows an alarming degree of originium granules. It goes without saying that by these criteria, we can determine that the subject is infected at this time. Cell-Originium Assimilation: 28%. Multiple crystal lesions visible on the subject's skin. Blood Originium-Crystal Density: 0.32 u/L. Miss Aoife's condition is extremely aggressive and severe, and her prognosis is poor. Unless measures can be found to more effectively delay the progression of her infection, she likely has less than six months to live, if that.

Character Synopsis:

A former noblewoman and former revolutionary, forced from both of her homes and set adrift.

Personality:

Aoife tends to be a bit quiet most of the time, and when she speaks, she often sounds slightly strained and uncomfortable--almost stilted, sometimes--like she dislikes talking, and so people assume that she wishes to be left alone. Not so, actually; she is quiet and strained because her aggressive oripathy causes her a not-inconsiderable amount of pain on a constant basis. Rather, Aoife tends to be quite personable, if not entirely skilled in social situations, as she hasn't had a surfeit of healthy interactions, and enjoys being around and talking to other people as long as she's not the one doing most of the talking.

Though it's been a long time since her privileged and sheltered upbringing and she barely remembers a single piece of it, it still reflects on her character to this day. Chief among those reflections is how narrow her view of the world can be. She can be closed-minded, and has a tendency to discount things she hears that she doesn't want to. She knows this very well and actively works against it, but it's a trap that is all to easy for her to fall in when she's put under stress. The other major effect is, as mentioned, Aoife can have trouble relating to other people. Spending her very early life in the noblewoman bubble and a huge chunk as a (largely expendable) soldier has limited the people she's been able to open up to, and so she can have difficulties forming genuine friendships.

But despite all of that, Aoife is a good person at heart. Despite how she may look on occasion, she's not selfish, standoffish, willfully ignorant, or egocentric, and joined Rhodes Island as much to fulfil the duties of an Operator and help others as to be treated for her own oripathy. The fact that she's willing to endanger herself by pushing her Arts even when she reasonably shouldn't in the service of her work should be proof enough that she really is trying her best. It can just...be hard to see that sometimes.

Talents	Talent Description
Taran Swordsmanship	Brought up from a young age to be a noblewoman of Tara, Aoife Eóganachta of course learned the former kingdom's traditional style of swordplay from a young age. Though of course it wasn't intended to be actually used, not in the way she uses it now--it was entirely ceremonial to begin with--it has certainly come in handy as she became first a member of Dublinn, and then an Operator of Rhodes Island. The principle reason this is so effective is that she efficiently leverages her rather strange, almost dancelike, style quite effectively. Because most people aren't familiar with the Taran style--it's not extinct, but it's nearly so--it makes her rather unpredictable and hard to read, letting her get the drop on opponents before they're able to adapt.
Pariah's Oath	Aoife has gone through a great deal of pain in her life, whether it be physical or emotional in nature. Even now, her remarkably severe infection causes her not-inconsiderable suffering every minute of the day. There are many times that she's wanted to just...give up. To let it end already, to take the coward's way out, whether that be letting the heritage of Tara die, turning herself in to Victoria, or hurling herself from the landship. But because she hasn't, she's developed an astounding level of willpower, able to push through constant physical pain, emotional torment, and any number of roadblocks. She is going to get to where she's going, and good luck to anybody that tries to stand in her way.
Skills	Skill Description
Winter's Breath	Aoife's arts, channeled through her sword, are of a particularly unique variety. While they generally take the form of ice, they actually involve directly arresting molecular motion. Though it may have the same overall effect most of the time, when trying to freeze objects that are typically coldproof it shows its use in being remarkably good at freezing them anyway. Through spectroscopic measurement techniques, the peak of her freezing power has been measured between 170 and 175 degrees Kelvin (-103C and -98C, respectively).
Bitterwinter Bite	Though obviously the sword is a heavy part of her combat kit, the freezing power that Aoife possesses is used through more than just the sword. Given her powerful infection, she is able to channel her Arts naturally, of course, and is able to do so with a startling degree of intensity. Though they don't have much of a range to them--remember, not actually ice but manipulation on the molecular level which I am to understand gets exponentially more difficult past ten or so feet--within that limited range you are at constant risk of being both slowed to a crawl and frozen solid. Despite this obvious strength, however, subject has been heavily advised against using this more than necessary, as it seems to exacerbate her condition.
One Thousand Shining Teeth	Finally, we come to likely the most dangerous application of her Arts that Aoife can muster--both towards her enemies and towards herself through increased progression of her oripathy. When her life is on the line, though, anything is fair game. Through judicious application of her arts, everything around her is so molecularly strained that it becomes incrediby delicate, even metal and stone. With a sufficiently hard strike, they can shatter into storms of razorlike shards, serving almost like a shotgun; spraying out a surprising level of devastation. All that being said, this is not without further drawbacks. Principally, that she isn't necessarily immunte to the shards, nor does she have exclusive rights on shattering them. Still, if it's leveraged right, it is truly, truly a menace.

Equipment Module

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Claíomh-na-Samhain

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• Claíomh-na-Samhain - The Sword of Samhain: Aoife's bastard sword, forever and always by her side. Reclaimed from the ashes of her family home, this previously ceremonial blade has been turned into both a superb arts conductor and a vicious weapon of war.

Operator Archives

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The Eóganachta clan is a very old Taran family, going back far into when it was a kingdom of its own and nearly passing into myth in their own right. Consequently, even in the new, Victorian Tara, they occupied positions of power and privilege that would be the envy of any native Victorian noble, let alone those Tarans unfortunate enough to not have enormous family fortunes and a huge manor to retreat into. It was into this incredibly privileged upbringing that their youngest daughter of three, Aoife, was born. Her two elder sisters Siobhan and Bronagh had enough years separating them from her that they were less siblings, and more auxiliary parents. And so Aoife grew up coddled and spoilt, doted on by four separate different sources. It was an idyllic childhood, and she didn't spare a thought to look outside of the manor grounds.

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But all that changed when Aoife was more or less seven years old, when a rumor spread among the Tarans--whether true or not, nobody knows to this day--that the Eóganachta clan had sold out to Victoria.

And that was the only match that the powder keg needed to ignite.

In a single, brutally violent night, the entire Eóganachta estate was razed to the ground, and Aoife's parents were both killed, along with Bronagh and Siobhan. Aoife--scared, confused, and unable to understand what was happening--was pulled from the ashes of everything that she knew and thrust into the arms of a disorganized group of Taran malcontents. Perhaps if she'd been a little older, she would've been killed. But...

...Perhaps she also would've been able to hold on to herself a little bit better.

Within the disdainful Tarans, Aoife Eóganachta became...nothing. They refused to even use her name, refused to let her be Aoife Eóganachta. Just...You. Or Vouivre. And other things, of course, until eventually she the name stuck: Ash Girl. But never again Aoife, and certainly never Eóganachta. No name.

Until she forgot it on her own.

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For the next few years, she lived as something like a daughter, and something like a servant. She wasn't quite one, yet wasn't fully the other either. And after a year? Two years? Ash Girl had become her name. She barely remembered even the faintest fragments of her former life, and almost nothing at all of her old home. But still, she was...harmless. And, in turn, in no danger of harm.

But that all came to an end when Ash Girl was eleven years old.

The Taran malcontents--as a whole--were trending to more militant, and more violent. And when she was eleven years old...

Dublinn was born.

It took the Tarans by storm, and Ash Girl with them. She was still a child the first time a sword was shoved into her delicate hands. A scant year of training, and before her thirteenth birthday she was being involved in warfare.

She fought for years, until the sudden catastrophic incident in County Hillock. And it was there that she saw firsthand what Dublinn truly stood for. The blinders were pulled away from her eyes, and she finally saw the horrific biolence and pain caused even to Tarans for what it truly was.

She couldn't be here anymore.

And so Ash Girl ran.

She ran from County Hillock. She ran far, deep into the lands that used to be Tara, back towards where she knew. And eventually, her feet found half-forgotten yet familiar pathways that led her up to a ruin of collapsed, crumbled stone, charred wood, twisted metal and sodden ashes. She stared at it through the lashing rains, and memories began to slowly bubble up to the surface of her mind. as through through molasses. And the first to arrive was a name that she recognize, but felt somehow wrong in Ash Girl's mind.

Aoife Eóganachta had come home.

She couldn't go back to Dublinn. She knew that. Her home--her second home--was gone forever. She shook her head, trying to ignore the shivers that ran through her pale body. And as the rain began to peter off, she slowly, meditatively, began to walk through the ruins.

Every time her eyes played over something even the vaguest bit familiar, new memories began to surface. Memories that she knew belonged to her, but felt like someone else's. She came across her own room at one point, or at least she thought she did; as she stared at the third floor bedroom that had fallen into the first floor, she thought she recognized the shattered remnants of a fireplace and chimney that were piled up inside. She was in a daze as she passed through it all.

Finally, she wound her way into what she remembered now was the living room, and there, where her father once read by the fire, she found the collapsed remnant of the mantle. Almost hypnotized, she acted on a vague impulse and scraped aside the ashes, digging through the refuse of the years until her hand closed around the handle of Claíomh-na-Samhain. A sharp feeling of disorientation blurred through her; she was Ash Girl. But she was Aoife too.

So now...this home was gone, and there was no going back to Dublinn. Not after that. Never again. She thought she might puke.

She did.

But still, the question remained. Where? Where, with this sword on her back, should she go?

Not Victoria, obviously. Maybe Columbia? Yeah, that was...probably the best idea.

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Columbia was nice enough. But it didn't hold her for very long, and nor did anywhere else. Unsteady, unmoored, a self-imposed pariah from her homeland, she became a drifter, roaming hither and thither for the next several years. She took odd jobs; she took mercenary work; she took anything she could find. But Siracusa, Leithanien, Iberia; none of them held her for more than six months.

As she bounced around, she inevitably found herself drawn into conflicts, and struck out against what she perceived as injustice. Whether as Aoife or as Ash Girl, she kept roving, kept moving. Until the summer of year 1105.

She was caught up in a conflict again. She was prepared for many things; her skill with her sword and her tough Vouivre physique had carried her through much. But what she was not prepared for was a grenade of active originium detonating nearly underneath her foot.

The explosion itself didn't do a huge amount of damage. That wasn't the point. The problem were the countless shards of originium that blasted into her, afflicting her with a crushing infection immediately.

And...she didn't know what to do after that.

She never thought she'd be infected. And she wasn't exactly in a place with stellar treatment of the Infected; the south of Ursus was not a great place for her to be. So she just kept trying to do what she'd done before.

But it did not go well.

Even as close to the edge of the plate as she was, she couldn't even make it all the way. And it was then--barely functional, deeply disoriented and dizzy, aching all over from her oripathy--Aoife was discovered and saved from death's door by a woman who called herself "Firewatch." Said something about an organization; Ash Girl wasn't quite in the proper mental state to really figure out what was going on. And right before she passed out, she heard Firewatch talking to someone over a radio.

Next time she woke up--just a month ago now--she was in Rhodes Island's medical bay, and felt better than she had in weeks. It took time for her to mend, and to discover what had happened, and where she was. And soon afterwards, she discovered her Arts. Her very, very powerful freezing arts. And as she recovered, she came to a resolution. It had been years ago now since she'd lost her second home.

It was time she find another.

Trivia:

• As mentioned, Aoife's health is not exactly stellar. Specifically, her oripathy has gifted her with several unfortunate symptoms. In addition to the crystalline lesions--she has over a dozen now--she has tremors, fevers, and full body aches, and a few other unpleasant things. These can be largely managed through oripathy medication, but they can only be managed, never completely removed. There's always a chance one of them will strike.
  
  Her theme song is The Parting Glass.

Amygdala Circuit

Quinn sat back into her chair with a thump, taking a long deep breath and trying to purge the cloying guild that tore at her mind and dug little needles into her skin. She was met with...limited success, but it's not like she could just not do things today, as much as she wished. She turned to Roaki's door, wondering if she was up and at sims already or if she was just asleep. After a moment of consideration, she pulled out a piece of paper--Roaki still didn't have a phone--and wrote out in her shaky handwriting,

Roaki,

I went to the hanger to look at my Savior and make sure everything is okay. I should be back soonish and then I can join you in sims if you want.

Love you <3
Quinn

She slid it under the door (distracted enough that she didn't spend time considering that Roaki probably wouldn't be able to reach it, let along read it), headed to the door, grabbed her gray and yellow coat, and set out. At this point she could probably make the brief jaunt to the hangar blindfolded with both legs asleep, she'd gone down it so many times. In fact, she'd gone down it enough times that she didn't even have that stomach-churning anxiety anymore; it had just become another place to go in the routine. It was one of the reasons she'd started this, and she was exceptionally pleased that it had worked.

Forsaking her heat suit once again because it was a pain to change into and it wasn't worth it for just a few minutes in the cockpit, she meandered up the long hallway before emerging into the cavernous space. She took a deep and appreciative whiff; over here, there was none of the horrid smell that she'd grown so afraid of. There was only the smell of ball bearings and engine oil, something that she'd grown to appreciate. The first person that turned to her--her name was Elise, Quinn thought--brought a knot of tension to her stomach once again. If she gave Quinn the same dark stare...

...Well, she expected the dark stare, or at least indifference. Not the huge smile. Elise nudged the person next to her--Quinn didn't remember her name fully but she knew it also began with an E--and she looked up as well, and also smiled and waved.

She panned her eye over the hangar as people began to take note of her. And every single one gave her the same looks that they always had. The tension came unknotted, and she wiped away a tear. Then, after some time to compose herself, she waved back, and began to walk across the floor towards Ablaze.

Her face was spread with a huge smile.

Amygdala Circuit

A sick feeling began to roil in Quinn's gut as Dahlia began to shiver apart, bubbling higher with each word until...

"I'm sorry."

Then without really even realizing or processing it, she was on her feet, wrapping her sister in a big hug as her old friend Guilt began to gnaw at her sides. "No, Deelie, no, no," she cooed, doing her best to be a soothing as possibly even though she wasn't very good at it; this had always been Dahlia's job. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked, I'm so so sorry." How dumb could she be? It was a pilot who had died at Hovvi. Sometimes she grew so lost in her own memories of Hovvi that she forgot that it had been Dahlia's home too, much much more than it had ever been her own.

She gave a tighter squeeze, not tight enough to hurt but enough to comfort, she hoped. "You never ever need to apologize to me about anything, Deelie, never ever." Without exception, whenever Dahlia apologized to Quinn she felt a sharp pain in her chest. Why should she be apologized to? And least of all about Hovvi! Hovvi was her fault! All of her sister's traumas and pains were because of her.

She'd almost let herself forget that. She wouldn't do forget it again. She felt a lump beginning to build in her throat and the guilt tore at her skin.

"And if there's ever something you don't want to talk about, you don't need to talk about it, I shouldn't have asked, I'm sorry."