Lemons

Amygdala Circuit

Quinn opened her mouth to answer it felt like a few times, but it was so hard to get a word in edgewise through Cyril and Sybil's conversation. Well...mostly through Cyril, really. And by the time there was a break in the conversation again, the older girl had gone.

Fine dining, huh?

"Well, I've...I haven't ever eaten anywhere fancy before or anything," she admitted, feeling almost embarrassed for a reason that she couldn't really understand. "The Aerie is a lot less..." she fumbled for the proper wording and came up empty, then gave a kind of helpless shrug, "Well, it's just less. So I don't really know how."

Quinn knew very little about formal dining; mostly just what she'd seen in movies and stuff back when she was living with her parents. Too many forks, more spoons than were needed...a blurry mess that she didn't know if she would ever understand, or if she really even wanted to. it just sounded so prescribed, and it really rubbed her the wrong way for some reason. She knew that she never would've done it back on the Aerie.

But at the same time, she'd...well, she wasn't on the Aerie, because the Aerie was the RISC base, and for the next few weeks, she was CSC. She blinked hard a few times, then breathed in a long, gentle breath. She needed to get used to this kind of thing, right? She was a pilot, after all. This wouldn't be the first time she needed to be fancy.

Plus, she was still pretty hungry.

"But if you don't mind too bad, then...yeah, I'll come. I haven't eaten all day."

Amygdala Circuit

Quinn's heart gave a painful squeeze at the mention of her mother, but she took one long, deep breath, and the pressure inside of her that always swelled when she thought about her family lowered. I am a pilot. They can't reach me ever again. If they're even alive. The urge to panic rose again, but once more, she mercilessly crushed it down to rest at a simmer, or perhaps even a low boil. But with some effort, she held the steam inside and crushed it down until it was just a painful lump of lead in her chest. They can never touch me again. There was a vague feeling from deep within her that suggested Quinnlash was helping to press it down too, but she wasn't totally sure.

She couldn't just run away from the memories for the rest of her life. So carefully, cautiously, she took the lid off the pot, and tried to remember.

"Um," she started, taking a pair of yellow hair ties from Cyril's hand and distractedly braiding it as she thought. It was nice; gave her something to do with her hands, so they weren't so obviously trembling. He was just so fast. It was hard for Quinn's words to catch up to his, especially when she was shoving everything down so hard. And shove them down hard she did. "I think my...my mom used to speak a little, here and there. I don't remember it very well, just a few things like merci, bonne nuit, s’il vous plait, that kind of thing."

She closed her eye briefly, biting the inside of her cheek until she could taste iron. Actively trying to remember was like peeling off the world's biggest, stickiest bandaid. Her voice was always kind of tense, but there was a tautness there now that hadn't been there before, and by the time she'd finished speaking she had to fight to keep a harsh stuttering tremble out of it. So she jumped at an opportunity to talk about anything else.

"Yeah, I wear it like this in the cockpit." She snapped the two elastics on at the end of the renewed, pristine braid to keep it in place and shook her head a few times to settle it. Her hands weren't even shaking anymore. "I drop it over the back of the chair and it's heavy enough that it doesn't come undone." Then, defying the heat that she could feel inevitably building behind her eye, a smile came to her face; a small, thin thing, but genuine despite the slight tremble. "You would not believe how much conditioner I go through."

Amygdala Circuit

Quinn blinked a few times at the hand that was thrust down at her, staring first at it, then at Cyril, an odd, almost apprehensive expression on her face. Another blink or two, though, and she shook her head, grabbing his hand and letting it pull her to her feet. So these were the two siblings that had been there, the ones that were whispering to each other. She looked between them. It was kind of hard to believe they were actually siblings. They just could not be more different. And she couldn't really liken them to anyone—maybe Cyril was a bit like Tillie? He seemed energetic and friendly, but she didn't really know what to make of Sybil.

She winced as her back suddenly popped; a few assorted aches and pains were reverberating through her, and she grimaced as she felt a particularly tender spot around her collarbone where she'd smacked into the padding extra hard maybe twenty or so attempts ago, and just continued aggravating it with each further attempt. That's going to bruise for sure.

Another moment of silence before she realized that she was being rude just staring at the two of them and jolted. "Oh! I'm—uh, sorry about that, it's been a bit of a long day. I'm, um, Quinnlash Loughvein—but you knew that already, I, um," she grappled with her words for a moment more before she finished with a quiet "You can call me Quinn." She reached back to stroke her braid nervously, then suddenly realized it was feeling...loose.

She looked down and behind herself, and her eye widened slightly when she realized her braid was already half undone. The elastic was gone. She must not have even noticed while she was bonking her face against the padding. It wasn't completely unplaited yet, but it was already starting to lower; she could feel it starting to brush along her thigh. This was not how she wanted to introduce herself to the station. Not bad, just awkward. A quick glance showed no trace of her hair tie on the mats.

She glanced back at the Derisas, with a kind of lopsided, hopeful half-smile. "Sorry, really, it's not much of an introduction. But do either of you see my elastic anywhere? Or, maybe have a spare?" Another one of those silent moments as she started over towards the course to look more thoroughly, trying her best to keep her hair in some semblance of order so it didn't fall all the way down to her knees, as well as keep her eye mostly turned to them. "It's, uh, nice to meet you! And sorry, again!"

Amygdala Circuit

As soon as she walked into the rec room, Quinn's mouth fell open. It was just...so much more. Quinn's standard for a large space was the Central Plaza of the Aerie; the big tree sprouting in the middle, the restaurants off of it, it was just the largest open place that she could think of at that moment.

This was nothing like that. Or, more accurately, that was nothing like this.

Twice the size? More? It was insanely enormous. She could barely even see the whole way down it. Boxing, fencing, Painting, theater...she paced through it, oddly conscious of the echoes of her footsteps as she went, looking back and forth, taking notes of the things that she was interested in. Mostly the boxing ring. She didn't know any real rules of formal boxing, but she did like sparring, and having that there suggested that it was at least a possibility.

And then, as she passed through these compartments, she finally came to the installation that dominated the room: a tremendous obstacle course. She stared, entranced; she'd never actually run an obstacle course, there was just no space on the Aerie. Still, she'd always wanted to. Her stomach growled again, and yet she found that it held no sway over her anymore, as she paced down further, trying to find the start of the course.

It took her almost ten minutes to walk all the way to the end of the room, and finally to find the first obstacle: a sloping ramp that led up to a hanging rope with which to swing over a broad gap. Beside the entrance stood a white bucket full of equally white dust: chalkdust, she realized, for grip. Patting her hands in it, she brushed them together until she felt about right. Then, walking back, she aligned herself up for a nice, solid run up. She took a deep breath.

Then she dashed forward, leaped from the ramp, grasped her hands around the rope, and...

"Oof!"

...Landed an epic faceplant on the platform in front of her before falling to the padded mats underneath.

Well, that didn't work.

Rubbing her nose and shaking her head, she scrambled to her feet again, walked back, and prepared for another run, eye narrowed and jaw clenched in determination. Hopping a bit to get her blood flowing, she ran, jumped, and...

"Oof!"

...Faceplanted again. Well, at least this time she got her arms over the edge, saw the fragmented balance beams that composed the next obstacle. That was progress right? Once again, she leapt up, ready to go again.

She was going to make this rope jump if it killed her.

Amygdala Circuit

The door slid shut behind her, and—forgetting for a moment that she was carrying luggage—Quinn simply stared.

This was insane.

She understood now why she could choose to ship furniture up here. Because this room was so huge that, frankly, Quinn had no idea what to do with it. It was almost incomprehensible to her that the entire space was hers and hers alone.

Then she remembered she was carrying heavy bags, lugged them over to the unbelievably massive bed, and plunked them down next to it. She heaved a long sigh as she realized that there was no dresser. Well, at least it was a way to test how the furniture ordering worked. No longer burdened by the weight of her bags, she explored the room more fully now, diving into the bathroom and simply...staring. Again. Then she turned, looking back and forth between the bathroom and the main room. With these two combined, it was like the entire dorm facility as a whole back on the Aerie was now hers.

Oh, there was another room next to the bathroom? Peeking in, she realized it was a closet. One closet. One closet the size of pretty much her entire room back home. All she could really muster looking at it was a stunned astonishment. Oh, wait, that was right; she'd put her bags down next to the bed, but why bother have them there when there was this enormous closet? She trotted back and picked the handles up again, dragging them over until she could get them entirely in the ridiculously huge closet before dropping them again.

As she went back into the main room and across to the wall with the big seam dominating it, she pressed the button curiously. Then she jolted backwards as the entire wall opened up, revealing a window into the gaping void of space.

In her room back home, that jolt backwards might have taken her almost halfway across. But here, it was barely a step into the enormous cream and beige cavern. Squeezing her eye shut a few times as though not believing what she was really seeing, she eventually turned, walked back across the massive area, and walked over to the kitchen. It wasn't as fully featured as the kitchen in the lounge back home, but, then again, this was in her private dorm. She'd seen a sign pointing directly to a kitchen back in the hallway, meaning that there was an entire room dedicated only to cooking. The idea filled her with both dread and wonder.

She fiddled with each of the devices as she passed by; beeped a few of the buttons on the microwave, pressed and unpressed the toaster, flipped on and off the hot plate, and opened up the fridge—

—in which she found a four pack of bottles, liquid inside a colored a dusty pale green. She knew what it was, even before she saw the label: yuzu soda.

In ordinary circumstances, she would have immediately grabbed and popped open a bottle. But in this particular circumstance, she just closed the fridge, stood up, and stepped slowly backwards, trying to breathe. It was like one of those fancy high class hotels she used to see on the Internet, only even more luxurious, and she was living here.

As she stood there in stunned silence, she noticed...just how quiet it truly was. It had been quiet before, everywhere here was quiet, but the rustle of her bags, the drone of their wheels against the floor, and her footsteps had distracted from it, stopped her from realizing how it truly all-encompassing it was. Her jaw tightened, and she felt a new anxiety stirring inside her. Even when the dorm back home was at its quietest, there was always something, some level of white noise in the distance. But here...

She was choking on the silence.

Then it was shattered by her stomach making a loud, angry rumble. She nearly jumped at the sound of it, and then nearly laughed. Oh. That was right. Hungry.

She walked over to the door and found that it had shut completely behind her. Her stomach curdled. The space was so big that she didn't feel that same kind of trapped, not really, but still, being closed in like this when it was just so quiet...

She noticed a button beside the door, and pressed it, hopeful. To her muted relief, the door slid open in front of her. At least she wouldn't have to shove it open on her own every time. She beat a hasty retreat, and heard it slide shut again behind her. Only when she stopped to take a breath did she realize that her hands were clenched into tight white fists by her side. Another long sigh as she forced them to relax.

She retraced her steps a little way, until she returned to the door labeled AUTO WALKWAY. She paused again, still shaken, and took three long, deep breaths. Toussaint had said that the recreational rooms and stuff were beyond this, right? There was no point not exploring them now; she'd come back to see that gym and stuff later.

Breaths taken, she slid open the door and stepped inside.

Amygdala Circuit

As Toussaint continued, Quinn nodded, half to him and half to herself. Digital catalogs on wall screens, moving furniture however she liked it...the more she saw and heard of the CSC, the less she thought she understood. Not so much conceptually; she obviously knew how digital catalogues worked, and she'd looked at them on her phone once or twice before. But this was different. This was...this was furniture that she could get any time. How much furniture were they reasonably expecting her to fit? And that, of course, lead into the important question: if they were expecting her to fit all that furniture in there, how big were these rooms?

She didn't want to be rude after the man had been pretty much the only one pulling for their alliance for who knew how long, but her luggage was heavy and she was getting hungry. Shooting a single furtive glance off to the side, she returned her gaze back in front just in time to catch the last thing he was saying.

"Of course," she replied, dragging luggage onwards and gingerly picking her way across the hangar floor towards the pilot lift; best not get in the way, at least not until she knew how the hangar worked around here. Ducking behind Ablaze, she walked down the hallway as fast as she could manage until she arrived at the elevator.

...Was there nothing about this place that wasn't shining? Just like in the hangar, the overtly utilitarian elevator platform, fit for about nine people that she remembered was absent. Now, that wasn't to say that the elevator was encrusted with gold or anything, but the clean white did lend it an air of refined sensibility. At least, as far as she could tell. She'd been called many things, but refined was never one of them.

The mouth of the elevator opened wide, more than enough room for Quinn to pull all of her luggage out without trying to cram anything through. After she left, it slid closed again behind her without a sound. She almost wanted to laugh as she stepped out into the hallway and peered around for directions exactly where to go.

Because even their corridors were pretty.

Arknights: 5S

One of the reasons I like her and Ifrit so much is because, if you look at several of my games, you'll find that I really like the human experiment angle. Ros is honestly the reason I started playing the game.

Arknights: 5S

My God, I cried.

I cried a lot.

I am so proud of my daughters.

(Context, Ros is my favorite character in the game)

Amygdala Circuit

Quinn stared out into space and blinked.

When the elevator had docked into the Ange, a part of her had truly expected the hangar to be, if not almost exactly like the Aerie's, at least something she was used to: functional, utilitarian, spartan. Metal girders, exposed struts, a ceiling that, though cavernous, was plain. The familiar air of...not chaos, that wasn't the word. Some kind of friendly disorder. The sound of people chattering, the smell of oil.

That was decidedly not what greeted her.

She had never in her life seen anything like this, not even remotely. This enormous cathedraline space, the stone facades, the almost eerie order, this...she didn't exactly know what to call it, she knew what she thought it was, but she didn't think she knew exactly the word to describe it. Was this what all the other nations' Savior Corps looked like? It was like being fancy, but it was the fancy version of what something fancy would be. Double fancy. Fancy squared.

She was so occupied staring openmouthed at the sheer volume of stuff all around her that she barely noticed when Toussaint started speaking, and had to blink a few times and backspace herself through his sentence, barely managing to grab the "onboarding package" in any kind of timely manner. Even then, even as he spoke to her, her eye kept straying to the area around her, wide as a moon. Only once he was finished did she manage to find her voice at all, and it was quiet, a bit far away, and...awestruck, perhaps, was the word.

"This place..."

A moment passed as she blinked dazedly, Then looked down at the package in her hands. "Catering staff? Private chefs?" Her voice became something almost squeaklike. Not from panic, but because In the moment, she was simply overwhelmed. "Visitation hours?"

She blinked a few times again, shook her head, and when she looked properly back at him, she was a bit more focused. And mildly embarrassed. She was a Runan pilot, after all; she needed to act like it. She settled her voice back into her normal register. "I...Thank you, Toussaint." Toussaint? Should she just call him Toussaint? Mr. Toussaint? She blinked again. What would a pilot call him? What would a pilot say here at all?

A pilot would—Dahlia would say..."Is there anything I should do first, before I start moving in? Introductions with any staff? Medical examinations?" That was better. That sounded like something Dahlia would say. "I don't want to cause any more trouble than I already have."

Arknights: 5S

I haven't quite finished it yet, since I'm doing my best to take my wrist as easily as I possibly can and using my fingers to play phone games does not fit into that. But goddamn, Irit and Rosmontis got my heart both bleeding and warming after she meets Loken.