Mcmolly

Amygdala Circuit

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A crowd was forming in the medical ward by the time Besca arrived. Nurses and orderlies, and even a handful of people from other divisions who’d yet to start their shifts. But chief among them was a station security officer. RISC’s military police, plucked from the soldiers that had been steadily replenishing since Hovvi.

They were all gathered outside of a room she could only guess was Roaki Tormont’s. There was a general murmur filling the air, but the loudest sounds came from the officer demanding to be let in. Standing there with his back to the door, refusing him calmly, was Follen.

Security didn’t usually come out this way—really, there wasn’t all that much for them to do, and Besca had heard the shift referred to as a paid break. With how frequently the soldiery rotated in and out of the Aerie, it was entirely possible he didn’t know who Follen was. By his own design he was disarming and unremarkable, and he tended to eschew his coat and badge in favor of the normalcy of his own clothes.

So, when he put a hand on Follen’s shoulder and shoved him aside, it shouldn’t have been surprising. It also shouldn’t have made Besca upset, considering how many times she’d wanted to do that and worse to him.

But, it did.

“Hey!” she barked, and the whole crowd turned, the officer included. He might not have recognized Follen, but he would her. “What the everloving fuck do you think you’re doing?”

The officer paled for a moment, but collected himself quickly. “Ma’am—commander—the Helburkan pilot was removed from custody last night against orders, and relocated here.”

“I’m aware. I ordered it.”

He blinked. “Well, I’m here to return her to holding.”

“On who’s orders would that be?” She asked, stern, but she knew the answer already.

“Ma’am, the Board.”

She’d expected this, but not so soon. Stupid. There’d likely been videos and articles on the Board’s desk before the sun had come up in Runa, the real surprise is that they’d waited at all. In truth, she should have conceded, that really was the end of it. The Board’s orders were absolute, even over her own, and if she stayed this course it was likely to end poorly for just about everyone involved.

But she glanced at the door, and imagined Roaki in there, having had barely enough time to shut her eyes let alone recover from her stint in holding. Despite what she’d said to Quinn last night, it was still…difficult to separate the girl entirely from the duel, and who she represented.

Nevertheless, she stepped closer to the officer, then past him, and stood in front of the door. “As commander of this station, it is my direct order that the prisoner remain here. If the Board has a problem with that, they can get ahold of me directly.”

He hesitated, and she could tell he was thinking of what to say—what he’d likely been told to say when she resisted. “Commander,” he started. “You do not have the authority to refuse a command from the Board.”

“I’m telling you to leave.”

“You don’t—”

“You’re fired.”

He blinked again. Then, confused, he began to repeat: “You don’t—”

“I’m not refusing a command from the Board. I’m firing you. As of this moment you are no longer employed by the RISC. You are a civilian onboard at my pleasure, and as such have no authority to carry out anyone’s orders.” She stared up at him, unblinking, and nodded down the hall. “Go. This ward is for personnel only. You can stay in the commons until we schedule a time to ship you planetside.”

The murmuring erupted around them, and though the officer stared hard at her for a long time, eventually he relented. “Talking to the supe about this,” he grumbled, and stormed off down the hall.

Besca looked to the crowd, frowning. “Anyone who isn’t sick, dying, or attending to the sick and dying, get out of here and back to wherever you’re supposed to be.”

They did, slow and uncertainly, but they did, and eventually it was just her and Follen left at Roaki’s door. He brushed himself off, regarding her in the plain, direct way he did when it was just the two of them.

“That was interesting,” he said, all trace of warmth gone from his voice. “Whatever will you do now?”

“No idea,” she sighed. “No fuckin’ idea.”

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Dahlia had breakfast cooking when Quinn awoke. The smells of cooked eggs, honeyed-toast and cinnamon drifted through the cracked doorway to her bedroom, along with sounds from the TV. She could hear people talking, newscasters. Their words were fainted and garbled, but now and then there was a familiar word or two.

“Quinnlash.”

“Casobani conflict.

“Soon.”

Though Dahlia’s humming wove in and out, there was no hint that Besca was around. She’d said she’d be back in the morning, but perhaps work had called her away. Regardless, it was a new day. Whatever it had in store for her, Quinn would do well not to meet it on an empty stomach.

The Shattering of Aegis

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Lilann tried to suck in her smile when she saw how unamused Ceolfric was with her answer, but a small smirk escaped her anyway. If he’d expected honesty from her after having introduced himself sword-first, he was bold. If it was straightforwardness he’d wanted, he was a fool—she was hardly straightforward with the people she liked. Either way, the exchange helped ease what lingering worry she had for Kyreth.

Her attention turned then to Aleka, who laid out the details of what would be their trial contract. An escort, delivering a supply of Red Fern along with the cropmaster’s daughter. Simple, true, but if she’d learned nothing else from her journeys in Dranir, it was that simple things could quite easily take a turn for the exciting. Good for the taverns, but when it came to an evaluation? Well, even then, she supposed she’d rather have the excitement. Her mind raced with possibilities at the mention of animal attacks; one or two isolated incidents were within the realm of coincidence, but weeks of consistent trouble? And all in the open day?

The bardic side of her felt the strings of fate at play, detestable as they were. Her sword seemed at once heavier, and distinctly important.

Of course the real danger—and reward—was an extended trip in the company of her fellow hopefuls. The moody hedgeman, the moodier boy, and the suspiciously kind woman. Oh, and her brother-in-hue, Cerric. A saving grace of sorts, he was interesting, but the idea of spending days and nights with him prickled at the back of her neck. He had that look to him, that peculiar demeanor that she’d seen in the strong and the cruel—you could never be certain if he was smiling because he was happy, or because he was about to do something utterly horrific.

She decided the risk was worth it.

Amygdala Circuit

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amygdala Circuit

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

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

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

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

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

Amygdala Circuit

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amygdala Circuit

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

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

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

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

Amygdala Circuit

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

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

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

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

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

Amygdala Circuit

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

Quinn, however, seemed unsure.

Did...did I do the right thing?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amygdala Circuit

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

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

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

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

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

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

Besca shook her head.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amygdala Circuit

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

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

That was, she was learning, the problem.

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

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

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

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

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

The looks were not kind.

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

God, Eusero was going to have a field day.

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

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

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

“Ah. Is everything alright?”