Mcmolly

Amygdala Circuit

Dahlia’s heart dropped as she watched Quinn’s budding confidence deteriorate, gone as quickly as it had come. She felt a horrible pang of guilt run through her—she’d asked, after all, knowing where it would lead, and how difficult the topic would be. Now here she was, having all but dragged Quinn back down. The people glancing at them seemed concerned, confused, a few looked embarrassed. Their eyes flitted away nervously.

It was so frustrating, but it wasn’t Quinn’s fault, either. Dahlia had spent so long fighting enemies she could see, enemies she could grab and burn and kill when they threatened her or the people she loved. This was different. Whatever promises she made wouldn’t matter. If she got into Dragon right now, marched down to wherever the Loughveins were and stomped them into the dirt, it wouldn’t matter. Quinn’s enemy wasn’t a thing, it was fear. A Modir could bleed, and roar, and die, but the only thing they had in common with fear was that they could not be reasoned with.

It was killing her. She was failing Quinn without even knowing how. Hurting her without any way to heal.

“I’m sorry,” she said, quietly. “You’re right. I can’t protect you—not in the way you need. I can try, and I can be there for you, but I’ll never be able to stand between you and the hurt they’ve already done.”

She reached across the table, took one of Quinn’s hands from her face and held it. Looking at her hurt, terribly, but never lying meant that, sometimes, she’d have to speak awful truths, too. “We’re all broken, Quinn. Me, you, Besca, Roaki—everyone. We’re all broken in different ways, into different pieces, and all we can do is try to put ourselves back together in a way that we still recognize ourselves. And sometimes…sometimes there’s just not enough left.” she rubbed a thumb over Quinn’s hand, tried to lean enough to smile at her. “But that’s okay, too. Trust me. Cause even if you don’t have all the pieces, you can always use what you have to make yourself something…else. Something better. I lost a lot of myself in Hovvi, but you know what? I put myself back together, and maybe I’m a bit different, but I’m also your sister, now.

“Whatever they did, whatever they took from you…don’t…mourn it. A thing is always stronger when it’s whole, and you are strong. You are, even if you don’t think so. If you believe me about anything, ever, please believe that.”

Amygdala Circuit

For a little while there was…relief. Dahlia sat and ate happily, hardly even tasting the burger through the sweet cheeriness of her own mood. She relished in it, while she could, because in the back of her mind she knew what was coming—knew where the conversation was headed. It was inevitable, and perhaps subconsciously she’d steered it this way so they could at least face the question together.

Quinn’s parents. The Loughveins. The monsters who had done unspeakably horrible things to her for who-knew-what reasons—reasons that didn’t matter. It soured Dahlia’s mind just to think of them, she couldn’t imagine what Quinn must have been feeling.

“I think…it’s possible,” she said. No lies. “But I don’t think she’ll focus on it too much. Your parents aren’t pilots, no one else cares about them.” It was hard to keep the spiteful edge out of those words, though she did try.

“If they do come up, just…breeze through it. Quick, short answers. Don’t think about it. She’ll get the hint—like I said, Mona’s good at this, and if you’re uncomfortable, that looks bad for the interview. She won’t dwell on stuff that brings you down.”

Dahlia set her burger down, wiped her mouth clean. She hadn’t touched her milkshake; part of her felt like she hadn’t earned it yet.

“And Quinn,” she said, not solemnly, but steady. “Remember: they can’t hurt you now. They’ll never hurt you again—Besca and I won’t ever let them. So you just get through that part of the interview tonight, and we’ll put that in our rear-view mirror, and won’t think about it anymore, alright? You get back, and we’ll do a movie marathon and fall asleep on the couch. I’ll even stock up on snacks while you’re planetside.”

Offering another smile, she returned to her burger. “Anything else on your mind? Anything at all, you can tell me, y’know.”

Amygdala Circuit

Dahlia listened carefully, realizing as Quinn spoke that she hadn’t really heard her explain why she’d done it until now. It made sense, of course, and it wasn’t a huge leap to make from the understanding she’d already had. Nevertheless, sitting there, something began to well up within her, deep in her chest. It was warm and excited, stoked with each rising word until it blazed like a bonfire. The heat rose up through her throat and to her eyes.

For a few moments every ounce of worry she had for Quinn melted away. She struggled to recall even a single time where she’d sounded more confident, more sure of herself than she did right then. Quinn might not have been happy per se, but she was certain. Pilots often had to choose between the two, and even if it wasn’t a fair choice, even if it wasn’t a conscious choice, it was one she’d made.

Dahlia realized she was about to cry.

“...Was that okay?”

Fanning at her face, utterly oblivious to the looks they were getting, Dahlia dried her eyes against her sleeve. “Oh gosh, look at me, I’m so sorry,” she said, smiling. Her voice pitched up high enough that it squeaked. “That was great and I’m just really really proud of you.”

Quickly, she leaned over the table and pulled Quinn into a hug. “You’re a lil’ light, you know that? The best. Every time I worry about you, you find a way to show me how strong you are.” She sat back as their food arrived, sniffling and blowing her nose into a napkin as the teary threat subsided. “So, once you’re past the duel questions, is there anything else you’re worried about?”

Amygdala Circuit

A pit formed in Dahlia’s stomach as she watched Quinn struggle, not just with the thought of the interview, but with having to pick a meal, too. Part of her knew the question was coming even before it was asked, and she scrambled inwardly for the right way to answer it. Was it better to refuse, to push back against the relapse and insist she make her own decision, or at least help her make one? Or was that too much? Would that make her feel worse, make her choice harder and set her back even further than she already seemed to be sliding.

She felt so helpless—something that had become more and more common since Hovvi. Seeing Quinn struggle was hard, and seeing her struggle now, with all the wonderful progress she’d made, was much harder.

But the interview was coming, and Dahlia knew that this little slip would be nothing in the face of whatever might happen if things went poorly tonight. So, with regret in her heart and as warm and understanding a smile as she could muster on her face, she took the menu away and sifted through it.

When the waiter came by, she ordered the burger and milkshake for herself, and a chicken basket with fries and an orange soda for Quinn. She tried to phrase it as if she was just reciting what Quinn had said she wanted.

Then she turned her attention to Quinn’s interview worries. She’d be lying if she tried to say Mona wouldn’t ask about the duel; Quinn had made a very bold and unprecedented decision, and people were…well, they were confused, and curious, and in other places they were mad but in Runa she’d seen mostly support.

“Just be honest about it. Be honest, and concise, and don’t elaborate, y’know? Mona’s been doing this a long time, she can pick up when her guest doesn’t wanna talk about something. It’s not like a news interview, she won’t try to…catch you, or anything, if that makes sense?” She slouched over the table, trying to recall how she’d gotten through her own interview. “Just…talk about the things you like! No one really knows anything about you yet, and here’s a hint—people love to hear about the day-to-day stuff we do. Talk about training, and sims, and even where we eat! It’s really easy for folks to forget how normal we are, they like the reminder!

“Here! Like this. I’ll ask you a question, and I want you to give me a short answer, and then, y’know, swerve it into a topic you do wanna talk about! Ready? Here: ‘Hey, Quinnlash,” she deepened her voice, even though Mona had a higher voice than she did. “‘Everyone wants to know why you didn’t kill the Helburkan girl! What’s up with that?’”

Amygdala Circuit

Dahlia smiled gently. “Yeah, you know what? Me too. How about we hit up Danes? I’ve been dying for a milkshake.”

She helped Quinn down, throwing an arm around her shoulder and staying close. The past few days Quinn had been…more dependent than usual. Not that Dahlia particularly minded—she didn’t need any excuse to spend more time with her—but ever since she’d started going to see Roaki, she’d been decidedly off. It was tempting to ask, and even more tempting to just assume the Helburkan girl had done something to upset her, but whenever she thought that way, she remembered her promise. She wanted to be better. She wanted to be more like Quinn.

Besides, she’d kept visiting, and would have told them if anything truly bad had happened. Maybe it was just the state Roaki was in that was bringing her mood down. Quinn had asked her and Besca for help coming up with some way to convince the girl to stay. Dahlia would have been lying if she said she’d given it a tremendous amount of thought, and that did make her feel guilty. Besca was up to her neck with work and worry, and all Dahlia did all day was the same thing she did every day.

This was important to Quinn. She resolved to put more effort into it, starting right now.

Danes was comfortably busy when they arrived. Where Tohoki Grill was dim and gentle and had the feeling of an old tavern, Danes was bright, excited and warm. Its faux windows were opened and their screens rolled footage of a sunny beachside afternoon. Long, sandy shores stretched endlessly either way, scattered with people laying on towels or under great big umbrellas. More played out in the sapphire blue water, splashing and laughing, or waving out to sailboats rocking gently in the distance. Upbeat, tropical music played over the speakers, as though from a band not too far outside. A series of screens on the walls were tuned in not to the news or the Savior-obsessed talk shows, but to sports and campy daytime shows.

Normally she’d have gotten them a seat at the counter, but today Dahlia brought them to a booth along the wall, where the AC blew fresh air only just tinged with the hint of a salty breeze. The tables were wooden, and weathered in the same way designer jeans were weathered—artificial, but convincing.

Taking one of the menus from the tabletop stand, Dahlia thumbed to a selection of burgers.

“Oh boy,” she said, cheery. “I am about to destroy a pineapple burger.”

She held off asking Quinn what she wanted, let her have a little more time to think today. Instead, she turned her attention to the faux window, smiling out at the ocean. The water was too dark to be a Runan sea, so she guessed it was somewhere in Eusero.

That’d be a nice trip, she thought. Me, Quinn, Besca. Just a day laying out on the sand.

“So how’re you feelin’ about the interview? she asked lightly. “For what it’s worth, Mona’s always been super nice to me. You talk at a table over some food, and it’s really casual. Kinda feels like eating in the dorms. She loves pilots, so I bet all she really wants to do is get to know you a bit!”

Amygdala Circuit

There was a brief and terrifying moment where Besca thought there might be war on the Aerie. Her stunt that morning had been bold, but ultimately toothless. The soldiery onboard hadn’t taken kindly to one of their own being fired for “doing his job”, and in his defense that was mostly true. Her inbox was inundated with complaints, criticisms, and demands for her resignation; in the end it hadn’t mattered. He’d been rehired by dinner, and the emails had stopped.

As commander there were only a handful of people she couldn’t touch. One was Follen—a fact that would never cease to frustrate her—and another was Bren Caster, chief of security operations, and liaison between RISC and Runa’s military. No soldiers got in, or out of RISC without his say so, and when word had gotten to him about one of his men getting the can, his say was: “No.”

His predecessor had gone the way of her own after Hovvi, and they’d risen to their leadership roles together. She’d been vaguely aware of him beforehand, and thus far their working relationship had been relegated to CC-chains and occasionally seeing one another in the hangar or at the bar in Dane’s. He’d asked her there the next day, where they sat in the corner and, over a beer, he told her in no uncertain terms that if she tried to go over his head to fire one of his own again, he’d come after her job with the support of RISC’s entire military personnel. She agreed, and told him that next time someone tried to take Roaki back to holding, she’d just break their hand instead.

Another empty threat; Besca was still powerless to refuse a direct order from the Board. But the Board wasn’t here, and while Caster might have been in charge of RISC’s military personnel, there were plenty of soldiers who still knew her, and trusted her, and he would never have their full, undivided support. He didn’t strike Besca as a vile man. He enjoyed power, but not necessarily lording it over others. If he wanted a coup, he could have it, but that side of him that preferred reason to feeling must have known that a mess was the last thing RISC needed right now.

So a tenuous deal was struck. As it stood, the Board still had not decided who was getting Roaki, and orders aside, Caster admitted he had no desire to put a child in an icebox. She could stay in the ward for now, but when the decision did come, Besca had to swear that she would stand aside.

That left her with a nebulous and dwindling amount of time to put together a plan. Otherwise she imagined she would end up seeing how uncomfortable holding was for herself.

Quinn had put her on to something—or rather, Follen had put Quinn on to something, which was immediately alarming. That was: turning Roaki on Helburke as an informant. They’d granted a similar status to Ghaust when he’d defected, and it had offered him all the rights and protections of a Runan citizen—so long as he continued to aide RISC.

The difference was that Ghaust had wanted to join them. Besca wasn’t even convinced Roaki wanted to live. Quinn was, though. So the planning continued; what could they do to convince the girl she didn’t have to go meekly to her grave? The answer hadn’t come to anyone yet, and though Quinn had resolved to visit Roaki each day, Besca was forced to turn her attentions elsewhere.

The interview was coming. She’d been surprised it had taken so long for the Board to approve Quinn’s first appearance, but then, when she thought it about it made enough sense. The duel in Casoban might have been over some inconsequential territorial dispute, but it would not phase out of the public conscience in a mere few days. No, this breather had been necessary. The Board had wanted time to measure the world’s—and especially, Runa’s—opinion on what Quinn had done. Likely, they’d waited to find the right host.

“Dinner With Mona” had been the final call. Not a news channel, but a celebrity talk show. It was a smart choice; Runa National or Pastel News would have had hundreds of people drafting hardball, invasive questions to throw at her the instant she sat down, trying to get at the heart of RISC’s operations through her. It would have been…harsh, and difficult to watch. Mona was a one-woman operation, so to speak. She had a team, but by reputation she handled most of the legwork herself when it came to actually preparing for an interview. She was also avidly interested in the piloting world and so, Besca hoped, she’d be more likely to go easy on Quinn.

That was tonight. As soon as she found out, she shot Quinn a text to let her know. Not a lot of time to prepare, but she made sure to emphasize that it would be fine, and that she would be right there in the studio watching just off camera. Deelie would have to stay onboard—Besca was beginning to doubt the Board would ever let her be more than five minutes from Dragon’s cockpit ever again. Besca hated that, but with what had happened at Casoban, she understood why they were afraid.

Two singularities had formed out of nowhere. An immediate and furious terror had nearly pushed a national emergency to the public, until it was noted that the two singularities that had opened nearby the dueling grounds had never produced a single creature. That, and the fact that nothing had opened up in Runa since then had quelled the fears—somewhat. Perhaps the Modir couldn’t spontaneously open singularities, but even if they could only move them, which seemed to be the prevailing theory, that was hardly any more of a comfort.

And all of this was still leagues away from the fact that the Modir had spoken. Besca still couldn’t wrap her head around that. She’d heard it, and she still couldn’t. It was still a closed secret; there were no recordings of the logs after the duel had ended—that hadn’t been her doing either, they’d just been wiped. Still, Research’s attention lingered on the swordsman. It had appeared twice now, and while no one had yet made the connection to Quinn, Besca worried it was only a matter of time.

She was worrying a lot these days, and sleeping less. Last night she’d returned to the dorms at two in the morning, and left for the office again at five. It was noon now, six hours ‘til the interview and there were still a thousand things to do before then. Sighing, Besca brewed another pot of coffee, lit another cigarette, and sat down at her desk. Any minute now Toussaint would be calling, or the Helburkan Ambassador, or the Board to tell her they were fed up with her now, and it was time for her to pack her shit and go. A small part of her hoped that call would come. She was ready, she thought.

But she wasn’t, really. And part of her knew that as long as Deelie and Quinn were around, she never would be.

---

---

The simulation fizzled and the world went dark before it exploded back to light. Dahlia disconnected her neural plugs and sat up in the pod-like seat, blinking the dizziness away. Sims weren’t meant to be as disorienting as a real cockpit, but they always left her just a little bit nauseous. It passed quickly though, and she swung her legs over the side as Quinn rose up in the seat next to her.

“Sorry,” she said, giggling nervously. “That probably wasn’t super helpful, was it?”

This session had gone like all the others. Either she blew Quinn away the moment she phased, or she turned phasing off, and let herself be absolutely steamrolled by Ablaze’s superior strength. Dragon was many things, but it was not a brawler, usually. If she tried she could throw a few good punches, bob and weave like a boxer, but as had been demonstrated to her back in Casoban, she was much better off at a distance.

Neither scenario made for particularly good practice. She was glad they muted pain receptors in their bouts—neither of them was particularly interested in hurting the other, even if it wasn’t really hurting them.

“We could try again after lunch if you want? Maybe a run without weapons, or we could just do some target practice or something. Or do you wanna focus on the interview tonight? Oh! We could make up some questions while we eat? Get you in the mood for it, y’know? I still remember some of the things I got asked the first time!”

Amygdala Circuit

---

---

Amygdala Circuit

---

---

---

---

Amygdala Circuit

Roaki grimaced when Quinnlash mentioned asking another question. A part of her wanted to point out that wasn’t fair—it was supposed to be her turn now, even if she didn’t quite know what she wanted to ask. But that was stupid. Somehow, she had almost forgotten that this was anything but a brand of interrogation, and that she was not a prisoner waiting out the last of her days on enemy turf.

So she shrugged. Really, what did it matter? Quinnlash could ask whatever she wanted, and Roaki had no right to refuse her an answer.

Then she went and looked at her.

It was brief, but there it was—that fiery golden eye. Roaki gasped, fixed there like Quinnlash had her by the throat. Her hand went numb, the sheet fell from her fingers.

“What is it you want?”

She had felt the scorching barrel of the cannon against her arm and knew she had no choice. She had screamed with her own memory when her legs were blown away, and then screamed again when Dragon’s pilot had cut her from the cockpit, and knew she had somehow chosen wrong anyway.

What did she want? She wanted her body back. She wanted her life back. She wanted to be Roaki the pilot again. She wanted to have been born as anyone else, and failing that, she wanted not to have been born at all. She wanted not to cry in front of Quinnlash Loughvein.

She got nothing.

“I…” Roaki’s voice shook, her throat burned but not as hot as her eyes. She tore her gaze away to stare back at her lap. Everything still hurt, but she knew it wasn’t sweat dripping from her face. “I want to be alone now.”

Amygdala Circuit

“…What did they do to you, Roaki?”

She didn’t know, at first, and in a way that was funny. So many years of pain, and ridicule, and shame, and yet she was hard-pressed to recall, in detail, anything specific. There were flashes in her memory, of her cramped room, of the cold stone floors of the castle. She remembered meal after meal eaten alone, listening to the rest of them above her, speaking of their futures, and their duties to the family. She could see their faces—the sneers, the disgust, the pity. She could feel the hollow pit in her stomach when they’d stopped calling her ‘sister’.

Before it all, the silence had eaten at her, but eventually she realized it was more that it was cocooning her. The burn, she knew, was her body melting away, so that it could reform again as something greater, something terrifying and beastly.

And she remembered the first night, after it was done. The silence didn’t burn anymore, because even in the dark, if she shut her eyes, she could see him sitting up there at the table, alone. Alone, because she’d made him that way.

For too brief a time, he finally knew what it was like.

Roaki looked up, not quite to Quinnlash’s eye, but close. Close as she could get. So close. “They doubted me,” she answered coldly. “And they were right anyway, but when I’m hanged it won’t matter. Nothing can undo what I did. The whole world’ll know that if I’m weak, then the mighty House Tormont, Sword of Aridea, Bane of Aridea, fell to a weakling.”