Lemons

Arknights: 5S

There was a cruel catharsis about watching the newly-named 'Aisha' bash the Cautus over the head, and Aoife found herself trapped somewhere between a grimace, and a smile that bared a few too many teeth to be innocent. A piece of her truly empathized with the Sargonians; the predatory grasping of Victorian hands was something a native of Tara knew all too well, after all, and she'd enjoyed watching that baton smack more than she'd let on.

The moment passed, and she realized that the direction her thoughts had plunged was unbecoming of anybody, let alone a Rhodes Island operator. Yes, Victorians had burned her family home to the ground and killed her family. But that wasn't an excuse. She needed to be better.

...Ah. Aisha was staring at her. Possibly because she was staring at Aisha. She had the grace to look embarrassed as she averted her eyes, then coughed self-consciously. Which she then regretted immediately, as she felt a bolt of pain to her chest, tasted something odd, and realized that her embarrassed cough had in fact just turned into her coughing up a small amount of blood.

Well. Talk about embarrassing. Her eyes remained averted, head inclined in respect, as she murmured with a soft, flat voice, "Do so. I would like to talk to him more. When you contact us," She lifted her head again, regaining eye contact for just long enough to finish the thought as she pressed her hand to her chest by way of introduction, "Ash Girl."

She might've spoken more, and she rather wanted to push harder. But this was a woman, she thought, who would only make their life more difficult if they tried to bypass her. Best to let her handle this for the moment.

And besides, by this point she was quite thoroughly ready to be done with talking.

And so she glanced at Minimalist and Balthasar, then stepped back behind them, giving one more nod to Aisha. Not fair that only she got to talk, after all.

Amygdala Circuit

As Cyril got back up, Quinn relaxed her stance. Her shoulders heaved as her breaths came in sharp gasps. He wasn't as good as Dahlia, but he was certainly pretty good. She let out a little chuckle when he and Sybil had finished speaking, and she reached up to rub her chin. "Shot to my chin hurt, don't you worry." She paused for a moment, choosing her words to give him advice on how he left himself open and that let her close the space she needed. But before she could say anything, they started again. She was going to fight Sybil now, she supposed.

She blinked a few times at hearing Cyril talking about the terror of Camille's training again. It seemed as though it afflicted him with some primal terror. The whole thing was a little bit absurd, and she found herself muttering, "is it really that bad?"

But shaking her head, she dismissed the thought from her mind, and squared up for Sybil to step on the mat. Though something felt kind of...odd, about the whole thing. She really seemed like she didn't want to spar. And she could see why, she hadn't started looking forward to her training sessions with Dahlia for a good long while after they'd started. But at the same time, she'd been a...special case, given how she'd never really exercised in her life.

And the instant Sybil stepped out in front of her, she immediately understood why. Cybil was new to piloting, but clearly not to combat. She wondered if maybe that boxing ring out on the rec center had something to do with that. But clearly, Sybil was new to both piloting, and to combat. Which seemed strange to Quinn at first; in order to fight Modir you needed to fight, but she'd been deployed, and she was still here and alive. So—

—Aaaand she was running at her now, swinging a punch so wide and slow it seemed like she was trying to punch a Savior, not its pilot. For that split second, Quinn wondered what she should do. Should she just do it, knock her to the ground? No, that would feel awful, for both of them. Grab the punch and start talking? No, that might be even worse. So...?

As the punch swung wide, Quinn stepped out of the way, holding her hands up in the universal 'time out' T. "Wait wait wait, time time!" She held her hands up, ready to dodge any more poorly aimed shots that came her way. "You mind if I get a drink?" Truth be told, she was feeling a little parched. She'd had a weird day so far, and somewhere along the way she'd stopped drinking. And she could feel it now, in the hoarseness of her throat.

Stepping off the mat, she jogged over to her water bottle, mulling over what she was going to say as she took a long drink, savoring the sweetness of the water. Somehow it never got old.

She capped the bottle again, and a moment passed.

"...Is your weapon ranged, Sybil?"

Amygdala Circuit

Quinn settled into her stance as well, and began to edge towards Cyril, keeping her left side and thus eye forward as always. The instant she could, her slow pace burst into flurried motion as she delivered a powerful straight kick directly towards his waist. He'd backstep, and the momentum would be hers, along with the fight. She could see it plain as day; she'd used this exact tactic on Dahlia a few times before, and it had always been pretty effective as an opening gambit. He just needed to dodge, and then—

—His elbow swung down, and he blocked it instead. Her eye shot wide. A quick jab came straight at her, cracking her on the chin. If he didn't have padded gloves on, that would hurt. Another followed, this one a slow haymaker that would've hit like a truck. But thanks to its speed, she was able to recover from the first hit and slide out of the way just in time. It turned out that she was the one backstepping, teeth clenched, ready to get whacked a few more times for her carelessness.

He pressed his advantage, and she did take another hit, though whether it counted was debatable since it only grazed her helmet, she thought. Her breaths came quick and harsh, and she was having trouble reading his motions. She was too used to Dahlia, wasn't she?

Well. What was one of Dahlia's first lessons? Don't focus on his arms. Focus on all of him. She took a deep breath. He was throwing long punches to try and force her back, keep her past a comfortable reach so she couldn't retaliate. She was just about at the edge of the mat now, she was reaching a limit to how far back she could dodge. But it seemed like every time—she threw a quick punch of her own as he was mid-punch, catching him on the armguard. Yeah, that confirmed it. Because he was trying to keep her at a distance, every time he threw a more impactful punch at her, he would throw his arm way out, so it took him some time to pull it back. She needed to find the right moment...

Ah, there it was. His eyes were flicking to the right half of her face. He was trying to catch her blind spot. Smart. So the next hit would—THERE! His left arm shot out in a hook that she was pretty sure would knock her flat if it caught her. For just that crucial moment, he was exposed. Couldn't block since his arm was out, couldn't dodge since he was going forward. She ducked under the punch, briefly gathering strength in her legs like coiling springs. Going right for the side of her head, huh?

Two can play that game.

Then in a blur of motion, she whipped out a savage high kick that caught him right in the side of the head, and he dropped like a bag of rocks.

Arknights: 5S

Aoife couldn't help it: when she heard the Victorian accent, she had to force herself to not freeze and lock up. She knew full well that it didn't reflect very well on her, stationed as she was now; but it was what it was as very unpleasant memories tried to force their way back to the forefront of her mind. The life of a Dublinn guerilla. Thirteen years old, watching people she knew brought back screaming, or not brought back at all. She knew that Dublinn wasn't good. That it clearly didn't care. County Hillock had taught her that much. But still...all those years couldn't just be ignored.

So there was a noticeable hiccup in her movement as she walked up to the feline, pulling out her identification badge and holding it up for inspection, and a stammer in her speech noticeable even through her accent that she smoothed out as best she could: "Rho—Rhodes Island. We're looking for an infected child, a—and have reason to believe he might have been taken out of the city by a group of Victorians." It was a bit more difficult to keep the antipathy out of her voice than she'd anticipated, but she did her level best, and thought she did about as well as could be expected.

"Speaking of," she continued immediately, trying to ignore her burgeoning headache as she inclined her head at the Cautus being bundled into the car, "what's the story with that?" Then, louder, "Letting who get away?"

Amygdala Circuit

Quinn smiled, happy that she was going to get to talk to Tillie more, and also, very excited to have someone in her room! Her dresser might be up by now—oooooooh, she could show off her dress! A part of her realized that it would probably be a bit weird, but she just really loved that thing, and she wanted to show it off as much as she could to as many people as she could. Well, people that she knew, at any rate.

She took a step back in, winding up in hugging range of Tillie, and nodded her head twice. "Uh huh, you can come to my room after dinner. I needed to see a friendly face too." She paused, muttered to herself: "...Will I need to let her in?" She didn't know whether she would need to let her in manually, or if she could just tell the system to let Tillie Tomm in, or...who knew what, really? Maybe she could ask—

OH! That was right! She was going to fight Cyril! She spied a large ornate clock sunk flush into the wall: afternoon, later than she'd thought, definitely time by now. He'd be at the gym now, right? Maybe after they sparred she could ask about letting Tillie in. He seemed like the kind of person to know. On that note, she also needed to get his contact information, and the other pilots' too.

She nodded to herself, then turned her attention back to Tillie, face writ with gentle regret. "I forgot, I have a place I need to be soon, I gotta go. See you after dinner, okay?" Leaning in to give Tillie one last squeeze, she disconnected, then departed, aiming for the lift. As she slipped into the door and it closed silently behind her, the silence was suddenly broken by her stomach growling menacingly. Ah, right, she hadn't eaten, and she didn't really have time to go out and eat. Hadn't she seen a vending machine somewhere, maybe the rec area?

A couple minutes later, rapidly disappearing protein bar and her retrieved water bottle in hand, she finally took that turn down the hallway and dove into the huge gym.

And yep, there Cyril was, decked out in sparring pads, already ready to go. And Sybil was there too, which she didn't expect; no pads on her, at least not yet. Swallowing down the last of the protein bar, she took a long drink, made sure her braid was nice and set so it didn't come undone again (how embarrassing would that be?).

That done, she gave a little wave and jogged over to the fabric basket with the rest of the sparring stuff in it, quickly donning her own. It was a little different; she had her own personal set at home, after all. But it would do fine. Cracking her neck, she tossed her water bottle over towards the wall, stretched, and stepped on to the mat. A part of her was definitely nervous; he was taller than she was, and he was probably stronger too. He would probably beat her at first. A hint of that anxiety was evident in her voice when she spoke:

"Ready?"

Amygdala Circuit

"Uhh..."

She looked up at the scaffolding, blue-suited Casobani engineers swarming over her Savior's face like ants, and shook her head. "I was thinking of looking at the cockpit to see if everything looks okay, but I get the feeling they probably wouldn't be happy with me going up there right now."

She tilted her head up to the grand cathedral of a ceiling, pondering if she had anything to really ask Tillie. Really, she was just happy to see her. She gave a little frown. Something from yesterday...she strained, trying to bring whatever it was back again. It was while she was at lunch or in the concourse, she thought, something about Tillie, about...

Ahhh, right. She wanted to learn a little bit about modiology, so she could talk to Tillie more easily about it. And that moment right there had just solidified it, because as excited as Tillie seemed, Quinn really didn't have much of an idea what she was talking about. Genetic anomaly? Mirroring adaptation? And if there was any time to ask about it, it would be now, right? When Quinn still some measure of free time, before the Casobani media got their hands on her and ate the rest of it up.

Still, it was kind of a strange question to ask, she thought. Could she really just ask her point blank to be her teacher? That seemed kind of weird.

Then again, them being in Casoban was weird to begin with, wasn't it?

"Um, do you think...maybe sometime you could teach me some modiology?" She looked down a bit in something like embarrassment. "I pilot Ablaze, but I don't know very much about it at all. So maybe...?"

Amygdala Circuit

As Quinn left medical, she very briefly considered explaining herself: she'd only discovered it herself a couple days ago, and she'd forgotten. Then she realized how insane that would sound. How ridiculous. And, furthermore, how suspicious. She didn't need her new commander not being able to trust her. That would be bad.

Quinn hadn't quite gotten used to the anatomy of the Ange over the Aerie, but she managed to find her way down to the hangar eventually, walking quicker than she had for the rest of the day. Her technician had arrived. And, as, she briefly looked over Ablaze as she walked, the ever-familiar orange jumpsuit began to move towards her in an ever-familiar way.

Quinn didn't stop.

Quinn didn't even slow.

In fact, she matched Tillie's jog pace for pace, sped up, and cannoned into her at frankly concerning speeds before wrapping her in a crushing hug. "TILLIE!!!"

And just like before, for just that barest moment of Tillie Hugging, everything felt a bit right with the world. Which was a bit of an impressive feat, considering.

But then that moment passed, and Quinn realized that she was being...very much stared at, and she gave a self-conscious cough and released Tillie once more. After a little bit; she didn't want to stop the hug quite then and there. But the impression she'd gotten from Casoban thus far had not been "pilots hugging their technicians." When it was finally over, Quinn rubbed the back of her head and let out an embarrassed half-laugh as she released Tillie, taking a step or two back. "Eheh, sorry about that. It's just...nice to see a friendly face." She had, after all, had quite the morning.

Right. People were staring. Another quiet cough. "How, um. How does Ablaze look?"

"_{I missed you.}"

Amygdala Circuit

Quinn had, in fact, not expected her medical exam to take very long at all. It seemed strange to think it now, but she'd only just discovered there was modium in her head and with how busy she'd been since then, how tumultuous yesterday had been, she'd forgotten all about it. Despite the severity of a piece of modium in her head. And so it was that after an hour or two, once the easy parts of the exam were over and midway through the head scan, there had been faint sounds first of confusion and then alarm from the doctor who'd talked to her. Minutes passed, and so did rapid footsteps in the hallway outside. Then it had gone quiet. And so, Quinn had sat in the exam room for the last two hours, totally isolated from everyone, with nothing to do but think.

It had been a long time since she'd had a morning that leisurely. On the Aerie, the second she was up, she was eating, and the second she was fed, she was out, usually heading for the sims or the gym. So that morning had been one of nigh-inconceivable luxury. Taking a long shower with her braid undone, replaiting it, unpacking her luggage finally, ordering a dresser that would come up later that day, shooting a few texts back and forth with Deelie, putting the sweaty clothes from yesterday aside to wash them later...it felt like she'd come unbuttoned from time, she'd had so much.

The one thing she hadn't done was eat breakfast. She knew that some medical tests didn't work if you'd eaten, so she'd just had a bottle of clean, clear water to start the day. By the time she'd been pinged to come to medical, she was almost grateful for it. She didn't quite know what to do with herself for that long.

Perhaps there was something a bit sad about that.

She wasn't entirely sure how long she'd been sitting in the exam room, dawdling her feet off the side of the table where they'd seated her as she stared up at the ceiling. One of the lights flickered every so often, and it had started to captivate her attention in a way few things could. Strange things happened to a mind when it was bored. It had helped to distract her from the images of her destroying the treaty again, at least.

She frowned, itching to put her eyepatch back on—being without it was discomfiting—and sighed for the umpteenth time, only to this time be cut off by the door shuttled open, and Toussaint walked in. Quinn gave him her best smile, but it was strained no matter how hard she tried, and after a moment she dropped it, waiting to hear her sentence.

"We have determined that you are not, currently, a danger to yourself or anyone who might be in close proximity to you."

Quinn couldn't help it; she let out a loud breath of relief as he went on. She'd need to come back every few days. That was fine, she was used to visiting medical constantly now after Roaki. She nodded along as he asked her as well to keep it hidden. No problems there. She didn't want much to talk about it either.

He stood at stared at her, and she twitched, before he revealed the best news that he possibly could, except maybe that Casoban had decided that the treaty was fine and Quinn could go home to the Aerie. So the best news he realistically could: her technician had arrived. The smile came back to her face as she nodded, small but sincere this time.

"Mhmm. I'm...sorry about all of that."

Lem's Stash

________________________________________ Lina Anastasia Delikhova FEMME | 23 | RODION Scion of Wouldn't you like to know, weatherboy? _______________________________________________ "I'm never quite sure whether or not my daughter knows what she's doing, and I don't think she is either." ________________________________________

"Pfft, why're you being so serious? Lighten up, spoilsport!" Holy Sigil Location Her holy sigil appears just left of her left eye. Appearance Can describe your character here what pictures don't show Personality should be obvious Biography include where you were born, your status (if you're a noble), how being a Scion has affected your life, and any current personal goals. If you weren't expected to be a Scion, explain how you found out. Weapon of Choice Setting is pretty modern but there be monsters on the road so what do you use to defend yourself? Misc. Lina has a final wrinkle to complicate her life more. As sweet-tempered as she is, all that pent-up anger and aggression from her childhood had to go somewhere, and it manifested as a voice that urges her to act as cold and merciless as her father always wanted her to: the Rodion Voice. use a list to make it nice and neat :)

Amygdala Circuit

Quinn lightly closed her eye for a bit, feeling all the energy bleeding out of her and leaving her just as tired as she'd ever been. It was midnight, after all, and she hadn't had a lot of sleep the night before. For obvious reasons. Still, the smile hovered on her face. With a quick word, she hung the dress up and reclaimed the pajamas she'd been wearing as she returned to her bed, flopping backwards onto it, still staring at Besca's smile. She nodded in reply, making to speak before her face was suddenly split by a tremendous yawn. When it was finally done, she blinked heavily a few times before nodding again. She was...much more tired than she'd though she was.

"Uh-huh," she murmured sleepily, "I'll do my best. The people here are nice, I think."

She flipped over, shimmied into the luxurious covers, and curled up onto her side, letting her body relax and groaning in relief as she did so. Quinn wasn't very good at relaxing these days, and it wasn't often that she let herself. But Besca was right. She'd earned it today. And this really was a very nice bed. Another yawn, as she popped off the elastics, tossed them haphazardly to her nightstand, and let her braid loosen: a true luxury for someone who, up until now, had been expected to be ready to go go go at the slightest notice at any moment.

Another yawn, and her eye fell to half-mast as she propped her phone up on her pillow—one of her pillows—so she didn't need to hold it any longer. She gave a contented hum, and relished the warmth; both within her and without.

"...I think...I'm going to go to sleep soon." She let her eye close completely, and the contented smile stayed.

"I love you."