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I didn't do much talking on the airship ride back. Whether it was the grueling mission finally being a weight off of my shoulders or an understanding that my words would probably be drowned out by the wind and hype seated next to me, I ended up keeping my mouth shut in a thoughtful line.

Well, I assume that's what it looked like, anyway. I was doing a lot of thinking.

Reflection.

The mission was hard, by no stretch would anyone assume otherwise, even without taking into consideration the fact that it was our second in total. Our performance in surviving alone, you could argue deserved a pat on the back, and succeeding as massively as we did at the end hadn't quite sunk in yet as the extraordinary feat it was.

The road there, though was another story, and what I couldn't help but focus upon.

It was terrible. Fraught with inaction, miscommunication, fear, pressure, and plain inexperience. I couldn't speak for anyone else, but when I looked back upon it, as objectively as I could, I saw the near-miss of trainwreck. Between our split priorities, lack of cohesion and painful, slow deliberations, it was almost crazy how we managed to turn things around at the end.

It was... strange, honestly. That was what I felt, that was my strongest impression, especially when I focused in upon my specific role in it all.

I was the one calling to slow down all the time, right? I was the one always preaching that we needed to attack every problem that came our way with logical thought and a concrete, peer-reviewed plan.

It was like I had forgotten the rule my own sister had drilled into me: Conscious thought is slow. To slow to rely on when you're in the moment.

And wouldn't you know it: all of a sudden, when I had started to go with the flow, we seemed to start getting much more accomplished. We jumpstarted the elevator, evacuated the survivors, took down the manticore and even made a small fortune on the side, in the time that it would have taken for me to simply transport our injured at my pace.

...If we had taken my pace, Priscilla very well might have not made it.

I had been forced to do things quickly, and we had come out better for it.

My eyes drifted down to my hand, searching for a cut that had long disappeared.

That was perhaps the strangest thing. As the action faded into a blur the further from the moment I became, that was one thing that stuck with me.

Not that the cut was gone, but that there was one formerly on Priscilla’s body, equally as gone. By now I was almost certain of it. I had seen it one moment, and it had disappeared the next, before I could wrap it up.

But why? It wasn't as if her Semblance was a mirror of mine, it was closer to Cian’s, if anything. It's not like she was healing herself like I could.

Like me. That was the train of thought I kept coming back to. For a wound to disappear like that in the space of barely a couple of seconds was like me. It was how my own semblance worked.

I could sense it at the tip of my mind’s tongue. This was my lead, this was the track that I wanted to follow.

For her body to react like my own, while I was trying to patch her up…

I narrowed my eyes even as the refinery faded into the mists of the swamp beneath us. It had to be connected somehow. What I was doing played a role. That was the only way I could make any sense of it.

Somehow my self-regeneration had been transferred over to her in a small part. Only enough to be burnt out on a long scratch.

But it had been done.

I stared at that hand for a long while.

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Despite being one of her new teammates, it appeared that I was not allowed to visit Priscilla for a while in the earlier stages of her treatment and recovery. I could understand the call being made, and would of course respect it, but nonetheless it left me wanting.

I was fairly sure that I had pieced together, over the ride and the subsequent medical checks, debriefing, and trek home, what had transpired in that moment. Why I had managed to impart some of my own healing ability upon that wound of hers.

But I wouldn’t get the occasion to test it yet. Not on her, at any rate. The nurses had calmly turned me away with nothing more than a simple “she needs rest” when I had decided to revisit the infirmary. 

Well, I did come with the stated intention of asking how she was doing, so I supposed it would figure that would be the answer I’d get. And asking to barge in and try something as outlandish as what I had come up with on a girl in her condition was also just a touch on the “sounds completely mental” side of the spectrum.

So I paced the hall, not wanting to leave but not having anywhere to go. It was honestly kind of similar to how I would sometimes aimlessly wander after class had gotten out in my high school days.

Only, I’d say, with a little more purpose.

My arm, still bare thanks to my lack of replacing a hoodie before coming here, bumped against someone else’s. I needed to watch where I was going whenever I got like this, always had.

[b]“Sorry, Gratia.”[/b]

The words left my mouth on automatic, and--

[b]“Wait— Gratia? Beryl? What are you two doing here?”[/b]