"Thank you," Amy said, giggling at the swordswoman's compliment despite herself, her feathers twitching slightly in her crimson hair as she let her hand fall back to her side. Sangue's mannerisms encouraged her to speak slowly and carefully herself, especially given how little knowledge she actually had of the redhead's inner workings--especially with regard to what might startle her into closing herself off again. It was an odd feeling for the former stripper, having only a slight idea of what her conversational companion was feeling and how she ticked. Maybe even real life experience and intentional practice with reading people only took you so far.

Then again, she'd never really dealt with anyone quite like BASL's snake. To be honest, she still wasn’t sure the woman was quite okay with her presence--meditation seemed like kind of a private thing--and she didn’t want to push her into something she wasn’t alright with, not before she was ready.

Still, she had enough of a persistent feeling that Sangue actually accepted her being around to go along with it. “I… I would like that, Sangue. I’d like that a lot.” The stripper smiled, turning to follow her teammate.

* * *

The next morning was… surprisingly peaceful. Waking up tended to be the worst part of her routine, inevitably in the middle of a dream or snapping awake in a cold sweat from a nightmare.

Wasn’t like she was dreaming of Valentino, or anything.

But, this time she woke up quietly and easily, her eyes adjusting to the still slight darkness of the bunk room easily. Her mouth opened in a yawn, then there was a long pause as she looked to her left. Evidently, meditating was a harder drug than she’d thought. She blinked twice, a familiar firecracker next to her stirring, then stilling again as Amy shifted. Lauren wasn’t quite close enough for their hair to be mixing on the pillow, something in her cleavage. On closer inspection, it was Lawnslot, something she'd have to tease Ben relentlessly about later. The relatively warm temperature outside didn’t lend itself well to cuddling, especially of the unintentional variety, she should probably get up… But... Just for a second, the stripper let her mind drift, the instant’s pause and reflection cascading through dreams she hadn’t thought of for quite a while, almost tempting her to caress the brawler’s cheek--then her lips spread in a smirk as the hazily remembered events of late the night before came back to her, two figures stumbling into the BASL dorm long after she and Sangue had gone to sleep, someone impacted the bed next to her and she decided she was too tired to care which one of the two it was until the morning.

If it was Ben, there’d have been some prank opportunities that were too good to pass up. Lauren… Well, there were other benefits there. Her smile grew wider, watching the other girl sleep, trying to move ever so slowly out of bed…