Amy’s reaction to the coffee wasn’t what Avelyn expected, and she was briefly worried Amy didn’t know what coffee was and her species were allergic to it. No, of course not, it wouldn’t be that fast and the team mom’s reaction made it quite clear where the problem lay, and the steam coming from the cup dissipated entirely as Avelyn further cooled it. [color=#FF2E00]“You’re going to reconsider that statement once you actually get to know us.”[/color] She laughed when Amy called them ‘The most amazing people she’d ever met’, [color=#FF2E00]“Or after today, depending on how it goes down there. Keep the seats warm for us up here, eh?”[/color] she gave the struggling Zvezd an encouraging pat on the back, purposefully avoiding touching any exposed skin and jogged off to meet up with Tarak and Trajan.

[hr]
Going in under aliases was a prudent call. As her home was far away from any fighting for the entirety of the war, there was still a good chance her parents were both up and about, and Avelyn didn’t doubt for a second that as soon as the Ascendancy uncovered the identity of any member of their party, they wouldn’t hesitate to target their families where possible to make them either break or come at them angry and stupid. Not if she had anything to say about it. Avelyn didn’t plan more than 24 hours ahead, but she’d be damned if she let the Ascendancy torpedo the one long-term plan she had. And having a pre-made false identity carried the added bonus of not having to invoke the name and service number of her fallen friend from the war like she planned to, even if no one was aware of her demise as far as she knew.

Not that long later, [i]‘Aveline Laverrier’[/i] stepped into the Circle’s mess hall and let her mind wander, collecting stray thoughts and conversations both yet unspoken and too far away for normal human ears to ear, separating the decent people that could be found in the lower ranks and conscripts from the human garbage that was most of the core-worlders and officer’s corps, finding that the latter were in an overwhelming majority here. Of course it would be so. On the bright side, if push came to shove, she wouldn’t have to bother too much with identifying the target and deciding whether to disable or kill.

[color=#FF2E00]“Nothing like a Meal Refusing to Exit to start the day.”[/color] She said as she caught herself before she could snatch the MRE from across the hall. No point letting them know what they could do in advance. Instead she reached over the table to grab it, bracing against Trajan’s shoulder as if for support, then shifting her hand to an exposed part of his skin and sending everything she gathered about the troops here to him in a manner similar to how she passed a message to Amy earlier, that way he’d know what she wanted him to know without littering his brain with someone else’s memories. As Tarak was sadly out of reach and covered head to toe, he’d have to be told later. With that, she sunk into the meal, while still keeping tabs on the thoughts of everyone in a 15 meter radius and conversations of almost everyone in the room, her ears boosting distant conversations to audible levels.

The triage of incoming information was usually the hardest part of an intelligence job, and she was doubly thankful for the small miracle the spell meant to affect the memories of others worked on her own ability to remember things, as anything she didn’t focus on now would always be accessible to her later. And using the magic and techniques taught to her by the Ascendancy [i]against[/i] the Ascendancy was such a beautiful display of irony that the thought of it brought a smile to her lips despite her efforts to remain stone-faced.