While Rene was in the shower Solae took a moment to look herself over. There were strange synthetic lattices on her legs that functionally were braces to help give her the support she needed if she had to walk since her muscles and bones were still mending. She wouldn't be doing cartwheels for a week at least, but it was a temporary solution that she could appreciate was pragmatic. As an aristocrat on New Concordia on the rare occasion a noble was hurt, such as when Lord Armon flippantly decided to duel an acquaintance for the favor of a certain lady, resulting in both parties being injured, there were facilities nearby with a robust medical facilities. A viscount could walk into the center with a broken limb and expect to be pampered, to have every available resource utilized, and to walk out later just as healthy and refreshed as if he had been in a spa. If she visited someone in the hospital they were reclined in a plush bed, in designer pajamas, with no apparatus to be found marring their pristine image.

She dragged her finger across a section of her thigh where a mottled bruise was already fading, undoubtedly because Mia had pumped her full of all sorts of medications to help expedite her healing. Marveling at the bizarre pattern that stretched from just below her hips to her toes, she let her mind drift to the rescue during which she had been unconscious. Solae didn't regret what she had done, but she did feel a strange sense of guilt. As the marquise, and now the duchess, she had a responsibility to her friends, even if she did not consider them her subordinates. For better or for worse she was their leader. Throwing herself into a situation that left her incapacitated made her feel as if she had failed them somehow.

Even worse than any perceived shortcoming with Rosaria, Dasin, Yarue, Bel'sian, and Bouardine, was that she had obviously traumatized Rene, whom she cared more about than the rest, regardless of whether or not she would say it aloud in front of them. As out of sorts as she was, she had seen the panic etched on his features when he retrieved her from the medical pod, and the relief that washed over him when he saw that she had not been horribly maimed or worse. The last thing she wanted to do was make him as terrified of losing her as she was of losing him. They were each other's emotional anchors; she had lost both her parents and had no family, and he was still a man accused of murder, who was estranged from his father. She didn't want to be another source of anguish.

Running a hand through her hair, she stared up at the ceiling and let the drugs coursing through her bloodstream artificially induce drowsiness that would not have been possible if she felt all the pain her wounds must have created. There was an almost imperceptible hum that permeated throughout the [i]Bonaventure[/i]. In a yacht or imperial vessel there would have been more of an effort to insulate sound. Cheap freighters such as their current vehicle did not bother with the expense of making the various heating, cooling, and electrical systems run absolutely silently.

Just as she was starting to drift off to sleep she heard the murmuring of a conversation down the hall. "Mia," she called out, stifling a yawn, and pulling the sheets further up over herself. "Who is that out there? Is that Rene?" the diplomat asked, more curious than concerned.

"Yes, Duchess Solae. Sir Rene and the merchant Sir Bouradine are having a verbal exchange," Mia proclaimed in an even softer, sultrier tone than normal. If the linguist had to wager a guess, it was because she had some sort of absurd protocol dictating how loud she could broadcast a sound to a recovering patient.

"Excellent, can you transmit into the room?" Solae asked. When Mia didn't immediately comply she smiled to herself and then added, "or I can just go out there myself. You did say I could walk..." It was a bluff but a computer such as her AI could not take the risk that she was telling the truth. With seconds she heard a slightly more muted broadcast in her room of the discussion between Rene and Bouradine. It felt a little intrusive, since it was as close to eavesdropping as you could be immobile in a bed, but it wasn't as if their subject was confidential. Rene also had to know, as Solae did, that unless they requested their privacy that they were never alone in their vessel- their souvenir from New Concordia was always quietly observing.

When her lover stepped through the door she patted the mattress beside her to indicate he could take a seat or lay down himself. "You know the saying that it feels like a spaceship landed on me? I didn't expect to ever have to use the phrase so literally. It's horribly uncomfortable see my legs like this and feel them not all the way. My brain keeps trying to make sense of it and doesn't know how to make the right connections. Imagine your arms being asleep where it's tingly, and you can move it, but it's also amazing unpleasant. I'm starting to think Mia's suggestion of getting some more sleep isn't such a bad one."

Stifling a yawn she turned her head on the pillow and then tried to wiggle herself over to create more space for him if he wanted to join her. There would be no intimate encounter today, considering what they had both been through, but she was honestly just as content and enchanted with his presence. Going to sleep and waking up beside Rene was its own special kind of reward, something she wish Rosaria, Yarue, and Dasin could know some day if they found their own partners. Somehow she knew the Syshin would more easily open themselves up to the possibility of love than her young protege.

"I have an idea for the star-crossed couple," she continued, this time unable to suppress a yawn. She was slightly droopy, her mind was hazy, and she was pretty certain the pain relievers were just short of causing hallucinations because she intermittently had the peculiar sensation of flying. "Only one of them is Kalderi, the other is human," she reasoned. This clarity was not a result of her present but rather the brainchild of their travel to this planet. Solae hadn't wanted to volunteer her rough plot of how to proceed until she was absolutely certain the circumstances would fit her assumptions. "Under the treatise, and common courtesy, both cultures need to be honored, not just the Kalderi. We can broker a compromise that allows them to be together or, if that fails, I'll nicely paint them into a corner about Bel'sian's agency and ability to decide who she wants to be with. Yarue and Dasin are half a breath away from accusing them of being backwards, so if I give them an opening to accuse them of forcing one of their females against her will to a male, without her consent- well, that would offend the Kalderi enough they'd scramble to prove otherwise."

She didn't want to stoop to manipulation. Confident as she was that Dasin and Yarue would be willing accomplices, and complicit in her agenda, she didn't want to point out fallacies of another species when humanity had so many. If she had to, though, she would open the door to save two people that were obviously so madly in love they were willing to risk their lives to be together. The Kalderi couldn't both boast of being a sophisticated, more advanced race, and practically enslave one of their citizens to another. For centuries they had looked down on humans for being violent, basic, and cruel, and if they had an impartial spectator in the form of Syshin, who had been maligned and abused for equally as long, comparing them to the worst sins visited on them by humanity- they couldn't suffer that. They wouldn't suffer that. From what little she had seen, the Kalderi were curious about the Syshin, and wanted to cultivate a relationship there. It would be impossible to do so if the Kalderi did not show that they could value consent highly.

The duchess flopped an arm over and interlaced her fingers. Small abrasions from injections were on her arms, but they were otherwise unblemished, as if she hadn't been trapped under rubble for hours. "Can you stay for a bit? Tell me about your father, more than you did last time. I have to make a good impression on him next time I see him," she said with a lopsided, dreamy smile.