"On the contrary I... hnn. Do you? Do you really? No. Of course not. Sarcasm. Selin, this is not the time for that. If I have given you reasons to think I do not..."

Mirror frowns. She is only too happy to ignore the knocking at the door for a moment while she finally gains her legs and slinks toward the fridge on dainty steps. A bottle of beer flies from the open door into Slate's waiting hand. Two more drinks sit in Mirror's, one sharp strong and bitter, the other sweeter than candy. 

"Off the mark again. You're talking about yourself. That one hurts the most, you know. Fine then. I'll say the first one: you are good at many things. And I need you for all of them, much more than you... never mind. Never mind. Never... never mind. And you're correct, of course. Defending ourselves against this thing is an entirely different net than the one we're dragging up right now. There's no knowing what might be caught up in it."

She tilts her head toward the ceiling with a long sigh. Not out of exhaustion or sadness or even frustration. It is simply the form her thinking takes in this moment. She swings around to the other side of their tiny room and plucks a soft, blue robe off a hook on the wall. Hardly a planned thing, just a courtesy left for her use as a pilot on cooldown. A lot of assumptions get made about her kind, and while not all of them exactly hit the mark, each of them were useful. If one was clever enough. 

She slips it on and ties it loosely around her waist, giving her the seeming of someone wearing a particularly lurid party dress. It's almost more scandalous than seeing her nude. Almost. She mustn't traumatize her kitten straight away, if she can help it. Her expression softens as she looks to the door. Still quiet, no second knock. 

"Our answer might be waiting for us in the hall, you know. But whatever shape our countermeasures take, it's correct that they can't be as simple as a lock. I can't see the shape of it yet, because I don't know what happened. But whatever we use should be subtle. Not a lock. Not a lock. Especially not a very good one. Though a lock might be necessary to hide our intentions. We might build in systems to reroute power without quite so much hotwiring, or we... well. A Crystal Fire Drive is just a well of energy, after all. It might be turned to any purpose, or driven through any channel. Our shield should be a thing that makes use of the attack itself. Don't you agree?"

And with that she leans against the door and waits. There's no need for more than a brief glance into the hallway to know how Matty is or what she looks like. And it's not difficult to predict her, either. Mirror raises a hand with one finger up to shoulder height for the length of one breath, two breaths, three...

She points. There's a soft and tremulous knock on the door. Mirror swings it open just after the third beat, and Matty squeaks when her knuckles hit nothing but empty air.

"Well hello there, sweet little willow! Hello!" 

Soothing condescension. That's the tone that Mirror's voice is chasing. Something to make her kitten burn from the inside out, but without hurting her feelings. She leans forward a little bit and puts a gentle hand on Matty's shoulder with a squeeze that sends tingles down the spine. Her robe slips just a little bit at the shoulder.

"Did you come here all by yourself? What a brave girl you are! But come in, come in here, silly! It's dangerous for shining little treasures like yourself to be out all alone. Haven't you heard? There are pirates about, and worse besides. The sorts of wicked villains who would snap an adorable kitten up as quick as blinking and gobble her whole! We don't want that, now do we? There we go, come in now, that's my good girl~"

The slightest tug is all it takes. Matty's steps are tiny, flustered, and unsure, but she goes where Mirror leads. As soon as she's through the threshold, Mirror slides the sweet drink into her hand and clicks the door gently shut. The sound of the lock echoes at least three times as loud.

"Well, here you are. And looking just as cute as I remember! Would you like to introduce yourself to my partner, cutie?"