Something lurched in Besca to see Quinn hug Follen like that. She trusted him so completely, and she knew it wasn’t even because she was naïve. He had everyone fooled, and he’d made himself nigh inextricable from the program. Besca wasn’t sure she could have fired him if she tried. But his years of contact with Dahlia hadn’t changed her, and while she’d never forgive him for pushing Quinn into becoming a pilot, she also knew he wasn’t looking for forgiveness. 

Quinn, however, seemed unsure. 

[i][color=ffe63d]Did...did I do the right thing?[/color][/i]

They were stopped by the exit, and Besca found it almost impossible to meet the doubt in Quinn’s eye. Had she and Dahlia put that there? Was it their own cynicism she saw there, nascent but so ready to grow into the same world view as everyone else’s? The thought didn’t just sadden, it repulsed her. She might very well be about to lose Quinn forever. 

So she took a deep breath, and Quinn’s hand. “[color=gray]C’mere, hun. Sit with me.[/color]” She led her to a bench by the exit, where their only company were vacant offices and an empty hallway. Still, she kept her voice quiet so that it wouldn’t carry. 

“[color=gray]I was ten when I watched my first duel. My father wanted to keep me away from it, but I was stubborn, and just [i]enamored[/i] with the Saviors. I’d watched them at singularities before, seen them mulch the monsters and Modir that came through. So I thought, hey, no big deal. I wanna see it. One night I snuck downstairs after he’d gone to bed, and I watched a recording of a bout between the champion of House Liedwald, Herr Raum—they called him the [i]Warbane[/i]—and this Euseran Rookie, Dom Cade.[/color]”

She shut her eye, leaned her head back against the wall. She could almost see the TV, feel the dark around her. She’d kept the volume low so her father wouldn’t hear, and scooted so close to the screen her eyes hurt. 

“[color=gray]Raum was a vet. Inherited his Savior from his mother, and in his first year he settled the Satsuma Dispute by putting her spear through the Savior of a Tohoken heir. Some people like to say wars averted by duels are wars won by the victory. If that was true, Raum had won three wars in ten years. Hard to say what the world would look like right now without him.[/color]

“[color=gray]Cade was a kid, barely Dahlia’s age. It was his first duel, and looking back I don’t think he’d been in the cockpit more than a month. The ESC was using him as a primer—fodder, basically, to wear Raum down so they could send their ringer in afterwards to finish the job. ‘Course, they didn’t tell him that, and if he knew it, it didn’t show. I mean, the rookies never care, they’re all just excited to get their shot in the cockpit. They all think they’re gonna be the next Janey Waylen, or Markus Gad, or…Dahlia St. Senn.[/color]

“[color=gray]I’ll give Cade that—he wasn’t scared. They caught him on his way out to the Savior and he said a few words. Said he’d do his best, he wanted to make his mom and his little brother proud.[/color]” She smirked. “[color=gray]I’ll admit, I had a little crush for a minute. He was cute, charming. Heroic. Everything I thought pilots were supposed to be. Seemed like the whole world knew he was gonna die out there, but me? I was so sure he was gonna win.[/color]

“[color=gray]He had this weapon like a ball on a chain, with spikes all over it. Cade was going for his head—bad form to try and mulch a Savior, but it’d made him famous. But Raum kept batting it aside, every strike, [i]slap[/i], [i]slap[/i], [i]slap[/i], like it’s nothing. Toying with him. Then four minutes in, Cade suddenly whips the thing low, and Raum blocked high. The ball took out his knee. When he went down, Cade just…he just went animal on him. Tackled Raum to the ground, took the ball in his hand and wailed on his head. Over and over. The noises that Savior made…[/color]” And she heard it, faintly, in the back of her mind. It made her shiver. “[color=gray]I remember the comms got leaked a few weeks later. You could hear Cade just [i]screaming[/i] bloody fury. Roaring, cursing. Like Raum was the most evil thing on Illun.[/color]

“[color=gray]I didn’t sleep for two days. Spent the next morning crying my eyes out. My dad thought I was dying—I was too embarrassed to admit I was just…sad. Really, really sad. I think it was a long time before I ever saw pilots as heroes again. Cade died the next year, killed by a Tormont or a Donner, I don’t really remember. They took his Savior as recompense for Warbane’s. Don’t know what happened to it—don’t even remember what it’s name was, after.[/color]”

Besca looked down at her, smiled, but she knew it was too sad to be warm. “[color=gray]People are born old,[/color]” she said. “[color=gray]They live their whole lives and the world doesn’t change one bit. I watched every pilot I’ve ever worked with walk the same path Cade did. Even Deelie. They don’t all like it, but they all do it, ‘cause…they’re old. They’re tired. They don’t want to fight the world [i]and[/i] themselves, so they just stop trying. And I don’t blame them.[/color]

“[color=gray]I was ready for you to be another Cade. I’d accepted it. I think I’d have been okay with you being another [i]Roaki[/i] if it meant you got to live. But you didn’t cave. Maybe that’s ‘cause you don’t have a lifetime of the world’s pressure on your shoulders, maybe it’s just cause that’s who you are deep down. Maybe it’s both. I don’t care. I saw something happen that you’re supposed to stop believing when you’re still little. [i]You[/i] made it happen.[/color]”

She put an arm around Quinn, pulled her in close and rested her chin on the top of her head. “[color=gray]So yeah, hun. Yeah, you did the right thing. You’re my hero.[/color]”