Quinn played the story in her mind as it was told. A little Besca hunched in front of a TV in the middle of the night, eye—no, eyes, she would've had both then—glued on the screen in fascination, then horror as the fresh-faced rookie Dom Cade slaughtered Herr Raum. She imagined her lying in her bed unable to sleep for days as images of violence flashed through her head. She'd had trouble sleeping after watching her first duel a few weeks back too, and Besca had been a lot younger than she was.

After that her imagination ran dry, though. She couldn't picture Besca crying. She just couldn't. Quinn knew she must've cried at some point, even before she'd just been told point blank that it had happened. She'd been told all about Westwel, and she couldn't fathom a world where Besca wouldn't have cried at least a little then. But even so, she was having trouble fitting it into reality. Besca was just so strong. Too strong to cry.

And then the story ended with Cade dying, just like Raum had. Everyone died in the end.

It was a terrible story, and Besca's sad smile made it even worse. 

But then Quinn heard those magic words: "[color=gray]You’re my hero,[/color]" as Besca held her tight. 

[i]Besca's hero?[/i] 

It was a foreign concept to her. Quinn looked up to Besca so, so much. Up and up and up, until she was like a brilliant star twinkling in the night sky and guiding Quinn home. She was [i]Quinn's[/i] hero, more than she could ever describe. So how could Besca look up to [i]her?[/i] It made her feel...it made her feel important. And not important to the [i]world,[/i] not the way a [i]pilot[/i] was important, because as a pilot it wasn't really [i]her[/i] that people cared about, it was the Savior. But this wasn't like that, not at all. This made [i]Quinnlash[/i] feel important. And she found that she liked that a lot more.

Besca might have been too strong to cry like Quinn imagined. She might not.

But Quinn, as she proceeded to demonstrate when she wrapped her arms around Besca in return, was...decidedly [i]not[/i] that strong.