Quinn lay there for a few moments more, staring at the open door, as what had happened at CB Dane's played back through her head. She cringed as though she could cringe away from herself. With the benefit of hindsight and the comfort from her dream, no longer trapped in her own head as it careened out of control, she could vividly hear the pain in Dahlia's voice. And replaying the conversation, if you could call it that—or what was left of it in her mind—through her head, she could see why. She would need to apologize to her later on. It must have been horrible.

But she needed to make it through the daunting task that had been set out in front of her before she even thought about talking to Deelie. They weren't letting her come down to the studio, and they wouldn't have time to talk beforehand even if she saw her before going down the elevator. 

Nerves dug fishhooks into her skin as she levered herself out of bed, shucked off the clothing that she'd fallen asleep in, got dressed in the new stuff that Besca had gotten her. She latched on to the jacket to distract herself from the nerves. With the dark gray and yellow, it was just like her hair. She liked it a [i]lot[/i], actually. She'd definitely keep wearing it after today. 

Speaking of her hair, she really did need to rebraid it. As she finished dressing herself and zipped the jacket up, she grabbed a hairbrush from her nightstand, plucked the elastic from the end, and started unpicking the braid, brushing down it as she did. Shoving the door open—those few inches really did make all the difference, didn't they?—she walked out into the common room, still brushing, wincing here and there as she caught a knot that she worked out. 

A moment later, she held the brush out to Besca, picking up a strand of her now loose hair and fiddling with it. She never really got used to it, and she thought it was kind of funny how strange it felt to have her braid undone. She'd do it up herself fine, it wasn't like she didn't know how to braid her own hair. Learning how was one of the only things she had to do for sixteen years straight. But...

Her voice started raspy with sleep and the remnants of tears. "[color=ffe63d]Can you brush out the parts by my legs? It'd take me a long time to do it myself.[/color]" 

By the time she went quiet again, though, it had smoothed out enough to resemble what she usually sounded like.