"Be it. Indulgence. Or. Connection. Be you. Guest. Or. Family. I am. Happy. You feel... free. Ask. Beg. Breathe. Here, you. Are. Treasure."

"Yeah it's a lot," says Slate with a smile, "She's a lot. But don't worry your pretty little head, cutie. As long as you're here, you're among friends."

"Safe company."

"...Or that, sure. C'mon Boss, sell. Sell it! How's she gonna fall into the fantasy if you sit there all overwhelmed and -- ah."

Mirror simply smiles, and fills the quiet of the room with Matty's warm purrs via the motion of her fingers. She is gentle. She is tender. She is affectionate and loving. One hand wrapped around the little sillyhead's waist to keep her from squirming or melting her way onto the floor, the other playing circles all up and down the back of her head. Through the hair, across the ears, a pause to brush the cheeks, sliding tenderly down her throat and playing tenderly with the outline of the collarbone. Tickling the back of the neck and moving to start the cycle over again. 

She motions with her head toward the dumpling packages, and Slate grins as she makes a show of picking out several of the juiciest, most densely packed treats in the entire order. The level of sway in her hips would put even Mirror to shame. Up she comes, licking her chops suggestively in sheer delight of the sights and smells. And as she crosses, Mirror switches to stroking Matty's chin and the top of her neck, gently guiding her head up, and up, and up, until she's stretched (splayed, really) as far out as she can be, helpless to speak. Ready, in other words, to eat.

"Ah, there's a good girl! Good girl, sweet kitten, let all those thoughts come tumbling out. You don't need them, do you? Of course you don't. Of course you don't! Those are for the adults, aren't they? No, all you need to worry about is sitting still and opening your mouth sooooo wide, so Slate can feed you. Can't have you starving on us, can we? What would Trosta say? There we go, there we go, good girl, darling ripple, say aahh~"

Slate hesitates a moment before closing in for the kill. It was difficult sometimes to know which end of Mirror's breakdowns and recoveries were the affectations and which were the genuine hints at her mood. Sometimes both halves of a wild swing were genuine, and other times an entire water slide's worth of twists could turn out to be an aspect of play, though that was rare. Sometimes it was about shortcuts sometimes it was about surprises. Sometimes a moment was simply deemed too important and she would put on her mask and burn through it at deep personal cost. 

Even for an expert in Mirrorology, it was a lot of potential cues to have to pick up on. And this for a woman who'd cosmetically altered her eyes to make it harder to gauge her emotions. But the motion of her hands, the softness with which she holds Matty: simultaneously giving the girl enough freedom of movement to let her make a complete fool of herself without ever letting her slip away from the cradle of comfort and softness... well, there was no room to misinterpret [i]that[/i], now was there?

She sits down next to her Boss and dangles a dumpling just out of reach of Matty's mouth, so that she needs to strain and stretch a teeny bit to nibble on it. It's tempting in the extreme to stuff the poor girl's mouth full and lock her out of the conversation for however long it took her to recover, but nah. Well, yeah actually. But some other time. And with a toy instead of food. She's got [i]ideas[/i]. But you only get one first impression. And she'd promised. This girl would be family before the time came to say goodbye. 

So that it would never have to. 

Mirror buries her face in Matty's hair and plants a tiny kiss on top of her head, between her ears. Slate dutifully feeds the precious kitten her food, and wipes her mouth clean of drippings between each bite. But her eyes are alight with mischief that will not be silenced, after all. She looks over the top of this little moment and catches Mirror's eye.

"We had to clean out several power conduits near the cockpit, thanks to the burnout and reaction to that geist-thingy, Boss. A deep clean and a scrape did for the paths to Tail 3, but Tail 5's got a line too corroded to be kept. Not a problem; we've got the parts spare and the crew's all trained for this. It's not finished yet, but it'll be done before the next match, bet."

Mirror's smile shifts, and not subtly. One moment she wears a look of contented bliss, and the next with wicked amusement. So that's the game, is it? She continues to hold Matty close and returns to her massage, but her tone of voice becomes weary and bored. Business talk. As if Matty wasn't in the room at all. As if it couldn't matter less if she overhead a status report that most pit crews would commit murder to keep secret. As if the trained and talented engineer being fed dumplings in her lap was too small, too silly, to be factored into the appropriateness of the discussion. 

The adults are talking. She feels Matty grow warmer as she catches onto the implication, and gives her a soft squeeze in exchange. Her lower hand massages Matty's stomach as she swallows a laugh.

"To be expected. They have the rest of the night off, I presume? Acceptable. And the controls themselves? Have they been tested for responsiveness in the face of the new connectors? The last time we needed to rip the Whip's guts out like this it felt like I was trying to cut through a waterfall making it move at speed. Frankly I'd rather let the whole thing get hijacked again then ever repeat that sensation."

"Nah Boss, can't. We've tried this, remember? Not a single one of us born can properly test out Nine-Tails' response rating. We need you there for that much, at any rate. Was meaning to talk to you about that. Can you spare time in the... well actually, since we're talking about changing the way the power routing works entirely to prevent this kind of attack in the future we might have to hold off all in all to avoid redundancy. Gonna be a busy day, I think. If it's not too much trouble, can we get you to clear your schedule? Emergencies only, Boss. It's gonna be touch and go without any additional expertise to stabilize us."

"Tch. Unfortunate. I do need time to run the business side of our operation, Slate. This operation doesn't pay for itself. Especially with the Smith getting involved. But if you say there's no time, then there's no time. It isn't as though we have any fresh experts on hand who could speed us out of the trial and experimentation phase. I'll have to put out another loan, instead. It will be difficult: the major TC financial establishments are growing reticent to accept my collateral. I may need to take risks."

Oh no, Matty! Mirror doesn't think you can help her! And without your help she might even get hurt by pirates of Banking Goons, the very worst kind of scoundrel in the universe! Can't you speak up? Can't you save her? Don't you have a single thing to say right now, or is this conversation too big and sophisticated for your little mind to handle? And for that matter, can you master yourself while Slate is still brushing little bits of dumpling off your lips?

The clock is ticking.