The day progresses adequately. Her late attendance at fencing is noted, but she's soon moving on - ten points clean - to the next class. The match review is draining, but another coffee helps. Second by second, inch by inch, Isabelle and the review team make it through the replay. The consolidated list of notes is taken to her study for later. 

A mandatory 20 minute break for dinner is taken in Quar's room. Again, the Zaldarian signals concern, but Isabelle ignores it in favour of progressing their lessons as much as she can. Food is offered and taken without resistance before she moves to her next training session.

All the while, the memory weave and drive sit in her pocket, nestled up against Asil's projector. She's ... to be honest, the message is just more stress for her. Another variable to consider: keep it hidden? tell her mother? If she were to tell, would Adriana know? The fallout for disrupting her mother's plans could be far worse than her ire at Isabelle keeping it hidden.

In either case, it's too important to leave somewhere or to trust to someone else to deliver - so it sits, safe, in her jacket. Just another stone on the mountain she's carrying around.

Never for a second does she think Adriana actually wants to know the [i]real [/i]Isabelle. She only wants to meet the "hidden" one, the one that is different to the public persona, with enough rough edges to feel genuine. Just off-script enough to feel like a valuable secret, one prized only for Adriana's mind. Fuel for the ego. The Isabelle who is a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield and in the boardroom. Who can command companies and prove her capabilities time and time again. The Isabelle whose "dreams" can be easily fit into Adriana's grand plans.

She doesn't want to know the Isabelle that likes storybooks, that builds models or dreams of flying away. The Isabelle who has a thing for short-haired engineers and who would rather spend a day at the library than in the office.

That Isabelle isn't [i]useful[/i].

-===-

It's later, much later, and Isabelle is dangling from a harness in her own private hangar. 

She'd finished training just before midnight and had returned to her room long enough to change into work clothes and head back out. Gloves on. Hair tied back in a bun. Breakfast is at 6:30 tomorrow, which meant she has just over 2 hours to start the process of getting Emberlight back into fighting shape.

Goggles in place, she carefully pries the panelling off Emberlight's forearm and looks at the wiring within with mild dismay. Tomas and his team have done a thorough job - unfortunately - which only makes [i]her [/i]work all the harder.

Still, it's a job that has to be done ... and she trusts nobody other than herself to do it. So, bolt by bolt, wire by wire. She'll make Emberlight [i]hers[/i] again.