Quinn stood in the middle of the common room, staring at the cracked door that Dahlia slept beyond. And once more, a razor-sharp shard of guilt buried itself in her heart. She was doing it again. Trailing behind Dahlia. Causing problems. Hurting people. Just like at Hovvi. Even now, making her own decisions cut her to the core sometimes, dug into that piece of her that she knew would always be there to some extent: the ignorant child, patiently waiting for mom and dad to come give her dinner. 

A bolt of anger shot down her spine, and her lip curled up into a sneer filled with self-disgust. Wasn't she supposed to be a [i]hero pilot[/i] now? So, what? She could fight Modir, and Roaki, and Casoban and Helburke by extension. She thought that she could maybe beat her sister in spar now. She already beat her in sims as long as they turned phasing off. But still...

The lunch she'd had before the interview with Mona played back vividly in her mind, and as she felt her stomach turn, she made her way over to her favorite blue chair and sank down into it, closing her eye and letting her body go limp. She'd made Dahlia order for her. Then she'd hurt her. Why couldn't she ever do anything for Dahlia when [i]she[/i] was hurting? Especially when it was [i]Quinn's fault anyway?[/i]

[i]Why was she like this?[/i]

Her thoughts slowed. Why was she like this? And...[i]why?[/i] What had [i]happened?[/i] She knew her parents had fed her modium ichor for some reason she couldn't understand. She knew that somehow she'd lived though ingesting ichor, and been...[i]fine,[/i] if sick. She knew that she had a smaller [i]her[/i] within herself, that had been there for who knew how long.

So, she asked herself again: [i]why?[/i]

She pulled in a long, slow breath. In.......out. Another. One more. And her eye snapped open.

There was something she needed to do. 

But first, breakfast.

Quinn wasn't a particularly good cook, and she knew it. She messed up everything from eggs to soup. But, as she'd reflected that morning, even someone like her could make some toast, butter it, slather it in Dahlia's favorite jam, and cut an apple into slices that she arranged next to it. Into the fridge the plate went, and upon a discarded piece of paper, she wrote:

[color=ffe63d][i]I made you breakfast, Deelie. It's not as good as yours, but...it's the thought that counts, right? It's in the fridge whenever you want it.[/i][/color]

Underneath, she drew a heart, then slid the paper underneath her door so Dahlia would see it when she awoke.

That done, she took another long, long breath. Her heart was [i]hammering[/i] in her chest, even harder than it had in [i]Ablaze.[/i] [color=black]Quinnlash[/color] was [i]screaming[/i] in her head, some blend of fear and [i]fury[/i]. But she ignored her as best she could. For months, she'd just...walked after Besca and Dahlia. Giving them more work, dragging them down. She wanted to be [i]better.[/i] She wanted to figure out how she could keep moving forward without them, and so how she could walk alongside them instead. But to do that, she wanted...

She wanted answers.

This was a decision that [i]she[/i] came to. That she [i]alone[/i] could make, and [i]she alone[/i] could carry out. Something that she couldn't wait for Besca and Dahlia to do for her, because she knew they never would. Something entirely her own.

So, nestling back down into her chair, she took her phone slowly out of her pocket, and tabbed over to the internet browser. Hand shaking so much she had to restart and delete several times, she finally tapped out what she wanted to search. What she needed to search. And so, heart heavy, blood already freezing in her veins, and taking one last breath, she searched it.

Because she didn't [i]want[/i] answers. Not really.

She [i]needed[/i] them.

[i]Mr. and Mrs. Loughvein[/i]