Quinn wasn't exactly sure how long she and Dahlia stood there, wrapped around each other. It could've--was probably--only a few minutes, but time felt like it had come unbuttoned from the rest of the world. Like everything was on pause, and she and her sister were the only things left moving in the whole universe; everything else just faded away, and the entire world hinged around the two of them.

"[color=ffe63d]I love you too,[/color]" she sobbed, clutching tighter, clinging on for dear life. "[color=ffe63d]I'll always come back.[/color]"

What Dahlia said might not have been [i]as[/i] powerful--though of course, anything Dahlia did was powerful for Quinn--but not [i]that[/i] powerful, if Quinn hadn't also thought that she was going to die. Right around the time that the rifle Modir blasted her fingers off, she became convinced that she wasn't going to make it out of there. It was only the intervention of Axan Dane--

Though she was [i]loathe[/i] to pull away from Dahlia, she did, just a little. She kept in contact, but pulled her head back enough that she could look her sister in her equally tearful eyes. She wanted to ask about the ESC pilot, the woman that had dropped from the sky like a meteorite to save her life. But looking her in her eyes, she realized that she didn't [i]want[/i] to talk about her. She didn't [i]want[/i] to pull Dahlia's attention everywhere. All she wanted to do, all she [i]cared[/i] even the slightest whit about at that moment, was getting checked up by Doctor Follen and then spending as much time with her family as was physically [i]possible.[/i]

But that was something that could come in a bit, and she could take when it came. Because at this exact moment, the only thing she cared about in the world was hugging Dahlia.

So, only a moment after she pulled back to see the worry and relief in her eyes...that's what she did.