The Ange hung, poised above Illun like a sleeping whale. Though time was scarcely concrete in space, as the cycle of night closed around the station, its levels fell into a calm, solemn quiet. Lights dimmed in the shopping centers, their stores shuttered, the walkways void of civilian and crew alike. Only in the sparsely-lit halls of the labs, and the medical wing, and the offices of those with the schedules of owls, did the faintest proof of life remain. On the pilot’s floor, that proof was Quinn. In the dim lights and suffocating quiet, her footsteps were the only sign that anyone was here at all. Of course, the others must have been around, likely retired to their rooms, or perhaps sequestered away in the gym across the level. Either way, Quinn walked alone—or alone as she ever was, anymore. The day was behind her, and tomorrow had yet to rear its forbidding head. So, like the Ange, she too hung in limbo, drifting like the station itself. Their side had rotated away from Illun, and through the windows she could see nothing but the blackness, pinpricked by so many microscopic lights. [color=black]Something[/color] suggested, or rather, pleaded with her, to wait. To stop, and look. There bubbled up within her a [color=black]wonderment[/color], a [color=black]familiar longing[/color]. Images, or more like emotional sensations eliciting the moonlit lake at Hovvi flashed within her mind. For the briefest moment, if she let herself imagine as much, she might have been able to believe she could feel a small, cold hand gripping hers, as she stared out into the infinite night. [i]Curfew is now in effect. Non-pilot personnel please exit the floor.[/i] The robotic voice, soft and considerate as it was, still tore the silence apart with jagged nails. The stars were so beautiful. Lights in the dark. Such anintimate thing. In the glass she could see her reflection, and over her eyepatch, there hovered a particularly bright cluster of incomprehensibly distant and luminous secrets. [i]Curfew is now in effect. Non-pilot personnel please exit the floor.[/i] There were no non-pilot personnel to exit the floor. [i]Curfew is now in effect. Non-pilot personnel please ‘decide where power lies.’[/i] ‘[i]There is no king in the mirror.[/i]’ the gentle voice said, and its robotic edges frayed, gave way to something much smaller, and frailer. A young and quivering voice, speaking slowly and quietly, as if she did not wish to be heard by anyone else. [i]‘Only a throne, a crown, and a promise. And with great pains, I will see this done.’[/i] The lights went out, and the long hall was plunged into darkness, broken only by intermittent panels of starlight. Silence’s reign was brief. [i]Curfew is now in effect. Non-pilot personnel please exit the floor.[/i] Quinn, who was only ever as alone as she could be anymore, suddenly knew she was not alone. [i]Curfew is now in effect. Non-pilot personnel please exit the floor.[/i] The darkness ahead of her led towards her room. Behind her, to the lift. The alien wonderment within her curdled, and what remained was the tiny imprint of a panicked voice that did not like the darkness behind her. [i]Curfew is now in effect. Non-pilot personnel please exit the floor.[/i] It told her to [color=black]Go.[/color]