[IC] Amygdala Circuit

[Mcmolly]

Laying there, Dahlia sighed deeply as the anger and confusion fizzled out within her. She was content, which was a feeling that had eluded her for more than a week, and was only a visiting stranger in the weeks before that. But now the smile touched her eyes, shut though they were, and she leaned against Quinn and nodded.

“Yeah. Yeah, I do. Love you, too, Quinn.”

She could have stayed like that for a long time, and been happy. But that wouldn’t do, not for Quinn. She’d survived not only her first duel, but her first Modir as well—three of them, at that. She should be celebrating, or at least out enjoying herself while the tsunami of political fallout was still only on the horizon. There'd be time for business and fussing in the coming days, but for now they could breathe. It had been so long since she'd just...breathed. Not since before Hovvi—a lifetime ago, now.

“You know, when I won my first duel, Besca and I baked a cake. I bet we’ve got all the stuff we need—we should make one for you tonight, too.” She brought her other hand up, tousled Quinn’s hair. “Go on, get out of here. Go relax, go hang out in the observatory. Go be happy. I’ll see you guys tonight.”

[Lemons]

"Go on, get out of here. Go relax, go hang out in the observatory. Go be happy. I’ll see you guys tonight."

Quinn hesitated. She was happy here. But...she had been in medical for a couple days, and she was ready to go. So she slid away and out of the bed, headed to the door. Then, as she was reaching her hand out, she half-turned, looking over her shoulder. "Three hugs."

Then she gave Dahlia a soft smile. It felt strange on her face. But it felt good too, and it seemed like the right thing to do.

She was very used to navigating through medical by this point. Orderlies and nurses waved as they passed, giving her bright smiles. She blinked. She was a bit of a semi-regular resident of rooms in medical by this point, but that had never happened before. This was weird.

She didn't quite put it together until she walked out into the central plaza, basking underneath the parasol of pastel leaves. It was like greeting an old friend. And she was suddenly surrounded by excited whispers. She looked around. People pointed to friends as she passed. Congratulation were called to her as she walked to the elevator. And everyone was smiling.

It hadn't really hit her until that point, but she was...a real pilot now, wasn't she? A duel. A singularity. Both back to back.

There were few people in the elevator. She supposed that made sense; it was after lunch rush, most people on the station were working. What time was it? She slipped her phone out of her pants pocket. A little past two, it looked like. She didn't even look as she pressed the button for the second floor of the plaza. She knew exactly where she was headed, and she let the tsubaki trees guide her like a beacon.

Tohoki Grill was just like she remembered it (she didn't really know what she'd expected). The lighting, the false daylight, the amazing smell. People parted around her. Everyone...kinda loved her, didn't they? It was nice, all the crowds of people that seemed to her to follow in her wake. It reminded her of—

Her mood dimmed. But it couldn't be totally repressed. She'd...she'd really done it.

The head chef was talking to a customer. As she walked in, though, he excused himself, then gave her that huge smile and nearly jogged over to her, guiding her to the seat where she always sat when she ate here alone. She let him, gladly, then turned to him, face the absolute picture of sincerity.

"I bet it was the salmon. Can I have it again?"

She did. The yuzu soda too.

It was just as good the second time.

[Mcmolly]

---

---

“Is it on? I don’t—there’s no light. There’s no red light on the—no. There? Why is it—never mind, shit, sorry. Can we start again? Alright. Yeah, Tobey, cut it—international addresses don’t have fuckin’ blooper reels. Do I have time for a—forget it, let’s just go.”

Besca ran anxious hands through her hair while the small filming crew reset. The last time she’d given a speech had been at her graduation—high school. All anyone had expected out of her then were a few jokes and some fallacious remarks about she and her peers carrying Westwel’s future with them.

She wondered how many had survived the fall.

There’d been a speech after Hovvi, though it was small. More of an official condolence, and a promise to do better than those that came before her—not so different, thematically, from that high school speech, now that she thought about it. They had been calls for strength, and unity, and the only opposition were the silent Modir.

This was different. This, she knew, was the opening statement of what was going to be a long and arduous debate.

The red light came on. Tobey gave her the thumbs up from behind the camera. Besca stood upright at the podium, and glanced down at the papers before her—PR had decided that reading from a teleprompter would seem too ‘mechanical’. At least they’d let her write it—or, most of it. Parts of it.

“Good evening, my name is Besca Darroh, operations commander of the Runan Isles Savior Corps. I’d like to briefly address the recent duel in Sacre Colline, involving the Helburkan pilot Roaki Tormont, and our pilot, Quinnlash Loughvein. Many of you who watched saw, and perhaps by now have heard via communications leaks, Ms. Loughvein refuse to complete the duel. By now the results have been voided, and as proxies in the conflict between Helburke and Casoban, we have no right to dispute that decision.

“However. Allow me to be perfectly clear when I say that the RISC completely and unequivocally supports Ms. Loughvein’s choice. We have neither the obligation nor the desire to apologize for mercy. No laws were broken, and no lives were lost. There will be no punitive actions leveled against her, and the RISC will entertain no demands for compensation or rematches on the basis of that duel. Thank you.”

Besca swallowed, but kept herself from sighing so noticeably while the camera was still rolling. She could see Tobey preparing to cut, and in that moment something grabbed hold of her.

“And,” she said, unable to stop herself. “If a pilot is supposed to represent the will and convictions of their people, then, you know, I’d like to say that Quinnlash Loughvein did Runa proud. Thank you—again.”

There was a brief, awkward silence, and then the camera cut. Quiet murmurs bubbled up among the crew, but Besca was already out the door.

---

---

As the hours wore on, and the artificial windows in the station cycled into evening, the Aerie quieted. In the dorms, Dahlia prepared dinner, watching the news on the common room’s big screen. Quinn’s fight was still playing on repeat on just about every channel. The political pundits speculated on how the duel had apparently impacted relations between Casoban and Eusero, who by all accounts had been entirely uninvolved in the dispute until the last minute. There were talk shows debating the ethics—not of the lethality, but rather, whether or not it was ethical for Quinn to have shown mercy to a pilot with such a violent streak. Despite not being particularly fond of Roaki, Dahlia found that an odd point to make; didn’t all pilots have violent streaks?

They had Casobani speakers on, and their stance was clear: Quinn hadn’t made a decision for herself, she’d made one for Casoban. The matter of mercy was theirs to settle, and as a proxy, Runa had no right to make such a decision.

On other channels, combat specialists and even a few former pilots—some who had only ever been hopefuls—analyzed the duel. There was general praise for Quinn’s ingenuity, and extreme scrutiny applied to every mistake Roaki had made. Some made it sound as though the fight would have gone completely different had they been the ones in the cockpit.

“See here,” they’d say, and point to where Blotklau’s foot was positioned on a hill, or how low she hunched when she ran. “This is how you can tell she’s not comfortable in the Savior.”

“I’ve had my shoulder crushed before, in sims. You gotta fight through the pain. It’s one of the first things they tell you, you know. You have to just grit your teeth. She doesn’t even try to lift her arm here.”

“This call to roll low like that—see? Just brilliant. It’s snap-decision-making like that, that sets Ms. Loughvein apart from even Euseran gold-league starters.”

“And she holds it in her mouth! Props to Helburke for figuring out a way to make dogs compatible with a Savior, I guess.”

Dahlia switched the channel. Some night-show personalities were starting to look more closely at Quinn. They knew she was from Hovvi, now. Knew she was the sole survivor of the invasion. There was an outpouring of scripted sympathy, and baseless speculation about what it must have been like to see everyone she loved taken by the Modir. They equated it to Westwel.

She turned to a music channel and left it there.

She didn’t want to be upset. She wanted to make dinner, and eat with her family, and be happy that Quinn was alive. So that’s what she was going to do.

[Lemons]

At long last, Quinn arrived at the door to the pilot's quarters. From inside, she could hear music of a kind she'd never heard before, and a faint shuffling sound. Besca was still attending to everything Quinn's duel had wrought, she was pretty sure, so it could only be Dahlia.

She'd spent the past few hours just walking around the Aerie, talking to the people that she knew and being gawked at by the people she didn't. It wasn't long after she'd left Tohoki Grill that she'd heard a voice that sounded familiar, then realized it was hers. Following the noise, she'd arrived at a pair of...engineers? She thought? She didn't know them...looking down at a phone held between them. Her eye had widened as she'd heard what the digital image of her was saying.

So, that had been an interesting experience. She didn't know whether it was uncomfortable or amazing that she was suddenly being listened to by people on their phones on the Aerie. Maybe a little of both, she conceded, as she pulled open the door.

It was almost disorienting being back in the dorms. That feeling of un-reality from earlier came back again, though she managed to squash it down this time. Being excited to come home was still a new thing for her.

And there was Dahlia. She was rummaging around in the kitchen, putting together something for dinner. Whatever it was, it smelled absolutely fantastic. Though she wasn't a professional chef by any stretch of the imagination, Quinn found a special kind of comfort in the simpler meals that Dahlia cooked for her and Besca.

The TV was the source of the mystery music, and she found herself nodding along as she trotted over to her favorite chair, a huge blue affair that nearly swallowed her whenever she sat in it. She lay back, almost melting into the fabric, then turned her head laconically towards her sister as she bustled about. Her stomach growled at the aromas wafting out of the kitchen. Walking around built up an appetite surprisingly quickly.

"Some people were listening to the communications from the end of the duel," she said, in some bizarre amalgamation of fear and amusement. "Did I really sound like that?"

[Mcmolly]

“Hey hey!” Dahlia greeted as Quinn walked through the door. She stood stirring a ladle over a slow-cooker. Savory smells filled the dorm—chunks of tender beef soaking in a thick, aromatic bone-broth stock. Spices drifted in the air that, even after a month were still foreign to a nose like Quinn’s, all of which Dahlia was careful to lay out and show her whenever she asked. “I asked Besca to prep stew for tonight, just finishing it up now! She ought be here in a few minutes.”

Quinn threw herself down into her blue chair, and Dahlia set out a few glasses on the counter. She was glad she’d changed the channel beforehand—it likely would have been weird for Quinn to hear strangers from other countries, or even just other cities, talking about her so animatedly.

And, as if to prove her own point: “Some people were listening to the communications from the end of the duel. Did I really sound like that?”

It wasn’t the first time comms had been leaked, and it was no more surprising. Often the Board would arrange for certain snippets to land in the laps of favored news organizations now and then, if they felt it would lead to good press. With the storm Quinn’s stunt had set in motion, they were likely trying to get ahead while they could.

“It was pretty tense. You can get loud when you want to,” she giggled. “That’s not a bad thing. It’s good, you know, that you stick up for yourself. Even to Besca.”

Setting the lid on the cooker down, Dahlia came over and threw herself onto the couch. “Besides, for a first leak, I thought it was cool. You know what mine was? They got me on the lift riding up to connect for the first time—ohmygosh, you could hear my teeth chattering—and I asked Besca where the bathroom was in the cockpit.” Her ears went red, she rubbed her hands over her face. “Ughgod, it still comes up sometimes. I’ll show up somewhere for an interview and they’ll make sure they put me near a restroom. Kill me. At least this is something you can be, like, proud of.”

[Lemons]

Dahlia always knew how to make Quinn feel better. Her trepidation at the the oddness of it all, people listening to her without her being there, faded away. Dahlia had dealt with this for years. If she ever had a hard time, she could just ask her sister, right? And it was nice to know that having communications leaked wasn't a new thing, wasn't strange. She'd had enough of 'strange' for a little while.

And as Dahlia discussed her first leak, Quinn felt an unfamiliar sensation welling up within her, starting in her stomach and spreading upward like bubbles. Something she'd felt before, but not for a long time. For a moment she didn't really understand what it was, and it dimmed within her. But it came back once Dahlia finished speaking, rushing up like soda poured too quickly and overflowing before she could even hope to check it.

And Quinn burst out laughing.

Not the weak chuckle she'd given two weeks ago, when Dahlia had knocked her on her ass just by stepping back when they were sparring, and certainly not the death's-head laugh from the war room a week ago. No, this was a full-throated laugh born from genuine happiness and the release of a terrible tension, and it filled the room suddenly and unexpectedly.

She slapped her hand over her mouth in surprise, but she couldn't stop the giggles that leaked out from between her fingers even still. If there was one word to describe her expression, it was taken aback. But in a good way. She hadn't felt this way in a long time. And though the guilt bit at her heels still and a part of her knew that it always would, her sister didn't hate her, was there, and always would be. So Quinn was...

Happy.

She was really, really happy.

[Mcmolly]

It had been a long and mountingly frustrating day, and Besca was ready to scream. Really, she was ready to smoke. She needed it. God, she needed it. Just a minute or two away from everything, all the papers and phone calls, the memos from above laying out interview requests. And now, this business with Casoban and Helburke…

She just wanted to step into the observatory, light up, and stare at the stars for a bit. For two minutes, pretend she was somewhere else, someone else, who didn’t have to juggle one international incident after another.

But on the way there her stomach growled, and she remembered that Dahlia wanted to make stew tonight. Two days laid up after losing chunks of herself to the ichor, and the first thing she’d asked to do was cook something for all of them to eat together. The small pack in her pocket lost its luster, and she swerved in the commons towards the dorms instead.

And lucky she did. Two minutes would have been too many. She’d have missed the sound of them laughing.

She opened the door to see both of them sat in the living space, cackling like mad. Quinn was covering her mouth, giggling through her fingers. Dahlia had her head pressed back into the pillow, barking laughter out at the ceiling.

Suddenly Besca felt like she’d just woken up after the best night’s sleep of her life.

“What’s so funny?” she asked, tossing her coat onto a rack and kicking off her shoes.

“I told Quinn about the leak from my first practice” Dahlia said, voice pitching high.

Besca grinned. “Oh, god. Yeah. Quinn, you should have seen the look on her face the first time we interviewed at Late Night with Laurel, and the PM scurried up to her and said they’d made sure to put her room near the toilet. Priceless.”

“Oh hey, stew should be ready, wanna grab some bowls for us?”

“Sure, but if you don’t get up here I’m liable to mulch the whole thing myself. Been thinking about this all day.”

Dahlia got up from the couch, came over to the blue seat and peered down at Quinn. “Well don’t eat too much. You probably can’t smell it over the stew, but I went ahead and started baking the cake so we could have it tonight.” She plucked up Quinn’s braid, dropped it down into her lap. “And this one's for you, so you’re gonna decorate it however you want.”

She spun on her heel, and made for the counter while Besca poured them their bowls. Dahlia sat down on one side, patting the seat next to her for Quinn, and Besca took a seat across. A few bites were enough to make her forget everything, all the worries, all the stress. Right now she might not have been someone else, but that was alright. She didn't really want to be anyone else. Besides, sitting here, just the three of them, she felt a million miles away from the Aerie.

[Lemons]

Still choking back giggles, Quinn hopped up. She suddenly felt like she had more energy than she'd had in...in she didn't know how long, really. Like she was supercharged. Whipping the braid back behind her, she walked—nearly pranced, even—over the the table, sitting down next to Dahlia and plopping her braid down into her sister's lap in turn.

She felt like she was walking on sunshine, like everything was a billion miles away. Or, not everything, just all the bad. Not like the dreams where she felt all disconnected, but like the bad stuff was shunted to the back of her mind because there were too many good things filling the rest of it to the brim.

She tasted a bite of stew, winced a little as she burned her tongue—her hair flopped back down next to her—then blew on it a bit and slurped it up, even though it was still pretty hot for her sensitive mouth. She closed her eye rapturously. "If I could only eat one thing for the rest of forever it would be this, Deelie. It's so good!" As she spoke, she made sure to turn towards Dahlia, opening her eye and searching for an opening.

Then, just as Dahlia swallowed and lowered the spoon back down into the bowl, Quinn lunged forward and caught her in a tight hug, squeezing her not too hard—mindful that she did still have ribs that had just been reapplied—but hard enough to really show that she cared. She only pulled back after...what, ten seconds? More?

There was still a bit of a smile hanging on her face as she returned to her food, looking back at Dahlia as she did. "That's one!"

[Mcmolly]

Dinner passed in relative quiet, though not for lack of will. Good food made talking difficult, but every now and then, between bites, one of them would chime in with some observation, or a joke, or a little anecdote about their days. Quiet, but contented and pleasant.

When the meal was done, Besca cleaned the dishes while Dahlia took the cake from the oven. It looked plain, but then, to someone like Quinn who’d never seen one before, what else could there be to it? Dahlia showed her. She brought out icings in an assortment of colors, in flavors from chocolate and vanilla to strawberry and pumpkin. Quinn had no preference—no reference to have one—and so let Dahlia decide. With a wide, flat knife, she began to spread vanilla over the cake, and then once she’d demonstrated, handed it over to Quinn and let her finish covering the rest.

That done, handed her a squeezing tube, gestured to the various colors of icing and asked her: “What are we celebrating?”

It took some time, but eventually, Quinn took up the yellow icing—a shade not dissimilar to her eyes, or the streak in her hair—and hunched over the cake. With delicate if imperfect form, she began to push letters onto the flat top. “E”, “V”, and then later a “Y” and an “N”. It was hard to tell what exactly it was that she was writing. Both Dahlia and Besca squeezed in close, hovered over her, and still couldn’t make it out until she finally set the tube down and sat back, proud and excited.

It read: EVERONE’S ALIVE!!!!!

Dahlia and Besca exchanged a look, but it was all smiles soon after. Quinn was right, after all; everyone was alive. Everyone had come back from Casoban together, and that was because of her, because of who she wanted to be.

Because of the kind of pilot she was.

Besca retrieved some plates, while Quinn continued to scrawl little figures onto the top. “Not too much,” Dahlia said, when they were nearly through a second tube. “Icing’s heavy—you’ll want to be able to taste the cake.”

She cut a slice for all of them. Quinn pointed out which figure was which, and Dahlia parsed it so that they each got themselves on a plate. Thick slices, just enough to fill what room was left after dinner.

“What do you think?” Dahlia asked, slicing her piece apart with a fork. “Too sweet? Too hard? Do you like the vanilla, or you think you’d wanna try something new?”

[Lemons]

Quinn sat back, licked some icing off her fingertips, and looked down at her handiwork as the cake was cut. All three of them together. It was like a dream come true. She read back the message, still displayed in full view as the slice with her on it was deposited gently in front of her with the clinking of a plate: EVERYONE really was ALIVE!!!!!

Then, looking at the little bit of blank space that was left underneath the words—she'd been a little lopsided with where she'd drawn them all—she jumped a little bit.

Everyone was alive. EVERYONE!

And so before she took a bite, she picked up the icing tube again. The light gray this time, so it would show up against the white. Biting her tongue and sticking just the tip out of her mouth in concentration, she carefully, carefully squeezed it out into one more figure of a person, right next to where hers had been. It took her a little while; she obviously wasn't very good at this, and so it was inevitably a little lopsided, just like Quinn herself was. But it was still clearly recognizable as she put the tube aside and regarded the image proudly.

Then she cut the slice off—just a touch bigger than the one she had—scooped it onto a plate, and slotted it into the fridge with a great deal of care. It wouldn't do for it to get all messed up by bumping into anything else, right?

After making sure it would be safe, she walked back and sat down again, looking at the two of them in turn. "I'm bringing it when I go see her later tonight!"

With all that said and done, she finally picked up her fork and took a small bite of her own, careful to get some icing in. And her eye shot open. Another bite, then another and another. God, it was so good! It was sweet, and spongy, and the vanilla was like nothing she'd ever tasted before!

"Deelie," she was almost vibrating with excitement, "You've gotta teach me how to make these. It's so so so good!"

The guilt crept closer, and the smile started to dim ever so slightly. But she'd survived. And everyone had survived! She deserved one night with her family, didn't she? Just one night?

The smile brightened again. Yeah. One night was fine.

[Mcmolly]

The cake was good—more importantly, it seemed like Quinn enjoyed it. Dahlia was content with that, and was more than a little bit thrilled by the prospect of getting to spend a few afternoons teaching her sister the ropes. She wasn’t especially well-versed in baking, but if it meant getting to spend more time around Quinn, listening to her laugh, seeing her enjoy herself, then she’d certainly read up.

She was happy. Really, she was, but there was one small seed of concern. In another glance to Besca, she could see that it was shared between them.

“Oh, hun,” Besca said. “You wanted to—you were gonna go tonight?”

Dahlia nodded. “Mm, yeah, you know, it’s kinda late.”

“Late, yeah. Guards are probably off-duty for the night, and she’s…uh…you know, she’s probably asleep by now.”

“Right! She’s probably super tired anyway. I only just got out of medical today, and all I lost were a couple fingers and some bones. I bet she’s clonked right out!”

[Lemons]

Quinn shook her head, and the smile was replaced with a look of concern, and at the same time, one of determination (though the smile did still linger around the edges of her mouth). "No. I'm gonna go tonight. If she's asleep when I get there I'll leave and go back tomorrow, but..."

She paused for just a moment, then sighed almost mournfully. "I feel like people aren't talking to her, and I think that's sad. She deserves company like everyone else."

She cast a glance at the fridge, imagining the slice of cake within. "I know she won't be happy to see me, but...I at least want to give her the cake. She's alive just like us, so she's earned it, right?" Then she looked down, fiddling with her hair as she slowly continued. "But she's not okay. Not, like, her body, though, I mean. She's...someone hurt her."

And then there was the guilt.

She knew on a logical level that she shouldn't feel sorry for hurting Roaki. What else was she supposed to do then? It was the best case scenario for everyone, so if anything she should feel proud of herself for managing to only hurt Roaki and to not kill her.

But it wasn't a logical thing, what she was feeling. It was a bone deep regret and, yes, guilt. And though it wasn't as monstrous as the ocean that still reached out tendrils (ineffectual, at least at that moment) to her legs, it still hurt. There had to have been a less hurtful way to do what she did. A way that had made Roaki less vulnerable. She'd thought about it a lot during her stay in medical and hadn't come up with anything else that would've stopped her and hurt her less.

But there had to be something, right?

"And...I want to apologize for hurting her too. I feel awful."

[Mcmolly]

Quinn’s words sunk in like fishhooks, sent pangs of guilt through them, then dredged them up to the surface. It had been a very, very long time since either of them had thought of an enemy the way Quinn did.

It was like this at the start, Besca knew. A lot of pilots saw themselves like knights, saw themselves as honorable and chivalrous, only ever doing what was necessary. Before long they became disillusioned, and either reveled in the violence for the sake of their fame and glory, or numbed themselves to it. She’d watched it happen to Dahlia, watched her love of piloting curdle on the dueling fields in real time when the Board propped her up as their trump card.

With Quinn…she didn’t know. She just didn’t. Part of her wanted to believe that this was more meaningful than it seemed to many others—that this sympathy, this mercy wasn’t a fluke, and wouldn’t shrivel up the moment things got truly difficult. Quinn was many things, but she was not a quitter, and, to here Dahlia say it, she wasn’t a killer either.

The other part of her despised the fact that the world would take advantage of it. They would see weakness where there was good, and hunt it like bloodhounds after dying game.

Now Quinn wanted to break bread with one of those hounds.

It was hard to think of Roaki the way Quinn did. But it was Quinn she’d tried to kill, and if she could forgive something like that, shouldn’t anyone be able to? Perhaps it was beyond her, at least for now. She wouldn’t able to look at that girl and not see someone who wanted Quinn dead. Wanted Dahlia dead. Whether or not she was a monster made by someone else’s hands, she was still a monster.

“You shouldn’t,” Besca said. “You hurt her because you had to. If you hadn’t…you know you had no other choice. I won’t say you can’t go, but you can’t treat her like you owe her a debt—she’ll collect on it. Just be careful, that’s all. I just want you to be okay.”

“Yeah… Dahlia nudged her empty plate aside. “Just be okay. I’ll leave my phone on, you call if anything is…off. Or wrong. Okay?”

[Lemons]

"Don't worry too much. I think I'll be okay. But I'll call you if I need to for sure." She pulled out her phone and waved it a little, showing off that she had it on her.

Time passed, and they kept up their celebratory night, though Quinn was markedly less...effervescent. Her smile wasn't as pronounced, she was clearly worried about something. But even so, she was smiling.

Before too long, though, they'd made their way through most of the cake. Quinn wanted to go to bed, but she was antsy, and she needed to do what she felt was right. So she stood from the table, walked around, and hugged both of them tight. "Thanks. Thanks a lot."

Then she cracked the fridge open and slid out the cake, placing a fork with it on the plate and carrying it like a baby animal. Then she headed to the door, waved one more time, and headed out again.

Aerie station had a different feeling in the evening for sure. Most people were off work by now, and the sunset was so pretty that a whole gaggle was gathered in the observatory, and a bunch more milled around in the plaza, relaxing, laughing, drinking. Just like before, things quieted a bit as she passed and people watched her go by. She hoped it wouldn't last too long, it was starting to feel a little weird.

She'd never been to the holding cells, but she knew where they were. The narrow and spiderwebbing corridors on the lowest floor of the station led her down into the guts of the place. There were very few people here, and everything echoed as she walked along the metal and concrete. Before much longer, she came to a heavy steel door with two guards standing in front of it.

They looked at her quizzically as she approached, at the slice of cake she was carrying, and frowned. "You shouldn't—"

Her voice was a little sharper than she intended as she interrupted, "Let me in. Now." As an afterthought, she added, "Please?"

The guards shared a glance, looked back at her again. A heavy sigh bounced about the hall. "Alright. Don't stay too long."

She nodded at them, then opened the heavy door. It wasn't too dissimilar to the door of a skullport, really. She hesitated for a moment, turned, then slid the door closed behind her, leaving it just the littlest bit open. Hopefully they wouldn't close it.

They did, and she jumped a little as it slammed. It was still so quiet as she passed by rows of darkened cells, doors opened, turned into storage. The one at the very end had a light on, and she could faintly hear breathing. She stopped, the tap-tap-tapping of her footsteps cutting off. She closed her eye, breathed deep. One. Two. Three. Roaki was not going to be happy to see her. Absolutely not. But...she was here anyway.

She walked the last few feet, then turned to the barren cell, sat down in front of it, and placed the cake delicately next to her before looking forwards.

"Hi, Roaki."

[Mcmolly]

It was cold down here, Quinn would feel that first. The further in she went, the less ventilation there was, the less thought there’d been put to the idea that anyone would want to stay down here for any longer than they absolutely had to. Indeed, the idea of a “holding cell” on an installation like Aerie Station was almost absurd; without curated the staff was, how fine-toothed the door to entry to a program like the RISC could be, why would detaining anyone be a worry?

She had the right of it—this place had been turned to storage. The empty cells were stuffed with boxes and tarped outdated equipment that would stay here until someone remembered to ship it down for scrapping one day. Stuff didn’t complain when the air was bitter and cold, when it seemed like the only thing between you and the frigid void was a metal box and your imagination.

The light in the cell flickered as Quinn approached, as though her presence had thrown off some tenuous balance in its wiring. It returned, spitefully dimmer than before. It cast the bars into sharp shadows around her, as though she herself were imprisoned as well.

The breathing she’d followed fell quiet, and in its place was an utterly vacuous silence. When she had finally sat down, and raised her eye, it was not a pleasant sight waiting for her.

The first word would have been: “cramped.” It was a closet, ungloried for how lifeless it was. Cold, gray metal on three walls, a floor, and a ceiling broken only by a single—tempestuous—light. The bars before her were close-set and black like a Modir’s bones. Inside there was only a steel slab welded to the wall, upon which was a blanket no thicker than Quinn’s pinky, and a pillow that looked like it had been dehydrated for shipping, and never quite recovered. A toilet was tucked away in the only dark corner, a dull sink beside it.

A shape sat beside the slab, head uncomfortably leaned against its edge. It wore the thin smock of a medical gown over the short-sleeved shirt and papery pants that were the color of seafoam. One sleeve hung empty, and one pant leg was tied off just below the knee. The other was tied up much higher, almost halfway up the thigh. An avalanche of white hair draped it like a sheet, matted and unwashed and so dirty it was more gray-brown than white, now.

Quinn would recall dun silver eyes on a ghost-scarred face. They seemed somehow duller now for how sunken they were, and unabashedly red. The ghostly scars had expanded on the left side, almost like an entirely different layer of skin, just as dirty as her hair and broken only by now-dried tear streaks.

It took several moments to even tell if the girl had heard her. Her head turned slow, creaking—shivering. Her knee was pulled in close to the chest, but she had to let go to lean off the wall. It looked like she could hardly sit upright on her own.

Dry, crack lips parted, took in a chilled breath. When she spoke, her voice was hoarse, sick. It sounded like she hadn’t spoken in days.

“What the fuck do you want?”

[Lemons]

If there was one word that could be used to describe Quinn's response to Roaki's condition, it would be outrage. She bolted upright, grabbing at the narrow bars, and the words forced their way out of her before she could stop them. "What the fuck? How could they treat you like this?!"

She hadn't expected Roaki to be treated particularly well, all things considered. But she'd expected better than this! How could the Board justify it? Fury surged through her, burning hot and white in her veins. Someone needed to put the fuckers in their places, and fast. This was unacceptable, and everything she was rebelled against it on a visceral level.

She instantly dropped a hand to her pocket, tore her cell phone out, and called Dahlia, eye straying back to the horrible, pitiful image in the cell as she did. As soon as she picked up, Quinn hissed through the microphone, "You and Besca. Down here. Right. Now. You need to see this." She hung up immediately afterwards, leaving no room for response, and fought very, very hard not to spike her phone into the floor or smash it against one of the bleak concrete walls. Her voice as she spoke again was tight, tense, horrified.

"I was going to come down and talk because I thought you'd like the company, even if you were just going to threaten to kill me, and I wanted to give you a piece of cake. But this..." Her whole body was seething with anger, and she made a strangled sound deep in her throat, halfway between nausea and blinding fury.

With one hand still entangled in the bars, her other fist bunched tight at her side. It was cold down here for her already. She couldn't imagine spending more than an hour down here, let alone two days. All alone too, with only a thin blanket on a steel slab sticking out of the wall. "...This is horrible." It's disgusting, she went on in her head. How could they?

She grit her teeth, hand clenching around the bar so tight it creaked. As unpleasant as Roaki had been at the Henkersmahl, she didn't deserve this. Quinn wouldn't wish this on anybody. "I'm getting you out of here, Roaki."

She didn't know exactly what she would do yet. But she was doing something. She would openly defy the Board if she needed to. If they did this to someone, anyone, they didn't deserve to have power. "I know you hate me. But I'm getting you out tonight. And that's a fucking promise."

[Lemons]

---

[Mcmolly]

Roaki flinched when Quinn lunged at the bars. She hadn’t expected anyone would come down here, and she’d just about made peace with the idea of spending whatever was left of her life in silence. So, as much as Quinn’s presence surprised her, what had made her flinch wasn’t the anger in her eye, or the dull clanging of the bars—it was the look on her face. It was that, lurking beneath the rage, and the horror, was something a thousand times more terrifying.

Pity.

“…because I thought you'd like the company…and I wanted to give you a piece of cake. But this...”

She was being pitied. By Quinnlash.

“I'm getting you out of here, Roaki.” She watched Quinn’s knuckles whiten around the metal bar, speaking through a tight cage of teeth. “I know you hate me. But I'm getting you out tonight. And that's a fucking promise.”

Roaki’s jaw clenched, popped. Every muscle was tense and sore and her bones creaked at the thought of moving but she did. Hunched, slow, she pulled herself along the hard ground. The faint warmth of inaction was shaken off like dust, and fresh, new cold found her. She ignored it.

At the bars, she looked up at Quinn. She’d been short before, she was used to that, but this was different. She’d been brought this low, hers was the view of a worm, in every sense. Staring up at her, it was hard not see the one-eyed girl as a kind of hawk, or a vulture, hungry and circling. For a moment she was back in Casoban, looking over her shoulder at Ablaze, her arm pinned, burning. She felt that desperation again, the flashes of pain even in the leg she’d not had for years.

Chiefly, she felt the fear. Quinnlash Loughvein scared her, and because Roaki had spent her entire life having her face smashed into the things she was afraid of, she reacted in the way she knew best.

She got angry. She got really, really angry.

With a lurch she pushed herself up, just enough to her her hand around Quinn’s wrist. Half leveraging herself against the ground, and half letting the girl’s weight pull her, she managed to bring Quinn down and herself up enough to be at-eyes with her. She held tight, hand wrapped in the dry-bloodied gauze that ran up her sleeve, all the way up her arm and around her neck to hide all the new fades from the modium extraction. Her nails dug shallowly into Quinn’s wrist, but she wished, she wished so much, that she had the strength to snap the bone. She would.

“I…”

Her voice withered into a rasp, but she didn’t fall silent because of the strain. Rather, she didn’t know what to say. She was angry, and she hated Quinn; that should have been enough. It usually was. Of all the things Roaki had struggled with, articulating her anger—effectively if not exactly eloquent—had never been one of them.

The longer she stared silently, the worse it got. Hate her, she thought. Hate her! Tell her how much you hate her! Tell how much you want to rip her apart! Get you out of here? She put you here! She—

Ah. There it was. The realization was harsh and bold and would not be denied.

No, she didn’t. You put you here. Not an easy thing to admit, but a reality she’d been squaring herself with since she’d tumbled out of her seat in the cockpit. You lost, you fucking worm. This is your fault. You deserve this.

Shame filled her. Blessedly her face was already reddened by the cold, so it wasn’t as obvious outwardly as it was to her. Heat came to her, but it was in her eyes and she absolutely refused to entertain it. She had begged the pilot who had cut her out of the cockpit, and screamed with the doctor who had…excised her growths. She would not, under any circumstances, cry in front of Quinnlash Loughvein.

“I don’t…”

Thankfully she didn’t get the chance.

There was shouting from beyond the distant door, which flew open to reveal two familiar faces. One was an older woman who had been at the Henkersmahl, and the other…damn the luck. They both came sprinting, their expressions a mix of panic and worry and, when they saw her, burgeoning fury.

“Get away from her!” shouted the other pilot. She slammed into the bars, wrenching Roaki’s hand from Quinn’s wrist. There was murder in her eyes.

Roaki fell to the ground with a grunt, dragging herself back from the bars. The other woman pulled Quinn away, looking her over frantically. She patted her down with gentle hands, and, evidently finding proof that Roaki was as ineffectual a warrior as she suspected, sighed with relief and hugged Quinn tight.

Something within her burned to see that. She looked away.

“What happened?” the woman asked. She was breathing raggedly, her words were thin and strained. “God, Quinn, you scared the crap out of us.”

[Lemons]

The flash of relief and hope that Quinn felt when the door crashed open and her family rushed towards her was quickly snuffed out as Dahlia rushed up and shoved her back, sending Roaki toppling to the ground. She didn't feel the usual warm happy glow when Besca hugged her; just a cold pulse of anger. And a moment later she extricated herself, shoving Besca back and backpedaling, putting herself between the two women and Roaki.

Glancing at the cell, she at least saw that Roaki hadn't been hurt from the fall (she thought). But still, she sucked in an angry breath through her teeth, then delivered a savage and violent glare at the two in front of her. Principally at Dahlia.

"What the fuck are you doing?"

She half-turned, then flung her hand out to the cell. Her voice burned in a way that almost scared her as she spat, "Why would you do that? Look at her! Look what the Board did to her! Do either of you think this is okay? It's fucking disgusting!"

She gripped a tight hand on the door handle, rattling it as though to prove a point. Her eye was glacial, a shard of golden ice, and her voice was flooding with both barely-contained anger and with heavy disappointment. Disappointment that her sister had seen Roaki gripping Quinn by the wrist with her only intact limb and not skipped a beat as she rammed her back. Disappointment that Besca had seen it and not done anything. Disappointment on a level that she didn't know she'd ever felt before. She pointed down the hall at the door.

"Besca, get the keys. Dahlia, get a stretcher or wheelchair from medical." Her outstretched hand came back in front of her and curled into a tight, angry claw. "We're taking her to medical. Now. And they're going to treat her better this time, or I'm not getting back into Ablaze until they DO!"

[Mcmolly]

Both the pilot and the woman recoiled at Quinn’s outburst, at first completely shocked and then, Roaki noticed with growing disdain, ashamed. At first she thought it might be the shame of someone caught doing something they shouldn’t—no real remorse, only sorry that they were being scolded. And she could see that at first, especially in the pilot; that hate in her eyes, like Roaki had tried to steal something precious from her, never snuffed, only cooled to a simmer. But gradually she saw it shift into genuine guilt. They were sorry. Roaki didn’t understand it, but she knew it right away, there was regret.

Her own shame burned as Quinn pointed at her, talking about her like some wounded dog locked in their kennel. Perhaps not as far from the truth as she’d hope.

At an order from her they both departed. The woman muttered an apology, the pilot looked about ready to cry, but nodded obediently and ran off.

Who were these people that Quinn could order them around so soundly? The one she knew would be Dragon’s pilot, though in reality she seemed so much more pitiful than expected. The older woman, she had no idea. She’d been at the Henkersmahl, but everyone had looked at her like she was someone important. Brass, maybe? But why on earth would she bend so easily to Quinn’s will? What sort of hold did she have over them?

Come to think of it, the Quinn standing before her now, angry and as cold as the air around them, was nothing at all like the frightened child from Casoban. Sure, she’d snapped at her, but everyone did that when their loved ones were threatened—that was the whole point. This was different.

Maybe the girl was more savage than she seemed. She might not have killed Roaki, but was this fate any better? She thought about the duel, about waking up to the sight of her leg submerged in modium, and the slow agony of the growths sprouting from her marrow. No. No, it wasn’t any better. It was so, so much worse.

And now, what? Why come here—to gloat? To draw out her torture as much as possible. Perhaps her fear of Quinn wasn’t so ridiculous after all.

“I’m n-not…going.” She hated the brittleness of her own voice. Hated how the quiet made her sound like a glass doll. “T-this is…where I…belong…”

Her hand curled into a fist, slammed against the metal. Just bringing her eyes up to Quinn felt like a feat of strength. Why was it so hard to look at her?

“S-should have k-killed me. Dead…a-anyway. Just l-leave me alone. Let me…die,” she muttered, shivering down to a whisper. She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t scream. “D-don’t take…anything else…”