SILENCE

                                  "Hold on to my shoulders. The road ahead isn't easy and I can't exactly carry you... We need to walk together.“

She looks up. Up, at the great unknowable. Up, at the vast inky blackness that has forever been and will forever be... Or, at least, would have forever been. This changes everything and nothing.

The people who struggle and toil will care nothing for the sky being torn asunder. The people whose lives are considered lesser, who exist on the knife's edge of home and homelessness will not care that the sky has been punctured.

But, for scientists?

Those who look up, or down, or around. Those who seek to change and control and who will stop at nothing to get it... They have seen this. And they will be inspired. They see beyond the veil that locks life and death into its permanent, ugly spiral of black-red crystal and bloody war and see only that the sky... The sky is no longer the limit.

"The stars are out tonight..."

Once upon a time, she might have baulked at this sort of talk. If not because of her own lacking self-esteem, then definitely because she didn't know what side, if any, Muelsyse was on. The Director of Ecological was infuriating in that way, hiding everything behind that knowing look, that coy smile and the splash of crystal-clear water.

It was the sort of thing that Silence couldn't tolerate. She had no stomach for this sort of behaviour, for this sort of person. Muelsyse had been an unknowable obstacle, a threat perhaps. She hadn't trusted the Director with a single thing, not even a stray thought.

If only she'd known.

"Cute, am I?"

She's learned a lot, since. About people, generally... She still looked towards the rising sun with hope, dared to dream. But she knew better, too. She had a lot of people to thank for this growth... Including the very Elf that stood before her now, no doubt hoping to tease and fluster, to spirit herself away in a splash of spring water.

Maybe she still would. But this cute little owl had grown into herself, had found out who she truly is. Had learned to be herself, unabashedly so. To be fiercely and truly Herself.

So when Muelsyse sashays closer, perhaps prepared to aim another barb of what may, or may not, be genuine affection (because Silence trusts her now, yes, but still cannot tell what she's thinking more oft than not) her way, Silence also sidles closer. For a brief moment, Muelsyse might see herself reflected in Silence's spectacles. Would she feel like she was the target, lit up in the glass, bordered by thin metal boundaries?

"Is that all I am? Or is that just all you see?"

A moment of hesitation. A single, solitary moment. Funny, how life works, isn't it? But people change. Like the world around them, people change.

"Maybe you'd like to see more, if that's the case."

A sigh. Long and heavy. It wasn't important. It was a replica of a prototype of her production-model medical drone. The replica was just polymer, cheap and cheerful. A little something to remind her of her progress without endangering the prototype.

"Do you exist just to make my life more difficult? Or are you so desperate for attention that even bad attention will do, so long as someone is attending you?

"You don't have to break my stuff to get my attention, you know."

It's... puzzling.

While you brought them with you on the land ship, you've never set them out on your desk. But, you didn't have a cubicle style desk either.

As you pondered upon these strange observations, a cool hand rest on your shoulder, followed by an eerily familiar voice.

"Welcome home, Silence. I've been waiting for you."

It was none other than your former mentor, Director Parvis, with another file beneath his arm. (Another human test subject , another Ifrit.)

—but before you could retaliate, the visage fades.

The lights dim and flicker.

There's that familiar and constant mechanical sound that comes from the old and daily maintenanced land ship.

The cool hand tugged itself away, and it was Saria at the other other end sporting a corncerned look only you and your makeshift family would recognize.

"You'll be late for your appointment. Should I ask Joyce to reschedule?"

It was from her time at university, she recalls, looking at the bobble with the slightly faded, sun-yellowed branding on its chest. This one's actually broken, she can't help but think, so to see it doing its little dance, merry and unconcerned with the horrors of the world... It's unnerving. It's wrong. And she furrows her brow in thought, biting her lip gently. This... Has she just been dreaming, the entire time? No.

No, she would know. Surely.

In her dreams, Ifrit doesn't suffer for as long as she has. In her dreams, Saria does not hide anything from her. In her dreams, he treats her like he used to... The kind, gentle man he once was...

A hand on her shoulder is normal, but the voice--

She bites down. Too hard. Her lip splits and blood spills, head turning quickly to stare at the man she knew now was dead. The man she had watched die, had been powerless to save. Not because she wanted him to live, but because she wanted him to live to be punished for his crimes, to see her undo the evil that had been wrought.

But she cannot see him, only Saria. Whatever illusion had befallen her, whatever madness had consumed her waking vision and replaced it with this bleak dreamland had been dispelled. Perhaps it was the throbbing pain of her lip that had pulled her from the reverie. Perhaps, instead, it was the touch of Saria. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps...

She snags a tissue from the box on her desk and presses it to her lip briefly. She can attend to this minor injury in a moment, when her brain has stopped feeling like it's rattled loose in her skull, when her heart slows and her hands... Her hands stop shaking.

It's just Saria.

Just Saria.

Saria.

"I..."

She stares at Saria for a moment, before turning back to her desk. The broken bobble is not on this desk. There is more on this desk than the one she remembers, the one she thought she saw. Less knick-knacks, more work. More documentations. More.

"No. I'll be fine."

She gets up from her chair and strides off. Uncharacteristically cool of her, to disregard Saria's presence this much. But she cannot linger in this space, not right now. Her stomach is knotting itself up, part pain part trauma as she tries to dispel the echo of his voice that is digging its claws deep into her ear canal, dragging itself deeper into her brain.

She rounds the corner, thumbs a button on her wristpad and awaits the drone she's called, pressing her back against the wall, desperate for the stability. Her hands tremble. She clenches them tight, but it doesn't help. It just bleaches her knuckles white.

an hour, that was the amount of free time they've managed to scrape together to prepare before the next meeting. it would barely be enough, but it was more than they had expected.

it was all they needed, truthfully.

the most difficult portion of it all, was to obtain a cake - all of which had closed by the time saria had scraped together this ... thing for them, leaving the vouivre with a cupcake.

a. singular. cupcake.

it will have to do.

...

once the hour was over, and the liberi would make her way to her office, there would be something off from the norm. the lights were actually off, and nothing turned off at rhine, if there's something to be learned, unless the situation were dire. dimmed, perhaps, but never completely left in the dark.

at least, it would appear that way until she were to focus on her desk where an orange glow would radiate about a very familiar star shaped object, next to a singular, plainly decorated cupcake with an equally lonely candle nestled upon it. a plain card was set to the side, echoing the glow, revealing a faint silvery, arts encrusted text.

the content of the words themselves were as clumsy as the vouivre's attempts to express their thoughts. faint impressions of a palm print can be noticed by a sharp eye, smears of muted silver radiated about two singular lines only revealed how long the vouivre had thought of what to say.

... along with a steaming cup of ptilopsis' specially crafted coffee she enjoyed fairly often and a lunch box filled with a very healthy and very tasty meal crafted by control, themselves.

...

thank you, happy birthday.

...

an email would follow not long after, with a certain date and a certain time from the vouivre: the next time they would be able to have the entirety of a day to themselves.

Had she been anyone else, she might've bemoaned the workload she'd saddled herself with. Had she been anyone else, the sheer scale of the project alone would have inspired her, perhaps, to despair. Had she been anyone else, she would have been a cruel and unforgivable wretch; for what sort of monster could look into the eyes of a child tortured by science and support that action's continuation?

But she is neither the sort to bemoan her circumstances nor the sort to begrudgingly get on with unfavourable situations, for she sought to put herself in these circumstances, did so with a fierceness that few had ever known her to possess.

Today, spent up to her ears in more paperwork and meetings and discussions than she'd ever had in her life. And yet, somehow, every day seemed to add more and more paperwork, more people to talk to, more fine points to iron out, more sharp edges to dull amongst the community that she now sought to change from the ground up.

Anyone else might think her mad for such an undertaking. But she knew, without a shred of doubt in her heart, that this was the right path. She would never regret this choice.

She rounds the corner to her office and then stops, sharply, eyes narrowing. No-one in Rhine turned their lights off, because no-one in Rhine ever really stopped working. And if they did, someone else was taking their spot as soon as they left... No-one was taking her spot, though.

Someone had been in. She suddenly wished she had her blade with her... Or even her drone. The catalyst on her wrist glinted in the light of the hallway and she contented herself with that. She hadn't been very popular with some of the less... Morally ambiguous companies.

Were they really willing to go this far? She didn't doubt it. It was Columbia, after all.

Entering into the office, eyes narrowed and sharp, reveals... A glow. It disturbed her night vision a little, but she scooted closer. And closer still, lowering herself a little to look at the singular cupcake, plainly deocated, and the cheerily coloured lit candle sat atop it. The coffee, steaming... Still fresh? She had been here recently! And... Lunch.

Her tummy rumbles.

She hasn't eaten today, now that she thinks about it.

"... Aw...!"

She picks up the card set beside it, tracing her finger just above the words as she read them. Clumsy? Perhaps. But Silence wouldn't have had it any other way. Saria's words conveyed far more than she thought... The fact that she tried so hard was everything to Silence.

She reaches over to grab the coffee, enjoying the smell for a moment before having a sip. Oh. She's going to take time-- no, she's going to make time for Saria.

"Thank you, Saria..."

“Ugh... Oof... Ow... J-jeez... I hate... I hate running... So... So damn much...”

Miss Silence, you should really be--

“... Agh... I know, I know... Walking not hunching, I knowww...”

INB4.

“But she’s not a Medic any more?” Her class has changed, not her life’s work.

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Lone Trail changes so much for Silence.