Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

1. Deployment 

Darkness.

It always started with darkness.

The cockpit of her mobile suit laid in absolute darkness; a stillness only broken by her own constricted breathing inside the helmet. The claustrophobia slowly creeping in on her as her mind raced towards all those horrible scenarios which led to her being encased forever.

Her hands tensed against the controllers. An attempt to replace the shakiness of her fear for one of stress. It didn’t calm her down, but it was the last thing she could think off doing.

A light. Red. The panels lighting in front, on top, and all around her. The diagnostic bar appearing in front of her as the words painted themselves against her visor, letting her see the refection of her brown eye looking back at her.

The screen flickered as the familiar message appeared in front of her.

PSD-X011 Gundam Remnant booting up.

Pre-deployment sequence initiated.

Welcome back Keria, I missed you.

“I missed you too Lily.” She whispered to her friend, lovingly petting the panel next to her.

Her slow heartbeat, invisible to anyone but her, slowed down once more. They would make it just like every other time.

Warning: frontal left leg thruster malfunction. Mobility will be impeded.

“I know Lily. I have been trying to find the issue for weeks now, but I always run out of time.” Her hand scratched the back of her head as she tiredly smiled towards her protector. “I promise you once our mandatory rest comes, I’ll find the cause, ok?”

The lights of the cockpit moved quickly forming an intricate pattern for her eye only, acknowledging her promise.

Another light came around, asking her about the two things she had not the heart to answer. The former about her own health. The latter about the message she’d received this morning from a number long shamefully ignored.

“I’m ok Lily, don’t worry.” She softly lied.

Her friend didn’t press more. They had a job to do.

“I’ll do my best.” She promised truthfully.

This was her third deployment this week, and it had started waning on her. Her sunken face, her tired look, even the way she felt so utterly disheveled when the breath she had been holding in finally released just punctuated her fatigue. She could even see the dark bags under both her eyes, through the dark visor of her helmet, and the eye-patch she wore on what had been once her left eye.

She wanted to rest so badly. But she had a job to do.

One more deployment and they could rest.

One more time out in the void between the stars.

One more chance to save lives.

Systems at 78% capacity…

Driver-link connection pending.

Initiate process?

“Core verified.” Keira responded; the words seared into her mind like a prayer. A simple verbal acknowledgement that, indeed, she wouldn’t back down, wouldn’t let doubt cloud her judgment, wouldn’t fail on her mission.

“Connect!”

Pain in her spine, the needle piercing on her back connecting to her driver-link prosthetic forcing her mind out of herself. Data coursing through her body. More diagnostics running. The sensation of moving a body away from her own, further away. She was no longer flesh and bone, but steel and copper, iron, silver, glass.

“Keira Azuriel Remnant, Gundam Remnant.”

She took one last breath.

… deployment in

3

2

1

“Release!”

The engines blared to live in sync with the Mobile Suit catapult underneath her titanic feat. The suit pushed forth, her chest feeling as the pressure increased upon her chest, the “G” counter growing next to her increased.

She held her last breath in, fighting the urge to close her eye like her instructor had so vehemently been against until she finally cleared the platform, boosting her way into the unknown. Only when the runway had been left behind did she allow herself to blink.

A mistake.

Lily blared, the console turning from red to blue, leaving only crimson in the edge of her vision to warn her of the danger.

In front… no, all around her the incomprehensible remains of whatever had been here came into view.

And was coming her way.

The counter increasing, sensor blaring upon her. She pushed her controls up, then right, down, left. Rock after rock, scrap of metal floating in place begging for a mistake to welcome her into the fold. She wouldn’t give them the chance. She focused on her breathing, getting it under her control.

Spin around. Boost herself above the wing.

Her arms firm. It burned her. But she needed to hold one.

Right, down, turning.

More alarms. More visual confirmations. Dozens upon dozens of broken ship parts and metal sheets flew collided around her. She evaded as best she could. More close calls and grazes. All washing away the anxiety in favor of true unrelenting fear.

Her arms tensed. Her senses sharpened. Her speedometer remained at the most intense of reds.

This place was a death trap.

She could only imagine how bad it was if this was the clearest place her assigned navigator had found for her among the debris.

“Activate the ravens!” She spoke calmly, and Lily responded. Two drones of black, red and gold flew from the back and instantly started firing upon the dangers turning them to harmless dust or safe passages. “Low power output, we don’t want to be stranded here, right?”

That would be terrifying.

The ravens got to work blasting the debris. Left, right, up or down, the beams of her friends destroyed everything that tried to claim her life. She didn’t join them yet, instead she pushed on along the given path, her own thrusters only used for the tiniest of corrections. No time to waste. No mistakes allowed. Needed to save energy.

Momentum would take her now.

The lights insider her cockpit moved again to catch her attention. A blue mesh emerging from her appeared and traversed everything near her for a second showing an empty area close by.

“You already found a safer spot then.” She stated happily.

A whispering whistle resounded upon her ears in sync with the light in her cockpit. An acknowledgement. She adjusted their trajectory accordingly.

“Nicely done!” Keira congratulated her friend.

When she finally arrived at her destination, a small opening on the side of the abandoned metal structure, the pilot permitted herself to take a good look around her and get her bearings. The cubby hole in which she stood now, about three times the size of her robotic height and just as wide, lay upon a massive metallic structure that ran further than her eyes could see. She guessed it was an old abandoned access tunnel.

Taking a look outside she noted how the exterior shell curved upwards and downwards slightly, with many other such tunnels both closed or abandoned that only welcomed debris as their guests.

The walls, she guessed, were composed of layer after layer of steel, stone, air pockets and who knows what more, making it incredibly dangerous to cross through.

“Would take too much energy to cut through.” She added. Lily agreed. “Got to find another way through.”

Taking a good look around through the tunnel she laid in, she noted a crack big enough to see into the abandoned station. Inside where the tale tell signs of a destroyed colony. Abandoned houses, grasslands turned into dead lands, torn apart buildings, the once glorious spaceport turned into a ship graveyard.

Fissure after fissure on the outer shell that’d doomed the life inside. All partially rusted over.

“That explains the debris.” Keira noted. Lily coincided.

Only after she took an extra moment to look around did she find something less grim that made her gasp.

It was an ominous thing. Gigantic and uniform, casting a shadow throughout the abandoned field. Of magnificent gray stone, it floated there unabated by the constant assault of its once brethren colony landscapes

“A whole mountain range?” She exclaimed, baffled at the sight of the still magnificent axis that floated through the void. “How do you think they managed to build it?”

Whispering uncertainty.

“We’ll look it up later, ok?” Keira added more to herself than to her friend. “What’s our distance to the stranded ship?”

Target out of reach for close proximity sensors…

Changing to medium proximity…

Pings appeared upon her head, marking possible signatures matching the SOS sign, all coming from the same spot about six kilometers in a straight line and into the heart of the dead colony. Keira already knew that such a trajectory was impossible. Cutting through that much steel would leave her drifting like just another piece of debris. She could do it at minimum output should she have time, but she wasn’t sure. Wouldn’t risk it.

She needed something else.

“Nav, I need a new route.” She said out loud for the first time since leaving the ship. “How much time we have?”

A groan came from her coms.

“Last message was about ten minutes ago; oxygen levels were dropping steadily. I give you seven minutes.” The coarse voice answered her. “I’ll update your nav points.”

Seven minutes… stupid, stupid Keira. She knew she shouldn’t have stopped for sightseeing.

Seven minutes. Three less than she would have wanted, but she would make do. She knew people were resilient, after all, they had survived so far.

But she hated the idea of people having to.

“Output to medium range.” She told Lily, feeling her ravens lit up stronger. “Release the others as well, have them keep an eye on us, ok? Oh, and begin throwing the flares.”

Another approving whisper upon her. Four more detached and immediately started firing the red beams upon the fissure to make a door out of it. With her hands in the controllers, thrusters powering up, she got ready to jump.

Through the old decrepit maintenance tunnels, across the ship graveyard. Past the mountain range and into the once glorious spire that’s where she would find the ship.

In her mind the path was clear. She would succeed.

The flares shoot out from her.

“Go!”

Quick as a hummingbird, the clumsiness of her deployment vanished as she darted around the abandoned tunnel field leaving nothing but a trail of red light and dust behind her.

Left and right, her misfortune destroying the thinnest metal sheet that dared to come near her, she herself avoiding the thickest of steel beams. The flares continued to lit her path. Her eyes darting around upon the screen, scanning for any shortcut she could find. None was there to see.

Whispering concern.

Alert! Maneuverability limited!

The tunnel grew smaller, more decrepit, rusted. A collapsed section came upon her, frozen over by the exposed liquid nitrogen. By her will her ravens coalesced into a single beam of red that shattered it into glass. She pushed on hoping to catch a glimpse of the carrier that had sent the signal, to stop losing time. She could do this.

She needed to.

As she cleared the tunnel and entered the shipyard, the large remains of an old cruiser thruster came barreling towards her.

Alert!

Too much armor.

“Down!”

Her ravens reattached to her trying to stop her speed. The energy bar went down drastically. Her speed did not. Unable to be stopped by her Gund-bits, she yanked the controller downwards, then upwards, killing the engines, turning as fast as she could in place before pushing them to the limit. The G turning red. Her breathing turning into a groan when she did.

The rusted over engine flew dangerously close to her, eclipsing the little light that came from the flares she had left above her. Their red light ominously lighting the symbol that haunted her to this day.

A star upon a crater of grass.

Helia Planetary Driver…

That day… the explosion…

Warning!

“Dammit!” She shouted when she saw her barreling straight towards a cargo crate. Her Gundam’s arm jerked backwards to her belt and grabbed the handle that rested upon it. The beam saber appeared on screen, locking in place. Keira turned it on.

In a flash the red light of it shone through once more, and roared to life. The crate went to kill her. Impact imminent. From down towards the heavens she cut. The crate was no more.

Five minutes, the counter showed her.

“Where are they?”

Ping.

Signal located.

“Transport ship Lagrange, do you copy?” Her comms opened to the emergency frequency provided.

No answer.

“Transport ship Lagrange, are you there?” She asked once more.

Silence.

Four minutes.

So much dust, so many pieces of broken Mobile Suits and Mobile Armors floating, so small, so gigantic, a wall of noise that clouded everything in her sight. And all around her the small freckles of snow that marked the remains of a Stormveil.

Warning! Planar Dust concentration above critical levels!

A single nav point past the shut shipyard door.

Energy reserves dropping to critical levels!

And behind the shipyard door, lost in whatever part of the old colony, laid all those people waiting to be rescued.

She couldn’t fail them!

“High output, focus all Gund-bits on it, carve me a path through the door!” She grunted. “Come on everyone, I trust you all.”

Whispering disapproval.

“Lily, I don’t want them to die!” She vehemently responded. “We can make it, but we have to hurry.”

Whispering approval.

Blue lights shone from the drones intently across the darkness of space. The six dancing in front of her, spinning faster and faster, forming a wall of cyan that consumed everything that tried getting too close.

She barrels towards the door.

Whatever stood in front of her, even if it had just been grazed by her blue shield, was completely disintegrated. Nothing could touch her now. The thrusters roared and shook as they went to their max. No more time to waste. Full speed ahead.

Neither up nor down, left or right. Never looking backwards. No dodging, no care for any more dangers. She would carve the path, make the path. Bend the world to her will and force it to be as she wanted.

Full straight ahead.

One minute she was at the edge of the deadly maze that was the shipyard, the next she was on the exit with a perfectly cylindrical path behind her.

She didn’t stop.

She pushed forth with only one goal in mind.

Reach them. Save them.

The mountains came at her. Unwavering guardians of the life that had been here. Gray and dead and still standing, they grew and grew until the void between the stars had been filled by them. Neither left nor right was a choice. Down meant failure. Only in the smallest gap between them could she make it.

Keira willed her misfortune to rejoin her and add their speed to hers. They complied. The Princess of Ill Omens vanished at the start of the mountains.

Everything outside her eyes was a blur of gray. A single off stroke could mean dead.

Hold. She needed to hold.

A twitch on the edge of her vision.

“Dammit!”

From darkness to gray. The paintbrush of her mad dash had had a blunder. She pulled her controls to the tiniest fraction of a second of an angle causing the collision alarms to blare up. The gray filled her vision. She pushed harder. Downwards. Still gray was soon to come.

“Come on Lily brace!”

Gray to pain to darkness.

Impact. Hull integrity at 45%

Still within acceptable parameters.

She broke through.

And finally she finally saw it.  

Floating in space the disabled transport ship serenely floating through the clearing on the center of the old colony. It was still a ways off, but it was there. Close enough to make it out with the nav point, yet too far to see any real details about it.

Another blue mesh covered the area.

Scanning…

Leak detected, lower cargo hold, puncture of 7 meters.

“Seven?” Keira asked bewildered. “We got to work fast Lily.”

With her rigid arms she cycled through her tools, from the welder to the Gund-bit shield, to the beam sabers and the rifle, getting increasingly frustrated. “Come on, where was it?” Her head started to hurt as the weight of her maneuver took her toll. “There!” She smiled through the pain, selecting the emergency foam.

Her rifle popped out of its socket, allowing her metal hands to grasp unto it. A simple shot, just like many she had taken in the past, with enough time to spare and begin the real work. It was just a matter of standing still and taking her shot.

So, she did just that by engaging her frontal thrusters to stop.

Or so she thought.

Warning, frontal left thruster disabled due to unknown error.

The uneven force that came to her made her spin against her desire to stop. Her teeth gritted against each other mimicking the grinding of Remnant’s metal body. She screamed.

Dumb, dumb Keira! Why did I forget?!

Above her the timer blared, now more present than ever.

2 minutes.

“Full power left hand!” She shouted. “Kill everything else and give me the location of the leak!”

Whispers of disapproval.

Blue lights.

By her will her arm burned. Thrusters at max fighting against her momentum. Burning as the heat of the sun.

One minute.

One, two, three spins. Her head shrieked in anguish.

Target located.

To be off was death. To be doubtful was misery. To be afraid was a disservice. She had her rifle in one hand. Got to take it. Only she could.

Oxygen leak---

She pulled the trigger.

The instant foam appeared for just under a millisecond in her sight, traveling with the speed of a thousand demons under it. It was out of her hands now, out of her wishes. Either it would land or not.

“Please!” She begged the nothingness.

…

Hit confirmed!

The leak had stopped.

Oxygen levels stabilizing.

“Well done, Lily. And to all of you! You all did beautifully.” She said after she let go of the controls and allowed Lily to slow them down on her own.

The small auxiliary thrusters got to work, realigning Remnant and finally putting a stop to the unending spin. Her head still hurt like all hells, and her eyesight still needed a moment to adjust from all the confusion, but she would make a full recovery.

“Now, let us get closer.”

Warning, power reserve at 30%

“I know Lily, but we aren’t going to need more.” Keira lounged on the seat of the cockpit, letting go of her controls. “Return our birbs, ok?”

Approval.

They quickly flew back, fitting in place once more. She giggled when they snapped back into place, tickling her like always. If anything it was a good chance for how her body was feeling.

Keira was aware that the headache would remain for quite some time, and the knot in her stomach would take some time to untangle. The exhaustion was finally getting through to her as what little adrenaline she had in her died down. But she didn’t complain. She’d done it.

They were safe.

She’d reached them in time.

There would be no more surprises.

Now it was time to get to the real work.

“Prepare the oxygen tanks and the medkits, considering the size of that hole we might need to--”

Blood.

Floating in space, drifting in front of her, a couple of droplets hitting her camera.

A body. Bloody stream flowing from it.

Blood.

So temptingly red in front of her.

She felt it inside her; the hollowness, the desire, that disgusting feeling, nay, need pulsing through her from the center of her stomach. The void. The one that made her jaw open ajar with no trace of shock or disgust. The feeling that had kept her awake at night and day, unable to find a moment of peace within or without.

She held the controls tighter, her breathing uneven. Anxiety gave way to strain way to self-restraint.

Why now?

Her fangs shone in the now red light of the cockpit, sharp as a medic’s blade. The tools to fulfill it, to calm for a fortnight that want of crimson which had awoken five years ago.

Keira Azuriel Remnant was not only tired.

She was starving.

She needed it.

Warning…

Chapter Text

Red lights. Boots stumping. The sound of barking orders all came from outside her door.

The speakers came to live with that horrible crackle that marked their age.

Warning! Stormveil imminent!

Rosemaria Ryn Stonework had known that such a scenario was possible since the moment she had first set foot on the Lagrange.

Hours of footage from post-accident reports; lecture after lecture teaching the new dangers of what laid in space; and many a renowned emergency procedures being parroted all around her seminars had made her brain keenly aware of what a stormveil was. If anything, she’d been trained and expected to respond in such situations by “the very best”. But as with every dangerous phenomenon, the heart clings upon a tiny possibility that maybe, just perhaps, and by chance, they aren’t real.

Or it won’t happen to her.

But then it came. Dust. Shards of snow dancing in the air. The smell of intense ozone all around her. Her own body sweating as if she’d caught a fever. Heat, unbearable heat. Shaking. A cloud of lights and colors forming around her as if she’d been thrust into a nebula. Everything ended in the distressing feeling of being pulled to her breaking point before being assaulted by the full imposing pressure of the depths of the ocean.

Coldness. Her teeth were chattering.

From a mere bed lamp to full on floodlights the lights of her room grew more intense. But just as quickly they were snuffed out in a flash like candles on a storm. The ship shook violently. Her stomach turned in on itself. Her body became weightless. Her eyes didn’t get the chance to adjust as the forces that pulled and pushed her made her vision blurry, unfocused and painful.

Her breathing crawled to a halt. The alarms and the thrusters died down. The engines were out.

They were dead weight now.

She hated it. Hated the oppressive darkness around her, and how it clung to everything near her, mockingly leaving her alone. She hated the uncertainty, the now perceived staleness of the air, and above all:

Silence.

The worst part was the silence.

Even the white noise of the ship had been kidnapped by the storm.

Her throat refused to answer her. No matter how hard she tried it wouldn’t make the slightest whimper, the smallest scream or plead or laugh to break the silence. She wanted something, anything that would tell her that she wasn’t just trapped in a floating, useless pile of junk that had become her coffin.

Nothing came out. Her voice was as dead as the ship she was on.

She cursed herself. Cursed her rusted luck. Cursed whatever uncaring, evil spirit had forced upon her this goddamned trial by fire to see if she could handle what her future entailed.

Worst of all, she didn’t have her digital cat friend for support.

Clank, clank… clank, clank, clank, CLANK!

She jumped in surprise.

Her heart resumed its troublesome step as the metal was struck by whatever was on the other side. Her mind rebooted.

Protocol. The hits were protocol. Code.

She paid attention now.

Small hit, long hit, four small hits.

A.H. ‘Anyone here?’

She was alive. She was not alone. And she needed to help.

Junior Engine Rosemaria Ryn Stonework, now no longer frozen in place, grabbed her precious assistant-necklace Nya, pushed herself to the door and placed herself against it, gaining enough leverage to make her response.

Clank… clank, clank… clank…

‘Yes.’

Without waiting for a response, she went to put on her EVA suit as quick as she could. Having never had to put it on without gravity to assist her it became a bit of a struggle. Easily had the boots and legs been put on, and the helmet support at the back made it very easy to not have to deal with it at the moment. But the damned zipper and Velcro combo, on top of the other redundant precautions, combined with the thickness of the gloves was infuriating.

Part of her knew why they were needed; space is dangerous, more so now. Yet that part also agreed with her curses in one thing. Whoever had thought to make the zipper no bigger than her nail deserved to be boiled alive.

At the end though, she managed in the end after a barrage of swears.

The next barrage of them, now caused by her stupid tablet not fitting in the stupid socket of her stupid suit, was now muffled by her stupid helmet.

She heard the air escape from the valves as the manual release got engaged. The door opened slightly at the bottom, letting a small blue light shine under her, which let her see the gloves of her rescuer gaining perch to lift the door. She joined them, making short work of it.

“You ok Stonework?” The voice of her superior, Chief engineer Gus Larel came muffled from the helmet gifting her a wave of relief.

“Yes.” She answered, hardly believing her voice, but relieved that the stormveil had passed. “Systems are completely fried then?”

“All services are dead, engines are gone, flashlight are no better than glorified props and that sweet perfume of burnt cables now covers the whole ship.” Her boss jokingly told her. “Can’t even feel the tingle of the batteries when you put them in your tongue.”

“And the SOS beacons?”

“Also dead and lost in space.” He said making her heart skip a beat. “We should still have the backup EPIRB beacons though, back at engineering. How fucked they are is unknown.”

“Fuck’s sake Gus, start with that.”

He laughed. She grunted. He shrugged.

“Damit, take me there.” She answered, floating past him and into the service tunnel. “And give me the deets.”

The darkness around them was not like anything Rosemary had ever been affronted with. Less than a veil and more like an ink spill, the shadows that lived in the lovely named ratway stuck to whatever poor thing or person dared enter it. Such intense grab it had that it made her fearful to touch, or be touched, by anything in there.

Maybe it was the little light their glow sticks granted them, maybe it was the remains of the planar dust still intent on absorbing as much energy as they could, or maybe it was just her own altered state of mind that distorted anything in the darkness that made it so.

She didn’t know, but she would push on. Grabbing tightly to her only source of light, and her previous anger, she followed her senior.

“Full system reboot is impossible until the dust is cleared.” Gus began explaining as they drifted through, unconcerned unlike her. “The rubbish around us makes it so almost no sunlight reaches us, so between the lack of light and the probability of them being broken makes our solar panels a big no.”

“Understandable. What about the cooling systems?”

“Tenia is taking a look at them. According to her, we won’t have any issue because the damned stormveil sucked out all most of the heat everywhere.” He answered as they reached the end of the service corridors and into the main, shrouded hall. “But until she says so, the main diesel engines are not to be activated to avoid overworking them, though room by room are allowed to.” He clarified. “So, until then, internal comms are gone so we are going back at having dudes run around carrying messages.”

Such one messenger floated towards them.

“The hull is intact sir, no need to wear a helmet for now.”

“Thank you, Ron.”

Though Gus removed his helmet, Rosemary kept her own on.

“And the air recycler?” Rosemary asked, hiding her fear. “What about—"

Another of their coworkers flew past them with such speed they hit themselves on a pipe. Their voice, even blocked by their helmet, came through with the force of a thousand storms cursing the pipe, the ship, and the whole bloodline of whoever had chosen to put it there for it to strike him.

“Watch your head!”

“Fuck you Gus!” They said flipping the bird.

That made the two other engineers laugh.

It had been almost a full month since she’d gone aboard the Lagrange, and every day she was thankful that this chubby man with his big puppy eyes, warm sepia coral skin, and welcoming smile was the one who she worked under. If he felt confident enough with their odds, then so would she.

“Air recycler will be the first thing on, don’t worry.” Her boss reassured her, twirling his handlebar moustache and signaling her to continue their trip.

“Food, water?” She added now taking her own helmet off.

“Fridges are still closed and will remain that way for twelve hours. After that it won’t matter in the end. Water is still available freely with the pumps. We won’t run out soon.”

Rosemary nodded feeling a bit relieved at that.

It was when they reached one of the big windows in the main corridor that she realized the most important thing in terms of their rescue.

“Where are we?” She asked, getting no satisfactory response from Gus. “Are we safe?”

“I know you are nervous Stonework, with the whole being ripped back into reality by a lovingly placed stormveil but be sure that we are as safe as we can be.” He answered.

When she heard the first bang, she recoiled again.

Outside the window laid a field broken parts, shattered stone, and metallic remains too close for comfort. From rocks the size of her head, to steel plates so massive they cast shadows upon them, all pointed to this having been once a colony no less, one that had suffered a violent end.

Rosemary’s mind couldn’t help but wander gloomily. Its corpse could cause their own.

“No hull breaches?” Rosemary asked, swallowing, what little fear she could stomach before feeling stupid. Of course she knew that; she’d been told no more than five minutes ago.

“None.” He responded without a hint of mockery the ashamed engineer could catch. “But don’t focus on that. We need the beacon up and running and considering how much time you spent with it for your little pet project, that’s your duty.”

“Understood.” She responded with an overeager tone. “I’ll fix it and meet you at the bridge, ok?”

“Oh, right.” The chief said tossing her a pair of old keys, all attached to the dumbest looking bright pink plush ball she had ever seen. “To override the electric lock on the door.”

She caught them, nodded, put them away and lit up another glow stick.

“Let us hope your little battery theory is correct Stonework.”

“I… I hope so too.”

Quick as she had arrived in engineering, Rosemary had gotten to work in getting the room back online. The gas can was easy to procure from the hazardous storage, while the hand pump did short work in getting the fuel into the machine.

Starting the generator proved another beast of its own.

It wasn’t that she didn’t know how to do it. The engine was there locked in place, the handle was very much able to be grabbed, and the pulley meant to cause the spark and turn it on was very incredibly sturdy.

But gaining enough leverage in zero gravity and with no magnetic boots was a beast on its own.

“Fucking handles!” The engineer screamed as her most recent attempt caused the pulley to slip from her gloves, and her to trip and float once more.

With her whole disdain, the short engineer turned towards the handlebars on the wall. So teasingly usable for anyone of average height. Yet for her, who always stood one head shorter than the median, such things were of no use.

 “Why do they always have to put them so far away?! I’m too short for this!” She grunted when she regained her balance.  

Not one to be defeated, the girl jumped from the too-far-away handlebars to the generator.

“Now how do you like this?” She taunted, hooking her feet to the generator bars and grabbing the pulley.

The generator didn’t respond.

She pulled.

*Crank*

Pull.

*Crank*

Pull!

The sudden influx of light caused her to let go of the pulley and float once again in the room. Quick did she recover. Swiftly she celebrated even when her head warned her of the future headache.

“Finally.” In joy she laughed.

Now that the room was no longer shrouded in darkness, Rosemaria was able to get a better look at her surroundings. From the spare parts that wished to be free of their small confines of the covered cabinets, to the odd floating wrench that had escaped the communal tool rack, all the way to the specialized EVA repair equipment one would need for the riskier operations, she took note of what they may need.

Clank!

She hoped the latter weren’t going to need them.

It was near this last piece of engineering curiosities that she knew where the beacon was. Having a swift look around she found her mark.

Almost as big as her torso, shaped like a truncated bowling pin, and painted in a shining orange with a pair of white lines, laid the SOS beacon held down in place by a pair of high-tension belts just like she’d left it the day before.

Rosemary released it temporarily only to carry it to her workbench where she trapped it again. This time with a pair of pincers attached to her own desk.

“Last thing I want is for you to go out the window before I’m done with you, right Nya?”

Her friend, stored in her cat bell necklace, was sleeping. More accurately though, she was out of power.

“Kind of had forgotten about that.” She said a bit ashamed. “But I should be able to charge you now Nya.”

Letting the beacon in the bench, the engineer pulled out her charging cable, took out her personal tablet, and removed her necklace.

“Don’t really care if it isn’t protocol, I need you Nya.” She announced putting her friend to be charged first. “Now, unto my pet project. Let’s see how you fared.”

Since the beginning of the crisis five years ago, the main question many scientists had asked themselves is how to diminish the damage when one was caught by a stormveil. The instantaneous overdrive of all ships systems, followed then by all that energy being drained from within had, as her professors had told her, made the worst possible scenario in space. Some even called it the death sentence.

“How does this happen?” Rosemary began explaining to an invisible audience as she had when she presented her thesis one year before. “Or rather, what is the thing that makes this happen? Such an intense energy drain has been traced back not to the event itself, that is the stormveil, but to the remains thereafter, what we call planar dust.”

The engineer pointed to one of the small snowflake like crystals in her vicinity that had begun fading away as the lights of the room dimly turned on.

“At first it was thought that planar dust was a passive phenomenon. In the aftermath of a stormveil the dust would remain like a deep puddle after a flood. Then, anything that was caught in it would be drained until enough energy had been consumed, evaporating the planar dust.”

With as much care as her thick gloves allowed her, Rosemary opened the lower compartment of the beacon she had modified.

White dust flew form inside of it, marking the death of the supercapacitors. What came next was a cloud of dark smoke carrying the smell of burnt cables in it. Such stench, when it hit the young engineer, made her recoil. Rosemaria was sure that now the whole room was covered by such horrid odor, but only she, alone in the engineering bay, was the victim of it.

“The perks of the job.” She joked to herself and her audience.

Swatting away as much of the smoke as she could, Rosemary continued her dissertation.

“But some witness accounts made me, and some others, think that perhaps there was a flaw in our understanding. What I propose is that planar dust is not static, but an active element of the aftermath. One that searches for the most powerful source of energy nearby.

 As Mr. Randeras, captain of The Caretaker stated after his second stormveil: ‘Due to our speed the ship managed to get out of the storm before it hit us hard. We’d left the dust cloud behind so repairs would be easy. When we suddenly found ourselves surrounded by it, we found ourselves thinking we were cursed. How big had the storm been?’”

Rewarded with a satisfactory pop, the engineer removed her pet project from the very messy insides of the beacon.

“Yet all accounts, from the black box to the crew’s own words, seemed to verify it. They had dodged the worst of it at first, but the cloud moved towards them!

And such account is not the only one. Recent sources back up Mr. Randeras’s claim. The Runner, the Majestic, and the Lady of Sorrows all point to similar behaviors. Planar dust is drawn to energy like moths to a flame.”

Only when she opened the insides of her own black box did a second, much more powerful wave of that same smell escape, did she heave. How could something so innocuous have such a demonic smell? Not even being near sulfur made her so miserable.

“Please get the generators online. I would hate pucking in zero g.” She pleaded swallowing her bitter saliva.

Yet, fighting against that horrible situation, Rosemary went on excitedly to finish her explanation.

“Considering that theory in mind, it came to me. A simple thing. Tried and true since humanity crashed in Altaris, and even older than that. Ladies, gents, and everyone within, without and all around, I present you: Bait!”

With gusto, the engineer showed no one her pride and joy.

A black and blue box.

Almost assured that she hadn’t impressed her audience, she opened it to show the true mechanism of her work.

Inside of it laid a very simple circuit. A bunch of supercapacitors welded to a circuit board. A few resistors here and there, a couple of LEDs as well, yet nothing truly with a purpose. The most complicated thing was an analog screen made to monitor the charge of all sixteen of them. All of them, which had, with no exceptions, all blown up as capacitors tended to do.

“Not a big surprise considering everything, but that’s the point.” She triumphantly explained to her audience. “If my theory is correct, the brunt of the planar dust energy drain will have gone towards the supercapacitors instead of the beacon, making it easier to repair it!”

It had been at this point during her dissertation back home that the barrage of very precise and brutal questions came at her. How did she plan on measuring it? What is the rate at which she expected the energy drain to happen? Did the material cost of the supercapacitors offset the cost of replacement? She had had answers and formulas and explanations to many; some earned her a satisfactory nod; others an uncomfortable silence. Most lead to more questions.

But now, there was only the sound of the diesel engine running, and the chance to prove her theory.

“Show time Rosemary.” She hyped herself up. “Check the voltage, then the… no, visual study first, then cleaning, check voltage and, finally, start welding.”

Setting aside her personal project, the junior engineer went on to work on her actual task. Opening up the beacon proper revealed a far grimmer sight that she’d expected.

Fried. Four capacitors were dead. A fuse had also been blown; the others had barely handled the tension. Better to replace them for safety’s sake. Resistors, as the funny little worms they were, held. Some copper paths in the circuit board burnt up, requiring jumper cables to reconnect; maybe even a bread board to complete the paths. The battery was dead.

Its voltage, as low as 3.8 V per cell.

Was this better than the other beacons? Worse? Had anything changed?

She knew she had the knowledge somewhere. Multiple nights spent editing her thesis had made her intimately knowledgeable about this. She knew she knew. She should know. Only she needed to remember. But she couldn’t. Maybe she didn’t want to remember. That told her enough.

Her heart sank.

She expected everything to be ok.

She expected better.

It didn’t work.

“Hey little fella, thank you.” She whispered to the burnt thing that once had been called an EPIRB. A tinge of tears formed in her eyes. “I’ll fix you right up, ok?”

From the bench’s toolbox, Rosemary took out everything she needed to clean. With a soft brush she started wiping away the dust and ash, making sure to leave as little as she could on the circuit. After that, she dipped the circuit board into isopropyl alcohol, caring not to be careful. With her multimeter she tested each connection and noted which one still worked, and which ones were dead. Many were dead. Using her clippers she cut away what she could and with the marker she highlighted what she couldn’t.

Blessed she felt that the marker still had ink.

But in all that, diligently, Rosemary pushed down her disappointment. She had work to do and becoming a self-loathing mess wouldn’t help. So, she didn’t give herself the time to think of any part of her project. She couldn’t. All because stopping was to think, and to think was to be introspective, and to look within herself was to look back. Back. Back and down memory lane. Back to that horrible laugh inside of her.

That horrid, annoying, screeching, nasal laugh that overwhelmed whatever room they were in. That laugh and those eyes. Those damned piercing pink eyes of her.

“Fuck you Nadria.”

Rumbling.

Fans spinning.

One by one the lights of the engineering bay turned on. The familiar white she’d gotten used to over the past month flooded the room. Whatever darkness had been watching her work was exiled.

“Ah, finally.” She smiled taking out her suit’s battery pack and placing it in the designated charging station. “Now to fix the beacon.”

Going to the back of the room, she opened her sticker covered locker, taking out her tools out. Her bread board, her wires, her googles, tin wire, and her soldering—

“Where is my—? Ugh! Tenia!” She growled her coworker’s name. “You irresponsible mess of a girl, why the hell do you keep grabbing my stuff?”

Instinctively she pulled the handle of the immaculate locker next to hers. Locked. Floating there gently, with its arm wrapped around the handle, mocking her was the guardian of Tenia’s locker. A red lock with a three-digit combo unknown to her.

“Ugh!” She pulled harder, making it rattle. “Why do you keep doing this you dumbass?! I would kill you if you didn’t have such nice of a smile!”

Another pull. Another rattle. Another futile attempt.  

“Fine, FINE!” She finally let it go to driftback to the workbench. “Let’s see if someone left their tools outside.”

Opening and closing drawers earned her a pleathera of both curious, and unwanted things to see. Pincers, bolt cutters, photos, notes, pens, a strange number of buttons, an amalgam of resistors in the shape of a Mobile Suit, and even an ancient, dumb, erotic magazine that she couldn’t help but blush against it.

But no soldering iron.

Sure, there were the sponges and the damned heating unit, but no metal tip to work with.

“Fuck me, why now?!”

Feeling the desperation rise within her, she looked at her suit’s battery’s charge.

22%.

She grunted, took it out, placed it on her suit, grunted again, and then went on to try and put on her necklace with a third, much longer, grunt.

Why did these little annoyances had to pile up?

“Fuck me.”

When she heard the satisfactory click, she felt herself calm down.

“Hey Nya, time to wake up.”

The cyan lights appeared below her, confirming that the boot up sequence had begun once more. Waking up from her slumber a digital black cat appeared on screen, stretching as all felines tend to do. After that, the fluffy digital friend happily meowed at her from the corner of her tablet screen. Cute as a button, and about the size of one, there she was.

Nya.

Welcome back Rosemary <3.

“Hi Nya.” She greeted her catssistant. “Can you call the Chief? I can’t find a soldering iron.” She said, clicking her fingers against one another.

“Nya!” Her friend Nya, the digital wonder, nodded before pulling an old dial phone from somewhere to do as was asked.

Calling Chief Engineer Gus Larel…

Her wrist tablet gradually lit up, showing her boss’s professional photo and the attempted call in the form of a bunch of cat paws trying to reach another phone.

No answer.

“Stars.” She rubbed her temple. “Send him a message, I’ll continue my search here. He’s probably still charging his suit.”

A cute little blip came from her tablet.

“Nya!” Nya did as expected.

“Now, if I was a soldering iron, where would I hide?” Her hands were already reopening the drawers from before, almost hoping to spontaneously manifest one out of sheer force of will.

With every consequent drawer, more and more force was applied to find one. From gently making sure no tool went flying off, to a whole splash of bolts, papers and stale chips.

“Someone must have left theirs outside, right?” She tried to convince herself. She was, after all, in the workshop, one must be laying somewhere, right?

Yet when the last drawer came flying right off with only dust and rubbish, her hopes vanished. It is as if the stars themselves had made it so no such thing as a soldering iron existed inside the ship.

But of course, there was one. It was in that dumb locker. The locker in which it shouldn’t, but inexplicably, was in.

Just behind that red lock shining mockingly at her.

“Stop laughing at me.” She commanded. “If I could, I would just cut you wide open, see if you like that!”

Cut.

She flew to the second drawer, yanking it too out of place. Its contents all flew out, including the pair of bolt cutters she had seen before.

She grabbed them, propelled herself back into the locker and planted the tools straight into the arm of the lock. Its mocking smile was gone, replaced by worry.

“Look, I’m sorry.” She said before breaking its arm.

There, floating inside the very tidy locker, laid her soldering iron.

“Gotcha.”

“Nya!”

“SOS beacon repaired.” She told her Chief with a big smile as she held it in front of the camera.

“Good. I knew it was the right choice to trust you on that.” He smiled at her before being handed a report. “How were the results with your prototype?”

“There was a lot of internal damage still, and the battery didn’t survive as I would have hoped.” Rosemary said without being able to hide her disappointment. “All the supercapacitors were blown so the results are… inconclusive.”

The Chief, without breaking his attention to her, gave her a smile and thumbs up.

“Remember Stonework, you need still to compare your results.” He told her with a voice that soothed her. “Don’t go jumping to conclusions before that. Any result, even—”

“If it didn’t prove our hypothesis, it is still valuable.” She finished awkwardly. “I know. I remember.”

“So, to start. How tedious was it to fix our bad boy?”

Rosemary took a moment to think. For starters, the cleaning was easy enough if mostly hindered by her spacesuit. Finding the components was also a simple task. After all, they were where they were supposed to be.

“It didn’t take long to be honest.” She admitted. “Maybe the longest time was spent on checking the connections.”

“Understandable.” Gus added. “But that is true of all PCBs when something blows them. Just ask poor Deren down in the hangar bay. He’s still struggling against the door panels.”

“Fuck me. Glad that wasn’t my job.”

Gus laughed.

“What else can you tell me Stonework?”

“The battery was dead but miraculously not below minimum charge. I put it to charge for the time being, along with the rest.”

“Miraculously?” Gus asked in that weird tone of voice which made her head feel like soup. Was he asking a genuine question? Or was she teasing her?

“What?” She asked a bit more annoyed than she wanted to let on.

“Why did you focus on the minimum charge?”

“Because of the other reports.” She answered. “The LiPo batteries were all drained to a point in which they couldn’t be used anymore, which—” She paused as Gus, triumphantly and infectiously, laughed. “Oh shit!”

“There you have it Stonework.” Gus offered his biggest smile.

“Nya!” Her friend, now with a pair of pom-poms, came to celebrate with her.

“You did good work Rosemary. Quick one at that”

It would have certainly been less had Tenia not stolen my things.

“Oh, right. I did have to pry open Tenia’s locker to get my soldering iron back.”

“Why was it in there?” Gus asked nonchalantly.

“I don’t know.” She lied. “But she needs a new lock.”

“Easy enough to do. I’ll even cover the expenses for you.”

Another engineer came into view in the very busy bridge who gave a report to Gus. His usual relaxed expression changed to what Rosemary would describe as a thoughtful, curious one with how his eyebrows bent. He thanked the engineer and promised to follow her once she’d finished the call.

“Something wrong?” Rosemary asked a bit fearful that she’d be given more work.

“Nah, not really.” Gus assured her. “Dana was telling me the radar is back online and that we’ve caught something other than debris for once. Maybe we’ve already been found.”

“That would be a miracle.” Rosemary added with a distinct lack of happiness.

“A miracle indeed.” Gus said with another, less genuine, smile. Thereafter he turned his attention back to the bridge and gave some orders Rosemary couldn’t quite get. “Nevertheless, we should turn on the SOS beacon to help our rescuers find us. Everything’s better than staying out here for long.”

His eyes turned back to her, volunteering her for the job.

She grunted, nodded, looked to the still charging battery and the EVA equipment before giving a sigh.

‘He's not expecting me to take it outside, right?’ Sadly, the junior engineer knew what her senior was asking of her. It was in the way in which he turned his head a bit, lifted that eye’s eyebrow and then looked a bit towards the floor.

You are going to do it, are you not?

Such was the question.

She opened her mouth to protest but closed it almost instantly. The beacon had been her job, more so, her responsibility. If something failed, whoever went out would need to bring it back, take it for repairs. Either this would fall on her, again, or they would do it themselves, wasting precious minutes in trying, and most likely, failing to do so.

CLANK!

The ship shook.

“Fine! I’m on it.” She begrudgingly answered before removing her suit’s battery and slotting it in. “I’ll take it to the EVA deployment site even if I would want it to charge for longer. For now, it should be enough to send the signal.”

 With as much annoyance as she could contain within herself, Rosemaria grabbed the beacon and went out towards the cargo hold.

“The crew thanks you…” His expression changed once more. This time, it felt grimmer. Relief being stripped away from his plumb face into one of confusion.

“Something wrong?” She felt her heart begin to panic as if she had done something wrong.

Clank!

“Radar’s glitching out, that’s all.”

“How so?” Her curiosity, driven by fear, made her yank harder at the railing to help propel her down the cargo hold.

“Got a second ping.”

Her surprise was painted on her face.

“It is nothing to worry about Rosemary.” Gus failed to reassure her.

In her sleeves the engineer wore her terrified heart. And everyone around her saw it. Her worry, her fear. Like a drop of wine in a pool of water, she saw her emotions spread; reflected but lessened on the faces of everyone she passed through. They knew something was going on. Something bad.

Her own heart screamed at her to go somewhere safe.

But she couldn’t. Where could any of them go if this was a threat? The beacon needed to be in space, to have the blaring message repeat itself over and over again so that someone, anyone, would have the chance of saving them.

“Don’t need you to set the beacon far off Rosemary.” Gus, now also unable to hide his own nerves, told her. “Set it up and come back inside, ok?”

“Sure thing.” She whispered against the drumming of her heart.

If they were pirates, so be it. If they were raiders, so be it. If it was a false alarm and they needed to follow protocol, so… be… it.

Clank!

But it was in the way in which every inky shadow around her seemed to gaze at her; and every tiny rumble of the ship caused her to let out a subtle whelp, that she felt the wrongness grow. Not even ascribing it to a rational paranoid attack could calm her down. The corridors mourned her movements. The lights took some final pictures of her. The shadows urged her to go to them.

“Nya, nya!” Worriedly, her catssistant gave her a virtual hug.

“Thank you, Nya. I know we’ll be fine.”

Such words felt empty once she reached the cargo hold.

Of all the places the young engineer had had the chance to explore while in space, none made her feel as unwelcomed as the biggest room on the ship. Massive, and full, and empty. A labyrinth of crates and equipment stacked on top of each other with barely any a recognizable characteristic to guide her. Sounds without purpose, without origin, deforming echoes. All shrouded in the low lights, the constant shadows, and the unkempt state that corroded the place. Nowhere felt safe. And it didn’t matter if the exit was just at arm’s length; it was always too far away.

And a wrong turn would make her vanish forever.

Clank!

Would a crate drift too close to another, crushing her in place? Would the tools go haywire and electrify her with no mercy? Would the shadows simply hold her there in the darkness to die and rust away?

When she found herself staring at the three-dimensional labyrinth this time, it felt worse than ever. It didn’t matter how many of her coworkers she could see scrambling around to fix things, she could only shake frightfully in place.

No one saw it behind her bulky space suit. No one could know how she felt about a bunch of silly little boxes placed on top of each other. No one would help her if she got lost.

“It’s only your nerves Rosemary.” Her forceful breathing betrayed her feelings. “Everything will be fine.”

“Nya!” Diligently as ever, her digital friend agreed.

“The sooner we do this, the better.” She reaffirmed. “Right?”

“Nya, nya!” Once more she agreed.

So did Rosemaria begin to calm down.

Breathing in.

Breathing out.

As her heart told her, Rosemary decided to use the peripheral belt to reach the airlock. Wasting time on this simple detour was the least important thing to her; the beacon was already working. She was just taking it out to be seen and heard better.

One push at a time she went to the auxiliary airlock. One breath at a time, her heart healthy slowed down. One last checkup on her work, and she was ready to go.

Breathing in.

Breathing out.

The echoes of her own lungs reverberating through her helmet.

With her heart steeled, the doors in front of her, the second to last barrier between the in and out opened up.

Breathing in…

Breathing out…

After this came the waiting game. Go back to help fix whatever she could or be sent to the sidelines to learn a bit more. Become increasingly aware of the ticking hands of the clock and try to be patient. Maybe she will even go to Tenia to demand to know why, again, she took her tools.

Breathing in…

Rosemaria Stonework, junior GUNDAM engineer…

Breathing out…

Request for EVA activities have been approved.

Please connect the beacon to the tether once you are on the outside.

This would be her life for her on out. This is what she would see day after day, much more often than everyone back home. This is what she had to do.

This was the only way.

AIRLOCK sequencer initiated…

3

2

1

…

She didn’t get to react when the explosion hit the cargo hold.

Chapter Text

When Keira first awoke in that sickly white room five years ago, the first thing she felt was hunger. A primal, intense emptiness within herself that erased all sense of self. Her mind was blank, her thoughts were dust, her will was for naught.

She was nothing.

Nothingness begets emptiness. Emptiness begs understanding.

But then, as there was light, so came the pain.

Her joints were stiff as rocks, her skin as dry as the sands of the Tlutzegala, her right eye felt like bursting; nothing from the other. The world was a white and black blur that refused to stop spinning. The ringing in her ears eclipsed everything. Needles pierced her brain. Her legs wouldn’t stop shaking. Why didn’t they stop shaking?

She wanted to scream.

She couldn’t.

Overwhelmed by it all, dizziness filled her mind. And from her stomach, bile rose into her throat burning her. She couldn’t breathe.

Minutes turned to hours turned to weeks turned to seconds. A week passed in the blink of an eye; a millisecond stretched towards eternity. Time had lost all meaning.

Nothing was real. Neither her, nor the light, nor the ringing in her ears. Only her pain. Pain and suffering. Neither dead nor alive. She had been touched by death’s cruel embrace and left to rot, hollow and alone.

Like a pitcher being drained, every impossible breath took more of her, leaving her empty. Empty and alone.

Help me.

It hurt to feel so empty.

She wanted to make it stop.

Stop. Stop. Stop!

Understanding searches for meaning. Meaning is taken.

Take. Take!

And it was when something moved next to her that instinct grasped its chance.

The restraints flew off. Her hand grasps the fabric of his coat, pulling him towards her. He screamed. He struggled. One of her claws pierced flesh. Something white stuck to it. He screamed.

Who is he?

Her fangs cut her lips when she opened her mouth. His arm went to protect himself. Something was shifted. Crashes. Glass breaking. The bed under her moved. More screams. Ringing. They fell. She screamed.

Just below her, streaking down from an empty eye socket, shining so temptingly, was what she needed.

Blood. Mesmerizingly red and beautiful. It sang to her like a siren.

Keira was starving.

She could feast.

She only needed to dig in.

“Kiki.”

“Dada.”

The young shaken pilot hit hard her own leg, banishing the dreadful memory.

Once more, she was in the present.

Tired. Shaken. Afraid.

In the deep darkness of space, lost among the graveyard that once had been an old colony, Keira found herself a hostage of her own pain. Her fatigue, as much as she’d hoped to deny it, didn’t come from her lack of sleep or overexertion.

She hated that she knew the answer. Hated what it was.

The disgusting suffering that lived within her; the void that had taken root in her very self. It demanded to be satiated. Such as it had been five years ago, such as it was two weeks ago, such it was today of all days.

Again, and again.

Her hunger.

Her breathing became erratic, aggressive; too desperate to control; too forceful to get air on her lungs. Her mouth was watering. Her eye had been unable to move away from the red river flowing from the corpse of the poor sailor. Even then, hypnotized as she had been by her hunger, she had failed to notice one dreadful detail. Just in front of her face, her own bloodstained hand was holding the corpse.

“No!” She shouted horrified. “Make it stop. Make it stop!”

The red lights of her cockpit dimmed.

Whispering apologies.

Warning! Injecting suppressants.            

The lights around her dimmed. The rumbling of her Mobile Suit quieted down. From behind she heard it once again. The dripping, and the pump. From her spine she felt her driver tightened. The needle connecting her to her Gundam locked her into place to make sure she wouldn’t get hurt. She knew she would.

The sun froze over her back.

Starting from her spine, a frigid, putrid sensation snaked through her. Everywhere it crossed, a vile, inky, and burning pain fell upon her. Cold sweat fell from her brows, then her arms, finally her chest. Her breathing became heavier, slower, harder to pull off like if a building was pressed against her ribs. As all strength left her body, the heartbeat monitor next to her shot up exponentially.

She wanted to puke, to scream, to let the damned thing out of her system.

She bit her tongue hard.

She knew better than that. There was no escape from the pain. She needed it. She deserved it for letting her hunger almost get the better of her. Whatever pain she felt now was nothing of it meant she wouldn’t fall against it.

And so, her hunger morphed into something she could work with. Disgust.

Just looking at the body now made her want to throw up.

“Th-thanks Lily.” Fighting her dizziness, she thanked her companion. “What happened to the ship?”

Unknown… Need to approach for visual confirmation.

“Ok. Let me just place a beacon on them so we can pick them up later, ok?”

Whispering approval.

One of her Gund-bits detached itself from her and flew towards the dead.  When it got near them, the raven automatically scanned the RFID tag in the poor soul’s suit. Her HUD lit up, showing their name, their picture, and their deceased status appeared for the young pilot.

A young pale man not much older than her, with the most prince like hair she’d ever seen. Freckles all over his face, a scar on the lip, and a piercing on both their eyes.

Eyes that would never open up again.

“I’m so sorry Deren.” She whispered mournfully as her raven placed a beacon near them. “I should have arrived sooner.”

No answer came from the dead.

“We grieve later.” Keira steeled herself. “We’ve got a job to do. Secure the ship and find whoever is missing. So, we’ll do our best, right?”

Whispering approval.

“Cargo ship Lagrange, do you copy?” Her voice quivered as she opened her comms once more. “Is anyone there?”

Static. No answer.

“Maybe we are still too far away.”

Her thrusters came to live again to push her forward.

Dodging the hazards between her and the derelict ship was much easier now that she’d slowed down significantly. The hull breach had been sealed, and Lily didn’t raise any alarms about any other potential danger. The debris remained a hazard, but one she and her misfortune could easily handle.

Yet, as the foam-covered scar in the ship came into view, she found herself tensing up. Something was off about it. Experience had made Keira aware that she should listen to her immediate thoughts when such a thing happened.

“Lily, what do you think caused it?”

 Whispering uncertainty.

And this time, they told her to be swift. Her thrusters responded to her wish.

“Lily, do a life scan.”

Whispering denial.

 “Please.”

Whispering resigned approval.

Warning! Energy reserve at 25%.

Her screen flashed. From her head a light blue mesh expanded to all corners of her vision. The cargo crates, shards of steel, aluminum sheets, and all unknown hazards around her were covered by it, giving her a better read of her surroundings. And once it touched the Lagrange, her worry grew. The hull breach had not been caused by debris.

In another flash a second mesh appeared, but this time, colored green.

Four targets. No vitals detected.

One by one they changed from green to red, marking their deaths.

She didn’t stop her flight towards the ship. She couldn’t. Time was of the essence. Lives could still be saved.

The one thing she did was force herself to look away from any of the bodies she failed to save. Lily would handle it.

And so, one of her ravens detached from her to scan their bodies.

Nerev, Darium, Joselin, Amario.

Another four that had died because of her. Four more to remember and add to her list. The least she could do was allow their loved one’s closure. Mark their bodies for recovery and note down their names. She would tell the captain. They would tell the families of the departed.

The morbid relief that she would never be the one to do it always made her feel guilty.

“Abyss take me.” She felt her eye water up. The crushing guilt of not having been fast enough, of not being good enough came to her.

Her hands tightened around the controllers once more. She bit her lower lip and pushed forward. Getting the ship out of here was top priority.

“Grieve later.” She reminded herself. “We need to get to the cockpit.”

A curios whisper came from her Mobile Suit when her scanner fired again. It sounded off, strange, like someone muttering something in the middle of a concert. But one thing was clear to her, it was a desperate voice calling to anyone who would hear it.

Before she could ask Lily to mark its location, a small red arrow appeared at the right edge of the screen wanting her attention. Keira turned around feeling the grinding of Lily’s head as she did. Not too far away from her, she saw it. Just as big as a speck of dust, a blinking red light. The SOS beacon.

A third wave of her mesh flew out.

Ping!

There, the closest thing to the ship, holding unto it for dear life, was someone.

Keira smiled with worried relief. “Get one of our ravens to go to the cockpit, make it an antenna so they can talk to us. The rest with me.” She commanded. “Send a message to the navigator about what happened.”

Lily approved.

Her left-hand raven flew from its place and went to the front of the ship. She, in turn, wasted no time flying to the crewmate and extending her arms to cradle them.

The murmuring became clearer. It sounded like a cat’s meowing.

Lily scanned them.

Warning! Junior Engineer Rosemaria Stonework is unconscious, manual assistance will be necessary.

“Shoot. We have to check her!” She wasted no time getting into action. “Ok. Open the rescue hatch and the cockpit. I’ll leave the rest to you, ok?”

Whispering approval.

The console in front of her dimmed down and the sensation of returning to her own smaller body hit her. She used the arm rests to help herself up while her driver-link needle tightened itself, changing to EVA tether mode. The light on her helmet lit up in sync with the cockpit opening up.

There, placed like a princess in Lily’s hands, the engineer laid.

And she needed her help.

Using her hands to push herself downwards, Keira jumped towards the engineer. Even with her hunger suppressed, the pilot took all her usual precautions as she was nearing her. One hand on the quick return button, her other hand on her chest, and her fangs on her lips ready to cut her should she try anything.

When she landed, she went to touch the unconscious girl but was interrupted by the most curious sound. A cat desperately meowing. The same sound that had guided her here.

Her heart ached. Had a cat gone inside the suit and become trapped?

“Hey kitty. Don’t worry, I’m here for you. You’ll be safe.”

The cat continued meowing, but less frantically than before. And once Keira touched the suit, she received a digital letter sealed by a cat paw.

Heartbeat, 42bpm… Breathing nominal, minor concussion. Light suit damage detected, but no tears.

Please help her.

Suit energy at 12%

:c

“How could it get this low so fast?” She asked Lily who didn’t have an answer. The Gundam was too busy connecting her with the Lagrange. “Of course we will. We’ll let her recharge in the bay.”

It was when she was cleaning the engineer’s visor that she got to see her face. Grey skin, light and pale, like a polished sheet of steel. Over it laid a streak of beautiful aquamarine hair that fell down to her closed eyes, and her stunning set of eyelashes. Her nose was undeniably cute. Small and round; perfect to boop it like one does to a cat.

Keira felt warm. Very, very warm, especially her face.

Whispering question.

“I-I’m alright! And she’s alright too, just… passed out…” She caught the blush on her reflection. “I’ll bring her in.”

Ashamed, Keira shook her head and refocused on her job. She grabbed the unconscious girl, took a deep breath and asked Lily to move them to the Gundam’s back. Gundam Remnant did as commanded, at the same time as her own back opened up. The two immobilizing seats, the only part of her Mobile Suit she consistently knew, were in peak condition, laid in front of them both. The pilot hoisted the engineer up, secured her in the seat, and hooked up her normal suit to Lily.

“You are going to be fine.” She said to the beautiful unconscious woman. “You are…”

Warning!

Unknown energy signature detected.

Scanning…

Lily spun around, closed the hatch and called back the driver-link. In the blink of an eye Keira was pulled back against the cockpit, crash-landing in her seat. The hatch closed. Her breathing stabilized. Blue lights. Red lights. In and out.

Warning!

Hostile Mobile Suits inbound.

T minus 15 seconds.

A voice managed to pierce the static.

“This is Captain Derek of the CS Lagrange. There are--”

“This is Gundam Remnant, we’ll protect you.” She stated. “We promise.”

Roaring like a dragon, Lily’s thrusters came to life. With their speed Keira shot herself backwards, away from the danger. The missile that came for her shrieked past her. Her radar fired again. Ping! Two mobile suits on screen. Phalanx type. Strong and sturdy, used for guard duty. Both equipped with the horrific high-thermal launchers.

Warning! Second missile incoming!

Her leg thrusters fired in response pushing her towards her attackers, dodging past the missile. The heat of the explosion reached her even inside the cockpit but vanished instantly with the planar dust.

The mesh fired from her again, now intent on finding her assailants.

Ping!

Four identical crimson red figures were marked on the screen. One in front, launcher tucked away. Two that had hidden themselves to her right going to flank her. Last one coming straight at her, dropping its empty launcher and pulling out its axe.

No life signs detected.

“Mobile Dolls? I thought they’d been banned.”

Whispering concern.

One, two, three. Rifle, medium power.

“Come on Lily!” She grunted, taking aim to her right.

One of her enemies had its rifle out for covering fire, the other had its launcher pointed at her. Her scope fixed on the most dangerous threat. Its head was too protected, its legs were a useless target; its torso, thanks to its damned launcher’s shield, was way too armored for one hit to destroy it. There was only one target.

Hand on the trigger, she waited no time. She aimed. She fired.

The green beam flew straight at the Mobile Doll, who waited for the last second to jump away. Keira, expectantly, readjusted her aim, and fired twice to catch it by surprise. It dodged the former again, but not the latter. The shot hit it directly in the arm, severing it completely.

Warning!

“I know!” Thrusters forward, then upwards towards them.

Without an arm, the Phalanx Doll dropped its launcher and pulled out its beam rifle. Without care for accuracy, it relentlessly fired at her. Its companion, seeing their roles reversed, frantically tried to pull out its own missile launcher. It was fruitless. She had the speed to catch up to it before it could. She needed to—

The shining blade of a heat axe appeared on the edge of her sight.

“Ravens!” Her incomplete shield formed on her left arm. The axe bounced off. She pushed it away, prepared to fire.

Warning! Missile incoming!

Too late.

Keira turned. Energy at max. Shield for cover.

Hit!

The force of the explosion caught them both. The Mobile Doll, unable to find cover, was obliterated.

One down, three to go.

Keira, hiding behind Gund-bit shield, lost control.

“No!” She screamed as she went crashing into the colony’s wall.

At the last second before impact, she killed her left thrusters and spun to her right, catching her enemies upside down. She pulled the trigger again and again to no avail. Her loss of control gave them ample room to evade.

“Firing squad!” She ordered and her ravens followed.

With the fury of a falling meteor, her Bit-staves fired at her attackers. They jumped. Boosted. Tried to predict her madness, but one failed. To the one she’d already hurt its head went flying off.

To her dismay, it was still moving.

Warning! Impact imminent!

The crash forced the air out of her lungs. All of the armor on Lily’s left side was either critical or outright gone. Engines were leaking coolant. Eye sensor was getting blurry. But it was her rifle arm that had suffered the worst. Her trigger finger was glitching out.

She grunted and without aiming, fired at the three remaining Mobile Dolls. Every shot went wide.

One of the two unharmed Mobile Dolls ditched its rifle, lit up its axe and turned to leave. Keira’s heart screamed. The ship.

“No!” She shouted, forcing the engines to the maximum, blasting her towards it. “You’ll not touch them!”

Warning! Energy at 14%

Without a second thought she increased her speed. Three beams hit her directly on her cockpit, forcing a scream out of her but she didn’t care. She wouldn’t be deterred. She had a goal, and she would complete it.

She fired against the coward doll. First went wide, second too. But for the last shot she forced herself to breathe. In and out. Calm her aim. Focus her eye. Fix her heart. Match the rhythm of her glitching finger.

In the deep darkness of the void between the stars, the energy beacon that was the Phalanx Doll’s heat axe stood out like the blazing sun. Her shot became a moth, driven to its light.

Green turned blue, the beam came for it and blasted its torso into oblivion.

“Two down!” She shouted. Her shoulder ached, making her scream. “I’m sorry Lily. Lower the output back to medium, ok?”

Whispering approval.

The two remaining targets, now acknowledging her as the biggest threat, went after her.

She spun, twisted, and boosted past them further away from the Lagrange and into the dense and claustrophobic remains of the colony’s shell.

If she could force them to follow her inside here, isolating them from one another, she would have the advantage.

The Mobile Dolls followed her, firing relentlessly to take her down, but splitting up to try and catch her.

“Come home raven!” She ordered her improvised antenna just as another missile detonated near her. She dodged the rubble but lost speed.

She needed to be faster, she--

“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!” A voice she had never heard before blasted her. On the corner of her screen the image of the engineer she’d saved appeared. And she was angry.

“Sa-saving their lives, your life!” Keira responded before grunting as she dodged another shot and went into the tunnels.

“With that horrible piloting of yours?!” Her voice didn’t relent an instant while her furious eyes pierced her. “You don’t even have half your battery reserve, your armor is all messed up, and you are fighting?”

The woman, unable to hide any of her dismay, grabbed her helmet trying to crush it.

“Are you insane?!”

 Keira, distracted by her passenger’s outburst, missed how close the rusted tunnel’s wall was when she went to duck for cover. To save her, save them, she forced her engines at full speed, decimating her energy reserves.

“AND YOU ARE IN MEDIUM ENERGY CONSUMPTION?!”

“I-I kn-know what I’m doing.” She babbled, failing to quell the engineer’s annoyance.

“Not with that flying of yours.” Unfazed, the engineer sneered. “What even is your plan oh, so great pilot?”

Before Keira could fail to formulate a response that wouldn’t make her sound like a fool, the headless Mobiles Mobile Doll burst out from behind her. Brandishing its jury-rigged axe, it went to strike her. Keira, without thinking, called upon her Gund-bits to form her complete shield.

Warning! Energy reserves at critical level.

With the speed to rival the light, the raven that had stayed behind crashed into her attacker. The force of the impact, unrivaled by the strength of the steel and polymers, severed the doll in half. Iron, oil and coolant flew from its corpse. Her shield was now ready.

“How many left?” Rosemaria demanded to know.

“Only one.”

The engineer fell silent.

But Keira knew it wasn’t the end.

 Whatever advantage she may have had was offset by where they were now. The safe, disjointed pocket in which she laid now was small, way smaller than even her hangar back home. The protruding beams, and the broken parts inside left only a tiny space to dodge a beam. An explosion here would concentrate its entire might upon her, marking her end. And she was well aware that the last Phalanx Doll had not used its launcher yet.

She needed an out.

But with every peek she took to her sides, the already labyrinthine pathways of the malformed colony changed. Crashing against each other, they closed old corridors, opened new ones, taunting her with the knowledge that there was no way to map their escape.

“If we are lucky, it might have been crushed, right?”

“Sure, of fucking course.” The engineer added.

Whispering concern.

And so, her cursed luck manifested itself, mocking her.

In the blink of an eye two more of those corridors came into existence, one in front, one on her back. To her dismay the Phalanx Doll came into view with its finger already clicking the trigger of missile launcher.

Warning! Missile lock-on in place. Evasive maneuvers!

In that brief instant stretched towards infinity, Keira’s jaw tensed up. Her mind raced towards everything she knew and didn’t know. For both weal and woe, she had a clear image of the following seconds.

In the pit of her stomach, somehow Keira knew the walls were in their enemy’s favor. Where she to try and run backwards, the corridor would close in an instant, trapping her with the explosion. Even when she managed to dodge to the side the direct hit, the shockwave would take her out in a flash. Using her Gund-bit shield to block the explosion wouldn’t be enough.

“Shoot the flares!” The girl shouted at her.

There was only one way. Forward.

“Not yet!” Keira grunted and pushed Lily forward, toward the missile.

“DON’T YOU DARE!”

Full throttle ahead. Blink. The chassis of Lily standing in front, ravens forming her shield. Blink. She flew without fear. The Mobile Doll, uncaring and unthinking, finished pulling the trigger. Explosion. Smoke. Light. Blink. The missile left the barrel straight at her. Blink.

To doubt was to die.

Warning! Frontal left thruster disabled due to unknown error.

She fired her right frontal thrusters. She spun. Black smoke flew past her like the galloping horseman of Death. Flares away. Gravity counter going red. Blink. Keeping her momentum, she grabbed the Phalanx’s arm. The rumbling of its limb fell quiet when her hand crushed it. Fire. Oil, steel, plastic and sparks flew from the torso of her enemy for she had ripped its arm away. Blink. Fire; the shockwave was getting near. She kicked the Mobile Doll into the chamber. Gund-bit shield closed its exit.

In the last moments of its existence, its red visor shone the reflection of Remnant’s uncaring face.

Fire. Ash.

Death.

No more hostile suits detected.

In and out. Her lungs couldn’t decide where the air in her suit should be. In and out. The thundering in her ears relented its previous assault, letting her plump down in her chair for a long minute.

In and out.

They were safe and sound and ready to be evacuated. The crew of the Lagrange would live to reach their destination and take a very deserved moment of rest. To breath, to realize their fortune and to mourn.

In and--

“You damned adrenaline addict!” The engineer, still present on her screen, shrieked at her. “WHY DID YOU FLY TOWARDS A GODDAM MISSILE YOU ABSOLUTE DUMBASS?!”

“I, w-well, you see…”

The intense, borderline murderous gaze of her passenger made her close her mouth. At times like this, she knew it didn’t matter what she said.

“I’m sorry, I—"

“Just drop me off at the ship.”

Maybe it would have been for the best if Keira had returned to her own ship after the fight was over. Drop the engineer off, reassure the remaining crew that it wouldn’t take long for them to be taken out of there, then board Lily one final time and leave them alone. Go do something productive like write her report or begin whatever maintenance she could give to her own Gundam. The world around her had lost all color, existing only as a tone of greys. The worst omen of her hunger.

But, as her dads always told her, her bleeding heart was too powerful sometimes.

Because the moment she had laid her eye on the overwhelmed and afraid faces of the crew inside the wrecked hangar, she couldn’t have left them alone. They had been taken to their limit, their worst fears had come to life, death has claimed their friends. They had needed a helping hand.

And the one who had needed her help most was the angry engineer.

The door of her emergency rescue hatch had opened slowly, revealing the cross-armed engineer, leering at her like a feral cat. And as one, when Keira had offered her hand to help her descend, the distinctly small engineer known as Rosemaria Ryn Stonework had swatted her hand away.

“I don’t need any more fucking help.” She had bluntly told her.

And, with that, she had jumped down to where her team, her friends, had been waiting for her.

“But you may have a worsening concussion--”

“I’m fine!” She had declared as if she drunkenly stumbled into the arms of the medical team. Never having looked back at her nor Lily. “Don’t you have better things to do?!”

“I…”

One of the two medics had intervened by simply putting their arm between the two women. A crowd had already gathered around them, but it had shifted. Tenser, jumpy, anxious. All responses that had been directed towards her.

“Let us handle this.” The medics voice had coldly told her.

“If you need me, don’t hesitate to ask.” Keira resigned herself.

 But that had not been the last words.

Rosemaria’s voice had piped up again, but lowered down to a whisper that no one should have heard.

“Stars. I hope I never have to see you again.”

Keira’s heart had sunk.

You and many others.

Chapter Text

Rosemaria Stonework couldn’t sleep.

The air in her room was freezing, yet under her bedsheets she was burning. The bed was too stiff and too malleable; unwilling to move for her, but happy to trap her in as if it was a made of quicksand. The miniscule lights around the pitch-black room were too accursedly bright, as if the photons themselves were beaming right to her closed eyes. But worst of all was how dry her throat felt, as if someone had forced her to eat a spoon of cinnamon.

She craved a glass of water, but she didn’t have enough energy to stand up. All because she hadn’t had one second of sleep.

Her yawns had already superseded the annoyance threshold.

“Fuck’s sake.”

When she had been left go of the infirmary, they had offered her something to help her rest. In her desire to be left alone, however, naivety had won against her better judgment. She had refused as politely as she could, meaning she had been the rudest bitch in the whole galaxy.

And so, her rusted luck came to bite her in the ass. Slowly but surely, when she had begun preparing herself to sleep, she became aware of her own impending insomnia pretty early.

Her usual bedtime rituals had felt off today. The tea not warm enough, the music too loud, the three hugs on the pillow absentmindedly weak. The goodnight kiss on Miau’s head had been the only normal thing.

Part of her wished she could have deluded herself into thinking there had been a difference to her ritual and that had been the cause of it. Something quick and easy to fix if she just went back and redid it rightly this time. Brew a new cup, chose the right song, blasted the whole wiring to turn off the LEDs.

In reality she knew the reason. One isn’t shot of the airlock in the middle of the remains of an old space colony without having their whole sense of safety be shattered. The knowledge of how thin the walls were, and how close she was to being sucked away again into the void between the stars was too much for her.

“Just your normal reaction to almost dying…” She laughed nervously shutting down her music.

Holding on tighter to her tattered kitty plushy, the engineer tumbled around the bed trying in vain to find some semblance of rest. Even just five minutes without something yanking her to alertness would be enough. But when every creak of the hull was as loud as thunder, and the smallest bit of turbulence caused her blood to flash freeze, she found none. No longer could she deny how much it had affected her. A stormveil is bad on its own, closer to a malfunction than an accident.

But an attack?

“It makes no sense, right Miau?” She moved the head of her plushy to agree with her.

The fact that a bunch of Mobile Dolls were ready to attack them the moment the stormveil passed, leaving them vulnerable, was either the biggest bout of luck for the attackers, or…

“Were they… looking for me? No, that’s stupid. I’m just trying to give a reason to what happened like the diva I am.” Her cuddly friend gave her a hug to try and counteract her old friend Paranoia.

“Is space really that scary?”

Rosemary let Miau fall on her chest before turning to her tablet. If she wasn’t able to sleep maybe she could relax by mindlessly scrolling through the cesspool of garbage social media offered her.

“Shit. Where would I even get a signal from?” She chastised herself for forgetting. “Its not like ninety percent of all satellites got destroyed five years ago. And I imagine it is a nightmare keeping what few remain between the space colonies working.”

Maybe she could bother Tenia. Send a text to invite her to chat about nothing. After all, she was responsible for taking her goddamn soldering iron. The least she could do was indulge her with some of the most awkward small talk imaginable to pass the time. Or maybe just send each other cat gifs.

The flashing ‘5%’ on her necklace’s battery made her put it instantly down.

“Nya needs to sleep too.”

Disappointment not withstanding, the aquamarine girl placed her kitty on her head before she sat on the bed. Stifling the eleventh yawn of the ‘night’, the engineer rubbed her eyes again and again to chase away the sandy feeling in them. Of course it didn’t work, it aggravated it. Yet she couldn’t stop. She couldn’t sleep.

Today had been the second scariest day of her life.

“What do you think Miau?” She asked her inanimate companion who fell down her face. “We did good, right?”

And she had survived it.

There was a tinge of pride in herself that grew with each passing second. She had worked as fast as she could to fix the beacon. She had got it ready in record time. Every decision she had taken had been the correct one and they all had been safer for it. Her biggest achievement had been her proof-of-concept sensor, of course.

“Well done past me.” She patted herself in the back, then used Miau to do so as well. “Stars, it actually, kind of, worked! My degree is not a waste!”

Sure, she had gotten frustrated by the lack of help, especially her future co-workers (and above all that damned, beautiful Tenia). Sure, the smell of burnt cables had not vanished from neither her clothes nor nose. And sure, things would have gone faster should her soldering iron not have been locked in another locker. But she managed it. She was safe and sound, they all were.

Or rather, most of them.

Her pride waned.

“I didn’t even get their names.” She confessed to Miau. Her singular button eye stared back, lifeless yet more understanding than all.

Five dead. With only a small memorial in the mess hall to remember them by.

She had tried to remember their names, their faces, anything to distinguish them from one another. But every time she tried to pay attention to the memorial, her thoughts wandered to the darkest corners of her mind.

“I could have been one of them…”

Only it hadn’t because of the pilot.

Her heart screamed at her to blame that reckless, insane, dangerous and stupid girl. Her brain told her to shut it.

Without much else to do, and with her growing anxiety threatening to make the insomnia permanent, Rosemary went to the bathroom. Grabbing a flashlight from her night stand she power walked to the it.

To feel something other than the numbness of the night Rosemary fully opened the faucet and violently threw three splashes of water at her face. Only after the last did she stop the flow. Cold and clean, it jolted her awake long enough to stare at the mirror without blurry eyes.

Her own reflection stared back at her featuring the darkest eye bags she had ever seen, and a sickly paleness to her gray skin that made it look ghostly and pearly. Her aquamarine eyes, as she had guessed, had their red veins all across the sclera like rivers of lava after an eruption. Even her usually unkempt aquamarine hair looked more disastrous than usual. And the twigs on her head appeared to almost wilt away.

“Stars… I look like a wight.” Rosemary coughed dryly.

Unable to ignore her sandy throat, she scooped a bit of water from the sink and took two, or three, or ten sips before stopping. Each time with less water on her hands for it wouldn’t be contained inside her shaking, cold hands.

“Why am I not using a cup?” She chastised herself.

She clumsily opened the small mirror cabinet in front, riding herself of her reflection. Taking no care in her search, she started looking for her hand-me-down kitty cup. Makeup brushes fell down her face, alongside her toothbrush. The toothpaste was knocked down, plopping into the sink. And she luckily was able to avoid being cut by her razor. She only stooped tossing things when her nails bounced off a thing and she heard the sound of ceramic.

“I’ll clean… sometime later.” She grabbed her cup.

A small glint at the back of the cabinet caught her eye. Amongst the usual silver color of it, a color she had seen thousands of times by now, Rosemaria saw a speck of reddish-brown color. It was no larger than a grain of rice and barely noticeable against the backdrop, a far cry from a serious structural or health hazard. Neither was it out of place; the appearance of such a spot was natural and so simply explained: steam rises during a hot shower and then condenses on every surface it can. Over time, without proper cleaning, the oxygen particles steal some of the free electrons from the iron and forms oxidized iron.

It was, to almost everyone, a standard bit of rust. Easily ignored, easily fixed.

But for Rosemaria Ryn Stonework, those rusted spots on the screw were the abyss itself.

Calm, collected, watching. Waiting for her.

“Ev-everything’s fine.” She slammed closed the cabinet door with such force the mirror threatened to shatter. “Rust is natural. Rust is normal. Rust happens from time to time. We only need to clean to avoid it.”

She shakily filled her cup and, not bothering to close the sink, gulped it all in one swing. Then she took a second one, and a third one. A fifth. A sixth. A seventh. Only after ten glasses and some stomach pain, she felt that she could breathe again.

Just like when she awoke inside the Gundam.

One blink she was about to go outside to deposit the beacon and wait for help; a second one she was strapped to an emergency chair, a screen showing her the camera feed, and a masked pilot who was about to be squarely hit by a missile. Screaming had not been the best response, but it had been the only response.

“It was… very different to the simulations.” She whispered to Miau before a yawn blurred her vision.

Of course, Rosemary was aware that a sim would never truly match the real feeling of flying inside a Mobile Suit (it had been repeated at nauseam by her instructors and peers after all). Yet, the stark difference was remarkable. Gravity dampeners and all, the feeling of being pushed around, shoved and forced to turn in every unexpected direction to get the upper hand, flying as if the void itself was trying to swallow get to you, was...

Scary.

Exhilarating.

Sure, that piloting had been some of the most reckless, infuriating, dangerous and outright suicidal she had ever had the luck to experience. Sure, her not being able to see or hear the name of her ‘rescuer’ as she was bound to the Gundam, and to her delusional flying was a terrifying thing. All compounded by the dark faceplate keeping her anonymous (even her ID was censored, which she found weird). And sure, being at so low energy before a fight was, well… dumb.

“Yet I really don’t know the whole story, do I?” She admitted.

What had the pilot needed to do to get to them? Fight amongst the debris field, dodging the incoming beams as she dodged the metal sheets and asteroid remains? Had she just started her way back from another deployment, with little time to give any maintenance? Or was she hit by her own stormveil on the way to them? She couldn’t know.

If being an engineer, and a cook, had taught her anything is that one never really gets their perfect setup. Tools break, ingredients spoil, pieces fall apart at the last moment and there’s always that one pinecone who keeps hounding because they obviously could do it better than you. They just won’t do it because of reasons. Their last words declaring that they’ll never come back. That you’ll never see them again.

I hope I never see you again.

“Ah fucks sake.” Realization dawned on her. “Stupid, stupid Ryn.”

Leaving the bathroom behind, Rosemary fell back onto her bed. Groaning (again) as she fell, she went to hug Miau but pushed everything else off it. Sheets, pillows and hopes all fell to the ground until only her and her companion remained.

She laid there, frustrated, and anxious, thinking of her rescuer. Her childish celebration, the way she could feel her resolve when taking down the last Mobile Suit. How she repeatedly asked if she, and the others, were ok after they were towed by their rescuer’s vessel. How she kept encouraging everyone; that they would be soon safe with that sweet, gentle voice of hers. Warm and calming like a cup of honeyed tea.

The only annoying part was how she tried ‘apologizing’ for her putting her in danger.

‘If you need me, don’t hesitate to ask.’  How sweet of her to offer.

For all her difficulties in catching the tone of voice in others, the engineer was sure that her rescuer had been sincere about that.

Rosemary regretted not turning to see her then and there. All because of her hurt pride.

But maybe she could go out to find her now instead. Take her up on her offer. Wake her up, get the two of them to a place they wouldn’t be bothered to talk about what being a pilot was like, or what it was actually like to keep such a thing running. All that to muster up the courage to thank her for saving her. Do something to take back those hurtful words because she didn’t deserve them.

Didn’t she?

Didn’t the pilot put her in harm’s way by making Rosemary tag along in her fight? She didn’t seem that worried about her safety when she dodged those missiles. Let alone when she put the Lagrange in danger once more. Not a single concern for the lives of the crew, nor hers. And she only showed regret when she called her out. Would that pilot even care to hear how terrified, borderline hysterical, Rosemary had been? How not a single word of reassurance came from her to tell her everything was going to be fine?

Even if she did, that pilot would probably just laugh, tell her it was part of piloting a Gundam, and that she was being a silly little blue rose for feeling that way.

Why should she need to apologize to her?

Rosemary tugged at her hair. The jolt of pain forcibly stopped her spiraling.

“Just stop brain.”

Rosemaria Ryn Stonework couldn’t sleep. Even as her own body pleaded to get any rest, and the tears of frustration began to flow without end, she couldn’t sleep. The thoughts inside herself were too full of fear and guilt.

Tomorrow they would be arriving at the Garden. Tomorrow her new life far away from everyone she cared for and loved would begin. Tomorrow. Tomorrow.

 Rosemaria Stonework didn’t get any sleep.

“Not that interested in it I see.” Tenia, the girl of a thousand hummingbird tattoos upon her golden and silvery skin, nudged the sleep deprived engineer when a yawn escaped her. “Or have you already counted all the sand particles already?”

“Can’t say I have.” Rosemaria answered, unable to recollect how long she had been on the observation deck.

She hadn’t really planned on staying here too long, originally settling for a maximum of an hour or so. But she had realized after a while of being alone in there that she felt calmer. Maybe it was seeing the blue giant of Kaliastre in the background, unfazed by the debris of Helia’s Wrath, maybe it was the flashing lights of the satellites guiding their paths marking their return to civilization, or maybe it was the approaching sight of the space stations she would call home soon. In the end, she had stayed there, watching, resting.  

It was only after she went to check on Nya’s battery and saw it had reached eighty percent that she realized how much time had passed.

“Oh, it is impressive alright.” Rosemary acknowledged Tenia’s previous question. “Probably the greatest thing I’ve ever seen but…” Another yawn escaped her. “Stars, my brain can not function today.”

“That’s alright.” Tenia roughly patted her on the back. “I think you can hire a guided tour from somewhere. You know. If you want to capture that awestruck feeling.”

“Might do that.” Rosemary politely lied.

Stifling another damned yawn, Rosemary approached the massive window on the far side of the deck to get one final look at her new home.

Standing proudly between her and the blue of the giant Kaliastre laid the titanic space station known as the Garden.

She had seen it once or twice before on the news. More than twelve thousand kilometers in diameter dedicated to simulating and preserving every ecosystem known to humanity in the solar system. From the calm seas of Altaris to the strange and alien quasi-fungi of Batos, all had found a place that cared for them in the Garden. A testament to humanity’s will to survive and desire to protect that which they love the most. The cherry on top was the seed vault that had been made for a crisis such as they were living now.

And Rosemary could feel it.

As the small dot grew in size to its titanic glory, the engineer was marbled as the abstract colors gained their meaning. Yellow and blue turning into beaches and deserts. Greens and purples gave way to the forests, jungles, and fungal planes. They grey, like her skin, into beautiful mountain ranges. All of them housed in a colony shaped not like the old cylinders, but like a beautiful, multicolored, budding flower.

The photos did it no justice.

“Beautiful.”

“Maybe you aren’t as tired after all.” Tenia placed her hand on her shoulder and offered her a cheeky smile. “You are even smiling. Amazing. I thought you had had your smile stolen by gravity.”

“Oh, fuck you.” Rosemary laughed. “I’m just happy the trip is over.”

“In that we agree.” Tenia responded without her smile. “This was a long trip. How are you holding up?”

Multiple answers crossed Rosemary’s mind. From dismissive and hurt, to raw and angry, sad, and confused, excited, and full lf dread. None seemed to fully encompass what her exhausted self felt. Only as the greens and greys turned to mountains and colossal trees, the numbness in her faded away.

“Homesick.” She responded. “Feels like I left Fáldana too soon.”

“That’s understandable.” Tenia nodded. “I’m sorry, I know what-”

“It’s fine.” Rosemaria left out an exasperated sigh.

“Ok then.” Tenia let go of her and crossed her arms. The room felt colder, quieter.

‘Stupid. Stupid! She’s just trying to connect with you.’

“I meant to ask…” Wanting nothing more than the awkward silence to end, she spoke up. “Who are you going to be working under?”

Tenia continued to stare out the window intently, as if she was called by the void itself.

“Apparently someone so famous I don’t even get to hear her name until I get to Port seven. Damned NDA and all.” Her coworker responded, sending a chill down Rosemary’s spine. “An ex-actor, or singer, or something like that. I’ll get introduced to her once my team comes pick me up.” She stopped. “You, ok? You kinda went pale there.”

“Port seven?” Rosemary repeated, ignoring everything else.

She drifted her ways back towards Nya. Once there she opened her acceptance letter and her contract to verify that, indeed, her new home, wouldn’t be port seven.

“Wait, we aren’t going to the same port?” Tenia stared at her in disbelief. “Stars I thought because of the lockers and our dorms that we were gonna be close but…”

“I guess not.” Rosemary finished her thought. She couldn’t avoid feeling that tinge of fear in herself at the news.

“Where are you going then?” It was an awkward way to ask the question, yet Rosemary felt Tenia couldn’t think of another way.

“Port Thirteen.” She responded looking over the sleeping Nya.

“Oh, oh! Wait! You are gonna work for Stargazer?” Tenia’s excitement let to Rosemary shudder in response. Thankfully Tenia didn’t notice this one.

“No. Not Stargazer.” She tried to hide the disgust in her words, and the surprise of learning that her, out of everyone, would be so close to her. “Her name is Keira. Apparently her Gundam has been in the family for centuries.”

“Wow. One of the old guards” Tenia whistled. “What’s its name?”

“Gundam Remnant.” Rosemaria answered.

If Rosemary could garner a guess with how her eyes opened to reveal the full brown in them Tenia’s demeanor changed. From joy to confusion, and finally to a pensive reflection, she almost seemed worried about her.

“Something the matter?” Rosemary asked a little too loud for her want.

“No. Nothing.” Tenia responded, yet the aquamarine woman didn’t believe her.

Rosemary disconnected Nya and turned to gaze intensely at the girl in front of her. It took only three seconds of staring at her to make her talk again.

“Do you even know who you are going to work for?” Her companion approached her.

“Oh, I know.” Rosemary answered, making Tenia look at her curiously.

“No. I don’t mean you knowing she’s the Remnant girl, the nepo-baby of Azuriel Pharmaceutical Rosemary.” Tenia continued eliciting a confused grunt from Rosemary. “You are seriously telling me you didn’t recognize who saved our asses today?”

Rosemary face palmed herself in disbelief.  

“You can’t be serious!” Tenia didn’t relent.

“I was stuck inside the rescue pod while her credentials in the call were obfuscated. What did you expect me to do?” Rosemary answered without hiding her annoyance, both at herself and at her friend.

“Yeah, sorry.” Tenia apologized. Rosemary grunted to her friend’s annoyance. “I didn’t even register it until after you were being taken to the infirmary.”

“Whatever.” Rosemary deflected. “And I wasn’t really paying attention to anything apart from my dizziness at that point.” She lied.

Whatever blurry vision she may have had at that moment had all but vanished. She had simply refused to look at her savior due to her anger.

And her shame.

The vile words she had spewed at the Keira girl now tasted even more bitterly.

“Though, I imagined her she would be less… kind?”  Tenia shrugged. “Maybe she mellowed out after Stargazer gave her that thrashing two years ago.”

“What, they got into a fight?” Rosemary asked confused.

“Oh no.” Tenia denied very quickly. “I am talking about the tournament of two years ago. You know the one where all of us were losing our minds back in Uni. Everyone was split fifty, fifty between the newbie Huntsman or Camilla in her Heaven’s Thunder.” Rosemary nodded in silence. Whatever memory of that Tenia presumed she had was outright nonexistent. “And then out of nowhere Remnant comes and tears her way to the top. Gundam after Gundam left as fucking scrap piles with their pilots looking like they just shat their pants. Pretty sure some did.”

“All until the finals-”

“Nah. Most people got confused by that actually.” Tenia interrupted her. “No. Turns out Stargazer that had never, ever, had an interest in the fights comes in and challenges to a duel. Whatever bet they made I can’t really say. But, oh stars, that fight! They completely thrashed the arena! Never seen something as cataclysmic since, you know…” She pointed to the outside. Rosemary nodded. “It almost looked that Stargazer was going to lose when BAM! Full, point blank, shooting star salvo against Remnant. Armor completely scorched, limbs falling apart, and the cockpit just about dented in every place it could.”

“Brutal.”

“Nothing Remnant hadn’t done before.” Tenia scoffed. “But that’s beside the point. With Remnant inoperable she dropped out of the tournament, and Huntsman was crowned victor. But at that point nobody cared. The Princess of Ill Omens, Beast of Hangar 13 had been defeated by the very best. A perfect tale to end that year.”

Rosemary rested her head on the glass. If she were to be honest, whatever interest she may have had vanished the moment she was told Stargazer won. Even the ominous nicknames of her new employer, which would have made her instantly curious before, were filled under her to-be-examined mental folder.

“She always gets her way.” She softly sneered.

“What’s your problem with Stargazer?” Tenia asked to Rosemary’s shamed annoyance.

“My issues with her are my own.” Rosemary answered too quickly, immediately regretting it seeing Tenia roll her eyes at her.

“She stole your lunchbox, pulled down your trousers or…” With her aquamarine eyes, Rosemary glared at her. “Sorry I-.”

“Oh, shut it.” Rosemary quickly stopped her.

‘You absolute idiot Rosemary!’ The engineer screamed in her own mind just as the last word left her mouth.

Tenia looked at her with both eyes and mouth wide open before she shook her head and propelled herself to the far side of the room. Her face had shifted again to an expression Rosemary knew both very well and hated far too quickly.

Sadness.

“Hey, Rose. Gus told me about the locker.” Tenia confessed. “I just wanted to apologize for borrowing your soldering iron without aski—”

Laughter. Screeching laughter.

“It’s. Fucking. Fine.”

Tenia’s eyes opened wider than ever before letting Rosemary see the intense brown of her eyes, and the red veins overwhelming them. Once more she had fucked up.

She couldn’t handle it, so she turned around.

“Have it your way Rosemaria.”

The sound of the belt moving made the aquamarine instantly turn around.

“… thank you, Tenia.” In her panic Rosemary blurted out.

“I don’t know what for since I always seem to piss you off.” She shrugged defeated. “But you are welcome, I guess.” Silence filled the room for a moment as Rosemaria waited for her (most likely) former friend’s farewell.

“Goodbye.”

“Goodbye.” Rosemaria Stonework responded defeated.

“-authorized personnel. Please be wary as you disembark.” The automated speaker rang out throughout the port that the aquamarine engineer found herself at.

At first, she had the idea that the ship they had been rescued by would be taken directly to Port 13, maybe even Port 7. Yet that hadn’t been the case. Soon as they were within half an hour or so from the Garden, they all had been instructed, crew and civilians alike, to change ships (to the annoyance of everyone on board).

Only to then be escorted by core fighters and mobile suits, placed squarely on Port 8 and quickly sorted out of the way. Or at least Tenia and the others were.

One moment Rosemaria laid staring out the window at the stars, still shaken by the cold goodbye. The next one she found herself alone in a torment of noise and smells, trapped in queue after queue of people catching glances both curious and judgmental.

“Do they even know how to move in zero-g?” One of the girls behind her asked.

“Of course they do. How do you think they move all cargo back then?”

“No. Like, they have gravity all the time!”

“That’s insane.”

“Profession?” The officer twice her size asked her again. Rosemary held a grunt after looking over her papers for a third time.

“Mobile Suit Engineer.” She answered with the little patience that remained in her.

The officer turned around and gave a signal to their coworker to approach. Rosemary was sure they were just going to verify her credentials… again. After all, Mr. Azuriel had warned her that the first time passing through migration would always be the most annoying one. Consequent times would be easier.

“But he’s rich.” She whispered to herself. “He definitely has people to help with all of this.”

To her dismay, the second officer grabbed her passport and went to some room outside her vision. She knew this could happen; she had been afraid it would happen, and now it had. Next would come that damned criminal room where she would be treated like the biggest pile of manure imaginable until someone decided she was not worth it to keep locked up. And that would be the one happy ending.

Worst of all was that damned whispering behind her. The moment her ID was taken away, it lost almost all pretense on being subtle.

“Would you believe what they come up with now?” they said to their partner. “Mobile Suit engineer.”

“Do altari even know what a Mobile Suit is?” Their partner asked not too unsubtly.

“Oh yes we do.” Rosemary answered as her patience finally died for the day. “If anything, most patterns come planet-side.”

She could see how their normally marble pale faces were washed red with shame. Pride filled her a bit, if nothing more for the fact that she managed to make them stop murmuring. It was almost enough to make her forget how she was still waiting for her passport to be returned. Almost.

“Come with me Miss Stonework.” The officer commanded.

Stifling her sigh, Rosemary did as was asked. Her worst fear had come to pass, now it was time to be as patient as possible.

 Liminality was the name of her discomfort. More than seeing, experiencing the behind the scenes of immigration was unnerving. The grey carpet, the white, sickly lights, the repetitive nature of each and every corridor they traversed made her feel lost. The thing that perturbed her the most was the silence, for as they winded down through tight corridors, the cacophony of the pickup belts gradually dimmed down. Only their footsteps, unnerving drums, remained. One wrong turn and she would be lost forever.

Eventually, she was motioned to enter a room with only a single bench to one side, and a one-way glass on the other.

“Criminal room.” Rosemary wanted to cry from frustration. “No talking to Nya, no looking at my pad… fuck.”

“Excuse me officer.” A gravely voice came from behind them. “Who is this young lady?”

Rosemary turned around unaware if she should or should not, but too curious to care. Behind them stood a man in the cleanest uniform she had ever seen. Shining black, white and gold, with so many medals she could never garner their meaning, with one standing out above all. The shining gold one over his heart.

“Sir, captain.” The officer, dressed in a similar uniform, saluted before handing him her passport.

He placed his pretentious cap on his greying hair, opened it, flipped through the pages and, within ten seconds, instantly gave it back to her. The officer, bewildered, opened their mouth to protest but was quickly shut down by the wrinkled annoyed expression on his cracked marble skin.

“You are late Miss Stonework.” The captain addressed the engineer.

“Well, if the Lagrange hadn’t been under attack, and your officer here hadn’t decided that they needed to verify who I, the short blue haired girl, was, I could have gotten here in time.” She stated as a matter of fact. “But I’ll let you decide which one slowed me down the most.”

“Escort her out of here.” The captain commanded with a stern look to the officer.

“Yes Captain.”

Rosemaria left out the breath she had been holding on when the captain left their sight.

Contrary to what she had been expecting though, to walk back the way they came, the officer took her through another labyrinthine set of corridors and upward stairs. She had expected some mechanical stairs at least, or an elevator too, but no, stairs upon stairs.

So tired was she that the idea that the officer was getting some petty revenge on her never crossed her mind.

One blink she was staring at white walls and grey carpet, the next she laid there, alone, in a sea of people and bags so massive that even the worst rush hours back home could never compare.

“So many people…”

The engineer and her digital companion passed through many disgruntled passengers; some annoyed, some tired, some struggling to keep both their talks going and their focus on their bags. Greens and reds, blues and white and many, oh so many silvers. Surprisingly one golden.

“That one won’t be lost in space.” Rosemary noted just as the fifth person bumped into her.

To her annoyance, she herself decided that the best strategy was to get as close as possible to the belt. She knew that being a head and a half shorter than most had its pluses, like the perk of being ignored in a flood of people, but it also had its downsides, like the aforementioned perk. But it was in moments like this when her height truly shone like a pinnacle of annoyance. She just couldn’t see the luggage in the belt. She needed to get close.

“It is worse than the workshop back at uni.” The engineer complained. “But hey Nya, maybe our new home will be better?” She shrugged in defeat. Her kitty friend meowed happily in reply.

The instant a couple grabbed their last bag and finally began moving away, Rosemary took her chance. She gently used her shoulders to keep space between a multitude of “Excuse me” and “Passing through” until she stood right in front of it. Flowing around and around, the belt holding three large bags. Pink, white and blue.

“Miau!” Nya bounced.

“Told you they would stand out.” She beamed with happiness.

She gingerly walked up to them and pulled on the first one. Heavy, way too heavy. The exhaustion had caught up to her. The bright blue bag slipped from her weak grasp and slammed next to her feet. Her breath became difficult to control, too needy of attention, far too quick and aggressive. In queue, her eyes began blurring showing her the splashes of white and pink begin to move away from her. She left the cyan on the floor, taking a leap to the other two and, in one grave mistake, took them out of the belt. Her back screamed at her, and her arms let go off the bags. Both crashed next to her.

Concerned murmurs filled the air around her. Shame rushed to her face.

“Nononono.” Her legs failed her. She almost fell to the floor herself, but she didn’t care. “Please tell me the padding took the brunt.”

Nya meowed in reassurance but that did little to quell her fear. She needed to know. She needed to see if her mama’s…

“Need some help?” A shy voice came from behind.

“Yes please.” She accepted.

Rosemary turned around to look at whoever had offered her help. Thankfully it was no cop who greeted her, but a girl about her age. She had short black hair held in a ponytail by a gorgeous sun-like arrangement of violet feathers, in beautiful contrast to her red jasper face and the assortment of piercings covering it.

“Stars, she’s pretty.” Her brain added.

Before any of the other passengers could start getting agitated, they both pushed her bags out of the way. Rosemary was grateful about that, because any second she remained there, scrambling to get her luggage in check, would have made her die of embarrassment.

The doors swung open for her.

She was out of there.

Her first space flight over and done, her heart swelled with happiness. Done, done, done, finally fucking done.

Now the next step was meeting the person who was supposed to pick her up.

Before Rosemary could process how dumb it was to have let a stranger grab her bags for her, she found that the girl had placed her bags on a cart.

“Should help with moving them.” The girl showed her.

“That is true.” Rosemary agreed as she grabbed it.

She thanked the stars in silence that she hadn’t been robbed with how clumsy her insomnia had made her. It could still happen, she acknowledged, but it hadn’t happened.

“You don’t have some bags of your own?” The aquamarine asked.  

“Only my backpack.” The girl responded as they walked away from the port and into the Garden itself. “I was supposed to meet someone here a couple of hours ago, but my flight got delayed. I hope they are still nearby.”

Rosemary, knowing full well how things hadn’t gone her way up till now, pulled out her tablet. Scrolling down them she finally landed on the one she had been looking for.

“Are you Nora… Nora Stonework?” She asked.

The girl turned to her with raised eyebrows and a simple laugh.

“I am.” Nora continued laughing at their circumstances. The girl pulled out her own tablet and showed her credentials in there. As expected, they matched with the ones the altari girl had received. “Then you must be Rosemaria Stonework.”

“Rosemary, please.” She responded. “Rosemaria has too many syllables.”

“Nice to meet you then Rosemary.” Nora offered her a smile.

As much as Rosemary wanted to strike any sort of conversation between her and Nora, her brain shot down any idea. Neither asking about her gorgeous plume, or about the Garden in general, felt like a good idea. After all, she was running on fumes. So instead of even making an attempt, she allowed herself to be happy with only following her out of the port.

And with the sights.

Walking down the metallic corridor to leave, Rosemary’s gaze was instantly caught by the gigantic glass pane that watched over the landing bay. Without even thinking about it, she became glued to it to watch the place she just had been in from a different angle.

The mobile crafts moving the heaviest cargo from on place to another, or cleaning at lightning speed the ships that arrived. Passengers being carried away from the ships by bus or those fancy tunnels. Some being escorted by their own Mobile Suits or Mobile Workers. She even spotted a custom-made Rosetta amongst the Mobile Suits working there. And almost next to them, yet still a ways up, the control tower that flashed with the shadows of the crew who tirelessly worked to keep everything running. Rosemaria was star struck.

“Impressive, right?” Nora nudged her.

“Absolutely.” She answered. “Never seen so many moving things so close together in my life.”

“Really?” Nora urged her to continue moving to not clog up the hallway. “Your home didn’t have a spaceport that big?”

“My home didn’t have one, at all.” Rosemary clarified.

“That’s strange. Never heard of a space station that didn’t have one.” Nora stated.

“I come from Altaris, on a small town called Fáldana. Planet side, you know?”

“Ah, that explains it.” Nora snapped her fingers to the bewilderment of others passerby. “Sorry I just assumed. Not a lot of folks come from Altaris all the way here. Are you from the north or south?”

Rosemary took a moment to think before pulling out Nya from her bag. She knew she knew the answer. Because of how fluffy her coat had been when she left home, it had to be winter. They just had celebrated one of the two solstices as well, so it had been a recent change. She just didn’t remember which hemisphere it was because she was too tired. Nya, on the other hand, picked up a globe and, with her paw, marked a shining green dot on the south, relatively close to the equator. Such a simple thing made her remember the candle-flies turning pale blue in the forest, she laughed at herself for forgetting them.

“South.” She responded. “Winter was hitting us kinda hard this year. With the lack of sunlight and all, temperatures have been dropping below zero. Moms had to put up a heater to stave the worst of it.”

“That makes sense.” Nora acknowledged. “I could never garner a guess as to what it is living in a place where the temperature changes throughout the year. Seems a little bit bothersome if you ask me.”

“It can be.” Rosemary stopped when they reached the elevator and finally saw how far down, they were. Floor 20.

“Don’t worry, temperatures are kept consistent here. Summer all year round.” Nora boasted to Rosemary’s discomfort. “But don’t worry, if you miss any of the others, you can always travel to the more extreme climates.”

Nora called for the elevator as the aquamarine failed to grasp any meaning to the floor descriptions in front of her. Their floor was “Arrivals”, which made sense, and above it read “Departures” which also made sense. But it was the other floors that didn’t make sense. Maybe it was due to the blindingly bright screen where the info was, or maybe it was how blurry everything looked to her, but floors 18 to 1 were alien to her.  Most of them were a mix of names of things or “Joints”, that serve roles she didn’t quite understand.

“Lot of companies have set up shop here.” Her partner ushered her inside the elevator. “Though Ad Astra is still the biggest one by a long shot.”

“Considering they pioneered the damned Rosetta of all things, it makes sense.” Rosemary added.

The elevator vibrated as it began to move. To Rosemary’s surprise though, it was the quietest she had ever boarded in her life. If it had not been for the forgetful tune that came out of the speakers, or the numbers going down on the screen, she would have been excused for thinking they weren’t moving.

A part of her was impressed with it, and very curious as to how they’ve managed it. Sound dampeners made the most sense, but that new magnetic coating that had been recently released could do the trick. Apparently, the thing was so good some considered it magick.

“I guess it makes sense.” She said out loud, catching Nora’s attention.

“What does?”

“If the suits, fancy pants as they are, are constantly traveling here, they would pay a good trillion stars to make this place the most comfortable they can, right? Hence the quiet elevator.” She explained.

 “It does makes sense.” Nora nodded. “Back home there was one that squealed so loudly we used to call the screeching Mary with all the fancies of an urban legend. All bullshit though. The whole thing was just as old as the sun.”

“My home was haunted.”  Rosemary said with a tinge of pride of all things. “They used to say you could see the spirits of the dead in there, lost amongst the shadows in the giant trees of Almas.” Nora turned to look her as if she was crazy. “Most of the time though it was only a rainbow firefly nearby.”

“Most of the time?”

Rosemary laughed.

“Shadows that grow the size of titans, with strange wails coming in from between the tree trunks. Dissonant cries.” She continued laughing, but felt it turn fake, forced when she saw Nora’s face contort. “You know how paranoia treats you in the dark. Tricks of the mind and all of that.” After all, the same thing had happened to her in the bathroom just a couple of hours ago. “I’m sure the other times is a jumping lizard or another creature like that.”

Nora looked away.

“Can we change topics?” Her hands were shaking. “I’m not really good with ghost stories.”

“Of course.” Rosemary agreed, feeling incredibly guilty.

Driven by guilt, Rosemary scrambled to find a new topic to talk about. Work seemed too formal, while hobbies too informal. But the thread of the recent topic remained. She needed to say something.

“Hey Nora.” Rosemary turned towards Nora. “I won’t bring any ghost stories up again, ok?”

“Thank you.” She smiled at her. “Any topic I should avoid with you?”

“I am not really good with rust myself.” She confessed.

Nora nodded.

Fortunately for the altari, before the awkward silence could return, one singular ding marked the end of their journey. The elevator finally stopped, and the doors slowly opened.

Nora proudly stepped out first and with a proud smile, said.

“Welcome to the Garden.”

No video nor photo made it justice. What Rosemary saw made her forget everything she had ever known in her life.

High rise buildings that grew to a titanic size, their roofs disappearing into the clouds. Floors of white all around her, with stairs and ramps of glass and steel where so many people walked by that the port looked deserted in turn. From the buildings to the walkways, glass panes dominated everywhere she looked, except those places reserved for the gigantic led screens. Some showed news, some products, some even displayed the name of stores for things she didn’t know existed.

Haros flying around, moving heavy stuff or handling the cleaning of the immaculate streets. People walking around talking and laughing and grunting, determined to get as quickly as possible to their destination. And the smells. The concentrated sweetness of spring flowers, mixed with the intensity of cooking oil, meat and freshly cut grass.

All around her was stone, and screens and metal and synthetic floor. All mostly white or obsidian dark, almost as if the color had been drained from it to give to the spectaculars. Two, three, five floors stretching upwards towards the sky, but with no roof directly where she was standing, letting her see the rest of the station curling upwards, or perhaps downwards was more accurate, for the center of it all lay there. A lone ivory tower watching it all.

More buildings, more Mobile Suits and Mobile Cargos flying around in the distance. More noise.

Loud. So incredibly loud.

Boots and high heels, talks and disgruntled laughter, all in junction with the deafening speakers of the buildings. Their loud roars urging people to see, to look, to find the treasures in the stores around them. One side laid clothes and souvenirs, on the other, to her bewilderment, a Gunpla store even more fancy than the beauty boutique next to it. And from it a kid, not older than 10, walked away from it, smiling with their new Master Grade Gundam Boreal Crystal.

She was in a plaza, a commercial plaza. A sensory nightmare and a dream that she hadn’t expected.

To top it all off, in the middle of it laid a gigantic fountain of a huntress pouring a vase. A bit of grass at its base, and the first few benches she has seen around her. She even spotted a pair of teenagers throw in a couple of stars into it, asking for a wish.

People smiling, grunting, and working together in such a place that actually had trees.

Trees!

Without missing a beat, the faldana girl ran to the nearest one and hugged it. When its smooth trunk and falling leaves made contact with her, the aquamarine felt an invisible anxiety fade away.

Thoughts, body and soul, all landing upon the floor, as if gravity itself was tying her back up to the ground. Her own roots stretching towards the ground, holding themselves steadfast.

She felt her own tired self feel that.

Grounded. She felt grounded.

“Oh, I have missed this so much!” The aquamarine girl allowed herself to feel the softness of its trunk.

The tree didn’t seem to mind her. It just felt confused.

“What happened to your bark?” She asked.

The tree only seemed aware that it wasn’t good for it to have bark, so it was peeled from time to time.

“That’s weird.” Rosemary noted but didn’t dig deeper. “I’m not bothering you, right?”

The tree reassured her it was fine.

“Well, you are only catching some side eyes, but you aren’t really bothering me.” Nora responded, making the altari blush.

She hadn’t realized that she spoke the last bit out loud. Averting her gaze from the tree she found, to her horror, the same pair of teenagers staring befuddled at her. And they were giggling.

“Fuck, sorry. It’s been so long.” She said to both the tree and Nora, ignoring the other observers. “A full month surrounded by nothing, but steel made me feel off.”

Nora looked understanding; the tree felt more compassionate.

“I though this was supposed to be a botanical garden.” Turning towards Nora, Rosemary added.

“It still is, partially.” Nora answered nonchalantly. “The major preservation centers are untouched. Some are even more guarded than before.” 

With her fingers, Nora opened a map in her pad to show her the map of the area. The mall they were in glowing gently in red with Nora’s pin, an adorable violet bird, placed happily on it. Next to them, towards Port 6 was a large stretch of rainforest marked as restricted that laid a ways’ away from the train line.

“But the big sprawling Simulated environments that they boasted about in that documentary seven years ago have had to change a bit.” Without missing a beat, Nora pointed at where they were.  “Compromises needed to be made because of…”

“Helia’s Wrath.” Rosemary added containing her disappointment. “It makes sense that they would take whatever they could.”

“A planet explodes and its death tears holes through reality so massive that almost all of space itself turns into a debris field. Not to mention the domino effect with each space station blowing its siblings.” Her Garden senior spoke without hiding her fear.

It gave Rosemary a moment’s pause.

Even now, as the horrific memory of the sky being torn asunder by the stormveils came to her, Rosemary had never feared she wouldn’t continue having a home. For as many things had fallen down to Altaris during those faithful days, from meteors, satellites, to whole sections of old space colonies, the ground they lived in continued existing. The fires would be put out, the soil retiled, the trees healed, and the planks refitted. Her home, as her mamas had told her, would always be there.

But that wasn’t true out here, in the void between the stars.

“Still, the once reservoir for all life in the solar system now houses humans too.” Nora laughed shyly. “So, our tree friend gets to live comfortably, with us.”

“Yeah…” Rosemary couldn’t help but enjoy that cute little laugh of hers. “That’s a good thing.”

“We do gotta leave the cart behind if we wanna take the train.” Nora added. “But with the two of us it shouldn’t be a problem to get to your apartment, if you are done talking with your new friend.”

“Oh right.” Rosemary turned to the tree and finally let it go. “Be seeing you.”

The tree appreciated that, bidding her farewell.

When the two of them finally left the commercial plaza, Rosemary’s awe reverted back to anxiety.

The engineer had always been proud of her sense of direction. Be it in her home, university or a city she just arrived in, she would never get lost. She had such an acute sense of direction that, when Jaz and she had gotten lost in the jungle that one time, she found the way back within the hour.

But now, for the first time in her life, she felt lost.

Buildings made no sense with how wide and tall they were, corking up like spires upon spires of marble. Signs were all but nonexistent, drowned out by the droning of her fellow residents that, for once, were keenly aware where they were going, unlike her.

She quickly learned that the grandeur of the streets, even just that singular mall they had left behind, made her stagger.

Which made her much more thankful to have Nora with her.

They weren’t able to barely get a word to one another, but the girl helped her navigated the immaculate, look alike streets with ease. She would wait when something caught her attention (like the rose bushes and gorgeous tram system), and she would quicken her step when something made Rosemary uncomfortable (a bunch of suits that comically sneered at their presence). To the aquamarine’s surprise, the whole trip to the train station had only taken fifteen minutes.

It had felt like hours.

Inside the buzzing place, Rosemaria Stonework felt the inquisitive stares of the travelers all around. Rich white-collar workers would glance at her, turn to their cohorts, and whisper something. The kids, few of them that were there, would point and giggle out of her way. Even one of the security guards, armed with their taser, couldn’t keep their eyes to themselves.

She paid it no mind.

Rosemary knew she should be paying attention to their trip. To try and memorize some, if not all of the steps needed to get from one place here to the other. But when every half blink felt like teleporting, and the announcements on the intercoms were nothing but jargon and static, she was deeply aware of how useless the effort was. What little she managed to catch was that the train lines were color coordinated, and that the red line was important.

And that, no matter where she went, she really didn’t like talking to people, especially customer service.

“The service desk is located on the second floor. If you permit it, I’ll update your map with its location.”

They had had to come to the front desk once the Haro they had spoken to on the terminal had constantly insisted that their tickets couldn’t be changed. Try as they might, navigating the variety of options had been an exercise in futility. From constantly being told that they needed to buy a new ticket, to being told that they could listen to that damn privacy policy over and over again. Nora and Rosemary finally caved when the adorable white ball accidentally took their groaning as them accepting the First-Class seats and was about to charge them.

When it finally pointed them to a person, Rosemary felt like crying of happiness.

The young man, no older than a scruffy teenager, and with a voice that cracked as easily as tostadas, looked surprised when they approached him. When they explained Rosemary’s situation, it felt no different than the Haro.

That made her want to cry.

“This ticket was only good for the train three hours ago.” The retailer at the desk told them both without even looking at them.

“I understand that.” Rosemary sighed. “But I was shot out an airlock which really dampened my immaculate punctuality.”

Nora held down her laughter.

“Company policy states that only in event of a higher authority or a malfunction in our service is a cause for a refund.” He continued without paying attention to her comment.

“I don’t want a refund.” Rosemary restated. “I want to change my ticket for another one, one that gets me to…” Nya propped up her ticket. “The town of Luna.”

“We have a variety of packages you can choose to make your trip much more enjoyable—"

“Nope. Don’t want to buy. I only want to change my ticket.” Rosemary said irritated.

“Is there nothing you can do mister?” Nora asked.

“I’m sorry miss, but unless you were hit by a stormveil there’s no way I can—"

Almost by the will of the stars, on the news screen above them, the latest news came to life.

“In another tragic loss, the ship the Lagrange was found to have become stranded after a stormveil appeared near its landing spot. In a shocking reveal, the ship appears to have also been the target of a coordinated attack by a rogue group of Mobile Suits that may have ties with the Hares—"

Rosemary showed the clerk her tablet once more, with her crew credentials fully in display. The name of the Lagrange helpfully highlighted by Nya.

“I can give you a copy if you need it.” Rosemary added.

The clerk looked at his monitor. With a sigh, he nodded and began to type.

In less than a minute a new ticket had been issued.

“Thank you.” Rosemary said, showing true honesty.

“Happy to be of help.” The man responded. “Have a safe trip.”

The train ride was way too short for the curious aquamarine. It had been almost perfectly silent, comfortable and, above all, peaceful. The moment they had gotten seated, and their bags put away, the engineer found herself crushed by her tiredness. Another blink, the train was ready to depart. The next they were in a tunnel vaguely illuminated by the warm lights. With one final blink they were crossing a field of grass surrounding a lake with the announcer telling them that they had arrived at Luna station.

It wasn’t until Rosemary found herself chewing on her cheek to a dangerous degree that she realized a very important thing she had forgotten.

“Can we go somewhere to eat?”

Nora nodded.

“I think I am getting hungry too. Come on.”

The food court wasn’t anything special. It was small, compact and boring. Dozens of places to sit down with just enough space to be able to eat but always butting shoulders with the table to the side of you. The tables were decently kept if annoyingly bolted to the ground, as were the chairs, leaving no choice for larger parties. Haros all around either keeping the ground clean or getting in everyone’s way. Sometimes both. As for food variety, it had less than five places to choose from. Three were burger joints. The most distinct thing, however, was the large pair of screens all in the hexagonal court, showing ad after ad, with a sprinkling of news or a show here and there.

For Nora the choice of food was easy. Bowl of rice with as many vegetables as the Haro allowed her to grab. Rosemaria ordered the same with the spiciest chicken she could grab. The first bite disappointed her as it barely stung, but she wouldn’t complain. Whatever poor sap was working the stove was just following orders.

“I’m just curious.” Rosemary said to Nora once both had taken some bites. “Are you part of my team? You know working on the same…”

In that moment, the screens around them froze. Within a second all of them showed the same scene.

There, in the middle amongst a destroyed city landscape inside a colony stood a Mobile Suit. Its armor of white and burning orange with winglike shields at its side. A rogue Phalanx came in with its blue beam axe lit. It ran desperately across the fractured ground to try and go for the quick kill of the kneeling suit. Its fury came down in a frenzied flame. But, as it struck, the mechanical hyper heated wings slashed it in half, leaving naught but molten steel, making the onlookers roar in happiness.

“Gundam…” Rosemary whispered in disbelief. Her hand instinctively crumbling her dress as one thought crossed her mind.

Had her own rescue been shown like this?

“Mine is that one.” Nora answered without paying it too much mind. “Gundam Huntsman.”

The Gundam turned around, proudly standing over its defeated enemy. Eyes burning red, it picked back up its beam crossbow, nailing a second Phalanx in the head.

The wings detached from the body and combined into a shield that burned like a divine star. When the barrage of beams came after it, the Gundam didn’t even flinch. Beam after beam became nothing but fading particles. It undid its shield, raised its crossbow and rained vengeance upon them.

A reporter finally came in whilst the action endured. A supposed raid from pirates against a colony in Kaliastre’s Trojans. Tensions between Apropos and Ulterior. Helpful intervention by the Garden, the Unitec Colony Front, and High Command before the situation got worse.

Rosemary stopped paying attention. She had gotten her answer.

“I guess not.”

“But we’ll be seeing each other around at least. I’m also an engineer you know, so we can still share notes and stuff…” Nora reassured her. “Sorry to disappoint you.”

“It’s fine.” Rosemary tried to swallow her irritation “I just thought because you came to pick me up, you know? Kind of expected it to be one of my own team.”

“Well, that’s the issue.” Nora looked away, letting her head rest on her hand. “There is no Remnant team. There’s not been one for a month or two.”

“Guess that’s why the pay was so good. How convenient that Mister Azuriel left out such details.” Rosemary sighed to the skies. “Why they left?”

“I’m not really sure.” Nora shrugged. “Just that one day half the team didn’t arrive, and the other left their toolboxes within the hour of starting their work.” The girl absentmindedly began playing with the last bit of broccoli on her plate. “Didn’t help that one of their team went missing some weeks prior.”

Rosemary choked on her drink. Yet urged her to continue.

“A girl named Claudia. Meet her a few times here and there. Was a nice girl, though a little sloppy with her designs.” Nora recalled. “One day she went to the Hangar to grab some stuff, very late at night. Next day… no one had seen her. Police were called and a full investigation was about to happen before it was dismissed. I think that last bit was the drop that spilled the cup.”

Rosemary stayed silent. The mental image of whom Keira Azuriel Remnant was remained in conflict inside herself. Violent? Murderous? A nervous apologetic mess? Or a humble-brag diva?

Did she even want to find out?

I hope I never have to see you again.

“Cold feet?” Nora, seemingly aware of her turmoil, asked.

“Partially.” She confessed.

“Well, if you are afraid, I’m sure with your recommendations you could probably work for another pilot.” Her Garden senior spoke. “Maybe even Stargazer.”

“I’ll think about it.” Rosemary lied. “Right now, I am in no position to make any choices. Brain is too foggy.”

“Oh right, sorry.” Nora apologized, Rosemary bit down her tongue. “Shall I take you to your new home then?”

“Lead the way.”

The Haro driven cab lead them down many streets that Rosemary didn’t find as hard to single out. A market street buzzing with life and trade where she saw many a variety of fruits, vegetables and the greasiest of greasy foods, which she marked as a place to come down to visit. Another one was filled with stores of fine watches and clothes, whose walls had barely any graffiti or garbage adverts on it that lead to an even greater commercial center that made the previous plaza stand as a tiny little thing. They passed through the main park, the communal swimming pool and many tall buildings of concrete and steel that blended together inside Rosemary’s mind.

As so, the engineer just paid attention to where the metro stations laid. Everything else Nya and herself could figure out.

That was until they reached her new home.

The apartment complex was not really any different from the others. A hexagonal complex made out of concrete grey, faded brown beams, and dull pastel pinks on the façade, with some graffiti here and there. Plastered adverts torn over time by the rain and the wind, with some bumps on the streets. The steel gates thankfully were better kept, as the silver still triumphed over the rust.

Around them, some stores, some restaurants and… A tree.

A gigantic, beautiful tree that grew in the center of the hexagon. Dark greyish purple bark that stretched all the way up to the roof tops, leading to its branches covered in wine red leaves which descended gracefully from the top like rain. Moss and mushrooms growing everyway and everywhere on it, from root to cusp.

Rosemary stood there, happy, watching the leaves fall.

“Hello there!” An elderly person approached them. “Excuse me miss, are you lost?”

 Rosemary, coming back to reality, turned towards the person.

What first caught her attention was how amused their smile was. It was small, barely marking their laugh lines on their light concrete skin, but just enough to make her know they were happy. Their glasses, about as thick as a glass bottle, made their small eyes a bit comically big for the aquamarine. In stark contrast to all, a pair of golden piercings laid on their eyebrows.  

“Oh no.” Nora responded with a wave. “My friend here is moving in to—"

“Ah! You must be Rosemaria.” The elder approached her with their hand extended.

“Rosemary, please.” She accepted their hand. “Rosemaria has too many syllables.”

“You may call me Jenneth. I am the handyman of this complex. Whatever you need, be it the best supermarkets, stores or something not working, do let me know.”

“Thank you, Jenneth.” Rosemary nodded absentmindedly. Her attention laid captivated by the tree.

“Impressive right?” The handyman spoke looking at the tree. “We call her the Witch. The first tree planted here ages ago, even before my time.”

“Nice to meet you Witch.” The aquamarine smiled and walked towards her awestruck.

“Why the ominous name?” Nora asked following them.

“Well, that’s quite a long story right there, little miss.” Jenneth explained as all three got closer to her. “The Witch here was originally a wedding gift for a duchess, back during the Kingdoms. A symbol of their strong new family and future history.”

“That’s so romantic.” Nora added when they reached the base of the tree.

“Or rather pretentious.” Rosemary disagreed. “I’m sure the duchess didn’t really take care of her personally.”

Nora deflated at her comment. Though guilt tried to crawl its way down her skin, Rosemary fought to avoid it.

What was there to brag about if you didn’t put in the work? Same thing with the trees back at her university and the Dean whenever he showed the Old Dran to the visitors, proudly boasting about how good the school took care of him.

“Guess you are right.” Nora scratched the back of her neck, looking down. “Who even was this duchess?”

“Neither duke nor duchess remains in the annals of history.” Jenneth answered. “It’s ironic. Poured so many stars into this place yet history wouldn’t have them be remembered it seems.” They laughed a gravely laugh. “Now only our friend remains, marking her own tale.”

Rosemary forced a half-hearted laugh just to show she agreed.

The groundskeeper lovingly tapped the tree as if letting know an old friend they were back.

“As to why the new name…” Jenneth kneeled down and picked up a cherry from the ground.

Without a warning, the elder threw it at the aquamarine who managed to not drop it. In her hands now laid a cherry, one about twice her thumb in size and red as dark as wine, the peduncle completely black. It was heavier than it looked, smooth like a glass globe yet far too fragile. The simple movement of her fingers was enough to peel the skin off.

“Never seen a cherry like it.” She remarked while her fingers dripped with its red pomegranate juice. The temptation to lick it was very present, but she knew better than to eat something without cleaning it first.

“Only comes from our friend here sadly.” Jenneth added with either a tired or sad tone. Rosemary’s brain couldn’t tell. “The duke that ordered her made it so only her would exist. A unique, irreplaceable gift for his new wife. Something that would mark their love as singular among the stars. To give, and only her, the best cherries in the entire system; more than that, they were made to help the duchess have many a healthy child.” Their eyes went to her cusp, then to the ground as they took a deep, tired, breath. “But whatever cross-pollination they used to make her didn’t allow her to have any offspring herself.”

“Cruel.” Rosemary frowned holding the cherry tighter.

“Yes.” Jenneth agreed resuming their step around the Witch, never pulling their hand away. “But the Witch would get the last laugh it seemed. The duchess, keeping the cherries to herself, ate them day and night, basking on their presumed sweetness and in due time she was expecting her first child. Yet her strength began to wane as if sapped by some strange magick. Dizziness, vomiting, pain in the abdomen. All those funky things one would mistake as sign of a child.”

Their voice changed pitch, from the low tone they’ve been using, to a more energetic, matter of fact one that Rosemary knew elders like to use when giving out advice.

“Zero-g travel is too much for her. She needs to stay in bed until the child arrives.” The groundskeeper imitated. “Once the boy pops out, she’ll be as healthy as a spring’s berry!”

Rosemary and Nora both shuddered at the last part.

“And all the while she would ask for her precious cherries. None other than her would have them out of fear of being punished. She went as far as having her servants whipped if any dared to even lick the juice from their fingers.” In queue, they stretched their free hand and violently mimicked a flogging. “Some days she would eat nothing more.”

Both engineers grimaced.

“What happened then?” Nora asked, avoiding the cherries as if they were mines.

“The day the child was supposed to come to the world of the living became a bloody day. The duchess died at childbirth due to intense blood loss.” Jenneth stated without any true emotion behind their words. “Liver failure, seizures, internal bleeding that cut right through her everything. She died, and no child was brought to this world.”

“Good riddance.” Was the first thought to cross the aquamarine’s mind. An opinion she didn’t share.

“The cherries were poisonous then.” Nora exclaimed looking up at the Witch with a strange look.

“Yep. The duke had been so interested in giving her a special gift he never put a thought as to if they were safe to eat.” They responded with a sly smile, or close to one. “The duke wanted to burn the tree down but—"

“I suppose the eco-preservation act kicked into place?” Nora interrupted, earning a happy nod from the keeper.

“Hit the nail in the head.” They declared far too enthusiastically for the aquamarine. “And so, the Witch came to reside here where she’s been cared of for longer than I can fathom.” With one last approving pat, the groundskeeper stepped away from it. “We take care of her; she takes care of us. It even became a tradition in the crew that when someone new joined, they would ask for her protection.”

Curiously though, there seemed to be a glint in their sight that Rosemary caught when they looked at her. She didn’t know what it was, but the way their eyes looked to her, then to the Witch, made her think they were expecting something, more succinctly, something from herself.

“I’m really not going to be working on the complex here though.” She responded to that shine. “Still, I don’t see why not so…”

The aquamarine left the squished cherry fall from her hand when she went to touch the bark of the apparent matron. The bark of the tree was rough, porous and gravel-like, with ridges on itself like the wrinkles on an aged face. It felt warm, almost too hot, as if a fire was burning within, threatening to spill out should she dare cause it any woe. Ash and soothe came at her, eclipsing the sweet, yet iron ridden smell of the cherry she had grabbed.

But for now, the fire stayed.

“Well, pleasure to meet you Witch.” Rosemary greeted half heartedly. “I hope you and I become friends.”

The moment she let her palm rest fully upon her, a serious, cold curiosity washed her over.

What Rosemary could garner from the tree is that it was ancient. Far removed from the age of the tree she met at the Plaza, the Witch radiated almost an eldritch antiquity. She was a witch in the way the ancient starling goddess Hekate was a witch. There were no witches without the Witch.

She asked, intently, if she had been born among the trees.

“Yes, I am from Aramas.” The aquamarine answered with burrowed confidence. “Born and raised in the jungle.”

Then, slyly, for her name.

“I call myself Rosemaria. Rosemaria Ryn Stonework.” She responded which sparked an intense curiosity on the Witch. She hadn’t met someone who bore the name of the Rose, rarer it was one who knew of the Lady of Thorns.

“I suppose you don’t get a lot of visitors from back home.” Rosemary added proudly. “Would be strange if no one from my home didn’t know of our matron. Especially because of the festival of roses.”

The Witch laughed in agreement. The Lady of Thorns was always a bit pretentious like that.

“Though I chose this name before that.” She confessed with added confidence, stoking the Witch’s curiosity even more. “My mama also had the name of the Rose… Maybe you’ve met her? Rosetta Stonework?”

The Witch denied it. For as many people as she has met in her life, and many of those that bore the name of the Rose, Rosetta Stonework, hadn’t been one of them. But she did ask about her.

“She’s a mobile suit pilot. Her Gundam is the White Rose.” Rosemaria desperately said breaking the barrier of her own exhaustion, hoping beyond hope that the name of the Rose would be enough.

The Witch didn’t seem interested on that though.

She knew of the Gundams of course, for no living thing that laid on this land haven’t felt their presence. Contrary to most things she was aware of, such as the wicked hearts of men, the Gundams were different. Shadows in her sight, where the only way of knowing their presence was by their distortions, like the waves caused by a rock falling into a puddle.

She could know of the White Rose, or she could have been blind to her presence. She wouldn’t say.

“Was worth the try at least.” Rosemaria, defeated, shuddered, earning her a cackle from the Witch.

Maybe she didn’t want to say.

Surely the aquamarine wouldn’t be satisfied by such a simple answer? Her answers, tantalizing and cruel, were hidden behind a cost. A price which she knew the aquamarine would pay. After all, she had uprooted herself towards the stars to--.

“Enough.” Shaking with fury, she let go of the bark. “Jenneth, where is my apartment?”

On a room of white walls and cold floors, with a bed far too soft yet not inviting enough, Rosemaria Ryn Stonework laid in silence.

The tour of her apartment had been short, concise and to the point. She was shown everything: from the modest (gargantuan) living room, to the private, cozy bedroom that she would call her own. It was far bigger and fancier than anything she had ever imagined someone needed, let alone someone living alone. She certainly didn’t. The whole thing was covered with decour, full of multicolored, yet dull browns and whites, with way too many things made out of glass and cloth.

She liked the bedroom more, at least at first glance. The bed was huge, almost as big as the bed her mamas had, with some of the softest sheets she had ever felt. The closet was big enough to hide herself three times over in hide-and-seek without even bothering to move any of the wood, and the space was ample enough to feel comfortable, but not large enough to be impossible to clean.

Already her head was planning on how to decorate it to her liking.

Not that day though.

Nora had left just as the tour finished, promising to continue being her guide for the next couple of days; whereas Jenneth offered only their contact info, and an apology for they needed to leave and attend other tasks.

A farewell, goodbye, a promise to see each other again. A damned polite parting that had absolutely no greater meaning to the grand scheme of things! It was just what people did after all.

Well meaning wishes. Good intentions. A simple desire to see your fellow human have a nice day after you are no longer there.

As the light of the station began to fade, bringing in the darkness, solitude invited itself into her abode.

I hope I never have to see you again.

“You are so stupid Ryn.” The engineer belittled herself. “Damned my rusted luck. Why? Why?! Why did I have to say that?! I could just kept my thorny mouth all perfectly shut and, and I would have been fine!” She lied.

“Nya!” Her catsisstant, woken up by her shakiness, lit up her pad.

“Hey buddy. I’m—” The apology died on her throat. Its corpse came out as a grunt. “Didn’t want to wake you up.”

“Nya!” She pawed at her screen, acutely aware of her programmer’s distress. “Nya nya.”

“I… stars you are right.” The aquamarine agreed, almost rushing towards her white bag. “Should have taken her out an hour ago.”

With as much care as her burnt out self-allowed, Rosemaria Ryn Stonework opened her luggage.

Buried underneath the clothes and underwear the aquamarine tossed out of it, laid a single, metallic box. At first glance, the luggage sized box was innocuous. Of pure white with silver decor of roses and thorns, with a golden lock on the side.

Yet upon further inspection, especially those versed in model kits, the box was anything but simple.

The roses formed a pattern, where their negative spaces cast the shadow of a Gundam.

Underneath it read the words:

Star Grade

Gundam White Rose

1/60

Unblocking the case, Rosemaria put herself to work with unnatural grace. Taking the protective foam out, and grabbing the legs, the torso, the arms and head unit, part by cold part, she diligently assembled the porcelain and metallic Gunpla with practiced ease. Even the low light of the artificial moon didn’t deter her from finishing her task. One blink, the pieces were on the desk in front of her bed; another one, the replica of her mama’s Gundam looked right into her, slowly pulsing blue between the hinges and seams, like a sleeping rainbow firefly.

“Hey mama… I’m finally here.” Her voice immediately cracked. “Nya and I got here today. I would have loved to talk to you sooner, but we had some issues.”

The Gundam remained motionless.

The engineer, frightened and alone and scared, retold the tale of how her first space trip ended. With shaking hands, and an even shakier voice, she explained everything that had transpired from the moment she got into the ship, to the moment the planar dust fried the Lagrange and left them stranded. She spoke of Tenia and how the kleptomaniac kept stealing her soldering iron, of chief Gus and his eternal patience with her inexperience with zero-g. How proud she had been of her pet project and how much time it had given them. She spoke of her maniac sprint to fix the signal and her eventual brush with death.

And between each tale she moved her joints. Nodding in approval, resting her head on her hands, or shrugging when the time would be appropriate.

Just like her mama would do.

“Thank the Lady of Thorns. Neither my normal suit nor Nya were damaged.” She added. “I, on the other hand, fell unconscious. Woke up inside a Gundam, and by my rusted luck, it was my new employer.”

She shook the Gundam, imitating the phantom laugh of her mama.

“Keira Azuriel Remnant.” She said out loud, as if tasting the name in her mouth, trying to find any distaste in it. “She saved my life, and I repaid her by being an ass.”

Rosemary shook her head. It didn’t have to stay that way, she could apolo—work harder, better, keep her Gundam up to shape as a way to pay her back for her life. She would do the best she could; would redefine what it meant to be the best, so that her guilt be buried under the mountain of her effort and achievements.

“I know you didn’t want me to work with Gundams mama.” She somberly said. “But I won’t be in the pilot seat of one. I’ll work on the sidelines, keeping the Remnant up to speed, and one day—” “

I hope I never have to see you again.

“--we’ll meet again mama.”

In the dark, cold room she would hopefully call her own, in a bed far too comfortable and far too strange for her, Rosemaria Ryn Stonework began to drift into her dreams. With her fluffy companion in her arms, and the low glow of the Gundam warding her dreams, she finally felt the exhaustion win.

The last thought that came to her was not of the swirling leaves of home, nor of the cold calculated ambiance of a spaceship, but of the masked pilot that had come to her aid.

What had she done today?

She yawned once, and her eyes closed.

Rosemaria Ryn Stonework finally went to sleep.

Chapter Text

The coldness of the room always struck her as somehow odd. The AC, a state-of-the-art white box with far too many gizmos Keira couldn’t understand, worked relentlessly. By its harsh breath, the unit kept the temperature below 2⁰C, which made her feel stiff, sluggish, half in half out of herself.

Keira’s mind couldn’t help but wander off.

Did any other of the patients have to go through with this?

How many patients did the doctor have anyway?

At most she vaguely remembered that she had seen one other person in the clinic. A woman with deep, and messy red hair and sepia skin covered in just as many scars as herself. But there surely were more.

She could ask the doctor, but most likely she wouldn’t get an answer. Dr. Neri-sel valued her patients’ privacy.

“They come here to get help, to get their treatment and go back to their anonymous lives, not build a community.” The doctor had told her once when she asked if there was a support group.

It was something she had to respect, but it made her feel lonely. After all, apart from the doctor herself, she didn’t really talk much with anyone. Back at port 13 most people tended to be… distant, afraid, cold. Cold.

Just as cold as the wind that was coming out of the AC.

She didn’t like how frigid it felt. If anything, she wanted nothing more than to run whenever she felt the freezing wind blowing.

But she knew it served a purpose.

It needed to make her slower, less dangerous to everyone in this place, especially today.

Her stomach clawed at her, furious as it had been denied once more.

She was starving.

She was hungry.

She was alone.

Alone.

Alone in that room. Hospital white all around her, with the table in front with the one-way mirror to her left, and the examination bed on the far side. Next to it was the quirky medical scale that still used that funny rail that needed the weights to be pushed to measure her weight. The curtain on the corner, only tall enough to cover up her neck. Her face plate laid next to her. Dark and reflective, her one barrier to the outside world so impossibly far away from her. She was here. She was alone.

Alone.

The display case next to it was full of tools: from spare stethoscopes and magnifying glasses to the equally cute blood pressure monitor that needed to be pumped. Alone. The ticking of the coo-coo clock reverberating in her ears, making each second painful. Alone. Because she found herself inside of it, waiting tied down to her chair while her heart pumped, pumped, pumped in sync to the gear’s thunder.

Alone.

The officer stood outside guarding her, remaining unwilling to hear her, to see her, to acknowledge her.

Alone.

Just her and her thoughts clawing at her, clawing like the want, nay, the need inside of her. To feel warm, to feel whole in a blanket of scarlet.

Alone and afraid of herself.

She would resist. She would fight. She would endure because it was the right thing to do.

Alone.

So, she would survive the cold, and the handcuffs, the cameras, the constant watch over her, and the scared beating of the lone guard’s red heart.

Alone.

They were all taking precautions. Stars knew that being irresponsible with her could end badly.

Because when she wasn’t alone, things always went horrifyingly wrong.

One eye scratched away. Blood and screams. The crimson rivers flowing down her dada’s eye. Pain. Pain. She was on the ground. What had she done? His eye! His face!

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Please.’

‘What’s happening to me?’

The buzz of the door made her jump. The loud pitch hurt her ears but calmed her down as well. She had waited enough, and she could prepare to what would come next. The silver door was pushed open by the scared armed guard, letting in the doctor, carrying her stack of papers.

“Good afternoon Keira.” Her warm, slow voice made her feel calmer. “I am sorry for taken a bit longer than usual, damned printer didn’t want to work again!” Dr. Neri-sel, her marvelous doctor, stood once more in front of her.

From what Keira could tell, she was a mature woman, about forty, maybe closing in on fifty years old. Her dark hair was beginning to grey out, and some new wrinkles would appear here and there in her fawn silvery skin from appointment to appointment. Today the newest one was just below her eyes.

Her calm, calculating eyes though hadn’t lost any of their youth. Nor had her big, honest smile.

A smile she wasn’t showing today.

“It didn’t help that my mood was already soured by some other news.”

“N-not a problem doc.” Keira responded, trying to offer her own reassuring smile by pushing up the edge of her dry lips and closing her eyes a bit.

The doctor nodded in approval before letting her paper pile be splayed across the table. A simple story being told through  battle report, the casualties, the biometrics. Her biometrics.

“I know that y-you are a busy per-person.” Keira bit her lip trying to stop her teeth chattering. Yet when her fangs made contact with her lower lip, she only aggravated it.

“Oh absolutely.” The doctor agreed. “Those conferences tend to go on and on. Never mind that I was held back by a barrage of questions after the talk.”

The doctor, clearly out of breath, took her sear right in front of her.

“But rainy days always give way to fertile soil, as my pops used to say. They finally delivered that old clock I had been waiting for. You know those? Not the horrible digital readers we have now, oh no, but those old wood ones they used to mark the start of a shift.”

“N-no, I haven’t se-seen one.” She responded shifting in her uncomfortable seat.

“Delightful little things. They have this nice ring to them every time you use it. A nice thunk you know? I remember being enamored with the one at my grandpop’s old factory. Got a lot of workers in trouble that one month when I was left alone with it. I couldn’t stop punching their own cards. So many dumbfounded faces they saw their cars full of punctured smiles.” She loudly laughed, delighted by her own tale. For Keira it was as loud as Lily’s engines.

So, she faked a smile.

“Serves them right, always trying to undermine my old man with their tactics.” She proudly declared. “Clocking-in for another, ‘correcting’ each other times, giving each other the extra hours they didn’t do to get paid more. Nonsense. No individual responsibility I tell you. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Yeah.” Keira didn’t commit to any answer. She knew she wasn’t smart enough for this kinds of talks.

“Society has gone declined so much these past few years. Hard, honest work and a good committed attitude is secondary to charity.” The doctor went on, sure of her own ideas. “We just give anything to everyone just because.”

Keira awkwardly looked away.

“Well, I… my dads… they’ve given a lot to people who needed it.” The pilot tensed up, but dared to speak her mind. “Well, at least five years a-ago. I-if someone needed a new arm or-or leg, they’d just give it out. The peo-people looked so happy.”

“Of course they would.” Neri-sel threw her eyes to the back of her head to then look back at her, imparting a sense of guilt on her. “They caused their misfortune and now someone just fixed it for them.”

“Bu-but not everyone, right? What about th-those that were in an a-accident?” Keira shyly tried to disagree.

“Oh sweetie, of course you would think that being a rescue pilot and all. Most people, especially teenagers, are just…” The doctor looked up, painting circles in the air with her hand, as if trying to cast her next words. “irresponsible with themselves.”

To make her point, the doctor went to one of her filing cabinets and took out a file. Without her asking it, she showed them to Keira. In there she recognized a simple medical report mired with words she couldn’t understand except for two: leg amputation.

“Oh no.” Keira mourned for the poor person, which brought back an old memory.

Of a little boy about her age at the time that had lost his hand in an accident. She had been with him in her dada’s study waiting for him to return. The kid had been silent all day long, barely looking away from the floor. What little of his hair remained her held unto it for dear life.

But it was the second part of that memory that was the clearest

The way his eyes opened up at his new shining prosthetic, and how he went to immediately pose like some sort of hero had been a delight to see.

All brought by the shining logo of her family. The stag of six antlers.

“Are you listening Keira?” The doctor harshly asked.

“Sorry doctor.”

“This girl gets a new leg and a chance to continue living as a miner and what does she doe? Waste it. Turns herself into some sort of junkie. Always going after painkillers.” The doctor confessed to her, which elicited disturbed a response Keira couldn’t really grasp. “I vehemently refused, of course.”

“What happened to her?”

“Died of an overdose a year or so ago.”

Keira silently grieved.

“All those years to get her back to her old life wasted away, unlike you Keira.” The doctor said to her surprise. “You have grown and have done so much in spite of everything. A prime example of how it is done.”

The pilot of the Remnant stood there, proud yet guilty. Was she talking about her missing eye? Her jaw servomotors? Or the fact that her body was held together by a myriad of titanium bolts and polymers whose names she could never remember?

Or was it her hunger?

Inside her, even amongst the dark frigid fog she felt every single day, she could feel warmness of the words given to her by her dads.

Build the beds that didn’t guard our sleep, the houses that didn’t shelter us, bake the bread we weren’t fed.

“I do my best.” She responded.

Neri-sel simply shrugged.

“Have you given any thought to our last talk Keira?” The doctor quickly moved on. “About the change in your diet?”

Keira flinched at the word. Diet. To use such a casual word to describe her disgusting need made her feel sick.

“As long as it is O negative I c-can still have transfusions right?” Keira asked back.

Doctor Neri-sel shuffled her papers and, seemingly at random, picked one out of the bunch and began to read.

The doctor fell silent. Lost in thoughts above her patient’s comprehension. Between the mumbles of medical concepts above Keira’s meager first aid understanding, and the stone-faced expression that naught betrayed her opinions on the document at hand, she couldn’t understand what her medic was examining.

“Yes.” Eventually she answered with a strange gravity to the word which made Keira nervous. “As long as we have in hand your blood type then there’s no issue with it.” The doctor responded with her eyes glued to the text. “But…”

“But?”

“Don’t interrupt me, Keira.” She commanded now annoyed. “You know how rare O negative is. With our straining supplies I would like for us to explore different alternatives.”

“I-I under-understand, but I-I don’t fee-feel comfortable do-doing it.” She solemnly responded.

“You are a pilot Keira. A Gundam pilot. You have a responsibility to these people.” The pessimistic sigh from the doctor made her flinch. “If you are not at your best all the time, people get hurt.”

A hole in the hull. A trail of red floating from a corpse. Seven minutes.

“I understand.” The Remnant pilot’s discomfort was as palpable as the roughness of her dry hands. Yet it was unmatched by how disgusted she had felt the first time she drank blood. Every drop made her stomach turn, her mouth salivate. The next times weren’t easier.

“Wha-what was the o-other news?” Keira tried to steer the conversation away.

“Got word that those damned Hares attacked another cargo ship. Stormveil had disabled it, so the vultures came for the picking.” Cold fury came from her words. “Barbarians all of them, attacking with their caravans, stealing what little we have, or worse…”  She sighed. “And just when we were staring to run out of blood bags.”

Keira’s blood froze over. She knew of the Hares, of course she did, everyone in the Garden did. But she only knew of one cargo ship, one tiny vessel that had been recently attacked by four Phalanx. It was impossible, of course it was, it couldn’t be it.

Her irrational mind was simply playing the worst types of cruel games with her. The Hares didn’t tread that closely to the Garden, it would be suicide. The Mobile Suits moved by their scrambled AIs, not by any pilot. And it would have been too convenient and unbelievably reckless to go during a Stormveil.

No. it couldn’t have been the Lagrange.

“The brutes blew a hole on the side like the animals they are.” The doctor angrily sighed.

Keira wanted to die.

“Well. We shouldn’t waste any more time, Keira.” Her caretaker pulled out her key and unlocked her restraints. “Let us begin.”

It was a good thing that she knew by heart what she needed to do. Today it was one of those days.

Today she felt herself floating.

Every movement she made, every touch she felt, every word that she heard felt so far away, distant. It was as if her own mind was on the reflection of that one-side window, looking in on her body, directing it to move, to react. Her own body moved like a Gundam.

Gundam Remnant.

Measured both in height and weight, then her internal pressure (always in the low 60s and 30s, not uncommon for people like her). Fang measurement. Reflex test. Reading test. Muscle/frame mass. All made worse by having to take off her ragged pilot/plate suit. Her tattered sports bra/plating providing the only relief against the AC.

“Time to take the samples.” The doctor, her navigator, ordered.

It was my fault.

Tongue out, exhaust pipe checked. Cotton swab pushed all the way back through her nose. The Gundam coughed.

“Oh hush now.”

The blood is gone.

Needle to the external plate finding a coolant tube. Alcohol on the cotton swab rubbing on her plating making her shudder.

Stop touching me.

Pinch.

Tape on the plate’s fissure. The test tubes coming in to extract the liquid from her. One, two, three, four, five… the doctor putting a sticker on each one. Six, seven, eight… those always went in bulks. Nine, ten, eleven… redundant to avoid contamination. Twelve and last for her hormones.

I fucked up.

Cup shoved to the Gundam’s claws. Water bottle came next.

“Urine sample.”

She willed the Gundam to move behind the curtain and to drink the water bottle in one.

Thirsty.

The Gundam had been overheating. The need to relief came without much wait, and so it took little time for her to get it.

I’m sorry.

As her sensors looked down on her own naked self, the fog around her grew. It was her body. Flesh and bones, her skin like autumn wheat oak and her hair as dark as raven feathers falling down her shoulders, fully reaching her bellybutton. Her chest no longer flat, her hips wide, and the bulge on her pants reminding her of her womanhood. All of those things that were hers, things she had wished to gain or keep yet. She felt off. It was her. It was her body, all scarred, burnt and torn. But it wasn’t.

She was there yet not there.

Trapped within herself.

A reflection on the mirror, the feed inside the cockpit of the Gundam. The claustrophobic feeling creeping in on her, crushing her, stupefying her. Outside, through the one optic she had the world was a wasteland of grey, broken by the red roots inside the doctor and the guard. Pulsing and tempting. She moved and didn’t move inside of the outside, an across, an ever-growing abyss carved by tempestuous claws climbing to devour the all.

Red mist flowing from its depths.

It was her and not her.

Trapped within herself.

The Gundam was running out of power.

Yet she willed it to move.

When the pilot sat down again, Dr. Neri-sel’s pale hand went to her stack of papers. She affixed her glasses on the report, her report.

“Back from a successful mission I see.” The doctor smiled again. Relaxing her shoulders she looked up at the pilot with a calmed gaze. Endearing. Yes, that was what Keira had gotten to know it as. “Cargo ship hit by a Stormveil…”

“Y-yes.” The Gundam interrupted. “Lily and I flew th-through the field as fast as we could and we-we managed to reach th-the ship before the oxygen ran out and--”

“I have the report here Keira.” The doctor stopped her.

“Sorry.” The Gundam felt herself grow smaller.

I didn’t save the supplies.

“I am more interested in your own health. How are you feeling Kiera? Any strange itches, headaches, dizziness, or aches?” Dr. Neri-sel asked.

“No, not really.” Remnant shamefully lied.

“I see.” Her examiner raised an eyebrow before picking up the first piece of paper on her pile.

Dr. Neri-sel was a very fast reader. Mashing words together to make whole paragraphs into just one sentence never missing any info. And just as quick she took note of any observation she may have. For Keira it was an uncanny ability, and something she herself envied.

No, envy was a very bad thing.

She wasn’t a selfish person, she just wanted to be able to read as fast as her doctor.

She just looked up to her.

 Yes.

Looked up at how easily she read and understood everything she picked up, contrary to her: the clumsy, dumb, out of herself pilot/Gundam that regularly messed up to the point she had had been dealing with the same error in the frontal left leg thruster of her Gundam because…

Or lost the blood for the other patients.

“Something on your mind?” Neri-sel stared at her, brow frowning at the seemed interruption.

“No. Nothing at all.” She timidly answered. “Just in awe of how fast you read.”

Once more the doctor paid her no mind.

They’ll starve without the blood.

When the piece of paper went off the doctor’s hand, the Gundam immediately took the challenge. She would read it. She would be as fast as the doctor, she would be able to discern the patterns of words upon the little sheet of white existence and understand their meaning.

A_istr__calle_wsarecieves_ytheroutebackfromA__trsiwherestornVeilhadhi__heLagrangeh___vrgrhefeast.

“No more reading.” She whispered to herself defeated.

Her vision became blurry once more as her thoughts started to fog again. In that mist the headache from before began flaring up again, her insides compressing her from the inside, screaming for her to quench her hunger. She grunted tiredly. The doctor scribbled uninterrupted.

I’m sorry.

The murmurs stopped. The doctor had slowed down the instant the one word escaped her lip: “Suppressant.”

The body.

Keira had forgotten about the body.

“This doesn’t help you Keira…” her voice resounded like a storm in the eerily quiet room. “Remnant…”

“Lily.”

“Your Mobile Suit had to use a suppressant.” Her hands left the grim report on the table, her unique way of saying that nothing after that mattered anymore. “That’s troublesome.”

“I know, I’m sorry I--” she let out in a panic feeling the cold air strike her, aggravating her headache.

“I told you to stop interrupting me Remnant.” The grim voice of the doctor made her jump back. “You had just told me that nothing was out of the ordinary.”

Grimness was replaced by disappointment, palpable as the scars on her win face.

Remnant’s heart was not one that pumped fast. But in compensation, the force it could exert on her insides was unmatched.

And at that very moment, it was as powerful as a smith’s hammer.

“Last time you lasted two whole weeks without having such an incident.” The doctor noted. “You know we can’t risk you having an episode out there. Right?”

Remnant averted her gaze, seeing the dark faceplate lying next to her on the table. She wanted so badly to put it on, to be able to hide her face and her feelings from her. But no, the doctor needed to know what she was feeling. Every little change or twitch could mean something more that she herself could never be privy off. Neri-sel was the doctor, the studied scholar who had devoted her life to helping people with her knowledge of medicine.

Remnant wasn’t.

“I know, but…” She gripped at her pants, crumbling them when her gaze went to the ground.

Fucks sake, she was close to crying again.

The faded memories of her youth taught her the basic of treating wounds, yet it had remained at that. Basic.

She wasn’t a doctor. She wasn’t a Gundam. She barely felt like a person. But she was one thing: a rescue pilot. A Gundam pilot. She wasn’t smart enough to make these choices, certainly less so as one erudite Dr. Neri-sel.

“No ‘buts’ Remnant.” The doctor sternly stopped her, forcing her to look up. Gone was the smile, now replaced by the scowl of disappointment. A face she had seen more than any other. “You had promised me not one incident this month, and yet… look at this.” She showed her the graph, but Remnant didn’t need too see it. The adrenaline through the roof, then climbing as fast as a rocket. The body, the suppressant.

The pilot knew all too well what it meant.

“Every time you need a suppressant you need twice the amount of blood, if not more.” The doctor’s low tone made her heart bleed. “And just our luck…” She shuffled the papers before setting them down on the table and walking to the intercom. “Could you verify our inventory?”

Murmur, whispers. Both too low and too high pitched for the pilot to hear. Grim. Bad. Low. Grange… grange…

Myfaultmyfaulmyfault!

The pilot’s head throbbed again. The room around her grew bright as the morrow and painful as a flashbang. Her ears rang in a cacophony with the sound of scraping papers and ruffling clothes, rivaling the unnatural thunder of the Stormveils. It hurt.

Why did it have to hurt?

“How long has it been since your last meal?” The erudite asked vehemently.

“Not… not long ago…” She lied. Her fangs felt ever sharper, her throat dry as if cinnamon had been shoved into it. Her legs felt sluggish and her arms shook under the slightest touch of the cold air. Her jaw clenched, her hand went to her stomach digging more and more to the point of almost drawing the last bits of blood inside her. It hurt. It hurt so much.

I don’t want to feel like this anymore, please, I’m starving. I hate that I’m starving I want to die. I hate how empty food makes me feel, I feel sick every time I have to drink blood. Why do I have to drink blood? Why? Why? I hate it, I hate it, I hate myself. I don’t want to starveIwouldratherstarvethancontinuebwingthismonsterthathastofeastonbloodandironandbloodnahelphelphelphelpIwanttodiebutIcan’thowwrongandutterlydemonic…

“You know I hate liars Keira.” Dr. Neri-sel’s rebuttal made her clench. It stung much more painfully than any hit she had taken. “I have here your report and it very poignantly says it was almost two weeks ago.”

“I’m sorry.” She said as she closed her eye, begging whatever was happening to her to just end. She had made her caretaker angry for just being dumb, irresponsible, idiotic, stupid, stupid. Stars, when did the tears escape her eye? “I just don’t want to be a burden.”

“You know how difficult it is to treat someone who is not open to how they are feeling?” The doctor sternly asked. But before Keira could open her mouth the doctor continued. “A simple bump turns out to be putrefying, or a small cut with a rusted nail ends up carrying tetanus. I have seen so many cases of people getting exponentially worse because they didn’t want to be a burden. And at the end they always end up needing more that could have gone to others. Does this sound familiar Keira?”

The pilot remained lost in her guilt.

“Bring me three liter.” Dr. Neri-sel ordered. “O negative yes… not enough? Then bring some O positive…”

“No!” Keira shouted in dismay. “Please. Oth-others more tha-than me…” She begged yet the doctor sighed, denying her. “It’s my fault! I-I didn’t get there in time.”

Her victory, her pride, all were quickly being stripped away. How could she ever feel happy with how that mission ended? The ship was a wreck, half the crew was dead, and she put the life of one of them in danger because she hadn’t been fast enough.

“We are in a crisis Keira, one that’s been steadily getting worse.” The doctor solemnly declared. “Last week I even allowed you to skip on some of your workout so you could play with Tammy. I guess that was a mistake.”

“I… but...” She had promised to visit the little lamb, and to give her a milk bottle for being such a good friend. She couldn’t abandon her, she had promised.

“Tammy doesn’t like being visited by liars.” The doctor shut her down. “So, I’ll ask again Keira, how are you feeling?”

Keira closed her eye.

Shame washed over her as if she had fallen into the waters of a frozen lake. Her chest was being crushed by the dark reaches at the bottom of it where neither light nor hope could reach her. The weight that was pulling her down being her own words.

“Sta-starving.” She stammered out clutching at her stomach. “It feels so-so horrible. The world is grey, everything feels cold…”

The doctor sat next to her, holding the bag of blood. Her stern disposition remained, now with the added scowl of sadness and disappointment that Keira had grown to know the past years.

“We don’t have enough O negative Keira.” Dr. Neri-sel extended one of the blood bags to her. “We may not have in a while.”

Not again.

Keira shakily nodded when she took it from her hands. “Can… just one?” Her body hungered, and she couldn’t feel sicker with herself than when her mouth began watering. Shame gave way to disgust. About her body, about her actions, about her life. Disgust became fear. Fear of the blood in her hand and how good it made her feel when she drank it.

Trapped within herself.

The doctor nodded.

“With as much as you feel comfortable with.”

She closed her eye and opened her mouth, piercing the bag with her fangs. The cold metallic taste overwhelmed her. Like a warm meal after three days in the artic, the relief was incomparable to anything in the whole world. Warm. Simple. Too much and not enough at the same time. She hated it. She loved it. Both parts agreed to finish it as fast as possible.

When she opened her eye again color had returned to the world. The doctor laid next to her with an open smile, and wide caring emerald eyes.

“Make sure this doesn’t happen again.” The doctor said while she took the empty blood bag from her shaking hands. “Say hi to Tammy for me.”

“I-I can see her?” Keira asked in disbelief.

 “Just remember to use this two before the end of the week.” Dr. Neri-sel smiled at gave her the two remaining blood bags. “She’s waiting for you.”

Grounded: To feel yourself be tethered back to reality, back to your home. As Keira stepped into the patchy spot of grass without her boots and felt the cold and ticklish grass under her feet, she felt it. Grounded. Her feet firmly planted on the soil. Her mind was under control. She was herself again.

Maybe it was the wind blowing on the air, the complete absence of heavy machinery, or the open sky above showing what little of the stars it could without any danger that made her feel so calm, safe. Grounded.

The small field, barred not by massive steel walls, but by wooden posts and aluminum wire laid at the back of the clinic. The homely stead hidden between the two hills was nothing spectacular. Small, silent, with a couple of chairs here and there, a rickety table and a couple of drawers. Nothing truly exciting.

The barn on the back of the field, though was the real attraction.

It was small by most standards, barely able to hold more than a couple adult jumping lizards, or cows. And it was old, really old. The red of its walls had long faded away, replaced by both the worn wood, or a plethora of holes.

All in all, planet side, it wouldn’t survive a fortnight, but here, in the far reaches of the void between the stars, it offered a nice shelter to the couple of sheep that lived here, and to the pilot when she came around.

In stark contrast to it laid the recently painted shed where they housed the pitchfork and sheers.

She couldn’t say why, but something about the wooden walls, the bays of hay on the field and the knowledge of the warm interior of the barn made it feel safer than her own room.

“Tammy!” She happily shouted. Her hands firmly gripping a milk bottle.

The words hadn’t left her mouth fully when she heard the sound of a small bell, then of a gallop, and a happy bounce through the grass. As fast as a shooting star, a white streak dashed towards her. The pilot wasted no time in running towards the lamb, sliding on the ground, to finally give her a hug.

“Hi!” The pilot nuzzled into the lamb, petting her head gently. “Stars I’m sorry for being a little bit late Tammy. The appointment didn’t go as well.” The lamb, sensing her distress, used her own head to pat her. “I’m ok, just a little bit shaken, that’s all.”

Keira ran her hands through the growing fur of her friend, feeling the tiny warm locks on her that one day would form her mighty and adorable coat. The lamb reciprocated her touch, nuzzling wherever her snoot could, tickling Keira.

“Tammy! Please! That tickles.” She laughed, dissuading the lamb from stopping. “I know. I know. I have it here!” Keira presented the bottle to the lamb who wasted no time in drinking from it.

“You were hungry, didn’t you?” Sitting down in the field, with Tammy comfortably resting on her legs, Keira asked to her friend.

“Glad this one doesn’t make you sick like the goat milk. Stars, I remember what a mess you made the first time we had to give it to you. Yes you, you adorable little cutey.” She booped her on the nose. “I had to shower three times. Three! Just to get the worst of the stench off.”

She faked indignant.

The lamb ignored it, instead she finished her meal with a soft burp.

“Awwww. I could never get mad at you Tammy.” She gave her a small kiss on the forehead. “I love you.”

Tammy licked her back once, twice, three times causing her to laugh even more.

 “I… I was too, you know?” She solemnly confessed to her friend. “Hungry. But I-I am better now, though not really.” Her calloused hands enjoyed each second they passed through the lamb’s fur, petting her gently. A distraction from the hole in her stomach. “The doctor says that I have a responsibility to others, that I need to be at my best for them. I know. I will. I just…” Keira fell silent. She didn’t want to be dragged by that spiral again. “Today I put many in danger, especially this girl. She had been shot out the breach, had very little oxygen left. I needed to act fast, so I put her in Lily.”

Keira yawned. The artificial light of dusk began casting the shades that marked the end of the day, and in turn, the end of the pilot’s nervous energy. The more she spent with her friend tucked in her legs, nuzzling her lovingly, sharing her warmth and offering her comfort, the more she felt her anxiety drift away.

“I should have carried her to safety, but we were ambushed. Four Mobile Suits… I don’t know if they had gone haywire or if they were from the Hares, but they attacked. Of course she was terrified.” She scratched behind her ears, eliciting a very cute bob from her friend. “I know I shouldn’t have done so many dumb maneuvers with her inside.”

I hope I never have to see you again.

“I angered her. Of course I did. When I left her back at the ship, I wanted to apologize but… she…” Tammy nuzzled closer to her. With her second yawn she licked her again, pulling her out of her own spiral before it had a chance to drag her down. “You are right. She’s safe now, all those that survive are.”

Keira felt the weight of the lamb in her legs grow heavier. Her friend, almost as if satisfied with her words, had fallen asleep. The pilot petted her a bit more in silence, concentrating on the present happiness that she lived in instead of the destructive thoughts on the edge of her mind. When she began feeling her legs go numb, Keira picked up Tammy, carrying her to the barn and placing her on the hay bed to let her sleep.

“Good night, Tammy. See you next time.”

The road to her hangar was always a draining one. For as calm as she could be on the barn, reality was quick to catch up to her the instant she left the clinic and got back to town. A restaurant slamming shut their doors and windows, the laughter within fading away. A small dog carried into their home by their scrawny owners that picked them up and speed walked away. The couple that still remained on the streets wasted no time to get inside a store and out of view as her and her armed escort crossed their path.

‘Of course they are afraid.’ Keira didn’t blame them. It was a rational fear. Yet her own mind began twisting her thoughts the moment she saw the Gunplas on display taunting her. The 1/100 Shooting Star proudly in display; a guardian of the store. White, blue, red and yellow. A knight against her.

They knew. They knew who she was, what she was. Of course they did. And they were afraid of her.

‘No… no… Three people in heavy uniform with faces covered, two heavily armed are walking down their streets. Everyone would get nervous at that.’ She forced her mind to focus. The doctor assured her privacy and confidentiality.

It had to be her guards.

Keira had learned so many things about them, yet so little too.

Armed and ready, the faceless guards were silent. Their movements subtle, precise, as if the slightest noise would wake up an unsightly beast. They were vigilant. Always watching her for the vaguest sign that might spell out danger. They were dedicated. Day and night, no matter where she went, nor what privacy she sought, she could always feel the beating of their hearts just a few meters away. They scared her, but that was the point. They were there to keep everyone else safe from her. If anything, today had made it much clearer to her just how important their job was.

What would have happened had she not been in Lily going out to that abandoned colony, but here on the Garden?

She didn’t want to know.

The one thing that creeped her out were their uniforms. They were eerily similar to her own pilot suit. Black and gold with an insignia palaces on their shoulder. But where she had the medic’s symbol of her hometown, the stag of six antlers, they had the unwavering visage of an owl tined in purple. Imperial purple.

It made her feel wrong.             

These thoughts swirled around her mind when she reached the train station.

Long had the lights and warmness of the simulated sky had vanished, replaced by the reality of where she lived. Steel and concrete claustrophobic tunnels that traversed the whole underground. With naught a millimeter spared. The train was no different. She didn’t know what it was, she wasn’t smart enough to know, but the wagons felt like they were more designed for the Haros rather than for humans. It was simply too cramped. The whole subway was like being a tube sliding inisde a slightly larger tube.

Stepping inside it, the few passengers that were on her wagon took notice of her. A boy and their father, at the behest of the latter, immediately abandoned their seats. The teenagers that had been shouting excitedly about a Gundam became silent, shuffling as a group to leave as soon as possible. The one passenger that couldn’t, moved to the furthest door form her. Their long skirt and loose flowery blouse flowing with their clanking steps towards the seat next to the door, ready to bounce the moment it opened.

‘Don’t mind me, I just want to go home.’ The pilot childishly wishes that everyone on the train would get her thoughts. ‘Just as everyone else too.’

Keira took out her pad. She yawned, stretched her legs, and faked reading her own report. Boring normal everyday stuff. She was just another tired worker on her way back home. Her appointment had gone well (in a manner of speaking). Her heart was calm. Her demeanor was relaxed. She had feasted. She was in no shape or form a danger to them or to anyone.

The doors closed and they left the station.

The loud screeching of the unoiled train made Keira grit her teeth. A genuine deafening sound that had caused her many headaches in the past with today being no different. Her head throbbed, making her put her pad away. Her stomach began hurting not long after.

‘No…’ She begged to herself when her mouth began watering. The hope of a normal train ride vanishing.

Out of instinct her eye fell on the passenger who still shared a car with her. Scratched arms to her chest, back against the wall, and her leg bouncing nervously, waiting for the ride to end. Her short bob was unkempt, her eyebrows half plucked with distinct uneven patches showing the reddening skin under, and on her russet cheek, a small bit of toilet paper covering a shaving cut.

Red with their blood.

The moment Keira’s gaze focused on that cut, the passenger’s eyes became wide open, and her hair stood on its ends. She’d become frozen. A prey that had smelt its hunter closing in.

Bumpbump.

Her gaze bounced from her pad, to her, to her guards, to the train door. Pad. Bumpbump. Her. Bumpbump. Guards. Bumpbump. Door. Bumpbump. Pad, her, guards, doors. Pad, her, guards, door. Pad, her, guards, door. Bumpbump. Padherguardsdoor. Padherguardsdoor. Padherguardsdoor. Padherguardsdoor.  Bumpbumpbumpbump.

Padherguardsdoor. Padherguardsdoor. Padherguardsdoor. Padherguardsdoor.  Bumpbumpbumpbumpbumpbumpbump.

A pair of goosebumps made them shake, accidentally causing her to look directly at the masked pilot. Small, kind, and tired mellow amber eyes invaded by red strings all across their sclera. The passenger became petrified, transfixed by the pilot. And the Remnant saw her.

The spent seamstress, tired by the will of the sewing machine. Her dreams of designing mystical silks lost. She now spent all her intense focus repairing the damage clothes donated to the humble store she worked at where the owner would chastise her for every wrong seam. Her only reward being enough stars to keep her cold, empty room, and small potted plant. A sewing machine abandoned to the corner. Abandoned like herself.

Bumpbumpbumpbumpbumpbumpbump.

She wanted to go back home.

Her eyes staring out the window overlooking the valley, where the stars shone without trouble. The starlight painting the canvas of the night, playfully twinkling. From the kitchen the smell of chilly and tomatoes making her mouth water. On the wall of the cozy workshop the TV played a dumb romcom that she couldn’t really hear too well but knew by heart. She didn’t mind though because the sound of scissors cutting fabric, the clicking of wood again the steel ruler, and the pedal making the needle go up and down, up and down, up and down was far more exciting than anything else.

‘A traditional Vernian dress, for fancy ceremonies.’ The old, expert hands of her grandma unlocked the tablet. When it lit up, the sketches of the dress came up, accompanied by three photos of the black, gold and red dress. ‘For your best friend.’

Bumpbumpbump…bumpbump…bumpbump… bump… bump… bump.

‘Yes… I know, I want Keira to wear the best!’ The seamstress happily jumped.

Bump… bump… bump.

“No!” Keira tore her gaze away.

“Arriving at: Sandalia.” The electric voice on the intercoms announced. “Connection available for Line 1, 3 and 6.

Please be advised that the Red Line is restricted to authorized personnel only.”

As soon as the doors opened, the pilot ran.

‘Not again.’

By the time her nerves had calmed down, Keira was on the last leg of her journey home. Last stop was security.

In front of the young Remnant another pilot stood in line to cross into the port proper. By their flight suit of amber and blue, Keira knew perfectly who they were. No one other than Anti Mirasol.

 Her fellow pilot, not sparing a glance at her, stepped up to the security gate. The yellow light crossed through them, and without waiting, changed to green. She thanked the guards for their hard work and quickly went to the conveyer belts.

“Next!” The guard shouted.

Begrudgingly removing her mask, Keira Azuriel Remnant crossed through the intense lights of the security checkpoint. First two steps to get into the small corridor, then wait 3 seconds for the wall of light to pass through her, finally stop and wait for permission to continue. The buzzer screeched at her, morphing the yellow into red.

“Again?” She sighed afraid.

The guard next to her pointed at the square painted on the floor for her to stand. She complied. Arms to the sides extended and legs slightly apart. Her mask carefully placed on the floor.

When she was ready another officer approached her. A woman with an immaculate uniform and a steady stride, holding an old metal detector in her hand.

“Please remove the top of your flight suit.” She ordered with a sly or saddened smile. Keira couldn’t tell, but she did as ask.

Closing her eyes and holding her breath, Keira unzipped her suit, unconsciously wished she didn’t accidentally hide a knife somewhere in her suit. She knew she didn’t, but did she know she didn’t?

No beeps came out, thankfully.

The officer retreated, and Keira let out a sigh of relief. It was over. Casually, she went to pick up her mask.

“What are you doing?” The officer snapped her fingers at her.

“Sorry I…”

“Stand up straight. We aren’t done.” She commanded placing herself behind the perturbed pilot.

It was standard procedure. They needed to check. It was something everyone had to go through once or twice and it would be over so quickly that she wouldn’t feel overwhelmed.

She hoped. She pleaded.

The hands touched her arm, and the pilot bit her lip at the sudden breach of her space. It was overpowering. Like nails pressed against chalkboard, the touch of the officer made her recoil. Every cell of her body screamed at feeling the hand moving against her. Keira urged herself to bite down the anxiety and disgust that washed over her.

'Please be quick.’ Keira though as the hands went to her shoulders, roughly pressing her. Her hair stood on its ends. It was sweaty, and hot, and clammy. She was shaking already.

She closed her eye.

Stop.

She didn’t want to be here.

Stop.

The gigantic wave was going back home go the ocean, leaving behind just a bit of foam on her feet. She laughed as the bubbles tickled her feet, but that’s exactly why she liked it so much. The sea bubbles felt nice and cold and funny. They were a good… texture? Feeling? Thingy? All she knew it was the foam was nice and cool, not like the stupid sunscreen.

Speaking off.

Behind her she could hear the tired panting of her dada running towards her, drink in one hand and that stupid bottle of sunscreen in the other. He had been chasing her. Half playing, half serious as the mischievous girl-who-thought-was-a-boy had run towards the sea the moment she first saw the great blue in front. She had missed it. A whole year of waiting to get here! She was not going to waste another second.

“Kiki. Come back!” Her dada laughed, always out of breath. “You don’t want to get sunburned, believe me.”

“But the waves!” She protested. Her annoyance on full display at the stupid cream that needed a stupid hour to stupidly work… a full hour! An hour stolen from her. An hour away from the sea! An hour of feeling that stupid icky wrong thing on her skin. It was so beautiful today, full of blue and aqua and foam so white it almost hurt to look at. She couldn’t waste it! Especially to that stupid, so, so, so stupid cream that made her feel as if an ogre had dipped her in wax.

“Dad!” She pleaded with her other dad. He would understand, her always did. Mostly… sometimes. Every so often.

“Listen to dada Kiki.” Her dad said dismissively. She huffed. Her dads laughed.

“Kiki! An hour waiting of sunscreen is better than three days of not being able to enjoy the beach.” He shouted again.

Keira immediately stopped. They had just arrived! Wasting her time inside the cabin while the waves played without her didn’t sound fun at all. The sea was calling for her! But… if she was sunburnt, she couldn’t… She… she knew they were right.

“… ok.” She relented, allowing her dada to catch up. Keeping up a brave face Keira extended her arms, bracing for that stupid, icky, wrong thing to be rubbed on her skin.

Eww.

Eww.

“What’s wrong Kiki?” Dad asked. Open eyes, serious mouth, tone a bit sad, a bit curious. Concerned, he was concerned.

“N-nothing.” She lied, yet her gaze betrayed her when it landed on the sunscreen. She knew it was wrong to lie, but she couldn’t do anything else. She couldn’t think of anything else to do. How could she explain how grossed out the stupid sunscreen made her feel? No one else seemed to mind it, at least not her dads, nor the other kids, neither did the kind man at the water stall…

It just felt wrong.

“Kiki… You don’t like how it feels don’t you?” Always the mind reader he asked, breaking through to her.

“It feels icky.” She answered. “Like bad honey… I don’t like it…”

“Oh Kiki.”

His dada sat next to her after telling her dad to come close. In his hand he held a different bottle, one that instead of squirting it out, had a funny handle on the front.

“This one sprays it on you Kiki.” Dad held the bottle in front, presenting it to her. “It can tickle you a bit, but it doesn’t use as much.”

“It sneezes on me?” Keira asked earnestly, and her dads laughed again. This time she joined them.

“You could say that Kiki.” He answered by spraying a bit on him, giving special interest on those funny scars under his chest. Once he was done though, a mischievous smile came over him. Her dada had no time to react when he pointed it at him and fired.

“Darling! Ewwwwwww.” Dada looked disgusted, repeatedly opening, and closing his mouth and his eyes, and putting his tongue out like a cat’s. But she knew he was faking because he was moving his lips too much. Didn’t make it any less funny.

A part of her wanted to grab the bottle and shoot him with it again, but the other part of her knew that asking for permission would be best. But today she felt lazy, so she stayed quiet.

“Can we put some on you too Kiki?” Dad asked with that gentle smile she knew by heart now. The edges of the lips raised just enough for the laugh lines to appear, yet not fully present; head tilted a bit to the side like a puppy asking for their ball to be thrown; and his right ear closer to her, signaling that yes, he was listening, not just… hearing her.

“Ok!” She jumped excited.

And they were right, it did tickle, but it also felt nice. Now she just needed to rub it over her and that’s that.

“Can we help you with it, Kiki?” Her dad asked. She hesitated.

It was always difficult to let anything touch her. Worst of all, she didn’t know why it was difficult. It just was, and that was stupid. Some clothes she never wanted to take off because they were so… so… something, some she couldn’t stand more than ten seconds because they felt… wrong.

People touching her? It was worse,  or better? More confusing and stranger… strange… it… stupid.

It was stupid.

She felt stupid.

That’s why she was always thankful for her dads asking her if it was ok. It made her feel less… less stupid.

Less stupid.

“Ok…” She accepted.

The pampering had stopped.

In front of her eye a gloved hand stood in the officer’s way.

Keira’s faceless escort remained there, unmoving. Their faceplate reflecting the guard’s face and open mouth. Whatever protest she may have had died when she looked at the armed militia that towered over her.

“Have it your way.” The officer shrugged. Giving a thumbs up to her partner, she pulled away from the pilot but not without giving one last pat on the pilot’s waist. “The Princess always gets special treatment.”

Ignoring the comment, Keira refitted her mask and her suit, but not before cleaning her tears.

Disgust urged her to move on, leading her away from there. Relief only came to her when she no longer saw the security gate.

“Can’t wait to-to take a-a shower.” Keira stuttered to herself, entering the hallway on the left. Only once she was far away did she slow down.

She still needed to service Lily first.

Pulling out her pad and scrolling through her request list, the pilot attempted to force her mind away from the experience.

“Some extra duct tape, a new lock wrench, some WD-40… Oil, definitely at least three liters of oil…”

There were more important things to do than feel sorry for herself. Lily’s maintenance, putting in some simulator hours, cleaning the hangar itself.

And today she needed it the most. Clear her mind, distract it, overwhelm it. Do anything that would make her ignore the phantom itch that assaulted every place the officer had touched her.  

“Or should I get five and keep some spare?”

She couldn’t spare a moment for her own… wrongness. She always felt wrong after all. If anything, today had just been an abject reminder of everything wrong with her. People were right to keep her at arm’s length. And, after all, the guard was only doing her job. There was nothing wrong with it. Nothing wrong.

“I thi-think a new phillips screw-screwdri-driver That’s what it’s called, right?” She turned around towards her escort, directing the question at them. They didn’t answer, they never did. But at least they also didn’t say anything. “I think that’s its name.”

Sometimes she wished they did.

Maybe it would help her not feel so wrong.

On instinct she hugged the left wall, resting her forearm on the cold metal. She knew the zero-g area was close, but she didn’t want to look up, or back, or anywhere else for that matter. Her pad was and should be her only focus. Nothing more, nothing less. Because anything else would make the creeping wrong itch start anew, and she would scratch herself over and over to try and make is stop.

Just as she was doing again.

She was thankful for her gloves.

Only when she felt the smooth surface be replaced by a rougher (wrong) one did she turn to look. The black and yellow of the conveyer belt letting her know that she was in the right path.

“Oil, forty, tape, screwdriver…” Keira repeated to herself, like a mantra against ill wills (wrongs) before she reached the second light wall. The classic red and white zebra pattern painted around it, and its warning message firmly placed both on the ceiling and on the floor.

Warning!

Entering zero-g area.

Ensure you have working thrusters or are holding unto a conveyer belt before entering this area!

She jumped across the light, letting her anxieties be dragged to the ground as the zero-g claimed her. After all, she could never feel wrong when she was floating, be it amongst the waves or stars.

“That’s Remnant?”

A short-lived feeling for the murmurs began. Just as before, just as always, as she traversed down the hall towards the workshop.

The pilot, knowing that looking around would do more harm than good, still tore her eye away from her pad and around her. It was stupid, but she did it anyway. Excusing herself with the fact that she needed to see where she was going, even when she knew it by heart, she looked around.

The long zero-g hallway was nothing special. Apart from the conveyer belts in the walls and the faded paint, it was just your standard supply hallway. Long, open, boring. If one were to take a picture of it, it would look no different than any of the other service tunnels Keira had seen in the station. The emergency signs being the only distinguishing characteristic in it at all.

But she had seen photographers here before. She had had to dodge some of them even at times. So, something made it special, didn’t it?

“Well, of course.” She whispered to herself. “The people.”

Out of the corner of her eye she saw multiple workers fly by. A cook hauling a new mixer, three warehouse workers excitedly talking about their plans for the weekend, and a pair of engineers in a small argument about what to do with to a new flight unit they were working on. That one caught her attention because it has to do something with a modified Mark VII Kilean. A beast of an engine.

“Wait. Is she from the hangar that girl died?”

“Would Lily like a new one?” She asked herself pensively. The gigantic thrusters that her friend had were unwieldy and very out of date. Even now she went to rub her bicep in response to the phantom pain of the thrusters. The mark II Akreons was like those old petrol cars her dad used to talk about, where the clutch was ‘like a sledgehammer to the knee.’ Instead of the more comfortable automatic models they had up in the colonies.

“It would definitely waste less--”

“Heard her body was never found…”

But no, even if Lily wanted a new one Keira knew it was beyond her.

From coordinating the decoupling of the old ones, the safe disposal of the oil, then of the unrecyclable components, the cleaning of the hangar, and many, many long and precise tasks. The Haros would help, but they sometimes left things a bit messier than she liked, so she always needed to do a double take.

Grease on top of that? No thanks.

“Wouldn’t surprise me… she has always been… off, you know?"

And then the actual hard part would arrive. How could she design new pack? She wasn’t an engineer.

“I barely can keep her running as is...” Keira admitted. “But there was something else I’m—"

“… she’s disturbing…”

“The extra buckets of paint!” She shouted excitedly, catching the attention of some passer-by. “Maybe I can try painting a mural again, or a cool pattern. Though I only know how to do spirals. Oh!” She was almost bouncing with excitement. “Maybe try and paint some waves! Whoosh, whoosh!” She laughed at herself, a short, high pitched, raspy laugh. Wrong. So utterly wrong--

               “Wouldn’t put it past her that she did something to that girl…”

Without a moment’s notice, the present moment hit her again. The conveyer had stopped, slinging her out of her mind and unto the person in front.

“Watch where you are going Remnant!” The pilot from before shoved her back.

“Oh. So sorry Mirasol.” She extended her hands, ensuring the distance between them. I-I was lost in thought, and I wasn’t holding on so when the conveyer belt stopped I kind of flung towards you and…” Keira babbled on. “I flew towards you. It was an accident. I’m sorry, I am a bit of a clutz sometimes.” Taking a look at Mirasol´s face Keira’s concern grew.

She was apologizing. She knew she was. Or at least she thought so.

From annoyed to angry, Mirasol’s face morphed telling her otherwise. What was Keira doing wrong?  Maybe she just needed to try harder. Find the correct line of dialogue to defuse the situation.

“But that’s no excuse for not paying attention, if anything I just need to work harder on not daydreaming as much so it…”

Mirasol pinched her crooked nose before turning her back on Keira; a clear sign that whatever the confused pilot of Gundam Remnant had had, once more, the contrary effect on her. But with no clue as to whatsoever was wrong, Keira could only nervously continue. Even as everyone began looking their way.

“I… sorry… I… didn’t mean to up-upset you!” So, she raised her voice in a futile attempt to control her nerves.

Regret came in an instant.

Of all the social queues Keira did know, of all the things that can make things worse, shouting was one of them. “S… sorry I…”

“Would you just shut up Remnant!” Anti Mirasol screamed at Keira. Her body shaking, full of rage. she slapped Keira’s hands away.

In the blink of an eye one Keira’s escort was in front of her. A second blink came with a pained grunt and the sound of metal being struck. Mirasol pinned to the wall, arms behind her back, forced to go beyond their natural flexibility. The shoulder already looking out of place.

“Stop!” She screamed when she grabbed the arm of one of them. “Leave her alone! Please!”

On command they let her go.

“I’m sorry…” Keira apologized once more because she didn’t know what to do. Everything was going wrong. So utterly wrong.

Wrongwrongwrongworng!

Silence.

The eyes of every passer-by were glued to them now. Whatever murmuring had seconds before cordially filled the hallway was gone. No. Not just the hallway, but the actual workshop. As above so below, in front and behind, the all seeing gossip flooded the young pilot’s senses.

“You see! Never get close to her.”

“Who the fuck does she think she is? The fucking queen of the kingdoms?”

“No wonder her crew left her.”

Keira stepped forth, concerned about the injuries she may have suffered. An instinct well learned, badly followed now. She would get a bruise, that was for sure, but that was not what her eye remained focused on. It was that little drop of blood, running down Mirasol’s lip, tempting her to get close.

Hunger.

“Get. Away. From. Me!” Mirasol turned towards her, fury the only thing in her face as she stepped back and into the crowd.

 Keira’s muscles tensed, her breathing too short, too forced, while her hairs turned on their ends. It was all blurry. A mix of eye colors, lights and shadows moving in and all around, sucking the oxygen out of the room. What little remained her lungs refused to accept. She wanted to run.

“Little princess crushing others with her escort.”

Run

“Ya might be next if ya continue talking like tha’”

No light came to her eye, except the red lights guiding her away from everything except the stares of those she had wronged. Again and again.

Why had everything gone wrong? Why did everything she do go wrong? Why was she even still here if nothing good came out of her actions?

“Damned princess. Nothing but bad luck with her!”

Nothing. She amounted to worse than nothing! For if she wasn’t there at least she wouldn’t continue doing things wrong!

Wrong!

Wrong!

Her whole survival was a mistake!

She was nothing but a pile of barely held on together cells that moved by the will that brought nothing but ill omens to all around her. A mess of a thing that couldn’t even diminish the harm she was doing. An abject failure that thought, did, and said everything wrong.

Lights and murmurs filled the hallways in which she ran. Voices and whispers that she knew not of who they were knew her head assaulted her, constricting and twisting the walls around. They offered to bring her wrong life to an end, where she to allow them to. To finally put an end to the accursed Gundam known as Keira Azuriel Remnant; Princess of Ill Omens.

Her own thoughts, relentless, poignant, and so powerfully direct repeated over and over to the point of bludgeoning madness as funerary bells of a church.

Yet she kept running and running.

Running from the world and the pain and the reality of what had just happened.

She cared not as her home, the infamous Cursed Hangar 13, had been desecrated again with bad graffiti and petty insults. Nor the horrid smell of Sulphur just outside.

The moment she got inside, and the darkness of the hangar enveloped her, she threw off her mask and let herself drift away, curled up in a ball. She was shaking and unfocused, but for once the world was as still as the void between the stars. No light, no sound, no pain to be found on the outside. Her only harm came from within. Yet no tears came, her escape had dried them off.

“Hey Lily, hi.” She whispered to the only thing the shadows could never hide. A shade passed down through her family for so many generations that the only record of them was the Gundam herself. “I’m back.”

From great heroes, philanthropists, scholars, explorers, pilots. So many incredible people that had lived up to the potential, the call in them to be something grand.

Yet now, Lily was stuck with her.

A cursed woman.

She felt a pulse in her head, almost like a whisper, trying to evoke something in her. A sensation that only grew stronger as she looked at her friend.

Whispering concern.

“I’m fine.” She smiled at her, faking as much as she could the feelings inside. “It was a long day. That’s all. Really, just like any other. I just need to rest.”

Whispering understanding.

Her schedule was always tight. Exercise and training, simulation flights and maintenance. Even now she cursed herself for not putting in the list to start fixing Lily. But she couldn’t move. Every fiber of her being had shut down, unwilling to heed the call to wake up. It even took her a long while to realize she had stopped drifting.

She finally opened her eye.

As if caught by Lily, Keira laid on her arm, cradled in it as the Gundam softly hummed.

Whispering safety.

The pilot could almost trick herself into thinking that today hadn’t happened, tossing it aside as just a bad dream. Most of her wished for it. But all of it had been true, for the scorched mark in her friend’s arm attested to it.

Keira gasped. It had been a bad hit.

Her armo was almost destroyed, exposing the faintest bit of wires and machinery inside. Some even burnt themselves.

“I am so sorry, let me help you with that.” She apologized.

Rag to clean, welder to unite. Thankfully dermal plate was really easy to fix, especially one tied to a Gundam. Or rather, fixing a Gundam was almost like magic. Didn’t matter what she needed to fix, nor how little knowledge of those things she had; her sheer will to make them better again was almost all she needed to know how to do it. It almost felt like the old fairy tales of Liliana Remnant she used to listen to. Potions that could cure almost any ills; brave knights recovering their strength by sheer power of will. Monsters being slain.

Like me.

What would Liliana Remnant think of her? Would she be disgraced by her failings? Ashamed of her lack of control? Afraid of her?

Or would she see something good in her?

Could Keira be something better?

Whispering reassurance.

Dr. Neri-sel was right. She was always right. She had a responsibility to everyone that needed her. And that meant being better.

The rescue had been sloppy. Far too long, and far too tight because she had gotten incredibly distracted. The hits being a reminder of that. Bodies flew all around her and she couldn’t even keep her mouth from watering at the idea of ripping the poor bastard’s body as she feasted on it in the cockpit, spilling his guts everywhere.

She head-butted the arm.

“Shut up.” She pleaded.

The crew were almost wiped out, the ship had lost all its cargo except the two or three crates that hadn’t been ejected and that girl.

Rosemaria Stonework.

Small, light, pretty. The only person she physically saved, and she put her in an even greater danger when she fought with her inside. Of course she furious, and had every right to curse her out. She didn’t even dare to look back once she was inside the Lagrange once more.

I hope I never have to see you again.

An eco in her solitary mind.

“Lily. Do you think things would be better if I had… if I hadn’t… if…” she couldn’t even finish the sentence as a strong wave of negation came over her, then a wave of… sadness, worry, comfort.

“I… I’ll do my best Lily.”

Chapter Text

Chirping birds. Rays of sunshine. The smell of the morning dew. Those were the three things that Rosemaria Ryn Stonework felt as the morrow vanished the night. Slow was she to rise from the first good night of sleep she had gotten in the longest time. As the barrier between dreams and reality had not been fully formed, Rosemary blurry eyes perceived a very familiar room.

Her old room.

The sound of rain coming in from the old creaking window as the wind tried to break through. To protect them from the mosquitoes, a pair of old fabrics coming down from the ceiling unto the three beds next to each other for her and her sisters. The wooden floor beneath covered in the scratches of the beds pushed together. Toys and shelves full of them, paintings of dubious quality but never without love plastered across the walls. A single night lamp next to her own bed, always at her command, always her responsibility.

Her responsibility.

“Wake up Rosemary, wake up!”

Her alarm went off.

The world spun around her. Her far too comfortable heart jumped in her chest. Responsibility. Job. Today was her first day at the job.

Nya continued playing her horrible alarm against her wishes, urging her in the ways only cats could, to get a move on.

She struggled against the trap that were her bed sheets, fought ceaselessly against the siren’s call of the pillow, and slayed many a hopes to return to her dreams. In record time, she found her face on the ground with her foot entangled on her bed.

While hurt, she was now wide awake.

“Nya, shut the alarm, please.”

Nya did as asked.

Rosemary, still on the floor, knew that it was bullshit she had to get a move on. Barely having arrived at her new minimalist home, with naught a day to spare to get her bearings, was not an ideal way to start a whole new life. She didn’t even have her things unpacked.

“What even am I going to wear?” She asked to Nya and herself.

“Nya!”

“Not a helpful answer.” Rosemary disentangled herself. “We have two options. Open all of our bags and put it in the bed to dig through them or grab the first thing we find and leave the rest packed.”

“Nya nya.” Nya said pensively.

Rosemary knew that Nya knew that she herself knew the correct, and responsibilities answer. Forcing herself to see the mess would make her clean it afterwards. Yet she wasn’t sure this time it would work. The reason was not because she wouldn’t get the cleaning itch, but because she didn’t know how much time, and energy she would have left.

Especially after cussing out her new employee.

Would she even have a job after today?

“Option two it is then.” She answered.

After, eventually, having left the uncomforting floor, Rosemary went to dress herself.

The engineer chose the most uncharacteristic outfit for her. Pair of old jeans, a t-shirt she wouldn’t mind getting grease or motor oil on it, a pair of tennis shoes, light makeup, and her personal bag.

“I’m not wearing the boots until I am at the hangar.” She declared.

Nya who seemed to disagree.

“What?”

Nya helpfully pointed with a chalk board to the one item she hated more than anything in the entire world. The steel toe boots.

“Oh, I’m not wearing those. You know they weigh a kilo a piece. My poor feet can’t handle that.”

Nya protested again.

“Complain all you want. You have a theoretical knowledge of weight anyway.”

Not one to be refused, Nya went on the offensive.

It wasn’t just the normal barrage of meowing that came from her cat assistant that Rosemary heard, but something much worse. It was a recording, or more specifically the recording. Fifth semester engineering, manufacturing introduction.

The most common workshop accidents, their consequences, and how to avoid them.

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” Rosemary felt herself tense up at the memory of the images she saw that day.

Even censored, the amount of red and bone white coloration ok the screen was evident.

“Damned things.” She cursed the boots she swiftly had grabbed. “I hope I get a locker, or something similar. I’m not wearing them outside the hangar.”

The playback stopped. Nya approved.

Outfit ready, cargo secured, aquamarine hair tied in messy pigtails and random twigs removed from it, junior engineer Rosemary Ryn Stonework was ready for her first. Stars willed it so, not the last day of work.

Rosemary knew that traveling on an empty stomach, especially herself being who she was, was a recipe for disaster. But having not had the time to buy anything after arrived, her kitchen was empty. With nary a knowledge of a good place to grab some grub, she settled on grabbing a bite at the station before her train left.

And, as much as it hurt her wallet, she ordered another Haro cab to take her there.

Soon she would learn how to navigate the public transport system, or rather Nya would tell her what to do, as she always did. But today was also not that day.

Today her new life officially started.

“Don’t be an ass.” Rosemary both hyped and chastised herself up. “Don’t be an ass.”

And at least try to sound grateful when you see the Remnant girl.

Her tablet lit up. It was a message from Nora.

On my way to the station. Meet you there.

“Should I bring anything with me?” Nya relayed Rosemary’s message.

Only your tablet and some clothes.

Rosemary did as asked.

“You guard the fort Miau.” She told her plushy.

Miau looked at her as loyal as ever.

“Come on Nya.” Rosemary turned towards the Gunpla. Her aquamarine eyes reflected on the shining plates longingly. “Gotta go mom. Love you.”

This second part of the train station was far more hostile than she’d expected. It wasn’t because of the long staircase going down to the underground, like a river going downstream to the bowls of the world. Neither was it the claustrophobic feeling of the giant roof above her head being crushed to a corridor barely twice her height. As Rosemary had experience before back home, a metro system was not something that could stop her.

It was the amount of people that flooded the station. So many where there that nothing about anyone popped out in her mind. They were colors of white, pink and tawny above fabrics of all shapes, colors and forms. They clashed against the walls, flowed violently down the stairs, moved chaotically through the floors and only slowed down in the dam that were tourniquets.

“Fuck me.” The thought escaped her mouth when she saw her destination.

“Never been with so many people before?” Nora, her dutiful guide, asked.

“Yes?” Rosemary replied, unsure playing with one of her hair twigs. “But not in a space so tight.”

“Don’t worry then, you’ll get used to it. In time, it will just be white noise.” Nora reassured her in a way that felt so lacking. “Come now. We don’t want to miss the train.”

Disaster struck on the first step she took down the stairs.

Taking neither care not consideration for any of their fellow human beings, a hurried man ran past her hitting her squarely on the shoulder. The sudden impact made Rosemary lose her footing. Her feet reacted faster than her eyes. Right foot went down, then left. A million calculations passed through her head to determine the stride and distance she needed to not be claimed by the stairs. Left, right, left, right, left, right. She was flying down the stairs, keeping her momentum so as to not fall down. Running down, unable to scream.

Nora was, but not her.

Left. Right. Left. Someone in front of her was stopping to pick up something on the ground. Circle around them at the perfect angle. Keep the speed or die. Left, right, more towards the right. Left. Right. Down and down.

She was at the bottom of the stairs.

And she couldn’t help but eloquently show the guy who had originally pushed her how far they needed to shove their head up their ass.

“Gigantic piece of shit.” She insulted them.

They turned and flipped her off, tried to go inside their train. As they were entering the doors closed around their leg. They cussed her out again.

Rosemary laughed at their misfortune.

“Are you alright?” Nora caught up to her.

“Am alive.” She answered. “But we should get a move on before we are caught like asshat over there.”

“Sure thing.” Nora agreed, taking the lead once more. “But first give me your tablet please. I need to give you your own special pass, so you don’t have to deal with tickets like the rest of the ravel.”

Rosemary did as was asked. Pulling out her old, beaten-up tablet, she unblocked it for Nora who took it with care. Her senior took out her own tablet and placed it next to her, only to then tilt her head in confusion. She then went to her settings, only to then open her eyes in an apparent show of disbelief.

“How old is your tablet?” Nora asked.

“Five or so years old.” Rosemary answered.

“That’s weird. I should be able to give you your stuff.” Nora scratched her head. “I even see the hardware and all that. But maybe it is a bit too old.”

The young engineer turned towards the gate they needed to cross. Seeing everyone so flawlessly place their tablets or phones or whatever’s into the sockets and just go on in, something that she couldn’t do, made her feel more alienated. Some turned to look at her with either fascination or bother in their eyes. Both equally unnerving.

She had to remind herself that most people were just going to forget about her soon enough.

“I kind of expected that.” She admitted ashamed. “Do I now join the ravel?”

Nora giggled a bit.

“Only for a day.”

Her companion guided her towards one of the service machines nearby. A bulky blue thing about twice her width and height, filled with both a variety of buttons to make it work, and stickers explaining rather poorly how the prices worked.

For zone or time traveled, except to certain areas of the garden. A variety pass that allows tourists to visit a specific zone for ten days, or one much more expensive for twenty days. Another one for residents, divided into different zones with restricted access. And below all of that, a very helpful button that simply read Request Aid.

“Which ticket should I buy?” Rosemaria could feel her stomach turn and wiggle in place at the delays this was causing.

Top of her class, can’t even buy a metro ticket.

And already someone was starting a queue behind her.

“Gods, it has been a while since I bought one.” Nora admitted, a bit distracted because she was fiddling with her own tablet.

Not too soon had she asked her companion; a very dismissive groan came from the lady behind.

“I suppose the zone thirteen should work, considering we aren’t travelling out from here.” Nora assumed.

Nya agreed.

“And it does specify it grants access to the red line, which is the one we have to take.”

Rosemary clicked on it. Many more options came flying towards her, which she cared not to read for another loud sigh came behind her.

“I’ll be done when I’m done.” Rosemary helpfully responded to it, turning back to her task.

When the third sigh came, accompanied by a very unhelpful fake cough, Rosemary had had enough. She purchased the most expensive option, hurting her wallet once more. The machine helpfully printed her temporary pass.

“Finally.” The lady said almost pushing her out of the way. “Damned altari.”

Fueled with spite, Rosemary hit the assistance button.

“I want to report the machine took my card.” She said as soon as the electronic voice came to live.

The machine locked up.

“Please remain put until an assistant reaches you.”

The lady turned furiously red.

“Sucks to be you.” Rosemary bid her farewell.

With her temporary metro pass safely hanging from her neck, the two engineers entered the train.

The train moved quickly, efficiently but not silently. Her nerves were still a bit on edge with everything that had happened on the last day of her life, and the sound of grinding steel did not make it any better.

The subway ride was the pure antithesis to the train she’d taken to get to her new home.

Dark. Constricting. Unsavory.

Long had she left behind the general living area, the quarters, and the greenhouses of her town behind. All had been replaced by the efficient brutality of industrialization. Steel upon steel, walls of concrete barely painted with just the minimum of color to distinguish one from another.

Rosemary noted how the whole subway system was nothing more than the repurposed carrier network. The seats were opened clamps, the handlebars sluggishly welded unto the walls, all compounded by the tight tunnel they were travelling through.

This was not a place designed for humans.

The train stopped. Its doors opened up to a station far more ominous than any they’d passed through before. Its walls stretched towards a roof barely distinguishable, with the echoes of their journey reverberating all around the pillars that supported them.

The landing platform, contrary to the single painted concrete slab of the other stations, was fiercely guarded. A red decontamination wall in front of her, armed guards at the ready eyeing anyone with suspicion, and an intimidating pair of watchtowers to the side.

“This is our stop.” Nora told her.

But contradicting herself, Nora put up an arm in front of Rosemary.

Warning! All passengers past this point must provide G level identification to proceed!

Noncompliance will result in arrest or use of lethal force.

 Rosemary’s heart jumped out of her chest. Her mind raced in circles to find an ID she had no idea even existed.

“What?” She asked Nora. “What ID?”

“That was one of the things I was supposed to give you, but the tablet thing happened.” Nora explained, not helping the altari’s feelings. “I have sent a message to my team to have them help us out. Someone should be here already.”

Nora looked through the window, yet her eyes didn’t spell relief.

The train doors opened. The passengers began to leave. Nora stood up and urged her now to follow her.

“Maybe they are on their way.” Nora wished unconvinced.

Rosemary gulped, grabbed her stuff, and gave a silent prayer to the lady of Roses.

“I didn’t survive the Lagrange to be thrown out the airlock.” She said out loud to muster whatever courage she could.

It didn’t work.

She took a deep breath.

Took a simple step out of the train. Then the next.

The doors closed behind her.

This was it.

“Damned my rusted luck.” She whispered to Nora who signaled for her to be quiet.

They both got in line.

The queue to pass through security was not a slow one, contrary to Rosemary’s wishes. As far as the young engineer could tell, this was for one very simple thing. The guards already knew most of the workers by heart. Which in her circumstances meant the worst for her.

Here she was, a girl with aquamarine hair and grey skin, far shorter than the average person in the queue, shaking at the smallest hint of movement from anyone or anything. She was not only suspicious, but the only suspicious one here.

A five-person line.

And she had not been granted access to be here.

Yellow to green. The security scanner let another person pass without a hitch. Four to go.

Tick-tock.

Yellow to green. Three to go.

Tick-tock.

Nora’s face was unreadable except for the small twitch on her mouth every time the line got shorter.

Another train arrived. Many more voices came from behind them, ready to begin their days work. To Rosemary, the idea of letting them past first seemed good at first, but she quickly discarded it. That would certainly be the most suspicious thing.

But maybe someone would be more nervous than her?

“You there.” One of the police officers called at her. She almost jumped in place.

“Yes?” She asked with her heart fighting to escape her chest.

“Make a new line over here please. We are opening another entrance.”

Rosemary nodded while she cursed her rusted luck. She did as was asked.

Nora followed her too.

“I’m sorry miss, but you have to stay in the other line to expedite the process.”

“It’s her first day at work.” Nora told the officer who stood now towering above the altari girl. “I am to be her guide until we are in.”

“That so?” The officer, a burly person whose bullet proof vest barely fitted them, turned to Rosemary. Now completely aware of her status, he asked. “Could I see your IDs please?”

Nora went pale.

They needed more time. Anything that would grant them some precious seconds for a savior.

Rosemary pulled out her passport.

“No. I need your work ID.” The officer talked down to her. “The one that should be in your tablet.”

“My mistake.” She answered without letting the belittlement hurt her.

Rosemary took out her tablet fully knowing what was to come.

“I still have her ID.” Nora told the officer who seemed unconvinced. “I can show it to you.”

“Do so now.”

Nora complied by very explicitly showing every step she took to do so. First, she unlocked her tablet, then navigated to the files, and opened hers up first. The police officer didn’t move her eyes. Yet, as Rosemary noted, had his hand ready on his gun.

When Nora went to open her ID, Rosemary sensed a dread far more powerful than the pull of the stormveil.

Nora clicked her file. Her tablet froze. One second. Two seconds. Three seconds. She clicked again.

The police officer was unholstering their weapon.

A popup came up.

File corrupted.

“What?” Nora let out.

With a hand whose natural pink had faded, replaced by intense red, the police officer pulled out their weapon. Sights aimed at her.

“On the ground, now!”

Before Nora could say anything in protest, a figure moved behind the guard. Its presence carried an intense gravity to it, for not a single pair of eyes could escape looking at them. Even the guard couldn’t resist looking back.

By pure instinct, Rosemary knew that they were a pilot

“Miss Huntsman.” The police officer greeted with the reverence only worthy of a prince.

And Rosemary couldn’t blame him. The woman in front of her was gorgeous.

White and orange flight suit, with a fiery feather painted across their left arm that shone brightly as they moved to a regal pose of authority. Long flowing auburn red hair that fell all the way to their chest, covering in an enchantingly mysterious way part of their pearly pinkish.

 “Is there a problem officer Trevor?” Even her voice, as sweet as strawberry cake, made her feel weak on her knees.

“Just routine work ma’am. We had a situation.” He said like one would casually talk about missing the bus.

“I see that.” Huntsman said stepping between them and the officer. “And I know what the misunderstanding is. So please, put this away.”

With her slender hand, she gently helped the guard put their gun away.

“I’ve come to deliver something to our newest engineer.”

Miss Huntsman opened partially her flight suit, exposing more of her delightful neck, making Rosemary blush a bit. From there she took out an RFID card similar to the aquamarine’s temporary train pass.

“Miss Nora here told me that she wasn’t able to pass the files, wasn’t she?

“Yes.” Rosemary answered captivated by the beauty of the woman who’d come and saved her “Apparently, the files got corrupted.”

“It is not the first time a thing like this has happened, right Miss Nora?” She asked, holding her whole attention towards the young aquamarine.

“No ma’am.” Nora answered.

“Then I am glad I made this backup just in case.” She said, gifting a smile to Rosemary. And what a precious smile it was. All for her, all for her.

Huntsman grabbed the aquamarine hands in hers, eliciting a small meow from her.

And from her angelic voice, Huntsman laughed a warm and caring laugh. A laugh just for her.

“Aren’t you an adorable little mitten?” With how close they were now; Rosemary could see that she wasn’t beautiful. She was strikingly enchanting. “Here, this will help you pass through.”

In her hands Huntsman left an RFID card not too dissimilar to her metro pass. Such a simple act, made in such a casual way, was far more than the young altari woman could handle. Hence, she almost let it drop to the ground.

“Thank you.” She drooled out the words, making herself feel dumb. Dumb as a teenager developing a crush.

“Don’t mention it.” The woman that had captivated her told her. “Now, shall we complete the rest of your tour?”

“Yes, please.”

And so, when they crossed the door, the once frightening wall of light changed from yellow to green.

G access granted. Welcome Junior engineer Rosemaria Ryn Stonework.

“Sorry for the inconvenience ma’am.” Officer Trevor apologized. Rosemary bit her tongue.

She wasn’t about to ruin this beautiful moment with her snarkiness.

“We should head to the quartermaster first so you can get your things.” Nora suggested.

“Great idea Miss Nora. Lead the way please.”

Travelling in zero gravity had not been something that took long for Rosemary to get used to. The use of conveyer belts, or personal propulsion systems had become second nature to her since her internship in the Lagrange. And part of her reveled on the fact that she didn’t need to walk all the way down to their destination. The long hallway stretched in front of her, almost as long as she remembered the length of the old ship that had carried her here.

As each second passed, what Rosemary expected this place to be was nothing short of beating her expectations. Long had they abandoned the dark and foreboding entrance to be greeted by a multitude of lights, signals and practical colors everywhere. But the most important part of all was how massive it seemed.

The workshop was a delight to behold. A marvel of some of the most advanced CNC machines, with so many warning signs everywhere finely delimiting their workspace. Rows and rows of raw materials begging to be given purpose by the forge.

It was a culture shock seeing just how casually some of her fellow workers carried massive engines worth billions of stars, while cracking jokes and teasing each other. She was baffled when another group flew by them, gambling some of their earnings at how quick their pilot would finish the next mission.

“So wild.” Rosemary said more to herself than her companions.

Nya seemed to agree.

“You haven’t seen this place in a busy day.” Nora added, which definitely caught her attention.

The feeling intensified once the doors out of the workshop opened to the colossal space behind them. The running track. The Mobile Suits standing guard. The Mobile Workers and Mobile Cargos relentlessly moving from one side to another carrying their loads to their hangars. In their close proximity the control tower managing the chaos outside.

And far away, intense red light shone as a warning. The road was cleared in record time. The main port door opened up to the void outside, and a ship of white and blue was let in.

Celebrations were heard all throughout the place.

A place grander than life.

And her future life.

Even Nya was getting excited in her necklace.

“Are you ok Miss Rosemaria?” Huntsman asked her.

“I am.” Rosemary answered clamoring Huntsman’s attention. “And please, call me Rosemary. Rosemaria has too many syllables.”

They resumed their travel.

“I shall do so then, Rosemary.” The girl could feel how the pilot delighted herself when she said her name. Drinking each syllable with those red lips of hers. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but is the name derived of a beautiful flower?”

Rosemary felt herself grow warm without knowing why. Even Nya reacted to it a cute meow of her own.

“It is.” She answered having to look away. “It also is my favorite one.”

“Duly noted.” Huntsman said and the aquamarine’s heart skipped a beat.

So distracted was she on whatever strangeness had taken her heart, that Rosemary stopped paying attention to her surroundings. Only once the conveyer belt they had been holding on stopped was she forced back to reality.

And reality was another queue.

But with Huntsman here...

“Ma’am, isn’t your meeting starting soon?” Nora added to the moment in spite of Rosemary’s annoyance.

Huntsman sighed and turned towards her once more.

“You are right Miss Nora. Mister Hestral will have my head if I arrive late once more.” She said to the aquamarine’s disappointment. “I have to bid you two ladies goodbye.”

“Thank you for your help.” Rosemary said far too desperately.

“It was my pleasure.” The enchanting woman floated next to her, so close to her she could smell her perfume. Sweet and calming strawberries. “Here. Have my contact saved.”

Rosemary smiled, dumbly smiled, giggled and meowed a bit.

Dalia Lament Huntsman

Add to contacts? :3

“Yes Nya.”

“And don’t doubt in contacting me if you need anything.” Dalia bid her farewell. “I hope we can see each other again soon.”

“Hope so too.” Rosemary giggled again.

And with that, she was gone.

The line to get her stuff was long and irritating. It was not, absolutely not, because Dalia had had to leave, but because of many other reasons.

Or at least that’s what she told herself.

It was easy to convince herself of that because of where she was, or more poignantly, of who she was surrounded by. Here she was in line with Nora waiting for their turn, while behind her two men were complaining about their female coworker.

“I just told her she looked better when she put in the effort for the makeup, you know?”

“Honestly. She’s a bit hysterical at times.”

“Yeah, tell me about it. Sending a message to the chief just because I asked her out.”

And it was not the only instance of it happening. Over the hour spent in line, both women were privy to many similar things. The inappropriate jokes, the unsolicited comments, the stares. Especially those coming from the guys behind them.

After a grueling half hour of floating slowly forward, checking her tablet from time to time, she felt someone tapping her shoulder.

Annoyed, she turned around to see them closer than she thought.

“Hey Nora.” The same guy from before, a pearly faced man with a scruffy blonde moustache, caught her companion’s attention. “Who’s the new girl?”

“My name’s Rosemary.” She responded, hiding her discomfort.

“Name’s Carther, this one’s Luke.” He pointed at his friend. “Two men ready for anything.”

For all Rosemary could tell was an identical twin of his, except for the bushier beard and more tones face. If one were to combine the two, they would have a full beard set. As such, she instantly forgot their names. Beard and Moustache would suffice.

“Rosemary. Nice name.” Beard said, eliciting nothing from her. “Coming in to pick your stuff?”

“I am.”

Beard seemed to examine her from top to bottom and up again, making her feel much more perturbed by him.

“Wait. I think you have a twig on your hair.” The man said stretching his hand towards her. Rosemary put her hand up.

“Yes, it is. Don’t touch it.” She sternly told him.

“Is it some new fashion trend I don’t know about?” He asked either curiously or mockingly. Rosemary chose to believe the latter.

“Something like that.”

“Is she one of your new teammates? Moustache said to Nora.

“She’s not Luke.” Nora responded keeping her distance. “And you don’t have to ask me. You can ask her herself.”

“Right, sorry. Nervous around new people, especially the cute ones.” Moustache said, and Rosemary bit her tongue. “If you don’t mind me asking Nora. If she’s not on your team, then why are you accompanying her?”

Once more ignored, once more denied. One new face thrown into Rosemary’s asshat bin. And as far as she could tell by the way Nora looked more than every so often at the queue, so where they in hers.

“Because no one else was available.” Nora answered politely but with no desire to continue the conversation.

“Weird. Don’t think any hangar has their whole team on leave. Well, except—"

Beard’s eyes went wide, and his face contorted into one Rosemary could read as either surprise or fear, maybe both. In the very next second it changed once more, but now clearly painting his rightful seriousness. Moustache remained baffled.

“Don’t tell me she’s going to work for the princess.” Moustache desperately blurted out.

And so, Rosemary’s fear came back.

“Next!” The echoing voice of the quartermaster called.

Rosemary didn’t care to answer, instead choosing to fly towards the requisitions counter. 

With a tawny cooper head fully shaven, and the longest silver she had ever seen, a small, outstandingly buff and old looking person was ready to receive her from behind the wire fence. And next to them, a small orange Haro happy to see her.

“Fresh meat I see.” The quartermaster greeted her.

“You could say that.” She answered, not being a complete fan of the joke. “Only just arrived.”

“Ah, so you must be the girl that came from the derelict. Waited all of yesterday for ya but guessed as much when we saw the news.” His gravelly voice brought back the last day’s memories. “Good on your survival. Shows you have some lucky bones in ya.”

“Newcomer, newcomer!” The Haro strangely greeted her. “Haro Rosemaria, haro!”

“Rosemary.” She corrected. “Rosemaria has too many syllables. Feels I’m getting scolded by my moms.”

“Hehe, I get that. Rosemary it is then.”

“Haro Rosemary, haro!”

“And I wouldn’t say I have any lucky bones.” She poked a twig in her hair before presenting her ID. “It is no fun being shot out into space.” The quartermaster laughed. “But I’m glad to be alive despite my rusted luck.”

“Never’eard that turn of phrase.” He pointed out.

“Just my own way of saying bad luck.” She shrugged.

He seemed content with the answer.

“Name’s Coh. I’m major of this little town we call the workshop.” He introduced himself. “You need anything, you come to me with the filled-out paperwork, and I’ll get it for you.”

“Understood.”

He took her ID, slotted it into the machine and left it alone while he went searching for something behind him.

Simple curiosity made the engineer look behind the quartermaster as he fiddled with his computer. The parts he could see of his room were some of the cleanest she’d ever seen a tool shed be. Hammers perfectly lined by size next to the wrenches that were not even a second off from their incline. Next to them were boxes and shelves that sported a color scheme that, she guessed, made perfect sense for the guy in front of her.

Once the computer had given him the clearance. Coh smiled at her and went to the back. What he brought with him caught her by surprise. A new tablet, black as night, thin as a nail, and as light as a twig.

“Newer model.” The quartermaster clarified giving it to her. “Standard for all personnel.”

“Feels like I could snap it in half by looking at it wrong.” She fiddled with the thing, abruptly stopping once a thought came to her head. “What if I have some special software on mine?” Rosemary asked, holding her necklace, her friend.

“Normally ya would need the permission of your chief, so ask him when ya see them.” He clarified. “What team will you be a part off then?”

She felt the twig snap from her hair.

“Well, that’s the point. I don’t –”

Her words were interrupted by the horrible rabble behind her. And to her dismay it came from Beard and Moustache, who were invading once more her personal space. Worst of all was how they had the audacity to take a peek at the quartermaster’s screen without her permission.

“Helia’s ass, you can’t be serious!” Beard said turning the screen for all to see.

Junior Engineer Rosemaria Ryn Stonework…

Assigned to:

GUNDAM REMNANT

“Hangar 13.” The quartermaster announced in a tone she could only place as worrying.

“She’s actually working for the princess.” Moustache said.

And Rosemary’s patience died.

She grabbed his jumper and forced him to look at her for once.

“Yes, I fucking am.” She told him to his face. “I was hired by the Azuriels to take care of their Gundam.”

“Hired by them?” His voice lowered its tone to a more aggressive one. She let him go. “Makes sense they had to hire someone external. No one wants to deal with them.”

“So, she has been taking care of it all this time? Alone?” Her curiosity got the better of her, she refused to disengage.

“Sure has.” Beard answered with an added shrug.

“Sometimes they graze us with their presence.” He added. “Like yesterday when they threw their bodyguards unto Mirasol. Poor girl almost had her arm broken.”

Without adding anything to the talk, the quartermaster came out of his room, bringing with him her starter kit. Next to her she placed a large toolbox and made for zero gravity, with a slot ok the top for her new tablet. And on top of it her own jumpsuit.

Black, red and gold.

Only then did the new engineer took notice of the uniforms the people close to her wore. Nora just the same as Huntsman in white and orange. Beard and Moustache shared silver and gold.

None of the onlookers whose eyes were glued to them had one similar to it.

And so, it truly dawned on her. She would be alone.

She would be alone.

“I mean. What were you expecting of them?” Moustache asked grabbing the jumpsuit. “It’s not like they can control their anger with how they were raised.”

“And how is that?” Was the question that turned Rosemary’s world around.

“A man.”

Silence.

No more words did Rosemaria Ryn Stonework let into her head.

The two words spoken by Moustache reverberated through her whole sense of self. Vile memories sprung from the center of herself. Memories of pain, of harm, of loneliness far deeper than even humanity could know off.

Nora was open-eyed. Moustache was moving his mouth; Beard was looking at her intensely.

In the white light of the workshop, in front of the quartermaster, surrounded by a group of strangers all taking this talk as spectacle, Rosemary was enveloped by that same loneliness once more.

Because it was hers, and Keira’s, and all of the girls like them. Because few understood what it felt like to be ostracized like them. Because the weight of that solitude crushed their lives.

I hope I never have to see you again.

Because Rosemaria Ryn Stonework knew one thing now.

This was a girl who was alone.

Alone.

Alone.

Rosemary took back her jumpsuit from Moustache’s arms.

“She isn’t anymore.”

Nora silently guided her out of there.

For the first time since waking up, the world was quiet. It didn’t mean that there was no noise around her, far from it. The Mobile Workers that passed close to her were some of the loudest machines she’d ever heard. Added with it the constant shouting between the workers at the port, and the warning sounds of machinery, this was the loudest place she’d ever been in.

Quietness came from somewhere else. Like the dreamscape she’d awoken to in the morrow, the silence was familiar to her.

Nora had helpfully grabbed one of the available carts to take her towards the hangar. As they drove to it the girl, trying to leave the disgusting talk that happened in the workshop behind, was explaining something to her. Rosemary could pay her no mind. No curios phrase came out of her stone lips, only individual, monotonous, and dismissive words.

Ok. Right. Thanks.

After some minutes Nora stopped trying.

Because Rosemary’s mind would not leave it behind. She couldn’t.

Whatever she might have heard; rumor or truth; insult or praise; descriptor or prescript about the woman known as Keira Azuriel Remnant would matter not to her now.

She would hear it from her first.

And so it was that Nora stopped the cart. They’d arrived at her destination.

“This is it.” Her guide pointed out. “Hangar thirteen.”

When Rosemary got off it, she took a good look at the hangar. Nothing about this place marked it as anything more than the house of a Mobile Suit. Not the doors, not the walls, not the roof, nor lights, nor the number thirteen painted upon it. A cursed hangar. A place of dread. The domain of one malicious woman.

All absolute bullshit.

What did stand out to her though was not in its shape, but in the way it had been vandalized.

Badly drawn graffiti and papers glued to the front, all covering what Rosemary could guess was a mural. Some were just lines meant to deface, others, like the cartoon of a very clear set of instructions on how the Remnant girl, nay Keira, should end her life with a noose. But most were simply words. Words the altari girl furiously recognized.

Amber blooded bitch.

Nora came next to her, silently watching.

“They don’t even get creative anymore.” Rosemary said tearing the paper away. “Nya, could you please create a list of things we need? And add some buckets of paint to it.”

Her assistant lit up. And in her tablet Rosemary saw her friend carry in her mouth a digital bucket that she took to a digital warehouse.

“Hey Rosemary.” Nora spoke up getting her attention. “Are you ok?”

“No.” Rosemary turned to the deeply uncomfortable Nora. “I am angry. Actually, rather furious. Maybe even seething.”

“I see.” She responded keeping her distance.

Her anger, fuel of her spite, master of her brain for a short time, told the altari girl to ask something. One simple question towards her guide and companion.

“Did you know?”

Nora remained quiet.

And Rosemary couldn’t blame her. Those three words had a weight far greater than the whole of Altaris itself.

Did you know that they were going to say that? The disrespect, outright brutality of their outing? Did you know the violence behind those words? The degradation, derealization, outright dehumanization that Keira has been suffering? Did you know what was going on? Allowed it? Participated in it? Did you know that she was just as her? Two Altari girls whose womanhood is so easily taken away the moment their actions are not approved? Did you know the rumors? The slander? The horrible things said behind her back with no way for her to explain? Did you know how to give her the chance?

Did you know?

Did you know her?

Did you try to know her?

Because Rosemary did. And if this caused her to burn the bridge of friendship that had barely begun being built between the two, she was fine with it. Let it burn to the ground, fall to the river. She would never stand to maintain such a relationship.

Not again. Never again.

“What do you think of her?” She emphasized the last word.

“I barely interacted with her.” Nora began. “Far as I can tell she’s a recluse, barely speaking with anyone outside of her assignments. She’s always followed by—”

“That’s not what I asked Nora.”

She fell quiet for an eternity. Staying in place without moving more than a muscle. Rosemary was not deluded enough to think that her words meant anything else but simple rage.  

“I don’t know.” Nora answered, clutching at her arm, looking away.

Maybe that was the most honest answer Rosemary could get.

“I hope one day you get to know her then.” The aquamarine engineer told her.

Nora nodded.

They both silently took down her things from the cart.

Only when Rosemary was ready to go inside the supposed Cursed Hangar Thirteen did Nora speak up again.

“See you around?”

“Yeah. See you around Nora.”

She went inside.

Darkness.

All around her was darkness.

Sheer an utterly present all around the zero-gravity hangar.

An inky absence all around her, far removed from the shadows of her sleep or the void between the stars. This darkness, this absence, was not one that lacked reason, nor did it will. It was not one passively hostile, nor one that followed the laws of nature as Rosemary understood them. The darkness clung to her, danced around her, curiously observed her.

And it was full of watchful, ill intent.

There were lights, her mind pointed out, red lights all around the hangar, red emergency lights. They were shining, they were active. They should have been able to cast the dark away.

But they didn’t.

They were an extension of it.

Coldness was what she felt next. Passive and unmoving, it stole the heat from her body, making her shudder. She would have guessed wrongly at first that this was because of the air conditioning, left on at frigid temperatures for a reason she could not comprehend.

The mist gathered around her.

The slow release of compressed air that would have permeated a place like this was absent. From the roof, the walls or the outlets no noise was heard. Neither did the metal creak at her feet.

Not even the buzzing of a faulty light could be heard.

There was naught a sound here.

This was a place of stillness. Hallowed or unhallowed, she couldn’t tell. But it wished not to be perturbed. To speak up, to make a sound greater than that of a pantry mouse, was to invite unwanted attention.

Only when she looked to the far side of the hangar, across where she was standing, that, did she see it.

Below the soft red lights the eldritch machine that had called this place home slumbered. Dark steady head with red armor covering its face with a cruel pair of green eyes, all below a pair of  golden stag horns. White armor in front of its neck, leading to the V shaped torso of black and gold, armor of red like a regal outfit of the era of gunpowder and steel. A pair of Bit-staves shaped like wings laid on its back, another shaped like a diamond on one forearm, its sibling on the other one. The two last Gund-bits laid at the back, near its hips forming as close as a skirt or cape. Its legs were not humanlike, but rather imitating the hind legs of a ram or horse, ending in cloven hooves.

But those eyes. Those cruel green eyes that even when dreaming, they starred at her.

Watching. Waiting. Judging.

Shivers went down her spine, freezing her blood. She stood perfectly still holding her breath. But at that moment Rosemary knew, even knowing it was impossible, where the unrelenting fear was coming from.

She was not wanted here.

“Breath Rosemary.” She told herself, defying the silence. “That’s the Mobile Suit they hired you to fix. You are gonna have to get used to it.”

Echo. Echo.

She knew her words had reached it.

Thankfully for the nervous engineer, the door she had gone through had landed her just behind the control panel. Everything she needed to start was in reach.

And she had her cuddly, digital friend.

Thankfully for her, the control panel had the slot available to connect her.

 “Nya, could you run a standard diagnostic?”

Nya meowed in approval when she finally slotted her in. The main screen, the lit up, welcoming her. The first light to pierce the gloom

Warning!

Gundam Remnant is not connected to the main grid.

Manual connection required before a diagnostic can be ran Nya :c.

“Ok.” She felt herself grow tenser. “Can you at least turn the lights on?” She said, sounding more like a plead.

Notice: Lights disconnected from the system.

Manual input required. Fusebox is next to main personnel entrance.

“Just behind me.” Rosemary added.

It should have been easy enough to turn around, push herself off from the console and land squarely next to the fuse box. Open it up, flip the switches and be done with it.

But those eyes. Those cursed eyes. Those defying eyes.

Paranoia. The fear of the dark. Should she stop watching the eldritch machine, two things would happen.

It would be there.

It wouldn’t be there.

So, without taking her eyes off it, she pushed herself away from the console. Without seeing where she would land, she braced herself to hit the metal wall. What she failed to notice was her wrong angle. Off by one degree, instead of the wall, a pipe greeted her shoulder.

Thunk!

“Shit.” She let out a yell as she recoiled from the pain.

Recoiled.

Took off her eyes from it.

She immediately looked back.

It was there. It was still there. No further away.

Closer.

Closer.

Had it come closer?

“You are growing paranoid on me Rosemary.” She chastised herself before opening the fuse box.

The switches, helpfully painted with fluorescent paint, glowed softly against the darkness. With one flick the darkness would recede. With one movement all of this would be over.

Her hand was shaking.  

Why? Why was she nervous? What was there in this whole place that made this the most difficult thing she was about to do?

Why did she feel such intense dread?

Was it because that damned Gundam didn’t like it?  

“P-please don’t!” Out of nowhere a voice came right behind her. Soft, nervous, doubtful as if asking any favor was far beyond any reasonable thing to do. “I am too sensitive to light.” She weakly pleaded.

Rosemary turned around to see the person calling to her.

With the tip of her gloved hand the dreaded pilot of Gundam Remnant, princess of the cursed hangar thirteen, held herself to the wall, expertly balancing herself as if she was the master of gravity itself. Now not hidden behind a screen, but in full presence in front of the engineer, she could finally see the face of the girl she had been entrusted to help. Messy short hair, runny makeup, scars covering her face, and a cute pair of small antlers on her head just above her ears. The aquamarine girl couldn’t help but wonder about the story behind each one of those things.

But she knew one thing. She wanted it to be Keira Azuriel Remnant who told her.

The pilot’s one puffy, glassy, red eye opened wide, when recognition came to her.

Stars. She had been crying.

And for a moment, in the dark stillness that was the cursed hangar thirteen, she stared at that woman. The daughter who she had come to serve from a faraway land, having uprooted her whole life to get her. The woman who had been so violently rebuked by the fellowship called Port Thirteen she had been entrusted to. The pilot who had saved her life.

She was crying. Not long ago.

Rosemary couldn’t say why, nor when had it changed, but the darkness that had enveloped her felt lighter, more comfortable.

Somehow, she knew that she was safe.

In the red emergency light of the hangar, enveloped by the hexed darkness of the hangar, Rosemary’s whole world was one and only one thing.

“You…” Both said in unison.

Echo.

Echo.

Echo

Neither of them could forget how their first meeting went. A violent spectacle with their lives hanging by a thread. A daring rescue, or a botched assignment, one or the other, that day had brought the two here. It felt like a distant memory, one that brought deep shame to the engineer. And with everything Rosemary had unwittingly learned of Keira without her knowledge, it made it even worse.

‘She’s like me.’ She thought. ‘Just another girl like me. Just like I was.’

“Are you feeling better?” The dreaded pilot of the Gundam named Remnant asked her. “I was worried about you.”

“I am.” Rosemary answered. The shame intensified. No number of words could ever wash it away fully. But she needed to try anyway.

The structure was one all kids learned since they were little: gratitude and apology. Thanks you, I’m sorry. Happiness and regret. All in order to show one thing.

Understanding.

She wanted to apologize. She needed--

‘But what if she laughs?’ That voice came back to her. ‘What if she brushes you off? Tells you how big of an ungrateful little bitch you have been? Humiliates you by kicking you out of the hangar, telling you to fuck off? Does she truly deserve for you to apologize? Don’t—'

“I’m sorry I made you a part of the firefight.” Keira spoke up without looking at her. “It was horribly irresponsible of me to have dragged you along into it, especially because you were hurt. Please forgive me.”

Rosemary’s thoughts stopped on tier tracks. So preoccupied had she been in her own head she was taken aback by her savior’s words. She, the aquamarine girl, was the one that messed up, ungrateful as she always was.

She had been crying.

“Stop apologizing.” Rosemary’s words were harsher than she had wanted. She needed to course correct. “No one knew there were going to be hostile Mobile Suits out there. You did what you could, more than that.”

Keira turned to her with the surprised face of a confused puppy who had just been petted for the first time. Rosemary grew warm.

“Thank you for saving my life.”

Keira’s eye lit up like the stars. She smiled at her, a wide, caring, grateful smile.

‘Cute.’ She thought. ‘Cute little smile.’

 Rosemary couldn’t help but wonder how often she got to smile like that.

“That’s my job.” Keira triumphantly said with an awkward thumbs up. “But I wanted to ask, what are you doing here?”

“I am your new engineer.” Rosemary announced choosing the most direct words.

As she expected, Keira looked at her confused.

“I don’t remember asking for a new engineer.” The pilot told her.

“You didn’t.” Rosemary explained to her. “But could we have this talk not in the dark, please?”

“Oh right. Sorry.” Keira apologized. “I only need to grab my mask. The lights give me a migraine if I don’t have it on. It-it blocks out mo-most light” She explained as if Rosemary would refuse her request otherwise.

“I understand.” Rosemary said, swallowing her annoyance at the repeated apology. “Where do you last remember leaving it?”

“I was working on Lily’s left shoulder, welding the plate back together because she had been badly hit on the back.” She explained to Rosemary. “But I burnt myself, so I went to grab some bandages.” Keira exposed her shoulder to her.

Rosemary grimaced at the sight. Not wanting to be reminded of her training video for the second time today, she looked away almost immediately.

“I left my mask floating there, but I didn’t have the time to pick it off before you tried to turn on the lights.”

“Ok. Go pick it up, then we can talk.”

Keira nodded while she positioned herself in the wall like a jumping lizard. When she aligned herself, she jumped, fading into the darkness.

Thunk!

“You ok?” Rosemary let out with more anxiety that she had wanted.

“I found it!” The pilot answered victorious, with that same childhood gleam of their first encounter. “Give me just a second.”

Keira, as silent as before, appeared next to her, now her face covered in the same mask she’d seen before.

Rosemary felt herself grow a bit disappointed she couldn’t see her smile again. But they had more important things to focus on.

In Rosemary’s head everything she needed to talk about ran through. Topics that would take a lot of time to nail down, many of which would need to be revisited later down the line. Her job, their encounter, the reality in which Keira had been living in.

The fact that they were both women cut of the same cloth.

“Ok. I’m ready.”

Rosemary turned on the lights.

Chapter Text

---

If there was one thing that Kiki’s dads had told her was to always clean before guests arrived. First step of being a good host.

“It is not a matter of decorum, nor about one upping them.” Dad, who was always right, explained to her one day. “It is about letting them know how much you appreciate them coming here to see you.”

Kiki understood the truth of those words easily, even if some aspects of them were confusing.

“What if they come but I didn’t know they were coming?” She added rocking slowly on her chair. “Or I don’t know them?”

“For the former Kiki clean the space as much as you can, apologize for the inconvenience, but focus more on them than in their surroundings.” What amazing words was he saying. Always right. “For the latter, treat them with formality and decorum.” He stopped for a while, seeing that she was not getting it. Because Kiki always had difficulty getting it. “Like in your fairy books. They are a travelling prince visiting your castle.”

Kiki smiled. She got it now.

“If they are hungry…”

“We bake bread!” Kiki finished eliciting a laugh from her dad.

“Yes Kiki. And if they are sleepy…”

“We make their bed!”

“Exactly.” He gave her a headpat with her permission. “And if they want shelter.”

“We build it for them.” She smiled a childish smile, tooth missing and all.

“Now, why don’t you get yourself dressed? We do have guests coming soon.”

And there it was. The one thing Kiki felt off about. Because it felt weird, being dressed in that small suit made to fit her perfectly. Jacket, pants, dress shirt. Tie. Didn’t matter how many times her dads told her how handsome she looked in it. It felt weird. Off. Strange. Dumb.

Kiki felt dumb again. It was just a suit. What could be so wrong about it?

“Yes dad. I’ll be a good host.” She answered giving him a hug. “Love you.”

“Love you too my handsome boy.”

She would be a good host. She would be a good host. She would be a good host.

When white light washed away the darkness of the hangar, Keira felt herself grow incredibly ashamed.

Now, without any veil to hide it and with the gravity turned back on, the mess that was her and Lily’s home came into view of their guest. Just in the control platform overlooking the main work area below, had a modicum of components, tools, and spare parts laying around. She couldn’t even blame the Haros because they had been charging since yesterday.

“I’m terribly sorry. The hangar is a horrible mess.” Keira apologized to her unexpected guest. “I didn’t have the time to clean.”

The girl with the aquamarine eyes looked intently at her.

“Don’t apologize.” She sternly ordered her. “It’s a hangar. It will rarely be spotless.”

“Oh. Ok.” Keira answered feeling that she might have already annoyed her. “Can I get you anything? Water, snacks?”

“A glass of water please.” Rosemaria accepted. “And a place to sit down.”

Keira nodded and went to the meager pantry she had close by. Once, she was kind of sure, it would have been full of cups, abandoned coffee bags, and sugar cubes. Now a lonely pair of cups laid covered in a thin layer of dust. She took both of them out, quickly cleaned them and, once filled, gave one to her visitor.

The woman, her supposed new engineer, drank it without much fanfare.

“Let me get some seats.” She said pulling a pair of foldable chairs from a chest nearby.

Nothing about the way they were interacting felt right. Whatever semblance of luxury or comfort she should have been able to offer her guest she lacked. A nicer chair, a variety of things to drink, maybe organizing a much nicer place to talk. But she had not those things. And she had made do.

Another fumble in her treatment of this girl.

Once they were both seated, Keira didn’t know how to proceed. She had already refused the snacks (thank the stars because she had none), was seated, and had enjoyed a glass of water.

Perhaps, Keria thought, asking her directly would be for the best.

“So.” She looked around her, trying to find the correct way to ask. “What’s this about being my engineer?”

“It is as I said. I am your new engineer, Miss Azuriel.” Professionally, the girl answered. “I was hired to fulfill all maintenance and repairs to your Mobile Suit.”

Keira took a good look at the woman that had so nonchalantly proclaimed such a thing. She was small, about a head smaller than she was, tied in pigtails was her natural aquamarine hair, a color which she shared with her eyes. A stark contrast to the color of her skin, grey like the stone in which her home Vernia had been built. Simple, yet well-kept clothes that fitted her very nicely, with an added round necklace to compliment it all. What caught most of her attention though was the twigs tangled in her hair.

“I don’t remember signing anything about that, sorry.” She apologized once more, earning a low growl from the engineer.

“You haven’t.” Rosemaria grabbed her tablet from the table. A bulky thing filled with kitty stickers dressed in various outfits, some casual, some cartoony.

With a couple of flicks, she showed the screen to her, in which a contract laid. Her full name was there on display. Rosemaria Ryn Stonework, for the position of chief engineer for Gundam Remnant.

And just next to her name, was her dad’s name.

Mikah Azuriel.

“Wait.” She jumped from her seat, and took the tablet from the girl’s hands. Reading the contract as fast as she could (incredibly slow) she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Full contract, with a list of tasks so massive it almost gave her a headache, capped off with a simple dotted line, her dad’s name perfectly written in cursive.

Like he always did.

“Yo-you talked with my dads?” She had to ask.

“Hired by them in person.” The girl with aquamarine eyes confirmed as one would casually drop a fun fact. Keira knew that was as rare as finding a new planar shard.

“They’d heard you had a recent downsizing.” The engineer added clearly unaware of everything. “And that you needed help.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.” Keira deflated. The other girl grunted. “I didn’t know I was doing that poorly.”

“That’s not the point.” The engineer bit back, sending a chill down her spine. “You shouldn’t be handling both maintenance and piloting. It is just outright too much work. Hence, why I am here.”

“I’m sorry.” She apologized again. “I didn’t mean—”

“Keira!” Rosemaria broke formality. “You shouldn’t have ever been put in this situation. Stop apologizing.”

“O-ok.” Keira grew a bit smaller.

The Remnant heir could feel Lily’s gaze from across the hangar, curiously looking over the conversation the two of them were having. And who wouldn’t be? By sheer coincide the woman she had saved not two days ago was here, in their hangar, talking about how she was her new engineer. Most unbelievable of all, hired by her own dads.

How much did they know about her life? They hadn’t shared a word in so long…

Yet it was obvious that they had heard something. Probably the worst of it all.

The disappearance.

So they had come to her rescue again, as before, as always. Because once more she had fucked over something so massively that she had to rely on their help. Because she brought nothing but misfortune to everyone involved with her.

The Lagrange.

Her dada’s missing eye.

Helia’s Wrath.

“Is everything alright?” The woman asked her impatiently, probably because Keira, dumb Keira, had been lost in thought again.

Because no. Nothing was alright.

Did the woman in front of her knew what she was asking? She didn’t mean it in the standard crushing workload of the job, nor the overwhelming feelings that came with dealing with the life, and death, of the people they were bound to rescue.

She meant herself.

Because her stomach began to hurt again. Because her fangs were still sharp. Because her whole sense of being hung by a thread. Because she was her, Keira Azuriel Remnant, and she was not someone worthy of help.

“I just don’t want t-to cause you any troubles.” She weakly told her. “I’m not someone nice to have around.”

“Well, I barely know you, don’t I?” Rosemaria rebutted her. “Barely knew of your existence about a month ago. Didn’t even recognize you when you saved me.”

“But still.” Keira’s heart thundered inside her. “I—”

The engineer’s grabbed her by the scruff of her neck, lowering her to see her eye to eye.

“What are you going to say?” The intense look in her aquamarine eyes blinded her. “That you are a social pariah? An outcast? That I am better off going to find a new team to work for in this horrible place? That I should never associate with you because everything will go downhill should I do it?” Her words were beat to beat what Keira’s heart wanted to warn her about. But where in the pilot there was fear, in the engineer there was searing rage. “Because let me tell you Miss Remnant. I didn’t upheave my whole life just for you to pity yourself into telling me to leave you the fuck alone. And neither you, nor your Gundam will make me leave.”

She let her go.

“So, let us avoid that song and dance. I am Rosemaria Ryn Stonework, your new engineer, whether you like it or not.”

The message was loud and clear, and Keira could do nothing but stare at her, eye wide open. Her reservations, nay, her fears she threw back to the depths of her mind.

She could even feel Lily’s own surprise at the display. And, in that moment, she understood two important things.

One. The reason why her dad had hired her.

Two. Even if she couldn’t grasp the whole depth of it, there laid a kinship between the two.

“Ok.” She accepted the engineer who had so fervently entered her life.

“Well then.” Rosemaria grabbed her tablet back, and scrolled down to the last line of her contract. In there one space remained empty.

One with Keira’s own name.

“I do need your approval Miss—”

“Call me Keira, please.” She interrupted, knowing formalities were long dead by now.

She signed the contract.

“Then you can call me Rosemary.” She extended her hand. “Rosemaria has too many syllables.”

Second order of business for today after the unorthodox hiring, was a tour of the hangar. At least that’s what Lily’s suggestion was, and it made sense to her. If they were going to work together soon, it was a good practice to have your engineer know where she could do her engineering. Or something like that.

What Keira was aware of is that she didn’t know how to do one.

She, improvising went on to explain a variety of things about the hangar.

It was a big place, much grander than it was required for the singular Mobile Suit that called this place home.

On their right, past the main gates of the hangar, was the mess that once would have been the storage where boxes of unknown contents laid peacefully abandoned.

In front of that was the Mobile Suit storage and transportation units, made for when Lily needed to be moved inside the Garden proper. At least she knew that the reason there were two of them was if one were to break down. It hadn’t happened yet, but it could.

In the middle of the far wall, just above the walkway, was the control room, in that small place one could manipulate the crane that dangled on top of Lily, and was a requirement to coordinate the Mobile Suits transfers. Having to coordinate with the Haros was always a problem, but she couldn’t blame them, their OS was outdated and she hadn’t had the time to update it.

But the star of the show was closest to them, just in front. There they laid the two work platforms to repair, maintain, and change the whatever standard size Mobile Suit. Why did they have two here? Once more she couldn’t answer. She only knew that Lily liked the furthest one, the one that allowed her to watch the main doors.

The engineer, as she pointed things out to her, was nodding, taking notes, and glancing around without asking a lot of questions. Keira didn’t know if she was doing a good job of explaining, but she probably wasn’t.

Only when her mental map returned to where they were, did she realize she wasn’t. She should have started with where they were. The main platform.

From the entrance (another dumb thing to explain); the flimsy railing on the edge to watch out for; and both the personnel storage, which she assumed correctly was for use of the whole team; and the personal lockers, which were for individual storage.

“You know, for having a change of clothes, or some snacks.” She nervously explained. “Though not that big of snacks cause some mice can get in and eat it all, which is really sad even if the mice are delighted.”

The engineer, her engineer, was not paying any attention to her ramble. Instead she had walked towards them and opened the very first one.

“You can grab whichever you want.” Keira said a tad nervous. “Only the middle one is mine.”

Rosemary nodded, opened it up, and her bag inside that landed with a horrific thump. Then she closed the door and, without asking for permission, placed a cat sticker on the door.

“Mine.” She proclaimed.

Keira was a bit taken aback by how quickly she staked her claim. It’s not like anyone was using the locker at the time, or would use it soon. It would take some time getting used to her direct personality.

They moved on.

“This is the main control panel.” She pointed to the console in the platform they were standing on. “Gravity controls are handled by this little lever here. Takes about ten seconds to switch between zero g to normal gravity, and a horrible alarm sounds all throughout the change.”

“Seems like too little time.” Rosemary noted when she went to poke it. “Why only ten?”

“I don’t know?” Keira scratched her head. “I’m sure there is a reason.”

“Ok.” Rosemary said. “What else can I do from here?”

“You should be able to enable the crane, and ask a Haro to move it. Turn on and off the AC…” She looked to all the buttons to remember what they did. “Watch movies?”

Rosemary raised an eyebrow.

“I think you can also check Lily’s status from here?” She half remembered something like that. “And I think it would be good if we did now that we are both awake.”

Her engineer gave her a thumps up. Keira walked confused towards Lily, with Rosemary following next to her.

“I noted when I first entered here.” Rosemary said as they were crossing the walkway. “I tried to get to work immediately, but it’s not connected to the main grid.”

“She.” Keira corrected her engineer. In turn, the girl with the aquamarine eyes looked at her.

“Noted.” Rosemary wrote it on her tablet. “She wasn’t connected to the main grid when I tried to look at her report.”

“Lily doesn’t like being plugged in to the system over night.” Keira explained as naturally as one would talk about their grandmother. “Makes her stay awake longer than she wants. She says it makes her sluggish.”

Lily’s green eyes warmly looked at her. Even if unmoving, and unable to show any expressions, Keira could tell what she was thinking of.

Whispering approval.

“And it disrupts her dreams.”

She could see it in the engineer’s face with how she raised a singular eyebrow that nothing of what she was saying made sense to her. In no way could she blame her, even if it was true. But Keira wasn’t smart enough to explain it, barely a few things she could.

“Do Gundams dream of electric Haros?” Once they stood next to Lily’s head, Rosemary said in jest.

“I don’t know.” She turned towards the Mobile Suit. “What do you dream of Lily?”

Whispering negation.

“She doesn’t want to say.” Keira told her.

“Most likely it is just gibberish as her memory is cleared.” Rosemary shrugged. “Not unlike us in a way.”

“What do you mean?” Keira tilted her head.

“Dreams are weird, you know.” Keira agreed with Rosemary. “Most of the time they are composed of things on our minds stitched together in weird ways.”

“Oh, like some of the old hospital pillows back home.” The verniri girl added.

“Like what?”

“In the era of Gunpowder and Steel, the veniri medics would buy all the fabric remains, and stich them to make pillows for their patients.”

She took out her own tablet and looked up an example. What she showed Rosemary was a mess of a pillow, one part green, one part yellow, many smaller parts grey and white without any intentionally distinguishable pattern.

“Yeah, kind of like that.” Rosemary agreed. “Don’t they give one similar to every kid born in Vernia?”

“Yes!” Keira got excited. “The patterns are no longer random, and the fabrics used are far more comfortable than whatever was at hand, but the idea is still the same.” She took the time to find some older images for Rosemary while she continued her explanation. “It is said to bring you good luck to sleep with it every night, so it isn’t common for people to still have theirs even when they are of old age.”

“That so.” Rosemary looked pensive at the superstition, which made Keira nervous.

“It is also cremated with the person once they die.” Keira ended her explanation now aware of how little interest Rosemary had in it.

Whispering encouragement.

Even if Lily said to continue, she could feel it in the engineer’s attitude that she didn’t want to hear more.

“We should probably head down to connect Lily to the grid.” Keira walked a little further down the walkway until she reached the elevator platform. A small industrial lift made with little comforts came up, willing to take them down. She opened the chest high gate, and moved to the side to let Rosemary in first.

The engineer nodded and entered it with her in tow.

“Do you have your pillow?” Rosemary asked her as the elevator began its decent.

“No. Not anymore.”

Keira fell quiet.

Seeing Lily from her side as they were going down, was one of the ways in which Keira remembered how gigantic she was. From the top that were her horns, to the profile of her face, the thrusters on her back, the cockpit, the hip unit going down towards her backward legs, ending on her hooves. All of her was far out of scale for what one could comprehend, especially when that sense of scale was thrown out the window when she was on the pilot seat.

She was an ant. She was a titan. She was both things at different times, and different stages. But sometimes the ant felt like the titan, and the titan walked like the ant.

And even then, there were things far smaller, and far grander than both at the same time, and the same place.

And the cradle of them was so far away. Back home.

Home.

“Where do you come from Rosemary? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“I come from Fáldana.” She responded. “Lived on one of the tree towns.”

“Oh! In the Aramas Jungle?” Keira could see how the engineer’s face lit up when she asked her.

“Yes.” Rosemary’s stern expression seemed to loosen a bit. “Near the edge of the transversal volcanic range. I think my home’s about a two, or three hour train ride to Vernia.”

“Oh wow!” Keira got incredibly happy. “We were almost neighbors, in a sense.”

“In a way.” Rosemary conceded while she scratched her head.

“Did you see a lot of rainbow fireflies?” Keira asked in a bid of connection. “I used to ask my dads if we could go almost every week during summer. They are so pretty, and wonderful, and so shiny!”

“I saw them all the time.” The engineer responded. “My sisters and I tried to catch them all the time to keep them in our room.”

She mimicked the process of putting them in a jar, which she proceeded to place on her head amongst the twigs.

Keira giggled a bit.

Rosemary, with a bit of a blush, looked away.

Her actions made Keira’s eyes focus on the twigs tangled within her hair. Curiosity wanted her to ask about them, while her sense of social stumbling advised her to keep quiet. How they had gotten there was none of her business, and only Rosemary could share it.

“You are staring.” She was caught in the act.

“I-I’m sorry.” Keira stuttered. Rosemary grunted. She panicked. “It’s just that I got curious about the twigs in your hair. But you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, it was incredibly rude of me to stare.”

“Oh, these?” The girls from Fáldana pointed at one of them. “Been there since I was a small child. They grow alongside my hair until they snap.”

Rosemary now was staring at her which made her grow extremely conscious of herself. Was it her messy hair? The scars? Missing eye? Maybe, to her dismay, some of the blood had fallen on her undersuit and was now visible to her. How could she even explain that?!

“And you have horns.” Rosemary pointed out. Instinctively Keira grabbed them to try and hide them.

Rosemary smirked at her foolishness.

She felt much more embarrassed.

“They are antlers.” She let go of them, earning another look from the engineer. “They started growing when I was little too, and I am thankful for them.”

Rosemary’s eyes urged her to explain herself. Even Lily didn’t seem to mind if she did.

“Dada said I had some issues inside my ear, which made me be very dizzy all the time.” She explained when they were about to reach the ground floor. “But once they grew, it compensated whatever was wrong.”

“And, they match your Gundam.” Rosemary pointed at the Mobile Suit that now towered over them. Ants at the feet of a titan.

“They do!” Filled with joy, she agreed. Nothing made her happy than feeling that connection with Lily.

Whispering warmth.

“Lily is also happy we match. She even says I could wear some jewelry on them if I wanted to, but I have always been bad at remembering where I put it.”

Once again Rosemary’s face was confused, which made her confused, and afraid she was screwing things up.

“You keep calling her Lily.” Rosemary acknowledged as she sat in front of the console to reconnect Lily to the main grid. “Isn’t she Gundam Remnant?”

“She is.” Keira went to join her in prepping Lily, but backed down once she saw Rosemary was getting the hang of it faster than she had.

“Why the different names?” Rosemary asked.

“Because she is named after my many-times-great grandmother.” Keira explained using once more her tablet to compliment it.

In there she showed a scan of an old painting depicting a woman of tawny cooper skin dressed in old white medical garments and an antler diadem on top of her auburn hair, petting the vernian stag of six antlers. They both laid on a field of blue lilies, while behind her armor and sword laid neatly resting on the trunk of a tree.

“Lilianna Remnant , painted in the year 1299 after crash by Augustine La Veliente.” Keira named the work of art to her engineer. “Maiden, healer, knight. Matron defender of my home of Vernia against disease and invader alike.”

“I’ve seen that painting before.” Rosemary added. “In your dad’s office.”

“Oh, right, you would have had. Silly me.”

“But I didn’t have the time to read the plaque, so don’t feel guilty about explaining it to me.” That made Keira feel relieved. “Still, why not call her something else?”

“Finding the right name for someone, or something is hard.” Keira knew that very intimately. “So, sometimes, grabbing the first thing you can think of for them is the right move.”

In queue, a small meow came from somewhere, taking the pilot aback. She looked around to find the source of the noise, but was met only with the cute, blushing face of the engineer. When the second meow happened, the owner of the tablet got up from her chair and pulled out her tablet in a rush. A third meow was heard, and it came from it.

“Nya!” Rosemaria told the tablet. “I told you to stay put.”

“Nya?” Keira asked both confused, and flustered at how cute she said the word.

Rosemary, on her part looked like the call of the grave of shame was loomed over her. Which made her look much more adorable.

“She’s my--. She’s my friend.” Blushing her guest said, holding too unto her necklace.

“Nya!” The friend added.

“Is she your tablet or--?”

“She’s a digital companion.” Rosemaria interrupted her, clearly ashamed. “Part of her is in my tablet, part on my necklace. Pure cat all the way through.”

It was then that, through bravery or want of connection, Keira opened her mouth.

“Can I see her?”

When another meow of agreement came out, Rosemary nodded.

In her digital document she’d been taking notes, therein laid a black spot. When Keira was in view of the tablet’s camera, the spot grew a pair of cat ears, then a pair of paws and a tail, revealing her true digital feline form. She stretched awake, and the digital cat known as Nya smiled at her, meowed and placed a paw on the screen.

“Nya!”

“She’s adorable.” She squealed delighted. “Did you make her? How long did it take you? Did you base her from another program or did you build her from scratch?”

Nya, the delightful digital ball of care, was all too pleased at her praise. To show it, she went off-screen to bring back a big heart.

Keira could only squeal louder at such a display of affection.

Rosemary seemed overwhelmed by her barrage of questions, but seeing Nya take a liking to the pilot assuaged her worries. She smiled, though the blush in her face didn’t disappear for a while.

“What am I going to do with you Nya?” The engineer asked her companion before turning to her. “To answer your questions, I did make her myself long ago. A pet project of mine.” More than pride, gusto, or determination, fondness enveloped engineer’s face. “Based her off the Haro system so one day I could give her a body of her own.” As if her necklace was made of snow, she gently examined it. “She was with me when no one else was. I can’t imagine my life without her.”

Nya agreed.

“I guess it makes sense to name their Gundam after their matron, in a way.” Rosemary conceded.

Keira nodded very enthusiastically.

“But I think that’s beside the point right now.” The engineer went back to tinkering with the console, now with her tablet, and its dweller, connected to it.

The pilot stayed a couple of minutes there, wanting to be of use. But after seeing how little help Rosemary needed in setting everything up, made her look around to find something to do. When her eyes landed on the five Haros a few steps away, she deemed it a good idea to reactivate them. Rosemary would probably be able to control them better than her, and introducing them to each other felt like a good idea.

Five Haros. Five little helpers that had remained with her. Five clumsy, intelligent, and wonderful little things that never judged her, always wanting to help.

How thankful she was for them.

“Morning Haros.” She greeted them.

Blue, green, red and yellow Haro were fully charged, and one by one they all turned on, greeting her.

“Haro, Keira! Haro.”

“Hello to all of you.”

Pink though had not received a single percentage. She wasn’t waking up.

“Oh no.” The guilt crept up on her.

“What happened?” Rosemary looked at her.

“Pink Haro, she’s not charged at all.”

“Let me see.” Rosemary urged her to the side.

With a skill Keira would never be able to possess, Rosemary examined swiftly pink Haro. Even then, Keira knew that the situation was grim.

First came the smell, that horrid smell of burnt cables and crossed wires. Then a combination of ash and white dust that sent both of them backwards. Finally came the pillow like thing that made Rosemary panic when she saw it.

“Backup battery is a walking bomb.” She grimly declared. “Eye sensor are fried, and her memory banks are gone too.”

“Poor pink Haro.” Keira teared up. “How could this happen?”

“Most likely the battery was dying already. And a spike cause the lithium polymer to react inside.” Rosemary explained the Haros surrounded them, flapping their lids but not saying a word.

“I have some spare parts.” Keira motioned at the other side of the hangar. “I could go grab them.”

Rosemary connected Nya to pink Haro, but shook her head in disappointment.

“Won’t do anything good. OS has been corrupted. I would need to change the drive, and reinstall it from scratch.”

The Haros seemed deflated at this.

“Wait a minute.” Keira looked at the engineer. “Nya.”

“Nya?”

“Yes. You said it not more than ten minutes ago. She’s based on the Haro system, and you wanted to give her a body at some point.” She said in a panic without stopping to think if it was a dumb thing or not.

Rosemary opened her eyes, exposing so much of their aquamarine color.

“Would they be ok with that?” She referred to the Haros.

“Haro engineer!” Blue Haro spoke to her.

“Her name is Rosemary Haro.” She told them all.

“Haro Rosemary. Haro!” Red Haro spoke now. “We would. We miss Pink Haro.”

“New friend! New friend!” Green Haro excitedly bounced around. Yellow Haro joined them.

“What about you Nya?” Rosemary let the decision fall on her friend. “Up for your new adventure?”

“Nya!”

“She agrees.”

“All four of you, could you bring them the spare parts then?” Keira asked them, and they all happily complied.

“I’ll start fixing her up while Nya runs the scan on Remnant.” Rosemary grabbed the pink Haro and took her to the console. “I’ll also need a workbench, and the toolbox I left upstairs.”

“I can grab them for you.” Keira offered far too eagerly.

Yet Rosemary agreed.

“I’d appreciate it.”

When Rosemary was finally left alone, the weight of her own stupidity hit her like a truck. Her body shook uncontrollably, her temperature rose as in a fever, and weakness overwhelmed her. Had she not been seated, she would have fallen to the floor.

“How the fuck am I still hired?” She held unto her chair, completely unwell. “I almost threatened her into getting me accepted.”

The image of her angry face reflected in the pilot’s mask as she yelled at her perturbed her. She had just gone and done it.

“What the hell were you thinking Ryn?”

First, she knew that she needed this job, far more than anything. Second, that there was nothing she hated more than intense self-loathing. She didn’t hate Keira for it, far from it, she believed she understood her perfectly at that moment. What she hated was the life that had gotten her there.

Because in one day, Rosemaria Ryn Stonework had lived through a pinch of it.

The shove on the train station; the comment when buying the ticket: the threat to her life by the gun pointed at her; and the port outing her pilot to get her on their side.

“Bunch of spacian pricks.” The venom in her words was tangible.

Picking up her tablet, and opening it to her contract still gave her an insane amount of relief. There they were, the three signatures she needed. Mr. Azuriel’s, Rosemary’s own, and Keira’s.

For so long had that space been left empty, in a quantum state of uncertainty. She was hired and not hired, with a job and out of one. Alone yet belonging to a team. Part of her wanted to cry for the guilt of her rage was assuaged by her relief.

“Fucking finally.” She smiled to herself, and to Nya. “Now I can stew in the dread of my work rather than in unemployment.”

Yet it was more than that. She’d had a talk with Keira, gotten to know her in a very superficial way, and calm some of her doubts. Her opinion was now her own, rather than half-baked rumors and violent rhetoric.

For one, Keira was an open book. Her mannerisms betrayed so much of what she was thinking and feeling that even she had no issue reading them. Nervous? She put ample distance between the two with her hands up, or rubbing them together. Excited? She bounced and shared whatever more she could. Sad? As bad as a kicked puppy; she grabbed her left elbow with her right hand. Ashamed? She went to cover whatever caused it.

Secondly, she let people trample her far too quickly. Annoyingly overtly apologetic, preoccupied with seeing like a good host. Most likely feeling herself a failure if sometimes, something didn’t go well.

Thirdly. She was protective of her Gundam, and her family. This most likely led her to be interested either in her family’s history, or in the whole era of Gunpowder and Steel.

Finally. Rosemary had been right.

Keira was alone.

Her lonely respite being the Gundam she so deeply cared about.

Rosemary didn’t have any sort of plans hereafter. It’s not like it was in her goals to become bffs with her boss’s daughter, let alone spend what little free time she may have here with her. She also had a while life to build in this place. Far away from her family, far away from her (non-existent) friends, far away from the home she knew and loved. Far away from everything she’d known.

“A fresh start.” She lied to herself.

This start was rusted from the beginning.

She couldn’t deny there were odd things about the girl, but everyone had them. Sometimes she would fall silent while looking in her Gundam’s direction, or in their first meeting eye to eye in the dark. Rosemary could have sworn she didn’t blink once.

Even so, she couldn’t deny that once they got over their introductions, she felt politely comfortable around her. For once someone knew of her home; more than that, she had visited a part of it beforehand. With how open she was about everything, she didn’t have to rely on remembering all social queues to not fumble the conversation.

And she was like her. Like she’d been before, how she hid herself from.

Regardless of how their relationship evolved, Rosemary would support her when no one else would.

“Are we done Nya?” She asked her furry friend.

With that, the computer connected to Gundam Remnant, helpfully presented to her as Lily, turned on. In the screen in front of her, a painting of dread appeared to her.

Red. Pure red. And where there was no red, there was black.

Nya was running around the screen in a fit, nervously examining everything and taking notes after notes. Her face was grim. Rosemary didn’t need her summary to understand, as much as she wishes she could be blissfully ignorant of it.

This Mobile Suit, this Gundam, was a gigantic pile of junk held together by duct tape, spit, and the will of the stars themselves.

And when the warning signs appeared everywhere, she knew this whole thing had been a mistake.

“Pinch me.” She swore to the Lady of Thorns. “How?”

“Oh. I’m sorry.” From behind the irritating apology came. She bit her tongue, and turned around to be greeted by her toolbox, her jumpsuit and her masked pilot.

“Why are you apologizing?” She deflected her own thoughts.

“Because of Lily. She’s not in good shape when she should be. I know it hurts her, but she tells me not to worry about it. Still…”

Once again, Keira fell silent for a couple of seconds looking at the Gundam. Rosemary guessed she was lost in thought.

“And that is no longer going to be your job.” Rosemary declared, opening her magnificent toolbox.

Just the glorious sight of all those neatly organized screwdrivers, and categorized wrenches made the trip worth while.

“I know, but she shouldn’t be hurt like this, because of me.”

There she was, holding her elbow with her hand.

“Did you call the Phalanx squad to attack us?” Rosemary popped open the defunct pink Haro.

“I didn’t.” Confused, Keira answered.

“Then it’s not your fault.” Dead battery went out, then the burnt main drive. She neatly placed the screws on the top of the toolbox to never lose them.

“But it was my reckless piloting that got her like this.”

Rosemary bit her tongue as hard as she could to silence herself. Because she was telling the truth. It had been reckless. She had been there.

And she had cursed her out because of that.

Had Rosemaria Ryn Stonework been braver, been stronger, been as put together as she faked herself to be, she would bring it up. Two words to start. I’m sorry. Explain to the pilot in front of her that she shouldn’t have insulted her like that. That they both could move on from that with the knowledge that there was nothing more to feel sorry about in that terrible situation.

But she wasn’t.

She couldn’t be.

Rosemaria Ryn Stonework had a gaping wound in her heart that laughed an annoying laugh and bleed toxic pink.

 “We’ll do better.” Rosemary said, returning to the new body of Nya. “You pilot her so she doesn’t get harmed, I fix whatever you don’t manage to.”

The engineer signaled to the pilot for another screwdriver. The pilot gave it to her and put the former one away. In a rhythm they both worked until the last thing that was left was to out everything back together.

The Haros returned to them at long last with everything she needed to finish her work. Drive and battery, motherboard and capacitors.

The hours flew past as they both worked together on this project. She welded, Keira cleaned and passed the components. Whatever was missing Keira went to grab. When something needed to be hold unto she diligently helped.

In time, the broken down shell of the pink Haro had gotten back to the semblance of refurbished that Rosemary knew well. Not new, not perfect, but functional.

The last thing they needed was the OS.

“Ready Nyaro?” She asked her friend. She had already packed for her trip. Rosemary connected her tablet to the fixed pink Haro.

Transfer.

Transfer.

Going to a body like Nya always wanted.

Blue dim eyes looking at them.

“Come on.” Rosemary crossed her fingers. Keira did to.

She didn’t know how long something like this could take but every second she felt closer to having an error message appear and kill their hopes.

Keira stood next to her, watching much more nervously than her.

“I hope she likes it there.”

Blue light. Slowly flapping lids.

The Haros began bouncing around.

“Nyaro Rosemary. Nyaro!”

“Love you buddy!” She hugged her friend for the first time ever. “How are you feeling?”

“Happy, happy.” Nya, or rather, Nyaro responded. “I can bounce. I can bounce.”

The slippery ball of joy escaped from her grasp, and went to bounce with the Haros. Quickly did they accept her, faster did they fall in line. For the next hour or so, Nyaro led the rest of the Haros into a set of instructions that neither Keira nor her could understand. They seemed random at first, but soon as they synched perfectly to the notes of one of her favorite songs, she understood what was happening.

“They are calibrating each other.” Rosemary pointed out to Keira.

“What do you mean?”

“The intelligence in each Haro is independent of one another.” She pulled out her tablet to help with her explanation. With a simple drawing program, and terrible free hand skills, she continued. “But when multiple of them get close, they can share intense amounts of information between each other. This helps them with their tasks.”

Keira nodded.

“What happens if one of them starts failing?”

“They get off synchrony, and they become sloppier in their work. Worst cuts, messier painting, you know the drill.”

“So pink Haro was failing for quite a while.” Keira added signaling to the hangar, and the intense amounts of forgotten tools and dust around. “They’ve been leaving it a bit messier than usual.”

Rosemary understood and agreed.

“Their algorithm is what’s called tree intelligence. One of the Haros is chosen as the trunk, while the others are can switch between branches and roots.”

She ‘drew’ a tree. It looked closer to an eldritch horror from her ttrpgs.

“A root entity mostly feeds large amounts of information to the trunk and acts in simple tasks, while a branch will act in more complex tasks but will feed little info.” She painted two circles, one smaller, one bigger, placing them where they corresponded. “In this case Nyaro, or my necklace

“Oh! Like Lily’s ravens.” Keira pointed at the Gund-bits attached to the Gundam in armor mode. “If I tell one to become an antenna it can’t do anything else.”

“Then yes. Tree intelligence. Lily is the trunk.” Rosemary added. “Nyaro is speaking to the others to determine who will be the trunk, as I think pink Haro might have been the previous one.”

The Haros seemed to accept her as the main one, for they all followed her movements in a terrible, but coordinated dance.

“Guess I got my answer.” Rosemary giggled. “As a member of the tree goes further away they retain their independence, but the amount of information given, and receive, diminishes. This is inversely proportional too.”

Keira was listening to her with such care and intent that it gave her a moment’s pause. So used was to her having teachers spell it out for her, or fellow students either being very sure of their wrong ideas, or outright being conferencing dicks about how they already knew it.

She liked being heard.

“There are other types like Swarm Intelligence, but those are not important right now.” She finished her explanation. “Right now Nyaro is calibrating herself with the others. And if things go well, they should be—"

But before she could finish, Nyaro came.

“Play time! Play time.” She said.

“Not now Nyaro, we have work to do.”

Nyaro, as was her kitty want, stole her tablet and ran away. The Haros followed her.

“Nyaro!” Rosemary and Keira gave chase.

Keira began giggling. A short, sweet laughter that infected Rosemary.

They giggled. They laughed. They played with their new friends.

Tomorrow, in silence they agreed, work would come.

But for today…

Maybe it was ok to have a rest.

Chapter Text

For the next week, Rosemaria Ryn Stonework set out to find her rhythm.

Get up in the morning, dread that she had overslept. Take a shower and have something for breakfast in the expensive apartment she had been given. Get properly ready to work by stuffing her bag with anything she would deem useful to keep in the hangar. Pass through the convenience store and buy something to eat or some snacks. Ride the train to the port, and be set by fear that her credentials were going to fail again. Politely be greeted by the guard that, not long ago, had pointed a gun at her. Greet him back even if she wanted to scream.

Go to the workshop in her unique black, red and gold jumpsuit. Deliver the list of tools and parts she required to fix Gundam Remnant. Have one or two things already in use by some other team and curse her rusted luck. Either the new plating was set back a couple of days, or the specialized welding tool had been asked by someone else. Setbacks and annoyances, but things she could work around.

Once she had everything, she and her mechanical team needed, head to the hangar to being her proper job.

Be greeted by Nyaro and the Haros, with the excitement that only they could provide. Say hello to the Mobile Suit, who remained motionless, yet vigilant to her approach. Put on her cursed steel-toe boots. Run the diagnostics. Catalogue the damages and update them in the handy diagram Nyaro had prepared for her.

If the damage was superficial and didn’t need disassembly, low category; if it was easy to fix, but needed to be removed from the frame, medium category; if it was horrifyingly complex or needed to be replace, high category.

When she marked the priorities for the day, her prework was done.

She would then take a small break. Take some time off to calm down and focus on the task she had chosen for the day. She knew herself well. If she ignores those fifteen minutes, she would get overwhelmed by everything she had decided to ignore.

Once the break was over, she got on to work on whatever she had decided was the highest priority. Cleaning, welding, designing, or setting up a manufacturing order.

Sometimes Keira would be there, waiting for her to be given a part in the day’s tasks. Other times she would be missing. She never really said where she was heading to, but Rosemary staved off her curiosity. Whatever she was doing, she didn’t have the right to know lest Keira told her.

But she did appreciate the days she was here. Even more than her simple, technical help, having someone to talk to was nice.

After her work had consumed her hours, Nyaro would helpfully, and annoyingly, remind her to eat her food.

Rest for a bit. Pack up her stuff. Go to the market and begin stocking up her pantry. Cook a meal for the night and for tomorrow if she had the energy.

Then, shower again, and go to sleep.

And, at the start of her second week, she felt good in that rhythm.

Every day was a combination of assembly and disassembly. They spent the day, scrubbing, cleaning, measuring, and pulling out stuck debris that had laid hidden inside the Gundam. See what could be salvaged, what was a total bust. Add any replacement she needed to her ever-growing list the Quartermaster.

Every time either of them found something outright unusual in there (like the remains of a satellite) Keira would apologize profusely. Rosemary would never fail to get annoyed at her apology, but she did find some amusement in what weird things they found.

It all seemed so easy at first. Easy and simple.

Of course, reality was a cruel mistress, and her favorite whip were the Gundams.

“That can’t be right.” Rosemary found herself in front of the quartermaster, befuddled and annoyed beyond belief. “I know what serial number I saw on the leg. This is just a better version of it in all forms.”

Coh shrugged like only one accustomed to this would.

“Less weight, more flexibility, actually still given support by Ad Astra. It should be a slam hit.”

“Aye Twig, not denying ya.” He pointed at the screen between the two where the diagram laid.

To Rosemary’s growing anger, a very explicit yellow warning appeared when Coh placed the replacement leg in there.

Incompatible parts (10% compatibility).

Please be advised that performance will be impacted if connection is made.

By all mean, Rosemary had guessed, the standard dermal plate would be easy to replace. Find the serial number of the part, order a replacement for it, and attach it to the Gundam. Easy peasy.

But once they had removed it, the depths of her work showed themselves.

Never in her life as an engineer had she ever seen a Mobile Suit sustain so much damage. This was not a case of destroyed plating, burnt out thrusters, faulty wiring or brunt force trauma. The inner frame was covered in scratches, holes, dents and the odd part missing here and there. By her cursory glance, that thing shouldn’t be able to even stand on its own, let alone fight.

The gruesome image of a shattered bone, held together by a cursed armor, came to the engineer’s mind.

There was only one thing to be done. Replacing it.

Out with the thrusters, out with the plating, out with the faulty wiring and any other shit within. Get a whole new, state of the art leg, attach it to the main frame, and be done with it.

Nyaro agreed with her, as did the others.

She only needed to learn which leg to ask for. The first step was to know which one Remnant used.

Yet such thing was so much harder to find that she’d hoped. No serial number, manufacturer’s name, nor logo was to be found anywhere. Neither did the computer have anything about the part in its database. She even asked Nyaro to help her out, but her search was just as fruitless.

Only until she’d asked Keira for help did they get their answer. Tucked behind the frontal leg thruster, above the hooved that supported her.

She was sure she’d searched that place before.

“I even took a picture.” She said showing it again to Coh in her new tablet.

He nodded. They both could see that the legs were exactly the same in theory.

“Said I wasn’t denying ya.” He repeat himself to her shame.

She just grunted.

“Then what? I should just seem if you have a spare leg for one that hasn’t been manufactured for five decades now?” She asked incredulous.

To silence her doubts, she scrolled down the lost of compatible parts on the screen. The original ones were greyed out as expected. The most recent ones, made some thirty years ago, were not much better.  The bulky, cumbersome, outright ugly legs came into view in the diagram, and attached itself to the Gundam.

Second verse, same as the first.

Partially compatible parts (40% compatibility).

Please be advised that performance will be impacted if connection is made.

“Same deal.” She half heartedly announced.

Because her brain focused on the numbers. Forty percent. Ten percent. Basic logic dictated that either a part fitted, or didn’t when assembling something. One couldn’t use a ¾ screw on a ½ hole. Of course, that was a simplification. Enough force could make a larger screw mold the hole to its size, or use the wrong type of ball bearings for an axle. Work could be put to make things fit, but they always came at a cost.

Money, time, effort.

The axle would fall to fatigue quicker.

The screw would become unable to be taken out.

If someone had done the calculations to quantifiably, and reliably, express that cost, she would call them mad. But she’d doubted that was what had happened.

For sure it could mean the relationship between the mass, height, speed of the Gundam with the part. A far easier thing to measure and observe. But that was also wrong. The newest, state of the art leg was made fully compatible with every older model, done with as many variations as possible to fit whatever small need was required. The biggest change had been on stability. Gone was the hooves, in with humanoid legs to get better balance. She’d seen it, she’d done the math. This should have worked.

But it didn’t.

So she went scrolling as Coh put some tools away.

In the back of her head, born out of a hunch, she knew what she was looking for. Because the magic number was thirty. Always thirty.

Not ten, not twenty, not twenty-nine point nine to infinity.

Thirty.

Two, eleven, ten, fifteen, zero, twenty-five.

Carrying in her digital mouth a bucket with many robotic legs, Nya chimed in with a suggestion. Maybe she should look outside of the model’s they’d found.

Even though she expected nothing of it, she saw no harm in it. A Rosetta Mobile Suit seemed to her like a good place to start. Old, reliable, malleable and adaptable to anything, the Rosetta was the one she had seen the most in her studies. Not too bulky, not to thin, just the right amount of everything to be the standard to measure all standards.

Ten percent, two percent, zero. Zero. Zero.

Twenty to the only goat like leg.

She changed to another model, one not as flexible, but mass produced.

The Phalanx.

Zero. Zero. Zero.

A faster one?

Icarus.

Two. Two. Zero.

She changed manufacturer. From Ad Astra Systems, to Mountain and Steel Inc.

The bulky Quartz.

Zero. Two.

The wet tissue paper known as the Fluorite.

No data available.

Then she went to a more unknown one, Tempest Quality Machinery.

Fire-bolt.

No data available.

The alien looking Lightning-bolt.

No data available.

Annoyed beyond belief, she returned to Ad Astra Systems. In the list she chose the one she loathed the most. The horrid Minotaur.

Ugly, against aerodynamics, a scorn on the face of balance. Too heavy up top, with those damned hooved legs.

Twenty-five. Twenty-six.

Twenty-nine.

“You are very picky, aren’t you?” She sarcastically accused the non-present Gundam. “Don’t enjoy not having your little hooves?”

Nya agreed with her.

“Nothing’s gonna work Coh.” She closed the preview window. “I need to put in a custom job.”

“Sorry lass.” Coh apologized. Rosemary grunted. “Can send ya the form if ya want it.”

“Please do. And please, still keep Remnant out of the deployment roster.”

He agreed.

Defeated, she walked back to the hangar.

When Rosemary had gone to the workshop, she had left pretty clear instructions of what she wanted Keira, and the Haros, to do in her absence. The list had been long, and tedious; full of tasks that boiled down to clean, and categorize. Keira was decent at the former, terrible at the latter, but equally bored by the two.

So, when the door closed behind Rosemary, putting her out of sight, she felt the pull of slacking off. She fought against it. For about two hours or so she made good progress in removing the exposed cables and the bent bars, but soon found herself slowing down. She needed something to spice it up.

And that came in the form of a ring, a container, a score board, and the power of zero gravity.

Grab the debris, aim at the moving ring, try to land it without it flying off.

One point if it landed in the container without passing through the ring, five if it hit the edge of the loop. Ten for a perfect shot.

Thirty shots so far. Keira’s score was at two hundred twenty-one.

Her little distraction didn’t go unnoticed by both Lily and the Haros. The former gently reproached her, reminding her to not make a bigger mess than they had. Every shot she failed would add to the cleaning.

The latter…

“My turn Keira, my turn!” Nyaro happily bounced in front of the pilot.

“Do… do you want me to throw you Nyaro?”

She happily flapped her lids in response, before readying herself.

“My turn next, my turn next!” Blue Haro stood at her feet.

“Me too!” Green Haro formed the line.

Orange Haro remained at the board keeping the score. Yellow Haro excitedly narrated the events of the evening.”

“Ok.” She grabbed Nyaro, pointed her at the ring, took a deep breath and…

Door opened.

“Scatter!” Orange Haro warned them all.

A frantic hiding attempt was made for they all bounced to where they could. Blue behind Lily, Green to an empty paper bin, Orange turned off the screen and went to the ceiling, Yellow tried to follow Orange, but she became stuck on the railing.

Nyaro spun around in place, faking ignorance.

When Keira Azuriel Remnant heard the cacophony of swear words thrown to the stars, she knew Rosemary was back. Quickly, and full of guilt, she grabbed the nearest tool she could to continue working.

Were her engineer to learn that they’d been doing, she would be pissed, annoyed, maybe furious to the point of doing something hurtful.

“I’m back.” Rosemary declared to the hangar only after having calmed down.

“We-welcome back!” Keira, far too eagerly, went to greet her.

Rosemary, without a second to spare, had her eyes scan the hangar like a terrifying guardian. Keira braced herself to whatever thing she would say to her, rightfully mad.

“Have you finished cleaning Remnant’s left arm?” Rosemary asked with a far too serious tone.

“N-no.” Keira stuttered. “There was a lot more debris inside of her. I’m sorry.”

She didn’t know if Rosemary bought her lie; her stone faced expression was incredibly hard to read, but she didn’t seem angrier than before. Was that good or bad, was what made her nervous.

Rosemary sighed, scrounged her nose, looked up to the ceiling and sighed once more.

“Why is Orange Haro in the ceiling?

“She tripped?”

Absolutely abysmal lie. Rosemary looked at her straight in the eye.

“Whatever.” She said. “Priorities have changed for today. I need you all to finish cleaning Remnant, while I start designing a new leg for her.”

“A whole new leg?” Keira’s curiosity had been grabbed. “But didn’t you say you were going to order one?”

Rosemary grabbed a chocolate bar from her locker, floated past her and to the main console, where she took her seat.

“I did.” She furiously bit the bar. “But your Gundam does not want to have a leg that’s not younger than fifty years old.” Another furious bite. “Which they don’t make anymore, by the way. So I need to design something Miss Hooves-for-days here doesn’t complain about.”

Whispering annoyance

“She says it’s not her fault that other Mobile Suit designers don’t understand her style.” Keira helpfully explained to Rosemary.

“Of-fucking-course.” Rosemary’s fury was even palpable to her.

Letting out a third, and final sigh, Rosemary turned on the screen. The scoreboard flashed in front of everyone’s eyes.

More intently in the aquamarine’s eyes.

“Sorry…”

And she was not amused in the slightest. She scrounged her nose, closed her eyes, and threw her head back with a grunt.

“Just help Green Haro get out of the bin.” Rosemary ordered displeased. “And clean the hangar!”

“Yes ma’am!” Keira went as fast as she could.

The sooner they all tidied up, the faster Rosemary’s anger would subside. Thankfully it was easy to help Green Haro out of the bin.

“And Keira.” Rosemary caught her attention, once the mechanical friend had been set free. “Do you know where we have the Gundam’s blueprints?”

The pilot stopped to wonder at the question. In the years she had spent with Lily she’d never had to use them, but the reason for that was obvious. She was a pilot, and was too dumb to be an engineer. But, regardless of it, someone used them in the past, so they must be nearby.

“They probably are in the PC.” She responded unsure of herself.

Whispering correction.

“Right, sorry.” Keira said, Rosemary grunted. “Lily’s database can be accessed through it, and she has her blueprints in there.”

Rosemary nodded without paying her more attention.

Silence fell in the hangar.

Nyaro stayed with her creator, enjoying a small amount of caresses on her metal carcass. Her sisters went to Keira, who took it as an her queue to get to the cleaning.

Keira, focused by guilt, organized without a word with the Haros and found herself quickly finishing her tasks. Not only had they managed to find every noteworthy piece of trash that had flown off mark, but also move it all to the trash compactor.

Every now and then, Keira would steal a glance at the engineer, who meticulously searched for her prize. Serious and alone. Full of purpose and tired of all. She, as she did every day, would finish part of her work, find that more stuff needed to be done, and would leave with an exhausted expression. Once more, having been drowned by her work.

Work only so difficult because of her.

Keira, aware of how much she’d hurt her engineer, floated down to where she worked.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have started playing with the Haros once you left.” She apologized, having finished her part. “I know you have a lot of things to do that keep piling up, and it isn’t fair if I slack off while you do so much. And I want to help alleviate it as much as I can. Because…”

There’s only the two of us.

Contrary to every other time, Rosemary was silent.

She wondered if she should approach her, or stay where she was in this static scene that had formed around them.

In the end, her body had moved on her own, and had found her way next to the aquamarine girl. Biting her lips, with a barely noticeable shake of her body. Looking away.

She was holding back tears.

The blueprints appeared on the screen, showing a version of Lily that Keira instinctively knew, but couldn’t academically explain. A vulnerable, detailed version of her open for all to see.

Her shining aquamarine eyes, stared into every nook and cranny of it, forming complex designs Keira would never be able to. Nyaro rested against her, offering her comfort.

“It’s fine.” Rosemary told her in a whisper. “You’re already doing enough Keira.”

The pilot smiled behind her mask.

“If you need any more help, just ask.” She assured the engineer. “I’ll be doing some simulations in Lily.”

Rosemary nodded. Nyaro purred.

When Rosemary found herself alone, she struggled to understand herself. There was still a tinge of anger against Keira for the whole game she’d set up with the Haros. There was also a sprinkle of jealousy at not having been able to participate. Disappointment was the most obvious thing she’d felt, though this was more towards Nyaro than anyone else.

Yet it wasn’t any of those emotions that she’d found herself confused about. No. That was reserved for the old wound in her heart. Anger? Sadness? Happiness or horror? None of the emotions that came to her described what had happened. It made her want to cry. She hated crying.

Relief.

“Probably it is stress.” She lied to herself. “And we have a lot of work to do now, right Nyaro?”

“Yes Rosemary, yes.” Nyaro responded.

As much as she wanted to keep petting the physical form of her best, and only real friend, she let her to. Nyaro connected to the console. Her adorable digital form came running along to the blueprint with a magnifying glass. They would both analyze it, get the measurements and have the work order ready asap.

On the edge of the screen, she could see Keira’s simulation happening simultaneously. If she got bored, maybe she could watch her.

Right now, she needed to work.

The problems began when she looked at them in detail. They were riddled with the most outdated jargon she had ever had the displeasure of working with.

The first issue she ran into was the cursive handwriting. Letters would clash together, inconsistencies would show here and there, and sometimes she couldn’t tell if an O was a zero. Nya, thankfully, had barely any trouble changing it into a more readable font.

Second issue came with the overabundance of old fancy words. Not that they were hard to translate, or to glean the meaning of, but in how flowery it made everything sound.

“Find in the spire a set of two by one thorns.” She read out loud instead of screaming. “So just a set of two screws on the edge. Got it.”

She added the correction.

Third problem. The non-standardized symbols. Throw them in the bin, change them for the modern standard.

When the last issue popped its head up, Rosemary decided that she needed a break. The horror of what she would need to face couldn’t be beaten without food in her.

After reheating her lunch, she sat down to find a distraction to accompany it. The flashing flying simulation at the edge of the screen proved enticing enough for it.

Getting comfortable, she opened up the live feed for her to see.

A deployment. Launch. Debris of an old colony all around Keira. A path marked for her to follow and a timer on the top. Seven minutes, ticking down.

The distance shown far too great for her to reach it in time. Her old piloting dreams told her that.

But when the engines fired up, Rosemary was proven wrong. Left and right, dodging at speeds that would mean the death of her should she crash, Keira traversed the field as if it was an open field. Nothing could stop her.

Even her eyes had trouble following her.

Engines or plates, remains of once a proud building or decor. Keira cared not for how big or small, she dodged it, barreled through, or destroyed it.

The prosthesis in her back tingled uncomfortably. Of the two, life changing surgery she had had, and been warned about, this one was the only she regretted.

A grueling, painful one, all for naught.

Once she had wished herself to be there, flying amongst the stars. Once, she thought, such a fate was within her grasp. Once, she lamented, her life could have been different.

Even now, that tingling in her back wished to become something else. Data or instinct; the two perhaps merged into one.

The ability to pilot a Mobile Suit.

“That could have been me.” A lie. A painful lie.

She focused on Keira again. She had entered a destroyed tunnel. Pipes leaking cooling gas or intense steam. The air of the entrapped pockets violently began to explode. The tunnel was collapsing. Rosemary’s food laid in her hands getting colder. She couldn’t take her eyes off it.

Would she even make it?

The answer came as an echo. Streak of darkness, an after image of the Mobile Suit. When her Bit-staves joined the Gundam, she vanished from her sight. The tunnel imploded but there was no Keira in sight.

Three minutes and she was already inside.

Then came a mountain range. The last semblance of what this place was supposed to be.

Then it was gone. Keira was side an abandoned colony, barreling towards a ship.

A very familiar ship.

“Is that the Lagrange?!”

Gundam Remnant abruptly turned its head, failed to see the rocks, lost control. The simulation ended before the disaster.

Rosemary fell the gut punch hit her.

On the screen, Keira’s masked face appeared ln screen. From the speakers Rosemary didn’t know they had, came her pilot’s voice.

“It-it was.” She answered clearly, yet unsure of how Rosemary herself would act.

The aquamarine girl felt herself grow full of shame.

“Have you been listening the entire time?!” She demanded to know all flustered.

“Th-the simulations are always s-streamed to the computer.” She weakly excused herself. “Th-the microphone is a-always open by default for if there’s an issue.”

Nya, in an act of utmost betrayal, pointed to the mic symbol on the screen. Open, enabled, active. Whatever words needed to describe the fact that, yes, Keira was able to listen to her. Rosemary starred daggers at her fluffy friend, who was right.

She shouldn’t be, but she was.

Rosemary thanked the Lady of Roses she hadn’t said anything else aloud. What came next was an intense need to know why. Her gut reaction was simple.

“Why in the blazes are you running a simulation of THAT?”

Keira put up her hands and reclined as far from the camera as she could.

“Sorry!”

“Why are you saying sorry?!” Rosemary cut through her apology. “Just tell me why you’re doing it.”

Rosemary guessed the pilot had, behind her mash, her puppy face by now. But the lack of an answer was exasperating her.

“Is it standard procedure? Or just for fun?” Rosemary tried to guide her towards an answer.

But Keira didn’t respond. If Rosemary were to guess, she was thinking of a way to make the idea of what she was doing not as distasteful as it appeared to be. Training was a part of her duties as a pilot just exams on her motor skills too. Yet Rosemary couldn’t fathom why it had to be of the second most traumatic moment in her life the thing she was using to get better.

Keira removed her mask, showing her face washed by the failure message of the sim.

“I made a lot of mistakes last deployment.” She eventually answered. “And that cost lives. Deren, Nerev, Darium, Joselin, Amario. All crewmembers of the ship, all gone now.”

Rosemary fell the coldness of the void envelope her. Yes. She knew it well. She knew their deaths. She was almost one of them.

“And something like it will happen again.” Her face changed. Long gone was the face of the beaten and ashamed girl who had been caught playing instead of working, replaced now by a look of intense determination. “I will be ready for it. I’ll do my best. I’ll improve my best. And I’ll remember all those I failed.”

Even mired by the morbid aspect of the means, Rosemary could only stare at her with genuine understanding.

She was alive. Those five were dead.

Had she been faster. Had she not been slowed down by her soldering iron being stolen. Had she not lost so much time turning the generator back online.

“Back in the Lagrange, I also made mistakes with fixing up the beacon.” The engineer spoke out of a want to connect. “I don’t know how much would I give to have a second try at it.”

“But you did succeed Rosemary.” With a kind, calming, and radiant smile, Keira told her. “Whatever mistakes you think you made, are what help you grow for next time.”

Encouraging words, all meant to assuage her.

“When I was at uni, back in Altaris, I was told something by my teachers.” Rosemary added. “Our actions, be it our designs or the shortcuts we take, will have an impact on the lives of others. To take a bribe and pass up inspection could mean the death of hundreds in a preventable accident.”

Keira nodded.

“Regulations are written in blood.”

It only dawned on the young altari engineer at that moment who she was talking to. This woman behind the screen, covered in scars and missing one eye, was her charge. Whatever change she did, however big it was, it was her direct life on the line. Every new scar in her body, or injury she suffered would be her fault.

And when that would come to pass, she would obsess over finding out what she should have done better.

Guilt forges the unbreakable shackles to the past.

Only in the present could she help.

“Keira.” An idea popped into her mind. “Does the simulation allow you to run it with Rem---Lily’s state at the time?”

“Yes. It also allows me, us, to check Lily’s state moment to moment.” She responded. “That’s how I used to mark the areas for repair before it got too overwhelming.”

“Did you notice anything strange about last time?”

“Not strange, but frustrating.” Keira seemed deflated at the statement. “The frontal left leg thruster has been inoperative for a long time now.”

“I noticed that.” She told her, bringing up the diagram wherein it laid not red, but black. Then, she focused on it directly, noting the crevices to first check. “Can you start the sim with this configuration? I want to verify something.”

Keira nodded, put on her mask, and restarted the whole thing.

Nyaro and herself took note of every little bit of inconsistency caused by the failing thruster. The lag between input and error message, the shake when it failed to activate, and the horrible rumbling that came thereafter.

“It isn’t clogged.” Rosemary asserted. “Neither is it a software failure. Purely mechanical.”

Keira nodded between her dodges.

“Not clogged, not clogged.” Nyaro helpfully reasserted.

“But the rumbling is important. It must be something stopping the ignition mechanism.” Rosemary jumped from the console all the way to the thruster. “Small enough to not be caught by the sensors, durable as to not have been crushed by Remnant’s movements.”

She turned towards her pink assistant.

“Get me some light, please?”

Nyaro’s eyes lit up powerfully, casting a light inside the confines of the thruster.

“Something small, out of place.” She repeated to herself while Keira listened in through Nyaro.

She looked around the yellow thruster carefully, taking the time to note every inconsistency in it. Nothing stood out at first from the blueprints. Some parts where a bit more degraded than other, others had been spared from even the slightest scratch.

“Try again to push it Keira.” She told her only after she was out. Keira did. More rumbling, metal cracking under pressure sending vibrations all through the upper part. “Stop for now.”

She did.

“Small enough.” Rosemary repeated once more. “Stuck in a place where it wouldn’t melt. Out of sight.”

Remembering the morning, she pointed in the space between the thruster and the reversed joint. There laid something off about it. What she could have blown off as discoloration from use, now stood out to her. The yellow color in the smallest spot was the wrong tone.

“A one in a million shot to be stuck here.” She said with more confidence. “Disconnect from Lily for now Keira. I’m going to try something and I don’t want my hands caught in it.”

“Her.” Keira corrected her. “But, ok.”

Gundam Remnant powered down.

She positioned herself in a place where she could so easily be crushed. Grabbing unto the anomaly, she told herself to not think about the last part. She pulled. It didn’t budge. She pulled again. It shook. It wasn’t lose, but definitely alien to the whole thruster.

“Need some help?” Keira almost spooked her when she appeared behind her.

“Yes.” She composed herself. “Grab me some pincers.”

When Keira returned, she tried again. They almost slipped from her hands. She grunted in frustration.

“I can help with it.” Keira offered in a whisper.

Rosemary nodded. Keira placed her gloved hands below hers, careful to respect her personal space as much as she could. A small gesture, fully unnecessary for the task at hand, yet one she deeply appreciated.

“We pull on three.” Rosemary took the lead. Keira nodded excitedly.

“One.” They braced against Lily’s leg.

“Two.” Their grips tightened against the rubber handles.

“Three!”

They pulled together.

And with little effort, the anomaly came off.

Trapped in the jaws of their pincers, laid beaten and unusable, a yellow mechanical wrench not unlike Rosemary’s own.

“Nyaro?” Keira asked for confirmation.

“All good, all good!” The cat Haro announced.

Green. The thruster was green.

Before she could even react, Keira had caught her in a tight hug.

“You are amazing! Wonderful! Fantastic!” The young altari pilot celebrated and praised her to no end. “You are so incredibly smart! You solved it so easily. Thank you. Thank you!”

Rosemary, caught by surprise, had no leverage to escape the hug, nor was she able to hide the embarrassment for all the praise she was getting. And it wasn’t like she didn’t enjoy it. Warm, strong, joyful. If anything she was more annoyed that she still wore her mask. It simply covered her smile.

“You’re welcome! You’re welcome!” Nyaro responded for her.

Far too quickly, and to a disappointment she would never admit to, Keira let go of the hug.

“Sorry.” She apologized again. Always apologizing. “I know I shouldn’t touch someone unless they want to, and I didn’t ask for your permission. I got too carried out by what you did.”

Rosemary just rolled her eyes, unwilling to answer the question that had spawned in the back of her mind.

Because to do so, to give it the words to manifest itself, would be to also invite the strange, fuzzy and nervous feelings inside of her.

And to give leeway to the tears prickling in her eyes.

“It’s fine.” She turned around and whipped her eyes. “Next time it can be a high five, or something.”

“Oh, right. We can do that.” Keira, nervously, placed her hand to be given five. It was the most pathetic, awkward thing Rosemary had been ever involved in. She giggled a bit.

“Sure thing.” She completed the gesture with a muffled snap, and another laugh.

Keira giggled with her.

Nyaro, and all the Haros quickly joined them in celebration.

“High five, high five.” The Haros playfully crashed against each other.

“Even Lily says good job.” Keira told her from behind her mask.

“I would be annoyed if she didn’t. With all the problems she’s causing me, she better be grateful.” A snappy, playful comment. One she hoped Keira would get.

The pilot, instead of answering instantly, looked towards the head unit of the Mobile Suit, as if waiting for it to talk.

Lily could talk to Keira, that was for certain, but until now, she didn’t exactly knew how. Keira’s mask most likely served as the link between the two, just as her necklace served to connect her with Nya. Whenever she wore it, the AI inside of the Mobile Suit was connected to her. She could send her messages, hear Keira talk and hear what was around her. A useful thing, as Rosemary herself knew well. Keira looking at the Gundam whenever she sent her a message was probably a habit of hers.

“She says to don’t get used to it.” Keira was apologetic from the comments  Gundam Remnant told her to relay.

Which were a bit insulting.

“As if I cared.” She shrugged off her words. “We still have a lot of work to do.”

“Can I help with something else?” Keira offered, which gave a bit of a pause to Rosemary.

Because the biggest problem that Gundam Remnant had was not a wrench stuck in the thruster, or the main frame falling apart.

No, it was in the blueprints.

Surprised was a far too simple word to describe how she had felt when she first laid eyes on it. Annoyed felt not aggressive enough; befuddled seemed to fit better, but lacked the true impact within her heart; horrified was the closest she could get.

“Not unless you know who in the abyss itself uses stones to measure height?” Rosemary cursed her rusted luck.

Keira looked at her far too excitedly.

“That was because of one particular basalt cave.” She answered without a doubt. “King Mira the third, of the Sanctified Ruther Kingdoms, used to measure his children with it during his reign.”

Once again, her pilot had a readily available photo to show her. A basalt cave near the sea, with a particular hexagonal column of rock scratched and painted with gold.

“One stone was about his height, or a meter eighty-two.”

“Wasn’t the metric system already in place during his reign?” Rosemary asked sure of her own altari history.

“Yes.” Keira answered changing the picture to another one depicting a piece of paper in cursive. “But he abolished it as he saw it as barbaric, and of the old world.”

“I want to strangle him.” Rosemary added.

“Well… that actually happened.”

Rosemary could only laugh at the absurdity of the day, regardless of how morbid it was.

“How did that happen?” She asked.

And Keira’s whole body seemed to lit up at the question, bringing in her own level of morbid to the talk.

“It is a long tale, spanning at least three different family branches, two hundred assassinations and an incident with a car full of cheese.” Keira began her explanation, one that quickly got Rosemary enraptured.

It was amusing seeing her this way. The Keira who entertainingly recounted events of a history long past. Events that had shaped the world the two of them had been born into and had grown up in. The measurements, the laws against bovine overexploitation, the significance of the phrase ‘aged like cheese’. All in all, something far gone, yet still alive in the effects it cause, like the light of long dead stars.

Rosemary couldn’t even wrap her head around that all she heard from Keira had happened past three millennia ago.

“How did you even manage to find all this information?” Rosemary asked once the lecture was over. “Three millennia of age is insane to think about.”

“I like history.” Keira answered like if that was the full explanation. “So much so that I used to spend almost all my days in the city’s library back home watching old documentaries or trying to read some of the old books.” She continued. “When I struggled the curator would read them to me. She was very kind.”

“I thought that a six-year-old girl would rather be reading fairy tales or watching cartoons rather than learning the gruesome history of the Riverian line.” Rosemary commented. “Or playing with her friends at school.”

“Oh, I also did watch cartoons, don’t get me wrong.” Keira added a bit more deflated, holding her elbow with her arm. “Just never really had any friends.” She laughed, a cruel laugh. “Local rich girl has no friends, more at eleven.”

Rosemary couldn’t bring herself to respond to it. It’s not like a rich, spoiled heir to the biggest pharmaceutical company in the whole of Altaris needed her pity.

Her family was loaded with money, enough so for the aquamarine girl to be hired with a salary that could pay for almost four families back home. Let alone discounting the whole political power that her capitalist fathers held, hence her whole visa and passport process being so painless. More than that, they even had a Gundam. A full working Gundam.

It was hard to cry about someone that never struggled with money.

On the other hand, that loneliness was far too familiar for her to ignore.

Nyaro answered for her.

“We are friends! We are friends!” She jumped unto Keira’s arms, and the pilot held her with a lot of love.

“Thank you Nyaro.”

Rosemary went to grab two chocolate bars from her locker. With a smile, she offered one to Keira.

The girl looked outright panicked at the offer.

“No, thank you. I already ate.” She apologetically refused. “You should keep it so you don’t have to buy more later.”

“I don’t mind.” Rosemary politely insisted. “Have it for later then.”

Keira accepted it this time, holding it close to her, as if it had been the first gift she’d received in a long time. That made the engineer break a bit.

“Want to listen to some music while I design the new part?” Rosemary additionally offered..

“Yes!” Keira accepted. “Maybe it’ll inspire me while I run the simulations again.”

Nyaro loaded up her favorite disc. An old thing from a life so distant away. Loud and enthusiastic, her favorite metal album. To the Fools that Challenged the Sea, by Dreams of the Drowned. She had their whole discography saved.

As the music filled the hangar, both women got to finish their work for the day. Rosemary, insecure of her own tastes, found herself wishing that Keira liked the albums just as much as she did. Every now and then, as the hours passed by, she would steal a glance at the pilot to see her reaction to each new song.

With some Keira seemed to be enjoying it at least. As far as she could tell in the simulation, she was moving her head to the rhythm. Other times she remained static, either having her focused required on a particular difficult maneuver, or not enjoying it. Rosemary fought the urge every time to add a dismissive comment for those moments.

Under the watchful eyes of the Gundam named Remnant, the two women enjoyed the simple presence of each other.

 In time, the clock marked the end of her shift. Nyaro stopped her from continuing her work, just as she did for Keira. The hour was late, their energy had been spent. Yet no words were enough to express how they felt at the parting hour.

Comfortable. Calm. Happy? Rosemary didn’t care to give it a name.

“I should have the leg ready for tomorrow, if miss hooves here is fine with it.”

Keira approached her to look at the diagram. Through her mask, the information was sent to the Gundam’s AI to receive the feedback.

“She says she’s happy with it, and ready to try it out.” With that approval, Rosemary felt the day hadn’t been a waste as it had been at first. “You are simply amazing!”

She went for another hug, but stopped herself. Then, she raised her hand for another lame high-five.

Rosemary gave it again with another chuckle.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Keira.” She bid her goodbyes to the pilot.

“See you tomorrow!” Keira bid her farewell.

The pilot found herself once more alone in the hangar she called home. But for the first time in a long while, that feeling of loneliness felt more profound than ever before. The loud, direct, no-nonsense engineer that had come into her life was the most amazing woman she had ever seen in her life. Been near her made her feel less off.

She almost didn’t want her to leave.

Keira shut down the lights, removed her masks, and turned to face her oldest friend in the world.

“What do you think of her Lily?” She asked her.

Whispering annoyance.

“I don’t find her annoying. Though I can understand how her comments can be a bit insensitive.” She admitted.

Whispering approval.

“She is amazing. In a day she was able to fix your thruster!” Keira agreed with Lily, feeling relieved that her friend approved of her. “The Haros are happier than ever, the hangar is tidier, and you are getting a new leg! I could have never been able to do that.”

Lily coincided with her in every aspect, however making an effort to diminish the feelings of inadequacy that Keira felt brewing within her. It was never supposed to be her job to maintain her to such an extent, and not a single person was ever meant to take care of a place as big as this. Keira was a pilot, Rosemary was an engineer. From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.

The pilot jumped from her spot towards Lily’s neck, where she sat for a moment in peace. Still holding the chocolate bar un her hands, she felt the happiness from the day start to fade away.

“It is very different working with her than the previous team.” She told Lily who wholeheartedly agreed with her. “Why do you think that is?”

Lily didn’t have to think about it.

From a tight knit group of engineers reluctantly assigned to her by the UCA government, to an altari engineer who had been hired by her own dads because of her skills.

The former barely spoke with her, doing their best to finish the job before she arrived; the latter had taken the time to listen to her drabble about history few cared about.

“What if this is only the honeymoon?” Keira’s reservations were heard by Lily who encouraged her to not fall into doom scenarios. “But...”

But there was one thing both of them were painfully aware of. An aspect of hers that couldn’t be ignored. A piece of nothingness within her that would always be there, watching, waiting.

Her hunger.

She opened up the still solid bar, and took a desperate bite. Soon as the chocolate touched her tongue, the nostalgic taste of the candy was replaced by the horrid taste of ash. She chewed and chewed and chewed, hoping to extract the tiniest sliver of the flavor she once loved.

Nothing.

Her stomach hurt. Her eye pulsed with the tale tell sign of a headache. Her vision blurred. Weakness overtook her.

She held as hard as she could to Lily’s head.

Whispering concern.

“I’m ok.” Keira lied to reassure her friend. The Gundam knew her too well for that to work.

Whispering caress.

“I hate having to do it.” She crumpled the remaining chocolate bar in frustration. “Why? Just why? Why can’t I eat anything else? Why does it have to be blood?!”

Stars above, she was crying already.

Out of sheer self-destruction, she ate the last bits of the bar, using her memory to fill in the flavor where ash had replaced it. It didn’t help, but she didn’t want anything else at the moment.

Whispering concern.

“I’m sorry Lily.” She cried a bit more.

From the first aid bag she’d left on Lily’s neck , she pulled out the second bag of blood that her doctor had given her some time ago.

“I don’t want this.” Her hunger disagreed. She was already salivating.

And one fact of her life had changed drastically. A simple, aquamarine haired woman now existed in her life.

She was no longer alone.

Were she to lose control…

She bit the bag, and she drank. She drank as she cried. She drank with and without glee until her hunger was no more.

In a weird twist of fate, a message came through her tablet.

The doctor was expecting her tomorrow.

“Oh.” Her heart dropped. For once she was looking forward to spending time with someone else. “I guess I won’t be coming here…”

Fighting the urge to look away, she wrote a message to her engineer. Next time she would make it up to her.

Next time.

Chapter Text

It was an odd thing to silently whistle a tune. To follow more with one’s heart the idea of the song rather than pour it all out through lip and rhyme. But more than that, was the reason why. Keira was whistling to herself an old song she knew, or remembered naught about. But what she heard she liked. A cheery, powerful and catchy tune that accompanied her from within.

Doubts about where she could have heard it before came to her, as it was due to happen. But she didn’t feel the need to dig too deep into it. She liked it, and that made her happy. Or maybe it was the other way around.

“Good afternoon, Keira.” The doctor greeted her. “How are we feeling today?”

Once more Keira found herself in the special room of the clinic, the one reserved specifically for her. Cold lights of white shining upon her, cold walls, cold floor. The numbness brought by the AC was lesser than before, as was the blurry vision in her one eye.

“Good afternoon to you too.” She smiled, keeping the tune going in her head. “Decent to be honest. Legs are working well, as are my arms. The dizziness and the blur is gone, and I don’t have much of the brain fog today.”

“Yes. That is very good Keira” The eyes of the doctor turned to her notes, now inside an old book like one on the library back home in Vernia. The smell, especially, brought back a lot of good memories of her time there. Even better now that she’d had the opportunity to share it with Rosemary.

“You are far more cheerful than last week Keira.” Dr. Neri-sel noted as she put down her instruments on the table.

She took out the vials from the sample box, the syringe to use showing it to Keira to assure her it was a new one, and some cotton with rubbing alcohol.

“I-I am.” She told the doctor with some reservation.

Her mouth remained dry, with the taste of ash from the chocolate bar lingering in it. No amount of brushing her teeth, nor water got rid of that sensation. She didn’t mind it that much today; the good night’s rest she had the night before had helped her calm down. So, she thought it better to keep it to herself.

Nothing wrong had happened.

“Is there a reason as to why that is?” The doctor took the first vial of her blood and held it in front of her.

Viscous, concentrated, and red. Red as her blood always had been and always would be.

The doctor’s eyebrows, perfectly kept and brushed, moved to make a small frown. Her expression remained mostly neutral, but the edge of her lips ever so slightly tilted. If Keira were to make a frivolous claim, it almost seemed to be that the doctor was disappointed by it.

“Well, I got a new friend.” Keira answered.

Dr. Neri-sel’s eyes opened wide for a second, before her face went for a more cheerful expression. Or so Keira thought.

That strange smile of hers, different to her usual passive, comfortable, and kind one was plastered all over her face. A bit too big, a bit too happy, a bit too made for her own self, rather than to share with others. Keira’s gut feeling told her it was a self-aggrandizing smile, but she didn’t know what to do with that information.

“Is that so?” Inquisitive as always, the doctor asked. “And who this girl is?”

“Her name is Rosemaria, but she likes being called Rosemary because her name has too many syllables. She’s incredibly smart and talented, to the point she found the problem with Lily’s thruster in one day!” Her excitement was enough for the doctor to urge her not to move while she was taking the sample. “Right. Sorry.”

“Sounds like an amazing girl this Rosemaria.” The doctor noted and Keira agreed. “But do tell me Keira, why is she working on Gundam Remnant?”

“Lily.” She corrected her. “And Rosemary’s doing it because she’s my new engineer.”

“I see.” Neri-sel seemed to be amused by this, sharing in her happiness. “I didn’t know you had been given a new team; thought I expected it from the UCA. The hard working members of our armed forces always ready to help those in need to fight for freedom.”

At least from her meager experience, Keira could not see a moment where that praise was warranted. Maybe she was too dumb to see it.

“Actually, she’s not from the UCA, but from Altaris, just like me.”

Surprise took over the doctor’s face sending Keira into a panic. The test tube fell to the ground. The glass shattered on impact, and her blood painted the floor. The doctor swore under her breath at her mistake, and Keira became even more apologetic. She had messed up, she just didn’t know how.

“I c-can help clean th-this up.” She stuttered her offer.

“Stay still.” The doctor ordered. “My mistake, my problem to fix.”

With the press of a button, one of the cleaning staff was called. Dressed in a suit similar to those hazard proof ones, they came to sweep the glass away and remove all traces of red from the floor. Keira remained there motionless. Not one word from the doctor came, instead she guided them with her eyes, scrutinizing their work.

‘Why are they cleaning?’ She thought to herself, as it contradicted what the doctor told her not some minutes ago.

Once they had finished cleaning, the doctor let them pass without a word.

“Thank you.” On the other hand, Keira acknowledged their efforts.

She thought that silence would return to the room but found herself corrected when the doctor asked her a new question.

“How did you two meet?” An innocent question if it hadn’t been for the events some minutes ago.

“She’s the woman I rescued on my last deployment.” She answered with an intense amount of reservation. Immediately the doctor cackled, then looked at her directly in the eye.

“So, you adopted a stray kitten.” She said. “You know it is not good to be taking in anyone who needs help, right?”

“I know that, but—”

“But what Keira?” She sternly interrupted her. “You can’t be giving pity work to anyone that comes knocking on your door or giving charity to all hungry mouths that come your way. Why, that just brews laziness and unreliability!” The doctor raised her arms exasperated, holding precariously the replaced vial of blood. “Then they start asking more and more of you until you are nothing but their servant.”

“That’s not what happened.” Keira disagreed, making herself as small as she could. “She was—”

“Very convincing?” Again interrupted. “Is she a poor girl from some war-torn part of Altaris? Most likely. I wouldn’t be surprised that she is not here legally either, most likely using you to get some money home before she inevitably gets deported—"

Keira felt herself grow warm on her cheeks. Her eyesight became a bit blurry, and her mind focused on how aggressive the doctor was being. She didn’t know Rosemary and how cool she was. Making sweeping statements like that about her was dumb. And all that interruption was getting to her in a way that was irritating. Keira was dumb. She knew that; everyone knew that. She didn’t know how the world worked, how people suffered nor why they did. But that didn’t mean other people were as dumb, ignorant and stupid as her, especially someone as talented as Rosemary.

“She was hired by my dads.” Now Keira interrupted her, yet regretted it instantly.

The doctors face became an unreadable, unfathomable combination of micro expressions that confused the patient. Some seemed of anger, others of surprise, happiness or disgust. Perhaps it was fury, or bafflement.

Keira looked at her arm to try and calm herself down from her own mistake. There it laid pierced by the needle, and holding unto that plastic tube that helped the doctor take the samples. A cute little thing, useful for that one task and nothing more. Discard after use.

“I see.” The doctor eventually said something, bringing back Keira’s attention towards her. Confusion seemed to be the emotion that had won after all.

“Is there a problem with that?” Keira, dumb Keira, had to ask.

“Absolutely not dear Keira.” She responded, but even she couldn’t believe her. “I had expected you to get a new team soon, one far more adequate to your needs.”

Keira disagreed with her in silence.

“But, I guess they do have the right to hire someone from their home, as is their due.” She said with an added shrug. “Let us hope that altari girl is up to speed.”

The pilot didn’t say anything, only nodding in response. Internally she disagreed completely, though she would never say it out loud. Rosemary was far too smart to be left behind; everyone else would need to catch up to her.

“Keira, I asked you a question.” The doctor caught her by surprise.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear it.” Keira apologized.

The doctor now held the last blood vial of the day, alleged disappointment coloring her face.

“I asked you if you felt any different with the last blood bag I gave you.” She remarked while she gave the samples to the guard outside.

“No. Nothing.” She answered before taking a moment to reflect. It had been the exact same horrid, iron flavored liquid as before, as it always would be.

“I see.” The doctor acknowledged.

What Keira noticed though, was how tense she seemed to be. With her fountain pen, the doctor wrote down a note, yet it wasn’t her usual way of doing it. Instead of allowing the ink to flow from the tip of her pen, as her dad did, Dr. Neri-sel dragged the metal tip all across the paper, scratching the surface. First a horizontal line, then a pair of words underneath guided by her hand touching the fresh ink.

“Is everything alright doctor?” Keira asked with an intense amount of worry.

“Everything’s fine.” The doctor smiled a horridly fake smile at her. “When did you drink the second bag I gave you?”

“Yesterday.” Keira confessed and braced herself for a scolding. “I didn’t know i-if it needed to b-be sooner or not, I am sorry…”

“Oh, that absolutely was completely irresponsible from your part Keira.” There it was, just what the pilot had been expecting. “Did you preserve it correctly? Or did you leave it floating somewhere in that dirty hangar of yours?”

“I pu-put it in Lily.” She was stuttering again. “I wa-wasn’t… didn’t need it until yesterday. And the hangar, I did clean it up yesterday wi-with the Haros and Nyaro and it looked far better than ever before. B-but maybe I wa-wasn’t as thorough and I—"

“No excuses Keira. Your mess, you clean it up.” Neri-sel scolded her. “It is your responsibility to have your home prim and proper for anyone and anything that may come. They represent who we are Keira, and your hangar speaks ill of you.”

Dirty, unkempt, defiled and unworthy of care.

“Just look at this clinic. Well kept, perfectly cleaned at all times. Removed from any and all grime or trash that could discourage its use.”

Keira laid there silently. She would not cry right now, not again. Far too many tears had flown from her eye in recent memory. She was right because she was smart and Keira was dumb.

“Have you finished repairing Gundam Remnant?” The doctor asked.

“Lily.” She silently corrected her.

“Have you finished the repairs?” She insisted.

“Rosemary f-found that the m-main frame was too damaged.” She responded. “Especially the legs. She’s g-going to order new ones for her that she designed herself.”

Neri-sel slammed the papers on the table next to her.

“She’s stalling you from deployments?” The tone of her voice rose with every word she said, in tune with the fury red on her face. “Who does she think she is to bar you from your job? The queen of the Stalwart Kingdoms? This cannot stand and I will not have you bend to her will. You are needed out there, not faffing around.”

Keira afraid of the outburst, took out the needle from her arm and treated her wound. Seeing the doctor as angry at this, made her recoil in fear. Both the present emotion, and an old forgotten memory urged her to get out.

Get out.

Get out.

Taking care to be as silent as a ward mouse, Keira moved herself to the edge of the bed. When the doctor turned her back to her, she took the opportunity to sit up and make herself as small as she could.

She was twenty-five, scared like a fifteen-year-old.

“Did you protest to her request?” Neri-sel caught her with the question.

“I didn’t.” Keira whispered praying to the stars above she wouldn’t be angry at her.

“That answers my question.” She took her papers and her book, and marched towards the door. “You are barred from going to the farm until I say so. I’ll have a talk with this Rosemaria.”

Keira solemnly nodded, as much as her heart ached. Tammy would understand, she was the only one who unconditionally did.

“Now leave. I have other patients to attend to.”

Shameful relief washed over the altari girl. Not wasting a second, she put on her uniform, put on her mask, and walked out the room. Even when the door closed behind her, Keira could hear the doctor talking to herself and angrily pen down notes. If she had gotten Rosemary into trouble, she couldn’t forgive herself.

It was best if she got back to the hangar quick and warn her about this.

She needed to leave the town, get on the train, cross the whole of the port and get to the hangar. Town, train, port, hangar. Four easy steps that would feel nightmarishly long. Worst of all was the dumb thing she had failed to do. In the while week they’d worked together, she’d never asked for her number. So easy a problem solved had she done the lost basic thing.

“Dumb Keira.” She whispered to herself as she left the clinic.

But she couldn’t dabble on her mistakes for too long, not now at least. Now it was important for her to do two things: figure out how to apologize to Rosemary for the mess she had probably got her in, and find a way to assuage the doctor’s fury. Both were equally hard. No matter how much she looked for ways to wrap her head around it, she couldn’t tell how she had messed up. Both women were smart, amazingly smart, but both had different ideas about her deployments.

The doctor was right in that she was needed out there. People were getting hurt by the day, and there were not enough Gundams for it all, let alone when hers was stuck in maintenance. On the other hand, Rosemary was right. The poor state in which Lily found herself in would inevitably put in danger whoever she went out to help.

And, as much harm as she did for who she was, Keira held tightly unto her one wish. To help people.

Such were the thoughts that swirled around her head while she took the journey home. So lost was she in them that she failed to pay attention to the road.

Tiers screeching. The smell of burnt rubber filling the air. Metal hitting metal. An alarm going off. She turned to the last second to see the white headlights of a car coming directly at her.

It was a curious little vehicle, as far as she could tell in that infinitesimal second before the impact. Small, with scratches here and there and a stamp of a cute pair of dogs. The driver seat window had clearly been broken into, marking it as stolen. She couldn’t see the driver, and they probably didn’t care to see her. The important thing had been to get away.

Her body tensed up, ready for the impact. Not even her guards would be able to do anything.

Then came the color red, lowing like autumn leaves.

She felt the hit. Her body pushed to the side, something heavy falling above her. Gunfire. A crash. The car horn blasting in the background never ending.

The hard ground, cold and raspy, was below her, yet not fully. Something warm was holding her, something strong.

No. It wasn’t something, it was someone. Keira could feel their accelerated heartbeat in her ears.

“Are you ok?” A raspy, heavily accented voice, came to her.

Keira dared now to look at her savior. She knew this woman, at least in passing. Warm sepia skin covered in more scars than her, with the longest, messiest red hair that she’d ever seen, a pair of piercing above her eyebrows, and a pair of shining golden eyes that shone like rainbow fireflies.

“Y-yes.” She assured the one who had saved her. “I’m fine.”

Goosebumps went down her spine as the reality of what had just happened dawned on her. Combined it with her dumb crawling discomfort of being touched she couldn’t remain on the floor anymore.

“Can you help me stand up?” She asked. The red head let her go, and did as asked.

Once they stood up, Keira noticed three things about her. One, how tall she was, for she stood about a head taller than her; secondly how strong she was. Without any sleeves, she could see the size and tone of her muscles, incomparable to anyone’s, including Keira’s own. Lastly, the peeled skin on her knuckles, and the little bit of blood that was flowing from them.

“Are you alright?” Keira, worried now, asked as well. The woman, who couldn’t be much older than her, looked at her confused. “Your hands…”

The woman took notice of it, but only shrugged in response.

“Had had worse.” She told her before a second gunshot was heard.

Both women turned towards the origin of sound. Her guards surrounded the wrecked vehicle, guns at the ready; one already with a bit of smoke coming out. The few people that had been on the streets had scattered, hiding behind bared doors, shut windows, or lost in dark alleyways.

The car had crashed on a light pole, windshield shattered into pieces, door flung open by force and a bullet hole on the side. The body of the driver laid next to it. His arm broken and twisted, blood pouring out of the wound in his side.

Powerless as she might be in the moment, she couldn’t stand and see what they’d done. She ran to the body, taking a look to see if he could be saved.

He looked much younger than her, about eighteen. Terracotta skin stained by blood and the dirt in the ground, with a dark, scruffy, yet to fully grow beard underneath his swollen lips and broken teeth. No pulse, no breathing. Eyes wide open with no light behind it.

“What did you do?!” Full of fury, she screamed at her guards.

This would get her into a lot of trouble, ending up in full on solitary confinement again, but she couldn’t stand it. She grabbed the scruff of the one who had fired and screamed again.

“What did you do?!”

A stupid question that only a stupid girl like her would make. A stupid choice that earned her only silence. A stupid outburst that ended in her being hit on the stomach causing the air to escape from her lungs.

“Oi!” The red-haired woman, still bleeding from her knuckles, went to approach. Keira shook her head.

Guns at the ready, faces covered in their own mask concealing their emotions. Silently, her guards ordered her savior to stay back.

Then they demanded of Keira to get up and leave. She did for there was nothing else she could do.

“I-I’m sorry.” She told the woman and walked away.

She hoped one day she would get the chance to thank her properly.

It would have been an understatement to say that Rosemary was disappointed. When she crossed the door to the hangar and found no sight of the woman who called this place home, her mood soured. The message, a formality in the form of an apology, had been completely unnecessary for her rational brain. Nowhere in their professional arrangement had they Keira told her this is what she needed to do. On the contrary, Rosemary was the only one contractually obligated to tell Keira if she couldn’t work.

And it being an apology of all things Irritated her. It’s not like they had agreed on a date or something like that.

Still, it made her a bit mad that she wasn’t here.

“Nyaro Rosemary, Nyaro!” The pink ball approached her.

“Hi Nyaro.” She greeted her, huding her annoyance as much as she could.

Nyaro, ever able to see through her, landed on her arms.

“Yes, I’m annoyed, but I can’t do anything about it.” She admitted to her friend. “And we have a long day of work ahead of us. Let’s get started.”

First and foremost for her and her mechanical team was to add the finishing touches to the leg design. The base was completed and ready to be built, but there were two points standing in her way. Number one, the armor plating that would go over it.

There was an insane number of different plates she could choose from; some lighter and more flexible, some sturdier and far less prone to plastic deformation. Some even with specialized properties she never saw herself needing like deep diving capabilities or high radiation insulation. At least she hoped so.

The problem was that she’d hoped she had had the opportunity to talk with Keira (who should have been there) to discuss it. Three or four questions to land on a choice, with a simple paragraph of explanation detailing its pros and cons, repeat as needed.

But she wasn’t here (which she should have), so that meant it was her choice, and her consequences.

As annoying as that was, the second point was far more problematic.

 That damned compatibility index.

“Because if miss hooved over there doesn’t approve of it, I might as well throw myself out the airlock.” She, half sarcastically said.

As much as her rational told her that the latter would be the easiest to achieve, the doubt wouldn’t leave her.

“How am I going to test this?” She asked Nyaro who had no answers. “Maybe ask the AI in there what she wants?”

The dimmed, green eyes of the Gundam stared at her, with almost joking curiosity.

“Keep assigning personalities to inanimate objects Rosemary, that’s absolutely the way to get out of crippling loneliness.” She mockingly told herself.

Instead of dwelling too hard on it, Rosemary looked back at the conversation she had with Keira the day prior. Gundam Remnant had her schematics in her, so someone had had to upload them for some reason.

“What if the reason was to have the AI examine them?” She said out loud. “We could try it out.”

“Good idea! Good idea!” Nyaro celebrated prematurely.

Rosemary felt nervous, and she didn’t know why. Uploading the files to the Gundam was the simplest of actions. Drag a folder and wait. But she felt nervous. If she were to describe it to anyone, it felt like she was delivering her homework to her most hated teacher back at Uni.

There would be endless corrections, a barely passing note, a snickering comment and the threat of having her grades, and her scholarship, drop.

“But I’m a fucking adult already.” She said without any weight to her words. “And this is part of my job.”

She uploaded the files and immediately began fiddling with her twigs.

Quick as the upload was done, Rosemary convinced herself there had been a reaction from the Mobile Suit. As it stared at her, the lights around her felt like they had been bent towards her. A phantom, yet real spotlight.

She gulped in response.

Then came a subtle rumbling, fans spinning, and a light glow in the eyes of the Gundam. Rosemary guessed, the AI named Lily was looking over her work.

After a couple of minutes, a message appeared on the main screen. Forty-five percent.

“Yes!” She celebrated with Nyaro. “Suck it Ad Astra Systems, this girl is fucking better than you!”

She sat back down now that the weight of her worry had been taken off her shoulders. One week of work and she’d done more for the broken Gundam named Remnant. A celebration was in order.

Though she wished Keira was here to do it with her.

“And I still need the part.” She reminded herself. “Theory and practice are two different things, right Nyaro?”

“They are. They are.”

Immersed in the silence of the hangar, Rosemary found herself thinking about the AI in the Gundam. Lily, an artificial construct named after a woman who had lived more than three millennia ago. A name given consciousness after another thousands of years had passed, long after the woman had died, but not her bloodline.

Had she been born the same day as the Mobile Suit Gundam had been too? Was she given this body years later? Who had even made her?

The Gundam remained there, motionless and quiet, without any of the light coming from her eyes.

“Do Gundams dream of electric sheep?” Rosemary repeated her joke, but far less in jest than last time.

Of all the things she’d learned in her career, Mobile Suit’s artificial intelligence had not been the most in depth. Far more focused had she been on learning about the gritty aspects of joints and PID control systems.

She knew, of course, that the AI was the trunk of the tree control system in the Mobile Suit. That it was the one handling the hardest operations in terms of sensor readings and predictions. Diagnostics, threat analysis; real time data processing.

“Not unlike you Nyaro.” She have her some headpats. Nyaro seemed pleased even without knowing the context of the caress.

Did her Mama’s Gundam have one too? What was it like? Did they get along?

“Mama never really talked about her Gundam that much, didn’t she?” She asked to no one but herself.

Gundam White Rose. A Gundam with the name of the Rose, piloted by a woman who bore it too.

“Mama Rosetta, mama Rosetta.” Nyaro was as sad as herself.

“I miss her too.” She told her. “But we’ll find her.”

“We will! We will!”

A quick thought flashed through the mind of the engineer.

“Did you know her?” She asked the Gundam. “My mama Rosetta Stonework. She pilots the White Rose.”

Whatever answers she expected to hear, were abruptly interrupted.

Her alarm went off.

“Shit. The time!” She shot up from her chair, grabbed her tablet, and ran to the door. “If I don’t get the work order now it will be sent to the backorders.”

“Be careful, be careful!”

Nya was sleeping in her tablet, and a well-deserved rest she was having too. Rosemary guessed that having now a physical body, as well as a digital existence would tire her out. Not only that, the amount of work she had had put her to do this past week was far above the one she was used to.

And she was a digital cat too; she would have her naps whenever she wanted. Right now that was on top of the music folder, so no music for the engineer.

Sadly, today was also a gigantic queue day. She would have welcomed the distraction.

But, to her surprise, she didn’t have to be alone with her thoughts for long.

“Hey Rosemary.” The young engineer heard Nora’s voice behind her. Shy and not too loud, carrying the awkwardness of their last goodbye. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Hi Nora.” Rosemary, afflicted by the same feeling, greeted her. “It has been some time.”

Her fellow engineer seemed at a loss of words at first. As with anyone she’d probably had an idea of where she wanted to take the conversation, but was struggling to move it there. Rosemary didn’t know how to help, or even if she wanted to. It hurt, but she was used to it.

And without the beautiful Huntsman to accompanying them…

“How’s things going for you?” Nora asked taking the lead.

Rosemary debated between answering in the most cordial, dismissive manner of a simple ‘good’, or the more complicated truth she’d been living the past few days.

For the former would mark their blooming friendship as dead. The latter would maybe give her a friend.

“Been working very hard. Lily was a mess.” Rosemary wanted a friend. “All the inner frame looked like she’d been a tree eaten by termites.”

Nora smiled relieved.

“Seriously?” She held unto the line Rosemary had given her. “That can’t have been a fun discovery.”

“It was the worst.” Rosemary pulled up the photos Nyaro and herself had taken and showed them to her.

Nora’s face was one of utter shock, grabbing her tablet in disbelief at the structural damage Gundam Remnant had suffered.

“God.” She said. “How is it standing? I have never seen a Mobile Suit so badly damaged.”

“I also don’t know. But I do know that  she will not be like that under my care. Hence why I’m here.”

“Replacing her whole frame?” Nora said, or rather teased her.

“In a way.” Rosemary felt herself relax drifting down the corridor, her black jumpsuit garnering her no ends of attention, yet she paid them no mind. “I’m starting with the legs.”

“Understandable.” Nora agreed after triple checking the pictures again. “What Mobile Suit pattern are you copying?”

“I redesigned it myself.” She humbly bragged, showing Nora her design. “I was originally planning to use one of the many Rosetta’s legs; but Miss Hooves over there didn’t like any of them. I had to make my own.”

Her companion opened her eyes in surprise before she analyzed the design with a fine-tooth comb. From her murmurs, and her constant zooms, Rosemary knew she was impressed. Her ego got a bit inflated at that, and she allowed herself to feel this pride.

“This is amazing.” Nora told her. “And forty-five percent? How in the hells did you manage to do this?”

“Used the original blueprints.” Rosemary told her. Nora’s smile went wide, like a child who had just gotten the birthday present they had always wanted.

And in came the barrage of questions. How old were they? Were they in their original paper format? How had they been preserved so perfectly?

Her answers: Old as all hell. No. Digitized inside of the Gundam named Remnant.

She also added her befuddlement at the archaic measurements.

“Wow.” Her companion was starstruck.

“I could have finished sooner if not for that.” She bragged a bit less humble this time. “Or if the damned Mobile Suit didn’t break the oath of standardization.”

Nora agreed, even if it seemed she was half paying attention at her complaint.

“Make no system intrinsically incompatible with another.” Rosemary repeated. “Unless you are a Gundam, then screw everyone else.”

“That may be true. Though with enough time and effort you can adapt everything.” Nora showed her own work. A big backpack not too dissimilar to a deep diver’s oxygen tank. A set of retractable fins, and an aquatic thruster. “We are trying to adapt a deep dive unit for our dear old water moon.” She left out a sigh that only an overworked and frustrated person could make. “I think we have gone through ten gallons of coffee trying to adapt it, but we are getting somewhere.”

“That’s a lot.” Rosemary acknowledged with a tinge of disgust in her voice. Nora didn’t seem to have caught it.

“Sometimes the weirdest thing happens.” Nora continued. “We ask for a three-quarter screw, we put it in and everything seems fine. But when we remove it, and we try and put in another one with exactly the same dimensions, now it doesn’t fit. It wobbles off like it was smaller than the bore.”

That made Rosemary pause. Weird, but easily explained by a number of mistakes. Still, planar shards were different.

A shard of another world.

What laws govern the planes they come from?

“Not unexpected to be honest.” The aquamarine engineer commented. “They are pieces of overlapping realities. That is weird enough.”

“That’s fair. Though I do wish they had our standardized units.”

Rosemary giggled.

“In that you are right.”

At this point the belt had taken them all the way to the edge of the quartermaster’s. The master, ruler, and guide of this place didn’t seem thrill to see her. Rosemary was a bit ashamed, but she had a job to do. Once that was done, she wouldn’t be here that often.

At least she hoped so.

By that point their conversation had died down a bit. Every so often, a pair of her coworkers would turn to look where she was, then turning around to whisper amongst themselves. Some flew by quickly as more pressing matters required their attention. Others, she found, would be driven more by their curiosity about her; the crazy girl with the aquamarine hair who worked for the cursed hangar. To them, as a sort of game, she would raise an eyebrow in defiance.

Come one. Tell me why I should abandon Keira you fuckers.

When she turned to look back at the girl who had kept her company, she noticed a strange look upon her. Eyes looking to the side with hands fidgeting around each other, a shy parted smile with a bit of a blush upon her.

“Are you ok?” She ended up asking to Nora.

“Yeah, all good.” She told her. “I’m just happy we are able to talk again.”

Rosemary took it to heart. Yes, it was nice talking with Nora. Yes, it was still a very open wound what she’d learnt the week before. Yes, it sucked that life was not kind to people like her and Keira, and that that was the default.

“Me too.” She agreed with her friend.

“What’s it like working for Keira?” Nora’s curiosity seemed to have gotten the better of her. A thing shared not only by her, but by the two people in front of them that were eager for a rumor.

Rosemary wouldn’t give it to them. She waited until they had to love.

“It’s hard work to be fair. Too much stuff for only me to do. I would honestly love to have more than just Keira and the Haros. She helps with the cleaning, and with some of the basic maintenance. She also keeps me from getting bored with her historical gossip.”

“It sounds nice…” The young engineer looked upwards to avoid her gaze, hand scratching her neck. “Working like that, I mean.”

“Hunstman doesn’t help?”

“She’s far too busy all the time. Rarely when we see her, she’s mostly there to ask about our progress.” Nora explained. “That’s why I was so surprised when she came to our rescue the other day.”

“Haven’t thanked her properly for that.”

Nora didn’t seem to pay that much attention to that comment.

“But she’s not there every day, mind you.” She told her as another person left the queue. One step closer to dripping a metric ton of work on Coh. “Like today. I wanted to ask her today about her opinion on the design, but she was busy today.”

“Did you want her opinion on the plating?” Nora perfectly read her mind.

“Yeah, I did.” She answered. “How did you know?”

“Because you haven’t put one for the requirements.” Nora showed her Rosemary’s own tablet.

The aquamarine girl, embarrassed to hell and back, took a second to realize what Nora had told her.

“Fuck!” That was reason to panic. The long queue now felt too short. “Help me pick one, please.”

“Got it.” Nora scrolled through her tablet. “The main Rosetta’s one should be fine.”

“Thanks.” That made Fosemary calm down. “I thought I had asked Nyaro to remind me.”

“Nyaro?”

Rosemary blushed. Only then did it hit her how embarrassing that name sounded.

“The Haro body of Nya, my digital cat assistant.” She answered very nervously.  “She’s in charge of the other Haros now.”

For just a single second, Nora’s face lit up.

“That’s adorable.” Her friend teased. “Cat cat kitty kitty nya nya nya.”

Nya woke up happily and agreed with a meow.

“Meow!”

Letting the mood of the conversation guide her, Rosemary dared to ask.

“Wanna meet her some day? We have snacks and games too.”

Nora was now the one that giggled.

“Sure thing.” That calmed down Rosemary a lot.

“I wouldn’t say that’s a good idea.”

Both women turned to see who had so rudely butted into their conversation.

A single pilot, about five years younger than her, with pinkish skin covered in freckles. Their hair, brown like chestnut, was neatly kept in a ponytail, which allowed her to see the single golden sun piercing on their right ear. Their flight suit, amber and blue, was partially tied to their waist, letting Rosemary see that their arm was in a cast filled with get well wishes.

“Something the matter?” Rosemary asked them, bracing for a confrontation.

“I was just warning your friend here that might not be a good idea.” The pilot moved between the two. “And maybe extend that warning to you too.”

Rosemary could feel the bitchiness inside of her manifest in her face. Annoyed by their comment, bothered by their presence, pissed at their entire existence.

“So, you took it as your solemn duty to warn us against the port’s pariah.” Rosemary sarcastically confronted them. “How brave of you.”

Nya meowed in agreement.

“I say it from experience. You don’t want to mess with her.” The pilot insisted, taking more space than Rosemary would have allowed them.  “Why are you even working for her?”

The shift in the pilot’s tone was apparent. From friendly reservations left for strangers, to a direct question.

“Because I’m getting paid to do that.” Rosemary answered, enjoying the glee of seeing the person try and figure her out.

“Desperate for money?” They asked as if accusing her.

“Not really.” A very obvious lie to the altari girl, but not to everyone else; and something no one needed to know. “Pay’s good, and I get a whole hangar for myself. What’s not there to love?”

“I mean. The princess is not the most kind, isn’t she?”

That struck a nerve.

“Don’t know if you’ve heard, but see this?” They showed their cast to make their point. “She bumps into me, throws her bodyguards when I tell her to back off. Arm’s now on a sling until it fully heals.”

“With how you get into other people’s personal spaces, I wouldn’t find it strange if it was your fault.” She bit back, marking her words by pushing herself away from the woman she now knew was Anti Mirasol.

That made her look angry. Without asking, she took Rosemary’s tablet from Nora’s hands and scrolled through it to her heart’s contents. Her friend protested, struggling to get it back. Rosemary was getting pissed, but remained still. Keenly aware she was at how bad it would look if she, a woman like Keira, jumped an injured person.

Even if she deserved it.

“Please Mirasol, just leave it there.” Nora told the blue and amber pilot. “Give her back her tablet.”

“You are insanely talented.” Mirasol ignored her friend to praise her, of all things. “Why are you wasting your talents on them?”

“Her.” She corrected the irritating woman. “And now you are going to go on a whole spiel about how I should leave Keira, go work for someone else, and put my talents to somewhere where they won’t be wasted, right?”

Mirasol stared at her, waiting for her next words.

“Like you?” A sarcastic question from the aquamarine engineer. “I would rather throw myself out the airlock.”

A crowd had gathered around them and their response was as she expected. The murmurs around her were not of victory, or claiming any sort of social burn, but of how much of a bitch she was being.

She’s just trying to help.

Ungrateful bitch. Don’t care if anything happens to her.

When she ends up dead, no one will want to find her.

Fucking altari…

Rosemary had had enough. In front of all those nosy onlookers, she snatched her tablet from the pilot, and flipped them off.

In her mother’s tongue she spoke.

“Shove a stick up your ass.”

As her turn was called by Coh, Rosemary, with her heart beating far too quickly, gracefully left the entire crowd behind. Mirasol could only stare with vengeful eyes at her.

Then she left.

“God’s sake lass, what was that?” Coh asked her, privy to the whole scene.

“I hate people that fake being concerned.” She answered, shoving her list to the quartermaster. “Or worse, feel the responsibility to save me.”

“Aye, can see that.” He responded plugin in her tablet to the screen.

When the requisition list came in full display, and the number of items exceeded the double digits, Coh sighed in defeat.

“Another endless list of yours…” He scratched the base of his beard, fingers scrolling through the seemingly endless document. “Even a Mobile Worker? Gonna do a lot of heavy lifting?”

“It is not my fault I have to do this from scratch.” She retorted, unable to fake a smile. “Told you Remnant was in a terrible state and I’m the one to fix it”

Coh nervously laughed at her comment, half paying attention to her list. Only when he reached the last item, did he change his attitude.

“Custom build order?” He seemed baffled. “Didn’t expect you to have it done by now.”

“No one did.” Full of spite, she agreed. “Can I still send it today?”

Coh nodded, seemingly happy with the paperwork. But just before he sent it in, an alert appeared on the screen.

Unauthorized request to Gundam Borealis Heavy Plate armor plate. Please stand by.

“Oi Twigs.” His low throaty voice beckoned her forth. “You sure you didn’t make a typo here?”

“Who the fuck?” She felt her anger boiling up. “I didn’t choose this. Nora helped me pick the Rosetta’s.”

“Shite.” Coh swore with her. “System’s locked until they arrive.”

“You have to be kidding me!” She screamed to the air, pulling on her pigtails to hurt something. “This is the most bullshit system ever. Absolute garbage that should be thrown into the ocean with whoever designed it. Tablet glitches out, you click on the wrong thing, and bam! Marked as a fucking criminal.”

“Lass, calm down.” Coh ordered her, but she was having none of it.

The worst train of thought formed in her head, one whose survival sense should have stopped. Her rage was too much though, she could only see the bullshit of it all.

“And why the hell am I supposed to ask for permission to get this?” Her angry rational screamed. “If I need this to save lives, why can’t I request this?”

Before their conversation could continue, both of them stopped as the office got eerily quiet. In unison, both of them turned around to discover the reason why. Once she saw the cold blue and frost green of the pilot suit coming right towards them, her nerves made sense.

The bulky woman of almost twice her size, cut everyone else in line. Her pinkish silver skin and hair of goldilocks reminded her of that old fairy tale her mama Persephone used to read her; but whereas that girl would have died by the bears, this one would have fit right in.

“Miss Hestral.” Coh held unto his workbench, as if a hull breach was imminent. “How can I help you?”

“Coh.” The woman spoke up with a lousy, whispering voice, one that forced the Quartermaster to get closer to her. She took from her bag a pair of gloves and put them in front of him. “This new pair of gloves, do you see them?”

“I do.” He said, unsure as to how much he should raise his voice to.

“But do you see them?” Once again, she said, but now in a commanding whisper.

Cas Coh got closer to examine them, he also took out a magnifying glass in a ridiculous display. For as far as Rosemary could see, nothing seemed wrong with them. They were just a simple pair of durable, standard, piloting gloves. The longer she examined, the nicer they looked. Comfort on the grip, with an added cushion on the wrist to help them relax once the hands were off the controllers.

Even Keira’s weren’t as nice. Hers were all full ripped fabric and deflated grip assistants. A hazard on their own right, and one that Rosemary noted  she needed to replaced ASAP.

Yet these seemed perfectly normal, great even. Most likely worth about two years’ worth of a salary back home.

“They seem to be a fine pair of flight gloves.” Coh was as confused as her. To try and pin down Borealis’s point, he picked them up and thoroughly examined them. “Size is right, colors aren’t mismatched, and the cushions are not deflated, so, can’t see anything wrong.”

“And that’s why you’ll never be the greatest Quartermaster.” The whisper died, replaced by an orotund, commanding voice. “I asked you for exceptional, you gave me fine.”

Rosemary could understand many complaints. Wrong size, even by a millimeter could be maddeningly annoying. The mismatched colors could strike at one’s sense of unity for the knowledge of something being off could plague once mind. Or any other obvious issues. Cushions too inflated, sloppy joints, unfitting exo-skeleton… all of them made sense, even those that many would snicker at.

Nevermind who actually made them, and how much they got paid.

“Just decent?” She had to ask. “What is that supposed to mean?

“It means that there are things that could be improved.” Hestral Borealis focused her attention on the altari girl. An inquisitive pair of frozen blue eyes studied her, taking note of all the things about her. “Like the half-sewn logo on your jumpsuit. It will last five or six washes before the string degrades, three more after for it to fall and have you replace it.”

“So still functional, but a bit annoying. Got it.” Rosemary dismissed her words.

“Same thing with that waste of steel called Gundam Remnant.” Hestral continued. “And here I find the one doing the sewing.”

“Well, some people do really miss out on it.” She responded looking away. “It can be fun.”

“Really? Color me surprised then.” She floated next to her, forcing herself into her field of view, making Rosemary sneer in return. “I wouldn’t really have bothered with the jumpsuit; everyone knows it is not worth it.”

“Well, they are not me.” She shrugged, trying to hide her indignation. “And aren’t we in a situation in which we need every Gundam?”

“The resources could be allocated better. Improved infrastructure, more resilient communication; better plumbing. But no, buckets of cash thrown into having that pile of junk flying off till the day it breaks down.” Hestral explained. “And today, of all days, I get a message telling me that the worst designed Mobile Suit in the history of mankind has asked for my plating That machine should have been scrapped for parts, Planar driver reused for something better and you... you are trying to repair it?”

If Rosemary’s fury hadn’t been at the point it was at, she could have chosen many different paths. With a backhanded compliment rebuking Hestral’s claim, she could have declined the request and gone to her original plan. Back down and take the hit; apologize and be done with it. Ignored her, have the Borealis girl forbid her from using it and have each other go their merry way.

But she wasn’t calm, nor focused.

She was Rosemaria Ryn Stonework, and she was furious.

She would get that armor plating just to spite the spacian bitch.

“Your point?” She asked.

Hestral wasn’t expecting that response.

“Are you seriously asking me what’s the point of me disallowing you from putting my unique plating on an outdated system? The time it will take to do it, let alone the waste of resources?”

“What’s the problem then? Think that I won’t be able to adapt it?”

“Are you even listening to me?” Hestral, with a calm voice, asked.

“I am. I just think that most of what you said is fucking idiotic.” Rosemary answered with as much spite as she could.

“Lass, please.” Coh begged her to stop. “Insulting her will get you nowhere. We can choose any other armor plate after miss Hestral leaves.”

Rosemary heard the reasonable claim yet threw it away.

“No.” She slammed her hands to the table. “Remnant needs the Borealis plate.”

Nya meowed in distress. Rosemary turned in a flash. Her tablet was in the pilot’s hands.

“You are not getting it.” She said, trying to delete the file.

“Give her back.” She demanded, feeling her heart beating in rage and fear. She stretched her hands, but Hestral’s height allowed her to simply ignore her.

“A complete waste of time to do any of this…” Hestral continued unfazed, making the altari’s heart pump faster and faster, her breaths more uncontrolled, her sight blurry.

Nya wouldn’t allow her attacker to delete her hard work. She was running around messing with the settings to avoid it all costs.

“Annoying thing.” Her voice came out full of venom. Rosemary’s face turned pale as she saw her bending her pad. “Then I’ll just break this.”

Rosemary’s whole body was shaking. Her clenched jaw more than any other place as her little buddy meowed, pleading to be let go.

She screamed. Her fist found her way to her back.

A grunt. Pad flying. Nya meowing.

Her cheek felt the immediate soreness of her fist connecting with it.

“You spacian bitch!”

Screams. Rage. Desperation .

Rosemary threw herself at her.

She used her legs to propel herself from the desk towards Hestral, catching her by surprise and pushing both of them flying into the middle of the zero-g room. She threw a punch, right on her stomach. A grunt.

The pilot, in turn attacked her with an elbow to her spine.

Her lungs groaned, now laid empty.

She knew she had made a horrible mistake. But she wanted to hurt her, as she had hurt Nya.

Another hit, now the spacian’s jaw. Blood came out. She retaliated.

Hestral’s fist landed on her nose. A horrible crack reverberated through her skull. Blood came pouring out.

The aquamarine spat it out and head-butted her opponent. The pilot’s teeth . Cut. More blood.

A crowd. Murmurs. Cheers.

The Borealis woman looked at her disgusted. With the strength befitting of a titan, she grappled her in a bear hug and squeezed.

Rage.

Rage.

Rage.

Rosemary opened her mouth. Where there should have been a scream, only blood came out.

Darkness, all around her would be darkness.

Hestral’s hand, not wearing her decent glove, was exposed.

The aquamarine bit down, hard.

Another scream. Hestral’s arms tightened like iron chains. Blood would fill her lungs.

Darkness.

Darkness.

“Stop this immediately!” A command was heard all throughout the fading reality.

An angelical voice, whose princely authority none would deny.

Borealis let her go.

Her lungs burned. She coughed uncontrollably to push out all the blood and spit that she could.

The crowd that had gathered around them was massive, far more than the day she’d arrived and pulled her little stunt. Part of Borealis’s team, some others from Huntsman’s own. Of course Moustache and Beard were among them, already sneering at her.

Not counting the security personnel, held back by the weight of whoever had stopped their fight.

The adrenaline was quieting down, just as her rage was replaced by fear. Nya. Her tablet. She didn’t know where it was. Everything around her started to look the same. A blurry mess of colors brushed together, dissolving any and all details. Brown, grey, silver, white blue. Red. Red. Red.

Nora was the first to act. Shaking herself out of her stupor, she went to her side and used a spare cloth to clean the blood from her. She was stunned.

“Nya?” She asked shaking.

“Hestral. You know we don’t solve our differences this way.” Her voice, angelic and imposing, got closer. “But for now, let these pettiness rest here.”

A hand reached towards Rosemary. Petite and princely, to help her ground herself.

Her soft touch, her trimmed nails, her winning reassuring smile.

“Huntsman…” Rosemary whispered in the verge of tears.

“Are you ok?” The kindness of her voice almost made her crack.

“Where’s my Nya?” She needed to know.

As if handling the softest of silks, the woman dressed in white and burning orange gave back her tablet to Rosemary.

“Here. Your little friend is safe.” Lament Huntsman reassured her.

Such an otherworldly sight Rosemary beheld. Like a river of gold, the light if the hangar washed the divine figure that stood in front of her. Nothing else existed here but the two of them; neither pain nor sorrow, loss nor suffering. Taller than life she stood, stronger than the world.

Here they were the two, and only the two. She was safe.

She made her feel safe.

“Huntsman…”

Rosemary hugged her tablet close, weeping in silence. Nya meowed at her, over and over to calm her down.

“Everything will be fine.” Huntsman promised; and her word would be law.

Huntsman turned around, becoming a bastion against the woman who she had fought.

And the pilot of Gundam Borealis didn’t seem thrilled about that.

“You are serious about that?” She asked displeased.

“Yes.” Huntsman told her.

“Fine!” Borealis grunted, stepping away from her savior. “Then Rosemaria Ryn Stonework, I challenge you to a duel.”

“What?” The altari girl didn’t understand.

“If I win, I’ll press charges.” Hestral continued.

“And if she win, she gets the Borealis’s schematics.” Huntsman said on her stead.

Rosemary wanted to puke, but the only thing that came from her was a grunt. Adrenaline was still too high to think.

She just wanted to get out of there.

“Well then, see you in the command center engineer. Tomorrow night.”

She left, and the crowd dispersed in tandem.

“Nora, dear, help Rosemary. I have some stuff to take care of.” Huntsman said, Nora nodded in silence. “If you need anything, let me know.”

She left them alone.

Rosemaria Ryn Stonework was many things. A woman, an altari, an engineer. She was someone who knew her way around Mobile Suits and likes of code. As easily as she could bake the tastiest impossible cake, she could design a leg.

She was a sister, a daughter, a mess. A rocker, a goth, a disappointment.

But for all the things she was, there was one thing she was not.

No matter how cold her spine felt because of the driver-link that rested there, nor the number of perfect scores in her piloting exams.

Rosemaria Ryn Stonework was many things.

But she was not a pilot.

 She was doomed. She had fucked up everything up. She had made a scene. She had gotten in trouble. The deal she’d made with Mikah Azuriel was going to be burned with her dreams.

And Keira. She had fucked her life up more, hadn’t she?

Nya could only but purr at her disheveled friend.

Darkness.

All around her was darkness.

The darkness of the so-called cursed hangar thirteen danced around her. Curiosity permeated the air, mixed with the aquamarine’s blood, tears, and her melancholic hatred.

She rested now in cockpit of the Mobile Worker, her jumpsuit opened and tied to her waist, leaving her torso exposed to the coldness of it all. With cautious tenderness she felt the metallic prosthetic in her spine, silently begging for it to work.

The screen of the cockpit lit up, showing her the words that she dreaded.

Mobile Worker ready.

Connect?

Long has she seen those words in the simulations. Far many times had she dreamt of them responding to her. This time was no different to the others.

She simply wished harder for it to work.

“Rosemaria Ryn Stonework, connect!”

The pain in her spine was instant. The needle pierced the barrier between the in an out of herself. Data flew through the screen and through her brain. Dizziness hit her like a truck. Her eyes lost focus. Red. Red. Red.

“Work fucks sake. Work!” She commanded, begged, pleaded.

She cried out to the lady of Thorns, the lady of Petals, and the lady of Roses for something. Anything.

Nothing. Nothing.

A migraine. Head quaking. A volcano erupting. Blood.

A maelstrom if information overwhelmed her. The weight of her limbs, the length of her body, the reach of her consciousness and the distinction between the metal within, and metal outside of her and herself crumbled down. She was there and not there. She was inside and outside. She was a billion iron and carbon particles all fighting to keep her molecular structure from crumbling.

She was steel, she was flesh, she was flesh stretched over steel and steel piercing the flesh. She was and she wasn’t.

Pain. Pain. Pain.

Pressure and control, sending waves upon waves through doors within doors. Information destroyed by data corruption. Love and loss. The screams of the thousands.

She was not supposed to be here.

Who was she? What was happening? Why did her body feel so heavy?

She was shaking. She wasn’t in her, but somewhere else. She was? Was she? Who? How? Owh?

Name? Screen? Colors?!

Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain.

Red. Red. Red. Red.

Hit. Hit. Hit. Crack!

Painpainpainpainpainpain.

Warning! Warning!

Sync rate below safety levels.

2%

2%

2%

Why?why?why?why?w-738u39urhe793ie…

RynRynRynRynRynLittleRyn

RosemariaRosemariaRosemariaRosemaria.

“Rosemary!” A voice. She knew that voice.

Darkness. Raven black darkness. And a single crimson moon.

Something had happened, of that Keira was sure. The way people looked at her as she travelled back to hangar thirteen were different than usual. Were she would say that most were examining her, like one would do a bug that appeared ln their window, now it was stranger. They looked at her, they acknowledged she was there, but they seemed to be expecting something from her.

If the news of what had happened out of the clinic had reached the port already, there was nothing she could do. The poor driver was dead, and she had been powerless to stop it. The most she could give was a pained grunt from the wound in her stomach.

But it was different. Someone would have already said something if that had been it.

No. The murmurs were different.

Fight.

A fight and a duel.

“Oh no.” She shuddered at the thought. “I hope no one was hurt.”

A dumb thought, that only a dumb girl like her would have.

Because the moment she entered the closest place she could call home, she knew that something was existentially wrong.

Darkness. Familiar darkness that shouldn’t be there. A sense of urgency. Red guiding her way to the floor below her.

She removed her mask and followed it.

Underneath, hidden away from sight, lay the open cockpit of a Mobile Worker. Its screen flashed red with a warning, covered by a figure that was slumped on top of it. When she got closer to see better, her sense of urgency skyrocketed.

She saw it. The cracked screen, bloodied. A warning.

And her engineer convulsing on top of the Mobile Workers console.

“Rosemary!” She screamed, and got into action instantly.

Instinct guiding her way, she found the emergency release handle and pulled it with all her might. The driver-link connector flew off with a sickening pop. Rosemary stopped moving.

With practiced care she helped the engineer rest comfortably on the seat.

“Rosemary?” Keira was holding her breath.

Her engineer was breathing. She started babbling. Her forehead was burning like coals, and was sweating profusely. Blood, and bruises were all over her skin.

This was bad. Terrifyingly bad.

“Nyaro! Water, please! And the first aid!”

The Haros got into action. Clean. Reduce the fever. Search for open wounds.

“What happened?” She asked the pink nervous ball.

“Fight with Hestral, fight with Hestral. Not good. She was challenged to a duel, a duel.”

Keira shook her head.

This couldn’t be happening. The duel and the fight wasn’t important. Something had happened with the Mobile Worker, something so terrible that the driver-link connection had to have been compromised for the negative feedback to have happened.

“No, no no no.” She told the Haro. “What…”

But her question was answered.

The cracked screen faded to black, leaving only one number up. Two, two, two.

Two percent.

“Lily…”

Whispering concern.

It should never be this low.

“I know.” She whispered. “But why? Why did she do it?”

Seeing her like this. Beaten, bruised, bloody and pale made Keira begin to cry.

Her makeup was a mess, a bruise of the darkest purple formed on her cheek, and her breathing was not at all painless.

She was safe now. She would be ok. But whatever had happened, shouldn’t have happened.

Rosemary shook slightly. Her eyes opened up slowly, reflecting her worried face.

“Keira?” The aquamarine girl looked up at her. Her normally vibrant eyes laid now  dimmed and enveloped by her reddened sclera.

“What happened? I-I’ll go find the first aid kit…” Keira said, forgetting she already had it with her.

“Don’t… don’t bother…” Her engineer sobbed. “I don’t deserve it.”

Rosemary’s broken heart washed over her. By sheer virtue of seeing her like this the pilot also wanted to break down. So many questions, yet none of them mattered. She was hurt.

“It doesn’t matter if you think you do or not.” Keira extended her hand to the crying mess of a girl curled up in her own little world. “Let me heal you, please.”

The girl let out another pair of tears fall, cleaning them off with her sleeve.  With Keira’s help, she got out of the cockpit. Thankful for the zero gravity, Keira led her to the main console, helping her sit down somewhere more comfortable. Even if it hurt herself, she turned on the lights

With everything she needed to treat her, Keira began her ministration.

On closer inspection, her nose wasn’t broken, just swollen. The gel would be enough for that. There were a few scratches here and there, and a cut on her lip. Her arms, and part of her torso, had a vanishing red line crossing them, as if she had been hugged extremely tightly. That would fade in time. The worst was the bruise in her back, near her engineer’s driver-link implant. As big as her fist, and too close to her spine for comfort.

“It is going to feel cold, ok?” She announced, taking the soothing gel from its bottle and practically covering her full hand with it. “May I?”

The engineer nodded.

Keira laid it gently on her back. Rosemary flinched, but she didn’t complain.

“It will go back to normal in about an hour or so, but it still might feel numb.” Keira’s reassurance was as natural to her as breathing. “Now, I’m going to raise your under suit, ok?”

Her engineer, completely out of it, nodded. Whatever was happening inside her head, it was not for Keira to know. She remained there gently stroking the carcass of the purring Nyaro.

The bruise on her cheek was nasty. Half the size of the other one, and in prime position to mark a broken jaw. Keira was thankful that wasn’t the case, but she couldn’t help but notice how distraught she herself was. What had happened?

“I’m putting in your cheek now, ok?”

Rosemary nodded once more.

The cold numbing agent fell upon the silent girl once more, flinching even more aggressive than before.

Yet there were no complaints.

Nyaro purring was the only sound in the hangar, and that’s how Keira would keep it. She was dumb, she didn’t know words. She couldn’t encourage Rosemary to talk without sounding condescending, nor could she cheer her up without insulting her. She was dumb, and dumb people kept their mouths shut.

Instead of opening her mouth and making things worse, she took a look around.

The lights had all been changed, from the usual bright cold ones to modular ones able to shift from the usual white to warm. The pantry was slightly ajar, filled with different types of food and spices, many of them she had forgotten the taste off. The other Haros laid dormant in their charging station, all dirty but proud. On top of them there was a small poster of a cartoon cat smiling with a toolbox that said Good meowrning!

And, in the main console, a diagram of Lily. Her new parts pictured to be slotted in. Frontal left leg thruster shining the brightest it had ever done.

“You’ve done an amazing job.” Keria let out from the bottom of her heart.

“…I fucked up” The whimpering voice in front of her said. “I’m such an idiot.”

“Why are you--?”

“Because I got into a fight.” Anger came from her; and Keira feared it was towards her. “I punched Borealis in the back after she tried hurting Nya.”

Her companion let out a sad meow.

“Oh.” Keira let out. “She’s the tall one with the golden hair, right?”

Rosemary nodded.

“I’ve only met her two times. She’s never seen pleased to see me.” She told the aquamarine girl.

“I tried to get her plating for Lily, she tried to break Nya in half.” Rosemary continued, stunning Keira. “Huntsman saved me, but…”

Rosemary let got of Nyaro, looking up at the sky towards whatever higher power would listen to her.

“She’s pressing charges.” She confessed.

“Why?! She’s the one that—”

“Doesn’t matter.” Rosemary interrupted her, and Keira fell quiet.

Of all the worst things that could have happened, this was close to the worst.

“One on one duel.” Rosemary didn’t wait for her. “Me against her. A failure of a pilot and an engineer, against a highly trained Gundam pilot.” Keira saw that her heart couldn’t handle another set of tears, nor could her enchanting aquamarine eyes, so none came. “Even if I could pilot anything it wouldn’t matter.” She finally moved, raising her legs to her chest and curling into a ball of hurt. “Icarus, Phalanx, even a goddam Rosetta! I couldn’t pilot a thing because my sync score never went above a fucking ten!”

Keira stood there with her eye wide open at the statement.

“Everyone gets a above twenty percent, some even higher. But not me.” Rosemary sank more and more upon her legs, hiding the shame that crossed through her words. Whatever she saw in Keira’s expression made her shake. “No matter how well I did on written tests and in simulations... it didn’t fucking matter in the end. A full six months of recovery for this accursed surgery to only then have the third worst day of my life.” She cried. “Maybe fourth now.”

Her raspy throat continued to push herself to expose her greatest failure.

“No stupid mobile suit would move with me connected. I tried… I tried so fucking hard!” She screamed. “But no, I needed a Gundam, one perfectly synched to me. And that’s just SO FUCKING EASY. It’s not like finding a planar shard perfectly in sync with me, getting the funds, the space, and the team to build it is a titanic task that a lowly girl from a small town working at a restaurant could do.” She sighed, hands crushing her legs. “So, I gave up. I stopped thinking one day I could pilot and become an engineer instead; the one other way I could reach this place. Yet now--” The crack in her voice shook Keira to her core. “I fucked it up, and I’ll never see her again.”

Keira’s gaze turned nostalgic and full of gloom.

She needed to do something. Anything.

But she was not a lot of things. She wasn’t charismatic, nor smart. She wasn’t a doctor, nor an engineer; could not cook to save her life; struggled to read the easiest of books. She wasn’t strong. She wasn’t well put together.

But she was one thing. The only thing she’d ever be good at.

She was a pilot.

Her eye met Lily’s aware green eyes, bringing her back to the first time she got inside of her. Her want. Her desire. Her wish. To help people. A flash of light had enveloped her, and, at that moment, she had known she could. Lily would help her; they would help each other. They would help whoever they could in the way only they could.

“Build the beds that didn’t guard our sleep, the houses that didn’t shelter us, the bread we weren’t fed.” Such were the words her dads always told her. Her family motto.

Today she failed to help someone. She couldn’t fail someone else.

“Will Eryn get mad at me?” She asked Lily.

Lily didn’t answer. They both knew she would.

Keira knew she had to do it. Rosemary needed her, as Keira needed her back.

“Because she challenged you, you can nominate a pilot in your stead.” She told the defeated Rosemary.

“Fuck.” Her engineer whispered, still lost in her own little hole.

A melancholic nostalgia came over the pilot of a time not so long ago. The duels, the arenas, the sensation of fighting someone that was at your same level, pushing yourself to the max without fear. With some fear, a great looming fear.

Keira’s confidence came through for the shaking eyes of her companion raised to look at her.  Her aquamarine eyes looked at her, all of her.

Rosemary’s hands freed her legs, her head rose to the sky and to the darkness of the Cursed Hangar Thirteen.

She cried.

“Please, help me.”

Chapter Text

A smile. A simple goddamned smile. That’s all it took for her to utter those three words. When she saw it laying there on her pilot, Rosemary couldn’t stop herself. Because it was that type of smile. Honest, dumb, and radiant as only a sunset could be.

“Please, help me.”

Those were the words she had told Keira. Those were the words that had pushed her to clean her face off and get to work. Lily, the Gundam named Remnant, needed to be reassembled. Whatever plans for the future she had, plans she would fulfill, hanged on her work.

On their work.

Because that’s what they were, wasn’t it? A team.

And right now, they only had each other.

That would be enough.

“I still feel like shit.” She told the Gunpla in her bedroom. “I fix stuff, I maintain the Gundam. But now I have pushed her to fight.”

The blue eyes of the model kit didn’t respond to her. She faked that that didn’t hurt.

“Lily is back in one piece, though I am afraid mom.” She admitted. “I don’t know if all the trash we took out of her was the thing keeping her frame from collapsing. And the plating is all burnt up to the point I don’t know if she’s going to be able to withstand a single shot.”

Gundam White Rose didn’t seem surprised at that. It was a logical conclusion, one that, if true, would spell a quick painful fight on them both.

Four versus one. Rosemary reminded herself of their unusual first meeting. Four versus one.

Keira had won.

Keira, with her Mobile Suit in a far worse condition than it was now, had beaten them all. She had won. And Rosemary was alive because of it.

She could do it.

Right?

Still, no encouragement would be found upon her mind. One thing was a bunch of old, decrepit Mobile Dolls going haywire after a stormveil, and another thing was a Gundam. The only suits that could survive in the horrors they were facing, the ones that had pushed so far in helping, in saving people’s lives and in reconnecting what little they had now.

Gundams were powerful, destructive, walking battalions on their own. Reality-defining Mobile Suits.

At their peak, nothing could stop them.

“But now, it also depends on me.” The conclusion was self evident. “A great pilot is only as good as their Mobile Suit, which is only as good as its support team. And that is me.”

Her imagination ran wild for a second, and Rosemary indulged in it. She could picture her sitting down back home, a cup of tea in her hands, having a late night talk with her mama Rosetta after a long day for them both.

Mind numbing ambient music playing in the background of the restaurant to keep the quiet away. Darkness around them, but a nice, comforting darkness weaved by the end of the day.

She could see her, holding in her hands that horrible clay cup she made her once, listening to her woes. It didn’t matter how tired her eyes looked under her pink hair, she always had that perfectly happy smile.

Even now, she could hear her voice.

“You’ve done a great job my little Rose. Trust in what you both have done.”

“I will mama.” She promised. “I only wished I hadn’t gotten us into this mess. Or that I could solve it on my own.”

“You always had a thorny personality.” Her mama laughed. She didn’t find it that amusing, even if she was right. “But what’s done is done. We can only make up for it.”

That’s something she hadn’t considered.

Rosemary got up from the floor to stretch a bit. Soon, sleep would come for her with whatever level of restlessness it wished to impart her. But in this late hours, when lucidity was still in her grasp, she thought hard about it.

“How do I make it up to Keira? I hardly know her” She turned to the mama that wasn’t there. “And no, I am not giving her a deformed clay cup.”

Rosemary could hear her laugh.

“Maybe just your time for now? Get to know her, and let her know you. No trinket can match that.”

Rosemary nodded, and her imagination ended the scene.

“Love you mama.”

When she laid in bed, Rosemary took a moment to truly breath. Even if her body didn’t hurt as much, the phantom pain remained.

So much worse it could have been, that she knew. So easily could she have had something broken, or dislocated. The thought of that happening, and having to explain why it happened to her employers, would be catastrophic.

But it hadn’t been like that.

Huntsman had been there, saving her from her mistakes; gifting her an out.

She would not squander such a gift.

“Guess I also have to get to know her too.” She said with a bit of a blush.

But that was a thing for tomorrow. Today it was time to rest.

Keira floated inside of her rebuilt friend, cuddling herself after the last checkup. All systems, far from nominal, appeared to be functional; and the armor plating seemed it could take a bit of punishment, contrary to before. The last task reserved for her, or rather, that she forced Rosemary to give her.

Keira would have wanted to have her go home immediately, but they required her services for tomorrow. But after reassembling Lily, she had sent the nervous Rosemary home.

She could handle the last part. She’d done so many times before.

And, if she was honest, she wanted a little bit of time alone with her friend.

“Hey Lily… Are you ok with this?”

Lily’s lights moved around her, processing the weight of her question.

“I know I didn’t ask you beforehand, and that was unfair of me. I’m sorry.”

Whispering acceptance.

“Thank you Lily. I didn’t want to upset you.” Keira smiled. “I know we promised Eryn never to duel again, but that promise was also to you.” The pilot said, aware of their past together.

Whispering remembrance.

Nostalgia was the correct word for it. In space the powers of life and death were in a constant struggle between each other. A mistake, a fumble, a distraction, or a moment of doubt meant the balance tipped into death’s corner, so was the inverse true.

People’s lives were at stake. Combat was another factor in which she could fail.

But that’s not what was important.

“I don’t want to get you hurt.” She told the Gundam, for both were aware the state of disrepair the Mobile Suit was at. She was barely beginning to heal from all the past damage, so to add more to it would spell disaster.

And it hurt her, right?

Because it hurt when her friend got injured.

Whispering dismissal.

“Lily!” She never liked it when she was like this, uncaring of her wellbeing. ”It doesn’t matter you can take it, you shouldn’t be hurt like that.” She chastised her, feeling the regret immediately. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t lash out.”

Whispering apology.

“Thank you.” She truly appreciated it. “With all that happened today, I don’t feel so great.”

That caught Lily’s attention.

“My guards killed someone today.” Numb was her voice, for all her emotions needed to be kept at bay. “I think he had robbed a car, and was speeding away. He didn’t see me, so he almost ran me over.”

Lily was silent, but the darkness around them was getting thicker.

“A girl saved me. But I barely got the time to thank her because I saw what they did.” She continued, remembering the sound of the gunshot. “Why? Why did they do it?”

Whatever Lily could say, however detailed she could be, Keira wouldn’t get it. She was dumb, a perfect fortified wall in which no new knowledge could get in. However complex and unknowable to her, there was a reason why. There needed to be one. A perfect explanation as to why they had decided to take the life of a man whose biggest crime had been stealing a car. Why they had the power to execute him, and leave him there to rot without answering to anyone else.

Because if they didn’t have one,

“I-I won’t fo-forgive them.”

Her Gundam had no answers. She was silent, consumed by the shadows. But from everywhere around them Keira felt it. The seething, cold anger towards them. Where there was indignation in Keira’s thoughts, there was a very different thing in Lily’s.

Rage.

Murderous rage.

Should they dare step into the hangar right now, they would never come out.

“Lily…” Keira cuddled with her friend. “It’s going to be ok.”

The shadows receded.

“Could I try one last simulation for the day?” The pilot asked, and her friend listened. “The duel with Eryn?”

The red lights moved around the cockpit again. Lily was thinking if such a thing was a good idea. The emotions that day had run like the worst craziest rollercoaster. Happiness followed by a plunge to extreme sadness, excitement, betrayal, realization, and joy.

Though, there was one thing that continued to bother her even after almost three years of it all.

“Don’t join the UCA army.”

Such was her warning, reason, and cause to stop her. Keira didn’t understand how this train of logic worked, but she was dumb. When everyone else had a functional rational train, hers was a model kit with two wheels broken, tipped to the side.

But she trusted Eryn, her childhood friend.

“Lily. How did us winning the tournament made us join the UCA?” She asked.

The lights processed her question.

Keira had asked because that had been the crux of the matter, hadn’t it? A simple tournament between all the Gundams that wished to participate. Show what you and your team can do, beat the others and rise to the top, all for bragging rights.

Whispering assertion.

“You are right that the stakes felt higher than that.” Keira agreed. “And Eryn always knows more than most.”

Whispering agreement.

Still, she wished to know. If she could have done it. If the circumstances had been different. If, at that last second, she hadn’t heard that phrase from her best friend’s mouth.

But she shook her head at the last second. Whatever answers she could find would never satisfy her. This wouldn’t be Eryn, this wouldn’t help her for the duel, this would only distract her.

Because she needed to win tomorrow.

“What weapons does Borealis prefer?” She asked her friend. Lily showed her on screen the Boreal cannon on the back of the Gundam.

Slow, destructive, could easily best her in one shot.

“Do we have something with artillery on the sims?”

Whispering approval.

“Thank you Lily.” She rested on the seat, grabbed the controllers and closed the cockpit. Lily’s lights painted her eye red. With one last deep breath, she went in.

An old piece of history, one long having passed in her home of Vernia. The city, carved on the side of the mountain, laid under siege. No color remained amongst the flower fields, only the brown of the desolated earth scratched open by death’s skeletal hands.

It was raining. The trenches were filled with water and blood. It was raining. The bodies floated to the surface. It was raining. Hellfire came down from the heavens. It was raining. The thunderous cry of the cannons made her furious. How dare they place then upon the ruins of the defiled hospitals of her home?

It was raining.

She needed to stop the rainfall.

She would.

Gundam Remnant would.

Had the events of the last day hadn’t transpired, Rosemary would have been excited. Moving her work, their work, from the work station to the transport container should have been celebrated as a milestone. Gundam Remnant ready for deployment. Something to be proud of.

Instead, she felt despair.

As determined as the raven haired girl was, Rosemary couldn’t shake the feeling. This had been her mistake to fix, instead she now had left it to Keira. It was out of her hands, and they were shaking.

“I promise you, I’ll do my best.” Keira gifted her a smile. Simple and kind before putting her mask on.

Rosemary couldn’t smile back, but she nodded and held unto her words.

“Ok.” She responded, and sent the Gundam on her merry way. They would catch up with her once the duel had been formalized.

There was only that task left to do.

“Come one.” Keira offered her hand.

“Right.”

As soon as they stepped into the grander port together, all eyes were glued on them. The princess of Ill Omens and the Engineer of her castle, the Cursed Hangar Thirteen travelling together. From Mobile Worker operators, cleaning personal, all the way to members of the UCA military turned to look at them.

Even one of them took a picture, so she flipped then off. Keira panicked at her gesture, growing red with shame. Rosemary, though feeling guilty, only told her one thing.

“We are not their zoo.”

But the thing that definitely caught her attention far more than anything was the armed escort. A mockery of who the two women worked for. Dresses in the edgiest piece of shit uniform they could find, trigger happy UCA dogs.

But that’s when Rosemary noticed it. The way in which Keira acted around then. Her head would turn from to see how close they were to the two, and would so subtly positioned herself between them, and the engineer. She often struggled to breath, holding her stomach from time to time, tending a wound.

Rosemary hadn’t noticed it before, and she felt angry at herself for not seeing it. Her pilot was hurt, physically hurt.

And the ones responsible, more than likely, were the armed personnel.

This was not a royal escort, but a prisoner’s one.

Keira noticed that she noticed, but she didn’t say much about what had happened. Rosemary wouldn’t blame her. Those kinds of conversations were always to be had behind closed doors, with one ear in the door.

Lest the dogs come barking.

Silence was the best for the moment. It would help Keira concentrate, and disallow the girl from Fáldana from getting them into more trouble.

But, by the Lady of Roses, she whished they could talk just for a bit.

Thankful she was then that the trip to the command center was a quick one. And the moment the doors opened; she was salivating at the majesty of it all.

The room was big, busy, with as many communication devices and relays as one could cram into it. It was orderly, not in the clean way, but in that everyone knew where to go and what to do. Computers on the left and right, with many an expert working them and documenting the misfortunes of the outside world, with the corridor at the center leading to a raised platform in which to observe them all. It was magnificent.

The way the people moved in synch, showing each other maps, percentages, diagrams, or any other sort of information they would require. People asking for help, the alarm for deployment being sent, the mission debriefing printed out and stored as backup. She could see it, the vision of this project.

And all shown in the star map above all, mapping the reestablish long lost contacts with the distant stations. From Vanadar, the closest to their star, all the way to long lost planet Helia at the system’s edge.

A vision of hope. They would survive this.

Yet nothing managed to take away her attention from the disgruntled feeling at her stomach. She knew that beating herself over what’d happened wouldn’t help, but it would take a while for her to stop doing it… especially if she lost.

They lost.

Her thoughts finally died down as the green and blue came to her sight. Flight suit shining arrogantly upon the circle of people that were behind her, basking in a glory of a battle that hadn’t happened yet, smugly exuding her pride. She wanted nothing more than to punch that damned pilot one more time, yet she swallowed her pride.

They had agreed to this.

Keira was behind here, faceplate in place covering that determined face of hers. Her hands were fidgeting against one another, the confidence of their talk long past, letting her see once more the nervous wreck that her pilot was. Who wouldn’t be in their position? So much was riding on their victory today.

“Well… it seems that the aquamarine here did come after all.” Borealis smirk taunted her, yet it didn’t remain there for long. The moment she saw Keira, she turned serious.

And the room followed her lead.

The air felt different, colder, the lights felt dimmer. The buzz around her fell to nothingness.

“It appears that you brought Azuriel with you, how perfect.” She pointed out without much of her bravado. “Did you come to beg for forgiveness? I might be in the mood to call this off if you both do.”

Oh, that wouldn’t do. Not after she hurt Nya.

“Y-you sho-should be the one apologizing to-to her!” Keira shivered in place as she tripped over her words.

Borealis laughed, an annoyed laugh.

“She didn’t ask permission to requisition the pattern, then she went and assaulted me when I refused.” Hestral explained mired in her bias. “She’s the problem Azuriel, not me. So no, I will not apologize for what I was in the right to do.”

How nauseating her voice came across was staggering, making the blood of the engineer boil once more.

“So, dropout pilot…” She closed the distance. Her shadow towered above her, growing ever more encompassing, more menacing. “Want me to get a Rosetta for you? Or will just a pair of cardboard boxes will suffice? Same deal with a score as low as yours.”

When Rosemary heard that she froze. How in the abyss did she know? How?

Hestral bent down, blocking all lights and casting her shadow unto Rosemary, suffocating her.

“Leave this here Stonework.” Her expression changed from wide lipped mockery to dead serious words. “Know when to back down, contrary to your mom.”

Now she saw red. Her fists were at the ready. Maybe without the Zero-g she could knock her out and be done with it.

But she didn’t get the chance to indulge in bloody vengeance for another shadow stepped in front of her. Dark flowing hair of ravens, suit torn from countless engagements, mask hiding the scars that mapped her face. Her pilot.

“Your f-fight’s with me.” Even with all the stuttering, her words made Borealis back down.

Maybe Rosemary was daydreaming then and there, because she could have sworn that Borealis was shaken. Be it in the way her eyebrow twitched, her eyes opened a bit too wide. Or the infinitesimal step back.

Within one second, all of that had vanished.

“Fine.” Borealis agreed with stumbled letters, betraying her nerves. “It’s not like you are invincible Azuriel.”

What was apparent to the engineer was the lack of confidence in Hestral’s words. Even the team that had come to support her noticed it, for they couldn’t stop their eyes from looking around for an escape.

And by the Lady of Thorns, she reveled in it.

All those things didn’t go unnoticed by the spectators around them.

The bets had started, clandestine as always. Murmurs for and against, placing salary and workforce in the line as to whoever would be the victor.

“You are exaggerating.” One said. “That is the dreaded Remnant? Looks more like a mouse! Two hundred bucks on Borealis.”

“Nah dude.” Another one interjected. “Borealis is prettier but not better. Three hundred on the princess.”

“Five hundred.”

“I’ll cover for you three days if…”

“After last tournament? Money’s on the princess.”

“Ill Omens.”

How easily they turned the most critical moment of the altari’s girl life into a game. To add insult to injury, how easily they gambled full on annual salaries back home. It irked her. They shouldn’t have the right, but they did. They always did.

Just as it was back home.

“I urge everyone to remember that gambling is disallowed for official duels.” From within the forming crowd, white and burning orange, Huntsman appeared to reign the chaos in.

Everyone bend to her presence, letting her take center stage. This was her task, and she was going to fulfill it to the best of her abilities. She even gifted her a smile after shutting them up, and poor Rosemary’s heart immediately held onto it. She was happy to get it, cherish it and remember it. She was blushing.

Hestral Borealis looked at her, then to the regal figure of Huntsman, finally landing on Keira who didn’t seem to be paying much attention. She frowned and stared daggers at her savior Dahlia. This earned her a glare from the aquamarine.

How dare she?

Dahlia Lament Huntsman kept her princely pose, giving Borealis a different kind of smile.

“Let’s get this over with.” Immune to her charms, Borealis interjected.

“Such a spoilsport.” Rosemary thought.

“You’ve been challenged by Hestral Borealis to a one-on-one duel, mobile suit battle. Is that correct?” Her commanding, reassuring presence made the engineer come back to the gravity of the situation.

Borealis never stopped looking at her with those angry eyes.

“Yes, yes I have.” Rosemary answered.

“Standard Mobile Suit Fight Regulations then?” Huntsman, ignoring her, went to clarify.

Rosemary, who had never paid any interest in such things, did not know what they were talking about.

“Whoever destroys the other’s head, or renders the suit inoperable, wins.” Huntsman, attentive as ever, went to expand it after seeing her confusion.

Rosemary felt her nerves begin to fail her. This whole thing had started because Remnant was one wrong step away from turning into dust, getting one precise hit and that was that.

The raven-haired pilot gingerly placed her hand on the engineer’s shoulder, encouraging her to keep her spirit up. Keira wouldn’t be deterred.

Now Huntsman turned towards her, inquisitive eyes long gone. She knew the answer to the next question, if not by her words, by the bets that’d been placed, but she was required to ask her once more.

“So will Remnant fight in your stead?”

“Yes.” She said in the clearest voice she could.

For the first time, Huntsman went to address Keira.

“And will you fight for her?”

“Y-yes.” Her pilot nodded.

Rosemary noted a look upon the amber pilot’s face. One eyebrow raised, eyes looking down towards the two of them, with a subtle smile and a simple sigh coming from her lips. She seemed satisfied with it all.

“Well then” Huntsman walked towards the center of the room, urging all involved to follow.

Once they had reached the main platform and stepped unto it, the song and dance of officiating the duel happened.

“What are the stakes then?”

“Remnant gets barred from accessing any and all info on my Gundam.” Borealis repeated once more. “And I get to press charges on Stonework.”

Huntsman nodded.

“And you?” She turned to Rosemary.

“Everything on the Borealis.” Rosemary spoke with all her anger.

“A promise of assistance when we need to.” Keira nervously said. Though they hadn’t agreed on it, it was a harmless, useless petition. “And… an apology to Rosemary for hurting her and Nya.”

Rosemary turned to the black cladded pilot with a look of annoyance. That was by far the dumbest thing she could have asked for. She knew that bitch wouldn’t apologize; people like her never did. Because when one has enough power, especially over another, it allowed you to trample them to dust.

Every.

Single.

Time.

She, whose piercing laugh reverberated inside the scars in her heart, had taught her that.

How many times have I apologized to her?

Dahlia clapped her hands, and above them the star map got replaced by an ostentatious sign.

Keira Azuriel Remnant vs Hestral Borealis.

Match five hundred and fifty-three.

Officiated by Dahlia Lament Huntsman.

“The scales have been set.” She announced. “May the best pilot win.”

Hestral’s team wished her good luck, while the bitch of a pilot left with no added words.

“Good luck Remnant.” Huntsman wished to her own.

Keira offered her a thumbs up, and she walked away.

As she did, Rosemary wanted to confront Keira about her dumb addition. Yet she couldn’t. Her annoyance silenced her as the stuttering words of her pilot reverberated in her mind.

They forced back into her that horrible sensation that made her skin crawl, and her stomach exude its acid to her throat. The embarrassment of being forced to think of the right words to say, to then pour your heart out in an attempt to connect with the person who had been hurt by you. Only for it to be swatted away, replaced only by laughter and teasing, as she would turn around and say I wasn’t even mad at you.

With her nauseating laugh she had taught her that. Apologies were tools meant to make those you want to bend the knee and embarrass themselves.

She didn’t want that with Hestral. Far from it, she wanted no interaction with that bitch in the future.

Why even put it as part of the duel?

It’s not like that was going to change how Borealis saw them. Even worse, it might make her even more antagonistic towards them.

An apology wouldn’t fix anything.

Apologies were for morons.

This is it, isn’t it?

That was the phrase that bounced around the head of the young altari pilot. This was it. This was the moment she broke one promise to keep another. Long would her heart ponder wherever what she was doing was right or wrong, but that wouldn’t matter until later. This was it.

The moment Keira had stepped into the deployment zone, goosebumps assaulted her. It was a sensation she knew well. That previous sensation before the darkness would swallow her and sending her off to fight.

Her nerves were creeping in on her, advising her to move quickly. And the beating of her heart had reached the old speed she once had. She needed to be ready. The moment the cockpit encased her; she took the deepest breath of her life. When she would see the arena those emotions would come flooding her again.

This was it.

Back in the darkness.

Incoming call…

Junior Engineer Rosemaria Stonework

Accept?

It was weird, she thought. They had talked no more than ten minutes ago. Now, she was already inside Lily, being carried by the tracks, ready to be deployed in the arena. Had she missed something important? Forgotten something back there?

That would be embarrassing.

But if she was calling her, then it was important, right?

“Yes?” She whispered.

Rosemary’s official photo appeared on the screen, the same one that had used the SOS line so many days ago.

“How does she feel?” Though annoyed, Rosemary’s voice wasn’t as angry as that all those days ago.

“She feels really nice, at least in the simulations.” Keira answered, mired in the darkness. “I will let you know once the connection is made, ok?”

“Good.” Her engineer answered. “I’ll keep the comms open if anything changes then. I assume that Borealis will have them too, right?”

“Probably.” She answered.

“Probably?” Rosemary inquired and Keira grew ashamed.

“I d-don’t know.” She stuttered. “I’m m-mostly left ln my own when piloting.”

“That seems irresponsible.” Her engineer pointed out, having her feel more guilty.

Rosemary audibly sighed in the call. An apology was forming in the pilot’s lips when the engineer interrupted her.

“But that won’t be the case anymore.” Rosemary imposed her will.

That made her feel better.

Whispering approval.

“How are you feeling?” Keira asked to remind herself of the stakes. This whole thing was for Rosemary.

The pilot heard the sound of shuffling feet, marking the engineer moving away from where she had been.

“Far too angry and afraid to be trusted with any decisions at the moment” She answered but allowed no apology. “But why did you—"

The image of her engineer flickered for a second, and a small paw appeared on her cheek. Nya, the digital cat wonder, had made her support known.

“Nya, stop that!” The engineer chastised her invention. “We need to concentrate.”

Another set of paws appeared on her photo, prompting the pilot to laugh.

And she wasn’t the only one.

She could feel it in the metal around her, in the controls, even from her seat. A small wave of synchronous rumbling around her that grew joyously louder and louder. Someone else would have thought it to be the tracks reaching their destination, but Keira knew better.

Lily tolerated the engineer, but she liked her cat.

“Lily says it was funny.” She let the aquamarine engineer know.

Nya meowed. Rosemary sighed. Keira giggled.

But it didn’t take long for them to reach their destination. The conveyer stopped. And with a loud clank, the clamps of the elevator held her down, ready to carry her upwards.

This was it.

“You ready?” Rosemary changed her tone to her usual concentrated self.

The panels around her flickered to the usual red, then to the blue. Panel after panel, bar after bar. The diagnostics bar showing just how different Lily felt. Lighter, mobile. Ready.

This was it.

“Yes.” She answered.

“Core sequence initiating.” Rosemary said.

Gundam Remnant booting up.

Pre-deployment sequence initiated.

Welcome back Keria, I missed you.

“I missed you too Lily.” Once more she gently stroked the panel to her side, feeling it vibrate under her touch.

She’s really done an amazing job, hasn’t her?

More moving, more vibrations. Like that of a kitten purring happily.

“Now you just feel like a cat Lily.” She jokingly smiled at her. More purring.

Systems at 56% capacity…

Driver-link connection pending.

Initiate process?

“Core verified.” Keira responded, the words coming into her lips far less grating than the previous times. “Connect!”

The needle pierced her spine. Once again, data ran from her, to her, by her, all around her. Mind, body, and soul all were one for she moved from her small form to the gigantic machine she laid upon. Silver, copper, glass, and steel. All of these were her and she was all of them.

This was it.

Whispering intensity.

“How is she feeling?” Rosemary’s voice was far sway. Reverberating within her like an echo in a cave.

“Pretty good.” She answered with a slow metallic nod. “But, could you change the radio channel from me to Lily? I can barely hear you.”

“Right.” Static marked the shift in the channel, and her voice came through so much clearer. “Better?”

“Yes!” She excitedly responded. “It feels like you are on my shoulder now, like a fairy.”

“A fairy?” Rosemary repeated. “Be sure not to get me squashed then.”

The rumbling around her came back, announcing to the pilot that she was being taken upwards. Soon she would see the empty field of battle, and her opponent on the other side, ready to take her down.

Warning! Energy consumption reduced to low-power mode for weaponry.

Any attempt to change the intensity will be cause for a disqualification.

“They actually do it automatically now.”

“Huh?” Her shoulder fairy asked. “What do you mean they didn’t before?”

“Before we needed to do so manually and some accidents would happen.” She answered feeling the pressure piling up.

“Right, accidents.” She felt Rosemary’s skepticism as tangible as the fluttering of wings. “Be sure not to get in one today.”

“I’ll do my best.”

The trapdoor above her opened. The light of the arena hit her eyes, blinding her for a second. Once she could see again, she was greeted by a mimicry of the soft, light grey surface of the moon of Kaliastre. No stone formation, nor tree, neither hill nor valley was there as far as her eye could see.

She knew this place well, having been here countless times before, yet it still awed her just how pretty it was. Simple, isolated, and so utterly beautiful.

Today though, such beauty was to make her life worse. An open field without any cover, where her Gundam’s colors stood out like a sore thumb. The worst arena they could have chosen for her.

And the culprit laid in front of her.

Blue and green, tall and sturdy as none other. Sole master of the strongest plating of all which even its two shield-bits shared. Bearer of the boreal mega particle canon, this beast was the pride and joy if the thirty-seventh artillery unit of Side Nine. No one could beat it at range, and no one could survive a direct hit from its canon.

Here it laid, in front of her, Gundam Borealis, ready to fire at her.

She knew she needed to get close, very close. One hit and she was done for.

Her hands gripped tightly around her; her breathing slowed to a crawl in preparation; her cybernetic eyes focus on what she needed to do.

“This is it.” She whispered to herself.

Whispering approval.

Above, in the simulated sky, both their names appeared once more in shining red letters. The tension was palpable as the countdown below reached the single digits. Keira relaxed her grip, she took a one last breath, and when the time reached zero, she said:

“Core! Release!”

She flew like the wind.

With the sound of a colony being torn asunder, Borealis’s artillery made its debut. Her first shot came streaking towards Remnant, leaving its aurora trail behind.

Remnant jumped out of the way at such speed her G counter went from green to red in a split second. The shot broke the earth she had been standing on, sending rock and dust flying everywhere.

When her beam rifle popped from its container, she took a rapid set potshots. The red beams flew without remorse, intent of burning Borealis’s limbs away, but none did anything. Every time they hit her opponent’s armor, it would bounce off without leaving any damage.

Borealis turned to face her. With another apocalyptic roar, the second shot came for her. Remnant dashed out of the way, and with that momentum, she fired her thrusters to max, forcing the distance between the two to exponentially shorten.

Remnant could see it, the tiny machine growing taller and taller with each second. Progress, small, but something. She just needed to get closer. She needed to go faster.

“Just die Remnant!” Borealis shouted, firing wildly with her own beam rifle. But Remnant was too quick for her. By the time to shot left the rifle, there only remained the shadow of where she had been.

Remnant stayed quiet.

Her breath, meticulously used to dodge, could not be wasted on words. Her answer came in the form of another pull o the trigger against her enemy.

“Your shots do nothing Remnant, why don’t you get it?” Borealis told her, as she changed tactic herself.

From her back a set of smoke grenades came flying off. With the most subtle of sounds, their contents poured out around her, obscuring Remnant’s vision. Before she could change direction, a loud clanking was heard from within, then the sound spinning barrel heating up. An unending rain of beams came out of the smoke screen.

Hit. Hit. Hit.

“Detach the ravens!” She grunted, taking a pair of shots. “Get in front of me!”

The five bits detached form her, protecting her with their i-barrier. Three hits on her right arm burned her still. But she didn’t stop. She couldn’t stop. With her engines roaring to life and dying in less time than she could blink, she dodged what she could, blocked what she couldn’t.

 She needed to be faster. Go faster.

Red. G counter increasing. Pain in and out of her metallic chest. Her breathing was in a struggle and sweat dripping down her brow. Borealis’s barrage went flying wildly and uncontrollably, covering the largest area it could. This Remnant could dodge. This she took advantage of.

“Separate the ravens. Have them be far away from one another and fire at the source.”

Her shield dismantled itself. All six of her Gund-bits flew off as ordered, and without a second to waste, began firing upon the approximate position. Five missed. One bounced off to the side. All of them course corrected and brought her barrage against Borealis. Her opponent’s hail of beams couldn’t keep up. Now she had a clear path towards her.

And Remnant would take it.

She needed to get in, find her and take her out.

This was it.

This is what she remembered. The emotions swirling around her, with the beating of her dead heart returning once more. This was it. The danger of pain in combat, caused and directed to and from her. The mind games to outsmart each other until the fatalistic slip up.

Borealis had made her move. She had made her own, and now she had broken into the cloud with the speed of a meteor. With the flick of her wrist, she lit up her beam saber, waiting for the moment to strike her down.

“This is it.” She whispered with a smile.

The smoke, as the double-edged sword it was, blinded both of them. The first advantage that it had given Borealis had been that first strike. The second was time. Now she laid in there, waiting for her with a trap set to catch her. Whatever it could be, the artillerist had the advantage.

And before Remnant could only react when she did.

“Got you!” Borealis screamed.

A thin line of white came towards Remnant. Borealis’s gigantic shield-bit flew with a speed no such thing should have, tearing into one of her ravens and scraping badly her left arm. The force was so intense it ended up pushing her back with a spin. Without remorse, the second one joined in, crashing into her dead center. Remnant screamed, landed with her hooves, and used her thrusters to stop the shield from pushing her further. Her feet scraping against the soft surface, leaving the trail of her struggle. Borealis, on the other hand, had barely moved. She was so close, but so far away.

She was deadlocked, just as Borealis wanted.

The boreal cannon was almost ready to fire.

“Keira!” Her fairy shouted in horror.

“I learned from your previous fights. You aren’t getting close! I’ll blow you up right here.” Victory was in her enemy´s grasp. “You’ve gone sloppy Remnant!”

“Bring the birbs back!” She grunted under the stress. She needed to go faster, to respond faster. To win herself enough time, she turned to face her enemy and unloaded the full power of the Vulcans in her head. Her ravens were too far away to help.

“To think I was ever afraid of you.” The second shield-bit hit her in the back, ensuring she stayed in place. She screamed in pain. “You are nothing! And no one is going to miss you.”

Warning! Impact imminent!

“Ram them against me!”

The five surviving ravens copied her own dirty trick. In unison she jumped, and they all crashed at full speed from her left. Spit came out from the force of the crash. Her head screamed by the intensity of the artillery’s impact. Blue and green, aurora light dancing so close to her she could have almost grasped them like strings. Her heart was beating painfully fast; her vision was getting blurry. Leg burnt. Arm burnt. Vulcans failing. But she was no longer trapped between the shields. She was still alive.

And she remembered.

She remembered now.

She remembered how GOOD this all felt.

“That Mobile Suit of yours should just be torn for scraps, planar driver and all.” The artillerist mocked her again, her voice not even breaking her cacophonous tone. “What a disgrace to call it a Gundam.”

“Her.” She corrected her.  

               Whispering warning! Behind.

Remnant jumped in that instant. Below her the boreal shield-bit crossed where she’d been. Its unarmored face exposed.

The fatal mistake.

She pushed her thrusters to the max, pointing them downward. With such speed, she pierced the shield with her claws, falling right on top of it, forcing it to her will. In an instant, she raised it against the artillery fire that was sure to hit her, putting her burning back into holding it. The beam completely dispersed in front of her, part of it shooting back to Borealis. The second shield, intent on taking her down, had to divert itself to protect her master.

This was it.

This was the opening she needed.

 When the energy dissipated, and no force was pushing her back, Remnant didn’t kill her engines. The ravens reattached to her, adding their speed to hers. And she became a shooting star.

The insurmountable distance burned away under her blue streak, the small Mobile Suit in the horizon became the size of her. Her speed was only matched by her heartbeat. Remnant clenched her metal jaw.

She needed to finish this. For her engineer.

“This is it!”

With her horns, Remnant rammed into Borealis.

The horrible crunch of the impact vibrated through her metal body. Pipes and tubes, metal and screws, all that formed what was the unarmored joint, broke at once. Dropping the broken Shield-bit, Remnant grabbed the torso and the head of her opponent and began to tear it apart. Borealis screamed, and called back the second shield, but it was too late.

Keira smiled.

This was it.

There would be nothing left of Gundam Borealis once she was done.

Remnant’s ravens detached and took her apart.

The first shot hit her in the legs, hip joints all but melted under her strike. Second hit towards the artillery; the barrel all but useless now. Third hit the remaining arm, leaving her completely defenseless.

And finally, she ripped her head off.

Keira Azurial Remnant: Winner!

The Princess of Ill Omens, dreaded pilot of Gundam Remnant, had won once more.

Chapter Text

Rosemary was awestruck.

Under the worst possible circumstances she had experienced Keira’s piloting. She had felt the speed, the horror of the maneuvers, and the victorious actions that had led to both their survival.

She knew she was capable, experienced, and above all, fast. But Rosemary had been ignorant of how inhumanly fast she was. Even before she could blink Keira was gone, leaving behind the shadow of her afterimage.

The way she dodged the shots, closed the distance, responded to every counter attack from Hestral took her breath away.

Rosemary could only imagine the serious face her masked pilot had whenever she had to do a maneuver like that. A part of her felt sad she couldn’t see it. But that was probably for the best. Maybe she had a weird face that made her look silly, running the illusion for her. Maybe one day she would, but not today. Today they had won.

It took all her willpower not to jump in delight at the victory. She liked wining, everyone did, but she knew how people would look at her. Better to keep her own indifferent face than to gather more enemies. Only when Keira and herself were out of sight would she allow herself go enjoy it to the fullest.

She only wished they could celebrate a clean sweep.

Every hit Hestral landed, made her recoil. Every time a piece of Lily fell to the ground, broken and useless, forced her to look away. And when the raven got hit and became inoperational, a terrified whimper escaped the aquamarine’s throat. She would repair it (that was her job, after all), and it would go back to helping Keira, but it made her realize something.

How utterly useless she was in this whole ordeal.

No support, encouraging words, nor any assistance whatsoever had she provided. She had been a scaredy cat hiding behind the desk until it was all over.

And how it had all ended.

Shaking her head, and giving herself a quick clap, she focused on the here an now.

On the screen, everyone saw the same as her. Across the battlefield the remains of the now limbless Gundam Borealis were scattered. Arm here, leg there, artillery cannon melted, shield-bit broken, and head squarely in the hands of Lily displayed high and mighty above her.

“Brutal.” She thought, but felt no remorse. Seeing the bitch that had tried to break Nya, and had threatened her with the fucking police like that gave her a bad-fuzzy feeling. Better if she kept it to herself too, lest someone call her a sadistic asshole.

Around her whimpers and celebrations were heard. Last minute negotiations and pleads to reduce their previous bets were the most common. Others talked about the waste of money this all was.

It was then that she heard her pilot’s voice in her coms. Shy, but excited, she spoke.

“We did it Lily!” Keira, delightfully, was celebrating with the Gundam.

The breath Rosemary had been holding on finally escaped, releasing with it the dead man’s grip her hands had had on her jumpsuit.

“That you did.” Rosemary interjected, getting a surprised squeal from the pilot. “What? Forgot I was here?”

“It just caught me by surprise.” She answered ashamed.

Rosemary laughed and paced around the little she could in the control center, without taking her eyes off the scene.

“Let us hope for no more surprises today.” She prayed to the Lady of Petals.

On the screen Rosemary could see Lily’s cockpit opening up. Keira yet to severe the connection with her Gundam, stepped outside of it, exposing the long reinforced metallic tube that had been close to killing her yesterday. It made her shook a bit seeing it move with Keira.

“I agree.” The pilot nodded as she went to Hestral’s own Mobile Suit.

Her defeated opponent opened her cockpit up, letting the whole of the Command Center see her in her beaten state. Soaked in sweat, with her messy hair  sticking disgustingly to her face, the once mighty Hestra Borealis, asshole pilot of the limbless Gundam, laid ungracefully inside her Mobile Suit.

“Are you ok?” Keira extended her hand to help her opponent out. Rosemary stifled a laugh, because it was funny how the hand that had ripped her head off now was helping her stand up.

“I am.” Hestral answered, refusing to take it, as Rosemary knew she would. Instead she used every available mean to leave the cockpit without the altari’s help. So infuriatingly petty of her was it that Rosemary couldn’t stop herself.

“Keira, could you patch me up to her?” She asked. Her pilot, confused, did.

“SUCK IT HESTRAL!” Such were the words the sore winner, Rosemaria Ryn Stonework, said to her.

Keira turned red in a flash. Rosemary silenced the whole of the Command Center. Hestral could only look baffled at the whole act televised through the whole station. Stares followed her words, then murmurs, then--

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Keira went to do immediate damage control.

The absurdity of it all must have gotten to Borealis, for she remained like a stunned deer. Wide eyed, unmoving, unable to flee from it all. Only when Keira had to take a deep breath to continue apologizing, did she muster a response.

“Insults aside, you’ve won.” She scratched the back of her head before extending her hand to Keira. “You’ve got access to all of Borealis’s secrets now, and support when need be.”

Seeing her pilot dumbly caught by surprise made Rosemary left out a cackle. This whole thing had been because of this; how could she have forgotten?

“Why are you surprised?” She asked her pilot.

“I don’t know. I guess I put it in the back of my mind.” She answered to both her and Hestral who seemed more ashamed of who had bested her.

Without any reservation, Keira grabbed with both her hands Hestral’s own, shaking it as if she was meeting a celebrity and not having torn a Gundam apart. Borealis returned to looking like a deer.

“Thank you.” Keira said, and then and there, the feed cut off.

The spectacle had ended, though the talks about it didn’t die out in the command center. Not even the stern looks of the supervisors, and the sounds of incoming transmissions, got them back to work fully. Still, they all had a job to do, and that included her, and the team they had beaten up.

A woman of pinkish tawny skin, wearing a green beanie with a bear pin turned to them all. No one looked happy about her next question.

“Ready for some not vacations?”

Many groaned, one tried to sneak away, two held them down.

“Don’t like it either for fucks sake, but we get paid for this.”

More groans. More distraught comments as they went through all five stages of grief. When they reached acceptance, the silence returned.

This would be a nightmare to fix. But at least it wasn’t hers to--

“Do you need help? I can be of assistance.” Through her coms, Rosemaria Ryn Stonework heard her pilot, her pilot, offer it.

If anyone else had said so, Rosemary included, they would think of it as one final mockery. They caused this mess, they now oh so humbly, offered to help clean it. And Rosemary was not above doing that would simply to get more enjoyment out of seeing Hestral suffer.

But this?!

“Huh?! Rosemary confronted Keira. “What are you saying?”

“I-I let myself g-get carried away. Th-this was m-my fault. I’m sorry.”

She couldn’t help herself.

Both couldn’t.

Keira apologized like she’d een responsible for breaking a thousand year old vase. Rosemary left out the most exasperated grunt she had done this year. It was an unbelievable proposition, one that she wished nor cared for. Yet here Keira was so happy to offer it to that monumental asshole. That would mean spending time with Borealis and not her. Wasting away the hours cleaning up a disaster that didn’t belong to them instead of having the hangar for the two of them, alone, where she could see that beautiful smile of hers again letting her finally know everything was alright.

It's not like her whole self had realized at that moment it crave that time with Keira.

So annoyed at it was she, that she’d forgotten that the cause of her scorn was still on the line.

“My team will handle our cleaning Stonework. You should focus on your own.” Hestral, annoyingly right, refused their help. “But first ask Seren, the woman with the beanie, for her contact. I’m not making my team responsible if you forget to ask for help.”

With that final vapid statement, Borealis left the call.

A grand part of Rosemary had wished to tell her to fuck off again, including her engineer. The rational, and thankfully in control one, had her walking towards the beanie woman before anger could wrestle control out of it.

“My contact, right?” With a candid voice, Seren verified.

“Yes.” Rosemary offered her tablet without letting it fully go. Nya was soundly sleeping on it; damned kitty had not seen a thing of the duel.

Seren took the greatest care in the world inputting her info in stark contrast to Hestral’s violent outburst.

“Sorry about all this.” That took the aquamarine by surprise. “Aurora can be very stern.”

“That her second name?” Rosemary ignored the apology.

“Nah. Just a nickname between gal pals.” Seren gave her tablet back with another bit of reverence. “Here you go.”

Chief Gundam Engineer Seren Goldsmith.

Add to contacts? :3

She clicked yes.

“Gotta go now, but do send me a message when you want the shit.” Now it was Seren who offered her hand.

“Right, will do.” Rosemary shook it.

“Be seeing you.”

Nya seemed pleased how everything turned out, for she had found the painting tools and had begun drawing on the screen. Being a digital kitty, the news and feed of all that had happened had instantly reached her, and now she was “immortalizing” the whole affair in her preferred canvas.

A stick figure with horns, hooves, and an angry mouth representing Lily standing atop the broken body of Borealis. A kitty running around the battlefield dodging beams.

An aquamarine stick figure jumping up and down, and a different horned figure following her lead.

Rosemary laughed. She laughed and laughed.

It was over. She was safe.

They both were. And it was time to celebrate.

“How are you Keira?” Rosemary took the initiative.

“We are fine.” Keira answered with heavy breathes. “Lily took a bit of damage, but she says it’s nothing critical.” She paused before speaking with shame in her words. “But one of the ravens is down. I’m sorry, I know it will take a lot of extra time to fix get up, and I didn’t want to add to your troubles.”

The backwards Keira’s logic hurt Rosemary.

 “Stop it.” She told her far angrier at herself than at Keira. “You have nothing to apologize for.”

“But I—"

“Yes, it will be annoying to fix, and tedious to have to test.” She started, feeling the change in Keira’s breath from tired to panicking. “But it was my fault you even had to do this in the first place, so stop apologizing.” She took a deep breath, a long, deep breath full of introspection.

Rosemary knew the words she wanted to say. In the deepest recesses of her throat the apology for her mess laid there. Its tasted bitter, slimy, and it stuck to the walls of herself.

What would happen if she laughed? Insulted her? Told her nonchalantly how simple it all had been, dismissing the nervous breakdown at being threatened with the police? Because it had been her mess and hers to fix and she had failed in absolutely every single aspect of this—

She pulled her pigtails. A twig broke. It hurt. It stopped.

This isn’t healthy.

“Fixing Lily? That’s my job.” Rosemary switched gears instead. “Just make sure to pick up the raven before coming back.”

Say anything to her!

“And Keira? Thank you.”

Even now, with only the memory of her shadow covered face, Rosemary could see that smile forming on her pilot’s face. Dumb, helpful, and full of joy she wished to share.

“Always!” And so that smile infected her words, making the engineer feel those good fuzzy feelings.

“See you back at the deployment site? We’ll celebrate back at the hangar.”

“Yes!”

So ended the call.

Rosemary had many swirling ideas on her head about how to celebrate. Have the Haros, Keira and her watch a movie stored inside the memory banks of her kitty assistant. Ask Coh if he had some more comfortable chairs, or even pillows to rest upon; if not, they would make do. Sit around. Laugh at some slop and see her smile that wonderful dumb smile. Eat some food until they were ready to explode. And then rest. Rest like there was no tomorrow.

“That was a great fight.”

From behind her came that sweetly princely voice.

The lights of the corridor, white and yellow, covered the figure approaching her. Beautiful like the ephemeral star angels, dashing and courtly like none other, Dahlia Lament Huntsman approached her.

Out of her pilot suit, and now in a more formal, four-piece dashing suit, the red headed woman smiled at her. In her slender hands, adorned with a singular golden ring, there she held a basket of truffles, crystal bottles, and other expensive goodies. With how well dressed she was, Rosemary guessed she was to attend an expensive event.

She was radiant. So ethereally radiant.

The altari girl’s heart skipped a beat. Because she was dressed like this, standing in front of her, smiling at her, being here with her.

Maybe, just maybe, this was all for her.

“But I guess that’s how Remnant is.” Huntsman added, pushing the conversation along for Rosemary was far too enamored to do so herself.

“What can I say? My pilot’s one of the best.” Rosemary let a sassy smile rest on her face just for a bit, though there was no confidence to back it up.

“A pilot is only as good as their team.” Sweeter ways of saying this, the engineer had never heard before. “I know that from experience.”

She blushed, hard. Stars, her heart was beating too fast. To counteract whatever it was, she played with the edges of her sleeves and meowed silently.

The uncertainty of the meaning behind Dahlia’s words, be it just casual praise, or actual flirting, made her unable to continue looking at her. It was too much in far too little time; and far too soon.

But she couldn’t deny she liked the idea of it being the latter.

“Thank you.” She accepted whatever it may be. “I do my best.”

“I have seen full on teams not even match a fraction of your best.” Dahlia, in another heart attack move, crossed the invisible threshold of her personal space, making Rosemary audibly meow.

 So close. Dahlia was so close. Her strawberry perfume, and the chocolates and her eyes. All were too close.

“You are something special Rosemary.” The way she drank her name, like the tastiest of honeys, got to Rosemary. Only giggles and purrs came from her mouth. “It’s a shame I haven’t gotten the chance to know you better.”

“I know…” The pile of butterflies known as Rosemary agreed.

Dahlia sighed and looked away with an obviously tired face.

“Formal parties are so boring when you don’t bring company.” The pilot of the Huntsman said. Rosemary agreed. It is boring going to a party without anyone to talk to; let alone those where suits and their ilk gather to jack each other off and do business.

“Right. That’s why you are dresses so nicely.” She pushed herself to compliment the pilot, who graciously gifted her another smile.

“Yes. A boring old thing. I wished I had someone to come with me tonight.” Huntsman said as if repeating herself.

Then it hit Rosemary. And again. And again.

“Oh!” She felt like a dumbass. Then like cloud nine. Finally, like a dumbass again. The weight of her plans crashed against her, tripping each other up in a catastrophic clash. She was an adult, she knew that (she was kind of sure of that) so she knew full well that she couldn’t have it all.

But, by the Lady of Roses, she wished she could.

Dahlia continued looking at her while she played with her red hair.

“Crap. I don’t have a fancy dress, nor do I have the time to run back home and--”

“I still have to do my own hair and makeup too, but I believe you’ve already made plans with Remnant, right?” No hint of anger, nor remorse laid in her words; instead there only was a shrug, and a disappointment sigh. “That’s fair. One must always keep their plans and promises. This was a long shot after all.”

“But.” Now Rosemary felt like the idiot for blurting her following words. “Maybe next time?”

As the killing blow, Dahlia did three things.

First, the basket in her hands she gave to Rosemary. “A gift for your victory.”

Secondly, she stepped next to her, shattering whatever little personal space remained, becoming her whole world. “Then it’s set.”

Lastly, she stepped away from her, giving her a wink, and blowing her a kiss. “Next time I’ll be sure to invite you beforehand Rosemary.”

The altari girl, engineer of the curse hangar thirteen, top of her class and victor of this duel, was reduced to nothing but a crushing teenage girl, red as a pomegranate, meowing with the stupidest smile on her face.

A date. This is a promise of a date.

With the euphoria running through her, Rosemary finally left the Command Center. Today was her day, and Keira’s; they would have fun, and laugh and enjoy each other’s company until the day came to an end. She wanted this, more than anything else in the world.

Whatever that meant in her heart, she didn’t know.

Keira was tired.

Of all the things she had forgotten about, the fatigue after the battle was the most baffling one. She was yawning uncontrollably in the cockpit, her body felt far too heavy, and the thought of a nap far too appealing. She rubbed her eye again, and again and again, trying to chase away the sandy feeling in it but to no avail. Barely could she keep it open.

 Her brain, reduced to the lowest power mode, was filled exclusively with the images of herself lying on her bed, taking a well-deserved sleep.

This, Keira knew, was weird. For all intents and purposes, this had not been any more exhausting than her previous deployment. Far from it.

“Why am I so tired?” A yawn intercepted her words. Thankfully Lily understood her.

Whispering remark.

“I don’t think having fun—” Another yawn. “Counts in exhausting someone Lily.” Keira, without noticing it, snuggled against her friend. “At least not this much.”

In that Lily agreed with her. Thankfully she had nothing more to do today except celebrate with Rosemary and the Haros. Sadly, as she almost lost herself to her sleep again, she would not be good company.

Like right now. There were so many things she could gush and ask forgiveness about with Lily, yet she was silent. She was silent and tired and very close to passing out. Her neck had no strength and she needed rest.

Rest.

Sleep.

Bang!

“Owie!”

Warning! Head detected collision with elevator door!

“Severe the connection.” The pilot asked, rubbing her own hit. Dumb Keira. How could she have forgotten she was still piloting Lily? Dumb, dumb Keira. Always forgetting to disconnect after finishing her task.

Once she lost control and Lily went half asleep half awake, the darkness around her changed shape. From the rectangular, claustrophobic, tomb-like essence of the deployment container, to the familiar, playful, angular shadows she was far more familiar with.

“How bad is it?” She shyly asked.

Lily’s internal red lights lit up to answer.

Minimal damage to head unit. Elevator door has small deformity where impact happened.

“I hope no one notices it.” She shyly said, knowing full well she would get in trouble.

Lily went to sleep now, having not the need to move for the rest of the day. Keira found it only natural of course, if she was tired, her friend would be much more so. Such things were a part of their dynamic after all.

All the apologies she needed to give out to her would come later. For now, as they began their decent, she would let her rest.

She would have rested too, but something caught her eye.

In the darkness around her, where her imagination would play the meanest tricks on her, there was the smallest trace of something. Blue and green, like tinted spider web caught by the wind, moved through the cockpit in front of her.

In unison, they went up, twisted around, never tangling themselves to one another. They swirled, they fell, they got back up and tried again. Best friends, lovers, or souls intertwined sharing with her their radiant dance.

It was cute, subtle and graceful, and Keira liked it a lot.

All until they reached the center.

Distortion.

A sphere of perfected darkness.

Fleeing. They swirled around it. Escaping. Its maws opened. Running. It caught them.

Within the smallest time, its force tore them apart bit by bit. The whole became many, and many feel into it.

Distortion.

It was hungry.

“Ah!”

Red lights.

Whispering worry.

“What?”

Nothing. She was in the same darkness.

Not even a second had passed since Lily told her about the elevator.

“Sorry, I didn’t hear you.” Keira apologized, discarding whatever she’d though she’d seen as a tired illusion.

The elevator stopped. The gates opened. Someone was there

Whispering assessment.

 Lily turned on the exterior cameras of the container, zooming in thereafter on the lone figure standing under the lights. Goosebumps coursed through Keira’s body as she recognized who she was. The lab coat, the pile of papers on one arm, and that honest smile.

Part of her was happy that it was a familiar figure standing there. The other part of her was cautious. She’d never seen her outside the clinic, let alone inside the transport tunnels.

“What you think she’s doing here Lily?” The pilot asked. Lily was unsure.

Whispering affirmation.

“You are right Lily. I didn’t know she had access to the ports.” An astute observation by the Gundam. “Maybe she’s waiting for someone else?”

 Whispering doubt.

As in queue with Lily’s skepticism, the doctor turned towards their location and waved for Keira to come out. The pilot didn’t see any reason to refuse. She was tired, sure, but the headbutt had forced her to wake up for a bit.

And her curiosity needed to be satiated.

“Are you going to be ok?” She asked Lily before taking any decisions.

Whispering affirmation.

With the press of a button, the cockpit opened up, and the rope to rappel down came into her view. Carefully she went down the full length of her friends, grimacing shamefully at the broken spots in the armor. More work for Rosemary. More work she should not have to do. Her fault. She needed to be better.

But that was another apology for later.

“I believe congratulations are in order Keira.” The doctor greeted her once she stepped out of the container. “That was an impressive fight.”

“Thank you.” She was elated to hear her say that.

Keira’s hope that the whole ordeal the day before had changed for the better and she could see the value of Rosemary.

“Using her shield-bit against like that? An impressive maneuver not many could pull off.”

As she was getting closer to her, she couldn’t help but blush at her praise. Thankfully her mask hid it all. That did make her wonder though. They were not in the room as they always were in her examinations, so she wasn’t sure if she was required, or not, to take off her mask. In preparation for it, Keira had grabbed unto the side of it, twiddling as casually as she could so she wouldn’t notice and wouldn’t ask. If it were to her, she would leave it on for the time being; yet if the doctor told her otherwise, she would comply.

Dr. Neri-sel knew best, after all.

“When she threw one back at me with the back exposed, I knew it was my only chance. I figured that if I couldn’t take a direct hit, maybe her shield could?” Now that she said it out loud, it sounded way too dumb of a plan, killing her confidence with every word. “H-having to use the thrusters to resist b-being blown away did overwhelm me a bit though.”

Maybe that’s why she was so tired.

Dr. Neri-sel listened to her explanation with open ears. Keira though found herself far more ashamed of what she’d done and how badly it could have ended. The wrong direction for the deflection, lacking enough thrust to keep herself in place, or worse of all, how she went over the edge at the end.

Even if it had felt so good.

Battles are meant to be ended quickly. Someone had said that to her once. She didn’t remember who.

“A risky plan, only few could think of.” The inflection of her voice was strange, but she hoped that she wasn’t calling her dumb. She would be right to do so. It was dumb because only someone as dumb as her could do it.

“And it paid off. She made her move, you made yours and are now crowned victor.” That tone was full of praise. “As I said, and I’ll repeat, congratulations Keira. This was a win for the ages.”

The euphoria of hearing her say those words was far more than she could take. She was fiddling with her arms, smiling like the fool she was, dragging her feet from one place to the other. This was too much and not enough.

“Well, it wasn’t only me.” She couldn’t take all the credit of course, and never would. “Rosemary left Lily in an amazing condition! It had been so long since she felt so light.”

“Ah yes, the new engineer you mentioned.” The doctor touched Lily’s container, tracing her fingers across the cold metal surface of it. “It seems she’s rather adequate at her job.”

Even Keira could tell that was a back handed compliment. She stopped fiddling and pouted.

“I am curious about one thing Keira.” The doctor signaled Keira’s guards to approach them. “I thought you’d said you wouldn’t duel again. What changed?”

That was the worst thing the doctor could have said then and there. It was true, and it hurt her having had to break her word. Eryn wasn’t here, and she would probably only find out long after the fact, but she was her friend. It would hurt her, seeing her dueling again.

She hated that.

Don’t join the UCA army.

“So-someone needed me to.” She told the truth.

That answer seemed to please the doctor.

Before she could ask her why she was here, another wave of exhaustion hit the pilot. With how intense it was, Keira’s leg stopped holding her. The only reason why she didn’t fall to the ground was the wakeup call from falling giving her energy to hold herself up. Maybe it would be for the best to nap during the trip back to the hangar inside of Lily. Close her eye, and dream if nothingness like she always did.

If anything it was good she wasn’t inside of her friend right now. It would help her clean the air inside, change it for some fresher. And if she were to take off her normal suit, she could use it as a pillow.

She yawned.

Stars, she was that tired.

“Are you listening Keira?” Sternness came from her doctor. Her papers crumbled at the base where she held them.

She was not.

“I-I am sorry.” She blurted out. “I don’t know why, but I’m s-so tired.”

Of course she would understand. Piloting could take a lot out of—

The doctor sighed, then shuffles her paperwork to her other arm. Casually and without more words one of her guards gave the doctor something. A blue bag. Small, but not rigid, with a digital thermometer placed at the side. Four degrees Celsius it marked.

And Keira could smell the faintest trace of what was inside of it. She didn’t like it; she hated that she knew.

“Last time I wasn’t able to provide you with the bags Keira, so I thought to bring them here for you.” She said urging her to take it.

“But I’m not –”

“But you are Keira.” The doctor corrected her. “Or rather, you will be soon. At least according to the recent studies.”

Those were the worst news the pilot could hear.

“Why do you think you are so tired?” The doctor plainly announced so that Keira could understand.

“How?” To say that she was distraught would have been an understatement. She was shaking, weakly so. Cold and short of breath.

“You are metabolizing too fast.” So direct, horribly so. “And we aren’t sure of the cause. Once we do, we can come up with an answer. Until then…” The doctor told her, once more urging her to pick them up. “One bag every week.”

Nothing more did Keira want than to throw that thing away. The object, cause or consequence of her disgust; let it be lost in the darkness of the halls under the Garden.

But she remembered, she wasn’t alone anymore.

The whiplash Keira felt as her hands grabbed, without want, the bag almost made her fall to the ground. The past few hours had overextended her. From the lows of seeing Rosemary hurt, to the highs of dueling again, to the deepest pits of darkness that had befallen her ears, she managed only to stay frozen.

And such pose, holding the strap of the bag for dear life, hurt. Her fingers were awkwardly curled, with far too much strength. The position she’d done so didn’t help. Now that she had it close, she began hallucinating.

Because there was this smell close to her like she’d gone to a butcher’s. It smelled cold, it smelled of iron.

It smelled fresh.

And she felt peckish.

Without notice, the doctor left. The clanking of her heels being the only sound she made as she did.

Having had recovered from her gay panic, Rosemary had made her way to the deployment tunnel. Barely had she paid any attention to this place in the time before the duel. Between her nerves, and her job, she’d had no mental capacity to do so.

Now though, as freedom was in her grasps, she used it to look around.

Massive and claustrophobic. Too big for any sort of human being to exist here, too small for anything bigger than seed crates and their ilk. If this were to be a tale of the fey, Rosemary would have thought herself spirited away to the halls of the mountain king. This place did not belong to her kin, yet nothing else remained that did.

As weird as the feeling was, it was the nerdiest part if her brain that kept her glued to the details. The king under the mountain, long lost and abandoned where only he (or better yet, she) remained. A group of adventures coming here to dig up the ancient history of this lost world within their existence that had lived and died before they took their first breath. Dungeons full of dangers, automata running around tending the halls after their masters had gone missing, and the promise of life altering treasures at the end. Thrills and mysteries. Jokes and tears. Tensions running high contrasted with honest talks under a campfire.

She was salivating at the idea of running such a game for…

For who exactly?

“Keira and the Haros? Huntsman? Nora? All of the above?” Rosemary wasn’t a fool. She knew the life they lived.

Even if by some miracle the scheduling wouldn’t die because of the nature of their work, the altari engineer knew how people saw them. Who would tarnish their reputation by hanging out with the team of the Cursed Hangar Thirteen? Whatever friends they would make, however they could, would either be the strongest bonds she’d ever formed, or be a façade.

And she couldn’t take the latter anymore.

Yet, in defiance to her scar ridden heart, she indulged in the fantasy.

Earthquakes shattering the scenery around them. Clues scattered by the remnants of old battles and unavoidable tragedies. Books and accounts that had miraculously survives the cruel fate of time. Adventure, regret, the need to push forward and deeper into the heart of the mountain. A tyrannical entity laying deep beneath the ground, past where light and time had lost all meaning.

So many sources to add both horror and glory.

With every new idea, she could feel herself immersing into the tale she was weaving for others.

 Right now she was the mastermind rogue, mechanics expert, and hawkeyed spotter scouting ahead. All the traps had fallen to her might (don’t ask her about her new scar), and now this was it.

The walls of archeotech were different. Far less ridden by the scars of time, and more frozen to its demands. Steel, copper and iron that should have long changed their colors remaining as pristine as the day they were forged. The scratch marks left by water and the crashing of stone absent, leaving behind the murals detailing the ancient life of those past. Glory and death. The rise of if the people of old who had made this land theirs and theirs alone. A celebration of the mundane. A look at the simplicities of their lives. All pointing to who they were, on their own terms.

After months of delving into ancient dangers, weeks of the having naught but a dirt shower or those hardtacks for rations, she’d finally found the way. This was it, the goal, the finish line, the end of the adventure, and reward for all of their troubles. Gold, history and jewels; the truth of the ancient halls of the mountain king had been conquered. And so everything would be revealed.

Deep inside, abandoned to time, encased, forgotten. Sole survivor of the fall.

There, standing underneath the lights of the room, was her. Dressed in her tattered outfit, face covered, looking upwards towards her protector, whispering in dreams between the two of the events that had come to pass. Mysterious as the ruins themselves. Enchanting the hearts of any that laid eyes on her. Beautiful as the full moon.

Was a princess.

Alone.

Alone.

Alone.

The Princess of Ill Omens.

“Keira?” She called out.

When she turned to look at her, reality overtook fantasy. Neither princess nor survivor, she was simply a woman; a woman like her. Here she was, the altari girl who piloted an eighteen-meter-tall Mobile Suit, waiting for her.

Keira didn’t say anything, instead she greeted her with a shy wave of her free hand. Rosemary found it odd. Considering her previous enthusiasm, she expected the girl to loudly and happily greet her. Through she wouldn’t admit it, especially to herself, she was disappointed it didn’t happen. But her feelings vanished, for she began to worry.

“How are you feeling?” Rosemary asked her, afraid that something might have happened.

Keira answered with a yawn.

Oh, how it annoyed her that she was worrying when it was that Keira was tired. How dare she be in her thoughts like that to only have normal problems? How dare she make her worry?

Annoying. Keira was annoying like that.

“Are you ok?” The pilot turned back the question to her.

“Why are you asking that?”

“Be-because you are pouting.”

Dammit. She absolutely was. Rosemary, knowing this, made the effort to relax her face into a more neutral expression.

Why had she showed annoyance?

She didn’t want to think about it.

“I am fine. Better than fine actually.” She told Keira, now standing next to her. “Crisis averted. Goodies acquired. Asshole silenced.” She took pride in the last one. “Life is good.”

That had the intended effect. Keira’s worried mannerisms returned to her normal, excited, ways.

“Come on, let’s go home.”

Keira agreed, and both got inside the pitch-black container, with Rosemary setting them on their way home.

It was because of the darkness around her that she noticed it. The bag Keira was carrying. Rosemary had no memory of her having such a thing; let alone anything apart from the clothes she was wearing. Seeing something like that stood out like a sore thumb. When she noticed that the dim light that came from it was a thermometer on the side, it made more sense to her. A medical bag, probably a first aid kit.

Rosemary felt absolutely delighted, even euphoric at just knowing how Hestral’s shit-eating grin had been completely whipped by Keria. How she would have to release all the secrets of her Gundam to the ones she had insulted. But, as much as that violent part of her wanted to humiliate her more, it was time to let it go. She wasn’t here to keep petty grudges for months (only days); she was here to do a job, and that job was standing right behind her.

And right beside her.

“You shouldn’t have bothered.” She told Keira, skipping over the whole conversation setup. Keira, obviously confused by her comment, tilted her head as if that would help her understand. “Going to see if Hestral was ok.”

Keira nodded, still no caught up.

“But it would have been bad if she had been hurt.” The pilot responded, grasping less and less of the conversation. “And I was the closest to her, so—”

“I don’t mean it in a practical way Keira.” Rosemary was being unfair, but the last of her resentment was far too raw for her to let it go. “She wouldn’t have done the same with you, so why do it?”

Keira remained quiet for a couple of seconds, thinking of her answer. Only when the silence of the tunnels remained, did Rosemary felt ashamed of her comment. Whether she was right or wrong mattered not to her, but to the verniri pilot. Saying that another person would have abandoned her was one of the shittiest things she had told her; and there were already far too many others for the short span they’d known each other.

“I don’t think she would have left me there.” Keira, because she believed it, or she wished to believe it, disagreed with her. “Even so, I want to help people. That’s why I became a rescue pilot in the first place. Refusing to help someone in need is…” She paused, making herself smaller, looking for the right words. “Against what I believe in.”

Right, it had been incredibly stupid of Rosemary to think otherwise. Who was her to ask any different of Keira when she said so many horrible things the day of their meeting?

I hope I never have to see you again.

No right had she to talk.

Rosemary lowered her gaze to the ground, looking at her own black jumpsuit. With what little light there was inside the transport, she could see the dim glistening of the insignia upon her it. For once, she thought, it meant something more than just who she worked with.

This was one of the ideals Keira had grown up with; one of many encapsulated on the six-antlered stag. And these ideals had been what had brought her pilot here. As much as Rosemary could force herself into thinking otherwise, she carried them now in her work.

And yet, there was one thing, an impassable fortress in the mountain of her scars, that wouldn’t let this go.

“Why did you even ask her to apologize to me?”

“Be-because she hurt you?” Back to square one, Keira was confused again by her question, which annoyed Rosemary. Not that she had explained herself. “And I think apologizing is the first step towards healing.”

The most naïve thing she could have said.

“Nope. And I don’t really care for it.” Rosemary rebutted, disliking that she had to do it. “Best case scenario she doesn’t do it, we remain as we were, and everyone can move on their merry way. Worst case she gets humiliated and becomes resentful, and we gain a new enemy.” Tired from everything, she leaned against the hoof of the Gundam, staining herself, and her jumpsuit with the ash and dirt on it. “Besides, I don’t need to hear her say some honeyed words for me to feel better.”

“I’m sorry.” Keira answered as she made herself smaller for Rosemary. “I didn’t mean for it to come to that.”

The engineer’s frustrations were piling up. This was neither the time or place to have an ideological debate. They should be having fun, planning on how to celebrate that she wasn’t going to jail, and talk about the dumbest things in the world.

But Keira wasn’t giving her the answer that she wanted, which was making her irrationally angry. She wanted to calm down, so, she turned looked to the Gundam, turning her back towards Keira to hide whatever little of her face she could see. Only when Keira gasped did she realize how exceedingly hostile that move was.

“Fucks sake.” Rosemary whispered in her mother’s tongue.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t understand what you mean.” Keira answered in the same tongue as hers, startling the engineer. Firstly, because it made her feel dumb at forgetting they obviously shared the same language; secondly, because she sounded different.

Far smoother, calm, secure and melodic than in the spacian’s own.

“Giving and receiving apologies is something important. We all make mistakes.”

“Look, I won’t forgive her for what she did.”

“I’m n-not asking you to d-do that.” The pilot interrupted her, taking only one step towards her, not forcing her to see her, but to at least not ignore her. “I never said anything about forgiveness.”

The engineer looked to the side. Soon they would arrive at home and should be ready to celebrate. Why the fuck were they arguing about this?

“Then why?” Back again to the question.

Keira remained at the same distance, unwilling to come closer to the perturbed engineer.

Good. She didn’t want her getting any closer, lest she lash out.

A growing part of her was furious at her for rejecting Huntsman’s proposal, and every new word spoken made it grow. In her mind’s eye she was looking where her tablet was, for the moment she decided to be bailed.

“Because having someone admit that they hurt you, helps.” With her shaking voice, Keira made her point. “I’m sorry I asked her to apologize to you. It was dumb of me to not ask you what you wanted be-beforehand. I was upset and fearful because of everything that h-had happened to you, but I didn’t consider more of your feelings.” She continued, moving not towards her physically, but with her words. “We barely know each other, but I… I consider you a friend; and I want you to be feel better. Please, forgive me.”

Rosemary turned and looked at her pilot with open aqua eyes, nervous eyes, raging eyes. She stared for an eternity, moving her arms slowly to her sides, crumbling the black jumpsuit under her hands. Her breathing was far too violent, and far too subtle; she felt like drowning.

Because those words pierced her.

Keira was right, she had hurt her; only then did she realize how much. Once more her emotions had been put to the side for those of others.

But her dumb, caring pilot saw it too.

And she wanted to make amends.

The more they laid in her, the more layers of her fortress were being assaulted, and washed away.

Keira and herself truly hadn’t had the best introduction, and every minute; every suffocating second that passed made her feel more and more guilty for it. More and more hurt.

I hope I never see you again.

The phrase rang in both their minds.

Rosemary hated how Keira made her feel. Here she was, not only lecturing her about apologies, but also now giving her one with such sincerity that made her ashamed of herself. Keira had been reckless, not only before in the day they met by being dumb and doing stunts when she should have just… done something else, but not that.

She had been late… to an attack that she had no idea off…

And she’d wanted her to feel better, without ever knowing how much Nadria had hurt her by exploiting the vulnerability of apologies.

Keira Azuriel Remnant was apologizing for all the dumb reasons.

Contrary to her.

Insulting her rescuer in the middle of an armed conflict. Getting into a fight that she knew she couldn’t win instead of backing down. Forcing Keira to fight in her stead, dragging her down here without much shares of gratitude. Borealis was a bitch, no words could change that, and she would continue being one for as long as she wanted to.

But Keira wasn’t. She had saved her thrice. Had not turned her away when she so brazenly barged into her life. Had given her comfort and company. She felt safe. A safety she had forgotten she could have, one that Nadria had taken away.

She hated feeling happy around her, while feeling like she was intruding in her life; forcing her problems upon her. She hated the comfort and the regret; having had to rely on her twice already without showing a smidge of true effort on her part. She hated her powerlessness, reminded by the prosthetic they both shared, where one worked flawlessly and the other failed.

She hated the unilateral display of kindness.

Rosemaria Ryn Stonework was stunned, and whenever her mind fell into that pit, she only had one recourse left. To wear that same old mask of indifference crafted tortuously over ten years.  

“Whenever she wishes to do, I’ll do it.” She spoke up, cold and calculated, hoping beyond hope she never would need to. “I’ll listen to her apology.”

Home. The dim lights of the cursed hangar thirteen greeted them all. The journey came to an end. And so had their talk.

But when Keira smiled, her small, simple, dumb smile, the first walls of the fortress crumbled. Because that smile made her feel many things, most of them those she never had wanted to feel again.

Vulnerable. Exposed. Afraid.

Without thinking of it, Rosemary found herself in front of Keira, throwing her arms around her.

Cold. Strong. Safe.

Whatever part of her that compelled her to do that, vanished after she’d done it. She let her go for this was not the relationship they had. No apology came from her lips when she let go, for such words were still guarded within her. In their absence, she said the other two magical words.

“Thank you.”

It was time to celebrate.

Far too many surprises had caught Keira on this day. From those in the duel, to the meeting thereafter. Keira felt far out of her depth, and very much ill equipped for any serious talk.

So, when Rosemary asked, angry, about why she’d requested the apology, she panicked. What was necessary to survive for Keira, seemed to be closer to a nuisance, to her engineer.

The last thing she wanted to do was to make her angry; yet every argument she gave for what she believed about apologies only had made it worse. Only at the end did she realize, she’d been dumb again. Why hadn’t she asked her what she wanted? So immersed in her own ideals was Keira that she forgot the first bit about friendships.

Try and understand the other.

No more reason did she need to understand why Rosemary was getting annoyed. She’d hurt her friend by assuming something about her, so she needed to make things right. So it was that she did the only thing she could. Apologize.

The tension faded; the look of annoyance vanished from Rosemary. They could now--

A hug.

Warm, enveloped in the smell of rosemary petals.

Too much.

She tensed up. Stood still. Cut her breathing out. With all her might she pushed herself not to squirm or show distaste. The crawling feeling, like grains of sand pressing against her skin, took over. Even with the layers of thick fabric and padding, every millimeter of her where her engineer’s arms touched her felt it.

Why? Why was she herself like that? Why did she fell off about this? Why?

Whywhywhywhywhywhywhyw?

A simple display of kindness, known to many in the world, she couldn’t take.

As quickly as it came it went away to her relief.

Rosemary sighed. Keira panicked, moving her lips to form another apology that would never see the light.

“Thank you.” With a smile, Rosemary stopped her.

She returned the smile. That was the least she could do.

“Come now, I will not waste another second doing nothing.” Rosemary told her, stepping into the hangar proper. Keira was a bit hesitant, looking back at her injured friend.

“I’ll work on Lily tomorrow.” Rosemary assured her.

Whispering encouragement.

“Ok.” Now she followed her, eager to see what they would do.

Even if she was tired.

It honestly surprised her sometimes how big the hangar was. Zero gravity tended to bend the mental image of a three dimensional space in weird ways. Where one could easily jump from the ground floor as they were now, to the upper platforms, on foot the journey was quite different. Either travel from the Mobile Suit storage containers all the way to the front and up the Mobile Suit ramp, or take one of the elevators to the upper floor.

 Thankfully for the both of them, one of them was right next to them. Whoever built this place had the foresight to have placed it there. Rosemary guided them there, showing her mastery of the place, while Keira followed. Once they were on the open platform, Rosemary hit the button to take them upwards.

Up they went, climbing next to Lily.

It was weird, seeing the full height of her friend next to her in real time. It made her remember the scale of things between her real height, and her lent height whenever she connected to her.

“Keira.” Rosemary called out to her, and with the tone of her voice, it wasn’t the first time.

“Yes?”

“What would you like to eat?” Rosemary innocently asked her.

Keira, without thinking it, held tighter the med bag in her hands. This was, at the end of the day, something that would come up eventually; something that she wished never happened. But dumb Keira, as always, had forgotten proper celebration etiquette.

Of course food was the first thing that everyone thought about. When wouldn’t they? Stars, how she wished she could join in that too.

But no, she couldn’t. Not anymore.

“Whatever you want.” She said, trying balance between being polite and inconspicuous as they walked to the main console.

But by the pouting that Rosemary did, she knew she had failed.

“No ‘whatever you want’ nonsense.” She refuted her offer, just as they were reaching the top floor, and Lily’s upper torso armor. “If you want something we can try and get it.”

If only things were so simple. Keira wanted so many things; from the hot aromatic flavor of chamomile tea, to the sensory overload of spicy potato chips with far too much lime. Rice and beans, tomato and corn; plates full of vegetables cut in thin slices; fresh mangos so sweet and juicy that she couldn’t stop from ending with a dirty chin and a satisfied smile.

Yes, there were many things Keira wanted.

Yet none she could have.

In her turmoil, one nervous idea came to the surface. Sooner or later, her engineer would have to learn the why of her refusal. Maybe it would be easier to rip the band-aid off right now; come out and say how she had to feast upon blood to survive and naught else. Where she to become hungry, things would go bad quickly.

It was for the best to tell her, here and now. Let her know the danger that stood in front of her, reflected on her serene aquamarine eyes.

But…

It was nice to pretend to be normal; and only with Rosemary did she feel she could. A selfish, dumb reason, like only a spoiled brat like her could think of. In time it would cost her dearly.

“I’m on a very restrictive diet.” She half-lied, crushing the strap of the bag she was carrying.

Rosemary titled her head, raised one eyebrow, frowned the other, all while starring at her without blinking. She knew she was bullshitting her.

“It’s not something I like to talk about.” Her shame carried her truth. “But… maybe you do need to—"

 In an unprecedented act, Rosemary flicked her in the forehead.

“Wha-what was that for?” Keira asked.

“You dummy.” Rosemary shook her head. “You are allowed your privacy. I won’t push.”

That made her smile.

“Thinking about it, even if we ordered something, it would probably come by way of an underpaid refugee who would be harassed by those pigs at security.” Rosemary told her, which surprised the young altari pilot. “I’ll make some popcorn instead, and eat something better at home.”

So removed had been from the day to day lives of so many, she’d never given any thought about the lives those that had survived lived through. But, because it was Rosemary who said so, she believed it.

“That sounds awful.” She let her disdain be known.

“Popcorn are nice.”

“I m-meant the other part.”

Rosemary sighed with the weight of experience.

“It is.”

They didn’t exchange many other words as they reached the main control platform, where an eternity ago they had met for the second time. But where that meeting had been of strangers, this one was of friends.

And yet, something was wrong.

The Haros, by the complete will of their leader Nyaro, jumped at the two women when they saw them. Keira reflexively managed to catch green Haro. Rosemary, distracter by her catch, wasn’t so agile.

“Nyaro Rosemary, Nyaro!” The pink ball jumped at her, forcing a surprised meow from her engineer. Unable to catch her, Nyaro crashed unto her instead, sending her to the ground.

“Rosemary!” Keira said moments before she joined her fate. Now distracted, the orange Haro jumped her, sending her tumbling towards the ground.

And once both of them had been taken down, the final step of their plan began.

The lights turned off. They moved to the front of them. Their eyes lit up.

“Happy, happy!” All five of them in sync danced as they had the first day they met. “Congrats, congrats!”

Twirling and spinning, while their side compartments flapped like wings. Music. Light show. Smoke. They spun around the two girls, swirling from side to side, changing the color of their eyes to match the rhythm.

“Congrats, congrats!”

Rosemary laughed uncontrollably. Keira joined her too. It was the cutest, weirdest and most unsafe way the five bundles of joy could have grabbed their attention.

All to show their choreography.

Even if factually untrue, Keira seeing the image of the five Haros plotting in the corner of the hangar, and rehearsing all this, was hilarious; and incredibly cute.

Like Rosemary’s laugh.

In this slice of reality that they called their own, far removed from the that which laid outside it, Keira felt like a normal girl. Neither Gundam pilot nor monster; heir or survivor. She was Keira, and only Keira. A simple girl, enjoying an evening with her friend.

So when Rosemary put her hand in her head, mimicking cat ears, and bobbed her head to the rhythm, she joined her.

As the song ended, and the Haros celebrated, Keira stood up and offered her hand to Rosemary. Her friend gladly accepted the help. They still had a lot of time for themselves, and neither felt like wasting it.

“What do you want to do?” Keira asked, aware of how little experience she had with friendship.

“I had thought of running to the quartermaster to see if he had better chairs to sit down and watch something.” Rosemary answered showing she’d clearly thought of this beforehand.

“Oh, we could always use some of Lily’s spare seats.” Keira offered.

“That’s actually a better idea.” She said going to the zero gravity controllers. “I’ll go grab one while you pick something. Nyaro should have a full library in her; all already downloaded.”

Nyaro opened her mouth to show it to her. She wasn’t kidding. Thumbnail after thumbnail of categorized shows and movies to show from. Animated and live action, with some sage plays sprinkled throughout, which amounted to eight terabytes.

“How does she have so many?”

Rosemary giggled.

“I have my ways.”

The gravity turned off, and off she went.

Keira did as ask. Without much to guide her through, she scrolled slowly until she could something caught her eye. What eventually did was a strange show. Magical girls, but rather than frilly dresses and crowns, their outfits looked more mechanical. The fact that their battle outfits were summoned by song of all things, was what sold it to her.

“Oh, I remember Symphogear.” Rosemary had returned with her task completed. “Want to give it a shot?”

“Yes.” Keira told her. “Although… could we make the subtitles bigger?”

“Sure thing.” Rosemary said, increasing them step by step until Keira signaled her they were adequate. Sadly, she still had trouble reading them; same as always.

And Rosemary noticed.

“Still have trouble reading them?”

Dumb Keira. Why did she have to have trouble reading?

“I’m sorry, I’ve always struggled with it.” She admitted with a heavy heart. “Most words look like a string of mashed together letters; like if everything had bad kernel.”

“Kernel?”

“You k-know? The space between the letters.” Keira said a bit ashamed because she now looked like a dumb smartass. “I only remembered the word because I always read it as kemel, which almost sounds like camel.”

Rosemary giggled at her anecdote.

“You mean kerning.” Her engineer corrected her, making her deeply embarrassed. “Kernel is for computer software; the base program to control all other programs. Every computer has them, like Lily and Nya.”

“I do, I do.” Nyaro corroborated.

Now Keira was blushing far too much. So full of shame she was that she couldn’t look in Rosemary’s direction. Dumb Keira messing up words. She should have known the meaning of the two better than this; and now she’d gone and said something incredibly stupid to Rosemary.

What brought her attention back to her though was very simple. The light touch of a hand on her padded shoulder, and a statement.

“I confused them too all the time; don’t worry.” Rosemary told her with another giggle. “Trying to both modify a kernel and get the right kerning for a custom font for Nya made me mess them up constantly.”

That made her blush in a different way. Rosemary wasn’t dumb; rather contrary, she was incredibly smart. If she, smart an amazing as she was, could make the same mistake as her; then what did that say about herself?

“Keira, Keira.” Nyaro caught her attention, showing the changed font of the subtitles. Cartoonish and simplistic, yet easier for her to read.

“Thank you.” She said to everything.

“No problem.” Rosemary told her. “Come now, before my popcorn go cold.”

“Right.”

With the show set, and the popcorn ready to be eaten, they sat down to watch.

What followed was a first episode that made Keira immediately tear up.

A concert, a time of happiness and hoy made into a tragedy in which the protagonist is left barely alive; idol dead in front of her eyes. Isolation, bullying, harassment for the sin of coming out alive. Then there were the Noise attacks. The fear of dying from being grazed, with the added uncertainty of where they were coming from.

How could the survivor of one tragedy not cry when she sees another? They even shared a similar scar on their chest.

Even so, Hibiki still smiled. She fought for what she believed to be right and to protect those that couldn’t do so themselves. It made her want to cry so badly. And when she went berserk, she was as frightened as everyone else in the show.

Rosemary noticed, for Keira was not subtle with her emotions. The one thing she didn’t let out was how much her struggles harmonized with those of the wielder of Gungnir. To her surprise, her engineer didn’t force her to say anything.

Rather, the whole of the evening was spent in commenting on the story so far.

“There she is.” Rosemary pointed to the screen with infectious excitement when the girl with the white hair appeared. “My sopping wet cat! Chris!”

Followed in another episode by Keira pointing at the scene and saying. “Did she throw herself out the window at the first sign of an adult caring about her?”

Not to be rivaled by the relationship between Miku and Hibiki.

“Is Miku thinking Hibiki is cheating on her?” As Keira asked, and Rosemary confirmed.

“She totally thinks so.”

“Are they even dating?”

“Those two are so in love they don’t even realize it.” Rosemary laughed, and she laughed as well. “Yet everyone is fating Chris; you’ll see.”

So many moments passed; many good, some weird. All in all, Keira was enjoying it a lot, especially being able to talk with Rosemary about it.

“Are you liking it so far?” Rosemary asked her now that they were close to finishing the season.

It was a cute question, or at least that’s what Keira thought. How could she not? The fights, the characters, the drama and the songs especially were delightful.

“Of course.” She responded already putting on the next one.

When she was about to suggest watching the next one, Lily interjected.

Whispering remark.

“Oh no.” Lily helped her realize the time. “I’m sorry I kept you for too long—”

“Keira.” Rosemary interrupted her, clearly against her apology ruining a good moment. “I’m an adult; I don’t have a curfew.”

“No curfew, no curfew.” Nyaro reiterated.

“But…”

“And I know I have time for one more.” Rosemary read her mind. “But only one. As much as I am enjoying the rewatch, I do have to cook something back home.”

Keira smiled, and they watched the last for the evening.

As their celebration came to an end, Keira allowed herself to think of the future. Regardless of how much she wanted to have more days like this, the reality was they would be rare. The bliss of being off from the deployment rotation would not last forever; once Lily was back in a ready state, the horrors of the void between the stars would beckon her. Repairs, designs, training and… medical exams would consume her life.

These moments, fleeting as the first raindrops, were to be cherished.

Just as much as she cherished the woman she shared then with.

“Time to head home.” Rosemary announced with the tone of mild grief Keira would have had too.

“Be safe Rosemary.” She told her friend.

“You too Keira. See you tomorrow.”

“See you.”

Once the darkness of the hangar returned, so did her loneliness. Contrary to every other day, today it stung her. How could it not? In her heart of hearts she knew, even buried deep beneath the memories she could not remember, that never had she ever felt this way before.

Not even a minute had passed and already she longed for her return. Such a silly feeling, only one the mess of a girl named Keira Azuriel Remnant could feel. Rosemary had her life to return to; Keira none to speak of.

Whispering question.

“I did have a lot of fun.” She told as the same drowsiness as before returned. “Thank you for telling me the hour.”

Whispering gratitude.

“You should sleep too Lily.” Keira walked towards the screen where they’d both been watching the show.

The dim light of the black screen did only two things for her, make her feel lonelier and remind her of who she was. Subtly mixing its own red glow was the transport bag under the screen, beckoning her.

She’d made her choice; now it was time to deal with it.

With what little determination she could muster, Keira grabbed the bag and floated inside Lily’s cockpit, making sure to leave it open. She opened the bag. Iron. Salt. Blood. The smell of it danced around her like an ice-skating ballerina. It was different, far more so than every other one she had been given before; yet she couldn’t say more apart from her original thoughts. Fresh; somehow these were fresh.

What little comfort she found in thinking it was from an animal vanished soon after. Beast or man, what she had in her hands was no different either way. The taboo had been crossed; she’d drank from both already.

But this was fresh. She could smell it.

And it smelled good.

She clenched her jaw, closed her eye, shook on her seat.

She hated it.

With no added words, she pierced the bag and drank.

Where she had expected the taste of cold iron running across her tongue, Keira felt something entirely different.

 Salt. Oil. The taste of some nut she’d long forgotten. Sweet with a bitter aftertaste. Taste and flavor and warmth. An intense sensation that did not let go even for a second. Every drop of blood that came to her tongue gave her the same aftershock of delight. She needed more, more and more and more and more and more.

In less than five seconds she’d squeezed the bag dry.

Relief. Satisfaction. Happiness. Anxiety. Disgust. Terror. Guilt.

Guilt.

Guilt.

She wanted more.

“Why? Why? Why?” In pure disgust she threw the other bag out the Gundam where it was lost in the darkness.

With her hunger quenched, she was lost to her despair. Those five seconds had proven everything she hated, showing the true coward self she was. Choked by red strings was the hope she could be the lie she’d wanted. Keira Azuriel Remnant wasn’t a normal girl. She wasn’t a pilot, a daughter, or a friend.

She was a monster. Bloodthirsty beast wearing the skin of the dead.

Keira didn’t cry. She refused above all else to cry. Whatever little happiness remained of the day she would hold tighter than a black holes gravity well. She had fun. She had had fun. She had had laughed. No tears would ruin it.

“No tears.” Cold and alone, Keira held herself as close as possible for no one else could while her shaky voice made the promise. “N-no tears.”

Time passed, exhaustion came. The drowsiness of before took its toll upon her eye. She would stay here, remembering the last bit of comfort before the curtain call.

She would close her eye and dream.

Dream of someplace far away, where the warmth of other would reach her.

Dream of naught and the void, where her cries would never be heard again.

Dream of care, and of love, where the songs of the Valkyries would come to befriend her too.

Dream. Dream. Dream.

Chapter Text

Darkness.

Rain.

Warmth.

The crackling of the fireplace was the first thing she heard. Wood burning away by the flames that engulfed it, tucked away safely in the brickwork of the chimney that stood between her and the cold raindrops of the outside.

Light.

Rumbling.

Thunder.

The birth and dead of the lightning came and went faster than she could notice. Close and horrible. Certain that whatever of whoever had been hit by it would not be the same thereafter; warped by the fury that such pure energy could cause.

Discomfort.

Tightness.

Pain.

Something like that had happened to her. She couldn’t remember what it was, nor how it happened. The few flashes in her memory that remained were only those of every other sensation rather than what she wanted. Her skin burning; the sound of steel ripped apart; the smell of water, ozone, and decay. Light, blinding light.

Then darkness.

She didn’t remember more. Neither her face, nor her name had survived what she had. Torn away from her with such violence that the only reason she knew she’d had them was the void that they’d left in her. Who was she? What was she? Where was she?

When she tried to move, the searing pain returned, making her let out a small whimper. Her body shook in the aftermath, forcing her to rest back on the cotton sheet and fluffy pillows that had given her this refuge. She had been hurt; fatally hurt.   

With the greatest of cares, she tried to open her eyes, only then to realize that one could, but not the other. Eternal darkness. She knew what had happened. Her eye was gone. Taken. She had paid the price.

Dizziness. The world spun around her as her remaining eye focused on it. Fire as light, crackling of wood, the silk drapery hanging on top of her bed. Gold, onyx, crimson and emerald. The walls padded with intricate patterns of luxury. Grave flowers of red and orange, cempasuchil on a small altar. Wood of long extinct trees underneath the bed with nary a scratch on their surface. A candelabra of three maidens next to her, holding three, unlit, red candles for her use. The door, the wardrobe, the ticking sound of the clock that marked the unending passage of time. A desk. Dressing window. The steaming tea-set on the table. Spinning. Lightning. Thunder. Heat and cold clashing. Her self caught in the tear.

She had been broken, destroyed, torn into a million pieces scattered across the void.

She closed her eye. Her ears drummed.

She had been fatally wounded.

Nay.

She had died.

Yet here she laid, sleeping unsoundly in a bed she knew too well, in a room far too familiar, in a palace known, whose layout she had carved in her heart. From the very foundation of this place; past the winding dim painting filled corridors; up the correctly carved stairs of stone and wood, all the way to the top of the main tower, she knew all of it.

All that knowledge, all that truth acquired through her lifetime spent here, listening, watching, and dreaming.

Dream of the old corridors of the palace, plastered with the tales of the forlorn Kingdom that slept in the void. Dream of the watchtower, whose windows watched over the ghost of a dead star. Dream of the rain, the desperate tears of the towns drowning their own.

She knew this place; and it knew her.

A lid opening, the cover removed, the seat put into place, the clashing of keys.

The world stopped in its tracks.

Music.

Slow and steady against the raining sky, each movement of the piano keys was but a tear lost in the rain. Flowing to the ground, splashing unto those that came before; one amongst many now turned into the one. A song for her, the loss in the rain. She loved hearing it, loved being immersed in it. Because that sensation of flowing water, and of unending downpour that covered the sky in darkness, made her feel seen. For she was as the land; washed away in gloom by way of nostalgic colors.

In sync with the ticking of the clock, she moved her hand to touch the bandages covering her heart. Soft and cold, leaving behind the distinct aroma of herbs made to stave off the idea of a wound. Behind them it laid, the bore in her being. Her tear.

“That’s what it was.” Weakly she drew a circle on top of it, feeling the edges of the void crumble softly underneath her touch. Here’s where she had bled her whole self, replaced by who she was now.

Light. Thunder. Rain.

Darkness.

She was melancholy; sadness that pierced the bones of the earth, regrets clawing at the heart of stars. Such as it was the color of her hair, such as it was the shade of what had taken her heart.

Darkness from emptiness; a vessel without name granted only a title.

“Princess?” The answer came with a knocking on her door. “Have you awoken?”

“I have.” The Princess answered as she took the deepest breaths she could.

She knew this voice, far more than anyone’s in the entirety of everything. Familiar, warm, focused and alert: angelic in her laugh, a demon on her fury. Worrisome, though, was the melodious tone her voice carried at all time, for her healer’s heart could never stop looking out for others.

This was the voice of the woman who knew her best. This was the voice of the woman who loved her above all.

And the princess loved her back, for only she could understand her.

More than anything in the timeless rain, the Princess wanted to leave her bed and rush towards the door, flinging it wide open, and greet her with a hug.

She tried getting up, but the pain on her sides, like blades cutting into her flesh. With a gasp, she fell back into her bed, shaking and cold. Even the act of opening her eye took a toll on her for the world moved again.

“Come in, please.” She asked her friend who did as was asked.

In came the woman with tawny coopery skin, dressed in the garments that only a medic like herself would wear; though lacking the white, they had black, red, and gold instead. From her auburn hair two pairs of golden horns, or rather antlers, poked out of them, with a pair of emeralds embedded into them.

Yet, far more important than it, was her mask as was tradition and law in this land. Hers was of a stag, with a pair of greater golden antlers at the front eclipsing her own. Unnaturally it attached to her, dutifully it hid her.

Medic or Sage, Scholar or Knight, many knew her by her titles; the Princess knew her as one.

“Yaya!” The memory of warmness enveloped her for nothing else could. “I missed you.”

The woman, who she noted was pushing a cart with a wrapped package, offered her nothing but the kindest, and honest smiles.

“I missed you too Princess.” She went next to her, grabbing one of the chairs to sit next to her. “How’s the wounds?”

“They hurt when I try to move.” She answered, doing a demonstration by raising her arm. She grunted as expected, and her Yaya helped her out it down slowly. “I get dizzy fast too.”

“The world spins at your rhythm.” Her Yaya clarified, while she took off the bandages to replace them. “Force it to stop.”

The Princess understood her meaning as a whole and took it to tear. Without a heart, she had no pulse; but rather she had the concept of a pulse. When she had forgotten about it, it had forced the blood in her veins to move asynchronously. Like the waves at the sea, her phantom blood clashed in itself, forming ripples that spread through herself. She needed what she’d been told: a rhythm.

Therein laid the fault.

“Follow the rain.” The Princess commanded.

Drop. Drop. Drop.

The phantom blood within her stopped moving, turning the world into shades of grey.

Drop. Drop. Drop.

The beating heart of the storm guided her tear. Slowly, but surely, the pumping motion in her veins took over the chaos.

She opened her eye again, and the world bent to her will.

“Thank you, Yaya.”

Her caretaker nodded, singing an old healer’s song as she finished removing the bandages in her arm.

“Will it grow?” She asked her Yaya while she traced them towards her void.

“It will spread but grow not, for there is little more it can claim as its own.”

With tender care, her Yaya helped her sit on the bed. Once given free reign, she took her time removing the rest of the bandages, starting with her other arm. The Princess, never blinking, saw the scars that had dug themselves into her forsaken flesh. It was as she’d been told. One became two became three, became five; the mathematical sequence of growth spread through her body, like the branches of a tree. Wild and thin offshoots at the edges, thicker and controlled as they neared the center where the tear laid.

A dark star mocking a supernova.

And it hungered.

The bells of the tower rang, marking that it was time. Her Yaya, whose unbroken expression betrayed her terror, didn’t say anything. It was her hands, playing nervously with the unspoiled bandages she’d removed which told the full tale.

She, the Princess, had been requested; and there would be no denying it.

The ground rumbled. The rain became a torrent. The light from the chimney was snuffed by the gales. Blue and coldness overtook the room, and the drapery spoiled around them. There, in the distance what had been once the planet called Helia, looked at her. Their shadows stretched towards it, bound by the laws called remembrances.

It knew her, it knew her well, for the screams of red painted upon it called out to their Princess. Here and now, in the before and ever after, they both awakened in the same dream.

It knew her. It knew them both.

And now it shone the spotlight upon them.

“This is the part we have to play, for the play calls to us both.” Her Yaya whispered in tears, unwilling, yet a slave to the tale.

The Princess held unto her Yaya’s hands, reassuring with whatever vestige of herself, that things would be right. It didn’t matter how strongly she believed it, or how dreamy such a lie was, it was still a lie.

And a lie it would remain.

“It is time.” Her Yaya told her, removing the cover from silks from the accursed gift, letting it be shown to the invisible audience. The first layer she peeled, exposing it to her and all under the cruel moonlight. It shone as a ghastly apparition of mockery and truth in one, a step forward and a step back. To heal and to harm.

A mask, stag and bat, six antlers of gold, green eyes of despair.

The Princess’s tear resonated with it.

The second layer was stripped, presenting with infinite decorum that what she would wear now and forever. A dress of formal renown, red on the sides, black at the middle, white at the neck with gold embroidery running all throughout. On each sleeve, on each side of her back, and on each side of her skirt slept the unique image of a raven. Six in total; her own misfortune.

With harm and ill she put the dress on, feeling her mind grow above herself, to then crash into the confines of her tear. Her Yaya, unwanted on her task, offered with pain and without reverie the mask.

Her mask.

Born out of destructive wishes and tied down emotions, lost amongst the waves of reality in which all stood, it called to her.

This was her life’s work; this was her death’s cause.

She put it on.

Darkness.

Her eyes opened. The light of the stage shown against her, and the faceless crowd stared at her for she, the Princess, was alone. Expectantly they waited in hungry silence, waiting for her to guide their eyeless masks.

“I am to be murdered.” She announced to the uncanny crowd. “Killed by my own hands.”

Act one.

Lights out. Curtain call.

Winter. Snow. Coldness enveloped the world; frozen below the static shadow of the moon once known as Soriel. The mountains in the valley, the boney fingers of the world, rose to hold both land and moon in place.

The Princess found herself walking through the dilapidated garden at the front of the castle. Out of breath, with her dress torn at the edges, her unbeating heart mimicked the growing certainty of her steps. Where once glorious statues of heroic exploits watched her every move, now remained as dormant, broken visages for tall tales and petty lies to dream of.

 Every crevice, every crack, every bore and fault called out to her royal touch. Black ichor, both tar and forgetfulness, flowed out the mouth of an abandoned soldier, catching her attention.

The Princess heard every agonizing whisper calling out to her in a thousand and one titles pleading to her. Ruler and Empress, Liberator and Dawnbringer, Law and Reality. All lies born out of their want. They desired an escape; they needed a release, for the weight of the law called nostalgia was destroying them.

Drop for drop, memory for memory; anchor oneself to the well of melancholy; turn a weal into an ill omen. Such was her task, gift and curse.

The doors opened.

Opulence greeted her inside.

Sound of music, violins and soft guitars played in the background. Chattering flowing out the half open windows. Laughter and tears, hand in hand with the clanking of rose-tinted wine glasses. Coughing, smoking, stares. Bodies, pastries, exotic roasted coffee beans and cacao turned into chocolate.

Nimerian lion, fox of aren’t, specter, ghoul, sun and moon. Such were the examples of the masks that turned to look at her once she found herself at the threshold. All dressed in garments finer than her own. Lost jewels, impossible garments; half remembered coat of arms, half-forgotten blood spilled. Perfectly color coordinated to mark themselves as unique amongst all; yet above none.

All, of course, except for those dressed in lamb masks. Where uniqueness exuded on the shoulders of those with the power, those that served them conformed to their whims. Three in blue and orange helping the Sun masked lady clean up; thirteen for the Hunter who had brought new game for the kitchen.

Dozens sharing her own.

Those of the lamb walked around the room, picking off whatever and however remains were left after pickings. Half eaten meals that laid at the sides, marked by uneven and distorted bite marks that every so often did not match a human’s mouth. Dropped tissues and wallets, to be picked empty and returned. Spies for negotiations of front that had not been mentioned in a forever-never ago.

Here she laid at the door. Here she was at the door.

“I am home.” She thought. “I am home.”

Only then did she cross the door.

The music faded, the eyes turned towards her, the servants moved to the side, and the chatter stopped for all paid attention to her, and only her.

A lamb approached, dressed much more finely than any of the others. She bowed to her, bowed far below than the unknown law of gravity allowed, for that was the respect due to her. And when she got up, and the doors closed behind both, came her announcement.

“Here she cometh now, in presentation of her duties to us all, her majesty the Princess of Ill Omens.”

Applause. Polite cheers. Hand in hand the greetings came to her in both common and eldritch tongues. Quickly was she urged towards the center. Here she was on that lowered floor in which those bewitched by the songs danced with wicked hearts. Impossible in size, breaking the space of the room to be bigger than it whole, yet always inside. Mirrors to the side, showing those that danced in here, danced with her. And in there, red was the floor; by carpentry, by masonry, by hematomancy.

She could barely recognize herself.

And all of this splendor, all of this beauty was illuminated by the glass chandelier at the top whose invisible rope made it seem like it was floating. Perhaps, in someone’s memory, it was.

Side to side of the dance pit, the honored guests stared at her with high hopes and low demands. The tall windows frosted slightly by the snow let in what little light there was outside, expelling more of the one inside. In front of her, the door to the hallway remained dilapidated and closed, while the stairs up to the second floor had a dreamlike glow upon them. Behind their railing would be the doors to the palace proper, with its halls and rooms of all the colors once known and hidden from the rainbow. There she had walked, and She walked. For many an unmoving turn, and forever a static night, here She laid. Here She reigned.

Silence fell again. Expectantly they waited. The clicking of the heels echoed across the emptiness behind the door at the top. Slow, steady, louder they got, assured of Her reign. Hinges screeched. Doors moved. The snowflakes stopped in their tracks outside the windows.

Here She was.

Underneath a red starlit veil, was the figure of a woman. White royal dress going down to fully cover Her legs, tainted at the edge of the sleeves with red and darkness, only interrupted by the humble bloody red sash that covered her stomach. On Her neck laid an obsidian necklace in the shape of a star; but where all would expect a string to hold it in place, here the broken shards hovered around Her shapeless neck, holding it in its stationary place. Many such pieces of paradoxical jewelry decorated Her majesty, being the very definition of the title and word.

All those who had claimed it before bent to Her truth. Unwavering, unmoving, unending, undying. Only Her, bearer and spawn of the Three Wounds, ruled in a Kingdom eternal.

Those who had not, served now at Her feet. The Princess knew, and everyone else felt it.

Her face, as was Her law, as everyone else followed, was behind Her own mask. Red shifting mist at the front, ominous darkness on the left, and pure whiteness on the right, laid the first of her three Wounds.

To see it was to gleam Eternity.

Down the eyes of the guests went. Down from neck to clavicle to heart. Branches of a tree, so like the Princess’s own. Yet where she had her tear, She had Her second Wound. Darkness, light, dust and the everything caught in the accretion ring.

There it laid the Devourer.

The Princess’s tear ached.

But of the three, it was the one at Her belly that caught the sight of the Princess. For it was behind the cover of the humble sash that she could see the bump; diminutive to all but she who had known Her. She was pregnant.

The Birth of the Old World.

But whatever unmoving time they had, it was not for dabbling. Her Majesty, ruler of the unmoving lands, master of Eternity, spoke to all; and spoke to her.

“Dear be all guests that have come to my halls.” Her commanding tone, shifted by three both low, neutral and high, came to all. “For those who have come from afar; those brought by the law of my real; and those who wandered here, without really knowing why, I permit myself a toast.”

Everyone raised their glasses, be it from pottery, or death. Having none for herself, the Princess bowed instead.

“This is a momentous eve, for has it been and will it be, that the Princess has come to us.”

Applause.

“Dance for us my dear.”

Darkness. Stage lights.

A lamb servant appeared next to her, hand stretched out; offered to her. She took it, held her waist, got her close, crushingly close.

One two three, one two three, one two three. The spotlight followed their movements. One two three, one two three. They spun around the bloody floor. One two three, one two three. Her Tear illuminated Eternity.

And all throughout the mirrors she looked at showed it all. A servant. A lamb. A human. A skeleton. Her in her dress. Her in a hospital gown. Her in a strange suit of padded armor.

One two three.

Once more in her dress.

One two three, one two three. Her tear was hungry. One two three, one two three. Like a baby going for the nipple, instinct guided her sight. One two three, one two three. The red glowing within the lamb shone with delight, and her tear urged her.

Neck. Fangs. Pierce. Scream. Blood.

One two three, one two three. Thunderous applause filled the stage. One, two three, one two three. Her Majesty urged her to follow. One two three, one two three. The lifeless skeleton of the lamb fell from her arms.

Bones cracking. Never ending applause. Winter turned to summer. Hurricanes. Never ending rain.

Up the stairs, pass the door. Ruins and recently built walls. Paintings stared at her; statues judged her step. Their black ichor screamed for her to release them from the law of nostalgia of She who guided her.

Rooms of blue, rooms of green, rooms of violet and yellow. All beckoning her.

But that was not the one she was being led to.

Turn to the right, follow the sound of the heels. Turn to the left. Move towards the red mist.

A door.

Her door.

“I am home.” She thought and grabbed the pommel. “I am home.”

She opened the door

Darkness.

Falling.

Decay.

Once more she found herself under the spotlight all alone. On her right was a full body mirror, covered in dust to hide away her reflection; to her left laid a coffin, with her name scratched by nail and blood; same crimson life that dripped from her hands.

With her injured hands she wiped away the dust in the mirror, leaving behind a trail of grime and blood. From behind it her not-reflection came into focus, with the stain that’d been in the silvery surface an exact match to the one on her face. She stared back at her; desperate, lonely and afraid.

Hands passed through glass, shattering it. Gloves of sorrow grabbed her neck, crushing, shaking. Terror, fight, relief. The two selves tumbled back into the coffin where the not-reflection won, staying on the top. She pushed and pushed her hands to close. Tears ran down her cheeks.

The coffin’s lid closed. Darkness enveloped them. The bottom gave way.

Falling.

Falling.

Falling.

Darkness.

Keira woke up with a fright. Sweat covering her body, tremors all throughout her limbs, the world was a blur. Around her, the claustrophobic feeling in her mind intensified to such a degree she couldn’t distinguish where she was. Small, compact, with neither room nor room to breathe. She was suffocating. No, the crushing and all-encompassing pain was not for a lack of air, but its consequence. She was being strangled.

By her own hands.

Panicked, she let go of herself.

“Why?” She asked herself, shaking. Rudely she ordered her hands to grab whatever other object she could, afraid they might make their way back to her neck.

Maybe she was already losing it. All her self-hatred manifested into one desperate act. Her subconscious building up a tall tale in her dreams to give her that one final push.

“That’s not how it works, right?” She wanted so badly to hug herself, yet far too afraid to do so.

If only she could remember what she dreamt, but try as she might, her memory betrayed her. Whatever she had been dreaming of faded like the letters of a burning book. Only two things remained. Two unrivaled feelings inside of her.

Fear, and curiosity.

For the former it was obvious, yet the latter ate at her. Something urgent yet dormant, laying across her injuries. Or rather, one of their consequences. Carefully, she allowed her left hand to get close to her normal suit. With awkward movements she began opening up to see what it was.

Once the top had been released the feeling grew stronger. It had to do with her scars, or rather the one scar; the one very similar to Hibiki’s. She only needed to--

The lights of the cockpit turned on, giving her the all-familiar light. She jumped a bit, startled by the sight.

Whispering question.

“N-nothing Lily.” She fixed her clothes back up. “I just had a nightmare, that’s all.”

Whispering care.

It wouldn’t have been the first time that she knew for sure. So, in her own special way, Lily went on to give her more of her kindness. Through her whispers Keira felt the warmness of her love and care. Such was her ways, such was her lot. Maybe that was enough for now.

She gave her a hug.

“Thank you, Lily.”

“No wonder the specials always run out so fast.” Rosemaria Ryn Stonework told Nora as she took another bite from the meatballs they had grabbed for lunch. “This is actually half decent.”

It hadn’t been something either of them had planned in advance. Rosemary woke up the day after the duel with a message from Nora wanting to have a little celebration of their own. Time wasn’t permissive for them both to have a flashier celebration; so, this is what they had landed on.

Eating some half-decent food at the works cafeteria.

“Told you we needed to be here before eleven.” Nora laughed at her comment, dipping some of her bread in the sauce. “Any second thereafter and we would have been left with the scraps.”  

Her tender force, though, was enough to make the rickety table they’d managed to grab shake in the process. The result was some of their precious sauce spilling from their plates into it.

Rosemary cursed a bit; not annoyed at her friend, but at the unworthy piece of aluminum they were eating upon. Nothing more could she do that grab another couple of napkins to use as support for its shorter leg. Nora helped her by holding it as steadily as it would allow them. In the end, the results were as lackluster as the other foods the cafeteria offered.

At least it allowed them to clean the table in peace.

“Right, and we don’t want that.” She agreed with her friend. Next to them she subtly noted someone trying, and failing, to take a bite out of their very stiff sandwich.

So far, the cafeteria of Port thirteen, and its food, had met the not-great expectations that Rosemary had set for it.

Loud was a difficult way to describe the atmosphere of this place. Obnoxiously loud was far too mean at certain times; but perfectly adequate at another’s.

There was always a competition going on there. Be it a game, or duel, shown on the screen for half the guests to scream for and against the teams; with the gigantic queue to be in line before the daily special ran out and many a hungry worker wanting their due; added on top of the rush to try and get some of the better kept tables by whatever means necessary.

Loud. And today, obnoxiously loud.

Another worker passed next to them, accidentally hitting the table and undoing their work, spilling at least half her meatball sauce on her.

“Sorry.” They said but didn’t stop to help them.

Rosemary grunted.

“I just cleaned it.” She whispered grabbing more napkins to now clean herself.

And all because of the damned cheap tables. Long, badly kept and just above her comfort threshold in terms of cleanliness.

“Would it kill them to buy better ones?” She asked expecting no answer, as another sauce covered napkin was thrown to the trashcan.

“Oh, most likely.” Nora jokingly told her while she helped her clean up. “If they don’t get until the last star, their heads will implode due to the vacuum inside.”

Rosemary laughed at that, making it harder to clean the stain.

“Or their heads explode in rage because they see a poor altari get it instead.” She added, regretting it a bit.

Nora, thankfully, laughed at the crueler reality.

Soon enough, they went back to eating at their terrible table.

Rosemary thought how things like these were expected. For a place that’s running twenty-four hours, seven days a week, to not have these issues would be impossible. The staff would be overrun, tired, and close to their breaking point by the third day; so how were they meant to keep the tables working?

She wouldn’t blame them, on the contrary, she understood their plight perfectly.

She blamed the suits for being cheap assholes.

And that was exacerbated by the food.

For once, the number of different sodas one could grab were far too many for her liking. Where she had known of three or four back home, here they had easily twenty; from the standard lemon and orange to more esoteric things like cherry-strawberry vanilla cream. All of them from exactly the same company which screamed at everyone “Sponsorship”; and for her, it brought back the image of the protests against them back home for stealing their water.

To add insult to injury, all of them, of course, sweetened by corn syrup.

Secondly, but inevitably tied to the first point, everything that had any sweet taste was cursed by the corn syrup. Ice cream, gummies, cereals, sports drinks. All had that horribly sugary feeling that forced her to pick the saltier stuff.

Even then, some things were better than others.

The mashed potatoes and gravy were pretty good; managing to acquire a great balance between salty and sweet that made her always grab a second serving. The puddings were a half-decent dessert, bogged down primarily by the corn syrup; so, she rarely got one. But the meats, especially the beef seemed to only have two states: still mooing or turned into a shoe.

The poor sandwich owner next to them struggled to pick up the pieces of their futile meal but gave up soon enough. With all that they’d collected, they went to the trash can and threw it without remorse. Rosemary took another bite of her meatballs, enjoying the fact that she wasn’t them.

She didn’t enjoy the attention.

Yet it seemed the world wanted to slap her in the face once more. In the screen, in between the solar system news, there she could see as a highlight reel yesterday’s fight. From the artillery firing, the dodges, the dismemberment.

That, of course, made many to give her a side glance.

“It was a terrific fight yesterday, Rosemary.” Nora told her, finishing her meal.

“Oh, I know that.” Rosemary responded, playing with her fork on the remaining sauce. “Keira’s one of the best.”

Though still present, the guilt spurn by her uselessness had diminished by the good night’s rest she had had. Part of her wished to brag more; the more responsible one knew it best to leave it behind.

Nora agreed with a nod, but said nothing more, as if reading her mind. With a simple hand gesture, she offered to take her tray away, which Rosemary accepted.

“I do have to do something about my usefulness.” She told herself as she watched without care the reel play again.

It’s not like she was hired to be an omnipotent part of Keira’s team. She specialized in one thing, and she was very good at it as shown by the Gundams clashing on the screen. She knew that. Mikah Azuriel knew that. Keira knew it too.

If anything, yesterday had been a very ambivalent way of showing it. On one hand, the once nearly falling apart Gundam had risen up to beat the crap out of a superior one, showing her ability to maintain and repair it; on the other hand, using a petty duel as the first thing she showed her competence on was far off the purpose of the rescue missions.

“Actually, that’s kind of stupid.” She pulled out her tablet to stave of her boredom until Nora returned.

Nya seemed to be curious about her thoughts, clearly showing a question mark as a sign.

“Why do they allow fights? If it takes out a Gundam, maybe even two, wouldn’t that make things worse?”

Nya pondered the conundrum by running around an orb aptly named conundrum.

Rosemary was about to give it a bit more thought when something else caught her attention.

On the screen closest to her, the highlight reel was replaced by an interview. The host, a man name Jack Ross, was greeting someone who clearly wanted to show they were a doctor. Instead of matching their host’s suit, the doctor wore their white coat with a pair of pens, and a stethoscope at the ready. Their frame was bulky, maybe painfully so, with how their pinkish pearly skin seemed to hold tight unto their muscles like some of the action movie stars, which made her almost recoil with the visceral image of dehydration they go through. They kept their head shaven, for the uniformity of the greyish patch on it made it obvious to her.

All in all, Rosemary could see that they were ex-military. Probably a Mobile Suit pilot.

She hated them already.

“Welcome doctor Richmond.” The host greeted them, eagerly reaching out for a handshake.

The ex-military doctor took the opportunity to brag about their strength by crushing the host’s hand while they did the greeting. Jack took it in stride, joking about their massive strength. The doctor seemed pleased about their asshole dick floundering.

“Asshole.” She said to the screen.

Nya agreed with an aggressive meow.

“Now, a lot of our viewers have a lot of questions; medical questions mind you, about the new diseases that have spurn up from since Helia’s Wrath.” Jack took his seat, urging his guest to do the same. Once they did, he continued. “So, we thought it best to ask an expert among experts for his opinion rather than let starry thoughts and internet lies rule the minds of our people. Wouldn’t you agree Doctor Richmond?”

“Absolutely. Misinformation is today’s greatest enemy.” He answered with a military accent almost as thick as his neck. “And I came here to protect our dear UCA from such an enemy; just as I had sworn when I joined the army.”

Sickeningly patriotic applause came from the public. Rosemary sighed in disgust.

“So, tell me Jack, what are the biggest doubts our union has?”

“I think, as many of our viewers back home would expect, starting with the big ones would be for the best, wouldn’t you say?” Jack, the most Jack person to ever have looked like a host named Jack, scratched his beard. “Those that have the biggest impact on a person’s life.”

“Right, right. It makes sense.” The doctor told him, shifting in his seat to pull out his tablet. “I can think of at least three that would match the criteria.”

Asking permission from the projector, the doctor let his presentation appear before the public. On the first slide there was a picture of Sleeping Beauty soundly resting as if dead. Underneath it, her name was repeated.

“As this is for your viewers, I thought it would be best to use the more colloquial names.”

Jack enthusiastically agreed with him, taking a sip of his coffee.

“Sleeping Beauty, a deadlier variation of the chronic fatigue or hypersomnia; maybe a combination of the two in some ways.” He moved to his next slide, just as Nora returned.

“Seems interesting.” She told Rosemary who was too caught up in the show to see her return. “Though I recommend looking it on your tablet if you want to continue doing so. Screens tend to change at the latest whim of boredom.”

“Right.” Rosemary went to do it, but Nya helpful as ever, had put it on her screen for them to watch. Nora sat next to her, and Rosemary put her tablet between the two.

Some bits of talk had passed between Jack and the doctor, mostly some particular differences between the known conditions and the newest one.

“The patients suffer from very vivid dreams, which most describe as being blissfully in a perfect version of a past memory.” The doctor continued, showing a graph that represented the sleep cycles.  

“How vivid, would you say?”

“Similar to how a person’s life flashes before their eyes.” The doctor answered, with a strange look on his face that Rosemary couldn’t quite get. “At least some that have had near death experiences describe.”

Rosemary felt a wave of discomfort wash over her, for her mind wouldn’t let her forget what had happened not so long ago. Naught a dream for her, rather darkness was what had greeted her.

And that made her panic for a second.

“What about coffee?” Almost in jest, Jack told his guest. “The studies made by the altari medical associates say that drinking coffee is detrimental to the patients. Is that right?”

Annoyance as clear as day came over the UCA doctor, as if the question itself was an insult.

Maybe it was.

“With all due respect for the altari, they don’t have the best equipment, or methodology, to study such phenomena.” The well-known pitiful spite infested his words, making Rosemary want to curse him. “Coffee, and I mean something like a good Expresso not some backwater stuff, is on my main recommendation lists for my patients.”

 Rosemary once more felt herself shake, but this time out of anger.

“Fucking asshole.” Her rage let out, catching Nora by surprise.

Her friend didn’t say much, yet she agreed with her.

Nya drew a horrible moustache on top of him, making both of them laugh.

“She’s improving.” Nora pointed to the magnificently and badly painted overlay.

“Of course she is. I taught her myself.”

Once they paid attention to the broadcast again, the conversation had shifted.

“But why is it lethal?” Jack asked, bending forward to hear the explanation.

“Simple, yet horrific.” The doctor said, moving to the next slide. There, a woman slept soundly just as both Sleeping Beauty and Snow White had. “In time, the patients sleep more and more; hours turn to days, and days turn to weeks. The body breaks down with the lack of nutrients and the atrophy sets in. Main cause of death is lung collapse, or a heart attack.”

“Gruesome.” Nora commented, involuntarily taking a deep breath. “I can’t imagine how it would feel.”

“Maybe they don’t.” Rosemary said, recoiling slightly from her own brush with death. “Yet I don’t think that detracts from the horribleness of it. One day you go to sleep, only to wake up a week later, or worse.”

“At least with a coma you are mostly sure it won’t happen again.” Nora sighed with a far greater weight to her words. Rosemary debated herself into asking her, but her friend answered for her. “Don’t want to talk about it today.”

“Ok.” She assured her friend.

Before she could look back at the show, Nora touched her shoulder, wanting to get her attention. Surprised by the physical touch Rosemary turned around and saw what she wanted to show her. Two slices of carrot cake; one for each.

“Sorry, I didn’t want to break your concentration.” She said, Rosemary bit her tongue to avoid her rudeness.

“Thank you.” The altari engineer grabbed the smaller one with one hand and gave the other one to Nora.

Having lost attention from the show, she took a bite out of her slice. It was spongy, perfectly moist and full of the sweet taste of carrots that eclipsed any other cake she’d ever tasted before. Her eyes went wide because the intense sensation of the cake made her instantly want another bite.

Nora giggled as she saw her stuff half of her slice in one go.

“Where did you get it?” Rosemary said, having already finished it before Nora had had her third bite.

“I made it myself.” She happily bragged.

Rosemary’s excitement got the better of her.

“It is fucking amazing! Unbelievably so! Spongy and tasty and so, so perfectly sugary without overcorrecting. And the frosting! I’ve never tasted anything quite as good in all my life.” She couldn’t stop herself from praising her in a loud barrage that made Nora blush while jumping from her seat. “Where did you get the carrots? Or did you grow them yourself? And the flour! Did it have yeast in it already or did you did so independently?”

Nora could answer none of the questions, just stared with a big smile, and an ashamed look. Rosemary was, once more, catching unwanted glances.

“Right…” Rosemary lowered her voice and stared at her empty plate as her face grew warm.

Embarrassing.

“Well, I am happy you like it.” Nora told her with an embarrassed smile and her cutely ruffled feathers. “Wanted to bring you something nice to celebrate.”

“I’ll be sure to cook you something as nice on a special occasion.” Rosemary offered, unwillingly to take a no for an answer.

Nora didn’t protest.

“Did you cook something yesterday for you and Keira?” It was a cordial question to ask considering yesterday, but one that left Rosemary a bit disappointed.

“No. Offered to buy her some food, but…” In her heart she could feel the heartbroken expression that Keira had shown her yesterday. “Apparently she’s on a very strict diet.”

One day, perhaps, when they were closer, she would ask what she could eat. One day, she would cook for her.

In time.

From her tablet, the booming voice of Jack called back their attention.

“Vampires?” Wide-eyed and with a small giggle, Jack said to his guest, earning murmurs from his invincible audience.

Both women got closer to the screen, for their curiosity became a very powerful need.

“Now, of course vampires are only a thing of fiction Jack.” The doctor replied with a dismissive wave. “Here we have only a very specific type of anemia; one far more aggressive than someone with thalassemia or sickle cell anemia.”

The slide changed, showing on a table first healthy blood cells, malformed ones next to them, and painfully discolored and similarly shaped ones at the end.

“The red cells die quicker than they are supposed to, while also, due to their odd shape, lack the ability to carry much oxygen with them.” He explained, pointing out the last of the three red blood cells. “These are people who are a bit too sensitive to light sure, but they are not catching on fire whenever they step into the light of the sun. They might look paler than some others, have audio processing issues, look out of themselves, or have trouble doing physical activity; but that’s just your standard anemia to a t. I don’t see here what would lead one to be a blood sucker.”

Jack nodded, not out of genuine agreement; but a more practice nod that served to urge his guest forward without commitment. She knew this nod well. Nadria didn’t.

That had been a saving grace.

So, she agreed with Jack on this one. She needed to know more.

Jack moved his hand in circles, faking the idea that he was coming up to an answer to his next question.

“How does one treat such a condition?”

“Now that’s the question, is it not? At least one of the three important ones.” The asshole doctor latched onto Jack’s and the audience’s doubts. “One would innocently think, as do the AMA, that blood bags are the answer. A transfusion every two weeks to keep the red cell count high enough to carry oxygen.”

“I would have thought about it, yes.” Jack answered, using his own tablet to pull up the AMA new guidelines of recent diseases and conditions. Marked by yellow highlights was the same answer the UCA doctor was rejecting. “But why not then?”

“It’s expensive.” The doctor answered in another gut punch to the altari engineer. “As much as synthetic blood has been a boon for the everyman, such is not the case for this anemia; aptly named Planar Anemia. For some reason, it doesn’t work.”

“So, the patients would need to use normal blood. Is that right?”

With three very loud taps on his desk, the doctor agreed with his host.

“Right on the money Jack. You know how many people donate blood each year?”

“Don’t know.”

“Less than thirty percent of our total population, with each not providing more than a litter every two months.” He moved the presentation to the next slide. “Ten thousand donations are needed just about everyday Jack, for those that synthetic blood is not enough. Now add about another two thousand bags, and suddenly the maths don’t math.”

Rosemary shook her head in disbelief. Neither an equation, graph, nor any other way to show the truth of his statement was shown on the screen.

“Then how do you get people to donate?” A rhetorical question. “You pay them. Yet that would drain the savings of all the UCA citizens by increasing taxes.”

“And nobody wants that.” Jack joked, the doctor agreed.

“Or you cut the budget of other services, causing the economy to collapse.”

Before she could form any protest, he went to the next slide, showing images of different foods that the altari instantly recognized, and now knew where he was going.

“Iron heavy diet?” She was baffled at the thought.

She was about to tune out when he talked about how most issues would be solved with a balanced diet, but something brought her back. From behind him he pulled out a box of protein bars dressed in the colors of the UCA.

“Every purchase of one of these also goes to support our veterans—"

Nya cut the stream.

“Lady of Thorns kill this man.” She begged with all of her heart.

Nora laughed awkwardly.

“That was… crap.” In her own, less murderous way, Nora agreed.

“Oh absolutely.” Rosemary said, pocketing her tablet, and grabbing the empty plates to throw out. “At least I know where to look if I need more info.”

With a tilted head, and an eyebrow raised, Nora seemed a bit confused by her statement.

“The AMA guidelines.” She answered as they reached the trash cans. “If the so-called doctor was so adamant in them being wrong, and he was a fucking sellout, then perhaps the altari doctors have more of the truth.”

“That makes sense.” Nora looked up either pensively or distracted, while fiddling with her hands. “Do you think the planar dust is to blame for them?”

Rosemary followed her gaze upwards, where she ended up looking at the main screen of the cafeteria. For now, nothing caught her attention because the question occupied most of it. On the one hand, her own experience with the dust had been an educational moment. The syphoning of all electrical systems, plus the aggressive change of temperature, leading to the overwhelming appearance of planar dust had not been studied to its fullest. On the other hand, if such was the cause, the people back in Altaris would never have been suffering from all this.

“The dust is far too quickly consumed on the atmosphere for it to reach the planet’s surface.” She told Nora, who took her words to heart. “Unless it was during the initial incident.”

Trained by years of pattern recognition and jumping into hypothesis to prove by the scientific method, a thought popped into her mind far too aggressively to ignore.

Keira’s special diet. Her expression of loss at the thought of some foods. The shame in her voice when she was about to tell her why she couldn’t just order some basic food.

Could Keira suffer from planar anemia?

Rosemary took a look around the cafeteria, focusing only on the people for the time being. Some ignored her, others continued to look at her for a second before whispering amongst themselves. Close to a month here, and she still was the gossip of the whole port just because she was working with Keira, the girl everyone had decided they could abuse. Her encounter with Mirasol, queen bitch, had been the most obnoxious one to date.

Of course she would like to keep it to herself. No sense adding fuel to the fire.

Rosemary threw their trash, and her curiosity away.

“But what else can I say, I’m just an engineer. I’ll leave the health stuff to the other type of nerds.” She declared with a shrug.

As much as she enjoyed the talk, they both had jobs to do.

Rosemary turned around to head to work. Instead of an open corridor, the figure of a man she’d only met once before stood in her way. Black, white and gold; shining medal on his heart. The damned captain…

“Captain Vandrel.” Nora saluted out of instinct. Rosemary reserved the right to show him any respect. “What are you doing here sir?”

“Came to deliver a message to the other miss Stonework.” Without breaking from his stern face, he told Nora.

When he shifted his attention towards the altari engineer, the first thing to do was examine her. From top to bottom, his eyes moved, measuring her for things Rosemary could not know. None of them were good, for a spacian looking at an altari like this never happened out of good fate.

Was it her height? The color of her hair? The twigs? Or the driven desire to find a perceived flaw in her to then justify future harassment?

Whatever conclusion he had reached, Rosemary found it impossible to know.

“You are bound for deployment in three days.” He told her.

“But we—”

“If Gundam Remnant is good enough to fight a duel, it is good enough to fulfill its duties.”

Backwards logic. Infuriating orders. The air of supremacy as he walked away without another word. All of those things pissed Rosemary off to such an extent she was willing to throw something at him. One clean hit, release her anger and be done with it.

Nora placed her hand on her shoulder, reading her impulses far better than her.

“Right.” Rosemary kicked the trashcan instead. “Right… Thank you for the cake, Nora. Would have loved to chat more, but sadly I have more work to do.”

“No problems Rosemary.” Nora assured her. “See you around.”

With a sigh, and another grunt, she said farewell to her friend.

“See you around.”

Chapter Text

“A soldering iron, and the replacement microchip please.” Rosemaria Ryn Stonework asked her pilot for the tools required to fix the damage to her Gund-bit.

Keira, diligently as ever, had given them to her in the blink of an eye. Sadly, her enthusiasm didn’t account for the delivery to be one hundred percent perfect.

“The other microchip, the one as long as your pinky finger.” She corrected Keira while she whipped her brow.

“Right… sorry.”

Rosemary let out a long sigh that carried both her annoyance and her tiredness.

Two days in a row spent fixing the most they could had brought her no end of stress. It was her job, she would do it, but she couldn’t believe the irresponsible reality she lived in.

“Don’t apologize.” She told her pilot with a tired, deadpan face. “Easy mistake to make.”

“Right.” Keira was unconvinced, Rosemary could see it, yet she didn’t say anything.

“Anything else I should grab?”

“A snack.” Rosemary ripped out the broken circuit board, throwing it down into the bin at Lily’s feet. “Please.”

Her pilot, with her helpful smile, jumped from the platform where they were working to the main one.

Two days. Lily’s armor was a mess, her frame hadn’t been replaced, and the damage she’d suffered from the duel was far greater than she’d thought. Even if one is able to survive the blast of a mega particle cannon it doesn’t mean things wouldn’t break. In this case, it had been to Lily’s arms. Like a muscle having a spasm, they were partially locked in place and unresponsive.

Nyaro and her squad would dedicate their time fixing it. The repetitive tasks of cleaning, welding, and cable management was something they were perfectly suited for. The fact that they were finishing the second arm was a prime example of their abilities.

Had that been the only damage, they would have been done in a day. But that hadn’t been it. There was so much more to do.

As she affixed the gyroscope for the injured Gund-bit, Rosemary could feel the growing fear within her grow exponentially. This was going to be her first deployment with Keira, and she knew nothing of what was expected of her. Pure engineering knowledge? Quick fixes? Full on ground support? Whatever it was she knew not if she was up to the task.

If only they had had the time she requested she could have done so many things. Fix the frame, enhance Lily’s plating with the Borealis’s design, run a couple of simulations together.

“But we don’t.” Rosemary grabbed her multimeter and, making sure to set it to Volts instead of Amps, she measured the gyroscope’s voltage.

Nominal.

Everything had been placed as needed.

Now it was time for her to work on her thesis again. From the crate near her, she grabbed the half assembled thing that would be the base for her second attempt at her theory.

The capacitors had blown up, and because they had, they lost all that energy that was supposed

“Here!” Causing her a fright so intense she let go of the multimeter, Keira appeared next to her. “Oh sorry.”

Without giving her a chance to react, Keira went to catch the floating box.

She jumped, spun above her, dexterously juggled all the items in one arm while she used her other one to catch the tool. Before she could fly away, she shoved the multimeter with the other items, and held just on the edge of the Gund-bit.

“Here.” She gave everything she had requested.

If this had been anyone else, Rosemary would have thought she’d done it to brag about it; perhaps even impress her. A dumb thing to do to catch the attention of someone who was deeply uninterested in zero gravity tricks. It wouldn’t have worked, she was sure of it.

Yet this was Keira. Shy, nervous, kind Keira whose dumb smile she found far too much comfort in.

She couldn’t help but smile back.

“Thank you.” She told her, shoving in the microchip into its new home and getting to work soldering it in place.

Normally Keira would have asked if she needed anything else, or if it was ok for her to go run some simulations with Lily. Instead, she floated there, rubbing her hands together, putting some distance between the two.

“Something on your mind?” She urged her nervous pilot to tell her.

“Well… I was curious. How do you go about fixing stuff?” She asked, leaving Rosemary a bit confused. “I mean, how do you know how to fix stuff? The steps, the things---”

“Right, I understand.” Rosemary interrupted her before putting her tools on her belt. “You mean, how do I know what to fix, and what do I need to do that.”

Keira nodded.

“It took me a while to learn it, and I still make mistakes from time to time, but it starts simple.”

She wiped the sweat off her brow.

“First, I go about identifying the problem. What broke, what’s not responding, what’s acting strangely. In this case, the obvious answer is the gash.” She explained, pointing at the piece of the torn Gund-bit armor plate they had taken off in the morning. “This is the thing that takes the longest to be honest.”

“I think I understand, but why can it take so long?”

“Because sometimes the thing that’s failing is obvious. Maybe the damage is superficial, maybe it is only one component failing, or maybe the diagnostic caught the exact thing that’s failing.” Rosemary looked over at the diagram on the main console, showing everything still wrong with Remnant. “Replacing the armor? Easy and quickly to notice. A capacitor blew up? Quickly found. Misaligned joint? More times than I can count.”

She showed Keira the armor damage once more, making her take note of where the cut was the thickest.

“But that was not all that happened.”

 Pulling out her flashlight, she showed her pilot that it ran far deeper than that.

The new blue circuit board underneath contrasted strangely with some of the older pieces that laid next to it, showing how it wasn’t there originally.

“The hit took out the whole of the gyroscope. That means I have to replace about everything that was tied to it.”

“Sorry.” Keira couldn’t help but apologize to her annoyance.

Rosemary sighed and ignored it.

“Now that I know what I need to do, I gather the pieces I need to fix it. In this case, a new circuit board, the gyroscope, and whatever other components it requires.” To further her example, she flashed the microchip Keira had just gotten her. “Then it is about making sure everything works, which is the second longest step.”

“That’s where I mostly come in.” Keira stated, more to herself than to Rosemary.

“You know her better than I do. That’s worth a lot.” The engineer affirmed the obvious, but to make it stick, she pulled out the trophy of their first maintenance job together: the yellow wrench. “I couldn’t have found this without you. You are of great help Keira.”

Her pilot was beaming at that comment, a thing that made Rosemary both happy and worried.

“How did your previous team treat you?”

For the time being, that didn’t matter.

There was work to do.

Tomorrow they would load up Lily and her Gund-bits unto a ship. They would jump through the quantum catapult to somewhere to do the job they had been hired to do. They would be faced with the most hostile form that the void between the stars had ever known to do…

Do something. Something important apparently. At least necessary enough to get a barely functional Gundam out there when many more were available.

“Do you know why we are getting deployed?” She asked Keira while she opened up the chips.

Keira put on finger on her mouth while looking upwards, letting Rosemary know that she was thinking about it.

“I guess it could be escort duty. We probably are just going to fly with a ship as they go from the Garden to the one of the catapults.” She answered before looking at the Gundam. “Lily agrees with me. She says that they wouldn’t truly risk losing us.”

Though she didn’t fully agree with the last reassurance, Rosemary thought their theory was sound. Simple escort duty, which she could pray to the lady of Petals for it to go without a hitch.

“Why do we have to be the ones defending it?” Rosemary said while she tested the microchip’s connections. Five volts, five volts, zero volts. Still some work to do. “Why do we have to go on a military operation? We are a rescue team, not part of the UCA military. They have their own Gundams.”

Keira remained in her thoughtful pose as she pondered the question, swirling cutely from side to side. That display, as simple and uninteresting as it was caused a great deal of rumbling in the engineer’s mind.

Cute. Cute. Cute. Cute.

“I don’t really know.” Keira said deflated as if she had failed to answer a teacher.

“Don’t worry Keira. You don’t need to have all the answers.” Rosemary left her tools floating there, and went to put her hand on her pilot’s shoulder to physically reassure her everything was fine.

The opposite happened.

With a strong shudder, Keira immediately reacted. Her eye opened wide, followed by her muscles tensing up to the point of feeling like stone. Instinct made her take a slight step back, unbeknownst to her but not the engineer.

She removed it quickly.

A capacitor exploded.

This had been a breach.

“I shouldn’t have done that.” She stated as a matter of fact, both to Keira and to her nervously guilty self.

“No. I me-mean yes.” Keira was panicking. Like a whirlpool, the poor girl was dragging in all the blame unto her. “I’m so—”

“Don’t fucking apologize.” More than regret, anger came out; anger focused on herself.

A far too hurtful action to be called a mishap; one of which she had already had knowledge of and had just ignored. Worst was how it had not been more than a couple of days ago. She’d felt like an idiot, or worse, a purposeful attacker.

But did Keira ever tell her? Set up her boundaries—

 “I’m the one that fucked up here!” She said.

Rosemaria Ryn Stonework wouldn’t listen to that voice today.

“I shouldn’t have done that, nor the hug of the other day without asking. That’s on me Keira.”

Her pilot, wide-eyed and subtly trembling, looked away for a second. Whatever many things could be running through her head, however harsh or apologetic they could be were only for her. Rosemary though, felt painful memories resurface, inching her towards defending herself.

Shut down her words, turn around to save face, look down to appear as pathetic as possible so the barrage stops. Now she was as tense as Keira had been.

Rosemary didn’t say anything. She needed to listen even if her nerves were pushing her to barrel though the talk as fast as they could to get back to before. She bit her tongue and stayed put. She would listen to the one who had heard her cries for help before.

Her pilot was silently; she was the cause of it. There was nothing Rosemary could do now.

 That stung her worse than anything.

From Keira came a weeping sigh, intercut breathes that hid words within them, and a look of abject pained sadness that made Rosemary almost cry too.

“I hate that I can’t like it.” Keira spoke up, holding herself close and distant.

Without anything to hold unto, her pilot found herself starting to drift away from the platform and from the engineer. Rosemary, afraid of the distance, went after her.

“Si-since I was little, it always felt off, and I don’t kn-know why.” Keira, either to herself or to Rosemary, continued in whispers. “Every h-hug, every good night kiss, every to-touch from another person has always felt off and weird and… I hated that it.”

As if trying to find shelter, Keira wrapped her arms around herself.

“My dads understood me mo-most of the time when I told them, but the rest of my f-family insisted I-I needed to do so every time.” She shuddered. “When I didn’t I w-was called rude and di-disrespectful and a bad child. Told I didn’t c-care for anyone else.” She shook her head, denying the falsehood of those words as much as she could. “I kn-knew some hugs were good. I’d f-felt some myself, but I didn’t get why I didn’t like m-most of them.”

Rosemary was the one feeling like an idiot. Even after hearing what Keira was saying, had to fight against her instinct to reassure her by touching her.

“Worst is how it is s-so all encompassing.” She turned towards her, desperation written all over her face. “E-even touching stuff with my hands feels awful. Too dry, too surfacy, too rigid, or bumpy or… or…”

Keira couldn’t continue; her voice was cracking too much. Instead, she took off one of her gloves and showed her hand to Rosemary.

Years of piloting written all over the surface of it, showing a lifetime of experience that few could match. Calloused, with her nails cut far too short. What caught her attention was the sheer number of scars that Keira had on them. If she needed to describe it, I was like her hands had been forcefully shoved into a monitor, becoming victims of the glass, metal and wires within.

“I’ve never seen you without your gloves on.” Rosemary remarked, getting close to the point.

“Most of the time the world is too much for my hands.” She stuttered, while she traced small circles on her palm. “Even before the crash, I could barely touch anything without having gloves on. It makes me feel d-dumb.”

“You aren’t dumb Keira.” Rosemary told her, holding her own hand in the other. “If it doesn’t feel right, it doesn’t. Don’t push yourself to do so, especially for others.”

Rosemary couldn’t know what the impact her words had on her pilot, yet she hoped they sooth her. Life wasn’t a game in which the right dialogue choices were to give you the best outcome. It was full of its ups and downs; full of fights one had thought they’re done with; immersed in insurmountable loses, and hard won, yet unsatisfying wins. The pain of it all remained.

In silence, together the two of them let themselves drift away while the Haros worked below them. The only sound that came from it was that of Keira affixing her glove once more.

Rosemary’s brain went through many iterations of what she wanted to say next; a way to, more than reassure Keira, to connect to her. To bring up something that, for everyone else, was as natural as breathing but made the world halt in place when she was in its presence.

In truth, there was only one thing.

“I…” Rosemary whispered, feeling what was a similar shame to her pilot’s. “I’m afraid of rust; deadly afraid of it.”

“Y-you are?”

The engineer took a moment to calm herself down by counting down from ten. Each even number punctuated by her breathing in, each odd breathing out.

“I had a bad experience when I was little.” She told Keira, forcing in the memory as gingerly as she could. “Near the tree where we lived in there was an old, abandoned steel mill that was bound for demolition. Our babysitter, a teenager at the time, took me and my sister Jaz there because she was both taking care of us and planning a rave there with a bunch of other kids.”

She remembered the car ride, the very cheeky bribe of one slice of cake for each if they didn’t tell their moms. The feeling of awe and excitement as they went into the open field under the twilight as the furnace came into view. The sound of the river flowing, combined with the creaking of the long-abandoned train tracks.

“Of course, Luna, the babysitter, had more important things to do than look after us when we reached it.” Sarcasm notwithstanding, she didn’t bore any ill will to her. “So Jazz, Miau and I got to play hide and seek. I and Miau hid, Jazz went out to look for us.” She took an uncomfortable deep breath.

Creaking walls of orange scars rising to an invisible ceiling, with the banging sounds of dead machinery wanting to wake up. Dust, decay. Old lightbulbs that struggled against the darkness. Sickly pours on the floor filled with stale poisoned water. Closed doors forever stuck by deathly brambles of steels wire. Storage rooms filled with broken glass. Unending corridors, winding rooms. Stairs that creaked with every step, threatening to cut and maw her leg out. All combined with the strange, uncanny feeling of being watched.

“Who’s Miau?” Keira spoke up.

“My oldest plushy. A ragdoll cat with two aquamarine button eyes that my mama Carrion made the day I was born.” She answered wanting more than anything to hold her. “As she said, she made her to be my first friend.”

Keira smiled and made a very similar hugging motion to the one she was thinking of.

“I had a deer plushy; his name was Luna.”

Rosemary giggled.

“Strange coincidence there.”

Keira agreed.

“So many great places to hide was the first thought that came to mind.” Rosemary returned to her story, thinking that the distraction would make it easier. Her voice was already shaking. “It felt so innocent at the time.”

Time passed. Time went on forever. Time stagnated.

The ticking of the clock stuck forever at the last second before midnight. Thirty seconds of the countdown never came; always stuck at twenty-nine. No one was looking for her.

“I found what I thought was a great place to hide, only it was too good.” She forced an uncomfortable laugh. “I lost track of time hiding behind a box of old rusted saws, until I felt far too much of it had passed.”

Confusion. Exhaustion.

 “And when I tried to find my way back, I got lost because of course I did. No one knew where I was.”

Something knew she was there.

The walls and ceiling and lights and smells and sounds and creaking and light all felt the same. It was the same and the same and the same; over and over again extending upon itself like a fractal.

A question. An answer. A button being plucked.

“Miau lost one eye.”

She ran and ran looking for her way back. It didn’t matter that she lost, she wanted to go home. Home.

Dust. Rust. Her lungs were on fire and melted over. Her legs hurt. Her arms hurt. Away. Away. Away. She needed to get out.

Blood. Panic. Struggling to get out, out, out! Screams. Distorted music. The strings of an invisible instrument being cut. Decay. Rust.

Rust.

Rust.

Darkness.

Hands holding her own. Crying.

“I don’t remember what happened.” She told Keira, struggling to keep going. “I came out of a corridor hours later in the dead of night. A full search party had been rallied to find me.”

Relief. A hug from her crying sister Jaz.

A shamed babysitter. A party planning busted. Her mamas running at the sound of crying. Relief. Happiness.

A family hug.

She thought of her mamas; of the care of mama Persephone, of the intelligence of her mama Helena, the mystique of her mama Carrion, and the stalwartness of her mama Rosetta. How all came together to find her after what had happened.

How the next day mama Carrion would had made the most incredible breakfast ever; how mama Helena helped her heal the gashes on her arms, singing a small lullaby to help distract her from the stings of the alcohol; how mama Persephone brought her favorite bouquet of flowers to cheer her up; and how mama Rosetta stayed up to the late hours of the night to stave the nightmares away.

It felt nice, remembering the loving connection they had for each other, and for their three daughters.

The same thing that had brought her here in the first place.

“I shouldn’t have made this about me.” Rosemary told her ashamed. Her pathetic attempt at asking forgiveness had turned into a pity-party for her.

As they drifted past the Gundam’s head, Rosemary tried to clear her tears but found that her hands were far too shaky for it. With her gloved hand, Keira did it for her, gifting her another one of her dumb smiles.

“You are ok now.” Keira, sweet Keira, held her hands and told her without reservation. “Thank you for telling me.”

Rosemary smiled gratefully back at her.

“Thank you for letting me know about the hugs Keira. I promise I won’t do it again.”

Keira looked a bit down at that.

“What’s wrong?”

“I d-do want to try a hug at s-some p-point.” Shy and nervous, her pilot told her. “Be-because I know it can feel good… like when we found the wrench.”

Rosemary’s heart skipped a beat, then it gained it back far too quickly. Only then did the engineer realize just how close to each other they were.

And it was because of this that she couldn’t look away. Being this close opened up so many facets of the girl who held her, and only her.

 The hint of glow on her eye shining underneath the low lights of the stars, the scars on her cheeks close to tiger stripes that made her want to trace their oath with her finger, the way her messy hair looked perfect to ruffle, per and comb for great care.

Keira was an open book but only now Rosemary the deep desire within her to experience her story.

She realized just how much she cared about her.

A single thought crossed Rosemary’s mind. Simple, contradictory and far too soon to ask, especially after it being the issue not more than a couple of minutes ago, but…

“Do you want to try one—”

“Incoming call! Incoming call!” Nyaro shoot up like a cannonball, interrupting them.

Rosemary held her, for once annoyed at her friend’s bluntness. The mood was dead.

“I can take it.” Keira told her.

“Appreciate it.” Rosemary said giving the purring Nyaro to Keira. “Frees me to continue fixing the Gund-bit.”

“Want me to help you get down?” Keira said gently letting Nyaro float next to them for the moment.

Without making a big deal out of it, her pilot offered her hands. Instinct now guided her to hold them; hold her.

Only then did Rosemary stop to think everything they’d talked about. For everyone else this would have been normal, a thing coworkers do on the regular; even more so considering this wasn’t the first time she’d done so.

Now though, as Keira carefully threw her back down, there was one question Rosemary couldn’t answer.

“What does this mean?”

There were many things crossing through the disjointed mind of Keira. Some were of comfort, some were of happiness, some were of confusion, some were of hurt. Yet all were caught inside of a maelstrom of ambivalent attachments and memories that forced her to try and reconcile them.

To yearn to be touched, yet recoil at the action; to desire being an active participant only to be repulsed by it. Wishing for connection; failing to hold her arms out.

Only someone as—

You aren’t dumb Keira.

She couldn’t understand how it happened, but the world changed around felt different.

Maybe it was the trust required for herself to open up about why she shuddered at physical touch. Maybe it was the defiance against more than fifteen years of eye rolling and rude, concealed comments. Maybe it had been the tale Rosemary told her, showing her a most vulnerable part of herself.

She didn’t know. And yet…

What around her had been a lowly lit hangar, sprinkled with dust and oil; where the only sound was that of machinery working relentlessly had shifted.

The lightbulbs went out of focus, the dust vanished from the air, the sounds dimmed into nothingness until only one thing remained.

Rosemary.

Lightly illuminated by the warmness she had brought, that cast upon her the most beautiful of shadows. She couldn’t not see her; all of her.

Her beautiful aquamarine hair tied on her adorably messy pigtails, with a couple strands of that fell on her face, tempting Keira to tuck them behind her ear. The pair of twigs that grew alongside it, some of them subtly having a couple of buds wishing to bloom. The way in which the words they shared in their own language came out harmoniously and far less restrained, all from enchanting dark lavender lips.

And yet it was naught those parts of Rosemary that had had enchanted her so much.

It was her eyes, glistening aquamarine waves soothingly landing at the sands of the beach, washing it away. The radiance emanating from them was as the rays of the sun breaking though the dying storm. She could barely look at them, yet couldn’t stop herself from trying over and over again to do so.

A final shift happened. The same old desire for that connection which had shunned her for long returned. To be touched; to be held.

And so, she had blurted out her one wish to Rosemary.

To try.

Sadly for her, reality came into focus once more. They needed to get to work.

To her great disappointment.

What she never expected was her reaction to it. Without thinking, she so eagerly offered Rosemary help getting back down, knowing full well what that would entail. Trusting each other, holding hands. She didn’t even get time to react before her engineer agreed.

One second, they were floating together in a world of their own. The next they were holding hands, closer than ever before.

Keira Azuriel Remnant didn’t know what she was feeling; nor how to begin describing what had just happened. There was only one dumb thought that crossed her mind as Rosemary, and herself got back to work.

It had felt a bit magical.

To her greatest disappointment, the world moved again. Apart from internalizing that she would never subject Rosemary to anything rust related, there was no time for her to think about what all that had been. Her engineer was back repairing the raven, and she had a call to answer.

Once Nyaro’s mouth popped open, and the screen inside her became visible, Keira accepted it without checking who it was.

“Hello?” She asked the person who was calling her. “Can you hear me?”

The woman, pale of skin and dressed in military fatigues, stared at her weirdly for a second, having not understood most of what she said. Keira then realized her mistake; she had answered in her native tongue.

“Sorry.” She switched languages while she searched for her face plate. “Can you hear me?”

“Loud and clear.” The pale woman from the military responded without issues. “Remnant, I presume?”

“Yes.” Keira answered, half paying attention to her question. She needed to find her mask.

With Rosemary she was fine being without it, but not with anyone else; especially in calls like this.

Instead of taking mental noted as she should have, she looked around to try and find it.

It wasn’t on top of Lily, nor behind her. Neither in the main console, nor on Rosemary’s toolbox.

She knew she’d put it somewhere nearby Lily, somewhere not prone to have it flying away and quick to get to. The hard part that she couldn’t remember one that matched those specs for the life of her at the moment. Yet, the worst part was that she needed to be paying attention to the call, but her mind wouldn’t allow her to.

“…It will require you to go on a ten day…”

Absolutely not paying attention. Same as before, same as always. As she’d done before she could ask for the debriefing to be sent to her, glance over it to the page where it said where she needed to go, and what she needed to do and fake being competent.

“It has worked so far.” She said out loud, landing on Lily’s open cockpit.

“That it has done.” The woman responded, catching her by surprise.

Luck had been on her side for the moment, but not in the way she wanted.

She was--

“Haro Keira! Haro!” The green Haro cane flying next to her, releasing from its mouth her mask.

Immediately she let go of Nyaro, from where a burst of questions came flying by. As she put on her mask, she apologized profusely to the woman on the other side of the screen.

The woman didn’t seem thrilled.

“Can I continue now, Remnant?”

“Yes… sorry.”

The debriefing continued. Detail after detail piled up to get her to understand the importance of it all. It was always like that. Something about supplies, another thing the importance of the shipment, one last thing about it being paramount that it reached its destination, this case, quantum catapult number ten.

She didn’t get all the details, or better said, she got so little details it felt embarrassing what she could say the mission was. Get the big ship to its destination.

Recently turned twenty-five; still thinking like a child.

And she was still not paying attention. Her eyes had wandered off, choosing to land on a very pretty sight. Her engineer, laughing with one of the Haros.

Something struck her.

Even if she could accept the deaths of those she failed to reach in time the day they met, many others suffered because of her irresponsible actions.

Better. She needed to be better.

And that all started with one simple step.

Become more curious.

About the world, about herself, about the circumstances that surrounded her, and about the strange dreams she had had.

“What are we transporting?” Keira asked, using all of her energy to focus for once in her life. “If it needs to go on one of the far away catapults, it must be pretty big.”

“The cargo is classified.”

As the pilot saw it, it needed to be something that required a lot of space, sensitive if known, but not too important that it didn’t need a full team escort. Something like grain, medical supplies and the like wouldn’t be hidden. If she was barred from knowing, but was not outright lied to, then it was legal, yet sensitive.

Big, important, legal, secretive. Not for civilian use.

“So something like Mobile Suits.” Keira, unsure is she was right, told the woman her revelation.

Whispering agreement.

Without skipping a beat, the UCA officer looked up at her surprised that she’d blurted it out. The altari pilot wasn’t smart enough to know if that was confirming her theory or not; but it had gotten a reaction.

“Classified.” The officer reiterated.

Keira was now far more nervously curious than before. As much as she would have liked to convince herself that the Mobile Suits were for civilian use, it bugged her. If that was what they would be transporting it, where were they sending them to? Who needed them? Was this the most important thing they could ask for?

Classified.

Classified.

Classified.

“Any more questions Remnant?” The lady sternly asked, one hundred percent wishing to shut down the talk.

Keira looked over at Rosemary, who appeared to be finishing the repairs on her raven. Far smarter than her, so much more accomplished, and way more attuned to the world around her, Rosemary had made a keen observation before.

“Why us?” The question came out before she could think if it was a good idea.

The woman, who she now realized could be the handler for this mission, rested her head on one hand, raised one eyebrow and partially closed her eyes just to stare at her. Keira didn’t like that look; because it was the one of someone looking at an idiot.

“As established by the Colony Alliance Cooperation Treaty, all Gundam pilots have to do their part until the state of emergency has been declared moot.” She answered without a trace of happiness.

“So that’s what it’s called.” Keira kept the thought inside of her. Better not make a greater fool of herself.

“And last I checked, Altaris was still a part of it. Whatever’s needed it is to be done.” That was her final answer.

Or at least she thought that was it. Believing herself to be muted, the future handler whispered to herself.

“Even if you all barely carry your own weight.”

The altari pilot remained quiet at the comment. Better to have her believe she didn’t hear that than do anything. It did hurt, having have heard that—

“And you seem to be too pleased with taking our fucking food.” Her engineer, having had finished her work, joined her at that moment. “And our land.”

The handler stared daggers at the altari engineer, who was in the midst of causing a diplomatic incident.

“S-sends us the dossier!” Keira abruptly ended the call before either could say more.

“Fucking UCA military.” Rosemary said before acknowledging Keira. “Hate them.”

The pilot found herself unable to do anything but shrug nervously. The sheer level of emotional disgust that came from her engineer’s words was as palpable as the air around them.

Whispering agreement.

“Sorry.” Keira turned to Rosemary and apologized for what had been clearly her fault.

“Stop apologizing.” Rosemary sighed at her comment, making her want to apologize again. “It’s not your fault they treat us like shit.”

Whispering agreement.

“Right.” Was how she responded to both her friends’ comments, even if she couldn’t let go of the fact that it partially was her fault.

Keira didn’t know how to continue the talk; if even possible.

Thankfully for them both, Rosemary took the lead again. With one jump she went to the raven, urging Keira to follow her.

“The Gund-bit should be working now, though I am still wary about the plating.” True, genuine worry was found in her words. “But I wanted to ask you something.”

As a helper for her request, Rosemary pointed to a thing next to her. What Keira saw what was a bunch of very big cylinders welded together to a display that showed their charge. She would have thought that it would show a hundred percent, but was sixty instead. Perhaps, she thought, that was because it was still incomplete. Only about half of the cylinders had been welded to the circuit board.

Even then, the pilot had no idea what it was.

“This is my thesis.” Rosemary, with fading confidence, showed Keira. “A sort of bait for planar dust in case of a Stormevil.”

The pilot, knowing full well that she lacked the most basic of electronics training, took a closer look at it. It was very much a rudimentary thing, very big, bulky, easily made, and just as easily ignored. If Rosemary asked her to replicate it, she might be able to do it.

“How does it work?” She asked, poking the display to verify that it wasn’t stuck.

“I know it is a dumb question, but…” Rosemary clicked a button next to the display, making the display flash for a second. “Have you ever been in a Stormevil?”

“Skin burning. Lighting. Heat. Red all around her. Pulled apart and reformed. Existing nowhere but in the feeling of anguish. Destruction. Death. Death. Death.

The planet was gone.

I want to die.”

She removed her mask.

“I have.”

Whispering fear.

“Right, silly me.” Rosemary shook her head. “You’ve probably been in more than most.”

“Every time is nerve wracking to be honest.” Like a slide show, those small memories came back to her in small burst.  “And being put in quarantine for three days thereafter is never fun.”

“Didn’t know that was standard protocol.” Rosemary noted. “I was left go immediately after we landed.”

“Maybe for Gundam pilots only?” Now Keira felt like the weird one out. Rosemary shrugged, letting her know it wasn’t big of a deal.

The pilot took out her tablet, and wrote down her question; the first of many. This, she thought, was a good starting point to being more curious about the world. Question and answer. For every former, she only needed to find who could give her the latter. At least this time, she knew who could.

At least for this one, it was obvious.

Next time she was with the doctor, she would ask her.

“Sorry I interrupted you.” Keira told Rosemary as she put her tablet away. The egineer sighed defeatedly but did not grunt as she tended to do. “How does it work? Your thesis I mean.”

“Well, as with any bit of bait, I envisioned it as being far tastier than anything nearby.” Rosemary explained while she pulled it out from the raven. “You know how there’s a massive amount of planar dust around after a stormveil has passed?”

Keira nodded. Even she knew that.

“Well, that’s the main hazard. A stormveil is bad enough, but the aftermath is worse.” The engineer pushed forward with her explanation with the help of Nyaro, who opened her mouth to show her some slides. In the one they’d landed; there was a ship surrounded by clouds of dust that had arrows pointing towards it. “Planar dust is the thing that makes it deadly for ships out there. Those tiny pieces of glass, as is my theory, seek out the biggest energy sources in their vicinity and siphon everything from them. For us, of course, that means everything that can hold a charge or create it. That means batteries and engines.”

Keira was following along as Nyaro changed the slide to remark that point. Discharged capacitors, fusion engines cooled down to unworkable temperatures.

“Sadly, the main problem doesn’t end there.” Next slide, the ship now was inside a gigantic dust cloud. “To be able to recover power, we first need to remove as much dust as possible, which means pumping out enough power to be eaten by the dust.”

Though she couldn’t understand the mathematical function shown to her, the graph in the next slide made it very easy to understand. It compared the cloud’s density to the diminishing charge of what she thought was a very big battery. Incredibly steep at first, mellowing out at the bottom: as the amount of planar dust diminishes, so does the cloud’s ability to drain did too. If she remembered correctly what that was called form her failed math classes, that seemed like an exponential function.

The pilot thought of her own experiences in past missions. Seeing Lily’s normal power output, one that normally had never been able to drain it, being so quickly overwhelmed, was harrowing. But she never found herself running out of juice by the end of a deployment. Perhaps it was because Lily had been pushing herself, or perhaps it was because of what Rosemary was saying; maybe both.

That brought her another idea.

“Lily. Are we adjusting the power output based on this?” She asked her friend.

               Whispering negation.

Without thinking about it too much, Keira took out her tablet and opened her list again. In there, she noted down that she would need to try it out in the future.

“I think we may be wasting too much energy.”

Rosemary looked at her, then at Lily, and then back at her with wide eyes, open mouth, and hand on chin. An incredibly curious expression.

“We might be able to take some readings in the field.” She told them both, unable to hide from them their excitement. “Perhaps the distance a beam can travel, or maybe the rate of energy loss that Lily has. We might even be able to see some red-shifting of the beam cutter.”

“You mean the phenomenon of light shifting color?” Keira asked, remembering that they woman that proposed it had been hanged for her theory during the era of Gunpowder and Steel.

Rosemary agreed enthusiastically.

“There are so many unknowns about the planar dust because of how difficult it is to study it.” Her enthusiasm became tempered. “Or because the UCA makes it almost impossible to study it.”

“Because you would need a Gundam, right?”

“Nyaro! Nyaro!” Their pink friend let her know she was right.

Her engineer sighed in agreement, and tapped once more the button to flash her thesis’s screen. The screen did as was programmed to, showing that the sixty had gone down to a fifty-nine while they’d been talking.

“If you control all of the Gundams, space is yours.” Rosemary acknowledged in a way that seemed far too solemn for the talk they’ve been having. “And there’s nothing more they love that controlling everything.”

There were many steps in the logic the Rosemary had presented that Keira didn’t follow, but it was her gut feeling that told her the conclusion to it. If the UCA controlled all the Gundams they also controlled the research, keeping it to themselves.

Her dad, angry beyond anything she’d ever seen before, had talked about something like that before.

“We can help you study the planar dust.” She offered without having to think about it. “However we can.”

Whispering uncertainty.

“Lily…” She whined.

Whispering reluctant agreement.

“Thank you.” Rosemary tried to hide how much she was beaming at the offer, but her smile utterly betrayed her. “First, I wanted to install a new version of my capacitor bait in one of the Gund-bits to see if there’s any improvement to their charge.”

Though Lily remained skeptical, she agreed with having it installed.

“Lily says she appreciates you asking first before installing it.” And Keira let her engineer know.

Following her engineer’s instructions, they worked on putting the bait nice and tight in the compartment. As they did, Rosemary explained her reasoning as to why she had decided on it, her hypothesis, and why she had had to adjust it after her first encounter with the Stormveils.

“By having them at max charge before it happened, there was no extra room for them to absorb the power surge at the start of the Stormevil.” Though she didn’t have any photos of the moment, Rosemary showed Keira an image of what had been an overcharged capacitor, now all blown up. “So I decided to lower their charge between fifty and sixty percent to see if that works better.”

That Keira could follow, which brought her to think of her own experiences in space.

“I’m curious about one thing.” As if marking her point, she made circles in the air. “Why can we move normally in the dust?”

Rosemary looked at her as if she wasn’t making sense. Probably she wasn’t knowing her.

“I-if I remember it right, isn’t movement a form of energy itself?”

“You mean kinetic energy?”

“Yes.”

Her engineer’s express went from confusion to a different kind of confusion. Keira didn’t know how to explain herself better, finding herself grasping at concepts she had long not thought about. Somehow, her engineer noticed it, and shook her head to tell her that wasn’t the problem.

“You bring a very interesting point Keira.” The praising manner in which Rosemary told her, made the pilot giggle in delight. “Does the planar dust interact differently depending on the energy type?”

 Whispering curiosity.

“Even Lily is pondering it.”

Another thing noted down on Keira’s list. Now she had three.

• Are we, Gundam Pilots the only ones that are isolated after being exposed to a Stormveil?
  • (Ask doctor Neri-sel next time I see her!)
• How much does the planar dust affect the energy output of the beam saber?
  • (Easier to take a constant look!)
• Is there a difference between kinetic energy and other energy types for the planar dust?
  • (No idea how to test this :c)

“But that will come later.” Rosemary took her unfinished project and jumped back to the main platform.

Keira, having grabbed Nyaro, followed suit.

“Do you need any more help?” She shyly asked.

“Can you test that Lily’s hands are no longer having a spasm?” She didn’t even have to think about it.

“Got it!” Keira handed Nyaro to her owner.

“I’ll finish assembling the bait and install it once it’s ready; then I’ll get to read the dossier once the UCA sends it over.” Without stopping, Rosemary set up everything to work on her own personal design. “And then, we’ll get Lily ready to depart.”

“Nyaro! I’m coming too. Nyaro.” The pink bundle of joy flapped her lids.

“Of course you are.” Keira assured her, feeling much happier herself than Nyaro probably did. “Wouldn’t want it any other way.”

Goosebumps crawled on her skin. Her heart skipped a beat. Keira felt herself lose all strength. Saying that last part out loud stung her in a way she didn’t expect. As honest, or because of how honest it had been, it forced another truth to hurt her.

She’d forgotten what it was to not be alone.

When she felt the tears form at the edge of her vision, she looked away from her engineer. She didn’t want to cry, didn’t want to be seen crying again today because, this time, it was for such a silly thing.

So, she shook her head, smiled, and cleaned whichever had escaped.

“Something wrong?” Rosemary asked.

“No. Just looking for my mask.” Keira lied. She was pretty sure where it was.

Rosemary pointed towards Lily.

“And Keira?” But, before the pilot could jump away, her engineer spoke up one last time. “Thank you, for everything we talked about.”

Keira smiled.

“I’m glad we are friends.”

               Whispering agreement.

For the rest of the evening Rosemaria Ryn Stonework and Keira Azuriel Remnant went on to fulfill their respective tasks. The engineer diligently finished her bait, and having been granted permission, installed it as the finishing touch on the Gund-bit. While whatever glitch in the Gundam’s systems the pilot would find, the aquamarine would fix.

In the end, they were as ready as they could be.

As the evening fell down, and they said their goodbyes, Rosemary’s anxieties creeped up on her. Firstly, the need to pack a bag with enough change of clothes for a twenty-day round trip; something she thought she’d left behind. Secondly, and most importantly, the fact that she would be out in space again so soon. Once more to the mercy of the void between the stars, once more in range of a Stormveil, once more dancing with death.

While preparing her good night tea in the comfort of her kitchen, with her bag ready, that fear gnawed at her. Looking over the debriefing both helped, and challenged the notion that everything would be alright.

Having read their instructions fully now, it dawned on her the scope of their job.

Escort the ship to the quantum catapult near Side Eight, ensure it goes through the jump, then wait for the Amaranth and escort it home. Ten days to travel to the quantum catapult, then days back. Twenty total days surrounded by people she didn’t know about. Twenty days in full for a roundabout trip to ensure a ship of classified things got to their destination, to only then escort a second cargo ship on the way back.

“It is weird Nya.” She told her kitty companion as she reread her instructions. “What happens if a Stormveil hits the ship on the other side of the catapult?” She took a sip of her tea, found it too stale for her cat tongue, and decided to put an extra tea spoon of sugar on it. “Aren’t all the Gundams supposed to be in the Garden?”

Nyaro disagreed with her assumed answers to her questions. Just a cursory search of the treaty most colonies and the states of Altaris had signed showed her the flaw in her reasoning. Most, not all, had signed it. Only a couple of months ago had Side Eight agreed to their terms.

She took a second sip of her tea, and found it far better. Good enough to take to bed with her.

“And there are still others in the process of negotiating it.” Rosemary acknowledged how misinformed she was. How little benign those talks between the states and colonies were was another entirely. “And it would make sense for another Gundam and their ship to escort it back to wherever they need to go.”

 Yet, something did bug her about it all. One Gundam to be the sole defender of all the transport ships for a while group of colonies felt like a titanic task. The supply chain rarely slept, so would the Gundam pilots.

As Rosemary sat down on her bed and grabbed her one-eyed kitty plushy Miau, a thought sprung in her head.

“Is that why the Garden has so many?” Such was the question that came forth. “Make sure that mostly themselves, have their trade secure?”

Opening up the browser on her tablet, she went on to look for whatever she could find of the industry inside the Garden. News after papers, after records of supposedly a high agricultural output that could feed about sixty percent of all colonies before Helia’s Wrath. Such statements backed up by the claims of ‘revolutionary agricultural technologies” and ‘outstanding understanding of the life cycle of crops.’

Always with the certified lack of specifics.

“All bullshit, of course.” She stated to Nya, who agreed with her. “How much actual food does the Garden produce?”

Nothing came up.

What she managed to find, was more akin to what she expected. Stories warning of an economic crash, calls for deregulation, and the threat to the livelihood of the average UCA citizen.

That soured her mood.

“Fuckers.” She insulted them, unable to finish her tea.

What Nya brought to her attention seemed much more relevant to her current job.

Companies like Ad Astra Systems or Tempest Quality Machinery getting up in an arms race amongst themselves. From fighting to getting government grants and tax cuts for defense purposes, while pushing for the security of their own supply lines from the mining colonies and, of course, from Altaris. Their goal being obvious: to produce Mobile Suits able to withstand the stormveils.

All, as of now, ending in failures.

“Only the Gundams can survive out there.” She repeated to no one.

Whatever more she could find, she knew it would need to be later. The hour grew late.

“Good night, Nya.” She blew a kiss to her kitty companion, who gave her a big heart in response. As her last act of the day, Nya set in to play the same calm tune she’d been listening for years now to help her sleep.

She grabbed her tablet, set it to charge, and have her pillow three hugs to fluff it up. Now the pillow was perfectly set to help her sleep.

Finally, she grabbed her plushy Miau with her singular aquamarine button eye, and held her in front of her.

“I’ve told her what happened that day Miau.” A bit ashamed, she let her plushy know.

She seemed to be receptive to the idea.

“And I’m glad I did.” She continued, giving her good night kiss to Miau. “Because Keira didn’t make fun of me. It… it made me feel safe.”

Be it by the dumbest and sweetest of her smiles, her attentiveness, or the way in which she so openly left her be open near her, repeating her name was like a spell.

Her job, her responsibilities, the space colony they found themselves with, all seemed less frightening when she thought of her pilot.

From new challenges or old scars, there would be times were that fear would come again to grip her tightly. Be it the design of the new plating, or the call at the end of the month with Mr. Azuriel, and the one thereafter with her moms. But she knew she wouldn’t be alone thereafter.

Keira would be there.

She was her friend, she was happy to have a friend.

I hope I never have to see you again.

“I’m a fucking idiot.” Rosemary turned in her bed, finding the right spot to fall asleep in.

She would be the best engineer for Keira. She would be there whenever she needed her. She would support her to the very end, whatever that may be. As far as she could, even if her body begged against it, she would be there for Keira.

And, as her eyes closed looking at the Gunpla of the White Rose, she’d hope, Keira would be there for her too.

Because she was…

She was…

…

Rosemaria Ryn Stonework fell asleep.

Keira was desperate.

Running around the hangar, the pikot of the Gundam named Remnant was looking for something, something far too important. Something she had stupidly thrown in a moment of weakness.

“Where is it? Where is it?” Her whisper, full of erratic desperation, travelled through hangar she called home. “It must be here somewhere!”

She had searched on the main platform, underneath the console that controlled everything in there, in the lockers that she now shared, on the cats walks that crossed the whole of the hangar, behind the sleeping Lily, and all around her tired friend.

Try as she might, no sign of it remained.

Her breathing was getting far too fast for comfort, her eyesight blurry, her steps far too brutish and uncoordinated. She was panicking.

Twenty days out. Twenty full days out in space isolated. Ten days to, ten days back. A full three weeks if counting today.

Far too much time.

In blissful ignorance she had been for the past few days, as only now it dawned on her the danger she was putting the others in.

Her stomach began to growl.

She was starting to feel hungry.

Stupidly, as only herself could do, she had thrown away the other blood bag. Now, because of her dumbest of panics, and urged by her dumbass disgust, she had lost it.

The hour grew late. Her panic was overwhelming.

Twenty days loomed over her like the blade of a guillotine.

She could send a message right now to her doctor, let her know of her task and ask for more. Swing in by tomorrow morning and get it before she needed to leave.

Even now, she had gotten her tablet out to do so, yet her fingers didn’t move.

The anxiety over having to explain to her what had happened was crippling. She’d fucked up, she’d thrown away the bag and couldn’t find it. She’d wasted again an invaluable resource because of her disgust.

To type. To remain still. Ask for help. Fix her mistake.

Chastised. Dismissed. Told that they couldn’t continue making exceptions for her. Judgmental eyes with annoyed sighs and desperate pleads.

Her arms tensed up. The full strength of the pressure hit her. The anxiety won. Her tablet began to bend. She panicked more. It slipped from her fingers and fell to the ground. A crack was heard.

“Dumb Keira.” She chastised herself as she picked it up.

Shards fell. The screen was broken.

She tapped it once. Twice. It didn’t respond.

“No. Nononononono.” Picking up as many pieces as she could, Keira set to amend her second fuck up of the week.

Futile. She knew it was useless, but she didn’t know what to do. It was broken.

Such as she was.

Her knees failed her. She fell to the ground. Coldness of hard steel beneath her caught her fall. Again, she was beginning to cry.

“Dumb, dumb Keira.”

Even if Rosemary had told her otherwise, she couldn’t be kind to herself.

There was nothing she could do right.

She hated that more than anything. The feeling of utter helplessness that dominated her life at every mistake she made. That it didn’t matter what she did after, it had all gone wrong and there was nothing to help fix it.

“T-that’s a lie.” She went against the thoughts in her head. “Th-things are fix-fixed here all the t-time.”

The hangar laid still. The Haros resting. Lily dreamt of things she could never understand.

And the yellow wrench laid on top of Rosemary’s toolbox.

With unsurmountable will, Keira Azuriel Remnant forced her breathing under control and her tears to dry. She had a couple of problems now, and she needed to fix them.

“I ne-need a new tablet.” She told herself, identifying her first problem. “Th-then I can wo-work on the other one.”

Without another word, the pilot put on her mask, grabbed her broken tablet, and walked out the hangar with an uneasy step towards the quartermaster’s.

The port never slept, that was a reality of the job they were entrusted with. There was always something out there to do, and someone out there begging to be helped by them. Everyone needed to be at the ready for whatever might come their way. From outside, or from the inside.

That included her own guards.

Not even three steps out of the hangar, and their presence had become known to her.

If this had been any other day, Keira would have blocked then out of her mind. Stop trying to look at their service riffles trained on her slightest act of rebellion, or stop hearing the beating of their calm and unbothered hearts that had so easily taken the life of that boy.

But today, when Rosemary and herself had had such an open talk, she couldn’t. The immense feeling of dread discomfort took over. She feared them because there was no other way she could feel about them.

They were there, as real as the steel below her feet, and ever present like the void. All to keep her from causing any harm to anyone else, and should the worst come to pass, do the right thing.

Her own death following suit.

That was something she could rationalize.

Never too close, never too far away, the red roots that made their self whole following behind. The red veins of their fingers away from the trigger, close enough to move at the slightest aggression from her. They shone, far more than anyone else at the edge of her sight.

She was a danger to others, she needed to be kept in check.

But it was every other detail about them, both obvious and obfuscated, that made it impossible to get over that dread.

Firstly, their uniforms. Purposefully crafted to not betray any personal information about them. Their heads were covered, their uniforms were far too bulky to recognize a silhouette, their hands, as hers, wore gloves. The only difference came in the size of their boots, and that didn’t seem to be a big one.

Secondly, how readily they were to engage in violence against people other than herself. Broken Mirasol’s arm, killed that boy.

“They had no right.” Anger guided her whispers.

Because who had given them that power? What then made them so uniquely righteous? Who had allowed them to so casually end the lives of others? Whoever it was, was the one who’d gifted them the emblem of the owl.

She tensed up, clenched her jaw. Louder than ever before, the memory of the gunshot going off invaded her whole self.

There must be a reason, because if not, I won’t forgive them.

“Get a new tablet.” She forced herself to focus on her task, lest she do something dumb.

Crossing the workshop and into the quartermaster’s proved good enough of a distraction. Between the Mobile Workers moving raw materials, to the teams moving between the machinery, Keira had to pay greater attention to her surroundings.

Stop. Look to both sides before crossing. Enjoy the peak into the life of the others working here. Be annoyed by the noise of metal being cut, or pressed together. See accidents be nearly avoided. Hear pipes falling to the ground, and a lot of cursing. Laughter, teasing, grunts, all mixed with the sound of the machinery building components she only knew by instinct.

Red branches stretching through the room. Dissonant heartbeats closing in and moving out pumping the blood within them, all calling out to her, and only her.

“Your turn Remnant!” The booming voice of the Quartermaster took her out of her trance.

“Sorry!” She flew towards him, making sure one last time that her tablet was not working. The last thing she wanted was being humiliated by it deciding to work.

As her saving grace, it didn’t.

Yet she could see that the stern Quartermaster was not amused by what had happened. He grunted, frowned, and slid another tablet for her to temporarily use.

“Fill in the paperwork Remnant.” He commanded. “And make sure to fill it correctly this time. I don’t want Twigs ta’ave ta fix more of your shit.”

“Fixing! Fixing!” The Haro repeated.

“Sorry.” She apologized without knowing the extent of his accusation.

“Am quite surprised ya are here.” The Quartermaster continued. “Seems since she began working for ya, Twigs has been doing all the job.” As to explain further, he stretched one hand, and began counting with it. “Maintenance, development, support. Can’t be easy on her. The bags under her eyes gotten bigger.”

Keira went on filling the paperwork in silence, having a hard time concentrating. She hadn’t noticed that, but it worried her.

“Surprised ya let her get off early today, considering ya are out there tomorrow.” While talking at her, he pulled out a box from beneath him and placed it in front of her. “How long are ya gonna be out?”

“Tw-twenty days.” She answered as the colors around her became less vivid.

All except for that color. Red.

“Twenty days out there with her as your only support? That’s far too much.” His voice, though lowered to a whisper, had a strong, accusatory tone to it that made her stop. “Can’t believe she was hired to do all those jobs. Ya are gonna be overworking her.”

His heartbeat was getting faster, more aggressive, flooding his cheeks with fury. The tension in his hands increased, both to restrain and intimidate her.

 “I--”

“Ya got someone to cover all the other tasks for ya, or are ya expecting her to do the job of five all on her own?” He didn’t relent.

Keira, as always, had never thought that far ahead. She expected, as had always been, that the people on the carrier ship to be her support for the mission, not solely Rosemary. She hadn’t asked, simply assumed.

But if that wasn’t the case anymore…

He was right. It was absolutely unfair to ask so much of one person. And with her own current state, it would get worse.

“I d-don’t.” She gingerly gave back the filled-out form, standing perfectly still as he grabbed it and read it.  “She—"

Without a word, he took out from the box a new, far slimmer, tablet for her.

“Come Haro, move the data from one to the other.” He told his orange assistant.

“Transfer data, transfer data.” It said as both tablet were connected to two different cables. The Haro’s eyes lit up as the process began, leaving both her and the Quartermaster waiting for it to finish.

“I don’t.” Because she didn’t if he had heard her, she repeated her wish, and promise to him.

If he believed it, he didn’t let her know. Only when the process had finished, and he gave her the new tablet, did he speak up again.

“She got up and running that Gundam of yours, and ya didn’t even give’er a moments respite before tearing a gash on it.” He pointed out the one thing she knew she messed up, even if Rosemary told her not to worry about it. “Having’er do that, while also being your nav can be proper fucking abuse.”

The pilot was taken aback. Never would she have askes her to do something so taxing on top of everything else she already did. But she still didn’t get why he was accusing her. She thought every team was only composed of a chief engineer, and their subordinates; and that was it. All the hands on mission stuff was handled by the ship’s crew, at least with her.

But she wasn’t even allowed to ask about it, because the Quartermaster said one last thing.

“Don’t ever think of hurting her, ya understood?”

“I un-understand.” Keira, frightened and shaken in a world made of grey and red, nodded. “Th-thank you.”

The tablet lit up. A new message had arrived. It was from her doctor.

Already been notified of your mission.

I’ve sent two extra bags for you, they should be with the guard outside your hangar.

Be seeing you once you get back.

With her thoughts in a maelstrom, she retreated back home. Back to the darkness. And just as she’d been told, the bag was given to her.

She hadn’t had the need to do anything at all. Her stupidity had forced her to act when she just needed to keep calm and wait. But she couldn’t, she had lost her cool and had to fix her mistake; same as before, same as always.

And such mistakes were going to push her engineer, her friend, to the brink one day. The more jobs her engineer had to cover, the more drained she would be for her job. And the more Keira failed to act in the best manner, the more work Rosemary would get, the less time she had to fix it all. And Keira, dumb as she was, could not stop herself from making mistakes, and that would push Rosemary, and she would get overwhelmed until everything that made her herself would be taken by Keira’s own stupidity. Even now, she didn't know how much rust was inside her hangar; nor if Rosemary had found any at all. 

Already she had failed to accomodate her. How long until she pushed her to her breaking point?

“Dumb Keira.” She insulted herself as she prepared to sleep. “Why can’t your brain work?!”

She couldn’t be kind to herself.

Not today.

Not tomorrow.

Chapter Text

Rosemary knew something had happened to Keira.

Today, of all days, the aquamarine girl had the cordial distance of unsure acquaintances that had lied between them to have vanished. Yesterday something had shifted, and the two altari women had gotten closer to anyone in their lives. Rosemary felt it, and she’d thought Keira had too.

Rosemary had pictured it in her mind. The moment Nyaro announced that she’d arrived, Keira would jump from wherever it was to meet her. Then, with her warm smile, she would wish for her night to have been a restful one, and that she was so happy to see her, before going on to ask excitedly about the tasks for the day. All accompanied by her eager attitude, and her dumb, precious smile.

Even if that wasn’t the case, to her possible disappointment, she wanted to see her usual self. Full of determination, and ready to help, still knowing that the routine they’d comfortably been following the past few weeks was to be disrupted.

But that hadn’t been her pilot’s attitude.

When Nyaro jumped to Rosemary’s arms, her pilot didn’t come with her. Instead, amongst the almost freezing winds of the hangar, she remained with her back turned towards her, working on her Gundam.

“Hi Rosemary… hope you slept ok.” Her voice carried uncertainty and fatigue with it.

“I did.” Rosemary felt nervously sick answering her. If it had been some other day, she could have

Too preoccupied Keira was with her task at hand that she didn’t continue the conversation as she would have had. Lily’s diagram was all that mattered in her eyes.

“What are you doing?” Rosemary jumped towards her pilot, not content with the circumstances.

“I-I’m doing some final check ups for Lily.” Keira, still without any excitement, explained. “Gotta be ready for t-the trip, and there’s much stuff to do that I wanted to get a running start.” Her pilot spared a single glance at her, one hidden behind the veil of her damned mask. “I-I’ve already done m-most of it already.”

Rosemary felt the coldness of the hangar enveloped her, losing her footing. The feeling of rejection hit her as intensely as a Stormveil. Because this was her job, her repentance. The only way in which she could show Keira all the gratitude she deserved for all her hard work. And to have her

“You know that’s my job Keira.” As a knee jerk reaction, Rosemary told her. In the blink of an eye, she regretted it.

Her pilot froze in place again, beckoning back the memory of yesterday’s fuck up. She had caught up on how badly she’d expressed herself.

Wracked by the guilt of her accusatory reaction, her stomach punished the engineer with the painful burning of her throat by acid reflux.

“I’m sorry.” Keira felt ever so distant.

This was not what Rosemary had wanted.

Not today. Not after yesterday.

What exacerbated her guilt was how disheveled her pilot looked. Far more than her usual self, her hair was caught in uncomfortable knots floating by the lack of gravity, her back languished ever so slightly more forward than her previous days, and her skin looked paler than usual. She couldn’t stomach how tired her face would look like, all because the engineer hadn’t been here for her.

The fury at herself pushed her forward.

With quick steps, the engineer invaded the space between her pilot and the main screen, forcing her sight to fall unto her as a challenge. Either look at her while she spoke or turn away.

Keira, taken aback by her brazenness, stared behind her mask.

“You didn’t sleep.” She accused the girl openly, making the pilot take a step back.

“I-I had trouble sleeping.” Keira trembled at her boldness. “B-but I thought that I could help y-you—”

“You should be fucking resting then!” She interrupted her, far too annoyed to stop. “I can handle everything that we need to get Lily ready. Every, fucking, thing!”

Without thinking of it, she slammed down her hands on the main console with such strength it reverberated across the hangar, scaring all that dwelled in it. The shadows around then two grew darker.

“Moving her? Easy. Getting her resupplied? Not an issue. Making sure she has enough spare parts to last out there? Easiest fucking thing.” Rosemary continued, feeling more of the and rotten smell climb up her throat to burn her just as her words did Keira. “Don’t you fucking dare push me away from my job.”

Keira took another firm step back, like her life depended on it.

“You’ve b-been working s-s-so m-m-much because of me and I-I wanted to help.” Her stutter worsened as her explanation came out. A damned and foolish one at that.

Because they had both knew this was their life. They were both well aware that this is how things were going to play out until the day they were no longer needed. Rosemary suffers Keira’s mistakes; Keira suffers from Rosemary’s mistakes. A vicious cycle in which the only escape was to hold on to one another until they reached the eye of the storm.

So, to have Keira’s act this way, and try and push her away made the vile reach its boiling point.

One phrase. Five words. The metaphysical form of the chemical burn inside her throat. Strong, angry, fearful. Worst than the smell of rotten eggs, or spoiled flesh. Radiation. Contaminating everything around them, letting the land barren. The power of saying them to her pilot would be enough to shatter everything they had built so far.

I don’t need your help!

“I-I’m sorry, I shouldn’t h-have—"

What the fuck am I doing?!

She pulled on her pigtail, getting a worried whimper from Keira as she did. With trained care, she gingerly grabbed the engineer’s arms to stop her from doing it again. Rosemary collapsed upon her chest, heart and lungs fighting to move.

“We…we are a team, Keira.” Five different words, charged with a raw plead. “Rely on me, ok?”

Gently, Keira placed her hand on top of her head and removed her mask.

“Ok.” She whispered, dispelling the darkness. “Ok.”

Rosemary could breathe again.

Stepping away from the embrace, the engineer cleared her throat. What little smell of rot came from within didn’t vanish instantly but diminished enough for her to be able to talk.

If they had had the time, Rosemary would have tried to get Keira to open up and get to know why her mood had shifted. Something had happened to cause her to go from her cheery self to the gloom, duty-bound girl she met this day.

But the clock was ticking. Rosemary needed to get things ready. What she originally thought was ample time, now felt as tight as an executioner’s noose. There were far too many fine details she needed to get right that she had never done before. Ironically, Keira was the expert at this moment, and she would need to rely more on her than the other way around.

“Now, tell me what you’ve finished so we can get a move on.”

Now that the crisis was over for the time being, Keira went down her list of completed tasks.

Firstly, verifying that Lily was not throwing an error in any of her parts. For the first time before a deployment, she wasn’t.

Secondly, Keira had noted down the vulnerabilities on the Gundam’s armor plating and had denoted the ones that would be needed to be reinforced during the trip. Rosemary felt the strongest urge to strangle to death the forsaken asshole that forced them to deploy on these circumstances. Sadly, that wish would have to wait.

Finally, Keira was about to check Lily’s ammo reserves just when Rosemary walked in the door.

“Let us see what we have.”

When the truth came to them both, the engineer immediately regretted her words. Even with all of Lily’s weaponry combined, only ten shots remained.

It made sense, because of course it did. Never before had she put any thought into the basic fucking fact that ammo used is ammo spent. Even as “awfully noble” as beam weaponry was, the truth was they still ran on energy cells, which needed to be charged before use, which took a long time to do, so one would cycle through the reserves until they ran out or could go back to the first ones.

All that to say that she, Rosemaria Ryn Stonework, had forgotten to do any of that.

“Fuck!” As a bundle of nervousness, Rosemary cursed her damned memory. Of all the setbacks imaginable, this one would be the worst.

At least as far as she knew.

“What else are we missing?” She scratched the back of her head so violently one of her twigs snapped.

Keira seemed far calmer than her, simply looking over at her Gundam as she told her.

“We still need to register our departure.” The pilot counted with her hand. “Coordinate the pickup with the ship’s captain, verify that our luggage is approved, and Get Lily in her container ready to go.”

Rosemary paced around the platform, magnetic boots clanking furiously with each step. She needed to move, to act, to do something other than be frozen in indecisiveness as to what needed to be done first. There was a clear line of work that her mind refused to map out for her. Lily in the container was the last, everything beforehand fought inside her head to gain priority.

“Nyaro Rosemary, Nyaro!” Her kitty friend bounced to her arms, forcing her to stop thinking and catch her. “Get the ammo first, get the ammo first.”

“Yes, that makes sense.” She agreed with Nyaro. Getting Lily stocked up meant she could be moved without worrying about the rest. “But how long do we need to get her loaded up?”

Keira looked at the Gundam, then, pensively, towards the inside of the mask in her hand.

“Lily says it normally takes a day for a restock. Getting her ready less than an hour.”

Another twig from her hair snapped and flew off into the dark. This was bad. Bad, bad. The second worst fuck up in the time she’d been working for Keira.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.” She swore up and down, beating herself up for forgetting to do that.

‘Always so forgetful my Rose.’ That horrible laugh mocked her.

“Rosemary! Rosemary!” Nyaro failed to get her attention, for the weight of her mistake crushed her head. “Rosemary! Rosemary!”

Keira walked up to her, holding something in her hands. Metal. Yellow and beaten up. A wrench, or rather, the wrench.

Without another word, Nyaro jumped out of her hands and urged her to pick it up.

“We-we’ll find an answer Rosemary.” Keira said, not as a wish, but as a promise.

Why had Keira chosen to give her the wrench to her, almost as a symbol, was a mystery to her. And yet, when she grabbed it, she found some odd solace in it.

The problems, though not gone, seemed less complicated, enough to have her think of the obvious.

“Do we have ammo here in the hangar?” It was so fucking obvious that was the first thing she should have done. “They obviously needed to have resupplied at some point, right?”

Keira agreed with her.

“Inventory lookup! Inventory lookup!” Nyaro bounced to the Haro port next to the main console. Within seconds, the monitor was filled with multiple queries looking for whatever the previous team had left behind.

“I never got to see them bring it in, but they left me to reload Lily.” She told Rosemary, who looked at her pilot with sheer confusion.

“Why?” Already in her mind she was marking them as dangerous assholes.

Not that she didn’t trust Keira’s abilities.

“I don’t know.” The pilot, nervous as ever, put some distance between the two when she failed to come up with an answer.

“Assholes.” Rosemary cursed at them. “But that’s beside the point right now.”

Swinging playfully the wrench around, the engineer went to her own bright pink luggage, previously tied down so as to not have to fly off into the darkness of the hangar.

“For our bags, and our departure, where do we do that?” As if her life depended on it, she gripped the handle.

“That’s next to the command center, there’s a hallway with a big scanner like the ones at the entrance of the port.” Keira explained, adding unto Rosemary’s standard travel/spacian hate. “Only on an emergency are we allowed to skip it.”

Rosemary’s anger would have called it one.

“They also check our tablets there.”

Keira pulled out a new tablet to the engineer’s surprise. Being unfamiliar with its operating system, her pilot struggled to show her what she’d originally planned to.

“Where did they move the ID?” She whispered to herself.

“Let me show you.” Yet Rosemary took it as a chance to interject.

Closing the distance, she got next to her pilot and barred her from being able to step away. Without another word, she positioned her tablet so both of them could see, letting Nya navigate to her ID. Keira took it in stride, and quickly got to hers.

Now Rosemary was doubly surprised. She had expected to see a recent picture of her pilot, scars and all. Instead, therein laid a far older one, where the girl she knew had naught but a blemish on her face, and a pair of chestnut eyes that innocently looked at the camera.

Curiosity, spurn out of the back of her head, urged her to look at her pilot’s eye, finding that the same color remained.

“Wasn’t her eye red?” She examined her memory of their first meeting but was left unsure. “Perhaps it was the light.”

“Found something! Found something!” Nyaro pulled her out of her stupor. Both of the women turned to see the fruits of their companion’s search.

“It’s not a lot.” Keira, far more experienced than her, pointed out. “Enough to get the vulcans reloaded, and the beam riffle going for about another twenty shots.” Yet she turned to smile at Rosemary, showing true confidence. “I can work with it.”

Even as Rosemary wanted to rebut it, she knew they didn’t have better options, not with what little time they had left.

“Haros, please look for the ammo.” She commanded and was obeyed.

“Ok! Ok!” They all got into their loaders and began their search.

Rosemary didn’t y any mind to the clanking of steel and excited voiced from the Haros as they went about their work. Right now, things had been set into motion, it was up to her to see them through.

“How do we coordinate with the captain, what’s-his-name?” She opened the dossier in the console to, for the first time, look at the ship they were supposed to be guests on.

A simple carrier, with two Mobile Suit catapults, with about three tours completed without issue, a detail the altari engineer couldn’t care less for. What she cared about was the name of the captain of the vessel named The Repentance. Captain Cornelius O’Hara.

Like catching the slimmest stench of spoiled milk, something about him irked her.

“Well…” Keira brought her back to the present moment. Fiddling with her hands, she looked over at Lily, then at the transport container, and finally at the gigantic door that led out into the Port proper. “Mostly it is telling him, or someone on his crew our hangar number, supplies and number of crew. All to be assigned temporary quarters.”

Rosemary nodded, feeling a tinge of elation course through her body when Keira said, ‘our hangar’.

“Found the ammo! Found the ammo!” Green Haro declared, making both their hearts lighter.

“Time to get a move on then.” Rosemary turned and got to work.

With only ten minutes to spare, Rosemary was done with the work. Sweaty, annoyed and exhausted, she found herself lying on the floor of the hangar, breathing heavily as that stress left her, and a new one replaced it. Now, free to board the Repentance, their true work was about to begin.

The lights above her, warm and gentle, were a reprieve for her tired eyes. Her lips, dry as sand, yearned for water that she had no energy to give them. Her feet hurt, her hands chaffed, her throat stuck to itself both within and outside. Her overworked back was the one thing of hers relishing the feel of the steel beneath her. She was tired, but she was done with it.

Soon they would be surrounded exclusively by the efficient brightness of a military vessel, enclosed by steel walls meant for battle, in a room just big enough to not bring out their claustrophobia. Because of that, she relished the open space of their hangar.

“Our hangar.” She told no one but herself, with a tinge of happiness hidden within.

Like a good luck charm, the yellow wrench laid next to her. Had it not been for Keira’s silly act of giving it to her, things might have gone differently. Yet here they were, ready as they could be.

Lily was in her transport container, positioned in the middle of the hangar to be moved when the ship arrived. Her bright pink bag, and Keira’s torn duffle bag had been delivered. Nyaro was packed and ready inside Lily, the rest of the Haros were left with their cleaning duties.

Seven minutes to go, and Rosemary wasn’t looking forward to leaving. Lily wasn’t ready; she was too far from being ready that taking her on the field was a bad call. There was no way nothing bad wouldn’t happen out there.

“Want some?” Above her, the shadow that was Keira stood. Her dark, messy hair fell down softly towards her, as did her hand offering her a water bottle.

Though her back pain didn’t allow her to gracefully accept it, she clumsily did.

Cold, plain old water. Nothing better than it was out there for her at this very moment.

“Thank you.” She told Keira as the clock marked that they had five minutes left.

Keira sat down next to her, feet shaking due to either nerves or excitement. Now, exclusively in her hands laid her mask with which she reverently played with.

“You did an amazing job Rosemary.” Though honest were her pilot’s words, Rosemary couldn’t ignore the look of sadness that she had. Even if she didn’t want it to, it pissed her off.

It was as if Keira had failed at a moral obligation which the engineer was not privy to.

Because her pilot was like that, but also never like that. The woman who had stepped up to defend her from Borealis was as reliable as one could get. Kind and caring, someone who had not judged her for her many mistakes, offering only sympathy and compassion. Someone she, a scared engineer with a bad temperament, cherished as a friend.

Three minutes.

“Keira…” She turned to look at her saddened face. “Did something happen yesterday after I left?”

Within seconds her pilot tensed up when she heard her question. Her mouth trembled subtly, letting out only weak, unsure, single syllables in a bid to form a sentence. Without her noticing what she was doing, her hand had moved to her new slimmer tablet, trying to hide it as if it was evidence of a heinous crime.

One minute.

“I-I dropped my tablet yesterday.” While she nervously played with her hands, she confessed to a partial truth. “Sorry.”

The engineer bit her tongue. Now was not the time to hate apologies.

“That’s a simple mistake.” Rosemary told her with as much compassion as she could. “Stars, you’ve seen mine, and they are way worse than that.”

It worried her that her pilot had had her cheeriness so easily sapped away in one afternoon. Maybe it was whatever had made her drop her tablet; or the aftermath of needing a new one; maybe even both things; but something had made her recede back into herself. She had gone back to thinking she needed to do everything herself. It was as if she needed to carry the weight of the world but was not trusted to live in it.

She wanted to get to the bottom of what had happened, but, as much as she could pry, it would get her nowhere. She needed Keira to be the one to open up.

But that was the part that hurt the most. It ached her seeing Keira like that.

The wait.

Because there was, within herself, that tinge of selfishness she couldn’t hide. A little droplet of want, sister to the days before the first blooming, that yearned for it to be that time again.

She needed to see her happy; to know she made her happy too.

“Keira—"

Rumbling came from the outside. The metal walls creaked; the rumbling of engines filled the air. With one big, controlled, muffled crash their ride marked its arrival.

Time was up.

Rosemary sighed. Perhaps in the following weeks she would succeed.

But not today.

“…help me get up.”

The moment was here.

Their bags were inside the ship, Lily had been sent to the Mobile Suit catapult, the engines had come back to life, and the ship was leaving port.

Now aboard the ship, the two altari women, and the two guards of her pilot, waited in the hangar for the promised tour of the ship. Nyaro, as much as she had wanted to have her for support, had to stay with the Gundam for “security” reasons.

“Maybe the two of them had become friends.” Rosemary said only to herself as she waited.

Soon enough, the doors to the rest of the vessel opened, and in came their hosts.

Where Rosemary had expected the two to be greeted by the captain of the Repentance, only a couple of soldiers did. All of them were barely different from one another, being the living embodiment of a UCA action hero from the movies. Pinkish white skin wrapped around burly muscles and barely unexposed veins. Hair shaved to buzz cut, a tattoo here or there, and tall, very tall. Their heights were a head above Keira’s and easily towered over her own.

True UCA patriots.

“I’m sorry the captain wasn’t able to greet you in person.” One of them, the tallest, spoke up. “He’s tasked me with doing that in his name.”

“No worries.” Keira told him, hiding badly her nervousness behind her mask.

“Welcome aboard the Repentance Miss Stonework and Miss Remnant. I am corporal Range, and this is private Trobador.” When he spoke, his words were polite and formal, as expected of the meeting, but also were too precise, and too loud. Rosemary had to fight against flinching at them.

“Let me give you the tour.” Spokesperson, as she had nicknamed Ranger, stepped aside, inviting them inside.

“Thank you for having us on board.” Keira offered her gratitude; one Rosemary didn’t share.

They went in.

The insides of the ship were everything Rosemary had expected, and worse. Cramped hallways that smelled of bleach and sweat, bright lights that burned away every shadow they touched, thick steel walls with bolts sometimes bigger than her hands holding them in place, and on top of them, those horrible static-filled speakers that spilled naught incomprehensible messaged. Even the Mobile Suit catapult, where she would be spending most of her time, felt intensely cramped. Not even the Lagrange’s rat ways felt as unwelcoming as the military vessel did.

But the worst didn’t me from the hostility of the ship, but from its crew.

Because where the UCA soldier’s words were as neutral, and down to business as possible, his blue eyes told another story.

He looked at them, then he looked at them. From head to toe and up again, he took in every detail of their bodies, lingering for a fraction of a second longer in those parts that brought him a subtle smile. Their thighs, their hips, their breasts…

If there was one look in her entire life that Rosemary could never forget it was that one. The eyes that stared not towards a friend, coworker, or even stranger, but to a walking entity whose whole purpose for being is to be used, consumed, and enjoyed for the beholder’s pleasure. Her eyes, her lips, her body covered, or not, did not belong to her with that look. From a person to an object of desire. She was not her, but the her that he looked at.

So was the same for Keira.

Chills ran down her spine.

The tour was nothing more than a formality. Looking over at places they would either avoid or be barred from accessing at any moment. Engine room? Closed. Storage? Forbidden. Observation platform? There were far too many people there. Shooting range? Never in their lives.

And all throughout, the formality that she had wished remained quickly eroded. Going from single words to being subjected to friendly comments, then jokes, then to more personal anecdotes of the crew, ending in them being uncomfortably complimented.

You must be so incredibly smart to work on a Gundam! The girls back home could never.

Damn, you could probably take even me in a fight Keira. Might even let you pin me down.

Your hair is so exotic, your horns too. Are they actually real? Can I touch them?

I like it when you laugh Keira. Can I call you Keira?

Your voice is so sweet.

Rosemary kept the monotonous answers, Keira was the more casually friendly one.

Yet that look never went away.

“This is the gym, for if you ever want to build some muscle.” He announced too fucking pleased with himself over the sounds of weight falling and exaggerated grunts. “Thought it seems you are already well acquaintance with them.” He told Keira.

“Thank you.” She politely accepted the compliment before she went to stand in the doorway. While she was looking inside, he took the opportunity to look at her behind.

And those within looked at her front.

Even one gave a subtle whistle of approval.

It sickened her to her core.

Contrary to her pilot, the engineer didn’t move. She would not be a subject to that.

Seeing that Rosemary wasn’t going to see inside, preferring the silent company of the guards, Spokesperson invaded her personal space. His shadows fell on top of her, bringing with it the smell of horrible deodorant used as lotion.

“The showers are just in front.” He told her thinking Keira was not paying.

“I gathered.” She dismissed him, crossing her arms over her torso and resting with her back against the wall. Even if it was one petty moment, she wanted to deny him however much she could.

“Are they shared?” Keira, who had never stepped inside, got back his attention.

He went back to a proper distance.

“No, they are individual for privacy reasons.” Now his eyes wouldn’t stop staring at Keira who had shyly turned towards him. “Each one has their own door, but they are never locked in case of an emergency.” He urged them to follow, which Rosemary reluctantly did.

It was as they’d been told. Within the room multiple steel doors laid within. All of them perfectly closed with a panel next to it letting passerby know if there was anyone using it, just like bathrooms.

“They have space for two at max.” He opened one, showing them the hybrid design of it.

Keira beckoned Rosemary to see it with her. Though reluctant, she followed her just to not be left alone.

Shower on top and below, with drains on both all for zero-g. A rope on one side to avoid being left adrift, tied next to the emergency oxygen mask within. The smell of bleach didn’t disappear even inside.

“They are pretty noisy all things considered.” Spokesperson said. “No one outside would be able to hear what was happening inside.”

His buddy perked up.

“If you ever need to save water, you could probably share it.”

However they wished it had come out as Rosemary could only interpret it one way. A fantasy, and an invitation. Her disgust grew.

Keira grew nervous, stammering at the comment without truly forming a word.

“We’re joking.” Spokesperson assured her.

A fucking lie, of course.

Because the very next second he tried to wrap his arm around Keira as a friendly gesture.

“Where’s the bridge?” Rosemary almost demanded to know.

She wouldn’t let them touch her, even more after she had opened her heart to her.

He stopped.

“I mean, up the elevator.” He pointed back towards the corridor they had entered through. “Leave the crew quarters, then either left or right, till you reach the long ass hallway.”

“Pass the mess hall is quicker.” His buddy added. “We were already going to take you there before, right?”

Spokesperson innocently nodded.

“Of course. That was our next stop.”

“It’s on the same level as the observation platform for the Mobile Suit catapults.” Buddy, now nicknamed that, added in order to entice them.

Rosemary would have wanted to refute it. Demand that they were taken to the captain as to have a figure of higher authority that forced them to behave, but luck wasn’t on her side. Her stomach grumbled, and everyone heard it.

She hadn’t had had a bite to eat since breakfast, almost eight hours ago.

“Can’t work well with an empty stomach.” Spokesperson had outmaneuvered her. “Wanna grab a bite with us?”

 She begged the Lady of Thorns to impale him.

Inside the mess hall things weren’t getting any better. The loud clanking if the metal trays against the tables was not pleasant, neither was it combined with the large crow that turned to observe them as the new entertainment for the month. The smell of sugar, corn and burnt oil was enough to tell the aquamarine the state if the kitchen; one she wouldn’t blame upon them. The food though looked like the famed microwaved frozen meals, which almost made her stomach back down.

 Without them being asked, Buddy and Spokesperson made the executive decision to have them sit down with the two other members of their team. The remaining Mobile Suit pilots found themselves surprised by their arrival, all because their minds had been on something else.

“God, I wish it’s Huntsman.” One of them said. “Just look at her!”

A pin-up calendar.

Laid squarely atop a beach ball, Dahlia Lament Huntsman smiled towards the camera with her cleavage squarely placed at the center, all for everyone to look at.

“Gareth, Keith.” Spokesperson got their attention. “We have guests.”

In an attempt to save face, the smallest of the group, and by far the lankiest of them, put away the calendar. Far too little and far too late of an act to lean anything to her. For the engineer, whatever Dahlia wished to do was none of her business; this time it just coincided that she did like what she saw… or would have had in any other moment. Right at this moment she couldn’t help but feel much angrier about it. She already regretted being pushed to come here.

Instinct, though, made her look towards her nervous pilot. Was she in there too? It would explain why she was away some days.

“Hello.” Keira greeted the pilots as if she had seen nothing.

Lanky and the other pilot, equally as white as almost all the rest of the crew, stood up to greet them.

“Good afternoon you two.” Lanky, who she spotted had the side view of a Xiphos’s head unit tattooed on their arm, was the first to salute them. The other person followed suit, showing his own tattoo, one showing some mockup schematics.

“Come on guys, don’t be so formal.” Irritatingly Buddy ushered the two to the side of the bench, offering the space between them to the two women.

Had her stomach not betrayed her again, she would have adamantly refused. She needed to be at her best, and that meant a full stomach.

 She sat down, grumbling at her hunger for getting her and Keira into this situation. To her relief, her pilot wasted no time in occupying the space next to her. Even if the bench still had some space on either side, at least they wouldn’t be apart.

“We’ll get food for them.” Spokesperson and Buddy announced, ignoring Keira’s reassurance that she was fine.

“You are the Gundam team we’re expecting, right?” Schematic sat in front, looking partially away from them as if they were not cool enough for him.

“Of course they are Gareth, see her pilot suit?” Lanky sat on the right next to her pilot before he pointed at the emblem on her shoulder. “You can’t get one of those without a Gundam.”

As subtly as a mouse, Keira scooted over towards her, slightly bumping into her. She whispered and apology. Rosemary’s instinct let out a small, annoyed sigh. Her pilot almost returned to her original position, full within the uncomfortable loss of personal space with the soldier, but Rosemary shook her head.

Keira stayed.

Rosemary tried to move but was quickly interrupted. To her dismay, Spokesperson had returned, and helpfully sat next to her, giving both their meal.

Yet, whatever precious few milliliters she gained though were quickly lost, as Lanky got more comfortable in the bench. The pinup calendar sitting squarely on his legs below the table. Careful not to rouse suspicion, he opened up as much as they could to take a peek inside. Perhaps they wished to know if she was in there too.

Buddy was not as subtle. They sat in front of Keira, looking at her.

“Cantina might look like ass, but the meals are only half as it.” Schematic joked getting his friends to laugh with them. Keira gave a half-hearted attempt, while Rosemary refused to indulge it.

Whatever question might come her way, the aquamarine girl would dodge with her old-reliable. Stuff her mouth full of food and refuse to answer.

“Thanks for the food.” Her pilot politely spoke for both of them yet made no attempt to eat.

“So, what Gundam you pilot?” Buddy asked, brazenly getting closer by resting their head on their hand.

“You are an idiot.” Lanky called him out, getting another round of laughter. “Gundam Remnant. You didn’t see the duel a couple of days back?”

“I was busy.”

“Busy chasing skirts, am I right?”

They turned red, both in shame and anger.

“But damn, that was a great fight.” Lanky praised her pilot. “Have never seen someone do so much crazy shit in one go and still come on top.”

“Thank you.” Keira wasn’t being sincere.

“She could even teach you to actually fly Trobador.” They added unto the bullying.

“Fuck you!”

More laughter.

“Now, don’t be hard on him, he’s only crashed on the landing platform twice.” Spokesperson helpfully clarified. “But let us not take away from her victory. You truly are an amazing pilot Keira.”

“Crazy in the best way possible.”

“You really taught her her place.”

She, once more, only thanked them.

And all throughout all three of them looked at her.

“That Borealis bitch really got what was coming to her.” Schematic said, wanting for her to agree with them. She didn’t. “The one time we got her she wouldn’t stop nagging us. Telling us to fuck off all the time. Not even a proper goodbye when she departed.”

Rosemary, as much as she disliked her, could see why; would even encourage her.

“Ugh.” Buddy grunted at the memory. “She was no fun, unlike you Keira.

She nodded.

“And you are definitely way cuter than her.” Lanky unhelpfully added, getting only a meek thank you in response.

The conversation moved from there, driven now by them telling stories about themselves they thought the two altari women would find interesting. Missions, expeditions, training; all mired in flowery language that Rosemary couldn’t find more sickening than the undercooked chicken she’d been brought.

Or the brushes Spokesperson accidentally caused; every single one accompanied by a cheeky little ‘sorry’ and a smile.

She hated it here.

As politely and unproblematic as she could, Keira originally tried joining in the conversation, adding here or there a detail about her experiences. Perhaps Rosemary should have been paying attention, but she didn’t. There was nothing good out of being candid with any of these guys. There never was.

And when the three others noticed that Rosemary wouldn’t indulge them, they honed in on her pilot, especially Lanky.

“How can you seriously pilot with gravity on all the time?” Accusatorily, Buddy asked Keira.

“Well, it is n-not that difficult if you a-are used to it.” She tried to explain but was promptly cut off.

“Mobile Suits were originally developed in Altaris Trobador.” Lanky, as diligent as a piss covered knight, corrected him. “They are far more suited for gravity. Mobile Armors though, those are hundred percent from space. Right Keira?”

Having been interrupted, she only nodded.

Even if angry, that made Rosemary wonder just how old Miss Hooves herself was.

“I still think they are better suited for space.” Schematics said, moving the conversation along.

Topics changed. Keira’s polite enthusiasm steadily declined. Full sentences turned to single words, then made into monotonous sounds.

But it was not any of that which made her as on guard as she was. In the small brushes they had against one another, Rosemary could feel how tense her pilot was. Like a statue she laid there unmoving, showing only a reaction when the force was strong enough.

“Come on Keira, you can’t be wasting food now.” Spokesperson again brushed up against Rosemary when he pointed to the still full tray of food.

“Sorry.” She apologized from behind her mask.

To Rosemary’s dismay, Keira exposed her face to the whole mess hall in a robotic manner. Buddy looked at her, while Schematics gave a wholeheartedly whistle of approval.

“Far cuter than Borealis.” Spokesperson agreed with them.

Everyone was looking at her. Looking at her.

Keira could only keep her fake smile for half a second. Without a word, she grabbed the fork she’d been given and took a bite out of a piece of broccoli. Her face, like an open book, revealed that she didn’t like it. She took another.

Another.

Another.

She was shaking with each bite.

“Take a picture with us!” Schematic stood up and pulled out his sticker covered tablet. “To celebrate our new friendship.”

Keira dropped her fork; Rosemary felt a vein pop.

“First good idea you’ve had.” Buddy, still mad about the bullying, got back at them. “I’m sure you look way prettier when you smile Keira, come on.”

“I think you would too.” Spokesperson told Rosemary. She promptly frowned more.

Without their permission all four of the Mobile Suit pilots got in position for a photo, getting another of their fellows to take it for them.

It all happened too fast.

An arm around her shoulders. Another around Keira’s. The disgusting smell of their lotion and sweat invading them. Voices asking them to look at the camera, and to smile, smile, smile.

Below the table, Rosemary felt a hand on top of hers. Shaking, unsure, Keira wordlessly asked for help.

Rosemary held it tight. She was also shaking.

They had each other. They would get through this.

“Say cheese!”

Neither of the two smiled.

Only one saving grace came in the while day. Their tour had, miraculously, been cut short because of the business of the captain. Spokesperson seemed heartbroken at the fact, having to go back to his usual duties and all. Rosemary, on the contrary, couldn’t thank the Lady of Thorns enough that this had happened.

There was one last thing to see before that though.

“This will be your room.” Spokesperson opened the door to the practical, albeit tiny space she would be sleeping in.

 Squared, with two bunk beds, one on each side of the door, with only enough space for one person to be standing in the middle at any given moment. No different from the sleep car she’d had to share once on the train. On the back, next to the bed ln the right, was an open door leading to a bathroom with only the toilet and sink to her dismay. What she noticed though was that her bags were not the only ones there, Keira’s torn duffle bag lay on the bed next to hers.

 “We don’t have enough rooms for you to get one each, so you’ll have share.” He told them with a tone of voice that Rosemary could, disgustingly, call disappointed.

“That is better for us.” She rebutted it, urging her pilot to step in before her.

Her pilot, now back to the slim comfort behind her mask, went inside.

But just before she herself could go in, a shadow moved to cover her path. Rosemary knew that the bastard would try something, they always did, but she wanted Keira to not have to deal with it.

Having had it interrupted once, he tried again the tactic he’d used back at the gym entrance. Arm resting above his head on the wall, casting his shadow unto her, with just enough space to not touch her, but with a singular purpose: make him her whole world. Rosemary used her remaining willpower to stop herself from puking in disgust.

“I was thinking…” He started, and Rosemary could already see the dialogue tree in his head pop up: friendly (not), flirty (disgusting), flirty (harassment). “You must be an amazing girl to handle a whole Gundam on your own.”

For him such words were smooth and simple, for the altari woman, they were as rough as nails on the chalkboard. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. For him, a man who had far higher social standing than her, this was normal. Guy meets girl, goes to try and get her alone and compliment her every aspect, earning a smile and a future promise. Get her to laugh, get her to blush, get her to bat her eyelids and twirl her hair and score.

For her, this was a hound of the most powerful army in the entire solar system. The forces that had intervened in her homeland with calls of freedom and democracy, but whose true goal had always been to bleed the land, and its people, dry. Prices rose, food became sparse, the military base grew, the secret police came for all. So many killed, so many more vanished from history, so many friends, parents and grandparents that were never heard of again. Never mind how dangerous it became for the women to be looked at.

Her mama Persephone knew it better than all.

 To this day no scars could be formed, time couldn’t heal them; the veins laid wide open and bleeding.

And this was a man, a soldier, an UCA citizen who had indisputable power over her head cornering her to get what he wanted.

Her.

It didn’t matter that she didn’t like men, that was just another barrier to break down.

“I manage.” Deadpanned she answered.

“Maybe you could give me a show of your skills with the Gundam.” He continued. “Or perhaps my own Xiphos if that’s more your vibe.”

To blow up to him was to put herself in the worst position imaginable.

“It has been having some issues with the thrusters as of late…”

But she wanted nothing more to let him know just how much she hated him.

“What do you say? We could even grab some cake to share.”

Door opened. Spokesperson stepped back. The shadow receded.

“Um…” Keira stood in the door frame looking at her. The poor girl hadn’t stopped shaking. “I c-can’t open up my b-bag.” She showed her the old duffle bag to her, with the zipper stuck because it had been caught on something. Rosemary sighed in relief.

“Let me help you.” She walked over to her, giving naught a look nor an answer to the man who could get away with doing anything to her.

Keira let her in and wished goodnight to the soldier.

The door closed. A sigh. He left.

The two women now laid alone.

Alone.

Alone.

They were here alone.

Without another word, Rosemary laid down on one of the beds they’d been given. As uncomfortably hard as the cushion was, the relief it gave her tired mind was like nothing she’d ever felt. She was shaking, sweating, heavily panting as if she had run a three-hundred-meter sprint ten times in a row. She felt sick, she felt disgusted. Her heart refused to stop pumping the fear that ran through her veins, begging her to get out, get out, get out.

“A-are you ok Rosemary?” Keira, worried and nervous Keira, innocently asked.

The engineer, even if the only thing she wished for was to sleep, turned towards her friend. Without her mask and washed in the same white light as she was, Rosemary could see that however shaken she was, Keira was worse. Sunken eyes with a subtle trail of tears that ran down her sickly pale terracotta skin, shaking hands. It broke her heart to see her this way.

“I will be.” She answered, just partially honest. “How about you?”

“I’m f-fine.” She lied but quickly noticed that Rosemary didn’t believe her. Maybe she was becoming an open book herself. “I’ll be fine.”

Now that they were alone, the engineer pulled out her tablet. The reason why she hadn’t until now was obvious to her, Nya was far too good at reading her emotions to be subtle about it. Even now she could see the many cartoonish ways in which her digital companion had wished ill on those soldiers. From a guillotine, a train, to a Goldberg machine that ended with a bowling ball. It did alleviate some of her mood, but not by much.

She was powerless after all.

The reality in which she lived was obvious. Had he wanted to have his way with her, he could, and nothing would happen to him.

“Right, your bag.” Rosemary remembered how quickly she’d held onto that excuse.

She scooted over to one side, giving her friend enough space to sit down next to her. Keira, getting her meaning, sat down but left it on the other bed, wide open.

Rosemary choked up for a moment. Her eyes stung, she felt weak but, for the first time in a long time, she felt safe.

Nya, who had no reservations, meowed happily at her pilot.

“Th-thank you.” Keira, of all things, was the one saying that to her. A ridiculous thing, but not one that irked her.

Rather, it made her more teary eyes.

“Whenever you need.” Rosemary told her, accepting her words in her own weird way. She offered her hand to Keira.

With just the tiniest amount of reservation, her pilot, her friend, grabbed it. Neither too tight, nor too loose, just the perfect amount to feel safe.

They were alone.

They had each other.

Rosemary laughed a bit to herself, grabbing her pilot’s attention. So many jokes on internet boards about the lewdness of handholding came rushing in to her mind. Holding hands was such a normal, friendly, calming thing to do that she could have almost forgotten everything that had happened today. She felt safer, she felt happier, she felt partially at peace. She did acknowledge that it was an intimate gesture at times, something lesser than a hug and a kiss on the cheeks, and very different from something like sex. Sex required such a level of inherit and explicit trust which not everyone was willing to give. To be exposed to someone else like that, to lay bare naked with the expectation of being touched, be held, and be treated with the right amount of care was a far cry from holding hands.

At least that’s what her brain tried to tell her first.

Every touch from another person has always felt off and weird.

So, what did it mean that she held hers now without that weird feeling getting to her?

The barrage of ideas that came and went through her head was far too much for her to process. Keira trusted her, cared for her, protected her. In turn Rosemary trusted her, cared for her, protected her…and thought she was cute, cute, cute, oh so cute with that dumb smile of hers.

As her biggest mistake, she looked at the face of the woman who’s hand she was holding.

Looking down, with a happy smile on a nervous expression tinted by a subtle blush.

Her heart went into overdrive, pumping so much warm blood into her face that it immediately turned into a red-hot furnace. The intense power surge made her mouth far too loose and her reason even looser, for without a moment’s notice, one sound came from it.

“Meow.”

“Did you say something?” Keira asked looking at her.

“Th-that was Nya.” She lied. “I was calling to Nya because…” Her mind raced to whatever excuse she could find, essentially settling in on one. “I wanted to ask her if I had Symphogear on my tablet.”

Keira’s face lit up, letting her know she was in the clear.

“That would be great!” She bounced excitedly on the bed, never letting go of her hand. Rosemary had to look away lest she meow again.

Thankfully for her, she did have the remaining episodes with her.

“Want to get comfortable first?” Keira asked Rosemary, making her a bit confused.

Nya, who was far cleverer than her owner at the moment, caught her meaning. She came into the screen, dressed up in pajamas, dragging the next episode already set up.

“Right, let’s do that.” As much as she would have wanted to take a shower first, she didn’t trust the world outside their room.

“Let me give you some space.” Keira let go of her hand and went to the other bed. With what little space they had, it was necessary, albeit the engineer couldn’t help but be disappointed by it.

At least at first.

To her absolute bewilderment, her pilot didn’t wait for her to turn around. In one perfectly trained motion of five seconds, she took off her piloting suit in front of her. Rosemary, who had little time to calm down, now was exposed to Keira’s partially naked self.

And she couldn’t help but look.

Her arms, her torso, her waist all showed that she was very strong, yet, to her delight, she far from having the well-toned body of a body builder, instead falling closer to a powerful knight from the era of Gunpowder and Steel. As with her face, and her hands, multiple scars laid across her back forming a pattern very similar to tree branches, like those left behind by a lightning strike. Part of the aquamarine girl wished to trace it with her fingers.

Apparently unbothered by doing so in front of her, Keira continued to undress herself without paying any attention to the aquamarine girl. Rosemary was though. Even when she broke her stupor and began changing into her pajamas, the lewder part of Rosemary’s brain took over; she couldn’t stop herself from peaking

Keira’s legs were strong, very, very strong, leading up towards her backside that was far bigger than Rosemary expected but did not dislike one bit. Her chest, far smaller than her own, still made the engineer blush uncontrollably with just how pretty it looked, underneath her badly kept grey sports bra.

But it was the last thing she saw that made her regret it all. When Keira went to sit down to put in her grey pajama pants, Rosemary’s eyes looked downwards.

On her crotch there laid a bulge.

Multiple thoughts crossed her mind, surprise, acceptance, happiness, but the one that ruled them all was the one directed straight at herself.

Disgust. Pure and utter disgust.

Had she learned nothing? Had she no presence of fucking self? For a grueling couple of hours, they’ve been victims of those same looks and touches that had driven them close to a panic attack. Even worse, just some minutes ago she had been harassed by a soldier that saw her as nothing more than a fucking gratification machine made for him.

Yet here she had done the same and learned of something far too intimate. 

“And even then, how could you ever apologize for that? It is not like she will forgive you for treating her like a walking piece of meat…” The laughter mocked her. “Especially after having as you for help, you bitch of a Rose.”

Keira respected her; she didn’t look at her.

“All done!” The unaware, and cheery, voice of Keira came from behind her, interrupting her thoughts.

Bedsheets shuffled, a yelp came, then scuffling.

“W-when you a-are done, p-please let m-me know.”

So preoccupied had Rosemary been for her crimes she had forgotten to finish dressing up. Right now, she was standing there, purely in her underwear without her change of clothes out. She laughed, finding Keira’s attempt to save face extremely cute.

 Perhaps she had been overthinking things again.

“I will.” She said, getting out her comfiest set of shorts and one of her many kitty t-shirts; this one proudly saying, ‘Kitty Nap!’

And, of course, she got out the wonderful Miau.

‘We have held hands.’ Her brain joked. ‘I don’t mind if you look.’

When she was done, she didn’t tell Keira immediately. Curiosity had gotten the better of her and now she needed to know two things, if Keira was looking, and how did her flustered face look like. It was mean of her, but she rarely had had the opportunity to be this kind of innocently mean since she knew her pilot.

So, she turned to look.

Adorable. Was the first thing she thought.

Therein laid in some gray, and not well kept, pajamas, Keira. Innocent, cute and always so considerate of her, she was sitting looking towards the wall, with her still gloved hands in her eyes.

“Meow.” She was now the flustered one.

Keira stirred up a bit.

Rosemary turned around, now being self-conscious about her blush.

“I-I’m done.” Feeling like an idiot, she babbled, unable to steady her heart.

It took Keira less than a second to sit down on the bed, bouncing without hiding her excitement. Even if the engineer hadn’t calmed down, she sat next to her. If anything, she guessed, watching one of her favorite shows would probably help.

It didn’t.

Because the moment she looked for where to put her tablet, she realized she had failed to take something into account: there was no bedside table. In true Rosemary fashion, she’d tripped at the finish line. There was no way they could see the show sitting next to each other.

“We need to lay down.” Rosemary fought herself to not grow redder yet.

Keira, who quickly caught on to their predicament, scooted over to the wall. Rosemary, not wanting to be rude, ended up throwing herself into the space left for her far too eagerly. Keira didn’t mind, far from it, she was smiling that same dumb smile of hers, with an added blush.

Rosemary couldn’t hide her own that time.

The rest of the evening was as delightful as they’d wanted. Episode after episode of Symphogear was devoured by the two. Hibiki’s berserker form, the introduction of Chris’s Symphogear Ichaival, the making up between Hibiki and Miku… all the way to the revelation of the villainess and her master plan.

Keira couldn’t stop looking, nor could she stop showing each and every emotion running through her body. Hibiki losing control made her deadly afraid, Chris’s backstory made her cry a little. Tsubasa letting go of her anger against Hibiki made her the happiest she’d ever been.

All culminating in Chris flying off to the sky singing her swan song. Berserker Hibiki being held by Tsubasa with a tear running down her eye.

Keira began crying, apologizing because a silly little animated show had gotten to her.

“It’s fine.” Rosemary tried to hide her annoyance. Even then, she wasn’t having as aggressive of a reaction as she originally did some weeks ago.

In the silliest thing she could think of, Rosemary grabbed her trusted plushy and shifted her tone of voice upwards.

“It’s always ok to cry when you are sad.” She, as the puppet Miau, reassured Keira.

Her pilot, still with some tears in her eyes, smiled.

“Thank you Miau.” She petted the kitty plushy.

At the end, of course, their final forms for the season came to be. The full swang song was heard with all three wielders fighting to protect the world. Victory was achieved, and the last talk between Hibiki and the villainess came in what was the thesis of the show: understanding each other.

Keira was happy, smiling all the way through the very end. Rosemary shared in her smile.

“We should probably start season two at another point.” Rosemary said fighting her own childish wish to continue until morning came, however that would be in this ship.

“Yeah. We do need to sleep.” Keira agreed with her. “But it was fun. It felt like… like having a sleepover with a friend.”

Laying there in bed, face to face, her pilot smiled as bright as the sun.

“It did, didn’t it?” Rosemary giggled at that. “Maybe once we are back, we could have one.”

She had blurted that out without thinking of it.

Keira looked surprised at the open invitation, smiling at first, but growing melancholic quickly thereafter. Rosemary was certain, in the worst way possible, that this was her first time sharing this with a friend.

“I would love to.” She said with her happiness replaced by reservation. Rosemary braced herself for the rejection. “But I don’t know if I can.”

It was as disappointing as the aquamarine girl had thought, but she fought against it. They were not little girls back home sad that her dad had come to pick her up, nor were they university students overwhelmed with exams the following week. They were pilot and engineer, prisoner and visitor. Few freedoms they were allowed.

“Maybe we can do something in the hangar?” Rosemary asked, fully unsure where she was going with the idea.

Yet it made Keira very happy.

“Yes!”

“Then it is settled.” She told her amidst a yawn.

“Right, I should probably head to my bed.” Keira said. Rosemary left the bed to allow her to go to hers.

They were going to be close, very close, but it still felt a bit too far away from what she would have wanted.

Rosemary plugged Nya to the outlet at the foot of her bed. Thankfully for her, she was far too short to ever be able to kick her there. Nya, who was also getting sleepy, meowed her good nights before putting in her sleeping playlist.

“You sleep with music?” Keira asked, already getting as comfortable as she could on her bed.

“I have some things I do to help me sleep.” Rosemary, a bit ashamed of herself told her while she hugged her pillow three times. Today she would forgo the tea; leaving the room felt like the worst possible option. “Not all are necessary though.”

She kissed Miau on the forehead.

“I hope you don’t mind.”

“I’ve never tried it.” Keira told her, yawning herself. “But don’t worry about me.”

She didn’t know how much her engineer couldn’t do that.

“Good night Rosemary.”

“Good night Keira.”

Chapter Text

Keira Azuriel Remnant couldn’t sleep.

There were many reasons for this, and many more that the long hours of the night would give her. From the permanent anxiety of her life as a rescue pilot, the overwhelming weight of her own failures, the claustrophobic fear of the dark, to the rising hunger that grew within her each passing second.

Yet those were the common ones she’d lived, and dealt with, for a long time.

It’s not like it was her friend’s fault, far from it. The background music that she’d put on, a calm song accompanied by a crackling fireplace, was genuinely relaxing. The moments she moved around were nothing compared to the rumbling that sometimes Lily would have when she fell asleep within her; and the breathing that came from her nose was subtle enough that she could have mistaken it for the air filtration unit.

No, the true cause for her insomnia was different.

Rubbing her eyes and yawning as subtly as she could, Keira could only reflect on the ups and downs that the day had offered. Starting the day with hurting her friend had been the worst possible thing to do.

On their own, good intentions can never make an action good, and hiding them can lead to a misunderstanding. Such were the words of her Dada.

In her guilt, she’d forgotten how many times they’d been proven right.

Today was no exception.

Rosemary and she had gotten into a fight. Her engineer was on the brink of tears. She’d messed up so badly, because Keira couldn’t do anything but make the dumb decision.

We are a team Keira. Please, rely on me.

They’d made up and had found a way to make it work. She couldn’t help but smile when she remembered sitting next to the tired Rosemary.

Those ten minutes felt nice.

Then it came, the moment both of them were nervous about.

Their reservations turned into fear.

Nowhere else did she want to look apart from the stern metal wall next to her bed.

“It wasn’t like this was the first time.” She whispered, rubbing her arms to get rid of the memories. “Nor the worst.”

Behind her Keira heard the movement of the bedsheets, causing her to stop whispering. The last thing she wanted to do was disturb Rosemary’s sleep. She deserved all the rest in the world after handling all that and refusing to give them an inch.

Her friend was far braver than her.

With a little bit of reverence, Keira held her hands close to her nervous heart.

At the worst moment, when she couldn’t take it anymore, she’d needed part of that bravery for herself; more than that, she needed someone to be strong for her. Rosemary did.

Even now, the warmness of her touch hadn’t faded from her scarred terracotta skin.

She liked feeling warm.

The sleeping Rosemary shuffled around in her bed again, murmuring a bit to herself in her sleep. Keira, who couldn’t continue feeling comfortable in her position, relented her self-imposed task of wall staring. When she turned around, she was met by the resting figure of her friend.

Her aquamarine hair, normally in messy, adorable pig tails, fell down her face as a waterfall, resting on top of her cute pink t-shirt below the covers. Keira had giggled when she read what was in it. On top of it all were her arms tightly hugging her plushy friend, giving her all the love and attention she wanted.

“You truly love cats, don’t you?” The pilot whispered with a smile.

The kitty plushy, owner of only one eye just like herself, seemed pleased with her assessment.

Rosemary hugged her closer, resting her chin on top of her companion’s friend, smiling.

Keira didn’t want to stare more than she had, but she couldn’t stop herself from doing so. Her curiosity was driven by the image of her half naked body that had burned itself into her mind.

It had been an accident, and all of it was her fault.

When they were changing into their pajamas, she had dumbly assumed that her engineer would be as fast as her. That hadn’t been the case. The years of training and working that had made her able to undress herself in ever decreasing record times were not common. So, the moment she thought both were ready, she was met by the sight of her half naked friend in front of her.

In the picosecond it took her to realize what was happening, and how much she’d messed up, Keira’s gaze had not stopped itself from looking at her.

She was curvy, confusingly so, because the pilot didn’t think that her jumpsuit could hide it all. More than anything, what caught her by surprise the hardest was how well-endowed her breasts were.

Her ten years of hormone therapy had not gotten even half of what Rosemary had.

Contrary to her more exposed, sickly muscles, Rosemary was healthy and with actual weight on her. Her legs, her arms, her back all were not like Keira’s own covered in scars and injuries, but soft and alive, sprinkled here and there with tiny freckles and stretch marks.

The pilot could feel her heart pulled towards the engineer, beating hard within herself.

Rosemary was radiant, far more than she could ever be.

The longer the image of her friend remained in her mind, the more she felt that desire once again. The wish for her body to change, morph and grow into that of a beautiful woman. Feel her skin grow softer, let her hair grow longer, feel the itchiness in her breasts as they grew. Every day look at herself in the mirror and find a more beautiful woman staring back with a smile.

Things had changed for her, of course… but many other things had happened as well. Her missing eye not even being the main one.

Hunger.

“Maybe this is envy.” She solemnly said.

At the end, she stopped looking at Rosemary, feeling like a creep for having looked at her for so long. Even after only staring at the ceiling of her bed, the image of the half-naked Rosemary didn’t fade away. She smiled. She blushed. She got nervous. What pushed past her envy was something different, a type of yearning far more alien to her than the mysteries of the stormveils.

Thinking of Rosemary made her giddy, made her happy, made her feel safe.

Without thinking of it, she turned towards the wall again and closed her eyes.

Exhaustion was getting to her.

She hadn’t been able to like this day. Neither of them could have. The late hours of the night they’d spent together felt more like a cleanse rather than a joy; a way to let go of the pain of the day. Keira knew it well; she could take it just like before, just like tomorrow.

It was her responsibility to bear after all, but today she’d failed to keep her safe again. Rosemary shouldn’t need to suffer like she did. Keira was an easier target after all.

“I’ll do what I can.” She whispered, all because she liked being with her friend.

The days spent together working side by side in the hangar were some of the happiest she’d had for the longest time that she could remember. The small talks, the games with the Haros, the breaks listening to music together, all were things that made her feel she’d gotten to know her better. The capable, stubborn, kind and passionate engineer who stepped inside her life, refusing to leave and to take any bullshit.

 For once Keira felt she could be open with someone, even if at that very moment she couldn’t be brave enough to reveal her biggest shame.

It was necessary for her friend’s safety, for her to know about it. Learn her tells, keep her distance, understand why the pilot needed to be escorted rather than protected.

And why, sometimes, she couldn’t be in the hangar.

“In time.” She made the promise, holding on tighter to her pillow.

Perhaps, with Rosemary here, there was a place in this world for her after all.

Rosemaria Ryn Stonework was angry.

After such a wonderful sleep had befallen her and her pilot, she thought that they would be able to tackle whatever the ship threw at them.

She was wrong.

In the early hours of the morning, a brutal ruckus came to their door, making her body become fully alert. She stumbled out of bed, unable to distinguish between anything around her because of the dizziness of the rude awakening. Keira, who had much more experience with this, had already gotten into her pilot suit, and stood to leave until she noticed the distressed Rosemary, laying face first on the floor.

“Rosemary!” Keira ran to help her.

She didn’t know how it happened, but her foot had gotten entangled on the bedsheet. Then came the ruckus, the sense of alertness, the hurry and the cold floor against her face.

“Captain wants to meet you now.” The soldier on the other side told them. “We’ll escort you to the bridge.”

“Gi-give us five!” Keira asked them.

Rosemary, on the other hand, was readily cursing them under her breath.

“Here.” Her pilot had managed to free her foot from its restraints. “Are you ok?”

“I’m going to murder that asshole.” She told her once she sat down on the floor. “But that’ll have to wait.”

Getting dressed for Rosemary had always been divided into two boxes: far too quick and incredibly slow. For every formal event she took three hours to get ready, there were a dozen times where she threw in a t-shirt and a pair of pants to leave as soon as possible. Nadria called the former a waste of time, and laziness personified the latter.

“T-take all the time you need.” Keira assured her, giving her the space to change in privacy.

“We don’t even get a chance to shower.” Rosemary said before dread came over her.

At multiple points during the remaining nineteen days she would need to clean herself, Keira too. Yesterday had been a horrible experience, but one where she learned the truth. She didn’t trust the crew to not try anything, especially those four. If not against her, against her pilot.

She wouldn’t allow that.

“At least it will only be the jumpsuit.” She told Keira, already half way done. “Don’t even feel like putting on makeup today.”

She would anyway, the alternative for not had always been worse for her. To wear makeup was to be called a pretender, an infiltrator, or an enforcer of the norms; to not wear it was to be called lazy, clout chaser, not really trying hard enough.

Never a woman.

Dutifully, Rosemary sat down once her jumpsuit was fully zipped and got out her kit.

“I-I miss using it.” Keira revealed to her. “It made me feel pretty…”

“I imagine so.” Rosemary almost let slip the first thought that came to her mind, but quickly distracted herself with some lipstick to shut herself up. Far too ignorant the engineer was about how Keira would react if she, so casually, revealed just how much personal information she knew about her.

They both shared the same pain, girls who grew up forced to be boys by almost all that surrounded them. However strongly those shackles had been tied to each of them varied on those aspects of their lives they didn’t share.

Rosemary knew that at least her four moms and two sisters had always supported her, even if the town itself didn’t, but for Keira…

She was alone.

“Maybe when we do our sleepover we can get prettied up.” Rosemary offered, longing herself for times she’d never had.

“Yes!” The radiance that came from her pilot told her she felt the same way.

“Well then, we’ve got a plan for when this is over.” Rosemary finished readying herself up. “Let’s go.”

When they decided to open the doors and leave, Rosemary held in her breath. The possibility that outside their humble abode was one of the four Mobile Suit pilots from yesterday made her anxious. Keira probably felt it for she was the one who stood in front of the door to greet the outside.

The biggest sigh of relief came from the altari engineer as she failed to recognize their escort. It didn’t mean that they wouldn’t try anything, simply that they hadn’t gotten comfortable already doing it.

“Coming?” Keira asked her, seeing as she was lost in thought.

“Yes.”

Traversing the halls brought Rosemary no amount of anxiety. For the crew members of the vessel they were a curiosity. She found it rare, for the four dickweeds of the day before had told them explicitly they hadn’t been the first them on board, yet still, eyes remained, looks prevailed, murmurs spread. A walking spectacle for them.

“Is this with everyone?” She asked Keira, trying to have her catch her meaning as they got into the elevator.

Her pilot, never one able to hide her expressions, got to thinking.

“Maybe?” An unsatisfactory answer, but one that Rosemary didn’t resent her for. If anything, she shouldn’t be asking this in earshot of another UCA soldier.

“Then how were your previous times like?” Rosemary got curious.

“Very similar.” Her pain was as tangible as the rumbling of the elevator they’d stepped in.

Rosemary wished she could have given some reassurance to Keira that things would be better. She couldn’t. Things had already been set into motion the day before; she’d already failed.

“We’ll get through.” She told her pilot, hiding a vow between her words to protect her next time.

The doors opened to the bridge, harshly illuminated by cold, artificial lights. The smell from within was far too different from the industrial cleaning supplies she’d been subjected to on this ship. Mass produced, easy to acquire and far too obnoxious most of the time, the smell of a cherry air freshener infested the place.

The windows at the sides and the front, reinforced; doubly reinforced; triply reinforced; let her see the reality of space. Twinkling stars in the canvas of the deepest night, with the odd remain of a place someone, somewhere once called home. Such a sight should have been able to catch her full attention, distracting her of the job she was here to do. Then she would meet an anonymous UCA soldier’s face, give a nickname for her internal thoughts, and get out as fast as she could.

But that was not meant to be.

The bridge was nothing too special. The Captain’s chair laid at the center of it all, set on a platform slightly above the rest of the crewmembers to be able to look at everything that may require their attention. A practical design if nothing else. The consoles hummed, the soldiers monitored, the information was received and passed along.

To her dismay, next to the Captain’s seat was Spokesperson, casually chatting with the man they were here to meet. When he noticed her, he wasted no time in greeting her as if they were old friends rather than a hostage situation.

“Glad you got to join us.” He approached them with an open smile. “They are here Captain.”

The man on the seat thanked him went to greet them himself.

Rosemaria Ryn Stonework couldn’t say why her body tensed up as she did, nor why every cell in her body screamed at her to run away as fast as she could. She only knew that when his pale grey eyes met her aquamarine eyes, her whole existence was in danger.

Run away. Run away. Run away. RunawayrunawayrunawayrunawayrunawayRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUN.

For everyone else in the bridge, the man was, physically, nothing special.

White pinkish face, decorated by a braided beard that matched his shortly kept red hair.

What denoted his rank was his uniform, for it was far more stylized like an old regal military attire than the practical one his subordinates had. It even had those weird shoulder frills that reminded her of a cat toy.

The sense of strange familiarity that those eyes brought with haunted her.

“I’m captain O’Hara. Welcome to my ship.” He introduced himself with a low soothing voice that wouldn’t feel off in a nature documentary. Then, without any care for subtly, he looked at them. “It is a pleasure to have you two lovely ladies on board.”

Without words, he invited them to stand next to him and his Mobile Suit pilot before he had to clean his runny nose with a handkerchief.

“Damned allergies.”

Keira, perhaps noticing the tension that had gripped the engineer, took charge of the situation.

“Thank you for having us here.” She responded, stealthily putting herself in front of the frozen girl. “I hope things go smoothly.”

“Likewise.” The captain said taking great interest in her pilot. “Now, if you would please look over here to align with each other and make that wish a reality, I would appreciate it.”

Her pilot was the one to get closer, but not too far away from Rosemary, always putting herself closer to the captain than the aquamarine girl.

The window on the very center became covered by a map where it showed them the route the two ships would be taking to reach the catapult. A simple route that tried its best to avoid any and all hazards along the way; at least on the first days. If there was one advantage for the Garden being anchored to a gas giant it was it’s own force of gravity. Rare were the remains of space colonies or asteroids that had not either been turned into new moons for the planet, or had fallen down into it.

Such was the power of one of the four fundamental forces of the universe. As with all of them though, its reach had limitations. The further away from the gas giant they got, the ability to have a clean route diminished. The celestial bodies around them had their own pull and the fight between them gave way to interesting, and deadly phenomenon. In some cases they reached stability as were the Lagrange Zones, in others chaos reigned by the constant collision and almost permanent planar dust clouds.

The last gift after Helia’s Wrath.

Ryn was aware that the Captain was saying words, most likely explaining the why and how’s of the route he’d chosen, but nothing stuck to her brain. There were lines, there were scribbles, there were points and notes and very important information that she couldn’t engage with.

Keira could, and she was.

Words were noise, phrases were grating nothingness, ideas were puffs of planar dust already fading from existence. She, or the Ryn that wasn’t herself, nodded, faked attention, and lost the meaning of the word ‘understood’. She was there but wasn’t there. Her own mind had played the old mechanical marionette trick on her.

Only when he turned to talk directly to her, did the gears rust into nothing, making her fall back to reality.

“In terms of patrols we expect Gundam Remnant to be at the ready every six hours for joint operations.” He told both of them after cleaning his nose again.

“I’m sorry?” She asked.

“A joint military operation of course, as is established in the cooperation treaties.” Captain O’Hara repeated. “You will be under my command for the duration of this trip.”

There were certain things in the back of the engineer’s mind that she seldom let take form. A pool of thoughts, feelings and ideas combined into many shapeless existences that were not fully real until she dive into them. Those three words that the captain said so casually, a Joint Military Operation, were the mold for one such idea.

Disgust, pure and rage driven disgust.

Helping the UCA military in every shape or form was the worst betrayal she could think of.

“We are not military.” Rosemary Ryn rebuked the Captain. Spokesperson tilted his head, partially closed his eyes and strained his ears. He was thoroughly confused at her.

The eyes of all in the room turned towards her, looking at her if she’d said the dumbest thing in the world.

“You have a Gundam.” The Captain told her in response, reconfirming the perceived stupidity of her argument.

“And?” Now Rosemary was being pedantic.

“I mean, a Gundam is a type of Mobile Suit.” Spokesperson butted into the conversation, so fucking graciously explaining to her the most basic information of her career.

“And? Mobile Suits are not all made exclusively for military purposes.” She thankfully clarified to the UCA soldiers. “Construction, manufacturing, mining and search and rescue operations are well known uses of Mobile Suits. If anything only thirty percent of all Mobile Suits are designed for military purposes.”

“But a Gundam is a Gundam.” The Captain retorted, walking closer to the two women. “The linchpin of so many colonies military force. You can’t be telling me that yours is just for show Miss Stonework.”

“That would be ridiculous.” Spokesperson added.

Rosemary pulled out her tablet and went to the information she had so helpfully sent them before boarding. Before she could show it though, Keira stepped in.

“Lily and I a-are not soldiers.” She nervously verified. “We are first re-responders.”

Now the aquamarine engineer showed the credentials to the Captain. There had been multiple reasons, most of them financial, as to why she had accepted this job in the first place. From the pay, to the help on her family’s other problem, all the way to being able to work on a Gundam.

“I won’t work for the UCA military.” She had told Mikah Azuriel so many months ago in his office.

“You won’t need to.” He had answered, showing the full registration that the Mobile Suit named Remnant was under. “That Gundam has not been used as a weapon for about a hundred years.”

Baffled beyond belief, the Captain took her tablet without her permission, making her flinch like last time it happened. Spokesperson joined him, looking over the details of their job.

“We are not military.” Rosemary repeated, following them so that Nya wouldn’t be hurt. Keira accompanied her.

“No wonder the vernian military is as shit as it is.” Without any reservations, O’Hara told his subordinates. “One of the few altari city-states to have a Gundam, and what do they do? Give it to the Rabbits.”

When the name of the old medical organization was dropped, the whispers of the military personnel started in full. There were many reasons for this, for one, giving a humanitarians, mostly medical, organization a full on working Gundam was the stuff of lunacy, as the Captain implied. Secondly, and more importantly, was what had become of it three years prior.

“How can we be sure then that you are not part of the terrorist group known as the Hares?” The Captain started his interrogation.

“We are not, but you know that’s a moot point.” Rosemary went on the offensive. “Whether we are or we aren’t lies if it is convenient for you.”

“Li-Lily and I were out of co-commission five years ago. We began wo-working in the Garden four years ago.” Keira answered, trying to give a response more akin to what he wanted to hear. “I haven’t had any contact with anyone from the Rabbits since then.”

Something clicked on the engineer’s brain. If she a Gundam pilot, was suspected to be working for a designated terrorist group, it would make sense to keep her constantly under vigilance. It is not like the UCA, nor the other Sides, could afford to not have any Gundams out of commission for too long; hence their present situation.

“They can testify that.” Rosemary pointed at the special guards that were always following Keira.

For the first time ever, acknowledging their existence made sense to her.

“Is that true?” The Captain, who surely was higher rank than the two grunts following them, asked them.

With only one nod, they responded.

Even if she could still understand how dangerous they were, Rosemary couldn’t help but cringe at how edgy they were doing that.

“But that it a moot point for out talk.” O’Hara returned her tablet to her, displeased with what he had found. “You are still expected to—”

“We aren’t.” Rosemary interrupted him, snatching back her friend. “We are not military, we were never military and we will not be joining on any military operation. Stop asking.”

His face was getting as red as his beard.

Rosemary, as with many if the things that got her in trouble, hadn’t thought of being this antagonistic was a good idea. Certainly it would be foolish to shit all over the hospitality of the place they would be staying at for the next three weeks, more so if they refused then to cooperate in the cleaning. Yet it didn’t matter how sweet they could potentially be in the future, as of now, and in the past, the crew were soldiers from the UCA, while Keira and herself were altari women who had suffered at their hands.

She wouldn’t cooperate as much as she could.

“I mean, it is not like you couldn’t work with us, right?” Bootlicker Spokesperson tried getting closer to her, but Keira didn’t allow him. “And it is a good opportunity for you to learn about a real battlefield, right?”

“We c-can’t.” Her pilot answered for her. “I-I-I’m. I don’t. I… not in that way at least.”

“Even in the case of an emergency?” Spokesperson now was getting annoyed. His voice went louder, his height grew a few milliliters, his eyes grew smaller. “What happens if your old companions decide to shoot at us or go blow up the cargo ship?”

“I mean—” Keira was faltering at the intimidation.

“You don’t command us, you ask for our help.” Rosemary, caught back his attention. She turned her back towards him, done with the talk, and with their demands. “Our priority are the lives on that ship. In case of a Stormveil Keira goes to help. If an attack happens, we’ll protect them, but we are not there to pursue so called ‘terrorists’.”

“Utter bullshit.” Someone muttered.

“Stupid ass altari.”

“We have to deal with them?”

“And if the cargo ship gets damage, well begin evacuation procedures instead on focusing on the firefight.” A part of her smirked at being able to baffle them so. “That part’s your job.”

Spokesperson seemed to want to get closer and force himself unto her point of view.

“Side One tr-treaties specify that—” Keira went to say, but was stopped.

“I understand what the treaties say Miss Remnant.” The Captain stopped his subordinate, choosing his words carefully. “As emergency personnel you are not to be forced into combat as active participants. Even if it is a petulant one, you’ve made your point.”

“Thank you for your understanding.” Rosemary couldn’t hide the vitriol in her words.

“Which means we are also in no obligation to provide support as well, aside from the bare minimum of lounge and facilities.” He continued, also not hiding his own. “Radio communications, navigation, medical support, and maintenance will be handled then exclusively by you, I presume?”

Rosemary understood the depth of her actions at that moment. This was the game she was trying to play, and had forgotten the golden rule: the game was rigged from the start. Men like Captain O’Hara would always have more power over her: every confrontation would end up with her losing.

There was no moral victory.

No moment where everyone clapped.

No congratulations, no understanding.

She’d made life for the two of them even harder.

“I—”

“We will!” Keira, filled with determination, held her hand. “Thank you very much for your assistance!”

As they got into the elevator, Rosemary could feel herself getting annoyed at her pilot for answering so quickly, but it ended up as nothing. When the doors closed and down they went, the engineer knew that she’d done the same in that talk. Never had she ever talked with Keira about her viewpoint, her distaste, nor her awareness of the grey zone their special non-military circumstances gave them. Still, she’d spoken up, got into a technicality fight with someone she shouldn’t have, and had been humiliated; all without knowing if her pilot, the woman out there risking her life and in dire need of that support, would agree to it.

“It’s ok.” Keira, either by being perceptive or a mind reader, assured her. “But will you be ok with all that extra work?”

“I’ll manage.” She told her without a tinge of confidence.

Now back within the corridors of the ship, Rosemary allowed herself to think about the close future. For the time being they were free to work at their own pace, and Rosemary needed it to be as quick as her uncontrollable heartbeat. There were so many new things she needed to learn in a far too short and unpredictable amount of time. Learn to read star charts and whatever form of close and long detection technology they used; get in the same wavelength as Keira for all the call signs they would require; be able to map out her flight paths with a margin of error smaller than a sewing needle; all while keeping up with the maintenance their Gundam would require…

And…

And…

And…

“Are you ok?” Keira put herself in front of her, holding her hand with both her own. “Rosemary?”

Somehow that careful gesture from her pilot was enough to ground her. She hadn’t calmed down, far from it, but at least her mind wasn’t spiraling out of control.

“I think I need a shower.” Even if everything felt backwards today and the dangers of one were plainly obvious. “Could you…?” Rosemary didn’t know how to ask for the thing she needed for she didn’t know what it was. Security? Assurance? Company? Care? Intimacy?

Maybe she just wanted the warmness of her hands to remain with her forever.

“Could you keep an eye out while I take one?”

Keira nodded.

“Ok.” Behind her mask Rosemary knew she was smiling. “I also want to take one, but you take the first.”

“Ok.” The aquamarine girl accepted her pilot’s request with an exhausted sigh. “I’ll do the same once you take yours.”

After getting a change of clothes from their room, the two women floated down to the one place she felt the most vulnerable in. A big part of her was regretting coming here, while the other was keenly aware of how much she needed it, even if it was just symbolic.

The doors opened without reverie, letting both girls inside.

Now that Rosemary was paying more attention to it, she did notice that the room was not only the shower, but a small alcove next to it wherein one would change after the fact. A cylinder inside a box, inside a flying tomb if steel. She still didn’t like the fact that anyone could enter here at any moment, but the added room at least meant her pilot wouldn’t be stuck floating outside during her shower.

And where anything to happen, she would be the first one to help.

With a heavy sigh from both her and the door, she closed herself and Keira from the world. Notably, her friend’s guards didn’t go inside.

Putting her change of clothes inside a cubby hole next to the shower door, including her jumpsuit, Rosemary felt the anxious vulnerability of laying naked grow within her. Whatever walls she could lay between her and those that looked at her; looked at them both, felt as thin and fragile as soft tissue paper.

“Take care of Nya.” She said giving her tablet to Keira, and stepping into the shower and away from her friends’ watchful eyes. “Here goes nothing.”

The first thing she did was look around for anything resembling a hidden camera, or any other recording device. She knew first hand how small those things could be, and how violently efficient some men could be in placing them for their goals. She checked the drains, the dispensers, the walls and the tiniest holes on both ceiling and floor.

Only when she was satisfied that there could be nowhere for her to be recorded from, she stripped the rest of her clothes.

She wasn’t really fast with it; both because the thought that she’d missed a hiding spot was making feel paranoid, and because that was making her feel self conscious about her body.

There were things to look at after all.

“If only it wasn’t them.” She lamented, shoving the last of her clothes out the shower into a very distracted Keira.

Her pilot may, or may not have yelped as she was hit by the bundle, but she didn’t hear it. As soon as they were out, she tied the rope around wrist and let the warm water envelope her.

Loud as thunder, all consuming, the sound of the warm rainfall that was to wash her discomfort away cut her off from the rest of the world.

Recently she’d hadn’t paid attention to it, but the tingling feeling on her chest had been a pretty consistent companion once more, heralding a new trip to the lingerie store. As annoyed as it made her to have to spend more money and time, again, to have proper support, the constant flow of euphoria that came from her stretch marks was something she would never give up.

 The whole of her body now fought not against the concept of gaining weight, but celebrated the fact she’d gained it. Her skin had gotten so much softer, her hair so much nicer, her hips wider, her smile so much brighter than ten years ago. After years of Nadria’s wishes taking priority over hers, she finally had taken that last step. Of the two life changing surgeries she had gotten, she’d only regretted one, and it was definitely not her vaginoplasty.

She was her; Rosemaria Ryn Stonework, a woman who had been told by everyone but her family that she was a boy, and she was beautiful.

People noticed.

People noticed.

People noticed.

 And they looked and looked and looked and touched and touched and looked and touchedtouchedtouchedtouchedtouched…

She scrubbed hard her arms, scrubbed her legs, her torso, her face. She used as three times as much soap and aggressiveness. She cleaned again and again until her skin felt nothing more than the sting of needles.

Only did she treat her hands with care.

“Welcome to womanhood Rosemary.” Nadria had told her.

“Fuck you.” She hugged herself as tightly as she could, gritting her teeth. “Fuck you all.”

Shampoo.

Bubbles sticking to her hair.

The sweet smell of strawberries.

The softness of her hands running through the aquamarine threads. A massage, self-care. She didn’t want any of the branches of her hair to snap today.

“It’s not like I don’t want to be touched.” Her sorrow was lost amongst the droplets of the shower as the red veins appeared in her eyes.

Rosemary had a dream long ago, one that she dare never give any words lest it became a piece of mockery. To lay in bed, naked and loved next to her lovers, with her heart rested but fluttering at the sight of their faces smiling at her. However rough they’d done it, however long they’d gone at it, however much they’d touched her and made it obvious she was their beloved plaything, the women that had stolen her heart would always kiss her to remind her of their love. To cherish the warmth they shared.

Conditioner.

Slowly distributing it to the tip of her hair, never to her scalp as her mamas had told her.

Drying it would go in a flash. The shower had a dryer installed in it for quick use.

And she didn’t want to be here any longer.

The water stopped. The sounds of voices came from the outside; one from Keira, one of some she couldn't pin down yet but that gave her an eerie feeling.

Worry grew within her, she needed to do something.

Anything.

If one had asked Keira what she’d expected from today she wouldn’t have been able to give an answer, but certainly it wouldn’t have involved anything of what had actually happened.

And she was not thinking of having the dirty laundry being thrown at her face. That had made her jump.

Rather, it was Rosemary getting into the argument with the captain, followed by the retraction of their support what had been the greatest shock; full on wilder than any firefight she’d been in. The back and forth, the  unwavering insistence, the refusal to give up what she believed was right, even on the face of a harder life… Keira didn’t know how things would turn out, but she knew one thing.

Her engineer was brave like that.

The thunderous rain came from the shower, making it the second time she was startled in the last couple of minutes.

“They weren’t kidding, it is loud.” She said a bit uncomfortable by how intense the noise was at first.

Nya, buried underneath the pile of clothes, agreed with her.

“Right, I should put this away.” She said, unsure as to where she should do so.

If she wasn’t on zero gravity, she could have easily put it on the small bench she was floating above, but the circumstances made it difficult. She could try and make more space inside the clothes box, but combining clean and dirty clothes was unclean to her.

“I’ll just use the shirt as an improvised sack then.” She knew it was a handy trick, but didn’t exactly remember who had taught it to her. “But next time we should bring a bag with us.”

Nya agreed with her.

Having done her task, she let herself and Nya float to the ceiling of the shower, enjoying the incomplete sensation of being detached from the world.

Now that she was alone, it gave her some time to reflect on it. Until now she had never given a thought to the fact she’d be working under the captain of any given ship. Her old team was from the UCA, military as far as she remembered, so she was never asked. It was a given that’s what she was supposed to do.

Be more curious.

“Why did I have an UCA team?” She asked to no one, yet still got a response from Nya, the wonderful catssistant.

She also didn’t know, but she did find it odd.

“I had always assumed it was because there weren’t any veniri Mobile Suit engineers available, but dad got you and Rosemary, so that couldn’t be it.”

In her dead heart something began to ache. A sense of uneasiness over circumstances she was not able to grasp crept up on her. She was dangerous, as carved out by her memories, yet she was trusted to exist in private spaces without her escort. She was a Gundam pilot, someone who was exceedingly difficult to replace, but was allowed to live without a support team for a long period of time. Never mind that there had been a person who saw Rosemary, the only person that came to support her, as a genuine hindrance. Her doctor.

There were too many contradictions in the way she was allowed to live that only now she was starting to see.

“It makes me anxious.” She bit her thumb to call herself down.

She remembered the feeling, though not the images, of the talks behind closed doors that her dads had about her future. A road paved for her across life without her single opinion being heard. The creeping dread as their high hopes grew taller and taller until they were the size of a mountain. She, their child, would be someone that would somehow change the world.

All had come crashing down on her fifteenth birthday.

“I can’t believe it was ten years ago.” She sighed. The memory still fresh in her mind.

Maybe it was because she didn’t fully understand Nya, or because she desperately wanted to talk with someone, but Keira felt a need she’d never felt in her entire life.

“You know Nya, I ran away from my dads in the middle of my fifteenth birthday.” She remembered the fancy restaurant they’d gone to, filled with highly important guests whose names ruled the world, yet none she knew. “Told them that they didn’t know anything about me. All that because they wouldn’t be honest with me.”

Nya seemed to understand, offering a small sympathetic meow in response.

“I never was good with anything.” She slowly poured her heart out. “I struggled with reading, I couldn’t really get maths, and being around other people always made me nervous, especially if they wanted to touch me.”

She looked towards the ceiling, waiting her heart to calm down a bit.

“My dads insisted that it was because I didn’t have the right teachers, or I hadn’t found the right group of friends. They insisted that I could do whatever I wanted to do, that they would make it happen so. Whatever school I wanted to I could go to, whatever master I needed they would get, however many stars they needed to spend was no issue. They would give everything to make me into the special… the best version of the man I was always meant to be.”

Her companion listened to her intently, sitting down to groom herself as she did.

“But they slowly realized, as did everyone, that I couldn’t.”

She bit her lips, forcing herself not to cry.

“Because you see Nya, I’m du--- I’m not the smartest.” She said it out loud now that Rosemary couldn’t hear her. “Everything that would have made the Azuriel Remnant name stand out were the things I couldn’t do. My dads couldn’t deny that after fourteen years of struggling, but only then did it finally set in, so, they formed a plan.”

And so, on the road to her fifteenth birthday, Keira knew that something was wrong.

As fresh as the morning dew, she remembered everything that had happened that day before it all went down.

How she had tried talking with them before the party, urging them to please not announce anything life changing on it. How they had promised they would never do such a thing; her life was her own after all and they only wanted him to be the best version of himself. How, as the doors to the restaurant opened, she was mortified seeing the number of guests when she just wanted the three of us to be together alone. How they presented me to all of them; influential names who would willingly take her under their wing.

Of course, it had also been their children; all dolled up for him. Men and women close to his ages dressed In the finest garments that the altari, and some spacian elite, would allow them to. Long dresses, well fitted suits, makeup that decorated their faces in so many delightful ways she couldn’t help but feel envious about.

Her eyes had quickly gravitated to the girls there, because she’d found them beautiful in a way she wanted to be. Far more than the chocking weight of the tie she’d been forced by silence to wear, she yearned for the dresses they so freely wore.

They complimented him. They sent so many flattering remarks, and honeyed words that made her feel in a maelstrom of conflicting emotions. How perceptive he was, how smart he must be, how introspective he came to them. All words that she’d wished to hear, but knew was never to receive on her own work.

No one outside of her dads had been so kind to her.

Keira was dumb, she knew it as a fact if life. Even then, she realized what was happening. The panic lit up like the firework outside.

She patted the screen on the tablet, getting a sorrowful meow from the cat who had lent her ear to her.

“My gift that year was my future. A way for me to live out the weight of my name without doing anything.” She sighed. “I only had to choose who to marry.”

She remembered the cake being brought out, far taller and more intricate than anything she’d ever had. The shape she knew well because she’d been forced to so many weddings she couldn’t forget the classic tower-like structure of those.

“As we were about to cut the cake… everyone saw us fight.”

“I don’t want this! I never wanted this! Please, please, please dads…”

“We only want you to be the best version of yourself Kiki, we will always support you.”

Everything had been a blur thereafter. She only remembered how badly she’d been crying at the time, losing her sight by the sheer number of tears that filled her eyes as she ran away, pushing the cake away in a panicked sorrow. The shock from it all had stunned them all, letting her run away from it all. Her heart had been pounding so strongly that she’d grown deaf. She ran and ran across the unfamiliar streets of her home, lost in the night.

So she had run as fast as she could, bumping into a world that had never felt familiar to her. Somehow, she’d found herself back to the only one that had known her true self.

Lily. The Gundam that lay inside the national history and anthropology museum.

Nya had nothing but understanding meows and badly drawn scribbles to support her, which did help her feel better about it all.

“Thank you.” She told her digital friend.

“No one was guarding the museum when I arrived you know, so I went inside and ran towards Lily.”

The darkness that gripped the old building was as familiar to her as the layout of her room. Long days spent having some books read to her or watching uncountable number of history documentaries had made it so that this place was her second home. She’d known the audio guides by heart, the measurements of the rooms, the expositions that were replicas (even the ones pretending they were not), and those that were the real deal. From the later, she knew for certain one was far above the rest.

The Gundam named Remnant.

“I don’t remember how I slipped past the security systems, nor how I climbed unto Lily but when I calmed down, I was inside of her. That had never happened before”

She remembered waking up in the cold stillness inside the dormant cockpit, like the darkness at the bottom of a frozen lake. As her world had spun around out of control, that strange serenity had been the one refuge she could rest in.

Contrary to the smell of the old books in the library, or the clinical cleaners that permeated the once medical refuge of Vernia, the Gundam smelled clean, motionless, stagnant. Like the sealed wing of an old mansion opened after a century, it felt like time itself hadn’t touched her in the slightest until Keira went in.

Her lungs had been on fire, her suit had been ruined, her hair was a mess, and a bit of blood dripped from the palm of her hands that only then she’d noticed.

“Lily and I talked about what had happened.” That talk had been a long one, but she’d been happy to have it. “Being able to tell someone that I didn’t want to live only off my family’s name was reassuring.”

Nya understood what she was saying though she had no history of her own. She was Nya, the digital cat assistant of Rosemary; a full on artificial construct born out of a Haro’s intelligence and an engineer’s brilliance. Yet the kitty knew why she was made, and as she pointed out, it wasn’t that different from Keira’s own connection with Lily.

A friend not of flesh, but of wires and steel.

“I wanted to stand on my own, you know?” She revealed to Nya, who got up on her hind legs to walk a few paces. “Even if I knew that my dads’ connections could help, I just didn’t want… to be useless.”

The Gundam had heard her wish, and had asked her what was what she truly wanted.

“I want to help people.”

A simple, immature, dumb answer that someone only as dumb as Keira could say.

Lily didn’t mock her.

The lights inside the cockpit glowed a dim light of red.

Like the very own fairy godmother from the olden tales, Lily told her that there was a way. The two of them were similar in a way that transcended understanding, which had already manifested itself. That connection would allow her to fulfill that wish.

“Even if she didn’t say it out loud, I understood what she meant.” Keira told her friend, who, for once, seemed confused as to what she was saying if the question marks above her meant anything. “I’m not smart enough to explain it. Sorry.”

Nya ran around the screen, making her best complimentary meowing to let her know that it was ok not to know.

“Thank you.”

Yet there was one warning that Lily gave her not in form of an explanation, nor in an ominous phrase carved as a curse.

It was an emotion, far stronger than the misery that had brought her here on her fifteenth birthday.

Regret.

This would not be a path of happiness.

“I still didn’t back down. I truly want to help people, however I can.”

And so Lily had asked her name.

“Keira. My name is Keira Azuriel Remnant.”

And the Gundam gave her name to her.

“Lilianna Remnant.”

“It was a strange question, but the moment I answered, something changed.”

Blood dripping down her hands, cut by a piece of metal she didn’t know off. It dripped on the floor, but she never saw any stain remain on it, perhaps because of how dark it was. She didn’t care at the moment, she held unto the controls of the Gundam far tighter than she realized.

Her bloodstained hand left a print.

“It is not important what happened next.”

It is too painful.

“Sorry Nya, I was supposed to be thinking of other things, but I ended up reminiscing on old memories of the few I have.” She apologized without understanding the weight of her words. “I just feel awful when people that care about me leave me in the dark.

There came a sting on the scar on her chest.

Nya accepted her apology even though she was confused as to why she was doing so. What she did offer was an empathetic meow at her second statement.

Keira couldn't get her thoughts in order, but that one thing held true. The sinking feeling in her chest was the same now as it was back then.

Worst of all, she was a hypocrite.

Because the one person in her entire life that was always open with her was the girl with the aquamarine eyes who had, so brazenly, come into her life. The woman who didn’t back down from what she believed in, nor let her words be sprinkled with fake pleasantries.

The same who Keira was keeping in the dark.

She barely held her cacophonous, pained laughter in. How nice of her to ask for stuff she wasn’t willing herself to give to the woman she trusted the most. Worst of all was how Keira herself was the danger, but her own disjointed feelings coincided on one thing: to continue the fake life they’d been living.

That wasn’t even the last thing she was hiding from her.

Nya, sensing her turmoil, took the lead of the conversation. With a couple of meows, the cat assistant caught her attention to show her what she’d been doing.

Displayed on the tablet there were a couple of drawings in there. A baldy made replica of the same table she was in, a computer, and her face mask-plate-thing. Once Keira had seen what they were, Nya went ln to ask her how she talked with Lily.

“I… I have never used any of the sorts.” She answered, feeling like it was a weird question. “My mask only helps with my light sensitivity; like more encompassing sunglasses.”

Nya seemed confused at her statement. The digital cat didn’t understand how a girl could talk to a Mobile Suit without some sort of terminal or something similar.

“I don’t know how I knew I was talking with her.” Keira agreed on the strange circumstances of her talks, but until now had never questioned it. “I talk, she answers me…”

Though it hadn’t been as natural as breathing, Keira had gotten better at learning how to talk with Lily; if anything, it was closed to learning how to walk.

Growing self-conscious, Keira opened up her tablet and went to search for the list of all things she wanted to learn more about. At first, she’d thought that it was lost forever, but thankfully it had been transferred after she’d broken her previous one.

“I have heard about that.” From the frame of the open door, one of the Mobile Suit pilots inserted himself into the conversation.

Taken aback by not having heard the door opening, Keira looked at the man named Keith with some of reservation. Against her desire to brush him off, she greeted him without any words. As far as the pilot knew, Keith had heard everything, and that was worse than being shot at.

In the fog in her mind, where her memories of her becoming the pilot she was now where lost, one creeping feeling came at her.

The shadow of that party had stained the rest of her life.

“Gundam pilots talking to their Mobile Suits as if they had a psychic link with them.” He continued leaning against the door frame.

Keira could have been lying to herself, but she felt in his tone of voice that he was very interested in that; maybe even in her.

“Don’t worry, I’m not as pushy as Trobador nor Range.” He said offering a smile. “I just wanted to talk, that’s all.”

The pilot sighed internally. Perhaps she was being too wary at the moment after everything that had gone down at the bridge.

The next three weeks would go by quicker if Rosemary and herself didn’t have to be cautious all the time.

Even if she’d wanted to keep her distance, her priority remained. She got closer to him so that he wouldn’t impose on Rosemary’s shower. If that meant talking with someone though she lacked the energy for it, then that’s what she would do.

“Can I ask you something?” He took a piece of bubblegum from his pocket and began chewing on it, offering one to her.

She declined.

Bubblegum just tasted like wet ash to her anyway.

“Where did you learn how to pilot?”

“I started learning back with an instructor in Vernia.” Keira reminisced as much as she could of the first days with her teacher.

The open fields in front of the city, tilled to produce the food for her home. The mountains on her back, growing further away as she took flight with her friend. The sound if a distant voice, whose familiarity remained even if she didn’t remember it fully, calling out for her to follow a path and always check her radar for any incoming traffic.

The first sense of purpose filling her empty husk of a self when she got praised, not for her Mobile Suit, nor for her fancy pilot suit, but for her skill.

Times had been simpler back then.

“She was a very caring woman.” Fondly she spoke of someone who’s name she’d lost long ago in the fog. “After that I went to the Sterling institute of Technology to learn there.”

For whatever reason, only three things could she remember of that time. The name of the school; that she because dear friends with Eryn; and that it eventually led her to… to be where she was at now.

Friends, lessons, teachers, experiences, heartbreaks and victories, none of them she could remember.

“One of the fancier ones.” His face betrayed no emotion he had about that statement. “Trobador went there, so you might have even been classmates.”

“I doubt that.” She crossed her arms, pretending to think back on those days.

Trobador hadn’t looked to be older than twenty, while she recently turned twenty-five. She would have remembered being in the same class as a ten-year-old where that the case.

As for her current companion, he did look a year or two older than his friend, though that put him still as younger than her.

Keith, maybe realizing Keira was looking at him, offered her a smile, one which she returned with a reflexive one of her own. However he took it definitely was not how Keira would have wanted to, but no choice was she granted on the matter.

He continued talking about himself.

“I always wanted to pilot a Mobile Suit.” He revealed unprompted. “Dad was a Mobile Suit pilot before me, like my grandpa as well.”

He told her with a semblance of soldiery pride which clashed with what had happened on the bridge just some time ago.

“My dream was always to follow suit, maybe even get lucky enough to become a Gundam pilot.”

The way in which he nonchalantly said so irked Keira. Guilt came thereafter. Perhaps it was a small bout of jealousy over thinking that he could be able to pilot Lily.

“There’s something magical about flying through space in a body so close to your own.” He turned to look at her directly in the eyes, an obvious indicator of his want to empathize with her in the one thing they shared together. “That feeling of grandeur as your mind connects with the Mobile Suit is something else, right?” He asked, earning only a nod from Keira.

Each passing second made the altari woman feel more anxious.

Taking out a disposable handkerchief, Keith stuck the now flavourless piece to it to throw away later. Without asking her this time, he grabbed another piece of gun to chew on as if he couldn’t live without something in his mouth.

“What does it sound like?” He asked as casually as one would about one’s birthday.

“I’m sorry?” She asked having, dumbly, missed some context.

“Your Gundam.” He clarified. “What does it sound like?”

“She.” Keira, deadpan, corrected him.

“Like a woman?” He inferred with intense interest.

“What else would she sound like?” The pilot of the Gundam named Remnant felt herself grow self-conscious again.

“From what I’ve gathered, rarely do they sound human-like.” He revealed, adding another piece of bubblegum to his now flavorless one. “Some go as far as to say they don’t even make a sound as we know it. Yet they still talk to their pilots.” He floated closed to her, intent on backing up his claim in some way, or so Keira thought.

Instead Keith had taken the chance to close in the distance before the altari pilot could realize it. Casually he laid there next to her, invading her personal space, staring at her with unmistakable curiosity. The way his blue eyes looked at her, examining something she couldn’t grasp made the feeling of discomfort grow exponentially.

The worst part though was how his expression betrayed nothing of what conclusions he was reaching.

“Simple thoughts, barebones concepts, closer to a cat asking for food rather than a human explaining the depths of his curiosity.” He whispered, forcing her to lean towards him to understand what he was saying. “What does she talk with you about Keira?”

She didn’t want to answer. The way he remarked Lily’s existence hit too close to home when she had to correct others of her own womanhood. Yet she had to.

“Lily m-mostly give me advice, or we talk about the day we’ve had.” She answered raising her voice and leaning away from him. “She’s very kind.”

What Keira wanted was for this conversation to be over, if not, she could at least have it be away from the naked visage of her friend that lay in the shower. She tried to move to go out the door and have the UCA pilot go out with her, but he stood still.

Worse.

“You are a very interesting person, Keira.”

Keith now was the one leaning towards her, drastically shrinking the space she could move about. The more casual demeanor of curiosity that he had the day before was absent, replaced instead by an intense drive to learn about her. Wherever his eyes looked at her felt no different to when her doctor examiner her.

She didn’t know how to feel about it.

“Could I ask a favor?”

Keira would have rather refused, but she didn’t know what would happen if she did.

She nodded.

When did it get so silent?

“Next time you talk with your Gundam…” His words carried a hidden truth behind them she wasn’t able to grasp. “could I be there with you?”

A door opened. A bar of soap came flying out and hitting the steel of the wall.

Keira got startled, Keith snickered.

“Seems I am no longer wanted here.” He said finally pulling away from her. “Let me know if it’s alright later then.”

He left.

“Motherfucker!” The altari pilot heard the vileness of the swear as clear as day from her friend. “I’m coming out Keira.”

“O-ok.” She answered, closing the door.

“Are you ok Keira?” Her engineer asked from behind.

“I’m fine.” She lied.

She would be, given time.

There was no need to worry Rosemary.

Once her engineer was all dressed up again, she let know it was her turn.

Rosemary made no comment as Keira undressed, which was a relief for her. As much as she liked talking with her, right now she needed some time alone.

“I’m going in.” She told Rosemary, who was leaning against the wall, staring at the door with the hateful eyes of a security hound ready to pounce, or maybe a cat.

She gave her a thumbs up.

After this they would need to discuss what they would do next. Rosemary needed training filling all those positions they were lacking in. Keira would help her learn as much as she could, even if she…

You are not dumb.

If she was lacking in some places.

She let the warm water hit her.

They could worry about that once she was done. For now, in the loneliness of the shower, Keira felt graced that, for the first time in forever, she wasn’t truly alone anymore.

“Thank you, Rosemary.”

Chapter Text

Things weren’t great for the duo, but that was a given for their lives.

Rosemary’s little outburst at the bridge had been both her blessing and her curse cast upon them both. On one hand, having the temporary satisfaction of telling an UCA captain to fuck off was priceless, on the other hand they’d lost all the additional support they needed if an emergency were to happen.

 Were they to be lucky, this trip would be a boring slog that had driven them to anxiety for nothing. If they were unlucky, every day would have them fight for their lives. Because of that possibility, Rosemary and Keira needed to be ready.

Radio communications, navigation and medical support. Those were the three things that they lacked as a team.

Radio communications meant not only to talk with the pilot during a deployment, but to coordinate with any other additional Mobile Suits during one. Keep track of positions, numbers, status and the likes to give or ask for support.

That, for the time being, was not something they could worry about.

They were on their own.

Navigation was a trickier beast to handle. The shifting zones of hazardous materials and debris that now existed in the void between the stars, combined with the errant clouds of planar dust meant that no one route was safe. One moment a straight line would be the shortest path, the next meant certain death.

A pilot needed to be paying attention, but there was a limit to how much a human, combined even with the most advanced AI to date could see, let alone predict. The worst came when the planar dust pushed the Mobile Suit’s power to the brink. Even Lily, as the mighty Gundam she was, would prioritize life support systems. This inevitably made Keira carry the burden on her own. On an ever-shifting landscape this led quickly to exhaustion, then to mistakes, finally death.

“I think Lily has some simulations in her to train.” Her pilot told her on the impromptu meeting in their shared room. “Although they are more piloting focused…”

“I’m sure miss Hooves and Nya can whip something up.” That would not be a high order for her catssistant.

“Miss Hooves?”

The blush that overtook her face was as explosive as the volcanic eruption of mount Kiri ten years ago.

“Lily, I said Lily.” She tried saving face only to make it worse.

The pilot of the aforementioned, for her part, laughed.

How sweet her laugh was.

“I’ll be sure to ask Miss Hooves then for her assistance.” Coming as the biggest surprise, Keira teased her.

“Please don’t tell her I call her that.” She hid her face in her hands, knowing that Lily would not take kindly to such a nickname. “I don’t think she likes me that much.”

She might even go as far as to stomp on her in a final act of mockery where she to find out.

“That’s n-not right, Lily likes you.” Keira tried to reassure her with an obvious lie.

“Are you sure?” Rosemary pressed now wanting vengeance for the earlier tease. “I feel she sighs in relief every day when I leave, as if I was her ward’s annoying and snotty friend.”

Unable to keep pretenses, Keira scratched her face and nervously laughed.

Maybe Rosemary shouldn’t have asked that. Lily “Miss Hooves” Remnant would definitely scrape her broken remains now.

That made her go grab Miau for safety.

“She does like you a lot more, and I mean a ton more, than the previous team.” Keira affirmed far more confident than with her previous statement.

“Oh well, that’s good to know.” She tried to play it off as a joke, but there was a lot of pride in being liked better than UCA soldiers.

“Getting back to the point…”

Keira explained to her that she was indeed trained as a first responder, so the basic knowledge for how to treat most common wounds and malice was something she knew. Problem was that were she, the one going out to the dangers out in space, to get injured, there was no one there to help her.

“Don’t worry about it.” Keira had told her with a nervous laugh. “I promise I’ll do my best.”

It didn’t reassure her, but she knew she was powerless. One couldn’t become a trained medical personnel by only reading, less so with what little time they had.

She didn’t know how she would react where Keira to be hurt. The thought itself made her sick to her core. If pushed came to shove, she would beg for help and take whatever punishment she could so that her friend be attended to.

She begged the Lady of Roses that would never be the case.

Each millisecond that passed made the nervous dismissal by her pilot become worse. She had glimpsed the scars, she’d looked at her glassy eye, and knew that there were many other injuries Keira had never talked about and would never do.

It was a childish of her, a horribly immature and selfish desire that made her spill the words from her mouth and shove Miau to Keira’s arms.

“Then promise me and Miau that you won’t get hurt.”

Obviously asking anyone to make a vow to a stuffed animal was something that only five-year-olds did. Rosemary knew it well because she hadn’t done so for more than two fucking decades.

Yet here she was now, on her work uniform, holding her childhood plushy to a woman she’d only known for less than six months. They were friends, and that meant they would show their weird sides from time to time. That could only take you so far when you were being impulsively stupid.

This act took the cake.

The surprise on Keira’s face made her want to die of shame.

However ridiculous it was, and Rosemary quickly internally acknowledged, it seemed to her pilot took it in stride.

She stopped addressing Rosemary herself, instead getting down to talk face to face with her plushy protector. With a smile that never failed to ease the aquamarine’s heart, and a hand above her heart, she spoke.

“I promise you Miau, that I won’t get hurt.” To seal her promise she petted Miau’s head.

Her heart skipped a beat, her face had lost all traces of grey as red had taken over, her breathing had been completely cut off, and her whole self felt as weak as a wet tissue paper. The intense feelings that came over Rosemary were far too much for the engineer to handle.

Where Keira to look at her at that moment--

“L-let us go to Lily.” She looked away because she couldn’t handle how radiant Keira was at the time. “I think I can handle the navigation part.”

Keira tilted her head, closed her eyes and smiled at her.

“Ok!”

Rosemary knew herself well enough, at least that’s what she wanted to show to others. If there was something she’d always felt extremely ambivalent about was her dedication to a task she’d set herself on.

Warning! Multiple astral bodies approaching.

“Update route to x thirty, y fifteen, account for collisions by increasing speed.”

On the one hand, if she’d resolved to learn how to do something, she would spend every waking second perfecting her knowledge and skill.

Asteroids destroyed. Shards flying off at a hundred and seventy kilometers per hour in direct collision trajectory.

Warning! Contact imminent.

“Adjust the velocity by 3 arc degrees. Update the path to account for the added mass now!

On the other hand, sometimes her determination brought her down to the path of crippling frustration.

Warning! Celestial body at forty-five, twenty-five degrees has changed trajectory and is on impact route.

“Fuck! No exits. Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

This was the seventh day on Rosemary’s path to become more than just an engineer, but Gundam Remnant’s navigator. To master this would alleviate a lot of stress from her pilot, allowing her to react quicker to the in real-time threats that she’d have to face.

Warning! Warning! Impact imminent.

“Fuck’s sake.” She screamed.

Boom!

It was going poorly.

Inside the cockpit of her dear friend Miss Hooves, Rosemary, Nyaro and Keira had been going at it for a couple of hours now.

Most of the scenarios had been based on old deployments that her pilot and her Gundam had faced throughout the years. From ship graveyards (which explained the amount of debris stuck to the Mobile Suit’s inner frame), to new asteroid fields ruled by the crushing law of gravity, all the way to the chaotic threat of the planar dust clouds on what appeared to be innocuous paths.

For the first few days, they’d chosen to go for the basics. Learn how to read the sensors, learn the symbols for each hazard, calculate their trajectory and speed (with assistance of course), all to predict the least hazardous route.

Rosemary knew her calculations weren’t off. The velocity (and not just the speed magnitude of the vectors) had been spot on, to the point she was able to predict at least one move ahead of some collisions.

Yet, like an unexpected customer coming just after having cleaned the kitchen, the moment she took her eyes off the red triangle, things went to shit. Without fail something new in the chaos came to kill her.

It was as if space itself had a grudge against it.

“I’m sorry.” Keira who was sitting on the ceiling like a bat, tried and failed, to console her. “Maybe we should take a rest?”

The light that came from the ship’s hangar gently bounced across the cockpit, reminding the engineer of what was outside. The noise of maintenance came all around her, accompanied by the playful shouts and stern instructions of the crew outside their little world. The smell, as it always was the case wherever machines rested, was none other than that of grease, sweat and burning materials.

If Rosemary had had a successful run, maybe even just the first three minutes without having digital Keira die in a horrible manner, she would have accepted. Hell, if she’d been able to not fuck this one less than fifteen seconds after deployment, she could have convinced herself that rest was needed.

Even now she couldn’t disagree fully on the idea.

Rosemary didn’t dislike the offer of going out to take a stroll, maybe even offer to so something fun with Keira in a private place. Hell, even just talking with her would have been a treat.

Right at that moment an errant thought crossed the aquamarine’s mind. It was a shame that her pilot was wearing her mask today.

Seeing her face and her smile would absolutely ease her heart, maybe fully convince her to stop.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” She rejected it though. The shadow in front of them was the biggest reminder of where they were, and who they were surrounded by.

They were two altari women on a UCA military vessel, and they were alone.

The Mobile Suit that was being worked upon in front of them was known far and wide for its combat capabilities. Not only was it a strong single-unit combatant, the control system for its Funnels was remarked as top of the line, able to overwhelm any single unit in an inescapable barrage.

Lily’s Gund-bits were no match for their reaction speed.

Its armor, coated in black paint with blue accents, was deceptive. As fragile and brittle as it looked, it was an absolute upgrade against the plating Lily had. Lighter, better at dispersing heat, easily changed without a need to repair. If she hadn’t panicked and chosen the Borealis plate, this one would definitely would have been it.

But that was not the reason why it was famous. Every Mobile Suit could have that armor after all, every Bit could be upgraded to respond faster.

What made it famous was how devilishly fast it was.

It shot fast, it moved fast, and it was able to change into a Core Fighter in less than three seconds, getting away from any real danger before it was too late. Added with the camouflage, it was made to destroy everything as soon as possible, and get out without leaving a chance to pursue.

This was the Xiphos. The Mobile Suit heralded as the highest quality mass produced of its kind, and the pride of the UCA military.

The sword to the shield that were the Phalanx.

 As a Mobile Suit engineer, she could appreciate the craftsmanship as she would a trebuchet, but as a girl from Fáldana she couldn’t help but want to spit on it.

“What would we even do? Go out to be harassed by the fucking Mobile Suit team?” Holding unto her violent desire, she turned back towards the screen to have another go. “No thanks.”

It hadn’t been subtle the ways in which the four Mobile Suit pilots had been hovering around them since day one. Though not as intense as the first day, neither atlari pilot nor engineer had been spared from the random encounter with them from time to time. Attempts had been made by them to talk in private, share a meal, or hang out in the hidden corners of the ship. Lanky and Bootlicker Spokesperson primarily being the biggest culprits.

Had they been enemies in an old TTRPG campaign of hers as a random encounter, Rosemary would have had to tweak the encounter table or outright have them be killed after the first time.

“But you haven’t eaten anything.” Keira pointed at the sealed lunchbox she’d gotten her in the morning.

“It tastes like shit anyway.” Rosemary groaned like a spoiled child. Whatever empathy she had for the kitchen crew came out the window the second time her chicken came undercooked. “And I definitely don’t want to get salmonella during the trip.”

“That would be bad.” Keira empathized with her. “But I asked for something without chicken this time.”

Rosemary’s stubbornness was both getting hurt, and being reinforced by each phrase Keira said. Her kindness, down to the smaller details, made her want to relent and do as she say, but she also wanted to, in a dumb way, to earn it.

Because, she had to admit, it was sweet of her to have brought her food.

“That’s just how she is.”

“Did you say something?” Keira asked, but Rosemary deigned not answer.

Now she was being stubborn as a teenage girl in a romcom. It would make her die of shame if she acknowledged it.

Seeing Rosemary not say anything made her pilot go silent for a second. At first the engineer felt she’d messed up, again, but she took a moment to recollect.

They were inside Lily, Keira was wearing her mask. Most likely Miss Hooves was talking with her.

“Lily says that she won’t allow you to try again until you-- what?!” Keira shook her head in the most obvious display of her getting flustered. “P-phrasing Lily!”

“Wh-what did she say?” Now it was Rosemary’s turn to get a bit self-conscious.

Keira remained silent.

Rosemary got up from the seat and cornered her nervous friend.

“Keira?”

“Th-that she w-won’t let you try again u-unless you… you-you…” Her voice fell to an inaudible whisper when she said the last part.

“I didn’t hear you.”

“…you submit to my demands…”

Red. Horribly red. Rosemary’s ears burned with the fury of a steel mill. Shame, confusion, excitement? Stars she couldn’t take it. She looked away, she held her face, she squirmed in horror and something else she would never reveal.

“D-don’t say it like that!” She demanded.

“I-I wasn’t the one that said that!”

“Yet you repeated it ad verbatim!”

“B-because you asked!”

Rosemary was praying to the Lady of Petals to take away her blush as fast as possible. She couldn’t deal with how nonchalantly Keira could say stuff like that after appearing so innocent. What would she demand next? Asking to feed her? Clean her cheeks with those delicious lips of hers with a kiss? Whisper to her ear telling her how happy she was to see her be healthy?!

Ridiculous!

She slapped herself. She was being exceedingly stupid.

“Why am I acting like a fifteen-year-old? I’m almost thirty.” She reminded herself.

That spurred her curiosity.

“How old are you, Keira?”

Turning to face her again, Rosemary saw her pilot grow a bit distant. It made her feel guilty. She hadn’t expected it to be a sensitive question, after all she hated the idea that it was rude to ask for a woman’s age, but perhaps for Keira it was.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want.” She backpedaled. “I know it can be a bit of a loaded question to some.”

“No, that’s not an issue.” Keira told her in a weird way. She wasn’t doing her usual nervous mannerisms like putting her hands between them or getting some distance, nor her ashamed hold unto one arm with the other pose. Instead she seemed to be stuck.

“It is hard to explain.” She added. “And you know I’m not the best in doing that.”

Feeling that this could be a conversation far heavier than before, Rosemary was aware she would need to be there for her friend. She also knew her empty stomach would be a detriment for that goal.

“I submit.” She declared defeat as she grabbed the lunch Keira had grabbed for her and popped it open and sat back down again. “We can chat about it while I eat.”

“Rest time! Rest time!” Nyaro agreed with her, ironically betraying her past self.

A baked potato, an arrangement of vegetables and a bit of ham greeted her. She knew she could make something better than this, but for now it looked better than anything in the world.

Keira, though not her beaming usual self, still acted happier.

Taking advantage of the zero gravity of the hangar, she sat above Rosemary like a bat sleeping on the roof of a cave.

“How old do you think I am?” She asked her.

As a way to help her, Keira removed her mask. That immediately made Rosemary smile.

“Let’s see…” To fuel her deductions, she took a bite out of the baked potato. A bit too buttery for her taste, and definitely lacking some salt, in a way similar to Keira. Far too nice to people, and rarely one to get angry, or mildly annoyed.

Though, from personal experience, no one liked a salty person.

“You’ve been with Mi-- Lily for some years now, at least four of them working for the Garden.” Her train of thought went differently to what Keira had expected, as shown by her surprised expression. “You can’t become a Mobile Suit pilot without a driver-link surgery, and those are only allowed until you are sixteen with parental permission, eighteen without it.”

The carrots were nice, but it was obvious they were not fresh. The humidity that came from being frozen and then cooked made them a bit flimsier than those that were market bought.

Keira being an altari girl like her meant that her zero gravity training would have had to be off world, and only promising altari pilots are allowed to study on spacian universities. She knew that Keira would immediately grab their attention as she had her own Gundam, but that didn’t mean she would be given preferential treatment.

In their eyes she was an altari first an foremost.

“One year for your certificate, one year out in space to get the full license.” She continued. “That gives us eighteen.”

Rosemary bit a piece of broccoli that had been obviously undercooked.

“Four years at a university to fine tune your skills, two year working with the Rabbits, then one year out of commission, leading to four years with the Garden.”

She took a sip out of her water bottle, catching Keira do the math with her fingers as she reached her conclusion.

“I would say you are twenty-nine Keira.”

The pilot closed her eyes and smiled.

A loud, incorrect buzzer sound came from Nyaro. Rosemary almost spat her drink.

Keira laughed.

“Nyaro, you didn’t need to go that far.” She half-heartedly scolded the kitty Haro before turning towards her. “But you were very close actually. I’m twenty-five.”

“You are younger than me then, huh.” Rosemary considered that one of the weirdest things about her friend. “I kind of expected the opposite considering how good of a pilot you are.”

“I skipped grades at uni because of my pilot skills.” Keira, in a rare display of her ego, revealed to her. “And my surgery was done when I was fifteen because of… a lot of reasons, but mostly it came down to me being a Gundam pilot.”

“That doesn’t seem like a good thing.” Rosemary left her thoughts be known.

For the first time ever, there was a glint in Keira’s eyes that made her uncomfortable. No surprise, nor anxiety but, by the way her eyebrows frowned, and her face lost its smile, it felt almost like annoyance.

Had Keira gotten angry at her?

Rosemary didn’t like it. Thankfully she’d finished her meal already, because the thought made her feel sick.

“Wait a minute.” Urging herself to find a way to deflect the conversation, she held to the one strange thing she noticed after her failed deduction. “How does Nyaro know your age before me?”

Keira giggled as she hugged the pink Haro.

“Private talks! Private talks.” Nyaro responded.

“Nya and I talk every time we keep watch when you shower.” Keira revealed. “She’s a very good listener I must say.”

“Glad to see you’ve become such close friends you are gossiping behind my back.” Rosemary faked being hurt, only to find a tinge of real pain in there.

It was a bit of a shock that her catssistant had been able to know that before she did. As a trail of blood flowing out from a hidden cut, revealed an insecure side of Rosemary. As much as she assured, and reassured, Keira she didn’t need to tell her things she didn’t want to, the feeling of being left in the unknown hurt. Especially when someone else close to her did.

“Thank you for the meal.” She ignored her insecurities, lightening the conversation. “I didn’t realize how hungry I was.”

“Of course.” Keira returned to her cheery self. “You were bound to get hungry after training so much. I know I did.”

“Hungry! Hungry!” Nyaro repeated.

‘Did?’ That was a strange way to put it, at least Rosemary thought so. She knew that Keira still trained, far more relentlessly than her, so she was also bound to get hungry, right?

So how come she never saw Keira eat anything of her own free will?

Rosemary was not insensitive. Keira had told her, after the duel, that she was on a very restrictive diet. The aquamarine girl had assured her that she did not need to disclose it if she didn’t want to. A lot of times people were assholes about one’s food habits, so she understood the want for privacy.

But something irked her about all of this.

Every meal Rosemary had had on this trip was similar to today. Be it breakfast, lunch, or dinner, there was a singular lunchbox for her, with naught a morsel for Keira, the only exception had been when the asshole pilots forced them to dine with them. She had seemed in pain with every bite, like the food itself was the source. If it had been a very specific food allergy Rosemary was sure there was somewhere in the whole clearance process where they would have been able to say it so, but as far as she remembered, she didn’t see anything like that.

Rosemary sighed. She was overthinking things again.

Of course Keira had been in pain that day, Rosemary had been the same. That was the simplest explanation.

In truth, she likely wasn’t a fan of people knowing her diet.

What worried Rosemary was that, now that she had some food in her stomach, was how sickly Keira looked. Sunken eyes with big bags under them, dry lips, with her cheeks devoid of warmth that normally was there in her terracotta skin, accentuating her lighter scars.

“She couldn’t be possibly starving herself, right?”

“You know…” Rosemary put the empty lunch box on the plastic bag her pilot had used to bring it to her. “If you want some privacy when you eat, you can tell me.”

Keira looked at her confused, then her face went deadly pale. A nervous shook crossed her body as the gears in her brain turned and reach a worrisome conclusion.

“I d-don’t know what—”

“Keira, I don’t know what you can eat, but I’ve met folks throughout my life that always felt self-conscious whenever they had to bring up an allergy or something similar.” Even if she felt bad, she interrupted her, lest she go spiraling. “Hell, some folks back home got teased for being lactose intolerant.”

Her pilot, who now she knew was twenty-five, seemed to be unable to shake up her shame but she didn’t go against her idea.

“I just want to know you are not hurting yourself because you are ashamed of it.” Now she felt she was being a bit condescending, but she couldn’t find better words to express it. “You can’t be the only one worrying about each other, you know?”

“Sorry to have been worrying you.” Scratching the back of her head, Keira apologized with a nervous smile on her face. “But I’m –”

“Fine?” Rosemary didn’t buy it.

That caught Keira by surprise.

“Are you?” Rosemary asked, cutting through the polite, dismissive bullshit. “Because you seem as if you’ve not been sleeping well, when I now know you sleep like a brick.”

The nervous laugh that came from Keira didn’t last long. When it faded the ignored exhaustion hit her like a truck, making her look far more tired than she was a couple of seconds ago. If it had not been for the zero-g, Rosemary was sure Keira would have fallen from the ceiling.

“I guess… I am a little bit tired.” The way in which she relented felt like her youngest sister Saffron finally admitting that she had, indeed, been dozing off after bragging she could last the entire night without sleeping.

Her pilot shifted uncomfortably in the ceiling as she debated something internally. Rosemary knew she wanted to say something but, whenever she seemed to have gotten the bravery to speak up, she shut her mouth again, looking disappointed at herself.

“You are friend! Friend!” Nyaro jumped to her arms, snuggling comfortably within them. “Friends help each other!”

She sighed and petted the metal chassis of her mechanical friend.

“Is it ok if today I come to the bedroom later?” She asked with the shame of a child who had been scolded before for getting home late.

Rosemary’s first instinct was to scold her. They both were adults, they didn’t need to ask for those kinds of permissions, yet she took a moment to think about it. Inside her words was a very different, albeit more important question. Would she be ok alone in this ship while Keira ate?

“I’ll be fine.” In reality, she didn’t know, but she would take some precautions. “Just knock three times, then one time when come back, ok?”

“I will.” That seemed to calm her down.

“Well, I think it is time I got back into training.” Rosemary stretched her arms, took the longest breath her lungs allowed her to, and sat back down on the piloting chair. “Thank you, Keira.”

Her pilot came down from the ceiling and gifted her a smile.

“Thank you as well.”

The screen came back to life just as Keira put on her mask again.

The symbols, a simplified version of everything that could kill them outside came into view of the two. Same scenario as before, same difficulty as the start, Rosemary needed only to concentrate on giving the digital version of Keira, a simple red triangle, a place to deploy to.

Rocks, a broken engine, dust, Mobile Suit parts. All moving around in an area that felt far too big to imagine, yet remained far too small for comfort. She’d seen the end result of her mistakes in the form of an abstraction. As the hazards collided with the red triangle, there was no explosion, nor destruction or any other representation of what happened. One second she was there, the next she was gone and the simulation reset.

How did Keira feel seeing her digital self die over and over again? Rosemary would expect to be quite a shock until she grew numb from the repeated attempts.

Deployment. A missed rock coming from nowhere. A warning. Goodbye red triangle.

For her part, her pilot didn’t seem bothered by it. Contrary to Rosemary’s expectations, she was far calmer than her, offering her words of encouragement and a thumbs up.

“How do you do it?” Instead of jumping straight into it again, Rosemary deigned it better to ask her friend. “There’s so much shit on screen I can barely concentrate.”

“I don’t know how to explain it.” Keira said in the least helpful way to start a lesson. “But I don’t pay attention to everything, you know?”

That made Rosemary release a baffled noise from the depths of her throat that she believed impossible.

“Sorry!”

She stared at the screen, at Keira, at the screen and at Keira again and again in order to try and understand how. She had survived all of her deployments, proof being she was here with her, but now it seemed she’d just gotten lucky.

“Explain.” Rosemary demanded with crossed arms and a growing headache.

If this turned out to be because Keira was a genius at all Mobile Suit related things, she was going to scream.

“Well…” Keira laughed nervously, courtesy of Rosemary of course. “I just need to be faster, right?”

She shook her head, knowing that it didn’t make sense without the additional details.

“You are taking into account everything in the pathfinding except for me.” She continued. “As far as I’ve noticed, you are trying to predict the actions of everything around the digital me, instead of focusing on how I can react to them.” With some examples that came on screen, Keira went on to show her how she did it. “You shouldn’t ask if they are about to crash against me as a static piece, instead you should see if I can be fast enough to escape, or if I can shoot it down.”

Now that Keira opened her eyes to that fact, Rosemary realized how much she’d been missing.

Lily’s speed could never be a constant, but the difference between how fast she needed to be, and the time she had to achieve that was what mattered to avoid the hazards. If there wasn’t enough time, her Gund-bits were supposed to buy it for her, or destroy it before it became a problem.

Only when something too massive to escape or deal with came, Keira calmly explained, came the crucial moments to update the path. The added hazards and their chaotic distribution, would be impossible to calculate.

There were exceptions of course.

As a new saturated example came into view, waiting was the trick. An asteroid collided against a fuel deposit, violently exploding and clearing the way. Problems could take care of themselves after all.

“In essence, being a navigator means you give Lily and myself a suggestion knowing what we can do, and we’ll try and follow.” She concluded.

“It’s just like backseating a fucking bullet hell.”

Rosemary facepalmed herself, Keira yelped. The sound of the impact reverberate throughout the cockpit and out of it.

Her forehead would turn red soon enough. A fitting punishment for being such an idiot.

So distracted had she been on learning she’d missed the obvious. Keira was a stellar pilot, far better than anyone had the right to be. She was the one out there doing shit, so of course she would do most of the fucking work.

Who the fuck cared if Keira was no longer there when things crashed against each other? As long as she knew it beforehand, she could do something about it.

Stupid, idiotic, self-centered....

“R-Rosemary!”

Once more, she had thought she needed to do everything on her own and not, as it had been since the very beginning, relied on Keira.

“I’m so stupid.”

She went to hit herself again when her hands found intense resistance.

Desperate Keira was holding tightly onto them, shaking, afraid.

“You aren’t.” Deadly afraid of what she might do to herself, her friend told her. “So please, don’t hurt yourself.”

Then, with a voice almost inaudible, she said.

“I don’t like seeing you hurt.”

Blush. A mess of thoughts. Cold gloves holding unto dear life, yet gentle enough to not hurt. Alone in the soft shadows within, the soft light washing over them. Messy black hair. Golden horns. Worrisome eyes looking behind her mask.

Hot flush. An array of noises coming from her mouth. Uncontrollable heartbeat.

How badly she wanted to entangle her fingers with hers.

“Dummy.” Rosemary, in her own nervousness, looked away, refusing to delve deeper into what the warmness that enveloped her.

“It’s unfair you have your face hidden from me.”

Sadly, all good moments come to an end.

“Is everything ok in here?” The grating voice of Spokesperson came from just outside the cockpit.

Covering what little light had come from outside, the silhouettes of both him, and his buddy Lanky, cast a long shadow within their private space. Meddlesome as they were, not a word they’d said before they got closer to the two to check up on what had happened.

“She w-was checking the console when she hit herself with it.” Keira covered for her without letting go of her hands.

A detail both men noticed.

“I know girls are more lovey dovey touchy with one another…” Spokesperson either joker, or said in a dismissing tone. Rosemary didn’t get which one was it. “But shouldn’t you be checking her injuries, Keira?”

“Right.” Prompted by him, she let go of her hands to look at her reddening forehead. “We should put some ice on it.”

“Want me to grab some?” Lanky, so fucking helpfully offered when he got near the two of them.

“I have something here, thank you.” Keira rejected him, yet he didn’t go back to his friend.

Worse, Spokesperson got closer with genuine worry on his face.

“Personal space! Personal space!” Nyaro, not one to let her thoughts unknown, interposed herself between the girls and the two soldier, chastising them for their unwanted approach.

“But…”

“Weren’t you taught that you should give the medical personnel room to work with?” Rosemary backed up her mechanical friend, enjoying immensely that she could be an asshole to them. “Keira has everything under control.”

Her pilot gave a thumbs up in support.

They stepped back, yet for some accursed reason, they didn’t leave.

Spokesperson seemed to remain on watch, ready to help with whatever tasks they assigned to him. Lanky, on the other hand, was seemed interested in his surroundings, looking around him with the upmost curiosity.

The way in which both studied the insides of the Gundam felt invasive, like unwanted guests arriving at someone’s house tour.

They took notes, pointed out at the controls, commented on the inefficiency of certain design choices, and went as far as clicking some of the idle consoles to try and get a reaction.

She wanted to scream at them to get out, but Keira’s tender treatment got in the way. 

“I’m surprised Lily hasn’t gotten angry at them.” She whispered to Keira. “Barging in like that.”

“More or less.” She responded after a few seconds. “She doesn’t want us to get in trouble, so she’s enduring it.”

The strangest sense of empathy grew within Rosemary for the Gundam.

For so long she’d seen Lily as AI inside the Mobile Suit that Keira piloted. An annoying entity that had some very strong opinions as to how the machinery inside the frame should work, hence her nickname. When she’d uploaded the new leg schematics for Lily to judge, she’d expected her to run a series of calculations and simulations to validate the design.

But maybe it wasn’t just that.

Maybe Lily earnestly loved having hooves instead of feet. Maybe it was the only way she could express who she was.

Maybe that was the only thing she had control over in her life.

Rosemary looked back on their first meeting, wherein Keira had explicitly told her that Lily very much was a ‘she’ and not an ‘it’.

In a second, Rosemary’s perception changed dramatically. Inside the UCA vessel they were staying at, there were not two women from Altaris having to deal with the soldiers, rather, there were three.

Keira, Rosemary and Lily herself.

It felt ridiculous to an extent. The idea that Lily, an eighteen-meter-tall eldritch machine that could survive the harshest conditions of outer space, needed to endure the whims of some UCA soldiers.

All to protect Keira and herself.

“You are a softy at heart Lily.” She, half-jokingly, half-sincerely told the Gundam while Keira finished applying the cold pack to her forehead.

Keira silently giggled.

“She always has been, and that’s something I love about her.”

If there was something Rosemary started to learn about Lily, is that the she had her pride, and the only moment it would wane was when Keira was involved.

The shadows inside the cockpit felt more comfortable.

“Next time I design something for you Lily stop being so unapproachable.” Rosemary, in a bid to make peace with Lily, said. “It will be easier if you tell me what you want you know? If not for me, at least do it for Keira.”

Rosemary knew she wouldn’t get an obvious response from her request. She only hoped that Lily would take it to heart.

It would make her job easier if she did.

“Please?” Keira added.

Rosemary could almost imagine the tired sigh of resignation at those words.

That brought her the tiniest bit of morbid joy.

“So that’s how you talk with the Gundam.” Lanky, who the two had decided to ignore, joined in the conversation.

“How did you expect?” Rosemary threw her bitterness inside her words. “It’s not like she doesn’t have microphones in here.”

“That’s true.” He said, holding his chin in contemplation. “Though I have to wonder if that’s all there is.”

Rosemary got a bad feeling about it.

“Don’t pay him any mind.” Spokesperson joined as well, souring the air. “He’s just really into Mobile Suits, you know?”

“He did seem very interested last time.” Keira shrank against herself.

Rosemary put two and two together. He had been the one to corner her last time.

“Could you ask her something for me?” Lanky, with a far more neutral tone than before, asked her pilot.

“She can listen to you now.” Rosemary got up from the chair and interposed herself between Keira and him. “Why do you need her to be the one doing it?”

“I actually need to do it outside where none of the internal mics would pick me up.” He answered, unfazed by her growing hostility. “It would only be a couple of minutes, nothing more.”

Rosemary didn’t believe that.

“You had promised to help.” Lanky, seeing that there was no point in appealing to Rosemary, turned his attention back to Keira.

“I did.” Solemnly she answered.

Rosemary never understood why people put so much weight on promises. For so many it seemed that some few spoken words turned into a magical spell, able to force compliance to the other person, and that breaking it would have massive consequences.

But what if things changed? What if it was extremely harmful to fulfill the promise? What if you realized that following through wouldn’t make you happy? What if only misery awaited you at the end of the given path?

It's not like she was ignorant of the fact promises relied on trust. Constantly taking back your word would leave others being weary of you, or to the point of breaking up the friendship. Yet all that depended on both parties being on equal footing.

If not, a promise was a threat.

And the altari women were certainly not equal to the soldiers.

“What if I accompany you?” Rosemary asked.

“I would be best for the two of us to be alone.” Lanky intervened, narrowing his eyes as he looked at her.

A threat implicit in his whole self.

“It will only take a m-moment.” Keira claimed with no confidence.

Rosemary didn’t hide her displeasure, but made an effort to not direct it towards Keira.

“Be careful, ok?” She told her.

“I will.” Her pilot responded as she left with the asshole of Lanky.

Without paying any more attention, Rosemary went back to the task at hand.

Or she would have.

“So this is where you’ve been held up all this time.” Spokesperson, who thought it now his chance, decided to stay with her instead of what he should have done. Fucked off.

“If you came here to offer help, I don’t want it.” Her animosity slithered into each word. “I have a job to do and I can’t be slacking on it.”

She resumed the simulation as before, now with the clear idea of what she needed to do. Same as before, same as always: put her trust in Keira.

“I mean, is it truly necessary for you two to be like this?” He went further inside the cockpit, brazenly standing where Keira had been just a couple of minutes ago. Like the bringer of the pestilence named machismo, his scent made her feel sick. “You are to pretty to be killing yourself by taking all these responsibilities.”

“I didn’t ask.” She told him.

“Didn’t ask! Didn’t ask!” Nyaro confirmed it.

Today, of all days, she felt particularly abrasive towards his fucking attitude. Perhaps it was the accumulated aggressions he thought of as flirting of the last seven days were finally reaching her limit; the dissatisfaction with her training to become Keira’s navigator; the constant looks by the rest of the crew, and the ever present threat of violence from them; or just a combination of all of those things that made her not just dislike Spokesperson form being an UCA soldier, but hate him on a personal level.

“I’ve been trying to talk to you about this all week long, but I get the feeling you’ve been avoiding me.”

Rosemary almost burst out laughing at how hurt he sounded at the last part.

Of course she had.

For her own safety she had worked hard on keeping her distance from him the past week. Ignoring his calls, taking detours whenever Keira or herself saw him in the corridors, putting herself outside of his range to avoid him accidentally brushing her. The bare minimum of decency he’d managed to not fuck over was not trying to take a peek while she showered.

Even then, Rosemary wasn’t sure it wasn’t because of Keira.

Sadly, he had still caught her from time to time. That’s where in came the requests for time alone.

A meal here, a talk there, an opportunity to show off his piloting skills to her. All of them she’d shut down. Spending even a single extra second with him would drive her mad.

Today, once more, she had failed.

“I didn’t like how things went with the captain.” Now that she was a captive, he began his unwanted monologue. “Space born or planet born, from the UCA, the Trojan communities, all of the Sides and Altaris itself, we are in the middle of the biggest crisis in the whole of history, we should be working together.”

Rosemary caught on where he was going, but nowhere had she smelled a bigger pile of shit than the words he was spouting. It was so bad, she didn’t know it better to cover her nose, or her ears.

“I know egos can run wild when talking with people that believe they know how things should go.” He continued with a sprinkle of hurt feelings. “But that’s a road that two can travel.”

“What are you saying?” She confronted his words.

“I mean, you could have tried to find a compromise, right?” He said with such honesty Rosemary choked a bit on her spit.

“There is no compromise.” She rebutted him. “I told you all before, we are not military.”

“I know, I’m not trying to enlist you or anything.” He ceded some ground. “But what happens when we are attacked by something? In the battlefield egos kill people.” He then accusatorially pointed at the simulation Rosemary had been training with. “Yours might end up killing your pilot.”

Rosemary fell quiet not because he might have a point, but because he had hit a nerve.

“If you’d talk again with the captain, I’m sure we could lend you a hand with all of this.” He pushed his point. “I’ll even give you a favor and put in a good word for you.”

She hated how he honeyed that last sentence.

“No thanks.” She was done with all his bullshit.

Even if she wasn’t Rosemaria Ryn Stonework; if the material conditions she grew up in hadn’t shaped her disgust at the UCA military, if she’d liked men, if she found him attractive, if she’d thought of giving him a chance she would have still refused. Because…

“I have work to do.”

She stood up from her seat, and went to leave.

He grabbed her arm.

His grip was too tight. Her wrist hurt. Her hand became colder, her heartbeat too loud in the arteries that were being crushed. Cold sweat ran down Rosemary’s spine. This is what she’d feared.

Long ago, her mama Rosetta had told her one raw fact of life.

“Men have power over us women. We have to be careful.”

Diligently, she’d taught her everything she’d known about keeping herself safe. Rosemaria Ryn Stonework remembered it.

Years later, the brutality of lesson struck down like thunder. Her mama Persephone had suffered.

Today, it was happening once more to her.

If she’d screamed, would Keira be able to hear her? What could her pilot even do?

 Instinct took over. Speed was her only ally. A hand was not a handcuff; the space between the thumb and the other fingers was the weakest part of the grip. If you pulled quickly and strongly enough, you could slip out.

She pulled. Her arm became free. The adrenaline travelled throughout her body.

The darkness around them grew.

Regret came over his face.

Nyaro jumped in her arms. She kicked the screen to propel them both out of there.

The muffled sound of his voice didn’t reach her ears, but she could guess what he’d said as she escaped.

“Sorry.”

“Do you know what a rumor is Keira?” Was the strange question with which Keith opened up their private conversation.

When he had asked for the opportunity to be present while she talked with Lily, Keira hadn’t given it too much thought. Her wish for him to not be there any longer has far exceeded her ability to process what he’d been saying.

Like she was doing again right now.

“I think I do?” Without a tinge of confidence, she answered.

She had some questions she’d wanted to ask him, but she knew she’d never do. It was far easier to do what he wanted than to dig into the details.

Why did they need to be face to face with Lily with all the noise of the hangar around them? Why did he want to be present for this? Why had he wanted then to be alone for this?

All those things seemed meaningless in comparison to the real discomfort of leaving Rosemary’s side.

“Doesn’t it mean that some things are said about another thing?” She answered as a question. “Like saying that x actor is dating y actor?”

“That’s partially right.” He confirmed. “The main difference between a rumor, and a fact is if the thing being said has been verified or not.”

It's not like she had been unaware of that. For the past four years many hearsays had been waved about her life, so many of them in fact that those she heard could only be the tip of the iceberg.

“But a rumor must start from somewhere.” Keith looked at her with eyes focused on something about her she couldn’t grasp.

It made her uncomfortable.

Did he asked her to come here to shine some light on the rumors that surrounded her? Ask her a barrage of questions meant to demystify the so nicknamed ‘Princess of Ill Omens’?

Her nerves began to fail her as one last possibility hit her. No one should know. She’d been careful, and the doctor wouldn’t say a word, wouldn’t she?

But she couldn’t be sure he hadn’t heard it from somewhere else.

What would she say if he asked her about that day and her hunger?

“Last time we talked I told you one such rumor, remember?” Taking the conversation somewhere she wasn’t expecting, he wrestled her damning thoughts out of her. “How Gundams seem to talk with their pilots.”

Keira, in fact, couldn’t forget that talk. There was one thing she couldn’t grasp though.

“Didn’t you ask the others that h-have been here?”

“None have wanted to talk about it, as if it was taboo.” He clarified, shrugging as if that was the greatest shame. “Except for you.”

Like the bells ringing in their tower, marking the death of a monarch if old, his words announced something dreadful.

“Thank you, Keira.”

Those words made the altari pilot dreadfully uncomfortable. Somehow having talked about Lily and their relationship seemed to have given him permission to pry into matters best left to the two verniri women. Had she been able to, Keira would have loved nothing more than to turn back time and never talk with him about Lily.

“N-no problem.”

“Now, there was another rumor I’ve heard about.” He turned towards Lily’s never changing expression, looking all over her as if trying to get a reaction from the immovable pieces of armor. “One that caught my attention even stronger than the other one we’ve just talked about.”

The weight of it, Keira could feel imbedded in his words, for weal or woe, she couldn’t say.

“Rumor has it that a pilot should never look at themselves through the eyes of their Gundam.” What should have been said like a solemn warning came out of his mouth more like an exciting prospect.

Even when her new found want to be more curious, Keira didn’t like his tone. Ignoring it, she went looking in her faulty memory for anything that might ring a bell regarding that hearsay.

She came up empty, but that was to be expected.

“D-did you want me to ask Lily a-about that?” Keira reached that conclusion, unsure if she wanted to follow through.

“I do.” He responded, keeping his attention solely on her mechanical friend. “As with every bit of investigation, it is always important to track down a primary source, is it not?”

As much as she felt the need to get away from him as soon as possible, he had a point.

“But why from this distance?” She asked him before she would ask anything to Lily. “Do y-you want to gleam s-something else with this?”

Only after she finished asking did she remember he had been eavesdropping her conversation with Nya. If only he hadn’t, she could have lied about it. Spun a tale about how her mask was connected to Lily, allowing her to talk into an embedded microphone while reading the messages she used to respond to her.

Wherever it would have been convincing or not was a moot point. He knew, and he wanted to cast light on those rumors.

“Sorry, I remember now.” She apologized, but he didn’t seem bothered by it.

Turning towards Lily’s face, Keira then did what he had dragged her here for.

“Lily, is it true I should never look at myself through your eyes?”

Silence.

“Lily?”

Rage.

Guilt swallowed Keira like she’d fallen into a tar pit. The very thought of having asked something to her that she absolutely shouldn’t have made her lose her breath.

 If Lily of all people started hating her, she…

From the cockpit a very angry Rosemary came out, holding Nyaro tightly in her arms. Behind her came Range, who was saying something Keira couldn’t understand because of the distance.

“I guess our time is up.” Rubbing his forehead with annoyed disappointment, he complained to her. “Why can’t he just keep his hands to himself for god’s sake?”

“As if you are any better.” Rosemary burst into their conversation, standing next to Keira with a look that wanted to kill anyone that got too close to her. “Come on Keira, we are leaving.”

“Leaving! Leaving!” Nyaro repeated.

“Don’t we have to keep Nyaro here?” She asked while she was metaphorically pulled away by her friend.

“I don’t care.” She answered with a voice that could barely hold in her tears.

Whatever plan she would have come up to be able to eat today had gone out the window at that very moment. Even as the colors of the world were fading from her vision, with the subtle glow of red being the only one remaining, she knew that Rosemary needed her.

She would be strong, she would be diligent, she would not submit to the ever growing hunger that reared its ugly head at that moment.

“Ok.” Keira supported her.

For there was no one else that would.

When they reached the door to leave, Keira looked back at her Gundam, unable to shake the terror born out of Lily’s rage.

“I’m sorry.” She wished her friend to be able to grip the sincere sorrow within her words as she stepped outside.

Eldritch worry filled her mind, followed by a sorrow that matched her own. The rage that had burned so violently minutes ago had left cold ash behind. In those swirling emotions, the pilot of the Gundam named Remnant grasped something she couldn’t describe, yet clearer than anything before.

Take care of Rosemaria.

Utterly pathetic, that’s how Rosemaria Ryn Stonework felt like.

Her mind hadn’t allowed her a second of respite after they had reached the safe heaven that was their room. The clashing thoughts, like the waves of the ocean during a storm, threatened to drown her if she’d as much concentrated on the wrong thing, like everything in existence at that moment.

“I hate it.” She said with tears running down her cheeks and unto her beloved cat plushy hugged tightly around her chest. “I fucking hate it. I hate it.”

Nervously next to her, Keira, her one and only human friend in all the ship sat silently next to her.

She couldn’t see her face, she couldn’t feel her gentle cold presence, nor could she hear the words of comfort that would come from her lips; but she knew she was there. She was there. She was there with her. She was. She was.

“I hate it.” It echoed on every fiber of her being. “I hate it. I hate it.”

Powerlessness. The rage within her had wilted far too quickly, exposing the rotten fear within.

A full thirteen days of this remained.

“I hate it.” She feared it.

The bruise on her wrist was already turning purple. The icepack above it numbed the physical pain, exacerbated the mental.

The tainted smell of his lotion remained buried in her nose.

“I hate it.”

Why had Keira agreed to leave? Why hadn’t she stayed? Why had she allowed this to happen. Why? Why? Why?

She wanted to resent Keira. She wanted her to be hurt. She wanted her to understand just how fucked up her whole self felt because of this. She wanted Keira to cry for her, to beg for forgiveness. She wanted her to grasp just how badly she wanted to stop being.

She couldn’t.

As far possessed as her mind was due to her unstable heart, she couldn’t do it.

“Don’t leave me.” She cried.

Neither too strongly to finish breaking her, nor too loose to have her fall, Keira’s arms, strong and cold, enveloped her.

“I won’t.”

Exhaustion caught up to Rosemary. Her body begged to lie down. She gave it what it wanted.