"I'll let you make your own decisions," Theresa says. "If you feel you need the break, I don't think anyone can blame you. Kiana, please help as well."
Engineering is quickly getting… kind of busy. It's a far cry from what you remember, but there are people all over the place now, talking over the situation and running components around. Tesla is issuing orders in rapid fire, and the engineer woman just walked into reactor three dragging four people along.
You don't want to be the only one taking a break, is the thing.
You know she means it. Theresa is the kindest commander you could have asked for, which is pretty much the reason you've let her. Command, and stuff.
You… do feel a little woozy, now that you're standing still. Maybe... maybe a rest would be...
"Seele?" Theresa asks, sharply.
"C-coming..." You say, your voice trailing off. Then, you shake your head to clear it. You're
fine. You're just a little tired, that's all. And searching the entire ship from top to bottom would take days, but you're just checking the most likely spots.
You take a step forward, and stumble.
"Are you okay?" asks Kiana.
"I-I... I guess not." Your head's still hurting, and it takes a moment for your eyes to focus on her. You could still overcome this, you're pretty sure, but it's reaching the point of idiocy. If you asked Vel to stop being a separate person, that would do it.
...you're not going to do that. You'll be damned if you're getting her to sacrifice herself for your sake.
Kiana looks at you with concern, just as Vel looks at you with concern, but... in Vel's eyes, there's a touch of fear. You try to ignore it. You can't.
"Vel," you say, "You can... You can take charge. If you need me, I..."
You don't finish. Vel looks at you for a second before nodding. She seems to understand.
"Alright," she says.
You let your avatar blink out. Right now even the slight effort of running two of them feels like too much. Vel can deal with it. Possessed-by-a-demon powers, go!
'Get a good rest, sis,' Vel tells you. 'I'll wake you if anything goes wrong. Of course, I'll also wake you if something goes right.'
You almost want to laugh, but just give a small smile instead. You like her this way. You close your eyes and lose consciousness.
ooOOoo
You are, temporarily, Veliona. It's the best of many poor options.
Seele is gone, but only for a little while. You sigh, and look at the others.
Now what do you do?
Your social skills sum up as 'Threaten passers-by with death if they dare to reveal you're doing something nice.' You're not sure you're up to being on your own. What if you say something wrong? What if you
do something wrong? You're not a very good person.
No.
You're not doing this to yourself.
The other girls look suspicious. What a bother.
Rozaliya and
Liliya look worried, and that actually hurts a little. You know yourself that you tend to come off as a bit of a… Well, you're not sure if 'bully' is the right word. Probably not. 'Demon'? 'Crazy, violent dark side'?
You want Seele back,
now, please.
"She's asleep." You sigh, and lean against the wall. You honestly wish you could do the same yourself.
"What happened?" Kiana asks.
"She's asleep," you repeat, your voice a bit more biting than usual. "Just like she should be. She'll be up and about soon enough, but I should have asked her to take a rest earlier."
It's all kind of…
You hadn't realized how much stress a double set of avatars was putting on the stigmata. With the battle damage… it's coping decently, but it'll take a little while to fix. Localized overloads. Bruising and tiredness. That sort of thing. If you stop moving, that will help.
You'd really thought you could keep it from getting this bad.
Kiana seems to accept the explanation, but you can see Rozaliya and Liliya eyeing you with trepidation.
"But where is she?" Roz asks. "She just vanished."
You point at your own chest.
"Right here," you say. "Remember when you saw me sneaking out at night? It's like that. Seele is fine, I promise, she's just sleeping."
Sort of. Very sort of.
"Sorry, Theresa. You'll have to give us an hour," you tell the tiny teacher.
"You'll have one," she says, eyeing the four of you. "Kiana, I'd like you to get a head start. Let's take a look at the schematics."
She leads Kiana to a table a few dozen meters away, and you fall into thought, sitting down cross-legged and closing your eyes. It's weird, innit? You feel both more and less like a normal person than usual.
Saying Seele's asleep isn't quite right, but you guess it'll do.
You actually 'borrowed' her administrative privileges, which you may have forgotten to ever tell her she had, and used them to set her mind on pause. It's not for any reason that would worry her nowadays—you just never wanted to hand her something she could use to actually be rid of you.
At first, because that would clearly reduce your ability to protect the stigmata. A bit later, because you didn't want to die. Later yet, because for a while you worried she'd use it on
both of you. Then it just never came up after you got back to reality.
But you've never gotten her this genuinely hurt either, and it makes you want to kick yourself. You should have known the local Sea couldn't be as safe as it looked.
"Vel?"
You open your eyes.
Rozaliya sniffs, her attempt at anger turning tremulous. You kick yourself again, and attempt to reassure her.
"She's perfectly fine, I
promise," you tell Seele's little sister honestly. "Just give me, like, an hour, and I can get her back."
That doesn't feel like enough. You turn to Liliya.
"Can you… keep an eye on Roz for a little bit?"
"Sure…" she says, her voice very quiet. "Vel, are you sure she's fine?"
"I promise," you say.
You look at her, trying to burn the image into your mind. A memory of a taller Liliya staring in terror at you flashes through your head. You push it away.
This is Seele's job. All this mushy, emotional stuff is Seele's job. You're good at lots of things, but coddling people isn't among them. Even lately. Especially lately. You feel like you're being torn in a hundred directions, and it's all. Seele's. Fault.
You're remembering things you can't possibly remember, flashes and impressions that
can't be yours, and you'd be complaining if you weren't also absolutely sure that many of them can't possibly be Seele's. You won't mince words, won't pull punches: The fragments are the stuff of nightmares, not something Seele would ever have done. They can't possibly be real.
They're horrifying except, sometimes, for when the twins are there. Not the one just now; you don't want to look at her and remember that.
You eye Liliya, and place your hand about half a head above her horn. She should be… about… like that, right?
"Vel? What are you doing?" Liliya asks.
Shortie. Always with the questions.
"Just checking if you're still growing," you say.
"I thought Seele said we'd stopped," she says, her nervousness giving way to curiosity.
You shrug. "She did? Must've been years ago. I'm surprised you remember. It's fine, you don't need to get any taller."
She doesn't say anything to that. Instead, she shifts her weight onto her other leg. She looks at you.
"Vel?"
"Yes?"
"How long have you… really been around for?" she asks, very quietly, as though afraid of the answer.
Quite a while, you think. Probably not as long as Seele thinks, though. You shrug again. "Do you remember when Sin pushed Bronya down the stairs?"
She nods.
"I remember. She was very mean. She got weirdly scared of Seele after that. Was that you?"
"Yeah. I… I wasn't around before that, though. That's my first memory; rage."
She looks at you for a while. You look back, willing her to ignore the lie. After an eternity of silence, she speaks up again.
"Vel? That's scary."
"It took a lot to wake me up. I wasn't supposed to have a personality, I think." You look away from her. "It was an accident. A mistake. I shouldn't be here. Stigmata are broken, just as a whole. World Serpent kept pushing for something that doesn't work, and whoever made them is dead."
"But you're here now, right?"
You nod once. "I'm here now."
She hugs you. You pat her head in return. It's a bit awkward for Liliya, no doubt, but you appreciate the thought.
"Are you feeling better?"
"Yeah," you say.
You still have your low-level headache, a litany of damage reports streaming through reminding you you didn't do your job today, but it's ignorable. The twins are fine. You're fine. You're still alive. And you've still got Seele; she'll be awake soon enough.
They all mean well, but... you're Veliona. This is your burden to bear.
She's gotta have realized that's not your real name, right?
ooOOoo
You're Seele again. That's the name you've always had.
"Morning, sleepyhead."
You find yourself lying with your head in Veliona's lap, staring at the ceiling of Engineering. She's gently brushing her hand through your hair, looking contemplatively down at you.
"Headache gone?"
"I feel... good," you say.
Like you had a strained muscle you didn't notice, and now it's gone. A pleasant warmth spreads through you. Like a fall afternoon cuddled by a fire with Bronya, reading a book. You feel warm and pleasant, like everything is going to be OK.
But you also feel confused. When did you fall asleep? How long have you been here? Where is here, exactly? How did you get here? Why are you lying on the floor when there's a bench next to you? Can't you at least sit up?
"Vel," you say. "I'm confused."
She smiles.
Veliona fills you in over the next couple of minutes. You're not happy with the idea that you can be
turned off, to say the least, but you get why she didn't tell you earlier. To be honest, you're a little impressed she went through with it. She could've easily left you in the dark.
"Anyway, the twins are helping carry reactor components," she says. "And Kiana is poking around. I gave her some of Einstein's favorite locations, but she's still your teacher, not mine. Kiana will be back in a couple of minutes, I bet."
You groan and start to get up. Vel helps you.
"Thank you," you say once you're on your feet. "What about Theresa?"
"She's..." Veliona's voice trails off.
"She's what?" you ask.
"She's talking to Otto," Vel says. "I don't know what about. I doubt she'd even want me to know that much, except I heard her yell at him. Roughly fifteen minutes ago."
"What? Why didn't you tell me?"
Veliona puts a finger to her lips.
"I don't want to interrupt whatever it is she's doing, and you needed the sleep," she says. "Come on, Theresa knows what she's doing. She asked us to start searching for Einstein once you wake up, so all's good."
Looks like it's time to go find your teacher. Fine, you guess.
"Einstein would be..." You hesitate, because there are a couple options, but most of them are too obvious. Her quarters? Kiana would already have found her. CIC? Ditto. Mech maintenance?
That's actually a pretty decent chance, but you seriously hope you're wrong. It's far too close to the skin of the Hyperion. Then again, that means you could jump there in a minute, with or without Kiana's help… You just wouldn't be able to get back.
Most of the major locations, Kiana could already have checked. Probably did already check, days ago. The battleship is nearly fully automated, though, and it's the nooks and crannies that have people in them.
She might be in the hobby room? You guess. If she was recording a song during the end of the world. So no.
Drone control... probably not, Eins is better at that. It would be nice to see that silly little AI again, but it can wait.
…
Your teacher's strongest drive is her curiosity. She'd be an asset in almost any situation, sure enough, but where could she be the most helpful during an apocalypse that apparently tore the planet apart, while also satisfying her need for knowledge?
"I don't want to say it," you say, "but if Einstein had a choice, she'd be in the scanner section. Where we already looked. There was nothing there, except a pile of meals and..."
"A bubble universe we sealed up ourselves," Veliona says darkly. "I hope you're wrong about that."
"It was already closed," you point out. "And we didn't look literally everywhere, just the habitable sections. She could have squeezed into a machine space."
Yeah. You didn't close the door, you just locked it. Maybe she's there? Maybe she's not. It's about the most dangerous place you can think of, and a risk either way.
= = =
Thelxiope, please put down the knife. This is @Mizu's fault.
You get a second vote for the twins, because quantum weirdness is unlikely and they might come in handy.
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