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Sue graduates from Tactical School a year early, he's barely fifteen. He's toned down the flirting - he treats Aegis completely platonically, in particular - and has cut down on the unhealthy amount of sleeping-with-everything-that-wants. And he's apparently, via his independent study, gotten far enough through the curriculum that they're nudging him along to Command.
They've given Sue a strange old man for a tutor, who appeared in his room and started a physical confrontation, which Sue won; Sue related this story to her with something between amusement and irritation.
And a quicker-than-average flurry of notes has been piling up in the psych data since about that time, according to the timestamps.
Aegis knows before they tell her that they're going to send her to Command early too. She's just barely fifteen herself when she gets another update of the psych files and sees that Sue's had - well, the files aren't terribly clear, some of the communication is happening via in-person conversation and memos that don't get stored in these folders, but Sue's had some kind of breakdown and the only things they can think of to get him out of it, get him back into shape to train and fight, are her friendship and Howlett. They have mixed feelings about both - Howlett's insubordination problem; their bewilderment that Aegis and Sue can be so close when "she's the one person he can't link!" - but they're desperate.
Bird? They don't talk as often over the long distance, just as there was a lull when he went to Tactical ahead of her; their schedules have nothing in common and their contexts less. But he knows her, and he can reach this far if he tries. And she wants to know what's wrong.
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autokinetic
autokinetic
"Are you going to exist for good? What if someone finds you, what if something happens to you?"
"I can be really little, look," and she turns into a housefly and buzzes up to Sue's head and hides just behind his ear.
"But if she dies," Sue murmurs, "so do I."
"But if she dies," Sue murmurs, "so do I."
"Yep," he agrees, and Ivy zips back to Aegis's lap and becomes a fluffy whatever-it-was again.
autokinetic
"What in the world is this thing you're being? The avatar of the concept of huggableness?" Aegis asks, hugging Ivy.
"It's a viscacha," she says. "I think they're related to rabbits. They're very fluffy."
autokinetic
"I can tell you're fluffy all right," says Aegis, and she buries her face in Ivy's fluff.
"Mmmmmmmmmm," says Ivy, wriggling a little. "We loooooove you."
"It's true!" she says. "I'm a daemon, we're good at feelings. That's what that feeling is. We love you. You're the best person in the world."
autokinetic
"Thanks," murmurs Aegis, trailing her fingers through deep-pile fur.
Sue nods several times, snuggling closer to both of them. Ivy closes her eyes and wriggles again.
autokinetic
"You're going to have to hide practically all the time," Aegis murmurs to Ivy. "There's no animals aboard the asteroid, even bugs. There's not even livestock in with the 'ponics except for some fish. The meat is from vats."
Ivy nods her fluffy head.
autokinetic
Aegis yawns. "At some point I'm gonna have to stop petting you and go to sleep," she says.
"Can I sleep with you?" Ivy asks immediately.
autokinetic
"...Sure," says Aegis. "If you want to. I move around in my sleep a lot so you don't want to be anything fragile."
"I'm plenty not-fragile right now," she says. "Fluffluffluff."
autokinetic
"Okay." Aegis ruffles Sue's hair, and then picks up Ivy and carries her over to her side of the room. She shuts her desk and slips under the covers, hugging Ivy like a stuffed animal just the way Sue first was.
"We love you," Ivy murmurs, snuggling into her arms.
Sue and Ivy drift off to sleep.
And at some point during the night, there is a brief golden glow, and Ivy disappears.
And at some point during the night, there is a brief golden glow, and Ivy disappears.
autokinetic
Aegis wakes up, and her arms are empty. She sits up and pats the bed - "Ivy?"
No Ivy.
There's Sue, though, sleeping as soundly as ever.
There's Sue, though, sleeping as soundly as ever.
autokinetic
Perhaps Ivy was a strange dream, perhaps Aegis drifted off to sleep while she was still reading and had a weird dream that included Ivy.
Huh.
She changes uniforms for the day and picks up her Russian novel again.
Huh.
She changes uniforms for the day and picks up her Russian novel again.