"Will that be a problem?"

"If she wants her name on the lease, possibly. If not, probably not. More just...warning you about the timing, I guess."

"I'm not sure whether she'll want that or not. Can it be fixed later, if she does?"

Shin hums thoughtfully. "I'm sure it can be done, but I'm not sure how easy it would be."

"I don't expect it to be a problem in the short term, then. Thank you."

"Maybe have her look at names if she's up to it," Ant suggests. "New ID papers are a good time to reinvent yourself."

"...maybe. I'm not sure she wouldn't be upset at the suggestion, though. She would have earned a new name when she killed her master, but she didn't manage it."

"-Oh."

The water bottle in Ira's hand crackles as his grip tightens. "Given what I saw of her fighting, he must've been keeping her pretty beaten down."

"It was - very bad, yes."

"Hm."

"Well, it's something she can think about."

She considers. "I don't think she'd appreciate me mentioning it; if she wants to change her name, I expect she'll just do that."

"I'll need a name to put on the ID, and...hm, surname? Suppose I could just add to the Becker family..."

"That mean I get a cool older sister as well as two cool older brothers?"

"She might like that. I'll ask her when she wakes up again."

Ant grins, and then flops down onto the bed with a book.

And DZ gets back to work.

The next time Deskyl is awake, they go over a list of translations of 'sunset', and she settles on the Swahili for her surname: Machwa.

Shin gets photos of her at the same time. He's hopeful for having ID ready for Friday, but can't promise.

"This wouldn't be a problem if you hadn't killed Dalliard," Ira comments, throwing a chip into his mouth.

"No," Shin agrees mildly, stealing a chip from the packet in Ira's hands. "But if I hadn't killed Dalliard, we would've had other problems. Like his very flexible approach to the concept of consent."

"He did good, fast work, and I needed to be sure he was gonna keep his mouth shut."

"He's very dead," Shin assures Deskyl. "And I got him before he managed anything. I don't know what was going through his head to even threaten that, if I hadn't killed him, someone else in his line of work would've. Forgers shouldn't really even threaten to turn their clients over to the authorities."

    "It's good that he's dead, yes."