“It... wasn’t?”

Nilam gives DZ a how are you not getting this face.

"I'm sorry, Ma'am. You'll have to be a little patient with me, I've only been here a few hundred degrees, I don't really know what things are like here yet. Can you help me understand?"

“So there are twelve dragons here, and you have to choose one of them or else you’re stuck in the UH. I wanted to pledge to Guinevere, because she’s got the fewest rules, but she said I wasn’t old enough.”

Nilam strikes a pose that is perhaps intended to convey how grownup she is. It is at most a middling success.

“So I pledged to Culamine because at least her rules are better than the UH rules. But that doesn’t mean I want to be Culamine’s. You get it?”

She nods. "Can you change, later? Not that this is fair, but we're trying to figure out just how bad things are."

“Yeah, I was gonna try for Guinevere again in a couple decacycles. Oh, and my mom keeps telling me to re-pledge to Ladriel when I’m older—she’s a Thousand Finger Knight you know—but fuck that, right?”

Nilam stops, as though she’s momentarily forgotten what she’s getting at, then glances at Thamarai and adds: “Though obviously, no dragon at all would be the best possible option. Which is why I’d like to go to the United Colonies.”

She nods. "Let me talk to Deskyl for a minute?"

They sign.

"We don't expect to be able to get you to the United Colonies, at this point - we only have the one ship, and most everyone else wants to stay. But Deskyl's been thinking about giving fighting lessons, once this all calms down, and she already had her first sword when she was your age, she certainly doesn't think you're too young. If you come take lessons with her, and give her a chance to see that you can handle yourself, she'll put in a word with Guinevere for you, and maybe she'll take you a little early. Does that sound good?"

“Yeah. Fine.”

(Emotion Read: pouty.)

They return to the hallway.

    "So, one fairly typical teenager - Deskyl will keep working with her, if she has time, she can probably do better than that - and one leon who has the same sort of story that Deskyl would expect half the civilians on this ship to have in thirty decacycles, if she'd let you take them. Is there anyone else?"

Tamarai inhales, holds the breath for a moment, and then shakes her head thoroughly.

"No ma'am."

    "Take us to her."

"Her?"

Who does Deskyl mean?

Tamarai is pretty sure she knows but she would enjoy being wrong.

    "The one you don't want us to meet. Last chance."

"Oh! It's not like that!" It's totally like that. "I just figured you wouldn't want to count her towards the dissenters, since she isn't really..."

Tamarai does not wait to finish speaking before beginning to comply with Deskyl's request. Before DZ even has a chance to translate her deflections, she is moving in the direction of the spy-containing bunk hall.

Following it is, then.

"Name: Anila Kaur. Age: thirty-seven decacycles. Deep cover agent."

Thamarai grips one of the handles on the bulkhead wall and pulls with both hands. One of the coffin beds, currently occupied, slides halfway out into the gangway.

Anila glances around, spots Deskyl, and Becomes Alarmed.

Uh-huh.

    "Explain."

She sits up.

Blinks.

Clears her throat.

"You're the one they came to rescue, right?"

    "The 'primary objective', yes. Was that your doing?"

"I reported your existence and location to colonial LogCom. I remained embedded in the population after making my report, and took no further disruptive actions."

Deskyl takes a deep breath, rubs her eyebrows, and very visibly, intentionally, relaxes.

    "Why did you think that that was a good idea?"

"It seemed obvious that the dragons would try to use someone with your powers as a tool. I thought that my superiors might like to intervene."

    "That doesn't answer her question: Why did you think that that was good?"

"It would be easiest to explain if I first knew for sure what 'good' meant to her?"

Anila straightens out her clothes, delicately removes herself from the slide-out bed and perches on the side of it.

"I can speculate on that count. I observed her, after all, in those early days after she woke up. How she carved out a safe berth for herself by demonstrating her... unique capacity towards violence?"

(Emotion read: cautiously hopeful, morally certain, but making peace with own mortality.)

    "It's a tool, and a more versatile one if people understand that it's a real option for her. It's what you do with the tools you have that matters."

Anila nods.

"The dragons are stronger than us, but by making it clear that subjugating us would cost them dearly we have forestalled their plans of conquest. My fear, when I heard tell of your master's capabilities, was that she might tip the balance in such a way that humanity's tools would no longer be adequate to deter external aggression. Does such reasoning constitute a 'good' motive, from her perspective?"