Hailey is still in her seat, an eyebrow raised. "So that's what it looks like from the outside. Not very dramatic. Felt a lot like a normal connection point, while you were gone, but not quite the same. Not sure if I could follow you or not."

Eva nods.

"I'm all backed up now. It's okay if I die, I'll respawn. Short my memories of the intervening time, but you can't have everything. If you want that too I can bring you over and you can borrow my pearl."

She gives Sable a smile. "I think I'm ready."

Her jaw drops. "That would be fucking awesome. Yes please. Immortality is good. Yes fucking please."

"Alright. Hold my hand and I'll bring you with me."

Eva reaches out and offers her hand to Hailey.

She reaches out, takes a slow breath, and then takes Eva's hand, briefly sucking in air tightly through her teeth at the feeling of skin contact with someone new.

Exotrauma continues to be a bitch, yes, thanks.

But she steadies herself, and nods firmly.

And Eva pops through again.

The egg greets her, just as pearlescent and solid as before.

She points. "Just lay your hand on that and it'll do a capture. I'll have to manually retrieve you if you die but it's way better than having no backups at all."

She nods, and rests her hand on the egg.

Countless memories flash through them, in far more detail than they normally have anywhere near the capacity to recall: bullies, ADHD diagnoses, medication causing a nervous twitch when they were eight, screaming breakdowns over realizing pointlessness at twelve, crushes, their first kiss, the lingering, poorly-understood discomfort of unidentified gender dysphoria, their eleven year relationship with their abusive ex-girlfriend before they'd cracked their eggshell, all the moments where Hailey had been fronting and no one realized because they didn't understand they were plural yet, the horrible mess of a cult that formed around that one author, the excitement taking hormones for the first time, exhaustion of pointless dayjobs, and so much more.

It's done in a moment.

She shakes her head to clear it.

"Wow. That was a fucking experience."

"Isn't it just? Even knowing to expect it, it's a lot."

Eva smiles softly and offers her hand again. 

"We could stay here, but I think we were in the middle of something."

She nods, steels herself, and takes her hand. "Yeah." Her breath is a bit shallower during the contact, though it's easier than it was the first time.

"Let's go get our salable goods."

"Yes, let's."

And within seconds they're back through.

Eva goes to the door of the submarine and nods to Hailey. 

"Ready when you are."

She pulls the trainship around so the aft cargo hatch is right next to the forest, then parks again, locking the train in place.

"Okay. Lemme show you where the hold is."

She gets out of her chair and walks over to a door at the rear of the locomotive, checking if Eva's following.

Eva follows, apparently all ears.

Through the door is a tight little junction of corridors, with a door directly ahead of them, and upward stairs to either side. "Up there is the living quarters, lounge, and galley. You're welcome to claim a bedroom up there when we're done with this. Through here," she gestures at the door, "is the hold."

She opens it and steps through, revealing a large, boxy compartment spanning the entire width of the ship, with some fold-up shelves off to the sides, various straps in a box in a corner, and an enormous hatch occupying the entire far wall. She heads directly for that hatch, swinging it open out into the water, which obligingly fails to pass through the threshold into the ship.

"Here we are."

"Looks like we've got a lot of space. Once we get samples I think my world can make more, but getting those samples is the hard part." 

Eva frowns. "I have a bad feeling for some reason. I'm not sure why. It just..." 

She looks out at the forest of kelp. 

"Be careful out there, okay?"

She holds up a hand and stops suppressing the slight overflow of having a full charge for just a moment. A few sparks jump between her spread fingers, and she winks. "Will do. I got this. Get ready to catch lumber."

And she turns and leaps out the hatch into the water, looking around carefully.

Eva shifts to her combat form. It's stronger, anyway, and she's going to be hauling wood. 

She's got this. She hopes.

The water is still and quiet. The kelp forest has a few fish passing through it, but nothing of any real size. It's not that far to go.

She swims the few feet to the first piece of kelp, grabs hold, and braces her knees against it a bit lower down. She leans back, pulling the sturdy stalk as hard as she can, but she's not quite strong enough to snap it.

She scowls and swims back into the hold.

"Shit. It'll snap like bamboo, but I'm not quite strong enough to break it. Lemme see if there's a saw in any of the leftover junk that came with these cargo cars before we folded them into the ship."

She starts rifling through boxes.

Eva nods, closes the hatch behind Hailey and helps her search. 

Unfortunately, no saw or cutting implement is in evidence even after they take a thorough search of the hold. 

"I could try snapping it with my improved strength?"

"That'd work. I'll guard while you snap?"

"Yeah, that'll probably work. I don't like us both being out of the ship at once, but I think we can manage." 

Eva goes over to the hatch again, and takes a breath. "I'm not going to trust that no-breathing power before I've tested it, but it seems to work fine for you, so... On three?"

"On three," she replies with a smile. "One, two, three."

And she leaps into the water, looking around.