"We can talk about my bosses where there are less prying ears. As for your end... I think you've told me enough for me to... get a sense of you. And I care about you a lot. I might ask just as a friendly thing, but I don't need to learn more to trust you. Call it an instinct thing. You just... seem reliable."

"Aww! Glad to hear it, 'course. But that's how I meant it. Friendly stories, to widen the channel. If you need a way to trust me, I expect you'll ask or find one. We need to go on a date when we get back. Not that Titania wasn't really fun."

"We should absolutely go on a date once we get back. Storytime can be part of it. And meeting more of the family, so to speak. But frankly? There's a lot of the Reach I haven't seen, and having you as a guide is lovely."

"Huh, there's probably folks in New Winchester I should introduce you to. I'll think about it."

Hesitation.

"...Hug?"

"Definitely hug." 

She hugs her.

Hug!!!

"Well, back to work for me. Have a nice sleep, you."

The return to New Winchester is uneventful. They even pass Dreadnoughts, which make everyone tense for a while, worried they'll suddenly demand to prepare to be boarded. But nothing happens.

"I," she tells Thorn, as they're deboarding the As Clockwork for the last time, "Want to go get fresh bacon, then collapse into my apartment bed with you."

"Sounds like an excellent plan and one I fully endorse. Let's go get bacon."

Bacon is got. Also, eggs. And a bit of ice for the icebox. Her apartment is still there - "I paid the next month anyway since I would've lost two weeks' rent."

She drops her stuff from the locomotive just inside the door, puts the eggs and bacon up, and says, "Correction. Shower, food, then bed. Any objections?" The locomotive didn't have a proper shower, so the last shower they've had was on Titania.

"Absolutely zero objections."

She shuts the bathroom door out of habit, then hesitates, then comes back and opens it again with a sort of shy/embarrassed smirk in Thorn's direction, and has her shower.

Well that's interesting. 

As lovely as it would be to watch her girlfriend shower, she thinks she'd rather hurry the process along by starting the bacon cooking.

Lenora showers fairly quickly, makes a happy noise about her warmsoft towels, wraps her hair up and puts her underwear back on plus a loose clean shirt.

"Your turn. I think I remember how you like your eggs, I'll fix 'em."

"Thanks much." 

She goes and showers. She puts clothes back on afterwards. There is still a meal to be had.

Lenora also has some canned beans and crackers that were left in the cabinets. Her table is a bit small but does have two chairs.

She's quiet, just sort of silently vegging out or smiling at Thorn for most of the meal. 

"...City noise is different from engine noise, but sometimes I just want to go somewhere way out of the way where it's just silent. I'd get antsy again quick enough, but someplace like Port Avon sounds nice sometimes. You ever get like that?"

"Not really. I like a bit of noise in the background; it helps me sleep. When things are silent, truly silent, my hackles go up. That means something's disturbed the wildlife, or something like that." 

She hums. "As for a place like Port Avon... I suspect I'd go stir-crazy fast in a place like that. I'm built for adventure."

"Built for adventure is a good shape to be. I'd go stir-crazy eventually, too. It's nice to have a break sometimes, that's all. A weeklong vacation, not a month or year's stay."

"Yeah, I could see a weeklong vacation to unwind and not have to deal with anything weird or unexpected. Like..." She thinks better of bringing up Captain DeVries. "Like the scrive-spinster. I was fairly rattled after that. It was exciting in the moment, but the fact we could've been torn apart..." She runs a hand through her hair. "Maybe not good dinner table conversation."

Lenora munches bacon.

"It's fine. I'm... Sort of over it? Danger is all over the sky. Starlight makes me emotional and fighty but I bounce back from stuff pretty well. Just coming home has done most of it already, it's safe here. The Spatchcock you were looking at will be less nice than the Clockwork. It was a Pelignore-class. Better plating, more space inside, smoother, better heating, flush toilets and a proper galley. Just to warn you in advance. If you want a drilling rig to go after Hour-rocks or Bronze driftwood, one can be got secondhand for three hundred, maybe. It'd be profitable if we manage to use it at least three times."

Thorn munches eggs.

"Being safe matters, yeah. I can deal with reduced amenities but didn't even consider getting a mining rig. Where do you usually find Hours and Bronzewood?"

"You can find Hours all over, except right near Port Prosper or New Winchester. Most commonly near Lustrum and other non-verdant bits of the Reach. Bronzewood is most common near the Nature Reserve, Magdalene's, and Titania, and Traitor's Wood - that whole north-eastern area."

"Sounds like a drilling rig might be a wise long-term investment, if there's that much to use it on out in the sky. Is there anything else you can think of like that? Good job on the charts by the way, they're beautiful."

"It's mostly Hours and Bronzewood, I think. At least for mining rigs. It's most useful in the Reach. There's - assaying devices, to get a good look at things from a distance, that can be used for salvage. Less directly useful, I think. And butchery devices, to scoop up pardoner-eels, or Cantankeri insides, though that's awful and ghastly. You can find Hour-geodes in Albion too. It's handy to have favors to call in, right? I did kind of get lucky, though."

"I plan to stay in the Reach for some time building up funds," she says. "I don't want to venture to Elutheria without flush toilets if I can avoid it. And yes, I'm very lucky to have happened across you."

"See, I consider myself lucky to have a chance to buy from OTC. I've noticed what Mercury Reaches does for me by now - I want a Ka sooner rather than later, after some reflection. I'm not in desperate need of it at all yet, but it can't hurt and it might make me a little more spry, right? It's a lot of pain to get it just through pain, though. Even spread out. And you don't really want to suffer while you're sailing, seems like it'd make the starlight worse. But also, I've been thinking, that thing that does mental influence resistance - that might help against low-level star-madness after all. I dismissed it before because something that can screw with your head directly can probably ignore most protections about it, but isn't star-madness just relatively subtle head-screwing?"

"It's best practice to spend a few ka just to keep yourself in fighting shape, yeah. I can mint you one from this body's lifespan, actually - the OTC builds things to really last, I'm good for a millenium. So here, take this." She makes a pulling motion above her heart, and a glittering pink heart-shaped crystal appears in her hand; she offers it wordlessly.

"If there's a way to insulate against star madness in the catalog - and I don't doubt there is, it just might be out of our price range - then I want it. And my budget is bigger than yours. Let me have a look at my mental catalog here... the Rod of Freedom? That would probably work, the only trouble is you'd have to carry the rod all day long. I bet that could be worked into a tattoo though, something along the spine near the nape of the neck... We'll need to get it done in the demiplane, of course."