...She scrunches up her brow. 

"I suppose you wouldn't have the earth's blessing - mundane enough fruits can grow in hours, if you want, and ever-nourishing ones are cheap enough that anyone can get one, if they want. I think the only people who end up hungry are those doing it for some ritual."

"Oof yeah. It mostly just gets... fragile, in terms of actually havin' enough for it 'nd everything else, tho sometimes you just aren't in a place w/ resources, tho hon a lot of it is just not bein' connected to quite the right place. You can go and bloody search out the right way to connect stuff 'p. It's good to see thin's all be set up, for some sorta real solution, for whatever 't's worth, 'nd it's easy to want to make it better. Tax policy shit's actually been interestin' to me, even before tryin' to set up my own bloody empire, 'nd makin' people have what it takes to go 'nd engage w/ the world w/ teh sorta resources that you just need ot succeed's parta the drive that gets me up 'n the day, even 'yond helpin' out my polycule and the promises 've made to get my life 'n order."

She smiles as she picks her own plate clean. 

"For me it's always been about avoiding intrusions, keeping the breaking of the rules away from the things built upon them. Keep the fortress provisioned, keep the garrison staffed, deploy to stop the thieves and assailants. Making things into something better isn't quite..." 

She palms her glass, swirling it around and turning it around slightly in her hand. 

"My right. Everyone has the right to defend themselves, and not to be stolen from, to have their lives taken away by the whim of man or beast. Just because I'm plugged into the systems of the High King doesn't hcange that - I don't have the right to control their lives, anymore than any one else does." 

I snicker. 

"A libertarian police officer? Never thought 'd see the day." 

The second snort is wistful, and quiet. 

"The intuitions grab me, sometimes, but 'n practice the solutions all involve a ton of bloody social trust and free time 'nd free energy to make the economics work out that mean that they're dubious ideas, a lotta the time. 'nd anyways, people are assholes and minarchies have a habit of not bein' strong 'nough to stop alternative, opposin' rules set up, 'nd that's 'f anythin' a lot worse. Keepin' thin' strong, stable, w/ a presumptive coverage of the adjudication of things under some limited flexibility rules still... seems right? 'm happy to see whatever happens to be right or work best 'n Summer, but stoppin' people from doin' deceptie shit 's right there i'n importance w/ the more 'mmediate destruction." 

She laughs, a little bitter, a lot weary. 

"Look at us go. Talking about politics and philosophy when we look for something light. What a mess." 

I settle in. 

It's quiet, now, the contararian instincts and the fire beneath her skin gone, because I'm simply not her. 

It takes a moment to adjust, a few seconds to drop into the state of the skin being mine, to shed her body image like a serpent. 

...I take a moment to shake off the impetus to be slinky Sapphire, for this. 

It's not the time to be that forward, or even probably forward in the first place. 

"It's... something of a theme, when you're unsettled enough. Glad we got to talk and train with you, hope this will help us both rest, after this? This sort of thing just bubbles up, and once it's gone, it can be important to have some space, afterwards." 

"...Yeah. I spend perhaps a bit too much time on, myself." 

She takes her plate, and wanders off. 

...Then twists her head back, waves and sighs. 

"Thank you for your time, too. You've given me a lot to think about." 

"No problem." 

I nod my head in thanks again, and leave myself to eat for another little while. 

...It's nice, to dig in myself, and stare into space where I can, trying to fill my mind with the chance to relax and engage with something that won't be too tiring.

The hopes and dreams are.... hard, harsher things that make it difficult to parse what exactly I'm doing, when there's just so so much to do, hypothetically. 

But now's not the time for hypotheticals, though it is apparently time for a summons.

This one is more of a notional one - an illusion of the idea of a missive, some vague amorphous impression of the contents aside, the actual imagery, asking for some time to spend with Amaya. 

You know, why not.

I wander off again, space reorienting around after I fully finish the meal, and I'm left in a barely furnished room after walking through her door. 

There's a forge cloaked in shadow - a vast tower of metal shrouded in shade, a simple wooden table with a chairset and a stretching expanse of nothing but lint and concrete stretching out as far as I can see, aside the tools that Amaya kept at her side and her herself. 

It's... rather hollow. 

I blink, and incline my head in acknowledgement.

"Good afternoon, heart of blue. Come sit." 

I trace my hand along the back of the chair - feeling out the ethereal dusty purple-grey crystals as I pull it out, fingers trailing along the grain of the wood as I think for a moment, before sliding into place, placing my spine right up against the chair, firm and straight, as I watch her closely.

"Your name?"

"Moonsilver." 

My voice is a bit breathy, expectant, as I stare below her eyes at her pretty pink lips. 

"Thank you, Moonsilver." 

She rests her hand on the table, fingers beckoning. 

I take a deep breath, and reach out to her hand, resting my warm palm against the customary coolness tinged with her warmth. 

"You're welcome."

"Tell me, Moonsilver." 

She holds her hand, calm and firm, fingernails lightly grazing along her skin. 

"What do you think of this place?"

I let the words run freely as my eyes slip closed.

"It feels... cold. Like the sort of place that no one ever sets out to make, for itself. Like the sort of place where you just come up to a contractor, and tell them that you want to make a building that fills a space and meets the code requirements, and they tell you what it's going to look like, from there. It seems... abandoned, broken, mothballed and preserved by a simple chill of the hearts of those who made this place." 

"And why do you think I made it like this, then?"

"...As an experiment? I don't think I've sen the space like this, before, on the ship, and if it was supported to work like this normally I'd expect things to be a bit different in what I have seen." 

I hold her hand, basking in the lightness of her touch and the stale but soft air. 

"It's probably something to do with the crystals, and this ritual." 

She nods wordlessly. 

The moment lingers as her fingertips glide along her wrist, slowly massaging at the tension.

I sigh softly, leaning in across the table. 

"The crystals are many things. Quartz, Sapphire, and simple salt."

She smiles slightly, and stills her hand, before squeezing lightly. 

"Breathe, and tell me what you smell."

I nod, again. 

My chest rises, my lips parting slightly as my nose flares and I relax and sink into the details of the breath. 

She smells of jasmine, and fainter things besides - a faint hint of wild blueberry that reminds me a of a cottage I loved, of the almost airy scent of vinegar, of mint and s'mores and the earthy notes of potatoes. 

The air itself smells... different. 

It smells of dust, the sea, and...

Wear, work, the simple places that aren't supposed to have a smell, the concrete beneath my feet and the stale, cold air circulating throughout the draft space soundlessly. 

"You. The dust, the salt, the sea, the earth, the remade world."

Her lips quirk up sharply. 

"Good." 

Her thumb traces along the meat of her hand. 

"This is a place of purity. A place of ash. A place of salt, of things burned away and fields sown such that no thing may grow, so that another thing maybe be made atop it. Of the convictions that have led you into such a barren place. And it is a place of cold, where the heat of your heart, your hearth must flare, to hold off the dark."