And it's likewise no wonder that Nai gets less exhausted than Zash does, because Nai is always angry. He spends hours being reminded of how much humans have used his sister, how callously, how they have ignored her cries and the diagnostic data saying that everything wasn't okay. That brings the anger into focus, and it makes his purpose even clearer. He doesn't have the luxury of feeling pain when his sisters are in so much worse condition; he needs to help them, all of them, rescue them and free them from the clutches of this species that has eyes for nothing and no one but themselves.

Every time he does this, every time he heals one of his sisters, he sharpens himself more, files his blades to a finer and finer edge.

Oh.

Yeah, hoping she could get work done, while also witnessing this for the first time from the inside, was perhaps a bit overly ambitious of her, wasn't it. She can, at long last, see what's on the other side of the divide. She's even getting snuggled while she looks.

For a second she's briefly overwhelmed by the sheer beauty, and the delicious feeling of ha I'm right. Connecting what she's seeing with what she already knows. It's not, quite, all accurate, but a lot of the broad strokes are correct enough that she has enough of an idea of what's happening that her next immediate impulse is to backseat diagnose. Except... well, of course it's obvious what's wrong from her viewpoint, because they're the ones showing her and then fixing it. They know it from this side much, much better than she does. This is a time where, actually? What she should be doing is sitting down and shutting up and taking notes. Translating this all to math that can be used to show other humans what's going on. Being the proverbial surgeon is important and fulfilling, but... sometimes the way to do the most doesn't involve being the one in charge. Sometimes it's taking notes so other people can do this, too.

... Not quite the work she was expecting to be doing, but it probably counts. Even if she's absolutely failing to have any kind of control over her short attention span and high likelihood of getting distracted by new and shiny problems. So, yes she manages to work! Workaholic to the very end, that's her.

The twins send her nearly-identical waves of love. The intensity of the feeling, the direction, it's almost the same, almost echoing.

But the context and the content aren't, quite, identical.

For Nai, it's the way Yvette is leveraging it, got her hands on a new resource and immediately jumped to figuring out how to best use it to help his sisters. How to best do good.

For Zash, it's the understanding that she gets it. That she understands, that she knows what love can do. Her motivations, her agape, the love for all people.

He's so in love with her it's surreal.

That's very sweet, and working while getting psychically snuggled and viscerally feeling she's loved is approximately the best working conditions ever. In all of time. Well, except for how it's a bit distracting, but she's declining to get distracted any further. She sends affection right back to both, but not now boys she's working!

Yes, ma'am. It's not conscious, it's just kind of happening, but they can try to do some more directing.

(...what does that mean? Being "in love"? He's heard about it before, but...)

(Zash will have to get back to you on that, little brother, because that'll take some explaining and they do in fact have a job to do here.)

And so they can all happily pass the time working!

Possibly someone in this trio might notice that someone who usually needed annoying breaks for irritating human needs no longer does, but it sure as hell isn't going to be Yvette. There's a lot of work ahead of her, actually, and she does need to keep in mind diminishing returns! Yes it would be fun to map out all of the little tiny details, and it will be relevant at some point, but realistically speaking she should be focusing on using her time wisely. Which means she needs to figure out what would be the most useful to have properly mapped out and where to stop. Which means comparing with her other data from the other side of things. This does in fact eventually manage to circle back around to consolidating her research into an easily digestible form, which she notes and then is actually very proud of herself for. Listen, she has been living with herself for over two decades now, being able to keep an overall goal in mind and work towards it is the product of practice and a hell of a lot of work, not a natural way her brain goes.

Zash needs to take a break before she does, because he doesn't have Nai's stamina and... well... despite what he may have led Yvette to believe w.r.t. his physical needs she is now in his head and she'll be able to learn that he does, actually, feel hungry, and he does, actually, get tired, and it does, eventually, impair him. He just usually pushes through it because, well, he's a plant isn't he.

But that's when he notices. [wait, hang on, am I the only one here who's ever going to need breaks or rest or anything like that here?]

[???? are you???]

Because she has no idea how long she's been here or what time it is anymore. Huh. Zash is hungry and tired? .... And he was hiding it before??? Damn it Zash, you are such a fucking plant.

[I won't die of it]

[you are using my gate] Nai says, distractedly, when he "hears" what they're talking about. [it sustains you. Zash's would, too, if it were open.]

[Damn it, Zash. Go eat something, you dummy, you know I won't take that shitty excuse as an answer when I'm now literally in your brain.]

Then the prospect of never needing to eat or sleep herself draws her into the other line of thought. [Do I just entirely not need to eat now? Ever?]

Because that sounds great, actually.

[...I don't think so. there may be a way for you to control my gate as much as I do but... I think I need to open it for you. like it's open right now, for our sister.] (That "our" there is distinctly flavoured as including Yvette.)

[we will need to find out how much and how often I will need to do this]

[Huh. That makes sense. It would also make sense if I also needed physical proximity to you as well. But I suppose time will tell.]

She is super not engaging with the 'our sister' thing, because that sounds like she'd need to explain incest to the alien hybrid. She does not want to do that right now. There is a slight flag of discomfort over the mental phrasing, but she will be moving on to poking Zash to go and eat something. Does he need to be escorted to the food? Because she'll do it.

He doesn't need food right now he just noticed he was slightly hungry and then noticed it hasn't been a thing for Yvette. He promises he'll eat eventually! But it can wait!

So he needs to be escorted, then. All right. She can wrap up this part of her work that she's on and then she can bring him to the kitchen to get something to eat. It's his choice if he wants to be dragged there or not.

He's pretty sure he's still too heavy for her to drag actually!

Nai can float Zash there if need be.

[et tu, Brute?]

Fine fine he'll go.

Excellent! So glad they all agree. But just to be sure, she will be holding his hand on the way there so he doesn't wander off like a child, and also because she loves him and sort of missed physical snuggles, now that she's no longer in math land. Psychic snuggles are great, but she has a physical form too!

Nai has a lot of stamina but not infinite amounts of it, so he, too, has to take occasional breaks from healing plants. Typically, when he had to do that, he'd spend the down time helping the doctor with his experiments or tracking plants down to rescue or actually rescuing them. Now the doctor is dead and he's on a break from rescuing plants so instead he can spend that time doing... other things...

...what other things?

Snuggling, maybe. Having things like "incest" and "being in love" explained to him, perhaps.

(Zash thinks he doesn't do it the way most humans do it. Some, but not most. He's a plant, the world is made of love and peace, he loves everyone. But he's also somewhat human, and he loves some people more than others, and in the end the main difference isn't exactly in how he feels but in what he wants. He wants Yvette in his life. He wants to call her his, and he wants her to call him hers. He wants to always have an Yvette-shaped hole in his heart that she can fill. He wants people to think of him and Yvette in the same sentence, speak their names in the same breath. His love for her isn't different in kind than his love for other people. It's still different.)

(But the way he feels about her is [=] to the way he feels about Nai. He also has a Nai-shaped hole in his heart that only Nai can fill. He also wants to be with Nai, to be Nai's and for Nai to be his. It's the same feeling. Whether you call it "being in love", in this case, is less relevant, because they're not human. It's still the same.)