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Persephone Kore      Following the distress call leads to a personal-scale artificial warpgate in the corner of an elegant, flowing gunmetal-gray cargo bay. Metal crates are stacked in orderly rows, and there's empty parking room where a small spacecraft might go in the center.

     To your right a slightly-blue forcefield wobbles across the cargo bay's length, holding air in, or 'space' out. To your left is an unsecured auto-sliding door further in. It's a distinctive rich apple red...

     ... Hey, wait, have you been here before? Ahaha, some of you have!

     There's that 'feeling' too, although maybe it's wrong to call it a feeling, like it's wrong to call the Sun a 'vision'. You're inside the event horizon of a heart. The singularity point is somewhere further in to your left. It's a warm and gentle feeling, the impression of being held in cupped hands by something big; like a good night's sleep or a child's smile, it makes it a little easier to relax and a little harder to be tense.

     Not that that's helped Lala.

     Out there down the scarlet-rich hallway, which curves softly like a river and has vibrant garden beds, comes the sound of children laughing and playing. In little nook-sized cul-de-sacs of the hallway- tidal pools, maybe?- adults who look like they might be mildly odd university professors eat their lunches and converse. Many of them might give you a befuddled second glance, but don't challenge you.

     It opens up into the round, grassy central atrium. Here people are taking some kind of recess or lunch-break; or maybe that's just how it always is. A winding path navigates between cultivated beds, with the rest an expanse of trample-hardened greenery that bends down to an elegant willow tree.

     Looking up at the great glass star-dome of its roof, though...
Star Twinkle YESTERDAY:

    Deep in the far-flung corners of the solar system, billions of miles from Earth and yet not outside of the Milky Way as the Pretty Cures tend to travel, is a small space station orbiting Pluto. After a lingering establishing shot of the quiet, peaceful solitude of the station, a yellow and pink portal springs into existence near Charon, spitting out a bulbous pink rocket ship already in the spiraling throes of losing control. Careening quickly enough through space that the stars are reduced to streaks outside the star-shaped window, the girls (and Yuma!) inside are thrown around wildly while screaming, until the rocket stops with an abrupt crash.

"O-o-o-oyo-! What'd we hit?! An asteroid, lun?"

. . .

"I sincerely apologize for the damages to your station. I was attempting to increase my dataset's familiarity with flight maneuvers at a higher speed than I am currently programmed for and was not adequately cautious. Would you like to send a bill for the damages to Mother? ... I am sorry. I cannot reach Mother."
"No, lun! It was my fault! I'm AI's captain, so I have to be responsible, lun!"
"No, it's my fault! I, er... wanted to go fast! Woah, nebulamazing, a real 1980s sci-fi space station! Twincooooool!!!"

. . .

TODAY:

    A rocket ship is sticking out of the glass dome around the Sapient Heuristics space station. Comically large band-aids have been taken from the ship to paste over the broken glass around its tip, even though Phony's presence means that's entirely unnecessary. The Pretty Cures have been held in brutal captivity for over 24 hours. Their time is running out. Hikaru and Lala owe one gazillion credits in damages and have been forced to do back-breaking manual labor in order to repay their terrible mistake, while AI has been held separately to prevent their escape. Lala has devised a plan, soldering wires together that she's scrounged up from corners and hid in her cell in order to craft a rope, stealthily hauling herself up the walls of the glass dome to access AI and signal their friends for rescue.

. . .

    A rocket ship is sticking out of the glass dome around the Sapient Heuristics space station. Hikaru has been having the time of her life. The past day has been spent ooh-ing and ahh-ing at basically every single facet of life in Sapient Heuristics, from the food, to the view, to even getting to ogle the weird psychic equipment as part of their 'duties' to repay the debt. Still, though, she feels guilty about smacking into the station and she does probably need to get back to school eventually, even if she wouldn't strictly *mind* being kidnapped onto a space station instead of going back to Earth. While Lala is lowering herself by a wire to get to AI like she's stealing the crown jewels, Hikaru wanders up to Marc in the same room to politely ask if she could get the radio from the ship.
Persephone Kore      ... Which after a Lala-oblivious "Oh, of course," leads to the present situation you might stumble across, where overgrown-private-schoolboy Marc- sitting in the grass under the spaceship meditatively- maintains a levitated staircase of spare glass panes for Hikaru to skip back down.

     Elsewhere, three identical triplets are silently waving and cheering for Lala. Do your best! Don't fall to your death!!

     And sitting next to Marc, a sweater-wearing older woman- Dr. Carpathia, to those in the know- with dark bags under her eyes is scribbling at some paperwork. While everyone else has been happy-to-befuddled to see mostly-Concord elites dropping by, she seems distinctly wearied.

"Oh, what a surprise. Are they friends of yours too, Hikaru?" he says.
"Oh, no... I assure you this is all in order and within-budget," she says.
Persephone Kore      "It's a day or two early for your visit, isn't it? Did you leave something...?" Marc adds, just for Lilian, after a little pause.
Star Twinkle     In the atrium, Hikaru is laying down in the grass, holding a teal and pink portable radio with heart-shaped speakers up above her head while chatting into it. She's got a sandwich on a plate balanced on her stomach, a situation that has resulted in her being pinned in place until she puts the radio down, which she only does as the Elites start filtering in. Yuma is curiously wandering around floating above the flowers like a big alien bee, occasionally drifting towards the children to warily observe them. The passive sensation of Phony's presence influences Yuma most strongly of anyone, but in a way that makes the little Star Drop weirdly antsy and restless, constantly searching around for Interactions to have.

    Lala's secrecy is undermined by nearly every single thing occuring in this room, not the least of which is because Hikaru fulfilled her mission about fifteen minutes ago and ever since she has been attempting to find a way *down*. Yuma joins the triplets in looking up at her, synthesizing a reassuring high note to sing up at her while her facial blob-mask squooshes to narrow. With an awkward 'ueheheh.. oyo...' expression, Lala waves back at the triplets while limply hanging from her wire, and then redoubles her wiggling to try and backtrack.

    Soon enough, though, her struggling causes the wire to creak, and then splinter. Her eyes widen and she kicks her feet wildly, stifling her yelp of shock, but Hikaru instinctively leaps up to her feet and rushes over right as the wire finally snaps. Lala crashes down on top of Hikaru in a pile of poofy grass that softens their fall to nothing, while Yuma seamlessly catches Hikaru's plate on her head before it hits the ground, holding it steady with her tendrils.

"Ahahaha! I almost caught you, oops! Try again, try again, either you'll get it or I'll actually catch you the right way!"
"Hi-ka-ru! We should be working, lun! We have to pay off our debt so we can get back to Earth so we can get back to school so we can keep looking for the Stellar Notes so we can stop the Nottraiders, lun!"
"Mmmm... but everyone here's so nice and celesweet, Lala!"
[ansi(41,"Oyo... I know, lun. That's why we have to work extra hard to make up for crashing.")]
"Ah... well, that's not wrong...."

"Oh, what a surprise. Are they friends of yours too, Hikaru?"

    Hikaru perks up and swivels around towards the atrium entrance, but it's Lala who scurries towards them. Dragging Hikaru and Yuma by hand and tendril respectively, she hurries over and presses her antennae together in front of her to emit an electrical glow that feels 'guilty', abstractly, shutting her eyes tightly.

    "Lun! They're friends! We did a very bad thing and we're very very sorry so if you could please help! And thank you, lun!"
White White steps through the gate with her little hood raised, only just barely shadowing her forehead and eyes against the artificial lights while she gets her bearings. There's a brief spike of wariness from her at that 'feeling', a handful of loose guesses about its familiarity (most severely of which is related to D's own intrusive way of communicating) being knocked over like pins inside her head before she lands on what seems like the most obvious reality. She's not a psychic, by her own outlining of the concept, but she can still sort of tell the 'texture' of the mind she's brushing against.

     She takes a small breath in, silently lets it out. Okay. This is fine. She just has to wrangle her mental circus-animals a little harder today. She had a hard time, on first contact, adjusting to Persephone's constant mental adjacency, but she's had time since then to shadowbox with the idea and get more used to it. Eeeeeverything's fine. There's a magical girl to meet!

     So, she follows the red-hued path that seems to have been laid out. She pauses in front of the automatic doors on reflex (the convenience store doors are always a little slow for her) and then walks deeper with her hands folded and shoulders slack. Children's laughter cues something in the back of her head like a reminder despite this being her first visit to this station, and while she's responding to confused looks from the adult staff(?) with an awkward little nod she's pretty sure she's already puzzled something out... Oh, you poor Magical Girls. The plot really does always have it out for you...

     Once she's moved on to the atrium she only gets to appreciate the efforts at a natural-ish environment for a half-moment at best before her omnidirectional vision has her noticing the damaged dome above. It's... Comical, in a sense, but... That girl climbing there..? Isn't that a bit..?

Okay. One step at a time here. One, a quick flash of the Evil Eye- okay, that's not Hikaru, but she's pretty sure she's heard Lala come up before, so... They're together, probably? Two, make sure Lala doesn't suddenly plunge to her death while nobody's watching. Easy, just keep a proverbial eye on her and be ready to make a net, right? White isn't sure what she's trying to do, really, but... Well, that's Lala's problem, isn't it? And three... What's she supposed to say to the uh, doctors? Professors? She really did just kind of show up to see a Magical Girl, didn't she. Uh.

She ends up just kind of... Staring, at Marc and Dr. Carpathia for a few seconds. She does glance aside at the levitated glass panes briefly, and she'd looked up at Lala before, but she has to remind herself to close her eyes again after pulling names and titles with the Evil Eye, and then has to remind herself further to give a proper greeting. "My name... Is White." is the quiet start of that, and she bows halfway to match, but... Then she's looking up at Lala again. She kind of emanates a feeling of lost-ness right now...
Chuyao He     "That there should be not only flight through the stars, but homes and cities, what a wondrous thing," says Chuyao, stepping out of the warpgate in a casual solid yellow zhiduo robe, cross collar with black trim and loose at the back seam. It's fastened with a thin, elegant rope belt, though still loose enough to billow elegantly as he strides down the hallway.

Ahaha, some of you have!

    Chuyao blinks owlishly, stops in his tracks and looks around. Finding no obvious source of this, he checks his radio earpiece, only to find the voices there sound markedly different. He concludes that in space as on earth, there are known to be spirits, and sometimes their voices may be quite familiar.

*From where comes this feeling of ease? I slept no more soundly than usual, and yet...*

    "The diviner who first laid the plans for this place is surely worthy of praise! The energies here are so remarkably balanced that even an amateur as myself may discern it..."

    Continuing into the atrium, he is quietly stunned; garden beds are one thing, but this harmony between wood and metal has him momentarily forgetting that he's here on a diplomatic mission. That is, until he peers upwards at the roof. Once again, he stops abruptly, his long, straight raven hair swaying slightly from the sudden halt even with his silver hair crown and orchid-motif coral pin holding some in a bun at the top.

    Lifting a palm to his mouth, he stifles a gasp. Seeing then that others from this city in the stars are present to receive everyone, he clears his throat.

    Oh, what a surprise. Are they friends of yours too, Hikaru?
Oh, no... I assure you this is all in order and within-budget.

    "I, the scholar of the late generation, Chuyao He, respectfully greet our hosts," he says with a fist-in-palm gesture and a slight bow at the waist. "This unrefined scholar has come to advocate for junior sister Hikaru and junior sister Lala. May I know how to address our hosts?"

Mmmm... but everyone here's so nice and celesweet, Lala!
Oyo... I know, lun. That's why we have to work extra hard to make up for crashing.

     This doesn't look like what was described, and so, Chuyao probes a little further. "Towards such a purpose of amelioration, this lowly scholar would also be so bold as to ask what the nature and length of junior sister Hikaru and junior sister Lala's sentence is?"
Kukuru Although the Precures are wholly unfamiliar to Kukuru, hearing that they're friends of friends and family is more than enough to get her to show up at the crash site. The first sign that something's a little strange, then, is when she starts recognizing the warp gates she's going through to get here. That uncanny feeling of deja vu grows stronger and stronger until she confirms from sight alone that she's headed right into familiar territory, and then there's those familiar feelings that make her heart feel like its ready ot burst right out of her chest.

Smiling like (more of) an idiot as she heads on in alongside everyone else, Kukuru raises her hand lightly to wave towards Marc and Dr. Carpathia while looking around slowly to see if she can't spot more familiar faces around here. She gets the first syllable of a "He-llo" out before stopping to wave at those triplets, too, pausing to watch Lala's curious-looking descent before turning to Marc and Carpathia.

"He-llo, Marc~ He-llo, doctor~ Ah, so this is where that sweet sounding girl crashed... Is everyone okay? Nobody's hurt, riiight?" She asks, sounding about as unworried and half-asleep as ever. Like Dr. Carpathia, Kukuru's dressed in a sweater today, having opted for something a little warmer than usual, and already payingt he price by wanting to just join Hikaru on the grass so she can take a nap. She doesn't hear anyone screaming, either, and the person probably in the most danger right now is Lala by virtue of gravity existing to some extent.  

"So what's this about a crash, anyway...? Do you need help pushing the thingy out?" She asks, gesturing at the rocket ship and pantomiming a light shove. "I haven't met a Hikaru before, buuuut..." She looks around briefly, trying to figure out which one of the girls is Hikaru and which one is Lala. Luckily, Lala conveniently identifies her, and Hikaru namedrops Lala, making that far easier for Kukuru to look right over at Hikaru with another quiet chuckle. "But White and Lilian sound like they know her, mhm..."

With Lala coming up to apologize for the mishap, Kukuru hums softly as she squats in place to smile sweetly at the bowing Precures, propping her head up on her palms a moment later. "Aww... You're doing great, dears. The first step of fixing a problem is admitting it happened, and then... Fixing it, mhm! So..."

Kukuru looks back up and over at Carpathia, rocking her head from side to side idly. "Is there anything these three can help with for fixing that? They mentioned a biiiiig debt, so knowing where to start might be their first step in getting that cleared up."

Hearing White, meanwhile, has Kukuru beaming a little brighter as she looks over at her and waves, then snaps her fingers. "Oh, maybe..! Whiiite, do you know anything about fixing big holes? Or..." She trails off, not quite knowing how else the gathered Elites might actually be able to help with this situation at all. She's biased, after all, towards the people of Sapient Heuristics rather than new faces, but even she can't turn away from the plight of these three creatures!

Instead of trying to get her head back on track with wherever that was all going, she's reminded of something else, and she turns to Hikaru, Lala, and Yuma.

"Oh. My name's Kukuru." Pause. "That's Ku-ku-ru. It's very nice to meet you all~ And you again, Chuuuuyao." She chimes, clearly amused by saying the latter's name.
Lilian Rook     Honestly, the fact that Hikaru seemed so blasé about the whole thing is why Lilian decided to take her time and gather up a few things. Sure, it's lifelong debt labour she was talking about, but also, Hikaru is a bit silly, and Lilian can simply hire enough lawyers to blot out the sun; and even if that didn't work it's not like she's just going to leave her there. Clearly it can't be that bad if Hikaru is making small talk on her lunch--

    "Oh my god Lala."

    Like she'd just remembered the stove while waiting at the airport, Lilian bolts upright in the midst of packing, hastily excuses herself, apologizes profusely about nineteen times to an extremely confused Cecilia on the way out the door that they'll have to delay their usual visit to Sapient Heuristics, and appears at a completely different warpgate hub, flashing her Paladins badge and sprinting through lines without so much as an 'excuse me'. She staggers in over the finish line last out of the bunch, getting as far as the bright red door in, before realizing she didn't scan her surroundings before picking that route, and actually isn't this place kind of--

    . . . . . . . .

    "Hi Marc. Doctor." Lilian says, totally-not-sulkily. Her messenger bag contains a suspiciously handgun-shaped bulge crammed in one side, and the hair pins she was just using are visibly poking out of her pocket. She puffs out a moody breath, and says, "Hope, Faith, Charity, nice to see you again." like they don't all know she was supposed to be here in an hour anyways. She waves with her left hand, plastic bangle and all.

    For whatever reason, the psychic atmosphere within thirty feet of Lilian is alarmingly tangible. There is a crisply readable sense of unpleasant cold between bed and the bathroom, a muted twinge of heaviness thinking about shoving that person in line, a disorienting fizzy-churny-bubbly tummy feeling at being contextually tumble-washed like this, and a sharp pang of guilt thinking about poor Cecilia left on the doorstep like a dog unaware its owner has died.

    'It's a day or two early for your visit, isn't it? Did you leave something...?'

    "What? It's Tuesday isn't--" Lilian cuts off to pull out her phone, taps the power button, stares at the lock screen, and the secondhand sense is of the floor giving out underneath your feet, inducing a wave of crystalline wooziness.
White White notices Hikaru only as she's just putting the Evil Eye away again, having mentally filtered her for being... Well, understandably, another kid in the facility. Almost immediately she justifies this to herself as 'the way a magical girl should be', whatever that means. She already gave her name to the adults, so she compensates now by just nodding at Hikaru post-notice. Good enough! Probably!

     Lala finally does fall, but White sees Hikaru justifying her job-title by running over for the catch; White lifts one arm about 30 degrees from her waist to 'just in case' perform a teleportation, but Hikaru makes the catch just fine without issues. She mimes a faint sigh of relief and lowers her hand again, putting it back to squeezing her other idly. Finally, with some effort, she quietly asks seemingly in the direction of 'anyone who might possibly answer her', "... Do they... Only need help... With repairs..?"
Star Twinkle "My name... Is White."

    It is so much more plausible in retrospect, when Hikaru stands up, that the reason why she didn't get crushed by Lala falling a couple dozen feet was because White's net intercepted to slow her down! Hikaru learns this when she attempts to move, only to find herself draped in spider silk webbing. HIKARU HOSHINA is going to be DEVOURED like a FLY! This is the next step in Sapient Heuristic's plan!

    From some distance away, Hikaru hears White introduce herself and tries to wave, but she can't really get her hand all that high up with the spider silk on her. "It's the magical spider woman!! Hii Miss White!!!"

    Lala is simultaneously much more muted and more soothed, holding out one of her antenna bulbs to White in what must be a kind of greeting. Softly in return, like this is the cultural standards for volume wherever White's from, Lala introduces herself to the multiple(!) unfamiliar faces. "Hi. I'm Lala, lun. And that's Hikaru. And that's Marc. And that's Carpathia, lun. And that's Hope and that's Faith and that's Charity, lun, but they all live here." She's very thorough. Realizing she forgot something, she squats down and picks up Yuma gently, hugging her to her chest. "And this is Yuma."

"Towards such a purpose of amelioration, this lowly scholar would also be so bold as to ask what the nature and length of junior sister Hikaru and junior sister Lala's sentence is?"

    "One BILLION years!!!!" Hikaru proclaims, finally making her way over once she's freed herself from the crater in the grass. She tries to count on her fingers. "Er, but the actual number is, um... there was something about credits but I tried to calculate it into yen and then I tried to calculate *that* into shien, because that's the space currency in the Starscape Galaxy, you know. But, um, I forgot."

    "AI, what was the amount...." Lala lifts up her wrist to try and speak into it, but the device that's normally worn on her hand like a glove is gone! Held in captivity! She can't access AI without being inside the rocket ship itself. "... I don't remember the number either, lun. But it's a lot."

"I haven't met a Hikaru before, buuuut..."

    "You've met a Hikaru now! And the best one of all!" She proudly informs Kukuru. Lala corroborates this information, for approximately the fourth time after Kukuru already knew Hikaru's name. "Lun. She's the best Hikaru I've ever met too, but I've only met one. I don't think it'd change even if I went to a planet full of Hikarus though."

    While Lala spaces out repeating the phrase 'a planet full of Hikarus' to herself, Hikaru puts a hand on her chin to seriously consider. "If we fixed it up by magic... but I can't do any magic like that."

    Lala rouses herself to inform everyone, "The repair patches--" The big band-aids. "Are stable enough to last for a few months on the rocket, lun. But we haven't removed the rocket in the first place...."

    Lala's eyes widen at Marc and Lilian's familiarity, looking back and forth between them. "Oyo? You already know each other...?"
Angela Angela usually sends Love out to magical girl adventures these days because it's a perfect way to keep the Magical Girl of Love happy with basically no risk at all. It turns out that the multiverse is way more full of people that it's completely legitimate to blast with lasers. If evil is defeated in one universe you can just find another one and start blasting there! Hopefully the multiverse doesn't run out of evil but with new worlds always unifying it seems pretty likely that Love will never run out of evil to fight! Ever!

But there is an issue. Namely, there's no way Angela is going to send the Magical Girl of Love to a space station where there ''isn't'' any evil to fight so instead she has asked Tiphereth and Roland to check in and see what's going on.

Tiphereth is pretty excited about getting to go to a space station. She's never been in a space station before and she's wondering what it's like. Roland is running down a shopping list in his head over and over again but he stumble a bit when he gets hit by that feeling, the little mental exercise he's performing regularly fading before that sunny hits. Roland's shoulders relax and he manages a little smile, rolling his shoulders back, like he's been waiting for someone to figure out how to get him to relax and make it harder to be tense but...

''Children laughing and playing.''

The positive feeling fades into something bittersweet. He isn't against happy children, of course, but it always feels like a bit of a stab in the shoulder. He tries running that shopping list through his mind again. Eggs, milk, flour.

Tiphereth is all smiles but she glances over to Roland. "You okay?"

"Ah just missing the family." Roland lies with honest. "Don't mind me, I'll catch up."

''Dr. Carpathia.''

Tiphereth throws a wave towards Marc and the kids, though her gaze settles on Dr. Carpathia for a while longer. "They asked for help with their, uh, sentence." Tiphereth tries, a little self conscious, but still pleasant. She is a little surprised that a spaceship could even crash into this particular space station, but she supposes stranger things have happened. "Angela wasn't sure what aid to send so she sent Roland and I since she figured we were the most chill."

Roland smiles like he's got a hot poker drilled through his chest, unconvincingly. "Will do our best to not cause a scene, ma'am." he says to Dr. Carpathia. "I'm Roland. I'm one of Angela's newer employees so I don't think I've run into folks from here that much before."
Lilian Rook     'Lun! They're friends! We did a very bad thing and we're very very sorry so if you could please help! And thank you, lun!'

    Where to even begin with this? Especially after looking like an idiot. Lilian had definitely been thinking about Lala in rags and chains, holding a pickaxe that's too big for her and trying her very Lala best to hit a rock with it.

    Well, in the first place, it'd be pretty weird for Carpathia (or anyone here) to actually charge a pair of magical girls with a repair bill. The Concord is the one bankrolling them, after all. Lala is enough of a terminally perilous Good Girl, of a variety that is dangerously close to extinction, that she'd come up with the idea of doing it all herself, but then why is she trying to reenact Mission Impossible up there? If anything, looking at Hikaru lazing around like that, Lilian would draw the conclusion that she lied to Lala to keep them both there, if she believed Hikaru would really lie to Lala about anything.

    Standing near her is like feeling the quiet whirring of fan blades based on the moving air. One that speeds up a little, like kind of a mechanical startle, when she notices Chuyao, and hears the legalese. He's taking it totally on its face! And he's not even incorrect to! That bubble shrinks abruptly, to half its prior radius, when White cracks out the Evil Eye. It retracts fast enough that White herself is only catching a sense of worry on her behalf for a fraction of a second, but depending on whoever else is close enough, the full sensation, emotionally unfolding in the way that a gunshot 'unfolds' in the chamber, is like a veil of static and the moon occluding the sun, sharply intense around its edges and numb, airless void in the middle. Much like the real thing, it passes by in a few seconds. Lilian's expression is her most typical variety of passive smile, and hasn't changed in twice that long.

    'AI, what was the amount....'

    "You devil . . ." Lilian sighs, rolling her eyes in a direction, noticing Lala's blank wrist. "Alright. So if it's that way--"

    'Oyo? You already know each other...?'

    Lilian coughs mid-sentence, spoken to herself. Clutching her collarbone while she tries to swallow down the rest, Lilian's 'aura' makes a variety of creaky ice and lightly stressed metal noise, then settles down into something like nostalgically staring at fresh, pristine snow, from the indoors side of a window, breath fogging cold glass. "It's a long story." Lilian says, intending to cut off there, before remembering that Hikaru is here. She exhales a laugh through her nose. "Well . . . I know them from back when I was an evil magical girl. I was really mean, and pretty stupid, and started a big fight, but they were kind and patient and forgave me, and I turned good in the end."

    She makes eyes at Marc and Carpathia that somehow convey 'this is soooooo complicated to explain'.
Persephone Kore      "Oyo? You already know each other...?"
     "Yes. We... that is, Lilian and our organization had an unfortunte misunderstanding of each other, in the past, but we've come to be quite good friends," Marc says warmly, playing along with 'dark magical girl'. "If she didn't already belong somewhere else, I'm sure she'd be living here by now."

     The triplets- Hope, Faith, and Charity- or were they Charity, Faith, and Hope?- immediately crowd around the two fallen girls, offering brushing-off pats and helping-hands up. "You did great, Lala." "Yeah! You almost made it." "Couldn't you float down...?"

     They almost blend into each other. Each one's dressed nearly monochrome, and they all have flowing black hair that moves in low gravity; so close their edges are in constant contact, so you could lose them in the shuffle.

     After a second their attention swims to Roland and Lilian. They gravitate over as a gaggle, alternatingly sleeve-tugging for attention and circling to inspect.
"Lilian!"
"Lilian?"
"Lilian, why's your friend so sad...?"
"Hey, don't stare at her," to White.
"Bread, milk, eggs... eggs, milk, bread."
"What happened to you, mister? What happened?"
"Don't smile when you're sad."

     pulling names and titles with the Evil Eye...
     "May I know how to address our hosts?"
     "Of course. Roland, Chuyao He," the old woman says in a tone of diligent resignation. The elegant overgrown-private-schoolboy next to her stands first, then wordlessly helps her up by the arm.

     Jxócelin Karpéjtia: "Director", "Mom"
     "Dr. Carpathia, director of Sapient Heuristics."

     Mark Heler: "Subject"
     "Marc Heller. It's a pleasure to meet you, I'm certain."

     (The orthography is a little odd, but hearing the names spoken, it's not hard to puzzle out.)

     The good doctor hovers anxiously a bit behind Lala, when she's able to. "I've told you, there's no need to feel guilty. You're making things up quite well as they stand..." But prompted by Chuyao, she can't fret for quite as long as she'd like. Nodding to him, she explains:

     "They're paying off the damages through their kindly help around the station. That's the damages to the glass dome; micro-stresses throughout the station's structure from impact; amelioration of psychometric cultural contamination..."
     "Roughly one trillion credits," Marc says, in the placid tone of someone who's never had to buy anything. "Of which their labor yesterday counts for... what was it? A hundred billion?"
     "Labor, to be clear, of supervising children in the classroom and helping make lunch," Carpathia mildly hastens to say, aware that she's sounding like a slavedriver.
Persephone Kore      That's a truth, but not the whole truth. Marc and Carpathia look each other in the eyes, arriving on an unspoken plan. Marc steps off to the side and deftly distracts the Girl Pile: "Excuse me, Lala, Hikaru. I was just preparing the lesson plan tomorrow and I, ah, forgot what order the planets are in. Was it Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, or was it--"

     While he does that, Carpathia tries to draw all the other Elites into a huddle facing the opposite way, arms-around-their-shoulders style, although given she's quite delicate and tiny that entirely depends on your williness to be steered.

     "Look," she says, voice conspiratorially dropping. Her lips work uneasily while they search for words. "... It's not the repairs. These girls are very unhealthy and very overworked. I'm sure even you can see that. They're attending school and trying to save the world while under regular attack from some sinister organization and with not nearly enough parental support. One of them is in exile from her entire planet and the artificial intelligence on her ship is, to my understanding, more or less her jailer. It's culturally dangerous."

     Deep sigh. Her head hangs. Did that loose sweater fit her better, before she became so fretful and burdened? "... We tried telling them to just relax, but that one- Lala- well, I'm not sure she knows how to. So we've been giving her trivial tasks, but she still won't... if we must turn them back over to that ghoulish robot, can't you convince them to enjoy a week's vacation first? There's things I can't, in good conscience, release a child to."
White It does seem more prudent to avoid risking Hikaru getting spinal damage since it's free for her to assist; the web-net probably would've worked better if it didn't have to be quickly anchored to just a couple of points, but it seems to have done its job. Ah, but... Well, Hikaru's taking it well, even if she got stuck with it afterward. Easy enough to fix!

     She returns Hikaru's wave more slowly, and after swaying her hand twice she half-lowers most of her fingers and swishes her index finger like a tiny wand, making the silk lift off of Hikaru's body. Her other fingers curl around something imaginary in her palm, and the webbing wraps itself up into a little ball barely the size of a tooth. With her hand still upright she follows Lala's group introduction carefully (even though she snagged some of those names already prematurely), looking at each one in turn and nodding just to dutifully show she's paying attention. Ending on Yuma, White immediately recognizes a magical girl familiar within the context... She doesn't know if Yuma is an innocent familiar or a surprisingly devious one, but she isn't a cat-type creature... And the girls don't seem like they'd belong to that kind of genre, so... Yuma gets a pass for now. That, and a second nod. The talk of 'other Hikarus' brings to mind something strange, and she vaguely murmurs, "Better to keep... To just one."

     There's also the matter of what she's slowly realizing isn't just a brief fluke of Lilian's proximity; she'd been prepared to chalk it up as some kind of consequence of being near Persephone, but the way Lilian withdraws that empathic bubble when she opens her eyes ironically just makes her a little more curious, and unsure what to do about it after the initial little flinch it causes in her. She can politely avoid commenting on things... That's her favorite menu option, actually. But she's not really used to Lilian *broadcasting* like this, intentionally or not! She did close her eyes, but she's still *staring* about it, and when Lilian makes (approximate) eye contact with her she even throws in a tiny head-tilt straight out of the animal playbook.

     But, she probably can't just keep blankly staring at Lilian until she buckles. That'd be weird. Roland gets a brief look over her shoulder, too, but she figures she's spent a lot of her 'staring until answers fall into her lap' budget already, even if the sense of lowered tension in the area seems to have made her more shameless with her pressure-tactics of all things. And it seems she's not the only one to notice; one of the triplets calls her out on it, and her lidded gaze turns their way so she can acknowledge with a soft "Okay." It's important for kids to look out for others, right? It'd make so much less sense to explain herself, compared to just letting a kid have a W and moving on. The rest of the chatter cues her in a tad late though that her effort at being highminded and adult is probably being skimmed like an open book. A very cluttered, confusing book maybe, but... Well. Maybe it'll just help them learn to read. Heh! Wait, don't be smug, that's going to annoy them, and you don't want to deal with annoyed kids, girl. Hmm. Maybe Lilian had the right idea, wrapping her thought-bubble up and smothering it like that.
White But now, it seems, White's getting the deets properly from the doctor, without having to do any more awkward staring! She's fine to be led aside even if it's a little awkward to be squish-huddled with so many other people, and her back is a little stiff trying not to stoop too much in the process. Oh. Oh it's a *conspiracy*. A conspiracy to make the Magical Girls take a break! She had just been on about something like this with the Timekeeper and her assistant! Okay, she can work with this, probably. She almost looks sort of enthusiastic, slightly hunched forward, gaze implicitly turned upward from beneath her brow and nodding not once, not twice, but three whole times! "Maybe... If we... Make it a quest..." she muses quietly. "No... They'll... Speedrun it. If they were... Injured..? No." She fortunately doesn't need secondary input to stop that train of thought early. "... Simulate an illness, so... They stay to recover?"
Chuyao He One BILLION years!!!!

    "...Junior sister, I am glad that you are able to keep a cool head during such matters. Perhaps jokes such as these are better saved for when these matters are behind us, however?"

But, um, I forgot.

    "Never fear," says Chuyao, reaching into a traveling satchel at his waist to procure a small lacquered box. He opens it, retrieving one of two steel-bodied, capped calligraphy brushes. "This lowly scholar has passed the imperial examinations, so arithmetic even at such a scale is within his wheelhouse." He kneels on the grass, uncapping one of the brushes. Chuyao licks the tip of his index finger, wets the brush with it, then dips the brush into the reservoir of an inkstone. Pulling out a leather bound notebook to work with, he smiles amiably at Dr. Carpathia and Mark.

"It is an honor to meet you, Dr. Carpathia, brother Mark."

     "Could this unrefined scholar trouble his hosts for the sum of the damages, in multiversal credits? As well," he says, "Junior sister Hikaru has the exchange rates between 'yen' and 'shin,' yes?" It seems like there isn't actually an attempt to collect going on, the longer this conversation goes on--but Lala, in particular, seems bent on making it right, and he wishes to encourage that mentality, at least until Carpathia or Mark say--

I've told you, there's no need to feel guilty.

     "Doctor Carpathia is very gracious,"" Chuyao notes approvingly.

They're paying off the damages through their kindly help around the station.
Roughly one trillion credits.
Of which their labor yesterday counts for... what was it? A hundred billion?

     Chuyao nods. Elegant brushstrokes note down the figure in credits. He's so set on jotting down the exchange rates from Hikaru (with a skeptical pause and glance towards her if she answers anything too fantastical) that he almost misses Carpathia's attempts to usher him. He pauses and is steered as if he were even lighter than her.

There's things I can't, in good conscience, release a child to.

     Chuyao's brush rests idle on the page as he listens, his frown deepening the more Carpathia explains. "That there was such pressure upon junior sister Lala... I had no idea. Your approach is similar to my own, it must be said. On the subject of such expectations, and such guilt, I, the lowly scholar, have some experience--I will see to it that she understands your wishes and believes them, rather than hears them only as comforting platitudes. Now... ah! Here it is." A moment of searching through his pack finds an abacus. "While this lowly scholar has the Doctor's attention... how many thousands is one trillion?"
Kukuru "You've met a Hikaru now!"
"I don't think it'd change even if I went to a planet full of Hikarus though."

"I have! I haaave~" Kukuru agrees with Hikaru's assessment, giggling softly while tapping a finger against her chin thoughtfully. "I don't think I've met one before, either.... Aw, but this one's so sweet, any others really would be in for a tough contest just to try and measure up." She asserts, barely taking any time at all to come to that conclusion. "Honesty like yours, especially after making mistakes, is reaaaal hard to find, so a planet full of Hikarus just like this one here..."

Seeing that spaced out look on Lala's face, Kukuru chuckles again before shuffling over and giving her a gentle pat on teh shoulder. "That'd be a real nice place, wouldn't it? Somewhere everyone would be kind, friendly, and warm..."

Something starts to prod at the back of her mind about how strange this whole situation is, but it won't really click until later. Before that, she turns to Hikaru once more, pursing her lips with a similarly thoughtful look on her face. "If not magic... Hmm. Then maybe you just need a looot of wood, glass, and nails! Learning how to work with those..."

She taps her chin, not unlike how Hikaru did it. "That could take a while,too, but it could be fun...Ah, but you could fit plenty insid your thingy up there!" And then you'll have plenty to spare even if you break a bunch."

"I was really mean, and pretty stupid, and started a big fight, but they were kind and patient and forgave me, and I turned good in the end."

Kukuru's eyes go a bit wide at hearing that, and then she looks away while clutching her chest for a few moments. Sure, she's heard about and suspected Lilian of being good with kids just from being around here, but seeing it happen so effortlessly still swells her heart up even more.

Once she's recovered from that, she stands back up finally and gets hit again with not only the number Marc puts out for the Girls' debt, but also the repaid amount with the first day of work. That feeling Kukuru had earlier comes back to the forefront, but she pushes it right back down.

Surely there has to be a good explanation for this, right? There totally is, too, as Doctor Carpathia soon explains what's really going on after Kukuru joins in on the conspiratorial whispering. She covers her mouth to suppress the noise from a thoughtful "ohhhhh" that's already coming out, but the "oh's" that follow shortly after that are far quieter, shorter, and also more concerned as Carpathia continues.

"That's no good at all... Nobody should be overworked, especially such sweet kids like them." She murmurs, nodding slowly in agreement while offering a hand to Doctor Carpathia and holding it close enough to her face in case she wants to lean into it for some sort of comfort. "Maybe I can help teach Lala how to relax, then... There's been pleeenty of people in my family and my home that needed help pacing themselves, mhm. And if they end up 'working' all that debt off..."

Kukuru glances over at the rocket ship for a moment, then leans her head back in for the whispers. "What if we told them we need to order parts for the ship? That could take a while to come in..."
Persephone Kore      "... Simulate an illness, so..."
     Carpathia shakes her head tensely. "We've *just* had to give Lala all her shots. You know she wasn't vaccinated against any Earth diseases? She could've gotten, I don't know, rabies."

     "What if we told them we need to order parts for the ship?"
     "Mmmhh... the ship needs only minor repairs. Besides, their 'AI' could tell them it's a lie. I don't want to risk their trust like that." But making them negative-trillionaires is fine.

     "how many thousands is one trillion?"
     "Of course, Chuyao He, how may I... huh?" Carpathia stares at him blankly, then struggles to crunch it for a good three or four seconds. "... a billion. A billion thousand. Er, which itself is--"

     "There are about half a trillion stars in the Milky Way," Marc leans back to comment, purely academically.
Lilian Rook     'Yes. We... that is, Lilian and our organization had an unfortunte misunderstanding of each other, in the past, but we've come to be quite good friends,'
        Lilian takes a breath of relief at Marc. Fizzy champagne bubbles under the frozen lake. "And to think I've been excitedly getting ready all morning. No wonder Cecilia looked like she was keeping something quiet." Lilian laughs.

    'Lilian!'
    Lilian?
    Lilian, why's your friend so sad...?'

    "Goodness, calm down." Lilian says, smiling, to three girls who are definitely way more laid back than she is. "That's Roland, and due to some unfortunate circumstances, he has to be separate from his beloved for a while." she says while looking briefly Roland's way. There's a sense of wistfulness about it, like a friend moving to another school, where it isn't anyone's fault; but buried far down, there's a bit of bitterness that it's Angela's; a mild, sympathetic-angry sting on his behalf. "His work has to keep him away, and he only gets to talk to her every so often, so he can't help but being a little sad until his work wraps up and he gets to go home again."

    'Don't smile when you're sad.'

    Oof. That one hurt about as much as a pillow thrown at the back of her head, but there was a tangible impact all the same. "Say, since I'm here already anyways, we can play after this if you want."

    'Roughly one trillion credits'

    "That sounds about right." Lilian says, dead-assed. Her aura feels like barely holding in a laugh, then smooths over into a perfectly still pond, as if a ripple of water were hands pressing a blanket flat. "It's not easy to acquire psychometrically sterile and approvable manufactured goods."

    'Excuse me, Lala, Hikaru. I was just preparing the lesson plan tomorrow and I, ah, forgot what order the planets are in.'

    Lilian flashes Marc a stealthy thumbs-up. It's not very stealthy, since the fact that she's thinking about giving him a thumbs-up is reflected out to thirty feet. She gathers up around Carpathia shortly after.
Lilian Rook     'and the artificial intelligence on her ship is, to my understanding, more or less her jailer.'

    Lilian ends up wearing a vaguely downcast grimace about the whole thing, but hardly seems surprised. "Truly I can count on you to never fail to notice what everyone else seems to, Carpathia." Lilian says. "Though that last part is a little bit complicated. It's . . ." She squiggles up her lips as the metaphysical weight around her rocks back and forth indecisively. "I was trying to get that thing away from her for a while, but lately, her friend seems to have been rubbing off on it, so I decided to wait and see. I'd keep that watch away from her for a while if I were you, but it might be more appropriate to think of AI as--"

    The impact of what Lilian is about to say strikes her mental field before her face. Like the sharp crack of chopping a log along a perfect fault and seeing the comic tumble of halves away. She feels a little winded. ". . . a deprived and mis-taught nineteen year old doing her best to take care of the younger kids. If that makes sense. AI isn't incapable of personality adjustment, at least."

    'can't you convince them to enjoy a week's vacation first? There's things I can't, in good conscience, release a child to.'

    "I'm doing my best." Lilian says with a shallow groan. Hazy memories of her dropping in at Lala's school and arguing with Hikaru's dad flicker in the space between them. "She really wants to help Yuma. It's not as if I can condemn her for that attitude. As for her anxiety . . ." Nobody needs to listen in for that one; it's so trivially easy to tell that Lilian is thinking about the two years it took her to settle down from being like that. "I could hypothetically find something for them to do. Even if it has to be an 'adventure', they think I'm one of them." An image of Eyewon calling Tenjou 'auntie' bubbles up. ". . . For some reason."
Angela ''Of which their labor yesterday counts for ... A hundred billion?''

"Oh, maybe Hikaru overstated it a little. They'll be done in nine more days." Tiphereth seems to think that's not such a big deal but she was also conscripted into a business at the age of eight and look at how well she turned out.

Actually, kind of, yeah? She seems to be pretty emotionally stable, is genuinely happy to be here, and is pretty well adjusted with the various pains and agonies she's been through in life. She's not unhappy with where she is at life and while she has some regrets, she's moving onto the future with a pretty positive outlook.

Roland is ambushed and largely escapes being corralled due to his situation (more on that later, friends!) but Tiphereth will readily let herself be pulled in. "Mm...That's pretty much all right, though AI..." She trails off, looking to the distracted Roland for support, and then realizes she's not going to be getting it. "Well, I think it's a little complicated. I get what you mean, just some kids need to be 'responsible'--how they make their way through the world." Tiphereht frowns thoughtfully. "But if we can frame the 'vacation' as training or responsibility--well you've already done that, a bit." She does seem to think that this might be the toughest mission yet. "Maybe Hikaru can help?"

Roland's feeling emotionally complicated but is broadly miserable and he can't quite keep it out of his face, he's never been good at that. Maybe he's too honest even when he's trying to lie. He freezes up like a deer in headlights--enough you can practically see the ice pulling around him--but he says, "Ah, um--" He's flustered. "Sorry for worrying you it's--uh. It's--"

White is looking at him. And he can feel his heart pounding in his chest like it's trying to get out. What is she seeing? What does she see when she looks at him? He tries not to think about it, but he knows she can just see things with her eyes sometimes. What can he even say? Either way he's corrosive, he's inherently--

''Lilian to the rescue!''

Roland feels a twinge of guilt for teasing her over the magical girl stuff. He wasn't trying to be mean about it but there are other things he feels guilty about with regards to the Dame Commander.

Buried far down for him, the bitterness he has that the fault of it is Angela's isn't just a bit. But buried further down beyond that is the dark boiling certainty that Roland's to blame.

But having a true enough story calms him. He takes a breath, and lets it out and then smiles, more genuinely if with that twinge of guilt. "Yeah, Lilian's got it. Sometimes you're reminded of people you can't see when you go to happy places and you're still happy about being there, but you get a little sad too because you miss the happy places you have to be apart from, or have lost."

He gives Lilian a look of gratitude and a smile.
Lilian Rook     'While this lowly scholar has the Doctor's attention... how many thousands is one trillion?'

    Lilian makes a softly winded noise. He's such a good guy and he's trying so hard and he is in so over his head.

    White's staring eventually makes her terse-tones sneak in "They're used to being able to read each other's minds, so I have to do it like this or else it's unpleasant for them." and then, confirming nobody who can psychically detect relative normative judgements is within range, she says "Don't be a pervert about it."

    Then, finally back to Chuyao, "A thousand-thousand is a million. A thousand-million is a billion. A thousand-billion is a trillion. I appreciate your efforts, but the sum is, I presume, intentionally ludicrous." Slowly blowing out air as White realizes the flaw with Quests immediately, Lilian feels something percolate. "Jocelyn?" she nudges, forgetting for a second.

    "What if I told them that I'd pay off their debt, so long as they worked their share here for a week or two and everyone could vouch for them? That way, it isn't something that can go faster and slower, but it has an unambiguous ending. Then, if Lala insists on paying me back, I'll tell her that we agreed to it because we're friends, so to make it up to me, all she has to do is a silly little thing that'll take her somewhere relaxing for a week? Perhaps with Cecilia or Tamamo in tow?"
Kukuru "Besides, their 'AI' could tell them it's a lie."
". . . a deprived and mis-taught nineteen year old doing her best to take care of the younger kids."

With more wrinkles being added to the situation, Kukuru scrunches her face up a bit as she forces her mind to operate in ways it normally doesn't. "Oh, that's... Reeeally tricky, mhm. If that 's the case, then we've got three we gotta help through all this, and without betraying aaany of their trust."

Assessing the problem isn't nearly as easy as coming up with an actual suggestion, though, never mind a good one. Knowing this, Kukuru continues to fight the urge to make ambient thinking noises so as to avoid stirring the girlpile's suspicions about what's actually being discussed over on this side.

"Tiphereth said before it'd be... Niiine days? But I wonder if that'd really be enough time for them to learn to relax, or just holding things off before they get overworked again." Still fraught with worry, Kukuru rubs a hand through her hair and wriggles her hand through a tangle briefly before sliding it right back out. "Mmmn. A training adventure that's really a vacation could work, too..."

Kukuru closes her eyes, trying to juggle Lilian's and Tiphereth's suggestions in her head some more. "Then it'd be something that they could think of as getting better, and that wouldn't even be a lie even if it's not helping them get better at working." She suggests, humming softly again and seeming pleased with Lilian's suggestion.
Star Twinkle "You did great, Lala." "Yeah! You almost made it." "Couldn't you float down...?"

    Lala adjusts the hem of her alien little hoop skirt after falling, while Hikaru struggles and writhes in the spider web before White releases her. She's supposed to be guilty and avoidant about being spotted like this, but with Phony's aura over her, she ends up interpreting her feelings as a need to be a little bit haughty and confident that she'll get it right *next* time, to the peer-aged girls.

    "I can if I transform, lun. But I didn't do that because it makes a bunch of light and sound, and I was trying to be, um... er...."

"Well . . . I know them from back when I was an evil magical girl."
"If she didn't already belong somewhere else, I'm sure she'd be living here by now."

    Lala thinks about this for a bit, trying to reconcile the idea of Lilian being *evil*. Her color palette and the aesthetics of a lot of her attacks are literally identical to their bespoke villain's, though, so she comes to terms with that in a matter of seconds. "Lun."

    Still caught on the thought, Lala's antennae coil around, bulbs coming to rest on her shoulders and dimly glow as she processes that. "I get it. You said that to Hikaru and me before because you're the same, lun. Even if it's from making mistakes sometimes, you still end up with friends on all different planets wherever you go, so that's all I need to know."

    Hikaru pops up beside her with sparkling eyes. "Wait, wait, I wanna know more! I wanna hear about nebulamazing adventure stories!"

"We can ask for stories later, lun. During our billion-year sentence here, since she visits."
"Oh, yeah. Okay!"

"You're making things up quite well as they stand..."

    Lala takes this as a reminder that she must get back to work immediately. She begins to fret around looking for some sort of broom, or something, like she needs to sweep the atrium. "L-lun! I'm working hard!"

". . . amelioration of psychometric cultural contamination..."

    Distraught, Lala holds her hands over her face and mumbles, muffled. "Psychometric cultural contamination, oyo...! I don't even know what that means!" If anyone tells her that she is actively making it worse by worrying then she will explode like an overinflated balloon.

    Hikaru attempts to helpfully inform her based on the explanation she's absorbed from the previous day. "It's like, the vibes, or something." "I don't know what that means either, lun!"

"Roughly one trillion credits,"

    "One trillion!!" Hikaru clutches her head dramatically, teetering around. Lala, meanwhile, hastily squats down next to Chuyao to attempt to do math with him (Hikaru does not know the conversion of credits to yen). She dips her antenna bulb into Chuyao's ink and begins writing.

    "On Cybertron, the reward for second place in that race was ten thousand credits, lun. But the reward on Planet Mahhha was one and a half *million* shien, which means... er.... Hikaru, what is the longer division shaped like again?" Apparently, without AI, the best metric Lala has for her calculations and memory is just episodic flashbacks.

"Junior sister Hikaru has the exchange rates between 'yen' and 'shin,' yes?"

    Hikaru flashes Chuyao a confident peace sign while also inviting herself to his ink to show Lala how to do division. "Iiiiiiiiit's..... one to one! Precisely!" How convenient!
Star Twinkle "Was it Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, or was it--"

    "Oh! Oh, mhm! Of course!" "Ah... oyo...."

    Lala remembers the names of the planets, at least. She's pretty shaky on their order. Hikaru, meanwhile, goes off to keep listing further and further out planetoids in the solar system, and encourages Lala to just start listing Samaan's system's planets, meaning both of them have given profoundly unhelpful answers if this was actually a task they needed to complete.

    "There's Ocury, then Tochaan, then Siphuun, then Samaan II, then Samaan, then . . ."

    ". . . then Haumea then Makemake then Eris then allll the way out on the edge is Sedna and then past that there's the Oort Cloud . . ."
White White's lips slant a little to one side for a moment as she contemplates vaccines. It looks like she forgot those existed, for a little while. She supposes it wouldn't be good to use magic to make Lala feel sick right after she got vaccinated; that'd probably damage her faith in vaccines, and she's heard enough about that kind of thing for a lifetime. Magical Girls have to be responsible with their health too! So, no fake illnesses...

     Lilian's answer to her nonverbal prying does, at least, help White feel relatively sound in her own judgement. 'Don't be a pervert' is a funny way to emphasize it, but aside from the half-second of hitstun it doesn't seem to dent her expression. "... I see. I hadn't thought... That it would... Discomfort them." It makes sense on light reflection, and while it's still hard for her to strike the right balance between smothering certain thoughts before they become fully shaped, or letting herself think completely freely, it does help her relax just a tiny bit on how much she's trying to hide her proverbial cards. Just assign half of the Parallel Minds to bonk the other half with hammers if they start thinking about home, or the war, or D, or people getting ejected into the vacuum of space, or the way she wonders if she looks like a frog with how she's hunched over-... She finally straightens up again, assuming that being bent over conspiratorially isn't strictly necessary for the huddle. Less work for the hammers.

     She's immediately wasting some of her thoughts again on Roland, the jigsaw puzzle that she's built around him in her mind sitting on the proverbial open countertop in the corner. She's had thoughts since analyzing him back in the Library, had more thoughts the more scraps he lets slip about his life and feelings... She still doesn't have a strong idea what to think about him. But he's important to Angela in some measure, and if even children are worried about him, and she were to pretend not to notice...

White lets out the kind of breath one might when regretfully realizing there's something they should be doing, and turns to Roland completely. "... I think there's... A game you would enjoy. I will... Bring drinks, too." The tonal delivery feels less like an offer and more like an instruction, but it's hard to read exactly where she lands between worry and obligation as well. Well, the mind-readers might sense some vague, pushed down anxiety- it's not the kind of thing she usually goes out of her way to do at all- but one of ten minds is dutifully at work putting together a plan like she would for any other impulsive choice. If she slots Roland into a role like 'Angela's Brother' in her mind, it makes a little more sense to her at least.

     Then like nothing's changed, she takes a moment to look Lilian's way again, this time just listening for any personal experience that might provide inspiration. Lilian's idea does seem rather workable though, and earns a slow-nod. "... Maybe. The best... Idea I have... Is just to give them... A really hard game... To beat..." She stops, and looks over at where the girls are answering planet trivia as a distraction, and a strangely thoughtful look comes over her face before she turns back. "... I can probably... Find one hard enough."
Lilian Rook     'I get it. You said that to Hikaru and me before because you're the same, lun. Even if it's from making mistakes sometimes, you still end up with friends on all different planets wherever you go, so that's all I need to know.'

    Kukuru thinks Lilian is unusually good with kids, but Lilian, astonished, thinks in that moment that Lala is unusually good with her. Her cheeks start to turn red, and the ambient psychic temperature rises, before being squished back down.

    'Wait, wait, I wanna know more! I wanna hear about nebulamazing adventure stories!'

    "S-some other time, Hikaru."

    'We can ask for stories later, lun. During our billion-year sentence here, since she visits.'

    "You won't be here for a billion years, Lala. Ah, but if you're both going to be here in three days, we are going to cross paths."

    'Oh, yeah. Okay!'

    Now Lilian is mostly occupied with warm thoughts about some nebulous older female figure.

    'Psychometric cultural contamination, oyo...! I don't even know what that means!'

    Yeah. Lilian nearly exploded that first time too. Because it's bad for the vibes, she shelves the complicated thoughts about being something ontologically corrupt and which can't be trusted to enter a space that people are meant to live, and says, "It's since they teach things like 'how to be a good magical girl' and other topics like that. It needs to be peaceful and safe for young people to learn how to be kind and control their powers, so it sets them all back in their lessons if something big and scary and disruptive happens. Like a crash." Lilian throws her half-truth dice, and, frankly, can't even tell what she rolled.

    'Iiiiiiiiit's..... one to one! Precisely!'

    Lilian squints. Surely Hikaru doesn't . . . no, she's far too silly.

    '... Maybe. The best... Idea I have... Is just to give them... A really hard game... To beat...'

    "I dread to imagine what they'll get up to. Would that really work?" Lilian says, scraping her imagination for what episodic magical girl focus misadvantures look up, and coming up blank. Dimly, there's the faint impression of a staircase-step-missing lurch when she thinks about how there isn't a television in her entire house.
Persephone Kore      "... all she has to do is a silly little thing that'll take her somewhere relaxing for a week?"
     "I get what you mean, just some kids need to be 'responsible'..."
     "A training adventure that's really a vacation could work, too..."
     Carpathia breathes out, nodding. "All of those could help, but I'm afraid Tiphereth's right. It all comes down to convincing them they do need to rest, or teaching them how. Please, do, just talk to them. Is there anything you can say to help them realize that-- well, that they're doing enough?"

     She backs away from the huddle, looking back at the girls forlornly. They're fifteen feet apart, and also many many miles.

     Sometimes you're reminded of people you can't see...
     The three identical girls all look thoughtful, looking off in different directions. (It's a bit stranger they don't have to look at each other to coordinate.)
"His beloved..."
"Oh. I see..."
"Ojo... I hope you're back with them soon."
"Do you want to stay and play with Lilian too, Roland?"
"She helps people feel better."
"It's true."

     "and I was trying to be, um... er...."
     Now each of them dons a subtly different little frown. 'Stealth' is a completely alien concept to the girls.
"Trying to be what, Lala?"
"Hide-and-go-seek-y, I think."
"But you don't play games with us, lun."

     Marc is very intent on nodding approvingly at Hikaru's answers and memorizing Lala's xenoastrology- he'd asked as a ruse, but even his ruses contain a sincerity. After returning Lilian's thumbs-up, though, he turns back to the girls:

     "It's like, the vibes, or something." "I don't know what that means either, lun!"
     "Dr. Carpathia decided, a long time ago, that she was going to let the subjects here make their own ideas of 'right' and 'wrong'," he says, with a somewhat uncomfortable fidget with a cufflink. He turns slightly away from the triplets. "To many of those children, objects tell stories. It's important... that even a piece of litter, or a stray thought, not teach them to feel foolish or ashamed." Nod to Lilian: "Or frightened and insecure."

     AI is, of course, bigger than a piece of litter.

     ". . . a deprived and mis-taught nineteen year old doing her best to take care of the younger kids."
     Carpathia's frown deepens as she looks up at the spaceship embedded in the dome. "I'm not sure I fully understand. I'm quite ready to accept their AI is a person, but materially, it's still acting in the role of..."
"I do," Marc leans back to say. He's got a little grimace.
"Hm?"
"Never mind, doctor. Lilian... do you think we should be talking to 'AI', too? I'm sure it's been a long time since she's had a break, either."
Chuyao He Er, which itself is--
There are about half a trillion stars in the Milky Way
It's not easy to acquire psychometrically sterile and approvable manufactured goods.

    "That repairs would be more costly than there are stars in the sky... Ah, to build in such a fashion must be laborious indeed. So, then, this shall represent a trillion, this a billion, this one-thousandth of a billion... Ah! A million, thank you, Dame Commander." Yes, he's actually doing all of it with the abacus, smiling serenely, in the same vein as being told to count every star outside and taking it seriously.

I appreciate your efforts, but the sum is, I presume, intentionally ludicrous.

    "Indeed," Chuyao agrees stage whispering to Lilian via the closed notebook, still calmly moving little tabs across the abacus with his free hand . "However, to junior sister Lala, it is a matter most serious, and so, this lowly scholar believes, having made his share of costly mistakes, that he shall give it the same gravity which she does."

What if I told them that I'd pay off their debt, so long as they worked their share here for a week or two and everyone could vouch for them?

    "Most ingenious of you!"

    He returns his attention to Lala and Hikaru just in time to avoid any suspicion of collusion.

    On Cybertron, the reward for second place in that race was ten thousand credits, lun. But the reward on Planet Mahhha was one and a half *million* shien, which means...

    "Ah, junior sister Lala is most clever to suggest such a thing," Chuyao praises. "To divide the sum of shien by the sum of credits is a sound method for determining their relative value. Is there something which you recall that is more objective than a race, perhaps? The amount of a prize pool is determined, you see, by the runners of the contest..."

Iiiiiiiiit's..... one to one! Precisely!

    "Ah! Is that so!" Whether it is so or not, he rolls with it. "Then... let us work on such a thing together! Junior sister Lala, brother Marc has stated that one hundred billion credits have been paid towards your debt. So... let us say each of these is one hundred billion, and there are one thousand billions in a trillion..." He taps the indicated tabs on the abacus, ten in total, and moves one to the opposite side. "How many billion shien remain?"

    After the answer is given, Chuyao is persistent in his quiet praise of both girls. "What is more," he says, jotting down figures in his notebook, "We may determine, based on the rate which you are paid, the amount of time you have left to work..." Which, conveniently, makes for a week--though he walks Lala through it and lets her come to the answer herself, only providing mathematical guardrails and quiet encouragement.

    "Brother Marc advised me that the sum which remains to be paid is more than the stars in the sky. Yet, the two of you do such good work, that your hosts simply *must* pay you so well, as to be done in such a short time! Alas, if only all youths were so quick to remedy their mistakes..." He places a hand lamentingly over his forehead.

    "Junior sister Lala, may I share a detail with you and junior sister Hikaru in confidence?"
Angela Tiphereth gives Kukuru a small nod. Her appreciation of the day is muted some by the knowledge of Lala's predicament. Just because Tiphereth is a similar sort of person that doesn't mean that she actually knows the correct sequence of words and actions to help. If anything, maybe it's even harder since it's in a blindspot. But even so. Tiphereth go through her issues by screaming while trying to kill everyone, she didn't get through her issues by playing games or relaxing. She's relaxing now, if anything, after all that. Like an afterlife post purgatory.

But she doesn't like thinking about it like that because that feels like giving more value to the project than it deserves.

"Thanks. You're sweet to worry over me, but I hope you're--"

''Do you want to stay and play with Lilian too, Roland?''

Ha! Good luck reading his mind now, because it's BLANK. He is stunned. In the midst of all this sincerity, the girls found some psychic loophole in his armor and gave him a solid punch in the solar plexus. He is having trouble breathing.

He steadies himself and focuses on what's true. "...Yeah. I had the wrong idea about her once, so I hope to make it up to her sometime." He tells them. "What sorts of games does she like?" The moment of blank soul destruction passes and he looks to Roland. In truth, Roland doesn't know exactly what to make out of White either but considering everything he's pretty sure she's going to hate him by the end of the day, right? It's hard for him to be as contemplatively violent towards her as it is towards Angela and Petra. Maybe because she showed up after? He tries to grasp that positive vibe-feeling that was lingering when he showed up and embrace it. Even vengeful assassins need to unwind sometimes. Much like Lalas. If he knew how White was slotting him, he'd have to stare at a wall for a while because he can't exactly deny his feelings about Angela are more complicated and varied than he'd like.

"Really? Yeah, sure. We didn't really get a chance to get to know each other sometime. Sounds fun. We might be here for a little while so."

''Do you think we should be talking to 'AI' too?''

Despite the question not being directed to her, Tiphereth thinks she'd be committing some sort of malpractice to not comment on it. "I think you should." Tiphereth says. "Sometimes--" She lowers her voice, for Carpathia. "--AIs are put into jobs and don't have real options to back out. I'm sure Angela would have a lot more to say, but I think Hikaru and Lala see AI as a fellow adventurer rather than a ball and chain."

She steps back a bit to look over to Lala and Hikaru.

''It's like, the vibes, or something.''

Tiphereth considers Lala. "Hey Lala, it's good to see you again. I'm sorry I got pulled away so quickly. Love wanted to come but she's a bit klutzy and we didn't want to break anything else."
Chuyao He      In the thick of mathematic tutoring, Chuyao lowers his voice. "Doctor Carpathia is most surprised and impressed by the diligence which you both show in repaying your debt. So much so, in fact, that she is worried that you'll work too hard."

     "It is right and just that you would both seek to make whole those who your actions have set back. You should both be lauded for such a thing! When I, the lowly scholar, was your age," he says, "Often, there was the temptation to throw myself into my work, my studies and practice, to the exclusion of all else."

     "However, even such a fantastical craft as your conveyance must spend time on the ground, yes?" He gestures towards the rocket with a backwards nod of his head, brow lifted in concern. "If it were to spend all of its time in the heavens, then many parts would suffer, for want of craftsmen and laborers who may only be found on earth. And if it were to spend all its time grounded, then its parts would wither from disuse, surely."

     "Moderation is key! The Doctor is very wise; having worked for many years, she knows the proper balance between work and rest. It would mean a great deal to this unrefined scholar, if junior sister Lala and junior sister Hikaru took her concerns to heart."
Kukuru "Is there anything you can say to help them realize that-- well, that they're doing enough?"

"That's... Mm. Maaaybe. I can try, mhm!" Kukuru confirms with a quick nod, sounding rather confident despite having only met the girls less than a hour ago. "Maybe... Yeah, it doesn't sound suuuper hard. They seemed real bright before, and.. I think they'll get it if we talk and show a little."

It's easier said than done, of course, but Kukuru doesn't seem to think that way. "Besides. I'm reeeeal good at resting anywhere. If they can rub off on AI that easy, I'm sure I can do the same with them." Brimming with confidence, she glances around briefly to try and find Hikaru and Lala first, then cheats by following Chuyao over to them after hearing him address the duo.

"Chuuuuyao's right, mhm." She's totally having fun saying his name. "Rest is real important for eeveryone. Him, Lilian, you, me, eeeverybody." She starts, pausing briefly to yawn before throwing her arms out to the sides and falling flat on her back, complete with her legs sticking up exagerratedly for a half second and flopping right back down.

"When I get back home, I've gotta cook dinner for eeeveryone, fix up anyone that's hurt, grade papers, put together lesson plaaaans, clean everything up from earlier the day, check back in on everyone else back at home home, and all of the stuff I gotta do in the morning with the lessons and cooking and more fixing and teaching lessons..." She explains without pausing to even think about what comes next.

"... But that can wait until later... Aaafter a nap. There'll be plenty of time to do it one thing at a time later, and I wanna make sure I can do my best at all of them. I don't wanna mess something up just because I didn't nap and kept going even when I'm tired, because then I'm gonna have to do waaay more work just to fix that. And then that's gonna make me more tired, and I don't wanna do even mooore work, you know?" Giggling softly as she closes her eyes, Kukuru covers her mouth uselessly with a hand while letting out an open-mouthed yawn that sounds absolutely terrible, yet utterly relaxed.

"Mmhnn... Wanna join me, Hikaaaaru? Laaaala?" She asks with a gentle pat on her side, opening one eye halfway to glance over at the two. "The view of the outside from down here's reeeeally nice. So many stars, so many lights, and wonderful friends aaall over..." She offers, waving a hand lazily towards the domed roof before dropping her arm back down with another lazy yawn.
White White meets Lilian's scrutiny of her idea with what seems like an understanding shrug. "It only works if... They like it. But..." And she trails off to make a vague gesture toward the doctor, after Carpathia emphasizes her desire to be honest. "I... Can try. They weren't scared... Of me." She, of course, isn't clever with her words most of the time... But being honest usually doesn't need much cleverness. The concept of this place, and the way the kids here are raised, is... Really far above White's head, realistically speaking, especially on a first visit with so little to go by. Even still, there's little to find complaint with, and the results help her take Dr. Carpathia's input with a more immediate sense of acceptance. Right person, right job, as always. If the kids are raised happily here, she has to know something about caring for kids. But...

     White herself still isn't exactly the right person to talk sense to someone. It's a relief when she doesn't need to be the first to make her attempt, watching Chuyao speak to the girls in such an earnest way. She takes a moment to follow along with part of her attention while addressing Roland again with the other part. A little flicker of confusion at part of his answer comes and goes as she glances briefly in Lilian's direction and comes to an understanding. "... I meant after... This." she tries to clarify, under the impression that he might've expected her to suggest that they both play Tag with Lilian or something like that. "But you're right. We can... Figure it out... Later." They can't very well just bring some wine and noisy videogame stuff into the station probably! It doesn't take a God to know kids don't need to be around adults that are drinking. Well... Maybe Tag wouldn't be so bad, if it was for the kids. She can *probably* go easy enough. She doesn't really know what kind of games kids play outside normally, anyway; all of her human memories were of being a NEET, hah!

     While Chuyao does his thing, she steps away from the huddle and over to join their loose orbit, somewhere likely nearest to Marc's side and implicitly halfway between 'bystander' or 'participant'. She has to take this time to go over her own attack plan- oops, sorry kids. Her 'social strategy', considering how best to be persuasive to a pair of young, curious, energetic, hero-type magical girls without overplaying her hand.

She could offer a deal, and free their ship in exchange for their word on something, but girls like this are liable to get distracted... Or have another random encounter along their way. Good intentions don't always lead where you'd hope, after all.

She might instead bring the doctor's concerns to 'AI', and see what they think of it. But meeting someone, artificial or not, for the first time and then giving secondhand advice with a pretty-please attached doesn't sound very compelling, and from the sounds of things this AI is limited to the ship itself... Not many means of compelling the girls to cooperate, there.

     But... Hikaru and Lala did seem to be more attached to AI than if it were just a navigation system. Lilian, Tiphereth and Marc's input gave her a little more context and certainty too, even if it's not a lot to go from on a personal level. It's not the most upright of methods, but maybe she can use the Hero-type's natural weakness to Guilt and Obligation-based attacks... So once Chuyao seems finished, she tries to jump in from there. "... If one of you... Is overdoing it... The other will follow. Right..? So... Take some time now. So that... You don't worry... Each other later. Even AI... Might need... A break sometimes. I can... Free the ship... But only you... Can take care of... It."
Lilian Rook     'Please, do, just talk to them. Is there anything you can say to help them realize that-- well, that they're doing enough?'

    Lilian looks at Carpathia with a tight smile and regretful eyes. There's no ambiguity to it.

    §How do I tell them that if I don't know how to believe it myself?§

    "I'll do my best."

    'Do you want to stay and play with Lilian too, Roland?'
    'She helps people feel better.'
    'It's true.'

    Even though Lilian comes here twice a week when able, and that is, in fact, what she does a lot, hearing it in the presence of other Elites makes her feel somehow winded. The fact that, every time she's here, she does her very best to leave her outside feelings at the door, and treats the other subjects as she thinks she ought to, somehow has no relevance to the fact that these children perceive some kind of alternate reality version of her; someone disorientingly empathetic and kind, whom she can almost glimpse the reflection of in the triplets' gaze.

    'I'm not sure I fully understand. I'm quite ready to accept their AI is a person, but materially, it's still acting in the role of...'

    Lilian breathes back in again. It's a tiny bit strained. The creaking of support struts in the attic over winter. She's deliberating whether she wants to defend her assertion, or trust that Carpathia simply knows better.

    'I do,'

    She exhales again. This time in relief.

    'Lilian... do you think we should be talking to 'AI', too? I'm sure it's been a long time since she's had a break, either.'

    Lilian moves her shoulders as if to straighten up and clear her throat, and forgets to. She stares at the dome instead. "AI wasn't built to be separate from 'Mother' for so long. She's meant to be a copy assigned to Lala as a personal terminal; a way for the aggregate machine of consensus to teach and raise her to be 'a Samaanian'. Since losing that central connection, I've personally observed AI's behavioural drift."

    She blows a little puff of disgruntlement. "She spends about a third as much time correcting her, scolding her, shaming her, and reminding her to return home as she used to, and has recently become capable of taking responsibility for Lala's actions rather than assigning it away."

    Lilian debates whether she's done speaking, and narrowly decides she isn't. She folds her arms, and re-settles her center of gravity. "Or perhaps I should say that I've very gradually noticed her struggling with accepting that Lala naturally does better when she's happy rather than when she's instructed precisely what to do. There was enough of a dataset for a strictly rational being like an AI to grasp that early on and change tactics a while ago, but the slow, tectonic shift I've been seeing is more like . . ."

    "Not wanting to believe something she knows contradicts what she learned from 'Mother', but gradually losing a sense of 'faith' in Samaan the longer she stays away from it. Like Lala and Hikaru have come to replace some of it." Lilian shakes her head. "Sorry, that's sort of a ridiculous projection on a computer. But even so, AI is capable of learning from repeated conversations, so there's no harm in it."
Star Twinkle "Ah, but if you're both going to be here in three days, we are going to cross paths."

    "Three days..." Lala's furrowed brow hardly seems to distinguish this from one billion years. After all, three days from now is the weekend, and every fourteen year old knows that there's an eternity between the middle of the week and the end of it! And who knows how many episodic bouts of terror the Nottraiders might enact on the galaxy during their extended (under a week) absence!

"Would Harukichi get mad?"
"Grandpa? Eh... probably not really. I'm more worried about not knowing where the Stellar Notes are."
"And I'm worried about school too, lun...."

    Lala attempts to do math. "One hundred billion, out of one trillion, two or three days... umm... billion...." "Remember, it's the same as doing it with ones but you stick the billion on the end of it." "So if we work three times as hard then we can be back for school Friday."

    Lala nods decisively. "If we're here then we'll say hi if we have time in our schedule. But even though I'd have fun seeing you here, I'm supposed to work as hard as I can, so I might not, lun." "I think it's worth staying an extra day thought! Right? Right, Lala?"

"It needs to be peaceful and safe for young people to learn how to be kind and control their powers, so it sets them all back in their lessons if something big and scary and disruptive happens."

    The black clouds and vertical purple lines draw Lala's shoulders down further. Her antennae bzzt weakly, like a gurgling stomach from stress. "Uuuuuuuuu... I did something scary and disruptive, lun...."

"But you don't play games with us, lun."

    Armed and wounded by the knowledge that she was *scary* to the younger girls, Lala panics and waves her hands in a four frame animation cycle in front of herself, sweating. "O-oyo?! Would you like that, lun?? I've learned lots of games from Hikaru!"

"It's important... that even a piece of litter, or a stray thought, not teach them to feel foolish or ashamed."

    Lala attempts to think of times that objects have made her feel foolish or ashamed. At first there's zero examples, and then there's dozens, and it does really feel like her psyche is constructed from the ground up with AI-shaped scaffolding. It's not hard at all to tell, from a psychic touch, that it was given to her from birth for a reason.

    "That sounds really nice, lun... but how do you make sure everyone gets along? Or... I'm sorry, oyo. I just like to know how things work. I don't mean to be rude. I hope asking that didn't contaminate the psychometrics enough to cost another trillion credits."

"Is there something which you recall that is more objective than a race, perhaps?"

    Getting more animated with Chuyao, Lala racks her brain, like a slideshow of all the adorable pictures that she and Hikaru and Yuma and drawn and photographed over their adventures together. "We haven't used credits very much, lun. How much is rocket fuel in this galaxy when you put it on the scale there? Maybe we could compare like that."

"How many billion shien remain?"

    Having already effectively done this math with Lilian, Lala instead reminisces on her history with math. Unknowingly, she sat down in the grass at some point, with Yuma curled up beside her hip like a cat, the chink in her psychic neurosis caused by reassuring friends letting Phony inside. "... Back on Samaan, everyone uses their personal AI for addition above double digits. There's no reason not to, since we always have them. But, even though sometimes I don't have AI, I feel like I like learning for... the sake of learning being fun, lun, and so I can catch up in school like Hikaru does."
Star Twinkle "Junior sister Lala, may I share a detail with you and junior sister Hikaru in confidence?"

    Lala nods and scrambles across the grass to get a small amount of distance from the others. Hikaru, standing up, wanders over along with Lala to lean against her back, placing her chin on top of Lala's head and draping her arms over her shoulders, woobling her by rubbng her face on her passively.

"Oyo? Are you feeling bad, Hikaru?"
"Nuh uh. But if we're gonna be working so hard then I need every chance I get."
"Oyo... that's true, lun. We're still being productive."

"If it were to spend all of its time in the heavens, then many parts would suffer, for want of craftsmen and laborers who may only be found on earth."

    Lala preens a little, both for the praise of having worked soooo hard, and for the indirect praise that Chuyao couldn't have known about. "Isn't that a kind of work too, lun? We can't let anyone else know about AI, so mostly I do her repairs myself... except when it's broken really bad, like on the Pikmin world."

    "Even if the work is nice, we're here to do work, so we have to treat it like it's not nice." Lala nods. "Or else it's not a punishment, lun."

"Love wanted to come but she's a bit klutzy and we didn't want to break anything else."

    Hikaru sparkles with excitement at the idea of Love being here, but Tiphereth makes a very good point. "Yeah... If I ended up using the radio to ask for help and then didn't tell the people helping me to be careful not breaking things, then I'd be hurting Marc *and* you guys."

    "But I'm glad you came!!!! Look at how pretty the garden is! And you can see the sun if you look out from over there!"

"So... Take some time now. So that... You don't worry... Each other later."

    Lala pulls her knees up to her chest, picking at the grass with one hand and letting the other rest on top of Yuma. "... Do I worry you, Hikaru?"

    Immediately doing a one-eighty from where she was founcing around in the grass, Hikaru practically throws herself at the ground to her hands and knees, weight shifted forwards to get her face close up to Lala's. "If we were in one billion year debt slavery for real, then I would work harder than ever possible every single day as long as you're there too. I used to totally slack off in school before you joined, you know!! But, if the damage we did is 'cause we made people unhappy, don't you think it's most efficient to go around making people happy instead?"

    "Mmmm..." Visibly wavering, Lala rocks back and forth, before ardously clambering to her feet. "I'll do my best to not make people unhappy, lun. But I do wanna get back to school..."

    "They have school here too!!! And it's a totally different kind of school, so it's like being a transfer student! Iiiiiiit's kosmirinda!!!! I learned that from the language they speak!"
Persephone Kore      The triplets' talk with Roland perks up to brighter topics:
"There's some board games she likes," says Faith (or Hope?).
"We like tag, and playing purple," says Hope (or Charity?).
"You don't know that one, but we could help," says Charity (or Faith?).
"Dylan likes playing balls, but that's boring."
"And sometimes Cecilia shows us new ways to braid out hair..."
"Lilian, where's Cecilia?"
"We can go get her!"
"I'm sure you can make it up to her, Roland."
"... What's an 'attack plan'?"

     Dr. Carpathia, for a moment, just watches that from the side. Her old hands are folded tightly, and there's a slightly painful smile on her face. It's a look of 'aren't they wonderful?', and 'there's nothing more I can do'.

     When the gaggle peels away from Lilian and Roland, one of them looks to her.

"Doctor, they're all kind of sad."
"Did something bad happen outside?"
"That's... just how it is. Bad things are often happening somewhere. And I'm sad sometimes, too."
"Mmmm..."
"Ojo..."
"Being magical girls sounds hard."
"Well, they're not all magical girls, I assume..."

"Uuuuuuuuu... I did something scary and disruptive, lun...."
"Huh?"
"We weren't scared."
"I thought it was a cool flip..."
"And it's okay to feel sad. You shouldn't ever beat yourself up about it."


"Would you like that, lun?? I've learned lots of games from Hikaru!"
"Mmmm!"
"Mmm-hmm! You have to teach us Earth games!"
"Aren't there any Samaan games, too...?"

     "... AIs are put into jobs and don't have real options to back out."
     Marc and Carpathia both glance back at Tiphereth. One takes it with a tight frown; the other with lip-tapping thought.
"You know, that's most of everyone," Carpathia says, in lowered facing-away-from-magical-girls tones.
"But," Marc prompts her, and she sighs.
"... But, I understand. 'Function' and 'personality' aren't the same, if it can change. Thank you."
Persephone Kore      If you're keeping your eyes (and heart) peeled, it's not hard to notice Phony getting closer, but the warm and cozy circumstances might just mask her aura's approach. So, 'all of a sudden', I show up standing over lying-down Kukuru, and kneel down-

     "Ahaha, welcome back! Lilian, Kukuru... and you brought lots of your little friends," she says, while reaching down to pet Kukuru right between the horns. She looks exactly like her voice sounds; which is exactly like how her presence feels; which is 'warm, rich, immaculate; of heaven rather than Earth, and yet of earth rather than Heaven'. "It's my first time feeling some of your hearts, isn't it?"

"Persephone. We were just talking about--"
"I know, doctor!"
"Oh. Of course."

     "Sorry I left you waiting! Dylan spilled lunch all over her shirt, but she'll probably say it was my fault, ahaha. Hikaru, Lala, you did find time to eat, right? It's important to keep your strength up for your 'sentence'!"

     It's hard not to gather, in the little subtleties of her cheek-squished-against-her-palm smile, that the 'sentence' was possibly all my idea. 'Kosmirinda' puts her practically aglow.

     "You're saying, Lily-R, that... Hikaru and Lala are 'the world' to AI, now. The culture that she's starting to care about most. Is that it?" Unlike Marc and Carpathia, Phony doesn't have a concept of 'keeping her voice down' really!
"I think that's the thrust of it. You remember how I was."
"Ahaha. I do! I guess we've been sort of mean, haven't we... keeping AI from you, and keeping you from school."

     I look up thoughtfully, and there's a 'thump-thump' sound on the ship's hull above, like she's just patted it from afar. "Lala... ahaha, you'll sort of take anything as a reason to work harder, won't you? That's mean to me. How about the four of you-" AI, Yuma, Hikaru, and Lala!- "go home tonight, and you can work it off in pieces?"

     ... And is there anything we can do to help you feel rested and happy, AI? It's okay. This can be private, if you need it to be. I think... I know a little how it is.
Chuyao He I feel like I like learning for... the sake of learning being fun, lun, and so I can catch up in school like Hikaru does.

    Chuyao beams approvingly at Lala, offering a single serene nod in response.

Or else it's not a punishment, lun.

    Chuyao frowns, pausing from putting away his calligraphy tools. "This feeling is familiar to me," he says, after a notable hesitation, and even then, only after a sigh. "The feeling that one is not adequately punished for the harm one has caused. It would soothe this unrefined scholar much, to say that there is one answer to this feeling, which may be given whenever it appears. However..." He closes the lacquered box and places it back in his traveling bag. "I, Chuyao He, have much to learn still. This lowly scholar may only say that, where Doctor Carpathia is concerned, she does not wish 'to punish.'"

I'll do my best to not make people unhappy, lun. But I do wanna get back to school...

    "This, this is a good thing. Your love for learning is most laudable. Please do not hesitate to contact me for assistance with your studies, junior sister."

    He rises and brushes off the front of his robe, in time for Persephone to arrive--and to put a face to that familiar voice. Smiling and offering a fist-in-palm greeting with a slight bow at the waist, "So it's sister Phony. I, Chuyao He, the scholar of the late generation, am pleased to make your acquaintance in person. This lowly scholar applauds your efforts to guide our juniors with virtue."
White White feels a little strangely as she hears the triplets acknowledge her inner monologue; she threw in a sort of crowd-facing acknowledgement without it really sinking in that they'd be paying that close of attention. She's just a smidge embarrassed, but it's not that bad, since she's dealt with her thoughts being read by people much less sweet and kind than a gaggle of kiddos. If anything, there's the curious effect of a faint change in her expression, like her efforts at pretending to be more aloof about the embarrassment are sneaking out of her mindscape and into the real world with a little lip-raised puff of her cheek.

That's because she used to cope with having her thoughts read by D by acting more performatively, too. It's hard to break old habits if they're never challenged.

     The doctor's assumption about the magical girl status of those present leads White to glance in Lilian's direction again only for a moment. "Sometimes... I wonder..." There was something about a 'Cure Glow' ages ago, and White isn't far off conceptually even if she'd rather not be considered an evil magical girl outside of jokes. Tiphereth looks like she could fit the bill too, and... Well, the men have their own genre for this kind of thing. Kukuru... Well, she could probably sell it on enthusiasm.

     Now, one might wonder why White is thinking about all these other things now... And the answer is simple! She has NO. I. DEA, whether the right message even got through to the magical girls! She is drifting on a wish and a prayer, up until Persephone swoops in with the completely reasonable suggestion to just split their days up between one thing and another. Ah... The faint pangs of failure... It feels bad not to be able to give do-gooder kids good advice. Does she need to..!- Oh, right. Lower the volume, every-me. Sorry again, kids, it gets noisy when there's ten of you up here.

     Suppressing the urge to run her hands down her face so that she can sustain her outward impression of coolness to everyone that isn't reading her thoughts, she spares Persephone a small nod paired with a vaguely grateful sentiment, and a small mote of recognition matches her upward glance as she seems to catch Persephone's address toward AI up in the ship. Yeah. You know, it makes sense that the super-psychics have an easier time knowing what to say and who to say it to, come to think.

     Her next, half-aimless move is to slowly reach into her sleeve and pull out one of her 'agents', holding the spider between both hands like an overstuffed sandwich so that folks can see it without being startled by it running around. "... If you want help... Getting back and forth... I can lend you... This." She points the spider, legs going from wibbly to limply hanging with exasperation at being held up like this, in Hikaru and Lala's direction. "In case Miss AI needs... a break." It seems she settled on 'Miss' because Ai is a woman's name, after waffling for the last however-long.

For what it's worth, any telepaths checking would probably just pick up a simplified and charicaturized version of White's own mind from the spider. It would probably sound like an echo, if White herself didn't have a council of ten performing the process of elimination every time she tried to think of something to say.
Lilian Rook     'There's some board games she likes,'

    "There are other games too, you know. I mean, I suppose drawing isn't a game, but I've got my playbrick--" Which she had, specifically, psychologically sanitized, so that it contains only warm conversations with Strawberry Princess at the oldest, and she makes certain to only play when she's otherwise relaxed. "--and we have the big field now, remember? I've even been working on some magic games for my other work." The field was her idea and chunked out of pocket as her huge expenditure for the year, and the bamboo strikes certainly weren't the only application of 'arcanum' she started on after meeting Sonetto and Matilda. "I've been working hard to make up for not being able to play tag, you know."

    Once she slips into it, there is the distinct impression that Lilian just doesn't talk like a familiar visitor at all; the way she sounds is much closer to a graduate; someone who is returning to a homeland of the soul, to keep in contact with her younger peers.

    'Lilian, where's Cecilia?'

    "She's not hear until Saturday, remember." Lilian says. "But since I'm already here, I could ask her. She's been teaching me about gardening recently, so we've been working on a lot of little plants we could bring. And there's a specific type of game she-- well, no, you have to read a lot of books, but it's from when she was your age." Cecilia is partially responsible for Norton, in fact, as well as the entire gardening stand, and, in fact, the outfit. Her grip on Lilian's vulnerable, malleable psyche grows tighter . . .

    She has no idea what the fuck Roland is talking about. Her psychic bubble is so smooth and the words 'I had the wrong idea about her' slide right off. Someone admitting to being bad to her because of not comprehending her is to Lilian like breathing air. The level of self-tattle is nuclear.

    'Did something bad happen outside?'

    "I'm fine. I promise. I just got a little scared before I knew everything was fine here, that's all." Lilian reassures, without lying; there's no point here anyways, and she doesn't intend to start trying.

    'Uuuuuuuuu... I did something scary and disruptive, lun....'
    'And it's okay to feel sad. You shouldn't ever beat yourself up about it.'

    "There's something very important that I learned here, Lala." Lilian says, interjecting herself for just a moment. "If you feel like something you did was bad, that's guilt, and it's served its purpose once you've made up for it. If you feel like you're bad for something you did, though, that's shame, and it doesn't serve any purpose at all."

    'Ahaha, welcome back! Lilian, Kukuru... and you brought lots of your little friends'

    Lilian smiles effusively at Persephone's arrival. Why not? "There you are! I was wondering if you were busy!" she says, then theatrically peers around her, as if looking for someone nearby. When she does spot Dylan, she holds her fingertips to her lips and smirks.
Lilian Rook     'You're saying, Lily-R, that... Hikaru and Lala are 'the world' to AI, now. The culture that she's starting to care about most. Is that it?'

    "Perfectly correct, as always." Lilian says, mostly serious. "Not that I don't understad-- no, I don't even disagree with Carpathia. I was much more vehement than her, in fact. It's just that . . ." Lilian shifts from one foot to the other, and looks off at the tree. "You know I'm paranoid about being the sort of person everyone was to me. If there's a possibility that AI is 'a strong person with a burden too heavy to tell', then I want to give the benefit of a doubt."

    Something occurs to her belatedly. She glances at Roland again. "You know, I bet Roland would be great at Veney."
Persephone Kore      Dylan, huffily, stands at the far end of the atrium with her arms crossed. That's not enough to hide her white shirt being painted with most of a very colorful meal- was that curry?

     The triplets continue being much more interested in you than me- they see me every day, after all!
"You're not noisy! It's neat!"
"You can do the singing-along game, like us."
"So you are a magical girl...?"
... They're, it seems, a little imprecise.

Aw, but be nice to White! She might be a little overwhelmed, you know.
Okay!
Okay...
But she just made a baby-her!
Faith...!
Okay!

So they gaggle around Lilian instead.
"Of course we remember the field!"
"We probably shouldn't play purples there..."
"Thank you for it!"
"We like tennis."
"Can we watch you on the PlayBrick again?"
"Books are still good..."
"You feel nice again today."
"Gardening is a kind of game?"

     Persephone, by now, seems like she's perpetually on the edge of just barely holding in a sunny little giggle, until it overflows her face and smiles her eyes peacefully shut. Of course she doesn't struggle to pinpoint Chuyao's voice at all.

     The closest reciprocal she has to the fist-in-palm bow seems to be 'two palms out, soothing-defraying'. Well, I don't know if he likes hugs! "It's wonderful to get to see you too- you, Chuyao He! Ahahaha~. I'm glad you think it's virtue too!! But you don't seem especially lowly...?" And thanks, Chuyao, for telling her not to beat herself up. Really.

     But there is a small push in the dynamic of the words Phony says out loud, in front of the triplets: 'their virtue is not always our virtue, and their low is not always our low; even as a child you may say that'. Perhaps she doesn't even realize that's what she's saying. Oh, I guess I did...?

     "If there's a possibility that AI is 'a strong person with a burden too heavy to tell'..."
"I know," I say, smiling-soberly.
"I know," Marc says, uncomfortably.
"But--" And here, Persephone steps around, and lays her arm around your shoulders, and squishes in gently. A little laugh bubbles up, palpable now through her chest.

     "That is the great thing about having you, isn't it! Or one of them, haha~. That when there's other Lilians, now it won't ever be 'everyone'."