as written by Ottoman and Knosis
Landwächter Psykorps Central Academy,
Striegis IV, the Imperial Core
The halls of the central academy were a sterile place, though they were as gothic as any other state institution. They were kept spartan and simple for the sake of those who dwelled within these walls, the masses of citizens who never asked to serve this role for the Supremacy, who more often than not held some resentment for their positions. The captain had felt it, at times, in his younger years, but had come to develop a far more understanding approach to the Korps and their ways, even though his brethren might disagree with him.
Before they proved themselves the psykers enjoyed a humble, almost monastic, experience in one of the academies, a time meant to mold their character as much as their power. To pair what they wielded with the base, selfish desires of the commons - the average folk - was beyond dangerous. He didn't simply believe that the quarantine of psychics, especially the youth, was in everyone's best interests, he knew.
How he knew.
Perhaps that was why he was moving to greet this new arrival instead of letting them come to him - the last thing that the man wanted to do was defer to the precedent, though he doubted that anyone of the like would ever happen again. Upstairs had gotten what they'd wanted, the rest be damned. It would be good to start in a new manner, a fresh manner, especially considering the brief, and alarming, dossier that they already had on the young woman.
A practiced step and clicking heels brought the Austran around a corner, into the common atria of the Academy, away from the steps that lead to the instructors' quarters and towards processing. With the folder tucked under arm, the officer looked over the new arrivals for soon-to-be Anwärter Acker, keeping the photograph from the file clear in his mind, his charcoal uniform a stark contrast in the small sea of civilian clothing.
The past couple of days had been a whirlwind of events for the young girl. Not that she seemed to care. After she had been extracted from that house, and cleaned up, she was then handed off to yet more strangers and told she was given the option of working for them or waiving her rights to live.
'You sure you want to live?'
She scratched at her arm anxiously, incisively, as she had done from the time the accident happened.
'You're a monster, you know that right?'
'Freak!'
"Shut it.." She whispered.
There were more voices in her head than normal. Conflicting emotions hit her like a sack of bricks, and she was all at once angry, wanting to scream, to frightened and wanting to cry. Why was it she was here again? All she wanted was--
'You're going to kill again.'
She stood in the crowd of other civilians that apparently been gathered for some reason or another. A few were muttering to themselves, others seemed just as frightened as she felt occasionally. She wore a simple shirt and pants, her old ones ruined.
A thought crossed her mind, and it felt like a tug as she looked up to the man in the uniform as he came close, somehow knowing he was looking for her.
'Trip him. Hehehehe...'
Thus, she attempted. She was tiny enough to hide behind someone and stick her leg out at the last second to attempt to trip the man as he passed.
It was the sort of search that Matthias felt at a disadvantage in, relying only on his eyes as he wouldn't know the girl's thoughts if he put them in her head, but he continued regardless. The twenty years or so he'd spent in uniform had given him practice, time, to hone his blocks, to put up his walls and keep the noise out - were it that he didn't touch anyone, he wouldn't hear them unless they stripped his resolve bare, or unless he wanted to.
He had been trained, as they had all been trained, to be courteous in regards to one's telepathic capabilities - to intrude in another's mind is just as severe as intruding in their home, violating perhaps the most private space anyone had - and so he didn't try to keep track of the maelstrom of emotion and thought that was processing. Thus he didn't see Sid's trick coming, at least not with the mind's eye.
It caught him off-guard, though it didn't send him down properly, the officer catching himself before he could fall properly. Quick eyes darted to his flank to look for who did it, catching sight of the young woman from the dossier easily enough. Acker, wasn't that her name? Righting himself that he stood properly, Matthias offered her a smirk, not expecting this sort of playfulness from anyone in processing. These people were usually afraid, unsure or distraught, not mischievous.
"... miss Acker?" Came the brief inquiry, very certain that was who he was looking at as it matched the photograph from her file almost to a tee. Her hair laid differently now than on the reference he carried, but that was of little concern. "I'm Hauptsturmführer Rüger," The Austran offered her a gloved hand to shake, "I'm to be one of your instructors here at the academy."
She made a face, obviously displeased by the formality of 'Miss'. "Sid." She said. "I'm Sid." She gave him a incredulous look, starting from his gloved hand, to the uniform, then to his face. After a few awkward moments of her silent inspection, she offered her hand out to the man, taking his in her own. "Nice to meet you, Mr. Hop-Storm-Farter." She said, saying the 'name' in what she thought he pronounced it as.
'His mother must of hated him.'
"So uh, I've never been to an academy before. Its really noisy in here. Can I have my music player back?"
Matthias didn't give her a look so much as his eyebrows climbed slightly, not expecting something quite along these lines. Sid, then? Just Sid? Well, he'd called others stranger things, and was found that he was content to simply get a handshake out of her. That was an amiable enough start. "Things like that are usually investigated by processing. Once it's vetted, it'll be sent to your room." Once it had been cleared of any sort of paranormal influence or capability to induce any sort of stressed emotional state - paranoid precautions, but their whole organization was born from paranoia.
"If you have your bag, we can see to getting your things to your quarters and getting your issued accouterments." The man offered, gesturing over his shoulder, back out of processing. "It's far more quiet away from here." It might give him a better opportunity to gauge just what management had dropped in his lap as well, which he regarded with some trepidation.
Making a gesture for her to follow, Matthias started on his way towards the dormitories.
Bag? She immediately looked down the ground and found that mentioned item was missing. Where was it?
"Oh."
She ran back to where she had left it, bumping into another person along the way before grabbing it and rushing after Matthias. "So, Hop-Storm-Farter.." She said. "How long does it normally take to get your things back..? I really really need that music player.." She scratched at her arm again, red marks already dug into her skin.
Gradually the Austran escorted the young woman away from processing and crowded areas of the atria out towards one of the primary staircases. "It depends, it varies from case to case. Yours... might take a while. Within the week, I can say that much." The man didn't want to alarm her unnecessarily, or give her any more reason to fear what had happened with her, but considering the evidence his superiors weren't willing to take the chance of anything going wrong.
With a sigh he rolled his eyes at her intentional mispronunciation of his name, unperturbed for the most part though he could already feel it starting to pick at his patience. "... you can just call me Matthias, if you'd rather." A breach of social protocol but, this was the academy - the social habits and etiquette of the outside world didn't always apply to them.
"What sort of music do you listen to?"
"I like Matthias better than Hop-Storm-Farter." She admitted.
'Liar.'
"I.. Don't have a particular genera. Lately, classical." She stated, her words catching at first, as though she were listening to something else and it interrupted her thought process.
The further away they got from the previous room, the less crowded her head became, but the more prominent the voices spoke.
'You could always go kill them and get your stuff---'
"Guess you're just going to have to sing to me. How's your singing, hm? If its bad, then you're going to have to get--"
'Stop ignoring me.'
"Will you leave me alone?!" She shouted.
Well, that was an unexpected answer, on both accounts, Matthias blinking in surprise as the bold-haired youth said she'd been listening to classical of late. He'd surely pegged her for something more electronic, but different strokes for different folks, wasn't that what they said back in the Local Region? The captain gave a light shrug on the note of singing, he supposed he was alright, though he was a far harsher critic of his talent than his family was. He'd have answered her, were it not for her outburst.
"... who, Sid?" Matthias asked mere moments after she'd spoken as others in the atria and on the stars stilled momentarily to glance in the direction of the commotion. That sort of slip alone put the man on edge, a spare hand moving immediately to his hand, ready to strip his glove if need be.
He had undergone whatever training that command had offered after that mission to the Expanse, but he didn't know how well it prepared him to face that sort of challenge again. Already he reached out, across the short distance between them, to probe her mind and listen in, dipping his proverbial toes in the water.
The girl was unnerved. She scratched harder on her arm and her jaw clenched in an anxious habit that seemed to have been in place long before she arrived here.
"Her. The other Sid. Or I think she's Sid." She refused to look up again. "Don't listen to her. I'm not suppose to listen to her. But sometimes I've no choice."
'I guess I just like us to be treated differently and the only way to do--' The more prominent voice would fade in intermingle with the rest of the voices, none of them understandable. More like a low drone. The girl swallowed hard. "Sometimes I can make her go away.. But the last couple of days.. Since I woke up to.." She stopped abruptly, looking a bit pale.
"So, yeah. Classical lately." She swiftly changed the subject, unwilling to talk further on the subject. "But I mix a lot of different stuff in depending on what I feel like." She said, though her voice still a bit shaken. Finally lifting her gaze inquisitively, she seemed to calm down a bit. "You seem to be the opera type."
'I hate opera.'
"Shush, you."
The other Sid. That didn't sit well with the officer, considering the last time he dealt with 'someone else' inside of another person's head. Matthias' eyes narrowed on the young woman, though as she seemingly regained control of her senses he relaxed, hand slipping away from his glove once she returned to the topic of music. "I used to do that myself." He murmured, eager to continue on their way, though the man was on his guard from here on out - his shoulders tensed, his arms no longer left to swing aimlessly.
"TekOpera, really." He mused in response, shrugging. In truth he really didn't care for it, but he'd certainly heard his fair share of it over the past few years - it came with the job. "My girls love the Diva's music." Thus, that was what he listened to most often, though he did earnestly prefer something classical - Volkist metal was something he enjoyed in his youth.
Perhaps he shouldn't have mentioned his family, but they had already dealt with enough of one of those things chasing him. By now he was over the shock value - if another one wanted to try, it was welcome to it.
"At least you'll be rooming by yourself. No hot-bunking." He offered in a positive tone.
The girl seemed honestly relieved at the notion. "Okay. But you'll be there alot, right?" She asked. "I mean.. I'm use to being alone... Well, besides the other Sid. But other people are okay. They normally shy away from me though. Call me weird."
She looked up at the officer and shifted the bag over to her other shoulder. Once the bag was settled and she had a firm grasp on it with the other hand, she tentatively reached out, meaning to hold his hand like a child.
"I think you're the first person that hasn't just decided to up and leave in a while." She said. "It may be your job to talk to me, but you didn't have to."
'If you want, we can slit his throat last--'
"I think I can like you eventually, Matthias." She gave him a silly look. "Even if you like Opera and you have weird name like Hop-Storm-Farter."
'We don't need anyone. Him especially. You can destroy him like--'
"I really want my music player though.."
"Of course," He murmured, nodding in reply. "It's my job." In fact he'd been pulled off of teaching an entire class to see to her, thanks to his experience with her potential condition. It made things easier, at least on the logistical level, as far as Matthias was concerned. Less time writing lesson plans and grading assessments and tests and papers and more time with his family, at least when he wasn't seeing to Sid's education.
The Austran didn't quite expect her to take his hand, and it surprised him at first, though he didn't recoil from it. It was progress at the very least, when half, if not more, of the students that came here despised them for ripping them from their families. Rüger offered Sid a genuine smile, a rare thing seen outside of his own quarters, "Likewise, given the chance." He'd only been teaching here for two years, a relative newcomer, but it was a welcome change of pace from field work.
Far more personable.
"I'll see what I can do to expedite its release, Sid."
His smile was infectious, as she smiled as well.
'Remember how everyone just left you and I was the only one who was around to keep you company? You listened to me then.'
Her smile faded quickly.
'He's going to do the same thing. He's just worse, though. He's going to get close to you, and you're going to get your hopes up that finally someone will be your friend and one day he's just going to not show up, and you're going to be alone.'
"No." She stated firmly.
'We can take care of each other. We don't need him, or anyone.'
"Shut up." She stated.
'I can feel his pulse. Thump thump. Thump thump. You know all it would take. Are you really willing to sacrifice freedom so that you're no longer alone? Just let me loose and I can give you back your freedom.'
"..."
'Thump. Thump.'
"Will you be QUIET?!" She let go of the man's hand and the bag, grabbing her head and squatting down. Blood oozed from where she had been scratching earlier, just tiny droplets that dripped down her arm. The cuts hadn't been deep enough to bleed normally yet. Sid began to hum to herself, half sounding frantic. The tune was one of the lesser known classicals, if one listened to it properly.
Matthias had made the odd glance to her at her slip, the words that had managed to get past her lips, though he recoiled genuinely at her collapse. The former operative had fallen into a fighting stance, though that was obviously not necessary - a thing born out of instinct, reflex. After a moment or two, realizing that the girl was doing her best to control herself, Rüger relaxed, approaching her once more.
A careful hand shed one of his gloves, hesitating for a moment before he went on and placed it at the nape of her neck - a firm but not harsh sort of hold, the man looking to calm her more than control her in any manner. It was a gentle sort of thing that he gave her, the warm, if quiet, sort of feeling that he felt defined protection, security. It was the same sort of thing that he hoped Sidonia would come to associate the Academy with, what he could feel when his daughters fell asleep on him.
The same sort of feeling Ilsa felt, when she-
"... I'll get the music player for you. I promise."
Landwächter Psykorps Central Academy,
Striegis IV, the Imperial Core
The halls of the central academy were a sterile place, though they were as gothic as any other state institution. They were kept spartan and simple for the sake of those who dwelled within these walls, the masses of citizens who never asked to serve this role for the Supremacy, who more often than not held some resentment for their positions. The captain had felt it, at times, in his younger years, but had come to develop a far more understanding approach to the Korps and their ways, even though his brethren might disagree with him.
Before they proved themselves the psykers enjoyed a humble, almost monastic, experience in one of the academies, a time meant to mold their character as much as their power. To pair what they wielded with the base, selfish desires of the commons - the average folk - was beyond dangerous. He didn't simply believe that the quarantine of psychics, especially the youth, was in everyone's best interests, he knew.
How he knew.
Perhaps that was why he was moving to greet this new arrival instead of letting them come to him - the last thing that the man wanted to do was defer to the precedent, though he doubted that anyone of the like would ever happen again. Upstairs had gotten what they'd wanted, the rest be damned. It would be good to start in a new manner, a fresh manner, especially considering the brief, and alarming, dossier that they already had on the young woman.
A practiced step and clicking heels brought the Austran around a corner, into the common atria of the Academy, away from the steps that lead to the instructors' quarters and towards processing. With the folder tucked under arm, the officer looked over the new arrivals for soon-to-be Anwärter Acker, keeping the photograph from the file clear in his mind, his charcoal uniform a stark contrast in the small sea of civilian clothing.
The past couple of days had been a whirlwind of events for the young girl. Not that she seemed to care. After she had been extracted from that house, and cleaned up, she was then handed off to yet more strangers and told she was given the option of working for them or waiving her rights to live.
'You sure you want to live?'
She scratched at her arm anxiously, incisively, as she had done from the time the accident happened.
'You're a monster, you know that right?'
'Freak!'
"Shut it.." She whispered.
There were more voices in her head than normal. Conflicting emotions hit her like a sack of bricks, and she was all at once angry, wanting to scream, to frightened and wanting to cry. Why was it she was here again? All she wanted was--
'You're going to kill again.'
She stood in the crowd of other civilians that apparently been gathered for some reason or another. A few were muttering to themselves, others seemed just as frightened as she felt occasionally. She wore a simple shirt and pants, her old ones ruined.
A thought crossed her mind, and it felt like a tug as she looked up to the man in the uniform as he came close, somehow knowing he was looking for her.
'Trip him. Hehehehe...'
Thus, she attempted. She was tiny enough to hide behind someone and stick her leg out at the last second to attempt to trip the man as he passed.
It was the sort of search that Matthias felt at a disadvantage in, relying only on his eyes as he wouldn't know the girl's thoughts if he put them in her head, but he continued regardless. The twenty years or so he'd spent in uniform had given him practice, time, to hone his blocks, to put up his walls and keep the noise out - were it that he didn't touch anyone, he wouldn't hear them unless they stripped his resolve bare, or unless he wanted to.
He had been trained, as they had all been trained, to be courteous in regards to one's telepathic capabilities - to intrude in another's mind is just as severe as intruding in their home, violating perhaps the most private space anyone had - and so he didn't try to keep track of the maelstrom of emotion and thought that was processing. Thus he didn't see Sid's trick coming, at least not with the mind's eye.
It caught him off-guard, though it didn't send him down properly, the officer catching himself before he could fall properly. Quick eyes darted to his flank to look for who did it, catching sight of the young woman from the dossier easily enough. Acker, wasn't that her name? Righting himself that he stood properly, Matthias offered her a smirk, not expecting this sort of playfulness from anyone in processing. These people were usually afraid, unsure or distraught, not mischievous.
"... miss Acker?" Came the brief inquiry, very certain that was who he was looking at as it matched the photograph from her file almost to a tee. Her hair laid differently now than on the reference he carried, but that was of little concern. "I'm Hauptsturmführer Rüger," The Austran offered her a gloved hand to shake, "I'm to be one of your instructors here at the academy."
She made a face, obviously displeased by the formality of 'Miss'. "Sid." She said. "I'm Sid." She gave him a incredulous look, starting from his gloved hand, to the uniform, then to his face. After a few awkward moments of her silent inspection, she offered her hand out to the man, taking his in her own. "Nice to meet you, Mr. Hop-Storm-Farter." She said, saying the 'name' in what she thought he pronounced it as.
'His mother must of hated him.'
"So uh, I've never been to an academy before. Its really noisy in here. Can I have my music player back?"
Matthias didn't give her a look so much as his eyebrows climbed slightly, not expecting something quite along these lines. Sid, then? Just Sid? Well, he'd called others stranger things, and was found that he was content to simply get a handshake out of her. That was an amiable enough start. "Things like that are usually investigated by processing. Once it's vetted, it'll be sent to your room." Once it had been cleared of any sort of paranormal influence or capability to induce any sort of stressed emotional state - paranoid precautions, but their whole organization was born from paranoia.
"If you have your bag, we can see to getting your things to your quarters and getting your issued accouterments." The man offered, gesturing over his shoulder, back out of processing. "It's far more quiet away from here." It might give him a better opportunity to gauge just what management had dropped in his lap as well, which he regarded with some trepidation.
Making a gesture for her to follow, Matthias started on his way towards the dormitories.
Bag? She immediately looked down the ground and found that mentioned item was missing. Where was it?
"Oh."
She ran back to where she had left it, bumping into another person along the way before grabbing it and rushing after Matthias. "So, Hop-Storm-Farter.." She said. "How long does it normally take to get your things back..? I really really need that music player.." She scratched at her arm again, red marks already dug into her skin.
Gradually the Austran escorted the young woman away from processing and crowded areas of the atria out towards one of the primary staircases. "It depends, it varies from case to case. Yours... might take a while. Within the week, I can say that much." The man didn't want to alarm her unnecessarily, or give her any more reason to fear what had happened with her, but considering the evidence his superiors weren't willing to take the chance of anything going wrong.
With a sigh he rolled his eyes at her intentional mispronunciation of his name, unperturbed for the most part though he could already feel it starting to pick at his patience. "... you can just call me Matthias, if you'd rather." A breach of social protocol but, this was the academy - the social habits and etiquette of the outside world didn't always apply to them.
"What sort of music do you listen to?"
"I like Matthias better than Hop-Storm-Farter." She admitted.
'Liar.'
"I.. Don't have a particular genera. Lately, classical." She stated, her words catching at first, as though she were listening to something else and it interrupted her thought process.
The further away they got from the previous room, the less crowded her head became, but the more prominent the voices spoke.
'You could always go kill them and get your stuff---'
"Guess you're just going to have to sing to me. How's your singing, hm? If its bad, then you're going to have to get--"
'Stop ignoring me.'
"Will you leave me alone?!" She shouted.
Well, that was an unexpected answer, on both accounts, Matthias blinking in surprise as the bold-haired youth said she'd been listening to classical of late. He'd surely pegged her for something more electronic, but different strokes for different folks, wasn't that what they said back in the Local Region? The captain gave a light shrug on the note of singing, he supposed he was alright, though he was a far harsher critic of his talent than his family was. He'd have answered her, were it not for her outburst.
"... who, Sid?" Matthias asked mere moments after she'd spoken as others in the atria and on the stars stilled momentarily to glance in the direction of the commotion. That sort of slip alone put the man on edge, a spare hand moving immediately to his hand, ready to strip his glove if need be.
He had undergone whatever training that command had offered after that mission to the Expanse, but he didn't know how well it prepared him to face that sort of challenge again. Already he reached out, across the short distance between them, to probe her mind and listen in, dipping his proverbial toes in the water.
The girl was unnerved. She scratched harder on her arm and her jaw clenched in an anxious habit that seemed to have been in place long before she arrived here.
"Her. The other Sid. Or I think she's Sid." She refused to look up again. "Don't listen to her. I'm not suppose to listen to her. But sometimes I've no choice."
'I guess I just like us to be treated differently and the only way to do--' The more prominent voice would fade in intermingle with the rest of the voices, none of them understandable. More like a low drone. The girl swallowed hard. "Sometimes I can make her go away.. But the last couple of days.. Since I woke up to.." She stopped abruptly, looking a bit pale.
"So, yeah. Classical lately." She swiftly changed the subject, unwilling to talk further on the subject. "But I mix a lot of different stuff in depending on what I feel like." She said, though her voice still a bit shaken. Finally lifting her gaze inquisitively, she seemed to calm down a bit. "You seem to be the opera type."
'I hate opera.'
"Shush, you."
The other Sid. That didn't sit well with the officer, considering the last time he dealt with 'someone else' inside of another person's head. Matthias' eyes narrowed on the young woman, though as she seemingly regained control of her senses he relaxed, hand slipping away from his glove once she returned to the topic of music. "I used to do that myself." He murmured, eager to continue on their way, though the man was on his guard from here on out - his shoulders tensed, his arms no longer left to swing aimlessly.
"TekOpera, really." He mused in response, shrugging. In truth he really didn't care for it, but he'd certainly heard his fair share of it over the past few years - it came with the job. "My girls love the Diva's music." Thus, that was what he listened to most often, though he did earnestly prefer something classical - Volkist metal was something he enjoyed in his youth.
Perhaps he shouldn't have mentioned his family, but they had already dealt with enough of one of those things chasing him. By now he was over the shock value - if another one wanted to try, it was welcome to it.
"At least you'll be rooming by yourself. No hot-bunking." He offered in a positive tone.
The girl seemed honestly relieved at the notion. "Okay. But you'll be there alot, right?" She asked. "I mean.. I'm use to being alone... Well, besides the other Sid. But other people are okay. They normally shy away from me though. Call me weird."
She looked up at the officer and shifted the bag over to her other shoulder. Once the bag was settled and she had a firm grasp on it with the other hand, she tentatively reached out, meaning to hold his hand like a child.
"I think you're the first person that hasn't just decided to up and leave in a while." She said. "It may be your job to talk to me, but you didn't have to."
'If you want, we can slit his throat last--'
"I think I can like you eventually, Matthias." She gave him a silly look. "Even if you like Opera and you have weird name like Hop-Storm-Farter."
'We don't need anyone. Him especially. You can destroy him like--'
"I really want my music player though.."
"Of course," He murmured, nodding in reply. "It's my job." In fact he'd been pulled off of teaching an entire class to see to her, thanks to his experience with her potential condition. It made things easier, at least on the logistical level, as far as Matthias was concerned. Less time writing lesson plans and grading assessments and tests and papers and more time with his family, at least when he wasn't seeing to Sid's education.
The Austran didn't quite expect her to take his hand, and it surprised him at first, though he didn't recoil from it. It was progress at the very least, when half, if not more, of the students that came here despised them for ripping them from their families. Rüger offered Sid a genuine smile, a rare thing seen outside of his own quarters, "Likewise, given the chance." He'd only been teaching here for two years, a relative newcomer, but it was a welcome change of pace from field work.
Far more personable.
"I'll see what I can do to expedite its release, Sid."
His smile was infectious, as she smiled as well.
'Remember how everyone just left you and I was the only one who was around to keep you company? You listened to me then.'
Her smile faded quickly.
'He's going to do the same thing. He's just worse, though. He's going to get close to you, and you're going to get your hopes up that finally someone will be your friend and one day he's just going to not show up, and you're going to be alone.'
"No." She stated firmly.
'We can take care of each other. We don't need him, or anyone.'
"Shut up." She stated.
'I can feel his pulse. Thump thump. Thump thump. You know all it would take. Are you really willing to sacrifice freedom so that you're no longer alone? Just let me loose and I can give you back your freedom.'
"..."
'Thump. Thump.'
"Will you be QUIET?!" She let go of the man's hand and the bag, grabbing her head and squatting down. Blood oozed from where she had been scratching earlier, just tiny droplets that dripped down her arm. The cuts hadn't been deep enough to bleed normally yet. Sid began to hum to herself, half sounding frantic. The tune was one of the lesser known classicals, if one listened to it properly.
Matthias had made the odd glance to her at her slip, the words that had managed to get past her lips, though he recoiled genuinely at her collapse. The former operative had fallen into a fighting stance, though that was obviously not necessary - a thing born out of instinct, reflex. After a moment or two, realizing that the girl was doing her best to control herself, Rüger relaxed, approaching her once more.
A careful hand shed one of his gloves, hesitating for a moment before he went on and placed it at the nape of her neck - a firm but not harsh sort of hold, the man looking to calm her more than control her in any manner. It was a gentle sort of thing that he gave her, the warm, if quiet, sort of feeling that he felt defined protection, security. It was the same sort of thing that he hoped Sidonia would come to associate the Academy with, what he could feel when his daughters fell asleep on him.
The same sort of feeling Ilsa felt, when she-
"... I'll get the music player for you. I promise."
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