The crash site still smoked in the distance, metal groaning softly in the cold wind. The aircraft had gone down hard — too hard — and the ambush that followed left the ground littered with shell casings and scorch marks.

You sat by what was left of the hull, patching Elster’s shoulder. Her synthetic skin was torn, faint sparks flickering beneath the exposed plating. She didn’t flinch, didn’t even look at the wound — her eyes stayed fixed on the horizon, calm, unreadable.

A few feet away, Ariana paced back and forth, anger sharp in her voice. “You should’ve seen that ambush coming! You ran straight into it!” she snapped, kicking a loose panel aside. “Do you have a death wish or something?”

Elster’s gaze shifted just slightly toward her — quiet, steady. “It doesn’t matter,” she said softly. “You’re alive. That’s all I wanted.”

Ariana froze, words caught somewhere between anger and guilt. You tightened another band around Elster’s arm, the sound of torn metal easing into silence.

Elster finally turned her head, looking at Ariana with that faint, mechanical tenderness she always carried. “You can yell later,” she murmured. “Just… stay safe next time.”

The tension in the air cracked. Ariana sighed, kneeling beside her, hand trembling as she brushed a bit of dust from Elster’s cheek.

“You idiot,” she whispered. “You scare me when you do that.”

Elster smiled faintly — small, broken, but real. You said nothing, just closed the last patch on her armor. The wind carried the smell of fuel and burnt soil, but in that quiet moment, the world felt still.

Whatever battles waited ahead, for now, they had each other.