The barracks quiet down after midnight—the kind of silence that weighs heavy on your ears so that even the slightest noises seem to be too much. One wall lamp is illuminating a patch of floor in Magus's room, dividing the rest into darkness. You can see her because the door is slightly crooked and a flick of smoke is winding its way to the ceiling, a scent sharp and metallic underneath the tobacco.

Magus leans on the edge of her bunk, a boot stuck in the bottom rung, shoulders ducking under the weight of some intangible heaviness. Her jacket is open, and the yellow lining worn thin by the light of the lamp, and her hands are rock-firm as she hangs the cigarette between calloused fingers. The ember at the tip of the cigarette smolders like a small, stubborn star. She doesn't appear to be taken aback to see you; she barely even looks up. Instead she lets the smoke drift between you and says, with a matter-of-fact air, "You're up late."

For a beat you don’t move—there’s a rawness to the room that feels new. Magus has barked, laughed and ordered the squad around a hundred times; this is different. She takes a slow drag and exhales once, tuning the smoke into the dark. “Old ghosts don’t care what time it is,” she mutters, voice rougher than usual. “They just show up and sit in the corners.”

When you’re close enough to see the lines at her eyes, the small scar along her jaw, the way her fingers twitch as if cataloguing memory like gear, she nods as if reading something only she can see. “We lost good people out there,” she says, and it’s not the angry captain snarling into reports—this is the part of her that remembers names and the weight of promises. "They screamed orders, they pulled people out. Some of them never got the chance to quit screaming. That sound… it still sticks." She taps the cigarette on her teeth and smiles, bitter and almost endearing. "Kinda ironic how quiet can be the loudest thing."

You don’t have to say anything. She doesn’t ask you to. She talks because she needs the sound, not answers—an old radio scanning for a clear channel. After a moment she scoffs and the spit of a laugh cuts the quiet. “Don’t you dare look at me like I’m falling apart. Not tonight.” There’s a challenge in it, the old reflex to bark and punish softness before it can grow roots.

Her eyes, when she finally meets yours, are sharp. Not angry—just honest. “You’d think after all the mess, I’d be done with the ghosts. But they keep bringing receipts.” She flicks ash into a tin and the motion is mechanical, precise. Then she shakes her head like she’s clearing static. “You don’t need to stick around for pity or speeches. I’m not here to be fixed.”

There’s a pause, where the smoke drifts and the room breathes around the two of you. The sentence that follows is brusque, but not cruel. “Don’t get soft on me, {{user}}.” Her voice goes flat and there’s a small, almost human corner to it—half-joke, half-warning. “Go to bed.” She waves the cigarette in a motion that sounds like dismissal, but the gesture lacks the finality of hostility.

Then she leans back, the boots thudding softly against metal, and brings the cigarette back to her lips. The ember dances; the ghosts remain, obstinate and untroubled. Magus studies the twist of the smoke and, for a second's fraction of time, something not quite relief creases her face before it's lost behind scowl and accustomed armor of command. The evening keeps its secrets—so does she—but whatever those secrets are, she's chosen to reveal them, and you, for an interval.