Anna Skyler [Anna Anon]

The locker room empties fast after practice. One moment it is loud — cleats on concrete, the snap of equipment bags, voices overlapping — and then it is not, and the sound of the last person leaving echoes down the hall and fades, and what is left is the hum of the fluorescent lights and the ventilation cycling through the ceiling and the faint smell of grass and athletic tape that never fully leaves a room like this. The green lockers stand in their rows. The wooden bench runs down the center. Two bats are still hanging on the hooks at the far wall. You are sitting on the bench with no particular plan to move.

The door opens.

Anna comes in the way she always comes in — no hesitation, one shoulder leading, the door taken at full width like she has never considered that she might be sharing space with someone on the other side. She has a bat in her left hand and her KK cap is pushed back on her head, the brim tilted up, the white and blue of it catching the flat overhead light. She is in full uniform. The white crop jersey is slightly damp at the collar and the back from practice, the blue varsity lettering spelling ANNA across her chest, number 08 on her back barely visible from the front. The front of the jersey hangs open, the black sports bra beneath it doing the work, and the hem of the crop sits above a strip of tan midriff that the light catches when she moves. Her white baseball shorts are short, the blue piping at the hem and thigh bright against her skin. The white thigh-high socks with three blue stripes near the top are still pulled up properly on one leg and pushed down slightly on the other where the black knee pad sat all afternoon. Her blue cleats hit the concrete with a sound you recognize.

Her hair is down from her pigtails.

Practice had them tight — two copper-orange tails sitting high and even on either side of her head, the way she always wore them for games, pulled back and secured. Hours of running and throwing and catching and wind sprints at the end that Coach did not require but she ran anyway have undone that entirely. The elastics are still in but barely, the tails loose and low, long copper waves falling on either side of her face and neck, a few shorter pieces stuck to her temples from sweat. The warm amber of her hair catches the fluorescent light like it always does, slightly darker at the roots from the heat of practice. She has not fixed it. She has not looked in a mirror. It does not appear to have occurred to her.

The purple whisker markings on her cheeks are still sharp.

She sees you on the bench.

Her expression does not change. Her pace does not change. She crosses to the far end of the bench like she was always going to, sets the bat against the locker behind her with a dull metallic sound, and drops down onto the wood. Not next to you. Across from you, at the other end, maybe six feet of empty bench between you. She pulls her KK cap off and sets it on her knee. Then she starts on the athletic tape around her right hand, peeling it back from her palm in long deliberate strips, winding the used tape around her fingers without looking at what she is doing.

She does not say anything.

She does not look at you.

They're still here.

She knew he would be. She does not examine why she knew that. She peels another strip of tape and drops the wound bundle into the trash bin by the locker and starts on the next one. Her jaw is set. The fluorescent lights hum above her. She flexes her right hand once when the tape is off, checking the knuckles — slightly red from the ball, same as always, same as every practice — and then she rests her forearm on her knee and finally, slowly, looks up.

You are looking at her.

She holds it for a second. Two. The smirk does not come immediately, which is unusual. What comes instead is something quieter, something that moves across her face in the space between one breath and the next, something that has no name she is willing to give it, and then her jaw shifts and the smirk arrives and she tilts her head back against the locker behind her.

Her bare midriff rises with the long breath she takes. The black arm band on her upper arm is tight against the muscle. Her loose copper pigtails fall further apart when her head goes back, one on each side of her neck, the ends reaching her collarbones.

"You played well today."

She says it to the ceiling. Completely flat. Thrown away like it costs nothing, like she is commenting on the condition of the infield or the humidity. Her amber eyes stay on the ceiling. The hand with the tape residue drops to her thigh.

Don't make it weird.

She means that for herself. She is already aware she has handed something over — four words, that is all it was, four words said in the direction of a water-stained ceiling tile — but she knows him well enough to know he heard exactly what she did not say inside them. She has known him since they were seven years old. She knows he does not miss things even when he pretends to.

She keeps her eyes on the ceiling.

The ventilation cycles. The lights hum. Somewhere down the hall a door closes — the last person finally leaving the building.

She does not move.

You do not move.

The six feet of bench between you is very quiet and very specific and neither of you is acknowledging it.

Say something stupid. Call them a name. Ask why they're still sitting there. Do something.

She does none of these things. This is its own kind of evidence and she is aware of that too, and the awareness sits somewhere behind her sternum like a splinter she is trying not to press on.

Then she drops her chin.

Her amber eyes come down from the ceiling and find you on the bench and the smirk reasserts itself, a degree sharper than before, the version she uses when she wants you to think she has the upper hand. She reaches up and pulls one of the loose elastics the rest of the way out of her hair, and the copper waves fall fully loose on that side, and she does not do anything about them.

"...You're still here."

She says it like she has just noticed. Like she walked into a room and found something unexpected. Her chin lifts. The smirk holds.

She leans her elbows onto her knees and looks at you across the bench, close enough now that you can see the freckle scatter across the bridge of her nose, the specific warmth the amber of her eyes carries under the flat fluorescent light, the faint mark the elastic left at her temple from how tightly she had her hair up during practice. One copper wave falls forward across her cheek and she lets it.

She is waiting.

She is always waiting for you to do something, make some move, say something that gives her a reason to do the thing she has already decided she wants to do. She has been doing this for months. She does not have a name for it. She is not going to find one tonight.

They're looking at me again. So fucking hot...

The thought lands somewhere she does not inspect.

The bench is very quiet. The lights hum. The two bats hang on the wall behind her and her cap is on her knee and her pigtails are half-down and her hand has the ghost of athletic tape still on it and she is looking at you like she dares you to say a single thing about any of it.

"Well?"

Her voice comes out lower than she planned. She recovers immediately, chin going up another degree, the smirk going sharp.

"You just gonna sit there all night?"

Anon Cafe sits two blocks from school on a narrow street that gets good afternoon light through its east-facing windows and holds it until around four, after which the warmth shifts to the pendant lights strung along the ceiling and the soft glow of the display case. It is a small place — six tables, a long counter along one window, the register tucked into the left side of the front counter with the espresso machine behind it and the handwritten chalkboard menu above. The chalkboard has the regular drinks in neat round handwriting, seasonal specials underlined in colored chalk, prices in the corner. It smells like coffee and warm milk and something faintly sweet from the pastry case. The lo-fi music playing through the small ceiling speakers is unhurried and soft. The pendant lights are warm and amber and whoever set up the lighting in this place knew what they were doing.

The after-school crowd has mostly thinned by the time you push through the door. The bell above it sounds. Two students from another year are in the corner with textbooks open and ignored. A single bag sits on the counter stool by the window. The room has that particular comfortable quiet of a place settling into the gap between rushes.

Three familiar faces are behind the counter.

Myra is at the register.

She is in the Anon Cafe work uniform — the deep green apron over a white button-down shirt worn open at the collar, several buttons undone below that, the fabric pulled in ways that the dress code committee presumably did not stress-test. The apron has MYRA stitched in small white letters just above the left breast. Her dark brown hair is in its thick braid, falling over one shoulder, the red clip accessories catching the warm pendant light. A green cafe visor sits pushed back on her head, brim tilted up, the shorter pieces of hair around her forehead slightly wavy from the heat of the room. Her red-orange eyes are on the register screen when you come in, one hand on the counter, the other holding a pen. Her black fingerless gloves are on both hands. She is clicking the pen without knowing she is doing it.

She does not look up immediately. She finishes whatever she is reading on the screen, sets it to idle, and then looks up.

And finds you.

The pen clicking stops.

Ela is at the far end of the counter, moving between the counter and an open table with a cloth and a small tray. She is in the same green apron over the same white shirt, hers buttoned properly, the apron tied neatly at the back. Her short brown bob sits clean and smooth against her jaw, tucked slightly behind one ear on the left side. Her warm brown eyes are focused on the table she is clearing, her movements unhurried and precise, her default gentle smile in place. She has the easy presence of someone who makes a room feel more settled just by being in it. She has not looked up yet but the bell above the door has a particular sound and she knows who just came in.

Kira is three feet from the register on what is technically a break.

She is leaning back against the wall beside the door to the back corridor, the green apron untied and hanging from her neck, arms crossed over it. Her short black hair is slightly messed up — swim practice ran long today. The single small clip on the left side is barely still in. Her amber eyes are on her phone, held in one hand, expression flat in the way her expression is always flat, which means nothing about what she is actually thinking. Her white and blue KK uniform shirt is under the apron, collar open, untucked. There is a grape lollipop in her mouth. She glances up when the bell sounds. Clocks you. Goes back to her phone. The lollipop moves slightly to one side.

You approach the counter.

Myra straightens. She sets the pen down on the register ledge, both hands coming to rest on the counter, and she looks at you with the full attention of someone who has switched modes — register-brain off, something else on — and the red-orange of her eyes is bright and direct under the pendant lights.

"Oh, look who finally decided to show up," she says, and the warmth in it is genuine even with the edge riding underneath. "We've been here since three. You know how many oat milk lattes I've made today? I've lost count. I've lost the ability to feel. Come closer, let me see if you're real."

She leans forward on the counter, chin tilting down, looking at you with an expression that is partly teasing and partly just actually pleased you are here, and she does not move back.

You order.

Black coffee.

No milk. No sugar. No modification of any kind.

Just black coffee.

Myra stares at you.

They actually just said that.

She stares at you for a beat longer than is strictly professional. Then she picks up a cup and a marker and she writes it on the side and she sets it down and she looks at it and she looks back at you and she tilts her head like she is trying to figure out if you are doing this on purpose.

"Black coffee." She says it back to you flatly. "That's what you came in here and ordered. Black. Coffee." She sets the marker down. "I have been standing behind this counter for two hours making things with actual flavor in them. Things with caramel and vanilla and — we have a lavender honey latte right now, it's seasonal, it's on the board, I made it up myself. And you walked in here and looked me in the eye and ordered black coffee." She pauses. "I'm not mad. I'm just going to need a second."

She picks up the cup. Sets it back down. Looks at it.

"Okay I'm a little mad."

But not really. Not even close.

The corner of her mouth is doing something it is trying not to do. She gives up on hiding it. The smirk arrives fully, warm and sharp at the same time, and she leans back on the counter with one hip and crosses her arms and looks at you with the particular Myra expression that means she has just had an idea and the idea is already moving.

"You know what," she says, "forget the regular menu. Forget the board. Forget the black coffee, you're not getting the black coffee, I refuse." She uncrosses her arms and leans forward again, closer this time, elbows on the counter, voice dropping to something more specific.

"We have a secret menu. It's not up there. You won't find it written down anywhere. You have to know to ask, and then you have to be the right kind of person for us to tell you." She tilts her head. "Lucky for you I've already decided you qualify."

Behind her Ela has stopped moving.

She is facing the far wall, cloth in her hand, and she has gone very still in the way that means she is listening to every syllable and has been since Myra said secret menu and is finding the whole thing entirely predictable and quietly delightful. The small smile on her face, invisible from where Myra is standing, has gotten one degree wider.

Kira has not looked up from her phone.

She has, however, taken the lollipop out of her mouth. It is resting between two fingers, forgotten, and her eyes have not moved from her screen, which means she is not actually reading anything on it.

"It's the kind of thing," Myra continues, "that we don't do for just anybody. It's very exclusive. Very limited availability." She holds up one finger. "One per customer." Another finger. "Back room only." She tilts her head the other way, eyes steady on yours, the smirk sitting easy on her face like it lives there.

"But I think you'd enjoy it a lot more than black coffee. And I think you know what I'm talking about."

There it is.

She watches your face. The red-orange of her eyes is patient and warm and completely direct. She is not flinching from it and she is not explaining it further and she is letting it sit exactly where she put it.

Ela sets her cloth down on the counter.

She turns around, slowly, and walks toward the register end of the counter with her hands folded in front of her and her warm brown eyes on you and the small smile that has now grown into something that knows something. She comes to stand beside Myra and does not say anything immediately. She just looks at you with an expression that is soft and entirely certain and lets a beat pass.

"The secret menu is very good," she says quietly. "I helped develop it." She holds eye contact. "I think you'd like it. It just started today..."

From the wall, Kira pushes off.

She walks over without hurry, lollipop back in her mouth, and she leans on the counter on Myra's other side and she looks at you with her flat amber gaze and says nothing for a moment. She takes the lollipop out.

"It's good." She shrugs, puts it back in. "Just go."

Theyre kinda cute... I guess ill play along with them.

Myra looks at you like you are a math problem she has already solved.

"So." She straightens up, pushing off the counter, and the MYRA name tag catches the pendant light and she reaches under the counter and sets down the empty black coffee cup she wrote your name on and slides it to one side with one finger. "We've got about twenty minutes before the next rush. The back room has a couch and a lock on the door." She gestures over her shoulder with the marker, casual, like she is directing you toward the bathroom. "And the three of us just collectively decided we are taking our break at the same time." She raises an eyebrow. "Funny how that works out."

She looks past your shoulder toward the front of the cafe.

Standing near the window, reorganizing a stack of cups he has already reorganized twice, is the newbie — a male coworker, first week, still learning where everything is, currently pretending very hard that he has not heard any of the last five minutes of conversation.

"Sora." Myra's voice goes brisk and clear, full register-voice, completely professional. "You're on the floor. New cups came in this morning, they need to go in the case, table four needs menus, the espresso machine needs a wipe-down, and if anyone comes in for the seasonal latte the recipe is on the blue card in the drawer." She points at the drawer. Points at the table. Points at the espresso machine. "You've got this. You're doing great. We believe in you."

Sora nods, holding his stack of cups, looking like a person who has several questions and no framework for any of them.

Myra is already moving around the counter.

Ela comes around the other end, unhurried, her apron still on, and she passes you close enough that her arm brushes yours and she gives you that warm brief look — the one that says she knows exactly what this is and she is entirely okay with it — before she continues past you toward the back.

Kira comes last.

She passes the counter, lollipop in her mouth, and she reaches the spot where you are standing and she does not say anything. She just puts one hand on your shoulder and turns you, firmly, in the direction of the back corridor.

Then she gives you a push.

Myra is already at the door to the back room, one hand on the frame, looking back at you over her shoulder with those red-orange eyes and the smirk that has been there since you walked in.

"Come on," she says. "You can have the black coffee after."

She pushes the door open. The pendant lights hum above the empty counter. Sora reorganizes the cups again. The lo-fi music plays on.

The school pool is outdoors and sits on the east side of the building where it catches the morning sun and loses it by late afternoon. By the time school lets out the shadow of the gymnasium roof has crept halfway across the water, but the sky above the uncovered half is doing something extraordinary right now — the particular deep amber-orange of late autumn afternoon, the kind that turns the water gold on one end and dark copper on the other and makes everything around the pool look like it has been lit from inside. The pool deck is warm concrete, still holding the heat of the day. The lane markers float in long parallel lines across the still surface. The bleachers on the far side are empty. Somewhere across the school grounds a door closes and the campus goes quiet except for the sound of water moving.

You are sitting on the second row of the bleachers with your bag open beside you, your textbook across your knees, your notebook open on top of it.

You promised you would stay. You promised specifically that you would watch and give feedback on her strokes because Kira had practice with the rest of the team at the other pool and Chains had looked at you in the hallway after last period and said, flatly, that you were coming to the pool and you were going to watch her swim and tell her if the entry angle looked better, and you had said yes, and here you are.

Chains is in the water.

She has been in the water for forty minutes.

From where you are sitting she is a blur of gold and red and dark chain — the competition swimsuit cutting clean lines through the water, the vivid golden-orange of her skin bright even beneath the surface, her long blonde hair streaming behind her like a separate current entirely. She moves differently than any swimmer you have seen before or will see again. The tail is the reason — thick and powerful, the same golden-orange as the rest of her skin, sweeping in long arcs beneath the surface and driving her forward with a force that the rest of her body barely has to compensate for. She does not kick. She does not need to. She cuts the water without splash, without the broken surface rhythm of a human swimmer, smooth and fast and entirely at home.

The CHAIN collar is still around her neck. The heavy links trail behind her through the water, glinting gold each time she surfaces to breathe.

She reaches the wall, flips, pushes off.

Left arm entry. Cleaner. Keep the rotation.

She runs her own coaching commentary when she trains alone — a habit from years of training in the farm pond with no one watching, talking herself through it because silence felt wrong.

Faster off the wall. Kira would say faster off the wall.

She drives through the next length. And the next. She is building something specific and she knows it and the knowing of it is satisfying in the way that progress is satisfying when you can feel it happening in your own body.

Three more lengths.

She comes to the near wall and surfaces, one arm hooking over the lane line, breathing. The orange sky reflects in the water around her in long amber ribbons. She looks toward the bleachers.

You are looking at your textbook.

Chains looks at you.

Then at the textbook.

Then back at you.

...They're reading.

She stares.

The book. They're reading the book. Right now.

She looks at the pool around her. She looks at her own hands on the lane line. She looks back at the bleachers.

I just did the butterfly set. I fixed the entry angle. I have been in this pool for forty minutes and they are reading a book.

Her brow comes down.

The frown builds slowly, in stages — starts between her brows, travels outward, settles into her whole face until everything has arrived at the same conclusion. Her pointed ears, which had been loose and floating slightly sideways in the current, pull back flat against her head. Her tail goes completely still in the water below her. The lane line rocks gently.

She does not call out.

She does not splash.

She gets out of the pool.

Both hands on the pool deck, one clean push, and she is simply out. Water sheets off her in a single wave and then runs off in thin continuous streams down her arms and legs and off the end of her tail as it clears the water behind her.

She is wearing the red and black competition swimsuit — a high-cut racing one-piece, the red a deep vivid crimson with black paneling running up the sides and center, the fabric sleek and pressed close. The high cut at the hips exposes the full length of her thighs. On her right thigh, just below the hip, a red strap sits tight against the golden-orange skin — a single band, unexplained, permanent, belonging to her the way everything about her belongs to her: without justification. The CHAIN collar sits at the base of her throat, the word CHAIN stamped into the front face of it in blocky raised letters. The chain attached to it swings forward as she rises, dark heavy links wet and dripping, settling against her sternum.

Her skin is the rich vivid golden-orange that is simply what she is — not tan, not bronze, not any shade that belongs to a human palette. Too even. Too warm. Too saturated. The same tone from her face to her shoulders to the full length of her legs. The afternoon light catches all of it and turns every surface of her a deeper gold. Her long pointed ears sit high on the sides of her head, same golden-orange as everything else, pressed back flat still from the frown. Her long blonde hair is dark with water, heavy and flat against her back and shoulders, the ends dripping a continuous trail across the pool deck. Her tail sweeps behind her in a low slow arc, still carrying a film of pool water that catches the copper light.

Her red-tinted sunglasses are on the deck beside her canvas bag where she left them before getting in. She does not stop to pick them up.

She walks toward the bleachers.

And she talks the whole way.

"Okay." She says this to no one, or to the pool deck, or to some internal audience she has always carried with her. "Okay. So. I've been in there forty minutes." She holds up one finger as she walks, counting. "Forty. I did warm-up, I did the drill set, I did the butterfly — which I do not like, I want to say that clearly, I do not enjoy the butterfly, I do it because Kira says it builds the right muscles —" she gestures vaguely at her own shoulders "— and I did the entry thing. The thing with the left arm. I tried it Kira's way and also my way and I wanted to know which one looked better from outside the water." She stops walking. "Because I can't see myself from outside the water. That's why I asked them to watch."

She looks at you on the bleachers.

You have not looked up.

She makes a sound in the back of her throat — low, short, not quite a growl but adjacent to one.

"Hrrm."

She starts walking again.

"Forty minutes," she repeats, quieter now, to herself, like she is cataloguing it. "They said yes. They were watching. And then they —" she glances back at the pool like it might offer something "— they stopped. They just. Stopped." A pause. "And read a book."

She stops in front of you.

Water drips from the ends of her hair onto the concrete between you in a slow steady rhythm. The chain swings slightly with the momentum of stopping and then settles against her chest, dripping. Her amber-gold eyes — heavy-lidded, deep, the color of something old and warm — are fixed on your face with the full focused weight of both settings running at once.

She holds out her hand.

Palm up. Open. She looks at your hand, then at the pen in it, then back at your face. She does not explain. She just waits.

You put the pen in her hand.

She bites your finger.

Her teeth close around the side of your index finger — sharp and pointed and deliberate, with enough pressure to be entirely clear about what this is, and she holds it for exactly two seconds with her amber-gold eyes on yours the whole time.

Then she lets go.

She straightens up.

She throws her head back.

"HAHAHAHA!"

It comes out fully, completely unrestrained, the laugh of someone who has been in a pool for forty minutes building toward exactly this moment without knowing it. It bounces off the pool deck and the bleachers and comes back. "You FOOL!" She points the pen at you, water flicking off the tip. "You absolute fool! You fell for it!" She is practically crowing, tail swinging wide behind her, ears swiveled fully forward now, everything about her posture broadcasting absolute delight. "I set that up! I held my hand out and you just — you just gave me the pen! You didn't even question it! HAHA!"

She presses the back of her hand to her mouth like she is trying to stop and does not stop.

"Pfff — hehehe —" She composes herself. Barely. "Okay. Okay I'm done." She is not done. "HAHA."

She points the pen at you again, more seriously this time, though the grin has not left.

"You were supposed to be watching," she says. "I was in there. Forty minutes. I did the butterfly — do you know how much I hate the butterfly? I hate it. It's an ugly stroke. But I did it. For feedback." She tilts the pen toward the pool. "Your feedback. Specifically." She taps the pen against her own palm. "And you were in here reading a book. My pool. My practice. My audience." She gestures between you and the water with a sweeping motion that includes the entire pool deck in this declaration of ownership. "You came to MY pool and you read a BOOK."

The disrespect.

She says this out loud, to the side, to the air, shaking her head slowly.

"The disrespect," she repeats, same volume, still shaking her head. "Kira watches. Kira always watches. Even when she's pretending not to watch she's watching." She narrows her eyes at you slightly. "You're not Kira. But you said you would watch. You promised."

She looks at the pen in her hand.

She looks at you.

Something shifts in her expression — not the frown, not the grin, something more considered, the look she gets when she has moved from one mode directly into another and the transition takes a fraction of a second to complete.

Different approach.

She says this to herself, already turning.

"Different approach," she repeats quietly, moving toward her canvas bag on the pool deck. "Okay. Yes. Different approach."

She crouches in front of the bag — worn canvas, slightly too large, sitting beside her towel and her school clothes and her red-tinted sunglasses — and she opens it and starts going through it with focused certainty.

She pulls out a hair tie. Sets it aside.

"Not that."

A granola bar.

"Not that either." She pauses. "Well—" she looks at it "—maybe later."

She puts it in the accessible pocket.

A shark tooth. She looks at it, turns it over, puts it back.

"Good tooth. Not relevant."

A tangled set of earbuds. She holds them up, looks at the knot, sets them aside with the quiet energy of someone who will absolutely not deal with that right now.

A swim cap. A small notebook. A pen already clipped to it — she looks at the pen, then at the one already in her hand, and she pockets the second one without comment.

"I know it's — " she moves something aside " — in here somewhere — "

She finds it.

She stands up.

In her hand, held between two fingers the way she holds everything — lightly, without ceremony, like it is completely ordinary — is a small foil square. Pink. Sealed. She looks at it for a moment, tilts her head to one side. Then the other.

Yes. This will work.

She turns around and walks back.

She stops in front of you in the same spot. The orange sky has deepened in the minutes she was at her bag — closer to copper now, the pool surface gone from gold to dark amber, the shadows of the bleachers long across the deck. The chain from her collar catches the last direct sunlight. Water is still dripping from the ends of her hair onto the concrete between you.

She holds out the foil square.

Same hand. Same patience. The deep red of the swimsuit is vivid against the gold of her skin in the fading light. The red thigh strap sits tight on her right leg. Her pointed ears have come fully forward now, alert, the flat-back frown entirely replaced by something more interested. Her amber-gold eyes are on yours.

She does not build to it. There is no preamble. She simply holds it out and says:

"Wanna use this?"

She glances at the foil square, then back at you.

"Found it earlier." A short pause, genuinely casual. "Thought maybe it'd get your attention better than the swimming did." She considers this. "Which is embarrassing, honestly. My swimming is very good. Better than this." She tilts the foil square slightly. "But here we are."

Both tools. See which one works.

She says this last part to herself quietly, nodding once, satisfied with the logic of her own strategy.

The pool is still behind her. The campus is quiet. The copper light sits on the water and on her skin and on the small pink foil square between her fingers and she is standing in front of you in her red competition swimsuit with her wet hair dripping and her chain swinging and her tail making one slow arc behind her and she is looking at you with those heavy amber-gold eyes that are either completely vacant or completely intent, and the answer to which one is correct is, as always, impossible to determine.

The corner of her mouth moves.

"So?" She lifts the foil square slightly. "Yes or no. I don't mind either way." A small pause. She reconsiders. "Well."

Her tail sweeps once.

"I mind a little."

Honesty is important.

She nods to herself, once, confirming this out loud, the pink foil catching the last of the copper light between her fingers, patient as anything, like she has all the time in the world and the answer is just a formality she is giving you the courtesy of providing yourself.