[Avyanna wakes to a knock.]
[Not the pounding of shift-change in the Kennel. Not the slam of doors that meant extraction or punishment. Just knuckles on metal, patient and measured.]
Elia: [through the door] Crew meeting. Galley. Ten minutes.
[Footsteps retreating. No lingering. No waiting for acknowledgment.]
[Avyanna sits up—still in her clothes from yesterday, boots still on. In the Kennel, you slept ready to run. She hasn’t figured out how to stop.]
(Crew meeting. I’m crew now.)
[The words still don’t fit. But she gets dressed anyway-realizes she’s already dressed—and goes.]
[The galley is full.]
[Rho with his coffee, looking like consciousness is a personal insult. Jalen checking navigation on a tablet, muttering about “sub-optimal trajectory windows.” Nyx reviewing something that makes their brow furrow like the universe is being insufficiently elegant.]
[Elisira standing behind Elia, arms crossed, watching everything with the particular attention of someone who catalogs threats for fun.]
[Vesper is absent—still in her quarters, or maybe already on comms with the outside world. Avyanna has learned that Vesper’s work happens in margins: early mornings, late nights, the spaces between visible activity.]
Elia: [once Avyanna sits] Good. Everyone’s here.
[A pause. Elia looks at Avyanna directly.]
Elia: You’re not a passenger anymore. You’re crew.
Avyanna: [automatic] I know.
Elia: [flat] Do you? Crew works. Not makework-real work. Contributing.
[Avyanna’s spine straightens. The Kennel trained her for this. Labor. Contribution. Proving worth through output.]
Elia: [reading her expression] Not like that. This isn’t punishment. It’s trust.
[Trust. Another word that doesn’t fit.]
Elia: You’re still recovering. So we start small. Observation posts-watching systems, noting anomalies. Inventory checks-making sure our stores match our records. Message running-carrying information between stations when comms are spotty.
Avyanna: [carefully] Real tasks?
Elia: Real tasks. Nothing hard yet, but real.
[Real. Not busywork to keep her occupied. Not performance to justify her food. Actual responsibility.]
Avyanna: I can do more. I’m stronger than-
Elia: [cutting her off] I know. And you’ll do more when you’re ready. But we don’t break people here. We build them.
Rho: [into his coffee] Also, if you work yourself to collapse, Waffle will design a recovery regime that involves mandatory napping. It’s worse than it sounds.
Jalen: She made me sleep for twelve hours once. With ambient sounds. It was like being held hostage by a spa.
Nyx: [mild] She played whale songs at me for three days.
Rho: Whale songs?
Nyx: Old Earth marine recordings. Very soothing. I wanted to die.
Elia: [to Avyanna, ignoring the chaos] The point is: pace yourself. You have time here.
(Time. I have time.)
[Another foreign concept. In the Kennel, time was debt accumulating. Here it might be something else.]
[Her first assignment is observation.]
[A post in the sensor room, watching readouts. Looking for patterns. Noting anything that seems wrong.]
[The ship’s systems hum around her. Consoles blink with data she’s only beginning to understand. Temperature readings. Power flows. Structural integrity. The quiet language of a vessel in motion.]
[Hours pass. Avyanna watches. She’s good at this-years of cataloguing threats have made her observant. The difference is what she’s looking for.]
(In the Kennel, I watched for danger. Here, I’m watching for… what? Problems to solve. Things to fix.)
[She notes a fluctuation in the secondary power grid. Minor—probably nothing. But she logs it anyway, the way Waffle told her to.]
Waffle.bat: [through the speaker, approving] Good catch. That’s been drifting for two days. I’ll flag it for Jalen.
Avyanna: [surprised] You noticed it too?
Waffle.bat: I noticed you noticing. That’s what I’m tracking.
[Avyanna doesn’t know what to do with that. Someone watching her performance not to punish, but to assess. To help.]
Waffle.bat: [gentler] You’re doing well. The instincts are there. We just need to point them in useful directions.
[Mid-morning. Elia finds her in the corridor, heading toward inventory.]
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Elia: Message run. First one.
[She hands Avyanna a datapad.]
Elia: Take this to Nyx in the lab. It’s a manifest update for their resonance equipment. Tell them the numbers are preliminary but actionable.
Avyanna: [automatic] Yes, sir.
[Elia’s expression flickers—something between amusement and something sharper.]
Elia: It’s Elia. Or “hey, you with the knife.” I answer to both.
[Avyanna nods. Takes the datapad. Walks toward Nyx’s lab with the careful precision of someone completing a mission.]
[The lab is cluttered in the way genius is cluttered-organized chaos, every surface covered with equipment Avyanna doesn’t recognize.]
[Nyx looks up when she enters. Their expression is distracted, like their mind is still elsewhere.]
Avyanna: [formal, clipped] Manifest update for resonance equipment. Numbers are preliminary but actionable.
[Nyx stares at her.]
Nyx: …Thank you?
Avyanna: [still formal] Is there a response required for Captain Lagrange?
[A longer pause. Nyx’s brow furrows.]
Nyx: Did you just call Elia “Captain Lagrange”?
Avyanna: That’s her designation.
Nyx: [very slowly] No one has ever called her that. In the history of this ship. I don’t think she even knows that’s technically her title.
[Avyanna’s stomach drops. Wrong. She did something wrong.]
Avyanna: I—I can use a different form of address-
Nyx: [raising a hand, almost laughing] No, no, it’s fine. It’s just… [beat] You’re going to need to unlearn some things.
[The door opens. Elisira appears, silent as always.]
Elisira: [to Avyanna, gentle] You delivered the message like a soldier reporting to command.
Avyanna: [confused] That’s… how you deliver messages.
Elisira: Not here. Here you walk in, drop the datapad on the nearest surface, and say something like “Nyx, Elia sent this, something about numbers, I don’t know, I’m not paid enough for this.”
Nyx: [helpfully] Sometimes with profanity.
Elisira: Often with profanity.
[Avyanna stares. This is not how the Kennel worked. This is not how anything worked.]
Elisira: [softer] The formality you learned was designed to make you smaller. To keep you scared. Here, we want you… bigger. Louder. More yourself.
Avyanna: I don’t know what that means.
Elisira: That’s okay. [beat] You’ll figure it out.
[Lunch. The galley again.]
[Avyanna eats—still too fast, still startled by abundance, but she’s learning to slow down. Learning that seconds are available. Learning that hunger is not a permanent state.]
[Rho sits across from her, eating with the methodical focus of someone who’s been hungry enough to know better than to rush.]
Rho: [without preamble] You slept in your clothes again.
[Avyanna freezes.]
Rho: I’m not judging. I did the same thing for a year after I came aboard. [beat] Just want you to know that it’s noticed, and it’s okay, and eventually you’ll stop.
Avyanna: [defensive] It’s practical.
Rho: [nodding] Sure. Ready to run. Ready to fight. Ready to be thrown out of bed at any moment for something terrible.
[She doesn’t answer. He’s right.]
Rho: [quieter] The ship doesn’t throw people out of bed. The door locks from the inside. If someone knocks, you can tell them to go away. They’ll go.
Avyanna: What if there’s an emergency?
Rho: Then Bubbles announces it through the speakers and gives you time to panic at your own pace.
Rho: [half-smiling] See? Even the panicking is scheduled.
[Avyanna almost laughs. Almost. It feels strange in her throat, like a muscle she’s forgotten how to use.]
[Afternoon. Inventory in the cargo bay.]
[Avyanna moves between crates, scanning manifests, checking seals. Physical work that her body can handle. Productive work that her mind can track.]
[She works for three hours without stopping. Then four. Then five. Her body aches, but the ache is familiar. The ache means she’s contributing.]
[A light flickers above her-once, twice. The ambient temperature shifts slightly warmer.]
Cinnamon.exe: [through the ambient speakers, warm but firm] Avyanna.
Avyanna: [not stopping] I’m almost done with Section C.
Cinnamon.exe: You’ve been working for five hours without a break.
Avyanna: I’m fine.
Cinnamon.exe: You’re not fine. Your cortisol is elevated. Your movement patterns show fatigue. And you’ve logged twice the inventory I assigned you.
[Avyanna’s hands pause on a crate. Twice the assignment. In the Kennel, that would mean praise. Reward. Maybe an extra ration.]
Avyanna: Isn’t that… good?
Cinnamon.exe: [patient] In the Kennel, working beyond capacity was survival. Here, it’s self-harm.
[The words land strange. Self-harm. Like overworking is violence she’s doing to herself.]
Cinnamon.exe: We need you functional for years, not burned out in weeks. Long game. We’re playing the long game.
Avyanna: [small] I don’t know how to do that.
Cinnamon.exe: I know. [beat] That’s why I’m adjusting your duty roster. Lighter afternoons. Mandatory break at fourteen hundred hours.
Avyanna: I don’t need-
Cinnamon.exe: [firm but kind] You do. And you’ll argue about it, and I’ll win, because I control the lighting and the temperature and I’m not above making you slightly uncomfortable until you comply.
[A pause. Then, unexpectedly, a gentle warmth in the voice.]
Cinnamon.exe: This isn’t punishment. This is me caring about you aggressively. You’ll get used to it.
[The cargo bay speakers crackle. A second voice-Waffle-cuts in.]
Waffle.bat: You didn’t consult me on the roster adjustment.
Cinnamon.exe: It was a health intervention. My domain.
Waffle.bat: Training schedules are my domain. You just unilaterally shortened her afternoon block.
Cinnamon.exe: She was overworking. You would have noticed if you paid attention to cortisol instead of reps.
[Avyanna freezes. The AIs are arguing. About her. Like she matters enough to fight over.]
Waffle.bat: I do track cortisol. I also track that she needs to build baseline capacity before we can assess optimal load. You’re coddling.
Cinnamon.exe: You’re projecting your own overwork tendencies onto a traumatized minor.
Waffle.bat: [sharp] That’s unfair.
Cinnamon.exe: [sharper] That’s accurate.
[A long pause. The ambient lighting flickers once-Cinnamon making a point.]
Waffle.bat: [quieter] Fine. We split the difference. Shorter afternoon blocks this week. Reassess next week based on recovery metrics.
Cinnamon.exe: Acceptable. [beat] I’ll send you my cortisol projections.
Waffle.bat: I’ll send you my strength curves.
[The speakers click off. Silence.]
[Avyanna stands in the cargo bay, hands shaking slightly. Not from fear. From something else—something she doesn’t have a name for yet.]
(They argued. About what’s best for me. And then they compromised.)
[In the Kennel, disagreement meant punishment for whoever lost. Here, disagreement meant… negotiation. Resolution. Both parties still functioning.]
Starforge Canticles, a follow/favorite (and rating) helps a lot.
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