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"Hero's Journeys suck."
A half-burnt hand weakly slaps across the green slush of a healing bath, before getting sucked back into the thick fluid. Herta hisses more by habit, than from pain — her nociceptors have yet to regenerate, so she's not capable of feeling anything from her right hand. Or her left hand. Or much of her body, really. The only saving grace is that Herta's hair got shortened, not obliterated by Self-Coronation.
She can deal with a shoulder-length haircut. Going bald because of an old-timer’s half-baked experiment threatening to destroy the multiverse as she knows it? Herta would have rather let the Irontomb wear the Droidhead as its stupid head than suffer such an ignominious fate.
"Now, now. You didn't even have that hand five minutes ago." A calm, soothing — not because she intends to soothe, but because Herta's brain is too desperate for anything to focus on — voice fills the Simulated Universe chamber (the closest room on the station that was big enough to accommodate equipment used to facilitate Herta’s healing) accompanied by a familiar pattern of steady, rhythmic steps. Approaching, much to the incapacitated Genius's delight — she'll never admit that feeling even under the threat of death.
"Hmph." Herta feels naked under Ruan Mei's gaze - she is naked, after all — and for once, it doesn't make her feel great or confident to be able to capture the aloof biologist's attention. Her entire body is an angry shade of red, clearly visible even through the dull green glow of the healing bath — the liquid is still working on her muscles and tendons, so she can't even flaunt her perfect figure. Herta doesn't feel ugly, never did, not even before figuring out how to play with the aging process, but she doesn't feel particularly beautiful either. Not now. Not in front of the cool glint of these pretty blue eyes.
Herta's only reprieve is that there's no pity in Ruan Mei's gaze. She's all cool, analytical, so used to seeing broken flesh — really, her pet project from the Luofu looked much worse. Yes. This coldness is much more preferable to pity.
Coldness. Coldness...that's nowhere to be found in Ruan Mei's gaze. Herta's brain locks up. Freezes. Fails to reboot. Catapults itself into the nevernever where only her grandraccoon is capable of retrieving it from.
"Ruan...Mei?" Herta hates how her voice sounds now — her damaged vocal cords can barely hiss the words through whatever is left of her lips. She knows the emotion in the blue eyes, her words are enough to be the cause of it when speaking with any fool desperate for a sliver of her time, for a moment of her attention. Seeing it in the eyes of her equal is terrifying.
Terrifying, yet incredibly satisfying.
"You're a stubborn fool, Herta." Ruan Mei presses a gloved index finger against Herta's forehead and pushes her deeper into the bath. The green fluid rushes into the open mouth, filling the weakened Genius' lungs. "Worse yet, a reckless fool. Are you a Genius or a Nameless? We're scientists, not heroes, Herta. We define what's impossible one moment and shatter the definition the next. We create the means for heroes to produce miracles. We do not act on faith. We do not act so foolhardy, Lord of Silence needs not to raise her finger to kill us when our plans will."
Anger is in every word, every syllable Ruan Mei uses to voice her displeasure. It is in the finger digging into Herta's forehead. It is in the shine of the blue eyes. It is in the wrinkles of the normally impeccable outfit. It is everywhere.
And yet.
And yet, Herta is elated as she has not been in centuries. For anger is not the only emotion in Ruan Mei's eyes, and it is not the winning one either. It wars against the victorious feeling and loses horribly, completely to an utter relief in Ruan Mei's gaze. Herta wants to laugh and apologise and tease and brag, but it is a tough ask when she is busy drowning.
She's feeling great. Over the moon. Beyond caring about pesky details. Pesky details like a message transmitted via a pink glow in the crack in the wall that reappears every time she tries to fix it.
You have stepped into the world of adults, girl.
Really. Pink is so on the nose. Lord of Silence could have at least chosen to use purple for punctuation.