"They've enough time and a more solid foundation to argue their place better than us: they all have a stake and a place here, this is their home, it always has been, the longer people are here who knows where their loyalties will lead them from whatever fraternity they were part of before. We could be a deciding factor in pushing more of them together when they finally have to make that decision. It wasn't popular and that's just the people we heard it from."

Whatever was said-- and then there's Sina and she can't swallow, can't breathe, there's Sina and being there when she died after the final weeks. What came after. Being cracked open.

"Sina had been ill a long time." It's a struggle to get that much out as if to justify it, to dance around the reality of what happened but Araceli knows she doesn't have all the details. "Her anchor had already almost killed her once before and that was in the early stages, whatever happened-- Groups of us can leave on missions for a while. I was in Rivain. Alone. For several days and it hurt but nothing untoward happened. If push came to shove, there are people who'd think to test the limits, everyone knows the kind who'd cut off their nose to spite their face."