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Sylvite had been hoping that Axinite wouldn't pick up on the fact that she was avoiding him. It wasn't like she met with him all that often in the first place, so it shouldn't have been obvious. It had mostly come down to completely avoiding the part of the castle hallways where his office was, and, like, hiding her face behind plates of cupcakes at the hospital party.

Really, she'd been hoping that he wouldn't think much about her at all. It wasn't like she had anything for him. There were no missions to report, no high-profile enemy senshi to bring over, no lost lieutenants to claim as her own.

She just had a sad report she'd had to leave in the database and an empty room in the barracks where her senshi was supposed to be, and a whole bunch of new problems on top of all that.

Axinite had thought about her anyway, apparently, because he'd requested a meeting. That wasn't great, but Sylvite knew better than trying to refuse or something.

She chewed on the insides of her cheeks as she made her way in the direction of his office, and there was no bounce in her step as she knocked twice on his door frame and then stepped back, still not about to go inside unless she was told to.

"Sir," she said, looking at the floor.

Sylvite came into the room slowly, taking steps that were smaller than needed as she made her way over to the chair. While she sat down cross legged, like usual, she kept her back stick straight, and she didn’t reach for any sweets, no matter how much she wanted one.

He hadn’t offered, and it wasn’t like she’d done anything to earn one, this time.

“I know. It’s been awhile,” she said. “I’m sorry.” She wasn’t sure if she meant that one.

She was sorry that everything had kind of gone bad the way it had and she hadn’t managed to tie up the loose ends enough to submit it in a nice report to Axinite before he started to worry. She was sorry that she’d ended up in his office while he looked at her all concerned and she couldn’t really do anything but fidget with the ends of her gloves.

“I dunno if there’s a lot for me to talk about,” she said, then chewed the inside of her cheeks some more, then added, quieter, “I mean, not a lot good. I bet you already saw what I put in the database about Cybele. I bet you already heard whatever Faustite had to say about the Rift.”

It was getting rough to be the Negaverse’s little ray of sunshine considering recent events.

Sylvite was completely still and quiet for about five more seconds. Then, her hands peeked out from behind the desk to wrap around the cup of hot chocolate. She scooched it towards her across the tabletop, and she leaned forwards, stealing a glance at Axinite to make double sure that he wasn't about to do something weird before she licked the whipped cream.

"Thanks," she said.

She licked again, making a nice hole where she could drink without getting whipped cream all over her face, and then she took a long drink of yummy, chocolatey goodness.

Did it solve all of her problems? No. Did it at least settle her stomach and make her feel better about the immediate situation? Yeah. She knew that she wouldn't have given someone hot chocolate if she was about to yell at them.

"I dunno," she said first, finally taking the hot chocolate from the table and holding it in her lap. Then, half a second later, she said, "Not great, I guess?" That was the kind of thing she had a hard time admitting, and she sighed.

"Remember last time we talked, when you made me a General and I said I was gonna be there for all the people who slipped through the cracks? Like, the people who had rough starts in the Negaverse and no upper level support. I was gonna swoop in and train them but also, like, care about them?"

She tapped her fingers on the plastic cup, no longer even trying to hide how tired she was. "Turns out leadership is hard. Which, like, in retrospect, okay, obviously, but then stuff like this happens and makes it really, really hard." She took another swig of chocolate, then continued.

"Like, me and Feldspar ended up separated from most of the group and got harassed by youma in a weird cave for hours. After he'd already been through all that, and we got stuck again. He thought we were gonna die." Now that she'd started talking about it, the words came quickly. "My other Lieutenant got turned into a youma by the main target. Thankfully it was temporary, but when I talked to him about it afterwards, he was really upset about the whole thing. Like, bad."

The note that she'd found in his room after their chat was still burned into her head, although she wasn't about to tell Axinite in so many words that another one of her recruits had probably turned traitor. Not yet.

"All of us watched people die," she said instead. "Like, a lot of people, just to get some scales or something. I wanna be able to tell people that the Negaverse is gonna take care of them, but," her eyes flicked back to the floor. "After something like this, literally all I can say is that it's not usually this bad, and, like,"

She paused again, mouth twisting for a few seconds before she finally managed, "After Cybele, I can't help but get worried. What if those weak little reassurances aren't enough?"

Sylvite sipped at the hot chocolate some more while Axinite talked. She definitely felt more relaxed, and warmer, and even happier, with the chocolate and everything, but did she feel reassured?

She took a few seconds to really think about it, and while it was nice that Axinite was saying all this stuff, she wasn't sure that his commitment or whatever would actually be enough. She was pretty sure he'd always been committed, but things had gone wrong anyway. So no, she wasn't reassured, at least not yet.

That was with him saying nice things to her, too, and giving her sweets, which were really the two main things that she would think would reassure her. She sucked in her cheeks, thinking.

"Checking in like this helps," she said. "I feel a little bit better, knowing that you care and that you're not blaming me, but also, I don't think this was an overnight problem and I don't think it's gonna have an overnight solution."

She didn't know if it was gonna have a solution at all for Thorite, but, that wasn't what she was here to talk about.

"Training would help. Team building, like you said. I might be able to help with that. Also tactics, probably. " She sucked in a breath and took another sip of chocolate, coming dangerously close to the bottom of the cup. "You know, Rakovanite pulled out the starseed 'cause he thought Faustite's plan was gonna get people killed, which it definitely might have. Then Rakovanite's plan did get people killed. That's two Generals with bad ideas, and I might have done something reckless, too, if they hadn't done it first. So if we could do something so that Generals have, like, plans and good ideas to go off of ahead of time, so that we know what we're doing, basically, that might make the others more likely to trust us."

A lot of people were pointing fingers right now and it was gonna take time to recover from that even with team building stuff.

"Not just training, though. We need actual success so people stop feeling so run down. It doesn't have to be something earth-shattering or dangerous. It could just organized draining, but some kind of actual mission that goes right could really turn things around." She looked up at him. "Something multi-branch. I know Infiltration's hospital project went okay, but," she shrugged. She hadn't really been involved in that.

"But speaking of that, speaking of Information," she went quiet for a few more seconds, chewing on the insides of her cheeks some more before she finally said, "You were the one who sent us to the Rift, weren't you? You were the one who wanted these scales. You probably knew that they were powerful, right? Maybe dangerous?"

Her fingernails tapped and tapped on the cup. "Why didn't you tell us ahead of time? Especially if you knew about the youma illusions, but even if you just knew they just did something. It wouldn't have helped everything, but it could have stopped people from freaking out so much during the battle."

It was the answer she'd mostly been expecting. Of course an Information General-King wasn't going to send them after some powerful, dangerous thing without every single piece of intelligence that was available. Of course Axinite, specifically, wasn't gonna want anybody to get hurt.

Sylvite completely deflated, her elbows on Axinite's desk, her chin cupped in both hands like it was the only thing keeping her head from collapsing, too. "Yeah, that makes sense. Sorry if that came out wrong, I wasn't trying to accuse you of anything, it just sucks, you know?"

She sighed, sinking down even more. Her back arched and her elbows edged farther apart until her chin was practically on the table, anyway. From that position, she had to look up to look at Axinite. "Like, you're the best at all this, you know? I know I always see you in here at weird hours, working your butt off on stuff, and I know other people work hard, too."

Like her. She'd done everything she could for the Negaverse ever since the invasion years and years ago had made her realize how serious the war was.

"I just hate it that no matter how hard we try, there's always gonna be something important that we miss, something that kills people."

Or, almost worse, something that made people run away.

The first time Sylvite had seen Axinite had been after the invasion, when he'd shown up with the others as everything had been falling apart. Even then, he'd seemed strong and smart, like he was the kind of person who could pick up the pieces of a situation and put them back together.

Now he was staring off into the distance, talking about making mistakes and about how bad things were and about how he was frustrated.

It was weird, in a way.

As she'd gotten older, she'd figured out that a lot of people who had seemed to have it all together were kinda just trying their best. It still made her stomach twist a little bit every time it happened. The Negaverse, especially, could've used someone with a magic touch for solving all their problems.

Instead, they had a bunch of humans making the best of it.

"I know it's not a game," she said, chin still in her hands. "I try to have fun with it, sometimes, so I don't go crazy, but that doesn't mean I don't want to work hard."

It took effort, but she pulled herself back up so she was sitting straight. "I'll work harder, if you think it'll help. I can do teambuilding, like I said, or scout the Rift next time, even."

Sylvite nodded, and when he said to have fun, she finally reached forwards to one of the dishes that was on display and pulled one of the cookies back across the table towards her. She dipped it in what was left of the hot chocolate and then took a bite. Her eyelids fluttered for a second there 'cause it was just that good.

Once she finished chewing, she said, "Okay. I'll try to do something fun. I'll try to take care of myself. I'll look into that team building stuff, too. Like, I know I've done some before, but I want to make sure I know the names and how to explain it and stuff."

She was quiet for a couple more seconds after that, working on finishing off her snacks.

"Is that what you wanted to talk about?" she asked. "Just, like, if I'm okay?"

Sylvite finished the cookie off in a few more bites and brushed the crumbs off her gloves. Axinite had probably figured out that she was not, actually, okay, but at least she was a lot less tense now than she'd been when she'd walked in the door.

"I don't think you're overbearing or whatever," she said, with a little shrug. "It's, like, sweet that you checked in. Sorry I didn't come talk to you sooner, everything was just a lot."

It was still weird to let people see that she was struggling, especially if they happened to be her boss, but it turned out that it wasn't the end of the world levels of weird.

She scooted back, the scraping against the office floor before she got to her feet, still not super bouncily, but she tried.

"Thanks," she said, quieter than normal. "For the hot chocolate, and, uh. Everything." For a second there, she even smiled. Then, she just stood behind the chair a little bit awkwardly, not wanting to leave without permission.