The small orb stood proudly on a metal stand Ami had procured from the drawers of the labs. It was shoddy, meant for holding test tubes really, but it was all she could find. It would simply have to do.

She was studying the orb, not taking Dr. H's consul, but not ignoring it either. It wasn't so much that she didn't want to repurpose it- the logical part of her brain told her that in order to access its function, she would have to- but more that she didn't want to repurpose it quite yet. There was a very feral beauty to it, a soft glow that thrummed in her hands and felt familiar and utterly foreign at the same time. It would seem almost inhumane to take a runic-edged knife to it, dissecting it only for how she could use it.

So instead a pencil scratched across her journal, taking tiny meaningless details down. Things like opalescent surface, and recurring smoothness, no blemishes to note. As an afterthought, it seems strange that it should have no markings was added to the page. Mere drabbles, notes that meant nothing. They were merely there to delay her surgery of the object.

The noise of two girls scuttling behind her alerted her. "Did you hear about that weird island?" The other responded some meaningless thing, it was the noisy chatter of two girls. Regardless, Ami felt alerted, alarmed. She fumbled to put the axis in her bag, out of sight. A strange urgency filled her and she quickly snapped all the books shut, herding them into her bags.

The girls' voices behind her faded, footsteps quickly leading away from her lab. Ami let out a sigh. She'd been so paranoid- it wasn't like they were talking about taking her things. She shook her head and gathered her things to leave. She was already packed up, she might as well train for awhile. She couldn't let her skills go rusty.

---

That night she woke up in a fit of heavy breathing and blankets. Another nightmare, fading from her memory already. This one had filled her head with the horseman who snapped Junpei like a twig, standing over her as hot magma dripped down her back and she laid there on the ground broken and sniveling. It seemed no matter how distant her body was from the place, Medea always had a way of keeping her filthy claws on Ami's mind.

After a few moments of steadying breaths and reassurances to herself that she was indeed okay, Ami lay in silence. There was no point in trying to go back to sleep. She could already tell that if she tried going back to sleep, the nightmares would just haunt her.

So instead Ami made a cup of tea for her sanity and her nerves, and curled around a book in bed. Anything to delay her mind from drifting back to that place like it did some nights. Though childish, she had a pillow clutched in her arms to squeeze whenever she had a bought of sadness or happiness as she read. As Solia would say, when she had "feels." Tonight her eyes wouldn't focus though. She only got a few pages in before feeling insufferably indifferent about the whole thing, causing her to cast off her preparedness.

Instead she set down her teacup, politely put her pillow back in its place, and grabbed her bag from earlier that day. The orb's glow penetrated even the dark material of her bag, casting an orangeish sheen on everything in her room. Images of lava seemed to dance across her wall, but they unfocused static compared to the reflections in her eyes.

For whatever reason, she found herself curled around the ball, hands moving around it like she was a temptress at the circus, ready to read someone's fortune. Her eyes were unfocused, remembering things elsewhere.

Fireplaces, at their little winter cabin. It belonged to an aunt, but they used it to go camping in the snow most years. Ami was little, pigtails flying behind her (she'd always preferred keeping her hair long, crying when it was cut as a child) as she tottered through the snow and fell straight into a rebel bank. At first her father laughed, but after a scolding from her mother, he quickly rescued the distraught, and now crying Ami. A few hushed words, and a promise of soup later and she was quickly quieted, tiny head tucked under her father's chin as he carried her back to the cabin. She'd always been a crybaby like that- quick to cry, easy to appease.

New sweaters at the beginning of the fall season, as she went shopping with friends. It was the highlight of her school year, considering she was too hipster to like school anyways. She always bought form-fitting ones, but secretly she liked the oversized ones that seemed to swallow her tiny form whole.

Winter last year at Deus. She'd missed Christmas by a month or so, and the holiday spirit had all but died down by the time she'd arrived. The most she'd gotten was a slice of pizza, which she'd only eaten because Wilson had insisted. How shy she'd been then, so uncertain of her location. No, Ami had persisted in shyness, perhaps even grown in her shyness as her bitterness grew.

Memories she'd made here too. People she was slowly beginning to realize had grown on her- not deep friendships, not relationships, she didn't make those, but people that she wouldn't mind saving? She had those certainly. Wilson's kind smile, Marcus' stern parenting, Madeline's rambunctious childishness. Lex's coffee, which he occasionally offered and she always refused. Tori's selflessness as she redid Ami's entire room without asking for anything in return.

She blinked lazily, her memories making her smile. It was strange, most nights she remained awake for hours, yet now she was falling asleep like a baby to a mother's lullaby.

---

It needed a base. The orb was near-finished, and Ami smiled at her own cleverness. She'd kept the axis in its original shape, merely put runes on it that acknowledged a reduction in size. Around that she'd melded a band, which held runes for all sorts of things. Mostly a reduction in weight, but other gimmicks too.

Was it haughty to be proud of her work? Ami had never amounted to much at Deus Ex, so to have a token of her handiwork was ... a change. Of course, she hadn't shown it to anyone, for fear that someone might take it in a fit of jealousy, but she still had the secret to smile to herself.

It didn't mean it was done. As stated earlier, it needed a base, something she could fuse to the surface and add to a chain, a strip of leather. Something to keep it on her person instead of flying around in her pocket. After all, with Junpei and her journal, those were quite full already. She needed to inquire about a new coat soon. One with deep pockets.

The first thing she inevitably thought of was one of her earrings, but those were too small. When she inquired to Marcus about strips of metal from the abandoned houses he drew up nothing that suited her more feminine tastes.

The lunchbox in her closet. She knew it would fit. She shook her head. Even scorned in bitterness and lost in love, Ami couldn't do that. It was like earlier with Marcus. Regardless of how bitter she was, she could never punch him in the face.

Instead, she decided that she would buy a ring on her day off, whenever that came. For now, the ball just sat in her pocket. Honestly, she preferred it this way. It didn't seem like the type of thing that should be restrained by chains. It was ancient, too powerful for that.

She smiled at it anyways. In all its messy, sloppy work, it was hers. Like a crayon drawing that a proud parent pins on their fridge, Ami held it in her hands, smiling as she left the lab.