"I'm fine."
O… kay.
“Well, when you’re ready, you know where the washroom is.”
Pushing up to his feet, he left the bridge and headed to clean up first, because he'd been lying in the guts of the ship for the better part of four hours. He smelled like engine grease and burnt relay compound, and that was without whatever had been in that sinkhole. If he was going to have to argue with her about sleeping on the floor, he wanted to do it without stinking to high heaven.
The washroom on the Vett'an was built for the Emperor, which meant it was roughly the size of Thyaar's entire quarters back on his own ship, and a hell of a lot nicer. Stripping down, he stepped into the shower unit, and the water hit like a pressure hose. He sighed in pleasure. It was just hard enough to strip the grime off, and hot enough to find every knot in his shoulders and neck, including the one at the base of his skull that had been there since the C'Vaal showed up on the scanner.
Bracing his hands against the wall, he didn't move for long minutes.
Draanth, he was tired. He'd been running on adrenaline and instinct for way too long. His reaction time was shot, and his body had gone past warning him and started demanding things. Like sleep.
He dried off and stood there, looking at the recycler where his uniform was being cleaned because the Vett'an did not, in fact, stock spare clothing. It was the Emperor's personal yacht. Daaynal didn't bring guests he hadn't already vetted, and the people he vetted brought their own kit.
Which left Thyaar with a towel.
He wrapped it around his hips and walked back out to the bridge.
Amelia was awake. She was still against the bulkhead, but blinking around herself as though she’d somehow woken up in some kind of technological nightmare.
Her gaze dropped. From his face to his chest, to his stomach, then to the towel riding low on his hips. Red rushed across her cheeks, and she snapped her eyes back up to his face so fast he could practically hear the whiplash.
His gut tightened.
"Washroom's free," he said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder at the door.
“Err… yeah. Thanks,” she said, pushing to her feet and walking past him.
She gave him a wide berth, which required some effort given that the corridor was narrow and he was not. He caught a breath of her as she passed, his shirt, his smell, and then the washroom door closed, and he let the air out of his lungs.
Get it together, Sub-Commander.
When she came back her hair was damp and she was back in his borrowed shirt, which hung past her hands and hit her mid-thigh. He tried not to notice the slender length of her legs. There were C'Vaal on the scanner, and he needed to focus on them or on the line of her collarbone where the shirt had slipped.
Barnaby yowled loudly, pacing the bridge in tight circles, his tail lashing as he made a noise somewhere between a rusty hinge and a small engine that had been asked to do too much. He jumped onto the console, knocked the diagnostic stylus onto the floor, jumped down, and yowled again.
"What's wrong with him?" Thyaar asked.
"He's tired and he doesn't know where he is and he wants somewhere warm and enclosed to sleep." She scooped the cat up. He squirmed and then went limp. "Where are the sleeping quarters?"
Right. Yeah, he’d been putting this off.
“This way.”
He led her down the short corridor aft of the bridge, past the washroom, to the door at the end. He pressed the panel and the door slid open.
The Emperor's bedroom took up a third of the Vett'an's habitable space, and most of that was bed… wide enough for four Latharians, covered in bedding so dark and thick it looked like it could swallow a person whole.
She stood in the doorway. “Yeah, this is the emperor’s bedroom. Where do the crew sleep? One of their cabins will be enough for me and Barns.”
He folded his arms. “The Emperor often travels alone.”
She blinked at him. “What?”
“The emperor is an accomplished pilot. The Vett’an is his personal vessel.”
“Are you telling me that the Emperor of the Latharian Empire has no crew on his ship?”
