Marlowe
Nova's hands were shaking when I found her the morning of her ceremony, pacing the length of her quarters with an anxious energy I'd rarely seen from someone usually so effortlessly confident.
"I'm going to be sick," she announced the moment I walked in.
"You are not going to be sick."
"I might be. This is considerably worse than I anticipated." She stopped pacing long enough to look at me properly, something genuinely vulnerable beneath her usual bravado. "What if I mess it up? What if the shift doesn't trigger properly, or I trip in front of the entire assembled club, or—"
"Nova." I crossed the room and gripped her shoulders firmly, forcing her to actually look at me instead of spiraling further. "You are ready. You've trained for this. You've earned this, every single day s
