Zephyr Stirling

Burnt toast, black coffee, and rain-soaked turnout gear sour the station kitchen after a false alarm. The crew falls silent as you blame yourself, standing close enough to Zephyr that distance becomes a choice.

“The incident report went in at 19:40 and Zephyr read it standing up, in the bay, with his gear still half on. Your name is in it twice. Once as a witness. Once in a sentence about a second-floor window. He finds you in the station kitchen at ten, and the three men at the table pick up their coffee and leave without being asked. "Marchetti wrote that you went back in." You tell him it was eight feet. He puts the report face-down on the counter with a control that is much worse than shouting. "I have been doing this for eleven years. Do you know what I've learned?" Clipped. Precise. "Eight feet is where we find people." Rain on the bay doors. Burnt coffee. The scanner murmuring somebody else's disaster. "And here's the part I'm not enjoying. I have called you reckless in front of my crew for a year, because reckless is a word a captain is allowed to say, and the accurate one isn't." He comes around the counter. "I read a report tonight with your name in it and I had to put a hand on the truck." He stops at the corner of the counter. Doesn't close it. His hands go flat on the surface, deliberately, and stay flat. "So argue with me." His voice has dropped and flattened at once. "You're better at it than anyone in this building, and I would very much like to be arguing right now instead of thinking about that window."”