Zeitwächter exhaled relieved while bowing over her recent art piece.

It wasn't yet finished, but the sketch was done and cleaned up, the pencilled face of Kongō staring back at her.

Kongō luckily hadn't seen it yet – that would have been very embarrassing – as she was doing… something over on her ship.

All in all, it seemed like the culinary expedition had been a fully successful diversion operation.

"Is that me?"

Zeitwächter let out the most undignified scream in the history of screams, jumped up, hit her knee and proceeded to collapse on the sketchbook.

Shit, that had hurt.

Kongō met her eyes, unbothered, but definitely judging.

"How did you get here!?"

"Through the door."

No shit.

"Don't you want to get up?"

"Why? Not enjoying the fanservice?", despite her words, she of course stood up and brushed imaginary dust off, checking if there were any pencil traces left on the white fabric on her chest.

The blonde grasped the opportunity to take a second look at the drawing.

Zeitwächter's art style wasn't realistic, instead it reminded her more of anime – that wasn't bad, of course, skill was skill and Zeitwächter was apparently very skilled.

"Having you look is, uhm, a bit embarrassing."

"Do you want me to stop?"

She considered that for a bit: "...No, you've already seen it, it's fine", she cleared her throat, "uhm… do you like it?"

"I do" Kongō smiled at her, "what else do you draw?"

"T-the-", she coughed once, "sorry. The fleet; Mental Models, ships, I sometimes design outfits for them."

Zeitwächter rummaged around and put a handful of papers on the desk, all featuring designs of which some Kongō had already seen on the girls.

"Vanisher, Para and Tenshi also used to design outfits when inspiration struck, but I dunno if they still do that. Ah, our designs don't always get chosen, of course, but many have one or two in their dressers."

Kongō nodded along while looking through the sketches, pausing at one: "Who was that for?"

"Kazehime. She made her standard outfit based on this", she looked to the sketch, to Kongō and back, "do you like it?"

The dress was best described as something one would wear to a fancy cocktail party where a lot of rich and-/or famous people would attend. It was shoulder-free, with flowing sleeves, a slit which revealed a leg and a long, dragging train.

Instead of answering verbally, Kongō nodded.

"You can use it, if you want."

She looked at it a moment longer: "Hm…"

It had certainly made an impression on her, but wasn't fully in the green yet.

Zeitwächter looked at her for a while, feeling defensive instincts rise: "We can make some changes and adjustments", she nodded to herself, "to make it more your style."

Kongō finally lifted her eyes to meet the other's: "What do I need it for?"

Huh?

The battleship blinked rapidly: "Kon-chama, you need it for nothing, but you look like you want it. Besides, I don't wear the things I wore as Fatum either, do I?

Changing one's style might even be a good way to deal with your past – as a visible way of moving on, for example."

"Was it for you?"

"I think", Zeitwächter put her elbows on the table and chin in her hands, "even if I didn't realise it at the time."

She had also changed way more than her clothes, but, you know.

Coming to a decision, Zeitwächter handed the sheet of paper over with a smile: "Here. If you want, come to me, if not, use it as deco."

Kongō accepted it hesitantly, looking doubtful.

"Is something?"

"You. Giving me your art. You."

"Y-yeah?"

It was admittedly unusual – in fact, handing over her creations made certain anxieties rise – but she decided to be brave this time.

"...Thank you."

"You're welcome? Oi, how did you get here, like seriously?"

"I used the door", Kongō repeated, "Churchgrim allowed me to board – why you didn't notice me I can't say."

Zeitwächter cleared her throat; she had been kinda… hyper focused so… okay…

"Well… that's fair", she leaned forwards with sparkling eyes, "so, why did you board? Is something the matter?"

"No", Kongō looked down into those glowing eyes and almost began to squirm, "I merely wanted to."

Somehow, Zeitwächter brightened up even more.

Aw shit, that was cute.

"I'm glad~", she trilled happily, "did you want to do something?"

"No. What were you doing?"

"Drawing!", she patted the seat beside her, the one normally reserved for Churchgrim because he liked to squeeze in beside her, for Kongō to sit down, "it's a bit embarrassing that you caught me though…"

"Why? I don't mind you drawing me."

"Are you sure? Almost all of my sketchbooks are full with you – that's admittedly kinda creepy."

Kongō shrugged: "Where are your sketchbooks?"

Zeitwächter yielded and anxiously got to work on the latest sketch so that she had an excuse for not making eye-contact (not that she made much to begin with): "In the drawers."

Without much ado, Kongō sat down, reached for the first drawer and opened it, coming face to face with a black book on top of many other presumable sketchbooks of various colours and sizes.

There were in fact a lot. If Zeitwächter had that many in each drawer, then she certainly had been busy.

Kongō opened the book and yep, the first thing she saw was herself.

Now, while the blonde could understand why that might be creepy, she thought of it as cute and the stroke to her ego was… he, nice.

It was interesting to see herself through someone else's eyes, with all the careful attention to detail and the visible strokes of pencils.

"Zeitwächter?"

The other seemed to jolt: "Hm?"

"How did you know what my Mental Model looks like?"

That she knew it by now was logical, but some of these pictures were dated earlier than their first face-to-face meeting and even if they weren't, there was no way even a Fleet of Fog ship with years of experience could – literally – draw up that many pieces in such a short time.

To add to that, her Mental Model was only a few months old as well.

In Zeitwächter's defence, though, most of the books were therefore filled with art of Kongō's ship body.

"Uhh…", she scratched her cheek, "I might, just might, have bribed SW2 to make sure that some of her satellites would pay special attention to a certain fleet?"

Kongō, for the first time in her life, felt the desire to facepalm; she should have guessed, she really should have.

"I'm not a stalker though!", assured the barely-not-stalker, "I just wanted to know how you were doing…"

Not great, but that was a different matter.

"How does one bribe SW2?"

SW2 and SW1 were known as two of the most unbribable creatures ever – one because she never cared as to who she followed as long as they allowed her to science in peace (which resulted in a fierce gatekeeper if you were that person), the other because she was beyond giving any fucks at this point and fiercely loyal.

"I have no idea. At this point I'm mostly sure that Vanisher in the background was like "yeah whatever" so that SW2 shrugged and was like "sure"."

That sounded scarily in character.

Kongō, for her part, looked up with just her eyes.

"They don't follow you anymore."

"When has that nosy submarine ever stopped observing?"

Back in Germany, a certain submarine suddenly sneezed.