"I've got aggression problems?" Theo shook her head and just stared down at him, absolutely unable to believe what she'd just heard.

"I—all right." She took a breath, and another one, centering herself there on the bunk and letting the tension—well, as much of the tension as she could, flow out of her toes and fingertips.

"Look, Chelly," she said, over Asu's slamming open storage bays. "I don't know what people saw. What I know is that Wilsmyth was trying to make trouble for me. I don't know why, but I don't need to know why to know that he was, from the very first time I saw him, on Vestrin. From my perspective, he was trying to get me to lose my temper, or maybe get me in trouble with Admin for having a stolen bag, like he said. If I was edgy, I think that's reasonable. And I think anybody who saw me drop to neutral would also have seen why I did it." She took a breath. "So, there might be a note in my file. It wouldn't be the first time. And I'm probably not alone."

Chelly chewed his lip, and looked over his shoulder into the joint room. "Wil gets chaizy when he's not working," he muttered. "He'll buckle, now there's work." He sighed, and shook his head, looking back to Asu.

"You'd think somebody whose family owns tradeships would know how to pack," he said.

Head and shoulders inside the bottommost storage compartment, Asu sniffed. "We own them," she said, her voice echoing hollowly, "we do not live on them."

"Yeah, well, you think you'll have all this stuff stowed soon? It's gotta be put away—those're regs, and if the house father does an inspect while you're at class, he can clean up anything that's not in its place." He grimaced. "He gets a real buzz outta cleaning up after newbies."