She knew the layout of the place well; guided him along a brightly-lit corridor, past quiet shops and cafes, towards a gleaming, broad stairwell leading down.

"Awful, isn't it? And... similar after a fashion but different; all of this would have been considered monstrously archaic. Wasteful. The darkness between stars is unfathomably cold and hungry, sucks out heat and light like the deepest part of an ocean; so you can afford to waste nothing. Not even light, or heat. The archsips and civilian fleet all bioluminesced, and only when necessary. Like holding a piece of very thin parchment up to full moon light, that same... backlit radiance. But all about you; ceiling, walls, floors if need for light was great enough. So if you had a long hallway and you were the only one walking through it, it would be dark but for the space you walked in, a few metres forward, a few behind, Athena brightening in a soft halo about your path. Rare case, that, though."