2017-05-11: While We're On the Subject
- Log: While We're On the Subject
- Cast: Josephine Lovelace, Leon Albus
- Where: Adlehyde - Starfall Saloon
- Date: May 11th, 2017
- Summary: Josie drops in (read: trespasses) into Leon's room to pass on some reports. Just in case. While she's at it, she asks after a few things.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
As it had turned out, Lily and Leon had left Port Timney. Possibly even a few days earlier; timing and losing track of people is always a peril when you're out on the road. Memory Cubes aren't all that common out in backroads.
Usually, anyway.
It was a bit of a two-for-one -- Josie had her own reasons to head back to Adlehyde, and it'd be pretty easy to check to see if one or both of them had returned to their lodging.
Which, as it turned out, they had. It had been easy to find Lily, anyway.
Lily had locked the door this time. Stuck a chair under it, too, by the sound of it. She also wasn't interested in talking, or so Josie had quickly determined.
Lily had been pretty clear about it.
Not particularly interested in knocking the door down, Josie had simply tried the next door over. It was /probably/ Leon's. It was also unlocked.
Sure, she could just wait downstairs like a normal person, but...
Pulling up a chair, the archaeologist kicks back in the meantime, leaning back in the chair and staring up at the ceiling, hands behind her head, as if it were her own room. She's even gone to the trouble of scattering some paperwork on the table -- reports, looks like.
Penelope has since wandered off, apparently to inspect the rug on the floor. If left to her own devices, she might manage to take it apart.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
Leon does, in fact, keep his door locked... most of the time. However, when he is inside of his room, he likes to keep it unlocked -- it actually lets him catch someone trying to rob him easier and keeps an avenue of escape. He isn't even, entirely, aware that Lily and Josie had been arguing -- he was out during the shouting -- and that leaves him largely unaware. Lily hasn't wanted to talk, at all, about what happened in the Hollow.
Unaware doesn't mean at peace. That bothers Leon, and as he flips through the newspaper in his hands -- and doesn't really read it -- he stops as he sees the door slightly ajar. His eyes narrow, and he flips it closed. He has been bothered enough that he forgot to lock his door. That sort of carelessness is rare, for him. His hand slides into his coat, on Argent Divider's hilt, but when he nudges the door open with his other arm, he relaxes.
Slightly.
"Josie," he says, and it's not entirely kind -- but not strictly unfriendly, either. "I didn't expect to see you here. In my room."
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
At least she straightens slightly in her chair. His chair, technically. Unfolding her left hand, she waves at him lazily.
"The door was unlocked," Josie says, as if this excuses trespassing. Sitting fully upright next, the chair rocking a moment against part of the floorboards, she continues, "Besides, Lily didn't want to talk. So, you'll pass this on to her, right~?"
Leaning forward, she reaches over to tap her finger against the papers piled on the table. "These are what I pulled out of the cave. I figured, I'd leave these with you guys, just in case something happened. I don't need them anymore, anyway. So," she says brightly as ever, clapping her hands together, "How's your investigation going? I've learned a few things~"
She pauses, before swiveling her head in the manner of a parent, "Penelope, quit it." The pigeon's found a loose thread in the rug and is tugging. "Normally," she says, with a sigh, to Leon, "I'd let her be, but it'd be a hassle for you, right?"
Josie actually minding someone else's potential discomfort a little is, probably, new.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"Careless of me," Leon says, with a small frown. He watches as Josie rocks back in the chair -- and he steps the rest of the way into the room. The ex-soldier leans back against the wall, before he crosses his arms, and then he looks back up at her.
He nods to the papers. "I can make sure that Lily gets them. She isn't in? Or sleeping? Or..." He trails off. He knows why Lily might not want to talk. She hasn't wanted to talk since the shrine. His lips purse, for a moment, and then he tilts his head to the side.
He looks up, surprised -- and can only half mind the way Penelope is pecking at his rug. (It helps that it isn't, strictly speaking, /his/ rug.)
"My investigation?" he asks. His brow furrows. "Which one do you mean? Into the Hollow? A different one?" He hasn't, really, investigated the Hollow. He may be bothered by it, but he was already looking into /two/ things. He hardly had the time for a third.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"Doesn't want to talk," Josie finishes, with a rueful smile. "It's fine -- we all have those days. Besides, she's still just a kid." Leon as well, the briefly appraising look -- coupled with a shrug -- suggests.
Lily's got more than enough reasons to not want to talk to anyone right now, based on their last conversation. Poor kid.
Josie nods. "The Hollow, yeah. We had to bolt when we went together, so I figured, I'd leave you guys off with a few things I found down there. Don't worry, I've already told other people about the content of these," and here she taps the papers again, "So even if you're not -- and I rather think /she/ is -- it's not wasted or anything." She stands finally, rolling her shoulders back in a stretch.
Penelope, undeterred, continues to tug at the thread.
Turning to face Leon, Josie tilts her head to one side for a moment. "So, how's the /other/ investigation going, then?" She smiles, briefly. "You should know by now that I'm kinda nosy. Lily can tell you all about it."
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"She isn't just a kid," Leon says, and this time, it's a little flatly. But, he relents, his expression evening out into something more thoughtful. "...You are right, though. She has been through a lot lately. It gets to her sometimes, and Lily... always valued her privacy."
Even from him, sometimes.
He looks down at the books, then he nods. If whoever was behind this gets at either him, Lily, or any of them, others will know. He thinks that wise. He stands up, a little straighter, and folds his arms -- before he raises an eyebrow.
"I've been looking," he says. "What has Lily told you about it? That helps with knowing where to start." And, later, checking what Josie told him against Lily herself.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
Briefly, Josie rolls her eyes. ...Goodnaturedly. "Look, at my age, you really are just kids. Don't worry about it, though! Think of it as, 'still gaining useful experience'!" Josie grins, only to shrug, her expression similarly balancing out into something more serious. "...She kind of has. She's a tough one, though. Still... just make sure you stay there for her, kid. Even tough ones can crack."
Taking a step forward, she finally stoops to scoop up the wayward pigeon, who predictably squirms and fusses, wings flapping angrily. "Enough," Josie murmurs, eventually coaxing Penelope up onto an arm.
"...And if you're talking about that automaton, not much. I just know what Lily told me -- about what happened because of it." Or at least enough that Josie's been able to piece together the outline of the story. "That it might be a Golem, or something like that. And that we were looking into Sult, mostly because of it. " SHe stretches out her right hand, towards Leon. "...I was going to head up to Linga for my own business anyway, so I could ask the scholars up there."
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
Leon frowns a little more. "We're /not/ children," he says. "Even if you are older than we are." He sighs, before sits backward, and then he nods. "I don't intend to go anywhere. I know she needs me."
He quiets, again. It is, of course, more complicated than that. Their entire history is more complicated than that -- and Josie may have seen a piece of it, if she spotted the lines running up her arms. He still wonders about those -- and it never ceases to bother him that he didn't know already.
He raises an eyebrow, though, at the automaton. "You..." He trails off. "...Only rumors. Its name is Gryndille. It appeared and destroyed a village here, a caravan there. There never seems to be a rhyme or reason to its attacks. If you think that those scholars would help..."
He nods, before he looks back at Josie. "...We would be in your debt. If it isn't so much trouble."
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
What can Josie do in response to that but shrug and smile, in that typically lopsided manner. She's amused, it's written as plain as day on her face.
"Good," is all that Josie says, atypically succinct on the topic of his staying by her side.
Because Josie's seen a bit of it, those lines -- the ultimate result of their brief altercation shortly after the expedition into the Hollow. She knows Lily's secret.
It's not Symbology. It's something else.
Another thing, perhaps, to ask the scholars about.
"Gryndille." Josie nods. "Right, I thought it was something like that, anyway. Was this just up where you guys are from, or has anyone seen it elsewhere since? --Well, it's worth a shot, right?" she adds, even as Penelope slowly begins to worry at the edge of her glove. "...What's with you, lately?" she asks of the bird, who naturally remains silent.
"Anyway, don't worry about it. Like I said, I'm heading up there anyway, so I might as well see if any of those old guys have heard of this 'Gryndille'."
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
It isn't a secret that Leon likes to share. For years, it had been something that only belonged to the two of them -- and her parents. They worked hard to be sure that no one ever knew she could cast a spell. After Grydnille, that secret unravelled. Leon knows perfectly well whose fault it is, and he stands right in front of Miss Lovelace.
His expression is distracted enough to match those grim thoughts, before he looks up. "If you could," he says. "I haven't had a chance to go there. I've been asking Drifters--seeing what they know. So many of them are in town, I thought it couldn't hurt."
He nods. His eyes flicker, briefly, at Penelope. He isn't much of a pet person -- so he stares, warily, at the pigeon. Then, he looks back at Josie. "You have business in Linga, I take it?"
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
The only reason Josie even knows is because she confronted Lily about her self-inflicted injury... only for Lily to show her there was no such injury. Not anymore.
And there were the lines, there as plain as the nose on one's face.
"It's not a problem. Besides, even if it's just a Golem," 'just a Golem' "Consider me interested, too. Call it professional interest." Josie pauses. "And personal. If it turns out to be a machine or something else instead, anyway. Besides, one of those graybeards has to know something. I can always appeal to their sense of pride, you know -- I know just one thing about the Linga scholars, and it's probably enough of a motivator!"
And wouldn't /that/ one be a slap in her old man's face. It makes it doubly worth it.
"Yeah. I've been looking for an old friend of mine." She shrugs, this time coupling it with a sheepish half-grin. "You know how it is. You fall out of touch, suddenly it's ten years later, and... Anyway, I also wanted to ask him about something, myself, so it all works out nicely, don't you think?"
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"It's dangerous," Leon says. "It has ARMs--I suppose it's more accurate to say that it is an ARM. Which... certainly could have attracted the attention of Linga's scholars." After all, an ARM was a sign of an ancient civilization -- and an independent one, as dangerous as Gryndille was, surely was a sign of some powerful past civilization.
Leon rarely thought about where it came from. He tended to focus, more, upon the thing's location and how he might destroy it.
His head tilts, though, and he blinks. "It does," he says. "You can trust this friend, though? You're aware, of course, of who we are. Someone who needs gella might have thoughts. If you mention."
That he has wondered that of her remains unsaid.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"Ahaa," Josie murmurs, lifting an eyebrow. "So it /is/ an ARM. Well, then." She claps her hands together with a slightly muffled slap of leather. "Consider me officially very interested. ARMs are a special hobby of mine, and I'd love to see how something like that works." She pauses. "From a distance, naturally. I'm not suicidal."
It's too bad it's probably not possible to take something like that out. With conventional weapons, anyway. She'd love to disassemble it.
"Anyway, I figure, something like that's probably been around for a while, right? Even if it's just legends, someone should know something," she says, gesturing with her right hand as she speaks. Penelope, at least, seems to have settled down, just black and white mass huddling on Josie's left forearm, which she's tucked in against her stomach. "And who knows? Sometimes there's a bit of truth in old stories."
As for her friend...
"Who knows? ...I'm not going to mention you two, though, so don't worry about it!" She smiles, pleasantly, eyes slightly squinted shut. "Just tell me everything you know, and I'll be a survivor, too."
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"Are they? It's an ARM, but not one I've seen before. It isn't as large as a Gear, but... it is large." Or as large as a Golem, then, most likely -- but Golems are less standard than Gears. Leon shakes his head. He has no real curiosity about it; instead, there is an anger there that doesn't quite slip away while he talks. He looks at her and considers what she says.
"That's likely for the best," he says. "It may be safest that way. As for what to say..."
He frowns. "...I wish I knew more. It doesn't speak. It could reason enough to form an attack plan, and it had a number of powerful weapons. A cannon on one arm, claws, and it could project blasts of energy. But where it came from or why it did those things..."
Leon shakes his head. "I don't know. What I've found is that it attacks small groups and the occasional remote village, seemingly at random."
He scowls. "Like a monster."
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
Josie, well, shrugs. "Well, close enough, right? It might as well be one, from the sound of it. ARMs aren't just gunsmoke weapons and the like, you know."
Not as big as a Gear -- those, she's seen from time to time -- so there's some mercy out there. But of course, something doesn't have to be /big/ to be dangerous.
"It's almost too bad, though. I would have liked to have seen it." She pauses, as he goes on. Both eyebrows lift.
Something doesn't have to be big to be dangerous, indeed. That pause has gotten quite long at this juncture.
"...Damn," Josie says, finally, as if in final appraisal. She rubs a hand across her forehead, pushing her bangs back. "Okay, okay... 'from a very safe distance'." This sounds dodgy even for /her/.
"Still, that's pretty good. I think I can get some distance out of that sort of story, ah... 'It came out of nowhere and destroyed the place I was staying at, I barely got out in time'. Sound good enough? What luck too, that I just happen to be a bit of a researcher, on the side..." She sighs, as if amazed at herself and shakes her head.
"Well, I'll drop you a line or something if I hear anything. If not, well..." She shrugs. "That's just how it is sometimes, right? Though, that'd probably answer a few questions, too. If no one's heard of it, either people don't usually survive... or it's pretty recent."
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"From a very safe distance," Leon agrees. He can't say he would want to see it -- but for him, this is personal, and in a way that he doesn't elucidate. Despite what Josie requested, he left off some very important information. He thinks it personal, but, really... is it?
Then, he blinks.
"That's... clever," Leon says. "You might want to say you heard someone tell you that, if they seem skeptical. Or like they would press too many details. But--yes, drop us a line. Even if you hear nothing. I don't think we intend to leave Adlehyde."
He glances to the wall -- the one he shares with Lily's room. "That may be the best for a few days. You can use the Memory Cubes," he says. "Or, you can tell us when you get back in town."
Leon looks away from the wall, silver eyes back on her. "...Thanks, Josie. I do appreciate it."
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
She can't help but laugh, just a touch bitterly. "I'd have to agree, honestly." From a very safe distance, indeed. "You two are extremely lucky. Well, let's hope that luck rubs off on me a little too, okay?" The smile's back, at least, and it seems /reasonably/ genuine.
"--Or that! The good old 'I heard it from someone in a tavern' trick always works. Anyway, I don't think I'd use the eyewitness story on my friend. He'd ask too many questions."
Probably.
Josie's eyes also turn towards the wall. Hmm. "I might skirt by Lahan first, see if anything's going on down there. After that, though... It might be a while. Tell Lily I said 'hi', okay?" The corner of her mouth twitches briefly upwards, as if amused. "Even if there's nothing? Well, it's probably safer that way, for you two." She shifts where she stands, raising one hand to push back a few stray locks of hair. "Anyway... I'll cease haunting your doorstep. Or, well, your inn room, actually. I have a few things I need to do before I hit the road again."
Linga's a bit of a hike, especially when she ropes Lahan into the mix.
"Anyway, don't worry about it. You can just owe me a favor, or something if I dig anything up." She pauses, glancing down at Penelope, who appears to be roosting. "Plus what you owe her, anyway. Shhh, I won't remind her." The last is coupled with a finger briefly pressed against her lips and a wink.
With that, she turns, heading for the door. "By the way, tell Lily that the chair trick is /cheating/."
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"By Lahan?" Leon asks, before he nods. "I was out there, earlier. Be careful. There's some troubles out there."
He nods, though, to the request. His arms fold, as he does. "I'll tell her. Be careful in general, in fact. Good luck with the errands." He steps away from the wall, as she steps away -- and he looks at the bird, wondering again what she might be thinking. "I'll let Lily know."
And, apparently, owe Josie a favor. He thinks it's worth it. He starts to smile -- but then he looks confused.
"Chair trick?" he asks. He isn't sure that he will get an answer. The mystery might be more fun.