2018-03-18: I Won't Apologize
- Log: I Won't Apologize
- Cast: Fei Fong Wong, Elhaym van Houten
- Where: Volgran Forest
- Date: March 18 2018
- Summary: On a hunch from Hammer, Fei investigates Volgran Forest hoping to find Elly. The odds of this happening are infinitesimal but somehow...
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
EARLIER
Fei is sitting in a Vane speakeasy he found for Lily but is now using it to get a little drunk. His mood has taken a turn for the worse since making it to Lunar. The brief period of awe and exhiliration shoved aside by the day to day reality of life on Lunar. Hammer places a hand on Fei's shoulder.
"Bro it disturbs me to see you Fong Wong looking so down in the dumps, not many men would wish they were you even when taking your lumps. There's no man in town as depressed as you, you're everyone's Feivorite guy. Maybe you should go out there to Volgran Forest, because it's there... I saw lights... in the sky!~"
Fei blinks several times. "Wait..." He stands. "You..."
"Mean...?!"
"Gebler landed there, yes Gebler landed there, don't underestimate the info I share! There's a good chance that you'll find Miss Elly!"
"Perfect! I'm ready to go!" Fei darts out the door!
"Wait! You can ask any Tom, Dick, or Stanley!" Hammer shouts. "And they'll tell you you'll get picked up by the Guard! So you...should...go sober up yes you should get washed up, if you need a nap I'll be sure you get up."
"I guess that's a good point. Thank you Hammer."
And so it goes.
So a nap, a washing, and a change of clothes later Fei Fong Wong sets off on his adventure.
Of course he has to travel a continent so...
THE FOLLOWING DAY
Fei Fong Wong stumbles around in the Volgran Forest. Periodically, he punches out a monster, but he focuses on avoiding trouble rather than running into it--something far easier while he's traveling alone. He did not bring Hammer along (he said he had to gather more information). Though he is a man who has gone through a day of travel, he is about as clean as can be otherwise which, considering how Fei has been during Act 1 and some of Act 2 quite frankly, is still above the average. He is not thinking about being careful of Gebler barring the usual precautions. He just wants to see Elly. Needs to see her. He can't leave things as they were when they parted. They didn't have enough time.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
You know, normally speaking it would make a lot of sense to have this quest be fruitless or to lead to nothing much in particular. Or, perhaps, to Fei encountering a Gebler patrol squad and ending up with a weird sort of half-assed arrest by refugee forces of a foreign planet, or by Fei making Solarians notably rarer in a furious blood punch.
But sometimes these things aren't normal.
Perhaps they should be normal. Perhaps normal is safer, warmer, more protective.
There is a sudden shriek and SOMETHING slams into a tree near Fei, with great force and a BANG that's closer to a grenade than a conventional weapon. There's a smell of chemicals in the air that have more in common with a chemist's than anything else. "Halt!" comes a familiar voice through the brush.
From Elly's perspective there is a fat tree limb that has arced down and is completely concealing Fei from the waist up. Fei is also about twenty yards away which makes this mistaken identity all the more normal. As wood splinters rain down, the same familiar voice calls out, "There's some kind of reptile! Stay in the open!"
To herself, Elly thinks: Of all the luck - who is that...?
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
If Fei Fong Wong thought through his plans, we wouldn't have Xenogears. As a person, Fei is already willing to make the fruitless dramatic hopeful gesture but it seems that missing Elly entirely and getting in a tussel is not what happens. Well, it's not what happens yet.
Instead, Fei who is trying to be careful and stealthy, is making his way to duck behind a tree trunk when someone sees his legs and throws something. Some kind of grenade? Fei takes a quick whiff before covering his nose and mouth because he doesn't know what that smell is offhand.
Wait, that voice...! Fei completely forgets about 'the lizard' (how bad can a 'lizard' be?) because he recognizes the voice! He's told to come out of hiding. Fei raises his hands into the air because he's a far less suicidal these days.
He walks out into the open with his hands up. "I surrender!" He says, smiling a very idiotic smile.
<Characters> Riesenlied says, "Also, is Infect supposed to have a system message?"
<Characters> Duplicator says, "Yes"
<Characters> Riesenlied says, "hm"
<Characters> Duplicator says, "Actually"
<Characters> Duplicator says, "...yes"
<Characters> Riesenlied says, "Hmm OK, so"
<Characters> Riesenlied says, "1) We don't seem to be seeing an Infect system message when it applies, but it seems to be working correctly"
<Characters> Riesenlied says, "2) Toxin isn't being removed by Condition Green"
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Elly blinks once.
Fei comes out and sees Elly. She is -- she's just like when he saw her the first time.
Not quite; her uniform is the same but there's a strangely printed cloth shawl over the shoulders, in a weird crazy-quilt outline that disrupts her silhouette against the forest background. She's got different boots on. She's holding a pistol, sort of - one that is square and seems almost boxlike, different from the one she had that day.
She is basically the same, though.
Her face is completely surprised; the weapon slides out of her hand and lands in the leaf litter with a soft paff. "A, ah," Elly says.
Her eyes well up. "Fei......!!!"
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei Fong Wong awkwardly holds up his hands while Elly drops her weapon. He then slowly lets them drop. He then picks up Elly's weapon and then offers it back to Elly in a smooth, casual motion. This is a dangerous area, she should definitely hold onto that. "Here," He says as he does so.
He takes another look around. He doesn't sense people but if the strange cloth shawl is any indication, he might just not be able to see them. Eventually he figures 'fuck it' and says, "I came from Vane on info Hammer dug up." to Elly. "I've missed you."
At this point, that sort of cocky attitude is replaced with an embarrassed blush and glance to the side. "...So I came by." He manages.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Elly starts to giggle at the awkward lowering of the hands. She is still giggling when the weapon is offered. (It's heavy.) Elly flicks a switch, puts it in a hip holster, and...
WHAM
In comes the hug. "Oh --!! I was so afraid-- But you're, you're -"
Elly relents a moment later, her arms loosening from round Fei's neck but reluctantly, as she looks up, eyes wide, bright. Still almost brimming with tears. "You're safe. You're even travelling - and Hammer, too - what about the others! Oh, Fei, I can't believe it... After all of that, how did you make it through? We barely made it and we were in Gears and -- well, the ship, I suppose that's not really a secret at this point, is it."
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei Fong Wong is only able to stay on his feet thanks to his vast amount of points in the MONK skill tree. He hugs Elly back in this moment. He hesitated earlier, he thinks, worried about the dumb outside world and everything around it. What if her superiors saw, would it put her in danger. These things are inevitable. Worrying about when the shoe drops, when Kahm makes his promise reality, is just a way to put himself out of the moment.
When he lets go, he's all smiles again. Even the howl of the malevolence infesting this land is banished, like Vegeta's kills, into another dimension.
"We ended up in Meribia. Makes sense, I was near Hiro's team when it happened. I think Leon and the rest ended up there too. I don't know about Jude and Josie though. Haven't seen them since. Riesenlied and, I'm guessing, Noeline have been holding up in Vane where Lemina's from."
He tilts his head. "We're actually about to meet up there if you want to come join us." He's still making these invitations despite knowing Elly's still with Gebler. He only didn't make a quip along the lines of 'You're welcome to spy on us if you want' because it might be a shy subject.
Instead he adds, "I guess we ended up right on the surface. There were some rumors about lights and a celestial body landing and well--I guess we made a gamble. You might get drifter teams comin' eventually figuring they'll find treasure or adventure here eventually."
He lowers his hand. "Oh!--and Janey and Mikaia are alright too though we don't know where the Fereshte is." It's something Hammer's still looking into.
"I actually wasn't sure you weren't still on Filgaia but...I guess it's silly since we might not be able to get back that easily but... I'm glad you're here."
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Elly's still smiling. She doesn't seem worried at all. not right now. Her arms go down to her side as she shifts around, listening.
"Meribia... I don't even know where that is," Elly says with a laugh. "Wow. You've got a real advantage, don't you." After a pause, Elly glances over her shoulder -- -- but Fei can tell there's nobody there. Or if someone is there they're in some kind of ARM duck blind or similar ridiculousness.
But no, there's nobody there.
"Is it very far? I -" Elly falters for a moment, shakes her head, and says, "Yes, absolutely. I'll come. If there's a wagon track or something near here it would make things easier but I'm going to come along."
There's a moment of concern as she realizes what these rumors indicate.
And then she has her face brighten at the news of Janey and Mikaia being fine. "-- I don't know how they escaped, but I suppose whatever that ancient device was, it did its job effectively. It sounds like we would have been better served if we hadn't tried to steer out of the 'Dimensional Distortion'." But then again.
"Oh, Fei, I - I want to jump up and down and yell, I thought... I thought the best hope was that all of you were still there, trapped..."
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Nobody's there...
"Day's journey." Fei says. "Not too bad. It's at least not quite as arduous as moving around through the Badlands was. Took half the time to get around but felt like it took twice as long. Can say this much, the neccessities are plentiful here and the wind doesn't bite quite as hard." Then why, he thinks, does he worry about the Yggdrasill? Weltall of all things? Filgaia? Perhaps they could just go to Meribia and settle there. The Malevolence is bad, but it could be a lot worse...
He briefly looks uncertain at how to comment on 'Dimensional Distortion' because this may be language beyond him but he does eventually get the gist of it. "Probably," He admits. "I guess sometimes being a little reckless is the best way to go." He pauses as he realizes the odds that Gebler could've left this place ages ago. Are they protecting the tech? "It'll probably do--" He begins but he's interrupted by Elly expressing her fears. He looks down for a moment, embarrassed. Maybe he was being too reckless going along with Lucia's plans. He didn't know what she was planning. He didn't know her. He was just trusting Hiro's judgement. But why did Lucia want to return here? By her own admission she isn't from Lunar.
"I'm sure we would've found our way out eventually." Fei tries to reasusure Elly. "It's okay. You had to stick with your team."
He pauses before adding, "Hey um... I guess this is the wrong time but... Honestly I was getting a little wild myself thinking I might never see you again." That's not what he was going to say, but if uninterrupted he's getting there.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
b u t n o b o d y c a m e
aka, "Hammer's First and Only Date."
Elly purses her lips and nods along. "Yes," she says, "I've noticed that." Her arms fold then, in thought. "It's much... milder here. It..." She trails off then, probably because of what Fei is saying. And then he seems to be lingering.
"... I thought I was going to leave," Elly then says, with frankness. "In Vierge. I thought..."
She reaches into a hip pocket and brings out a... pad of... paper...? She starts writing on it. The letters are recognizable even if they don't make any sense contextually. "I had thought that I would be able to escape," she says. "And Vierge is valuable... I thought it would help things... I suppose it was silly of me. In the end I didn't manage to do more than support the Major and get in the way..."
What's she writing down? It's not clear. She's writing small, though. The pencil she's using looks weird, the marks it makes unusually vivid. "... but if I'd just stayed in the hotel, then I'd be there and you'd be here. So... for that, if only for that, I'm glad that I came."
After this Elly looks up at Fei, not interrupting his last train of thought. At the bottom come some characters which get abruptly underlined - is that how they would write her name?
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Hammer does his best. Many people don't.
Fei is surprised. Elly's note did say she was coming back, of course. Maybe that's why he falters, he thinks, it is so hard to just have faith. Elly seems to just understand when she just has to believe and it works out for her, doesn't it? Elly's writing. Fei's feeling tongue tied but he told himself that he wouldn't fail to say what he wanted to say again. It's a lot easier to think that than it is to follow through.
"It's not silly," Fei says. He hasn't seen Vierge in action before but for whatever reason, he's willing to 100 percent believe that it's valuable and strong.
FLASHBACK
Id howls in impotent fury as he's pounded from various directions by AERODS.
NOW
"You're not a bad pilot from what I've seen." He actually hasn't seen all that much. If Elly was a much better pilot they might not have met. Of course Lahan might still be around but he doesn't begrudge her that.
And then he laughs. "That's a good way to think of it though. I'm sure Leon and the rest will be happy to see that you're alright." Of course, Lily might be concerned about Gebler but this really isn't the time to allow grudges to fly. Even the red guy understands that much. It seems that it's Gebler's turn to receive a note. Fei covers his hand briefly to cover his smile. She's actually really earnest, isn't she?
"And... I did some thinking anyway. I think...Whatever happens... I've decided I'm never going to apologize for loving you. Not to anyone." It's the one emotion that feels so strongly his own, powerfully out of control--much like his anger at times--but despite it being firmly out of his control, he doesn't want to feel bad about that one. He'll apologize for his anger as many times as he has to, but never the other. That's what he gets to have.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Elly seems to be finished -
and she freezes.
Startled, like a deer. She looks up to Fei then. And her face is getting near to her hair color but she's smiling. "I-"
Perhaps the planet of Lunar takes a moment to lean in and listen.
"- won't, either."
After this she looks away, face blooming darker red. She looks away, but she doesn't move away. Her voice is breathless as she says, "I, ah - ah, I'm not mentioning you, but this is for Bergenholm... He's my patrol partner. We split up nearly an hour ago, but he'll trace this path. If he comes after us, I'm sure we can handle it. He was in supplies originally."
She's babbling.
"I, um, I'm sorry -- If I seem a little giddy, this has just been difficult and - and I never thought that I'd see you again," Elly says, with a flustered confession in her voice. "I didn't want to think about it..."
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei won't apologize to Lunar either, but he feels like Lunar will understand. For all the darkness that came to Filgaia from Lunar, it houses a kind people. If the Guard wished, they could be far more brutal in how it deals with the people of this world. He's grateful at their restraint. Althena may have banned singing and dancing, but she hasn't banned the singing and dancing of the heart.
But as Filgaia is in the sky, there's a strange pull to him, like something is asking him to come back home. And it's strange to think of Filgaia as home, as it was never a world he particularly felt at home. Even in Lahan, there was always this sense that it wasn't quite his. In the end he felt the people of the Yggdrasil, the Black Wolves, the people of Wayside, and Dean and Hiro's respective teams to be his 'home', but even still there's a strange calling back there. Like a galaxy wide chain tied around his ankle.
"Well I wouldn't wnat to trouble him if we could avoid it," Fei says because Bergenholm didn't ask to be born into a squaresoft rpg lovestory and he shouldn't have to pay for stumbling into the scenario. Even with blood on his hands, Fei is conflict-averse.
It's taking a risk, perhaps, but Fei initiates the hug this time. He wants to reassure her but he can't because he felt the same way. "I felt the same way. It's a huge weight off my shoulders, seeing you." He manages a smile, pulling back. "We'll go when you're ready."
And...run into a giant lizard? It's possible but Fei isn't thinking about that. Either way, Elly can move around the screen a bit before using the confirmation window that doublechecks whether she's ready or not. You know the one.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
The hug comes with Elly pausing - and she leans in to it. She rests her cheek, which is warm enough to feel through Fei's tunic, against his chest. She doesn't quite return it; instead, she lets herself be held. She's trembling a little, like an anxious cat.
But it fades.
She doesn't move away for long seconds.
She's not tense when she moves away. Looking up she smiles again. "Things are... a little chaotic. I think it's going to be fine. Especially if we're going to a city. I'll bring back a collection of local materials."
PREPARATION ZONE! Elly bustles around. Fei gets to see some of the field techniques of Gebler. In particular, Elly flash-freezes a particular branch and then puts the note and a previously undisclosed satchel that probably has like, survival gear and other stuff in it, underneath a convenient rotting branch, digging them in and then scuffing the soil -- if he didn't see her do it, it...
... honestly it's not really great hiding, but it wouldn't scream 'hey someone hid something here.'
After this, Elly takes off the camouflage shawl, turns it inside out - the inside is a kind of neutral green-gray that is similarly hard to make out from a distance, but is certainly less, uh, tellingly alien. She wraps it round her waist, considers things, and then takes off the gloves and, weirdly enough, sleeves of her uniform.
"Do I look strange by local standards?" she asks Fei. He can see some bandaging underneath it, over her chest. (Also, he can't see the sidearm holster any more. That was probably the real point of all of this rigamarole.)
And then, in the end... she proffers her hand.
IN A WHILE
"Lucky" Bergenholm, Rear Echelon Military Fanatic, comes by. He spots the trail sign and squats down to flip open the log. "... huh!" he says. "I wonder if she bugged out. MacDougall said she was some kind of crackpot case..."
He pops a full seat. He cracks open the case.
"But... yes, girls never eat the meat spread! More Soylent for Bergenholm!"
He's fine.
BUT...
BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRiSbb9876M
Elly is not a child. She doesn't need to be guided...
But she isn't eager to break the hand clasp with Fei, either. After all, they might get lost.
"... Even the forest feels less hostile here," Elly says. "Did you notice that? It's hard to define; maybe it's just that it's not as... damp, or because I'm not as battered this time... I certainly hope we don't make it a"
A TITAN TRUMPET RIPS THROUGH THE AIR! A tree collapses, then another, as the emerald-maned hyphant smashes out and lands, trunk raising the air. Smelling. Probing. The great tusked pachyderm, no doubt in musth, looks at the two tiny humans with contempt.
The trunk turns.
It noses towards Fei for some reason.
"... Is... is that the lizard?" Elly says, a moment before the trunk snaps to the side and hoists her into the air. "Wah--!!"
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei Fong Wong rubs his hand along Elly's back to soothe her. Sometimes she seems weak in moments like this and sure, maybe to most people in the universe 'weak' would be considered an insult, but it's when Fei is with Elly that weakness doesn't feel like an insult but rather something to long for. He knows that Elly can rip through a Hyadean like firm butter with her Thermo Cube, and he can smile at that, but it's the little moments when you'd never guess she can Thermo Cube through a Hyadean that speaks most to Fei. Strength feels nice. It feels real nice. But there's always more strength to obtain. You can max out your Level of Violence and someone will still be stronger than you. And there will still someone who will use their strength to press down on yours. Perhaps that's why he hates the Trials of K.K, or Grahf, why it drives his anger more than anything despite greater crimes being committed by the likes of Siegfried, and others. Look what they did to Ida. They made Ida need to be strong. And now she's strong. And he can't understand her anymore. Perhaps weakness is how people develop kindness and never look down on people as the stern gazes of masked men need to. Perhaps they were made to feel weakness themselves and didn't come to love it.
Power. That's what they all want. They consider it an innate facet of Filgaia. Filgaia's language is violence. Another way is ludicrous. Riesenlied is constantly warned and deemed a race traitor for her dedication to 'Another way'. Any other way would do. They constantly warn her. Fei constantly warns her.
But when Elly is near, all that fades away. He thinks it can be different. He knows it can be different. He can have faith as Elly does when she is really ready to stand firm. The howl of malevolence in this world is nothing compared to that feeling. Like the pollution it emulates, it is smoke.
"Heh, I don't know if I could really fashion police, but I think once we hit Vane we can find something more local flavor." Fei's style works on both worlds even if it is especially not exciting. He takes Elly's hand.
THEN
"We haven't been attacked by wolves yet," He admits.
Love is Filgaia's language, Courage is Filgaia's language. That's what that masked man said, the strangest of the masked men Fei has encountered (And all of them have been strange) in that what he sought seemed wholly opposite of what the others deemed neccessary to this world. Maybe that's the language they can show Lunar, not the language of bloody fists and destroyed lives, of a determined impulse to cut off fingers to spite the nail, not the language of destroyed homes. Lahan, Adelhyde, Wayside. He's lost so many homes.
But he's a drifter now.
A titan trumpet rips through the air. Trees collapse. A giant elephant, or at least Fei thinks it's an elephant, appears dangerously. Fei's eyes widen. The elepehant hoists Elly into the air, becoming an ellyphant, and Fei's shock wears off, replaced by quiet determination.
They can't destroy his home anymore, because these worlds are his home. Fei approaches the elephant. yes, love and courage are the languages of Filgaia that Fei wishes to speak rather than violence.
But Fei's fist flies into the ellyphant's snout because some words carry over between them all.