2018-05-13: Believe Me
- Log: Believe Me
- Cast: Loren Voss, Lily Keil
- Where: Meribia - Blue Dragon Way
- Date: May 13th 2018
- Summary: In the aftermath of the brawl that took place in Blue Dragon Way, a couple of bitter enemies cross paths. Loren asks a question. Lily makes a promise.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
According to local information sources, there was a bit of trouble in Meribia the night prior -- rumors had varied widely about the cause, some naming local rowdiness and the demon drink, others suggesting something more unusual had been at play.
Naturally, given his positioning back out in the field at the time, the fact that he'd been close enough to the port city (a boat ride away apparently counted as 'close'), and his general persistant misfortune, Loren had recieved a new assignment in his notifications this morning.
...What a pain.
Without question, general violence happened out this way recently, though the locals are doing their best to clean up in the aftermath. What's proving harder for him is to get anything close to a straight answer about what might have been going on.
In fact, he's starting to think they're getting suspicious of his questions. The man who very quickly makes excuses and ducks off down a nearby alleyway is just the latest slight he's had to endure in the half-hour.
So what's he going to say in his report back, that there was a disturbance inflicted by what appears to be multiple choice participants?
Maybe for this one, he should just write it off as brawl gone awry and hope nothing important comes of it.
As if on cue, one of those headaches comes on. Second one in about as many days.
He slips his glasses off and rubs at the bridge of his nose, hoping it abates soon. Maybe it's just stress.
Though the Malevolence present in this city, while not as great as in some others, is rather more concentrated...
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
It's messy, all right--in more ways than one. So, is it any surprise that, in the wake of trouble, Lily Keil is here?
...She's not even here because of it. Though a few in town recognize her from an older incident, and continue to give her a wide berth, despite her lack of... response to them. Maybe that doesn't help.
Regardless, she happens to come out of the same alley that the man ducks into not long after, dressed in black and gray--a long tunic over longer sleeves and pants, a sword belted on and a knife at her boot. Her black hair hangs loose, and her left arm is oddly still and stiff at her side. ..Her golden eyes settle on Loren without much delay and she pauses in place to watch him.
...Her right hand, on the other hand, is holding a couple of street kebabs, and as she stares at the other medical professional, she takes a bite.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Unfortunately, the idea that you can tell that someone is looking at you is in fact a myth. There is no weight of eyes upon Loren that thus informs him that someone is watching him. It's more to the fact that once he drops his hand away, sighs, slides his glasses back on and glances in a certain direction...
His expression alone the moment his eyes rest on her say a thousand words.
But in a pinch, 'are you kidding me' might as well do.
His hesitation is palpable. Is this really the problem he wants to have?
How likely is it that she was involved?
His gaze takes her in, noting in particular her injuries. The two of them no doubt end up having a staring contest from across the street here. Anyone who walks in between them might just combust.
But in the end, due diligence and the thought of having to explain to someone higher up the foodchain why, precisely, he hadn't followed up or found out a crucial piece of information should this down the line blow up in their collective faces...
Well, the thought of that eventuality wins out over whatever this is going to do to the rest of his day.
So he walks on over and opens with:
"Keil. I should have known you would turn up sooner or later."
Well at least he's not jumping to conclusions verbally this time.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
On top of that, Lily doesn't say anything. But eventually, their eyes meet, and her flat stare meets his weary irritation. Her injuries are more obvious to a medic, of course--and she's still quite pale--but the staring contest isn't slowed down by any of that. It might as well be crackling light between them, and Lily shows no sign of looking away or moving for some time.
...Until he walks over and speaks up, and then she tilts her head, considering him. ...Looks around, to see whether there are any other gebler agents visible, anyone watching her with the right kind of look.
"And I should've known they'd send you out without backup," she answers back, her head turning right back to face him properly. ...She takes another bite of her kebab, and chews... slowly. With her mouth closed, obviously. Only when she finishes that bite does she continue--
"So is there something you want? Having it out here would cause more of a scene than either of us wants right now."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
He knows that sort of look when he sees it -- she's checking for danger, as a soldier would.
And when nothing potentially trouble-worthy comes up to her eye, she takes it as an all-clear and goes as far as to comment on it.
It's because they can't spare anyone, he tells himself, looking at her straight in the eye with a gaze that would melt glass.
Whatever explanation he might offer up to himself, it infuriates him nonetheless.
"I fail to see how that's important," he says instead, still staring at her as she consumes a bit of her kebab. Folding his arms over his chest, he continues instead with: "What are you doing here?" He's already given her the once over from across the street -- he's clearly already noticed her condition. "Injured again, too. Why am I not surprised?" He sighs as if put upon, as if her physical condition is his problem.
"...Really?"
This is when she comments that this is not the best place to have a fight. "Do you really think I'd have a fight with you in the middle of a city street? You people..."
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
It's easy to identify--and Loren has seen enough of Lily to see that her vigilance borders on paranoia.
She smirks at his look--at the knowledge that she got the reaction she did--and then shrugs lightly, in a very obvious gesture that really only uses her right shoulder. "Of course you do," she answers, and then he asks what she's doing here and she lifts an eyebrow. He comments on her injury, as if put upon, and Lily rolls her eyes.
"I don't put it past you," she points out. "What do you care about these peoples' lives? The only reason you wouldn't is that you might not win, and it might make trouble for you and your superiors." Lily speaks flatly, just leaving that there as it is, before she continues.
"I happen to be standing," she answers his question eventually. "And my injuries are none of your business. Unless you think I had something to do with all this?" she asks, her tone making clear how ridiculous that sounds to her. "I could ask you the same."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
The left shoulder's injured, too. What could have caused her injuries he can only speculate upon -- under her clothes and the bandages the details are hidden.
It's in this that he perhaps sets himself up for trouble down the line: he doesn't ask after them, assuming the worst of their causes.
Perhaps that encounter with Cassidy was only partly remediative. This assumption isn't verbalized, but nevertheless, it's an assumption.
"You've got it partway right," he says, casting a glance at the passersby. "But I could ask the same of you. They aren't your kin or country. You're not even from the same planet. What does it matter to you?"
His mouth is going to get him in trouble, one of these days.
He scowls, as if he's bitten into something somewhat bitter. "Fine, then. They're none of my business." He does blink, those blue eyes of his widening.
"I wasn't even here," he retorts. "I don't suppose you have an alibi? Or were you off getting your mind hijacked by some long-forgotten sin again?"
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
She sure doesn't say. She notices him looking, though. But his question, turning her own on her?
Lily looks back without a blink and answers, "It doesn't, except for the fact that making trouble here would give me problems down the line." She says it flatly, coldly, as if even the question was ridiculous. ...Whether she's bluffing or not, well...
She shakes her head, anyway, looking to see those passing by, too. "That's right." A pause, after that. He wasn't here--does she have an alibi? "Look--"
She pauses, abrubtly, as Loren mentions her mind being hijacked, and looks right back at him, pushing off the wall to start him down with a flash of anger. "You don't know what you're talking about, Voss. You need to learn to watch your mouth."
...Struck a nerve?
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
For his own part, when she makes her response, he maintains the same neutral mask as always.
Well, save for the possible flicker of malice in his gaze when he comments quite simply, "See? Maybe we're not so different."
Though he adds, a second or two later, after what might have passed as a moment's contemplation on that fact: "Save for the important parts, that is." He's straightened a touch, assuming a more self-assured stance. Squared his shoulders.
The sort stance that suggests she's hardly worth his time, that she's little more than a meddlesome bug in the end.
Someone else might have smirked or smiled, content in the discomfort their words might have inflicted. Save for that brief look in his eyes earlier, save for the suggestions in his posture, very little else has changed about Loren's demeanor towards her.
And save for the way that superior-seeming stance shades into a there-and-gone defensive one, one might think him unaffected even by Lily's threat.
"Considering I was there, too, I think I have a good idea of what I'm talking about."
She'd made him flinch just now -- a reaction colored by what had transpired before between them.
She'd nearly stopped his heart.
She'd snapped his arm.
She'd run him through.
"Though I have to admit, I'm a little curious. How did it feel?"
He pauses, as if to consider his words.
"Dancing on the end of someone else's chain."
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Neutral versus neutral, of course. But when Loren says maybe they aren't so different, she stares at him--and then the important part, the self-assured stance...
She narrows her eyes. "Important parts, is it?" She reads arrogance easily, sees that Solarian pride that she's come to recognize over time. The superiority. It gets on her nerves quickly.
The defensiveness is not enough to offset it.
Maybe someone else would have a different reaction; the one he has indeed makes it worse. He says he was there too, says he has a good idea of what they're talking about. When he follows up, considering his words--
Lily's eyes turn pinpricks in a moment of unrestrained rage. Within an instant she lunges forward, swinging her good arm from below to try to crash straight into his stomach and hisses out, "Do you really want to taunt me, Voss? Do you really want to piss me off?"
Whether he blocks or hits, she has enough self-control to leave it at that for the moment. "Go ahead. Enjoy your superiority. Have fun being smug. It's going to work out real well for you and your people, that attitude."
"Believe me."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Why wouldn't they be proud?
They know, after all, just where they stand: they know what mastery of the world and its mysteries they possess. They know what separates them from the beasts that call themselves people who roam the world below them.
So they have been told.
And he has seen for himself the travesties the people of Filgaia's surface commit.
So it's a natural thing for him to hold himself proudly.
And, it seems, make a comment like that.
In a pinch, this is the thing:
Loren knows some basic self defense, as is typical for medics, particularly those destined for the front line. Ether technique will get you far, but in a tight spot, sometimes knowing where to plant an elbow can make a difference.
Lily however, when it comes to hand-to-hand...
Experience counts for a lot. He knows how to defend himself, but there are practical aspects that only time -- and getting into more fights -- will teach him. The tells, he misses, until it's too late.
On the other hand, part of Loren's training was the other half of self-defense: knowing how to take a hit so it will hurt less.
This, for various reasons, he's had more practice with.
So she hits home, and she hits hard.
Loren rolls into the hit, attempting to deflect the force of the hit away from his body. His left hand rises--
And pulls back, the realization that they are technically in enemy territory, and that after the previous night, any further fighting will probably be punished to the fullest extent of the law.
Because that's how he wants to end this day: sitting in a cell and hoping someone might bail him out.
He withdraws, putting space between him and Lily. The wince that colors his expression is the only telltale hint to the outside world that he's just taken a fist to the gut; he's got his ego to consider, and he doesn't want to give her any statisfaction of seeming as if he's hurt.
"...Violent as always. Your people never cease to impress," he mutters, his gaze tilted sidelong at the passersby, some of who are now watching.
Oh, good, attention. This is just how he wanted this day to go.
"If you have any sense in your head at all, you'll end it here, Keil," he says, taking another careful step backwards.
"As for me, I've had enough of this. I have other places to be, and they don't involve a prison cell."
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily was raised on stories of the dangers of mysterious Others who would hunt her for what she is, for what she can do. She knew them, since childhood, took that as reason to hide her abilities, to lie to everyone she'd ever met. It stretched on, and on... Until she was branded a traitor for showing them. Until they assumed she was with Gebler.
And now, she knows who those Others were and are.
As for self-defense, this for Lily goes beyond her military training. It goes to her younger years... When she'd have gone much farther than this at the boy in the schoolyard who taunted her, would've shoved him to the ground and kept punching.
When Loren rolls in, lifts his hand, Lily is still staring, making no move to start casting herself--the tension, though, is obvious in her body. It is increasingly true that she is holding herself back. So when he withdraws, she studies his face, listens to his muttering--and she certainly doesn't look to the people around.
"'My people'," Lily repeats, a slash of a smirk spreading on her face, a chilling, inhuman look in her golden eyes. "Is that how you think it is?" She lets that hang a moment, "...You haven't seen violence yet, Voss. But you will. Not today. But one day."
"You, and all your kind. And as for how it felt..." Lily rolls her neck a little, the kebabs on the ground, unmourned for now.
"It didn't feel like much of anything. Just like your soldiers who I killed on my way out before. Not much of anything at all."
"...See, Voss... You say 'my people' are violent, but you're going a long way with that. You know how it is, don't you? You use the same magic I do. What it's like, to be able to destroy everything around you with a thought--and day... after... day... learning to hold it back. Learning not to let it go. Learning not to destroy."
She smiles. It is a very, very ugly smile. "Take care of yourself, Voss."
...Her cold demeanor is shot through, in those moments, with a smooth malice just for him.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
She's done serious damage before. She's shown her power to be vast, her presence to be a threat, one that ultimately --
Well, no. The standing order was to bring her in alive, though he assumes that's temporarily suspended, considering their current situation. Still, the Commander wouldn't approve of slaughter unless no other option remained.
Whatever Loren himself might think of that.
That look in her eyes.
Lambs are stupid.
Lambs are greedy.
Lambs are violent.
Lambs are monsters, too.
He's starting to understand a little more what the Major had been saying. Don't underestimate them, but at the same time...
"So we're down to threats. Fantastic," comes his flat response, arms folded over his chest as he halts, sufficient distance now between them. "I think on this I'll pass, thank you."
His expression itself grows drawn as she speaks to the soldiers she's slaughtered.
Didn't feel anything at all... huh.
"'Destroy'?"
That word alone of hers he echoes, an odd look on his face. "Destroy. Hmph. For you, perhaps."
Destroy. With effort, with focus. But there his talents don't naturally lie.
When he was in training, practice din't mean 'learning how not to destroy' those brought before him. It meant learning a different sort of control. Bringing together what had been broken. Warding off that which would break.
But not destruction, as much as he might sometimes wish it.
"You're little more than a rabid animal, aren't you, Keil?"
She might smile at him. He does not, his expression like an iron mask.
"Rabid animals get put down," he mutters, before he turns away.