2018-09-15: Who You Are
- Log: Who You Are
- Cast: Lily Keil, Leon Albus
- Where: The Fereshte
- Date: 9/15/2018
- Summary: Leon and Lily discuss recent events and the past aboard the Fereshte. The conversation moves to a discussion of who they are and who they used to be.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
On the Fereshte, there's a certain insulation from the lights and noises of the refugee settlement of New Petra, as it can be called--and quiet from another part of it as well. Lily, for one, appreciates the distance and the privacy both--the smaller environment of the airship also affords a chance to hear or notice someone coming far more easily. It's safer, in a word.
Her golden eye already adjusted to the dark, the sorceress steps back over to the bed, slipping inside and wending a sheet back about herself. The bandages are largely gone; her eyepatch is on the left side of her face, and she looks out into nothing, thoughtful. And the strange patterns on her skin are smooth, dim without much light to absorb, faintly strange even now.
The glass and bottle of vivid blue medicine remains untouched at the small table for now. She should take it if she's planning to get any decent sleep, of course.
...Dog already has this idea, dozing away. "...Leon?" Lily asks.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
Their quarters has a large door, which is mounted on a frame; it allows it to swing open and provide access to the middle of the ship. The window mounted on the door is a porthole, but Leon has left it half-open -- enough to stand in the frame, but have it block the night air. The reason is simple enough.
He has a wooden pipe clenched between his teeth, and is puffing on it. A few rings of smoke rise, idly, up into the air. He doesn't smoke often, but sometimes it helps ease his nerves -- and after everything with the battle with Sin, his nerves have been on edge. He leans against the doorframe, enjoying the cool of the steel against his back; the contrast with the heat of the smoke in his throat, as he inhales.
Silver eyes open when he hears Lily's voice.
He glances over his shoulder, shifting to look at her as she moves. The same shoulder has the tattoo of the Black Wolves old unit insignia: an outline of a howling wolf's head. "Out here," he says. "It's a surprisingly pleasant evening."
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"..It is," Lily agrees with Leon, looking his way for a while. She recalls the tattoo, of course; the fact that she doesn't have the same one is a story of its own. Many of them did, after all. She lets that hang in the air, and takes a deep breath; she can appreciate the fragrant pipe smoke, smokes often enough herself that its strength doesn't tickle her breathing.
She considers, for a moment, and looks down at nothing, still sitting up.
"Surprising is right. It feels... tense, but to look out there you wouldn't know a thing of it. No flames on the horizon, nothing."
Lily sighs, shakes her head, and reaches down part of the bed to grab something that she slips over her shoulders before standing. The chemise functions well enough as a short dress as she walks to the doorframe, picking up a small case along the way.
"...I haven't seen you bring out the pipe in a while."
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"Tense is a good word for it," Leon says. "That information that Hesiod found... it's a relief in one way, but it adds a pressure to us, in another. We have to get to Elru, now. And... given the things the princess said..."
They have to soon.
He takes a couple more puffs off the pipe, blowing out a few smoke rings. He learned to get them to be nearly perfect -- making those ring shapes that hold their form even as they drift off. He shakes his head, then glances back over his shoulder as Lily walks closer. He nods, and then moves a little. It makes it easier for her to stand there with him.
"The tobacco on Lunar was awful stuff," he says. "The blends were detestable. Strange, isn't it? For a place where things grow so easily to taste utterly terrible..."
He shrugs his shoulders. "Truth be told, I could stand to have the edge off my nerves. And this..." His forefinger taps the end of the pipe. "It does the trick."
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"...Soon," Lily finishes for Leon, her thoughts running along the same lines. "She means well, but she's not prepared for this. Not prepared to lead with her mind." Instead of something else, she doesn't say; doesn't really have to say. "...I trust Hesiod's data, at least; I saw for myself how he gathered it."
The smoke rings--Lily on brighter occasions keeps more of a look at them. As it stands, she just watches them for a few moments, before turning to look at Leon again instead, leaning on the other side of the door.
"I noticed it too," Lily answers. "Maybe it needs a little more adversity to grow properly. ...But then, their beer was too bright, too." It's simple to think instead about such things.
"...But I know. I can feel it," Lily admits about Leon's tension. She looks out into nothing and opens the case, pulling out a cigarette for herself. She glances at it, makes sure it's kept is shape properly, picks it up, closes the case with a click.
"Do you want to talk about it?" she asks, before her markings gently flash orange-red, visible at the wide neck of the loose garment, and her own tobacco's lit. Breathe in.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"She will have to overcome that," Leon says. "Though... hating the things that destroyed your family, and wanting revenge, even if it kills you..." Leon trails off for a moment. "...I'm not the one to criticize her for pursuing that course of action."
He shifts his stance, turning on his feet to face her. The door swings open, now, the rest of the way; Leon folds his arms behind the back of his head, to offer it some cushion against the doorframe. He inhales, again.
"I'm used to thinking the beer is shit in most places, I'm afraid," he says with a sigh.
His eyes linger on the cigarette, before he glances away -- just before it lights up. He has seen her light a cigarette that way since they were sixteen. "Mm," he says. "I don't ever want to talk about it. But..."
He trails off. "...I know better than to pretend there is nothing to discuss," he says. "It feels... as if our lives have become so much larger than they used to be. Which is strange, now that we're Drifters, supposedly only living for ourselves and our own ideals."
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"I'm not sure she can." Lily pauses, glances to the side. "..." The matter of her father is... complicated, hard to answer. But it's obvious where that goes. "There's a lot of vengeance to be concerned with," she says. "...And I won't blame her for wanting it. But I will blame her for leading others into her personal crusade."
"...It's not just her. But I look at every nation, and find their leaders... wanting."
She actually laughs faintly when Leon sighs. "True. Chalk up one more thing they can't do."
On occasion, she bothers pretending the flame comes from the end of her finger. ...Not usually. Not this time, either. The only difference from when they were younger is that the marks don't fade after.
Lily's shoulders slump lightly, as she looks down again. "It does. Larger, more complicated. ...More responsibility... More to worry about."
"Now we can't rely on our orders to deal with all this for us," she says. "...But what ideals am I really focusing on, anymore? Kill the right people?"
She hasn't gone into the camps as a medic at all, in the time since they arrived here. Lily takes another puff of her cigarette, blowing a thin stream of smoke almost meditatively.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"That is troubling," Leon says. "Especially since she has some importance in this. She has to learn to overcome that -- put her feelings aside, so she can be the person that Filgaia needs her to be. Still..." He frowns, looking downward for a moment. He pulls the pipe away, holding it between his fingers, so it doesn't spill out.
"...I think the best of her, of all the kings, queen, and ministers out there," he says. "I don't think we could walk away from her."
He looks up, again, after a moment. He cracks a smile at the laugh -- but then it fades. His brow furrows, and he nods once. "I've thought the same. It feels, at times, that we're working for the ideals of others -- people who are less jaded and cynical about this world. People like Riesenlied. Her idea of a peaceful world, where people can find a home no matter who they are, seems well enough. I tell myself that we want the same thing, but I wonder how much of that is true?"
He puts the pipe back to his lips and does a long pull, before blowing out yet another smoke ring. This one is aimed up directly over their heads, and floats off into the sky above New Petra.
"Maybe I just want to believe in something, regardless of what of it is," he muses.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"...I'm not sure," Lily admits. "But no, I'm in too deep with her to walk away, either. I just don't know when it became my responsibility to try to each a princess how to lead. I was never the leader between us."
Lily this time watches the smoke ring as Leon speaks, watches it floating off, away. Maybe it seems a little better for a moment.
"...No," the sorceress answers after a moment, shaking her head. "It's easy to think that way, isn't it? To assume we're unchanged by all this...that we really were just pawns. But we always did things differently."
"...Me, I know. I help Riesenlied because I have loyalty to her, personally. ...I support her goals because even if I don't believe they'll come to fruition, I want to protect her hope. I think even Van Houten has some of that, some of that spark, despite what she is, what she was."
"It was always like that for me. More about people, about individuals. Helping Kislev as a whole was a nice thought... But I wanted to be with you. To make Father and Mother proud... to see the others..."
Lily doesn't talk about her feelings for the other Wolves, back then, as a rule. She doesn't even bring it up much with Leon. Even now she trails off.
"But you're different. Since we were young... Since I was just a little girl punching the boys who said things I didn't like, you had something more to you. And it's still true now."
"I don't know what it is, yet, that you're looking for. But I can see it in you. ...You're not just along for the ride, or we'd have stayed with the Yggdrasil."
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"Responsibilities tend to be accidents that we have to contend with, rather than plans," Leon sighs. He looks up at her, then shakes her head. "But I don't know that I would be the best person to advise her. Getting others to do what I wanted them to, ending up in charge... those sorts of things come naturally to me. I find it easy to tell others what to do. She doesn't seem to feel that way. And instructing someone on how to do something I know how to do, without thinking..."
Leon shakes his head. "That is hard."
He takes another long drag on the pipe, and he is belated in letting it puff out. He nods to the statement about them, and his eyes glance down at the ground. "Mm. I know," he says. "I cared for Kislev... but the more that I have learned, the more that I realize it was a cause that I inherited."
He opens his mouth, to say more, and then closes it.
'Something more,' she says. He takes another long draw off the pipe, then he closes his silver eyes. It is a faith that he has never taken for granted; Lily expressed it since they were little. Ever since a little boy found a little girl warming her hands with a ball of flame, made impossibly, in a courtyard in Nortune.
His eyes open, slowly, and he exhales. The smoke ring drifts away, lazily.
"I wonder, at times, what that something is," he says. "I fear what who I might become, if I did not have Riesenlied to look to. Or Fei, to ask me why. And when I consider that, I wonder, then... if I am the good person that they all believe to me, or merely good at pretending."
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"That's true," Lily sighs along about responsibility. "...That's exactly the reason I ended up with that job," she says. "Because that's what I do." Advisor, not leader; she never had much interest in being in charge. ...For now, Lily glances to the cigarette in her hand, and looks at it dully.
A cause he inherited. Yes, Lily can see this. "...It was home. The only home we knew." It's natural to have cared. But Lily didn't say, precisely, that she did. Just that it was home.
She is no longer looking away, no longer glancing here or there; that faith is absolutely visible in one golden eye, as unshakable and as certain as ever. Since that day. What he says doesn't seem to make her change her mind, move away. She simply watches him in silence for a few more moments at first.
"You take advice, sure. You listen; you watch. That's part of how you know what decisions to make. But... don't discount yourself that way. Riesenlied, Fei... Elly. They're like that. But you..."
Lily finally looks down to her cigarette, long enough to lift her hand with it, hold that hand up, closer to her face without actually drawing off of it.
"There's no need to fear who you'd be. ...We're alike in a lot of things, but not in this. Don't forget that you're the one who set our standards in the Wolves. Your command was what held us back from the same things the Red Wolves did. It wasn't me; Father taught me all he knew about morality, about when to set it aside. ...Father told me I was sentimental."
Her cigarette turns to dust as her shoulders and throat flash violet for an instant, and then the dust too is gone, all in a moment. "And that's because of you. You and the ones we lost... But you were the one guiding them. It's fine, to wonder. But you could easily have chosen not to listen to them, not to bother with any of this aside from our own mission."
"Even if you don't know, I do."
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"It was," Leon agrees. "Until it wasn't. And even still. I care for it, but... not in the way that I once did. I know I have no ownership of Kislev."
He meets her one-eyed gaze, knowing better than to look away. He takes a long draw off his pipe, and then pulls it away. He lets out a smoke ring to the side; he taps the wooden pipe against the side of the Fereshte, letting some ash fall away. He watches her, while she speaks.
He nods his head, slowly. He flips the pipe up against the inside of his hand -- an instinctive motion, the sort of one that he does to hide a dagger, and make sure something wouldn't be seen. It comes to him easily. He opens his mouth for a moment, though, when she says that.
The retort is there, but it dies on his lips. The previous Black Wolves died. Leon's leadership, for whatever good it did them, could not save them from Gryndille. But they never became like the Red Wolves -- they never went as far as Colonel Keil would have liked.
In the end, Leon can't refute the evidence. He could never just stay away from the others; he could never focus solely on Gryndille. He was, as Cassidy Cain once said, a little too soft.
"...Mm," he murmurs. "You have the most irritating habit, love. You tend to be right. It's so bloody endearing."
A smile slips onto his lips.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"Neither of us does," Lily answers, and that is a sad thing for her. "Not anymore." ...But she doesn't give full voice to the resentment she feels, though it shows in her face for a moment, fading before she focuses on Leon. It's not directed at him in any case.
Not like this is. She has the same kind of motion, the same kind of habit, but she doesn't move while she waits. She knows the retort he nearly makes without needing to hear it; they both know it wouldn't change her mind. Neither of them could save the Wolves from Gryndille. ...But their spirit...
They trade, in that respect; who's too soft, who's cruel. But Lily knows that much, at least. If it had been just her, things would be different.
Instead, Leon smiles, and a smirk slides across Lily's lips. "Ah, love, that's what I like to hear," she says, and can't help but laugh faintly; it's a softer thing than most of her expressions, only here.
"...I think I'm heading back to bed. If you finish with that pipe I can think of other ways to handle your nerves." A beat, as Lily reaches out, and sets fingertips against Leon's arm.
"I'll remind you as many times as it takes who you are. ...Here with you like this, I believe we really might be able to sort it out one day."
With another look, Lily shifts off of the doorway, starts to turn back toward the room to walk.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
Leon has come to expect, to understand, and negotiate the ways that they trade off who is harsh and who is kind. It is part of what keeps the both of them alive, even if it carries a burden. Still, the grim thoughts that come with that aren't -- for once -- stickig around. He tilts his head to the side, the smile not leaving.
Then he looks down, and feels the fingertips on his bicep more than he sees them. He looks back up at her, and shrugs his shoulders once. The pipe is tapped once, twice against the side of the airship again; the rest of the ash and the tobacco blend falls free.
"I suppose I can live without," he says with a shrug, before he falls in step behind her. "It's not a healthy habit, besides."