2018-12-30: Someone To Have Faith In

• Log: Someone To Have Faith In
• Cast: Loren Voss, Leah Sadalbari
• Where: Etrenank
• Date: December 30th 2018
• Summary: About a month after the events at the Photosphere, Loren awakens in hospital. Not long after, he has a visitor. Leah makes an important request. Loren has a particular realization.

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<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    It amounts in the end to nearly a month of missing time.

    There are always those who claim to remember waking during critical condition recovery procedure, but the reports are always dubious at best -- the anesthetic involved would render even dreams a forgotten occurance, if one could be said to actually 'dream' in such a state.
    It's more of a suspended animation than anything.

    It's just a gap, for him: a span between falling down into the dark and awakening in some hospital wing or another to the sounds of machinery and soon the questions from the staff.

    ...All just hours ago.

    It feels longer.
    It already feels like an eternity since they left him here -- at last alone, again -- in the small recovery room, his only companions the monitoring machinery.
    Collapse after treatment is rare but not unknown. He supposes they're not taking any chances. They'd already taken more than enough samples for a full panel, too...

    He sinks back against the pillow, closing his eyes.

    Ugh... whatever they used, it's still in his system. Even though he's been 'asleep' for a month, he still wants to pass out, at least for a few hours more.

    ...It's not like they'll tell him anything he wants to know, anyway.
    Even they probably don't know -- or flat out don't have clearance to say.

    What happened afterwards. Who lived.
    Who's dead.

    They're just home medical staff.

    He cracks open an eye, staring up at a blank bland ceiling as the thought occurs to him.
    Ugh, this must be Marduk's. What a pain in the...

<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.

A month. ...Leah, for one, understands how lost time is. She understands how disorienting it can be, how one naturally wonders at what happened during the missing period; she knows the stab of realizing that long periods have gone by and you have nothing to show for them but a progression in wounds. Time during which one's own body can grow alien.

...Leah did not have lost time. She refused it, this time. Her treatments this time involved her remaining conscious, this time, and pain medication that would leave her aware was the most she was willing to use. ...But she didn't need as much as Loren, anyway. No, the month has included paperwork, study, arrangements, secret talks in back rooms...

And of course, 'repairs'. For her, it is as much repair as treatment anymore. But there is little that is classified beyond her level. And while the staff have no clearance to answer Loren's questions...

...They also have little clearance to even ask Leah Sadalbari questions. The Watcher walks freely through Etrenank, her distinctive uneven gait recognizeable to anyone who pays attention to the rumors. Her blue hair would stand out here... But those who would think to comment are held back by their companions. She is left to pass in silence as much as she wishes, generally.

Click, click-click, click, click-click.

The door to Loren's room opens without preamble, but it is not a nurse sent to check on him. Instead, a familiar woman opens the door; she is dressed in ordinary Solarian attire, not a uniform of any kind; longer sleeves, attached to the shoulder layer, a more form-fitting top beneath, patterning about the waist that turns to smooth at the hips; Solarian fashions of the day prize the sleek, the impression of layers, all the better to highlight the rich inner lives of the true Elect.

But they do not lend themselves to the eyepatch she wears, to the obvious mechanisms of her hands that are ungloved, to her uneven gait. Or to blue hair. But she wears white, for once.

"Hmm..."

"And here I was concerned that family might not be allowed visitation. That's how it works, isn't it?"

Leah closes the door behind her, steps inside and turns to look over Loren. The 'joke' is left behind with little trouble. "They told me you would wake up sooner or later."

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    Footsteps tap out in the hallway beyond the door. A nurse, Loren thinks, closing his eyes again. Maybe he should just pretend to have fallen asleep. It's not unusual, and he doesn't feel like answering more questions, particularly when his own definitely won't get answered--

    Only to sit bolt upright once a certain bit of information manages to wind its way across a few tired synapses.
    Most nurses don't walk with an uneven gait. Not in Solaris.

    He manages this realization just as the mystery visitor opens the door and steps inside.

    "Leah, you--"

    He blurts out that much before she makes a particular comment.
    One that earns her a puzzled stare, then a blink, then...

    Realization comes rather late.
    Perhaps she might gain some small satisfaction from the abashed look he wears after that, his attention off towards the far side of the room as if it held the meaning to existence there.

    He doesn't say anything, because there really isn't anything to say about it.

    "...Yeah."

    It's to her second statement that he seems to find his voice again. "They brought me around earlier today. I don't know how long ago. They're still running diagnostics."

    Silence, then.

    "It's been a month." He finally looks up, looks her in the eyes. "What happened?"

    How many people died?

    Who died?

<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.

One way to make sure someone is still alive is to give them just a little poke with something sharp--not dangerous, but enough. if it bleeds, their heart is probably beating.

...But does anyone really do that?

Leah watches Loren's expression change, his gaze turn, and then both the reply and the return of his voice. To this she inclines her head, and then pulls one of the chairs to set it down near the bed. She lifts it outright in one hand; why bother to do less?

"They weren't pleased to allow a visitor for you this soon. There is some concern that you may become overly excited."

She speaks in a fairly even tone, but the look in her single eye is quite clear, unencumbered by... anything, it would seem.

"So it has." A beat.

"A lot has happened. The mission to eradicate the Metal Demons' 'Mother' was successful. Your acquaintance Riesenlied was also recovered by her allies. Immediately thereafter, Siegfried, along with the pilot of SLIDE-1, one Fei Fong Wong, exited the Photosphere to find our fleet outside. Siegfried fired his cannon and destroyed the Tzadkiel. There were some survivors--largely those who were both away from the core of the ship and able, through luck, technology, or otherwise, to survive the drop. Then you, DeVriese, Ramses, Lan, and myself engaged the two in direct combat. Siegfried disabled the Commander's Gear and him; he nearly killed you. I struck that last blow on him--or through him, more technically, as he had you held by the throat."

Matter-of-fact, deliberate; she does not relate it mechanically, but does not show much emotion, either.

"After that, the Demon of Elru was activated. He made use of his power to send me off of the Photosphere's ruins, and destroyed the remnant. As you were taken off with Lan--who was the only one to come out without serious injury besides myself--the assembled forces of the surface engaged with the Demon until claiming victory before he was able to destroy Adelhyde."

"Your Commander, DeVriese, and Lan all survived. The Demon is alive, and at large. You survived, albeit barely. They're going to give you a commendation."

"...You came through the grinder and survived, Ren." At some point during her speech Leah has taken a seat. "The first thing you should do when you get out of here is buy that girl some flowers. ...But you'll be returned to duty soon enough."

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    He had wondered about that, considering how they seemed to be walking on eggshells about his condition. Had the wound been even worse than he'd thought? It had been bad. He'd known it had been bad. But...

    "Overly excited," he repeats, turning his gaze up towards the ceiling as if to call upon some invisible prescence's aid for strength. "With the drugs they gave me I don't think my heartrate's going to even pass 80. ...They won't even let me eat yet."
    Which is, he knows, reasonable, considering what they might have had to do -- the specifics are out of his reach at least for now -- to repair the damage. But it's still a lot, isn't it...?

    It's been a month. Or close enough.

    "I remember that first part," he interjects, in the fashion of a young man, but he at least quiets down when Leah speaks about the parts he doesn't know.
    And the parts he was at best fleetingly aware of.

    He remembers seeing Leah's hand go through... so that wasn't a hallucination.

    "So he's dead. The Quarter Knight, I mean."

    The Demon of Elru was activated...

    "Activated?"
    His pulse count, on the machine, doesn't crest 80, as he'd said it couldn't. It still jumps upwards several points.
    He's heard the stories.
    He remembers... something stirring as he laid there on the roof with Lan begging him not to die. Some eruption of power...

    "The Commander and everyone... huh. But the Tzadkiel..." He's no longer looking at Leah, his attention somewhere off towards the polished shine of the floor.

    "...I knew a lot of people who were stationed there."

    Which might almost make it sound like he had friends, that they were anything other than familiar faces, people he'd treated, someone he might have had a few words with once or twice...
    It hadn't really been any different than anywhere else. Still, they're people he knew and it's entirely likely a good number of them are now dead.
    'Commendation' seems empty in the face of all that. Yes, they were able to stop Siegfried before more lives could be claimed, but--

    "...Flowers?"

    He clearly doesn't follow.
    Even in spite of the very real fact that he now owes Lan his life.

    The rest is no such puzzle. He sighs, and it's more a sigh of relief than anything. "So I can go back."

    Eventually.

    He looks over at Leah then, as if something has just occured to him. "...What happened to deVriese?"

    If Lan and Leah where the only ones without significant injury, then...?

<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.

Leah may have contributed to the care with which the staff are monitoring Loren's condition. ...In a roundabout way, naturally. It's not as if she needed to say anything, but one could easily get the impression that failing to treat the patient with utmost skill might result in some small unpleasantness on the part of the woman checking on his condition.

It would have, of course.

"Good," Leah says. "If your memory matches the story, then that doesn't suggest brain injury on top of the rest." Naturally, his saying so didn't stop her from telling the part they both remember. But the next...

"Yes," Leah answers Loren. "Quite. We were unable to recover the corpse or his weapon, but somehow I think our great nation will survive without a little graverobbery in this case."

...Was that a joke?

"I'm sure you did," Leah answers Loren when he mentions the people there--and it almost does sound like he had real friends there. Almost. "Their loss was unfortunate. DeVriese managed to save a few, on our way off of the ship. Their deaths bought us the victory we earned there." Calmly, but with gravity--she does not trivialize it entirely... but neither does she appear at all shaken by it. But then, it was a month ago.

"And yes, flowers. She's currently staying at your family home, and I suggest you bring her something pleasant when you return there to recover, considering that she saved your life. She demonstrated both ability and bravery."

"...Worried that you couldn't, mm? However it may feel at the moment, we won a great victory. 'Activated' is the word I used, yes--the details are quite classified, but despite the cost, make no mistake: this was a victory."

"You asked after DeVriese; she should be recovered, by now. She was... unprepared, for the strain on her body that her tactics against the Demon took. One of her hands was found and reattached; the other should have its prosthetic fitted by now." A beat, "I think I won't pass on your concern, hm? You don't need the excitement that might come of that."

"No such issues plague your Commander; he will be whole, once he finishes resting. And you, of course, will recover as well."

She doesn't mention her own--but then, she doesn't look particularly different.

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    The idea that there could have been brain damage to add to the rich riot of insults his body had earned during the sortie must have just occured to him, judging by sudden 'thousand yard stare' that results and lingers for a good second or two after.

    "...No, I don't think that happened." Though that just means he's going to have a neurological test thrown in down the line, too, doesn't it.
    Hopefully they'll feed him first.

    On the matter of Siegfried, though, his answer is simple and to the point:

    "Good."

    Though he does arch a blond eyebrow at the 'joke'. Somehow that sounds more like the sort of crack he'd make to a friend (well, if he had one) than the sort of comment out of an elite.

    But speaking of 'friends'...

    ...Maybe it doesn't matter in the end. They were still people he knew. It's true, death is the constant companion of a soldier, but it's hard to reconcile. Assignment on a battleship is meant to be safe, for one. Safer. And it was all down to mere chance. Where you were. Whether or not you were able to evacuate. The means of evacuation.

    "So that's the price of victory."
    Maybe it's because he's a medic. It's his job to make sure soldiers can keep fighting.
    "Huh..."

    Perhaps it's some small comfort that Lan survived.

    Though to judge by the way his pulse has elevated again -- still not above 80 -- her current location may be less so. "At... home? Why there? That's-- I mean she's--" Pause. "...In the capital? I... guess they wouldn't have time to return her to the surface, and I've been assigned as her..."

    It's at this point that his 'thinking out loud' trails out into a piece of awkward silence.

    "She did, huh..."
    She'd called him 'a friend'. She'd sounded like she couldn't decide if she wanted to cry or scream at him and had settled on 'both'.
    "I wonder if it's part of the conditioning."

    It had been a victory. "I... wouldn't say worried," he says at some length. Not so much 'worried' -- not yet -- as much as...
    Not sure it was a certain thing they'd let him go back.

    Though that reminds him:
    "Do you... my parents know." He's sure of that one. "Right?"

    The nature of the Demon, meanwhile, he... lets pass with only a sidelong glance her way.
    Something like that, he's not going to press about.

    He knows better than to ask questions even a First Class citizen should let well alone.

    Speaking of questions about things that should be left alone:
    Devriese.
    The expression on his face when Leah explains just what happened to her speaks volumes. Of the 'what the hell' variety.
    Which is promptly replaced by the kind best subtitled as 'no thank you'.
    "I'd appreciate that, yes," he adds flatly, if the rest of his body language didn't leave that with little room for misinterpretation.

    Ramses, meanwhile, will be fine after he finishes his own recovery.

    As for Leah?

    He asks nothing; he instead glances her over, as if to gauge her condition by sight alone.

    "You lost an arm back then," he says at length.
    Naturally, it's been fixed since.

<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.

"Neither do I, talking with you."

Siegfried is, put simply, a fairly settled matter on this front; Leah spares no more sympathy for him than for Mother, for all that she knows there are those who would. This is the nature of war; every enemy is important to someone.

His arched eyebrow actually receives a small, knowing smile.

It fades at the talk of victory's costs, though. Instead she judges him for a moment, and says, "You don't like it much. That's a good thing; a medic willing to buy victory with his comrades' lives isn't one who should be given the task. So long as it continues to bother you, you're in the right line of work."

Leah reacts with some amusement to Loren's predicament. "Yes, she's in the capital. I wasn't about to leave her on the surface while you were in the hospital and she had recently been sighted helping us."

Leah then laughs, faintly--it's a small sound, something offhanded, controlled, and she shakes her head. "We can condition people quite a long way... But not that far. Not with brute force methods, in any case. Not without removing what makes her valuable. It's easy to dismiss all surfacers as without merit..."

"...But if there were nothing on the surface of worth, we wouldn't invest such effort in it. You won't hear this often from the command structure--and it's best not to repeat it too far. Soldiers aren't well-served by an overabundance of compassion for the enemy."

But Loren, it seems, may merit some secrets. ...Maybe.

She smirks at his statement on Tabitha, and leaves that there. Instead, she nods once. "I did. As soon as Siegfried noticed that it was mechanical, he realized his advantage on that front. It was not, in the end, enough. ...It's really only troublesome the first time you lose your arm. After that it's something of an anticlimax, I find."

"...As for your parents, they know enough. Now that you're awake I'm sure that they'll be granted leave enough to visit. I've spoken with both of them myself." That, to Leah, appears to be enough. "Hmhm. Already alert and asking questions, I see. ...The ones you don't ask make an impression, too. You may yet have to ask them in time, after all."

She gives a knowing look at this--something interested, something not yet brought forth. ...But she glances to the corner, then, as if it might hold some secret of its own. "...Let's just say that there are some very interesting things going on."

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    That's a vote of confidence, of a kind. Besides, beyond the general loopiness induced by the anesthetics and who-knows-what fed into his body for just about a month, he doesn't feel like he's off any, mentally speaking.
    Which, he knows is not the best evaluatory mechanism ever, but... still.

    He has nothing more to say on Siegfried. He was a Metal Demon; he was an enemy; he threatened the planet; he threatened even the civilians of Solaris; he killed an untold number of crew aboard the Tzadkiel; he threatened the lives of at least a half-dozen people Loren knows more or less personally, and that of the Commander himself; he had almost killed him.
    There's no sympathy at any juncture for any of that.

    So that's fine.

    The cost, on the other hand...

    "Huh." He pauses. "I hadn't thought of it like that."
    Maybe that's why they'd directed him towards medical in the first place. It's true that command can't afford callousness. But if you think hard about bringing home everyone, you won't win wars -- he knows that. He's played enough games of chess to understand the value of sacrifice.

    "...You lure the other player into a trap and let them think they've won something of yours, then strike back and claim something more valuable."

    But a game is different from real life.

    And speaking of things he hadn't considered--

    "...Oh." He glances away from Leah, reaching up with the arm that's not been hooked up to an array of sensors to rub at the back of his neck. "Yeah... that would happen, huh..."
    And they'd either break the conditioning, capture her, or... possibly kill her.

    His hand falls away.
    He doesn't meet her eyes as she explains something to him, something he otherwise would have rationalized away. So that business about 'him being her friend', that was... real.
    Friends with a Lamb? Have you really sunk that low?
    His shoulders hunch. He can't-- the things people would say about that--
    And it would entail facing down something within he can't so much as glance at sideways yet.

    But. If the surface were truly without merit or hope...
    There's a truth in what she says. Even if he can't stare it straight on yet.

    "I wonder... if that puts someone in medical at a disadvantage."
    Can't sacrifice his fellows.
    Couldn't sacrifice her, either. At any point he could have left her in there. But that had felt wrong.

    "..."

    The conversation leaves behind him and such pensive thoughts in the long run of it, and winds towards Leah's own difficulties.
    ...Such that they were.
    Loren laughs at that, a short bark of a sound that only edges a little on hysterical. Then again, a lot had happened. "...A little dark, Leah," he comments at some length, as if to put a wedge between her statement and the fact that he had found it funny in a very graveyard-black sort of way. "...Is the new arm working fine? I read that sometimes replacements or upgrades can be difficult--" he stops, realization painting its way across his face as it occurs to him that he's just said something really dumb. "...er, well, I guess you've had it for a few weeks now, huh..."

    Which speaking of, it probably would have been strange if no one had told his parents. But it does little to wash away the guilt that takes the stage now.
    He hadn't really thought about it during the months he'd been on the moon save in a very abstract sense of 'they probably think I'm dead'. But his mother's reaction afterwards had been telling.
    And to go from there to nearly losing him again...?

    "Did they seem upset?"

    Between the questions he asks, doesn't ask... and the monitors in here giving a readout of any change within, it's safe to say that keeping secrets won't work out well for him.

    Which may be why he straightens a little in the bed when she mentions 'interesting things' are happening.

    Hiding curiosity never was his strong point, anyway.

    "What things?"

<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.

There are different ways of thinking about what they do, and what they require. "That doesn't surprise me," Leah answers simply. "You haven't been obligated to think in such broad terms before." And there's no shame in that, either.

...Nor is there any disapproval in how Leah answers the matter of Lan--sure, he might expect there to be. They are the elite. And yet...

"It depends on where you'd like your career to go. You'd have to learn to adjust your thinking to rise high in command... But there's merit in a commander who values the lives of his subordinates. It's not as simple as advantage or disadvantage in a vaccuum; it's a series of interlocking questions. ...Remember that while I wasn't in medical proper, I had training in a support capacity myself."

Loren's return with a laugh gets an amused look from Leah in turn. "You have a medic's humor, all right. Yes, it's working all right." A shake of her head, side to side. "They can be. I'm still getting used to the differences; there are a few changes in the build, theoretically upgrades as we've advanced our materials science. ...This one is designed such that if it fails again it breaks away at a point that doesn't strain the port or the bone to which it's attached to the same degree. They had to reinforce my skeleton a bit more."

Casual, still. Leah could rattle off the specifications for a new shuttlecraft in the same tone of voice. But--

"They were concerned, naturally," Leah answers. "That has to balance with the knowledge that you did well, helped to accomplish an important mission... So I won't say that they were neutral on it. But you are in the best place on this planet to receive care. That seemed to help."

"...Heh." She seems not to be surprised that she got a little interest out of that statement. "Since you ask..."

Leah glances to that corner once again, and there's a faint click from... somewhere on her person, before she looks back. "There are things I'm watching that are beyond Gebler's scope. Things that you may have a chance to influence yourself, in time. To do with a broader plan..."

"But the most relevant one right now is the fact that I arranged to have your personal effects released to my custody, instead of returned to supply."

"...The ability to draw on a Medium of the Guardians is a very unusual talent indeed for a Solarian. It will be returned to you after you're released."

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    Indeed. He hasn't, not until now. It's been that way with a number of things -- he's only had to think narrowly, only had to think in absolutes.
    But the world isn't simple, and this is a fact that can come as a surprise to one used to thinking about things rigidly.
    Growing pains, in a sense.

    It may even bear into the future of his career.
    "Where I'd like it to go... huh."
    He'd always assumed it might be an impossibility for it to go much of anywhere. Either because it would stop or because he'd be dead.

    It's strange. Someone he'd thought gone (returned to a quieter life -- he never had followed up) reappears in his life only to finally provide him with much-needed clarity.
    And direction. He can't forget that part, either.

    "I guess I'd have to think about it."

    Probably when he's out of hospital, after he's been able to temporally regain his footing. The world can shift a lot in a month.
    And indeed it has.

    Leah's arm part and parcel.

    "A break-away limb. Huh. I thought I read about something like that for combat operations. A failsafe, to prevent someone from having to drag around a heavy broken prosthetic. I think I can see additional applications."

    She could go on for hours.
    Apparently so can he.

    But the matter of his parents changes the nature of things. "Oh." He glances away from her. "I guess... they would."
    It would be weird if they weren't.
    "Father... is probably already at home," he speculates. The elder Voss typically doesn't live at home when involved on an active project -- not when neither wife or son will be there, and with too metaphorical ghosts clinging to the walls.
    Loren never really thought about it before, but it probably was lonely, wasn't it...

    Why do these things always have to be complicated? Can't he just sacrifice himself without having to worry about who's left behind...?

    His... personal effects? He blinks, evidently not quite following what she means by that--

    Until she makes it clear. "The Medium--"
    From the look on his face one might expect he'd just been accused of a court martialable offense. "I-- it's... a long story," he settles for, hanging his head.

    It had been a longstanding lie-by-omission. He had never said anything about it. No one had asked, outside van Houten, and she's not here anymore. And so--

    His pulse on the monitor at least settles back to sub-80 levels (so much for that earlier statement of his). "So you're going to give it back..." Silence. "I don't know how I'm able to use it. I just am."

    He had tried and failed with it multiple times before whatever had happened to allow him to use it had taken place. Maybe it was a pact with a Guardian forged that night when he was dying on the moon.
    Or maybe it wasn't that at all.
    Maybe...

<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.

Raising the question appears to have been enough; Leah doesn't continue much along those lines, simply nodding as Loren indicates he'll think about it. There's no way that she's unaware of the way she's swept in here... But neither does she draw especial attention to it at the moment.

"Yes," she answers. "I'd thought it a strange idea at first, but if we're going up against enemies that are capable of ripping off limbs, it's better to plan for the possibility. The other applications only add options. ...Not that I'm precisely eager to have another one fitted, naturally."

It might've been more comforting to lie. Talking about worrying when there's a good reason to worry is natural.

"He should be soon," Leah answers, though the matter of logistics is left aside for now, because they are discussing something else secret that will not be caught by the security footage around them. ...Maybe there have been a few upgrades.

"I imagine that it is," Leah says. "And one I'd like to hear in other circumstances. For the moment... Yes, I intend to give it back. It's a useful asset, and in the lab it would be little more than a hunk of rock with interesting inscriptions inlaid. It's not the first time we've had access to such an item. But this--this is something different."

"Maybe you'll find out, eventually. Maybe you won't. Do you know much about the icon whose Medium you hold? Dinoginos, the Terrestrial Guardian of Mountain--or Mountains. There's some disagreement as to whether it represents the concept of a mountain, of height and rugged peak, or specifically of the mountain ranges of this world. It's an ancient figure--the subject of veneration by surface peoples for a long, long time."

"There's an irony, one would say, that one of the people of the sky would have this Medium in particular; is it a blessing, an acknowledgement of the peaks to which our civilization has risen? Or is it a mockery, a reminder that, far above the mountains of the world, we have lost touch with its heart?"

"...Poetry aside, I encourage you to learn what you can, and experiment in your usage of it. If a Guardian really does come to call on you in response to your use of its power, well..."

"Be polite. We would be quite interested in conversing with such a being."

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    It's in retrospection that Loren realizes that click wasn't just some sound from Leah's replacement limbs or somesuch.

    As had been done before, she's silenced whatever monitoring has been ongoing in this room.
    It won't last for long. There will eventually be an investigation. Which means that whatever she's about to ask of him, he'd better make it worth her while.

    So they may be in agreement here, if his gaze is any judge: he'll skip storytime.

    "Some," he answers her. "Cultural briefed us on local religions. We also had some contact with Guardianists and there was the encounter in the temple -- it's in my report from back then."
    She may have her own questions to ask about that, someday. For now though--

    "I thought about that. You know, the Sky Medium would have been more appropriate."
    Solais Emsu.
    "Then again, I don't have any aptitude for that sort of Ether." But then why not simply Earth?

    But... a mockery of their nation? 'They've lost touch'.
    Or a jab at him perhaps? 'An isolated peak'.

    "They really do exist. The Guardians."

    He might hate them.

    His eyes hood, his gaze down at the stark white of the sheets of his bed. "Mm..."
    A noncommittal noise.

    "...I know. It's an advantage. If I hadn't had it then..."

    But he hates it. The thought of being beholden to something else, something 'bigger'.
    Something that claimed it needed their help.
    Something that had for so long remained silent.
    Something that only came forth when he'd begged.
    A god. An actual god.

    And the last straw, Luceid.
    The realization that all of the above could be rendered moot. A thing that existed, that spoke to all. Could be wounded.
    If something can bleed it can die.

    What use is there for a god that can be killed?

    So he'd lain his hatred at its feet, but kept it still.
    He may hate it, but it's an advantage.

<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.

It wasn't, no. At least this time Leah was more subtle than outright destroying the camera with her Ether; maybe this is something she prefers to keep secret, as well. ...Maybe not. Either way, she doesn't appear to be wasting time.

A nod to his explanation of what he knows. "Good enough," she answers, naturally appearing to recall the report. Whatever those questions are, she leaves them behind for now. Instead... he goes through much the same thought process as she demonstrated; the matter of elements, and the reason it wouldn't be why.

"...Yes," Leah answers simply, when Loren says that they really do exist. he mentions the advantage...

he doesn't have to speak for her to read his expressions; he doesn't have to voice his hatred for her to know it, to see it. Maybe it's true that his heart rate doesn't rise past 80 beats per minute. Nevertheless...

"...Man has had a complex relationship with the planet since there have been men and women. So it is with the divine. What we are discussing here is heretical. You know this; I know this. Officially, the Guardianists are simply superstitious surfacers whose abilities can be explained in another way."

"...But we both know better. This world is larger and stranger than it is prudent for the many to know. If you really want glory--if you really want to rise to heights that make your reputation yours, and not Engil's--"

"Then remember that the truth is something we curate for a reason. It is protected, for the good of all."

"Keep the Medium. I make no requirements of whatever relationship you hold with Dinoginos, if any. But the next time you discover something like this--something that your instincts tell you is best kept from the chain of command..."

"You'll report it to me. Is that understood?"

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    His pulse is steady now. Lower, as befits a soldier at rest, even in a hospital.
    And yet, there are other tells. Things that a machine is not privy to but which she is.

    She may speak of the history of man, talk of the arc of history and how things officially are and should so remain.
    At least, that is, for all intents and purposes, for the sake of the world in which they swim.

    But.
    There's a certain directness. For all her words might curl across the drifting waves of their conversation, she arrives quite deliberately at a singular point.

    If it's glory he really wants...

    The shock on his face as she cuts to the quick of him and all that thereby animates is undeniable.
    His lips part. For a moment, he thinks to almost protest that fact.

    But he's always hated lying.

    What he's wanted -- always really wanted -- is to be seen for his own achievement.
    To shop lingering in the shadow of his brother's reputation.

    He hates lying.
    And this is in effect what she's asking him to do.

    Loren nods. "...I understand."

    And he has no choice -- no reasonable one -- but to agree.
    Even if he didn't now trust her as implicitly as someone of his nature is able.
    Or perhaps, it might be more accurate to say that trusting someone like this is what he's wanted all along.
    Someone to have faith in, again.