2019-02-26: Finding the Way 'Home'
- Log: Finding the Way 'Home'
- Cast: Josephine Lovelace, Riesenlied, Noeline
- Where: The Fereshte
- Date: 26th February 2019
- Summary: Josephine finds Riese and Noeline after her reaction to finding out her father is involved in Krosse. Takes place before The Waste Land.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
Her father. Her father, of whom she'd spoken of only rarely -- had apparently become embroiled with the business in Krosse. Had been engaged in the engineering of mostrosities. A bitter pill for any to swallow, sure enough. And given by her reaction, even someone as typically unflappable as the wayward archaeologist could have her feathers ruffled.
After all that -- the toppled table, the shouting, the lot of it -- Josie had removed herself outside, to do whatever it is that she does when seriously upset.
An investigation will show that this is 'smoke a cigarette while leaning against a wall'. The cigarette dangles between gloved fingers, her gaze off and into the distance across the wastes, at once pensive and utterly blank.
A rustle of feathers announces Penelope's arrival. The pigeon trots a distance, cocks her head at Josephine... before stalking off after a particularly shiny beetle.
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Riesenlied had fled! Well, she didn't literally flee, but Josephine's outburst did catch her deeply off-guard; it's resurfacing a lot of things that has fresh been in her mind, though.
Namely, having to fight K.K. in Krosse.
By the time Josephine's removed herself and found herself at the deck, Riesenlied is on the other end facing the sunset.
She has... her sword in hand? Or at least, clinging close to its hilt as she stares down its translucent crystal blade as it refracts the dusk from where its prism touches the light.
"Oh--" she hears the ruffle of feathers.
<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.
For Noeline, Josephine's outburst is a distinct surprise - though not so much because of the engineer's past and family, and more because of her usual disposition.
She'd be the first to admit that her own perception of the word 'family' is rather skewed. For all that she might effectively be a mother now, for all that she suddenly has a great many people to look after in New Petra, for all that she has a bond with the Fereshte and its crew, she never really had anyone of her own to look up to - aside from Riesenlied, in her own private way.
But she can at least understand the need to take some time. It's a while before she follows after either of the pair, pausing for a moment to clean up and right the table once more. When she does catch up, it's carefully and tactfully, her presence nudging at the edge of Riesenlied's perception thanks to their link; she hangs back and waits for something like permission, not encroaching any more than she needs to in order to check that things are alright.
After all, she's well aware that this sort of thing might need Riesenlied's lighter and more empathic touch more than her own slightly blunt one - and she's also well aware that her own opinions when it comes to the Trial Knight are rather more clear-cut, free of some of the confusion and uncertainty that plagues Riesenlied.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
Dark eyes flick somewhat sideways.
"Fancy meeting you here, Sunshine," Josie drawls, before exhaling a sigh and pushing herself away from the wall.
Pigeon feet click click click softly across the deck: Penelope is in hot pursuit. It's a fair assumption that the beetle remains for now unaware of its pursuer.
Josie's own feet echo a dull rhythm across the deck as she treads a short distance in Riesenlied's direction.
This is about the time Noeline makes her own appearance atop the deck, an arrival that earns her a glance. But Josie says nothing: what passes between them here passes in silence.
"...Didn't have a happy childhood," she says, after taking a drag from her cigarette. "But I suppose that part's evident, huh?" She sighs, again. "I guess it could have been worse. He never hit me or anything. Still..."
Her gaze shifts from the sky overhead and towards Riesenlied.
"...But what's on your mind? You're not just out here for your health, are you, Sunshine."
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
There's a certain dog-shaped robot mother that's going to be REALLY ANNOYED that Noeline doesn't look up to her!! Even after all she's done for her!! *agitated tail swish*
Still, it's with a quiet nod as she looks to Noeline and lets her approach closer; she leans gently as she says, "I cannot be a blade if I am not resolute..."
She's still dwelling on Avril's words.
She trembles for a moment, looking to Josephine. "I have been thinking of parents a lot. Ever since father left us..."
The Hyadean Tainted lowers her head further and sighs quietly, murmuring, "But I understand... a bit of it. I had extremely complicated feelings about father. How much the fact he came through and loved me in the end absolves how much he hurt did..."
A longer moment of silence.
"I don't think I'll have a clear answer for that. And it's too late now. Which is why Krosse..."
She bites her lip.
"It's why I need to find an answer in my heart. For when I face them."
<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.
Look, all we're saying is that Cetiri hasn't exactly given Noeline any reason to sink into moral inspection. Maybe a little, whenever she rolls over and demands a scratch between the ears from one of the children, but no more than that.
"... not to play that statement off lightly, but I suspect that hitting you would have been a lot more clear-cut than this. Not to mention dealt with much more easily," the Crimson Noble huffs quietly towards Josephine's comment as Riesenlied bids her forwards.
Her voice is held solemn despite the rather off-colour joke, and she tapers off to silence as she studies Josephine's face, drawing her arms around Riesenlied's waist at the same time to offer a shoulder for the other Hyadean to lean back into.
"... I would rather you not become a blade specifically, you know," she does at least find it within herself to chuckle quietly, fussing for a moment at Riesenlied's hair. "Whatever you choose to do - even if you have to fight - I trust you to do so out of compassion and alongside a desire to understand. ... perhaps I should say that I feel there is a difference between being resolute and being truly single-minded. Or at least, I'd like to think so."
She lapses back to silence afterwards, though not exactly due to thought - more to just lend an ear, and watch the pair.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"Parents, huh..."
She flicks ash, off across the deck. "Heh. Seems like we've gotten the short end of it where parents are concerned," she remarks, without looking back over at Riesenlied.
"Sure as sure," Josie replies, staring down at the cigarette in her hands rather than Noeline. "That's why I can't forgive him." One never had to /strike/ another to leave a sort of scar.
Her expression is distant, yet hard -- a mountainpeak on the horizon. It's a safe bet something is dwelling on her mind, but in the way that she so often does, she remains cryptic on what it is. And meanwhile resolute towards what might be awaiting her, off in the land of the future.
She's made up her mind about something.
She takes a drag of her cigarette, making a vague approach back towards the realm of here and now as Noeline speaks to Riesenlied and offers her own support. "Sugar's right," she says, at length. "You're no blade, nor should you be. You're something else. ...Maybe a bonfire, or a beacon, or something." She cranes her head, as if vaguely embarrassed about something. "...I never did get to say it, but when you were gone..." She smiles bitterly, lopsidedly. "...Well, it sure wasn't the same."
Leon had said something similar once, hadn't he -- that she may be what keeps them from all becoming lost, in a sense.
'Them'. She knows of who Riesenlied speaks.
Josie glances away, off and into the distant horizon again.
'Them'. She'll never forgive 'them'.
"You really are something else, Sunshine..."
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Noeline prefers Riesenlied not as a blade, but would support her and trust her to do whatever she chooses out of compassion and understanding. That there is a diference between being resolute and single-minded...
A pause, for a moment further.
She looks to the sword, as she focuses and lets it disappear into a small shower of Ley-sparkles.
She doesn't need to be an empath to be able to read Josephine's face, her tense body language... the way she's already convinced of something so important. But so dire.
"They have done unspeakable things. They have incarcerated and tortured a lot of people in the underground of Krosse's castle..." Riesenlied murmurs as her horns wilt. "And it did not just start there either. Pendrago. Wehaca. The Hollow..."
A longer pause, as she sighs deeper.
"But... at the same time, when my father left me, they were there. It is not exaggeration to say it would not have been possible for us to start Wayside without them to broker judgement between the Guardians and us. And they have helped guide me to the path that I walk on now, when I am lost, and even rescued me from Alhazred and Mother's clutches..."
She looks like she might cry now.
"I'm struggling... as to what it is I should feel, weighing all of this..."
She blinks a few times, though, rubbing her eye as she holds Noeline's hand on her shoulder as she asks, "Ah-- when I was... gone?"
<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.
Noeline allows herself a tiny huff of laughter at Josie's first comment, lowering her head in what might be a respectful bow or might just be a tactful attempt to hide the lopsided smile. "I don't honestly know whether to be envious or relieved that I avoided having any. The joke always goes that mothers-in-law are worse, but I seem to have gotten off lucky when it comes to Cetiri."
She's happy to let the engineer lapse back into silence, backing away from saying anything else on the subject. There have been times in the past when she's kept her own worries close to her chest - when she's chosen carefully not to voice them. She might have been the sort to dance past discussion rather than drift away from it, but it's still a sort of feeling that she can understand.
Instead, her hand moves to her partner's arm as Riesenlied voices her own thoughts, maintaining a supportive sort of contact as her fingers trace affectionate and concerned circles. "... a beacon... perhaps that is the best way to put it," she says eventually, a quiet smile playing at the corners of her lips. "Without you, the Fereshte had lost its light. Subdued, worried, uncertain. As much as I tried, I cannot be quite the same source of hope to the people of New Petra as you can," she says with confidence - not accusing, or upset.
She closes her eyes for a second, marshalling her thoughts and her own worries. "When they have helped you, and nurtured you... I feel it has been because they wanted to see what path you felt was yours, rather than be pushed into anyone else's. If that means you face them... somehow, I think they would be satisfied." A pause, and she grimaces, looking quietly conflicted herself. "But that's all too easy to just say aloud."
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
One pale eyebrow arcs. Josie then briefly closes her eyes. "Heh. Well, here's to reversals in our fortunes, then," she says to Noeline's statement, lifting her cigarette in a slight parody of a salute. "May we all be so lucky."
Maybe there's a difference between being resolute and being singleminded.
But Josie has never been anything but single-minded, no matter how fate might batter her one way or another.
Like a moth to flame, in the end.
Her silence endures as Riesenlied speaks of the Trial Knight.
"But it is not me you see when you direct your rage upon me. Is it, child?"
Her gaze hardens; she stares still off into the distance, where the slowly fading light of day is but a pale ghost of itself.
Yet it's still a beacon, until the moment the sun slips under the horizon.
"Yep. A beacon. Something to find the way 'home' by, maybe?" Her tone takes a teasing lilt, if only just.
"...Most of us don't have a home, anymore, Sunshine." The teasing hint is gone; Josie's expression is hard to read in profile. "Remember that. Try not to disappear like that again."
In her own way, perhaps, she might have become fond of the Hyadean, if her words are any suggestion of the truth she attempts to keep tucked away and out of sight. Like a crow, perhaps, with a particularly shining prize.
"...When it comes down to it, you'll know what to do. You'll know what to feel -- you're you, after all."
Josie turns, approaching the railing proper.
"...And I've already made up my mind too."
Wings wirr; Penelope takes flight. Something shining glints at her beak. The beetle.
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
There's something of a terribly rosy cheek from Riesenlied as Noeline speaks very earnestly. She bites her lip and dithers for a moment; there's a fond smile at that, as she says, "You're really hard on yourself. I bet Cetiri's told you the same thing."
She smiles just a bit wider. "It was the effort you spearheaded that allowed me salvation in the first place. And without that energy to center everyone..."
A pause, as she wonders how Josephine is gonna take this terribly saccharinely sweet moment between the both of them! aaa
(or Penelope, for that matter)
Most of us don't have a home, anymore, Sunshine.
It's the sobering thought about it; as she closes her eyes and thinks and digs deeper on that. "It's true. A beacon... a hearth, perhaps, if we are using analogies. I'm not exactly a Black Wolf in the traditional sense; I can't really undertake the missions you guys can..."
A pause.
"But much like Argus and the Wolfsbane Tavern, I want to be able to provide a home for us. In place, and in spirit too..."
She looks to the distance as well.
"What it is that one must do when they truly love....."
A pause, as she looks towards Penelope. Her flight reminds her of something.
"Perhaps that is why this bird flies," as she places a hand to her heart.
OH NO she's going on about birds -again-
<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.
"Surely we can at least say 'improvements' rather than 'reversals'," Noeline shoots back to Josephine, though not unkindly; her tone is not exactly serious, and it's obvious that what she's doing is offering the engineer a chance to verbally spar back and forth, something to distract herself with if it's of use. "Just to cover all our bases. Otherwise, I'll be worried that I've made you jealous."
Well, perhaps there's an apologetic edge in there as well.
The twintailed Hyadean watches as Josephine turns back to the railing, staring off into the distance; there's a pause, and then Noeline chuckles quietly to herself. "It sounds like you might need to keep a few things in mind, yourself. A beacon's only of use if you remember to watch for it," she notes with a rather wry smile before the humour fades from her gaze. "... whatever you need to do, don't go in there thinking something daft like 'I'll be done after this'."
She lets that hang in the air for a moment-- then heaves out a theatrical sigh, as if purposefully breaking the silence and replacing it with a solid huff. At least her smile is back, and warmer now as she turns it on Riesenlied. "She-- has said that, I'll admit," she makes a show of grumbling. "But I promise I am not being hard on myself. I simply mean that we contribute different things, and I cannot offer quite what you do, and I am at peace with that."
"And part of that role will be seeing you as safely as I can through Krosse, whatever it is you feel you should do once you reach the centre," she concludes with a quiet sigh. It'd be gallant if not for the way she sags ever so slightly as Penelope sparks a familiar sort of introspection from Riesenlied and a look of distinct suspicion from Noeline.