2019-02-26: Rekindling
- Log: Rekindling
- Cast: Riesenlied, Ida Everstead-Rey
- Where: New Petra
- Date: 26th February 2019
- Summary: Ida and Riesenlied meet outside of New Petra and speak of events recently past.
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
The sudden appearance and retrieval of Trask had been quite the surprising event for a lot of people, Riesenlied not exempted; she looks pretty fatigued by the time everything's wrapped up. She's taken to going to a fairly quiet outcropping that overlooks New Petra, with a view of the dragonshead airship and something of a growing menagerie where Trask has finally gotten the chance to take a good long rest.
The Hyadean's still in her wheelchair, having obtained a fresh one from where Trask plucked her old one off her; she's draped a capelet closer around herself with a shiver and a cough.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida was not expecting the encounter with Trask to go half as well as it did, but she's not complaining. She followed Riesenlied and the others back to New Petra, hitched Grey Lady by a trough and some feed, and took a walk. Her long, meandering path took her along the edge of the camp, then up to the bluff where Riesenlied sits. Ida's needed some time to get her thoughts in order.
"Riesenlied." Ida sounds calm and respectful, but Riesenlied can undoubtedly feel a sussurus of emotion beneath that. Fear, worry, guilt. Ida stops a short distance from Riesenlied's wheelchair, and inclines her head. "Are you... all right?" She noticed that cough, and that's completely ignoring... well, everything else that's happened.
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Riesenlied looks just a little surprised, but her horns perk up as she wanly smiles to Ida. ... it's been a long time since she's been able to really talk to her. The last time may have well been on Lunar, under an entirely different circumstance.
She's made strides for herself, yet found new complications, it seems...
"I'm pretty exhausted, but--" Riesenlied gestures to where the large creature seems to have found a sleeping companion in Muni. The children are advised to not clamber ontop of them just yet.
"I think... I think it went well in the end, didn't it? Thank you. For being there, as well."
She can't help but glance to that arm of Ida's. She doesn't need to doubt about what she saw; it's more about what she /felt/. Much like when she felt Devil's Due, far in the past. Or the Three Dragon Cannon.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
"It was a delicate situation," Ida says. "But we all did what we could." She trails off, then, not sure what else to say. What /can/ she say? What sort of apology could ever make up for the things she said and did? Ida looks away, her gaze drifting down over the camp.
"I... suppose I owe you an explanation, as well." Ida's right hand curls halfway into a fist, and then uncurls, slow and languid. "You... saw, didn't you?"
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Riesenlied swallows, feeling awkward herself as well as she comes to think of the last few times they've ran into each other. Not knowing where to go from there... or what Ida wants, herself. But that they're having a conversation here...
"I... did. Or rather... I felt it," Riesenlied expresses very softly. She glances back towards Ida. "I missed a great deal of what happened in the Photosphere because of..."
She awkwardly gestures. "Well. You know what happened to me. But... yes. I can sense a kindred... presence. Not unlike that of a Dragon Fossil-- but different...?"
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Riesenlied brings up the Photosphere. Ida's eyes darken as she remembers what she heard, and what she saw. "When I heard that Alhazred had taken you," she says, "I wasn't expecting to see you alive, and acting of your own free will, ever again. I'm... glad that I was wrong." She looks back at Riesenlied, taking in just how much she's changed--perhaps it's the wheelchair, but to Ida's eyes, she seems more fragile than ever.
Ida is silent for a long moment. Riesenlied's observation hangs in the air, unanswered, as she thinks about how to respond.
"This was... bestowed upon me by Luisa Rey," she says, at long last. She holds out her hand, and looks down at it. As she speaks, Living Metal bubbles up through the pores in her skin, in much the same way Riesenlied saw earlier. "This is what helped her fight Hyadean warriors on their own terms. It was... different, when she bore it, but even then, it was..."
Ida swallows. She looks away. "An arm torn from one of the Photosphere's senior officers."
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
"On my own, I may have very well given up as well," Riesenlied admits in a rather uncharacteristically pessimistic manner. "When he imbued upon me the... substance that-- I can still feel in me... it felt as if I had truly been robbed of everything that I was. But you all came through--"
She smiles a bit more delicately. "And for that I thank you. For freeing me, for giving me-- us-- another chance."
But Ida starts talking about her hand; she looks to the way Living Metal bubbles through. "From the Rey Clan... wasn't it?" She closes her eyes for a moment. "I did not know... is it a bit like Gwen's ARM? But I do not believe hers shifted such."
Her eyes open again. "How do you... feel about it?"
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
"Riesenlied," Ida says. She meets Riesenlied's eyes, and swallows. "I--I all but gave you up for dead. With all due respect, save your thanks for those who risked their lives for you. I don't deserve them." The Living Metal flows up Ida's arm as she speaks, solidifying into form-fitting armor. Ida flexes gauntleted fingers, feeling the subtle difference in the way they move and feel--a difference she's getting used to, but one that's still strange.
"Gwen's ARM is a prosthetic with integrated Hyadean remains. This is something wholly different. Luisa Rey lost her arm, and grafted this to her body to replace it. It was never a fossil." Ida pauses a moment, letting Riesenlied process the revelation a bit at a time. "It's... integrated itself with my body, and altered my organs to help sustain it. Kalve was quite surprised." Ida smiles a small, wry smile. "As for how I feel, that's a very complicated subject right now. I didn't ask for it. It still frightens me. But it's saved my life, and even if it hadn't, there's no way I can have it removed."
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Riesenlied draws in a deeper breath as she shifts on her wheelchair; pushes herself just a little bit closer. "I am grateful to them too, of course. But then I can at least thank you for helping Trask. He has been sleeping very gently when you gave him that recovery substance; it's not something we've had on hand for a while in New Petra."
A pause, as she looks towards the arm as it finishes its form like a gauntlet. "I am honestly surprised Living Metal could integrate like that. But at the very least on that matter..."
A longer pause, as she has a tired smile in turn. She reaches for that capelet and undoes it; it slacks to reveal the mess of familiar scales, but also--
The wires, piping and grafts that suffuse around the Original Artificial Medium at the base of her neck. Alhazred's work.
"I can at least share a little in how you feel, hmm...? Not that I presume to-- understand everything about how you feel, but..."
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
"I didn't know if the standard dosage would have an effect on something his size," Ida says, "so it's heartening. Keep an eye on him, ensure his recovery is as smooth as possible--the serum is an, ah, regenerative enhancer. He may need to eat more to compensate."
Ida watches as Riesenlied takes off the capelet. Her lips tighten into a thin little line as she sees the results of Alhazred's "finest work". "I'm glad he's dead," she says. Ida turns away from Riesenlied, and looks down at the ground. "I wanted any edge that I could find, if I was to bring the fight to Mother. I found this. I suppose it's fitting, though, hm? After years of treating your people like curiosities, and wondering what things would've been like if only you'd /survived/... this happens."
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Riesenlied nods on the topic of Trask; food they can provide. Trask may be old, but she has no doubt that it can heal over time, whether its heart or its body. She'll have to assist in guiding it through to a new era, now that its master has passed...
She doesn't answer Ida immediately, though. She takes a bit of time to decide how to phrase it.
"... I... want to move forward," is what she goes with. "Mother is gone. We are all recuperating from that dark period. Hyadeans and humans alike. Everyone here in New Petra and Wayside, and the remnants who still need time to decide what it is they want to do, and how to feel about it..."
She looks ever more tired as she coughs again, but pushes past it.
"You won't stop being Ida to me because you bear Living Metal in you, much like I know you do not think less of me for being Tainted."
She reaches out with her hand-- her human one. The last part of her that still hasn't become encroached in misshapen metal.
"... I want... to try rekindling our friendship. Would you consider it?"
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
"You were her children. Even if she was using you, manipulating you--she was your Goddess, and your faith in her was sincere." Ida swallows. Riesenlied cut ties with the loyalists long before Mother laid everything on the table, but it's something Ida feels she needs to say, regardless. "I'm human. I'm not one of your people. But I--"
"I want them to find their own place, and their own ways, because right now so many of them are so /lost/ without Her. Kalve..."
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
"You were her children. Even if she was using you, manipulating you--she was your Goddess, and your faith in her was sincere." Ida swallows. Riesenlied cut ties with the loyalists long before Mother laid everything on the table, but it's something Ida feels she needs to say, regardless. "I'm human. I'm not one of your people. But I--"
"I want them to find their own place, and their own ways, because right now so many of them are so /lost/ without Her. Kalve..."
Riesenlied extends her hand. Ida looks at it a moment, and blinks back tears. Slowly, hesitantly, she reaches out with her armored right hand, and clasps Riesenlied's hand. "I... I don't know if I deserve it. The depression isn't gone, and it doesn't excuse what I did, or what I said. If you told me you never wanted to see me again, I would understand."
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
"I don't know if Kalve told you, but I was always particularly religious even amongst us," Riesenlied quietly expresses. A bite of her lip, as she bobs her head and closes her eyes. "I always had a view of what Mother was... a graceful, caring, infinitely patient saviour who would discourse with Filgaia..."
A pause, and a sigh.
"But yes... I want to help, but I know I am not the right person to help some people," Riesenlied speaks frankly. She silently thinks about how she's heard some people try to rationalise Mother's end days by blaming the Tainted and her, of all people.
"And that's why I appreciate you and everyone else being around... we can only do this together."
They hold hands for a moment, and smiles weakly. "What happened did hurt, but... I know you were hurting too. But I'm... well, call me weak, but I'm too scared, too tired to burn bridges. I'll do what I can on my side... if you need a friend or even just an ear."
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
"Kalve... believed much the same," Ida says. "Near the end, he thought she'd fallen ill, that he could heal her if given enough time. I don't blame him for it. Hearing Mother herself as she confessed--I can't imagine what it must've been like for him. He loved her. He loved her dearly, and now he seems... broken. Like he left a part of himself behind in the Photosphere."
Ida meets Riesenlied's eyes, and manages a tiny little smile. "And if there's anything at all I can do, you need only ask. I don't want to make promises I can't keep, but..."
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Riesenlied bites her lip gently as she listens to Ida speak about Kalve. She draws in a faint breath and nods; that sounds like the kind of rationale Kalve would've drawn towards. He voiced some of it in the short time they met prior to going to Elru, even.
"I should visit him -- and thank him for resuscitating Lydia as well, after she was grievously injured."
A cast to Ida's eyes as she smiles back. "I'm sure we can work it out, a little at a time. Even if we stumble here, or there... I'm okay with that pace."