2019-06-17: Calmer After The Storm
- Log: 2019-06-17: Calmer After The Storm
- Cast: Seraph Lanval, Seraph Solanine, Seraph Clarine
- Where: Thunder Plains
- Date: June 17, 2019
- Summary: The weather lets up - or rather returns to its normally scheduled levels of intensity - after powerful elementals of Lightning and Water have it out. The latter having been laid low, they are seen to by two more of their kind. A kind mercy is misattributed.
==================================================<* Thunder Plains *>================================================== The Thunder Plains, occasionally known as the Gandof Thunder Plains, are an open, barren landscape connecting Guadosalam to the Macalania region. It is an area that is constantly - yes, /constantly/ - bombarded by lightning and thunder. Crossing the plains was all but impossible due to the never-ending storm, until an Al Bhed named Bilghen set up several towering lightning rods to draw the storms' fury and provide travelers with a (comparatively) safe road. He was in the process of setting up the final tower when he was struck by lightning and killed, something which lesser minds would regard as irony, but which the faithful know is poetic justice for a blasphemer against Yevon. I mean, they'll still /use/ the road. Because Yevon wants them to. Clearly. BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Gea_xz-cJ8
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
The Thunder Plains was host to a great storm.
A greater storm, than what usually brews here. What's left is still a deadly, raw force of nature that threatens to strike down anyone who dares set foot here, but somehow the thunder and lightning seem a bit more distant than usual. The rain has gone down to a drizzle, as though the heavens themselves were worn out after whatever happened here. No sunlight peeks through the gray storm clouds above, for there is no true rest or respite by the storm.
There is a sense of power having been lessened, in some form... but that's after a tremendous upswell in power claimed this area for a short while. The people Lanval's been traveling with may not have been any the wiser as to what just transpired (yet). As it is about one Seraph Lanval...
...he's currently slouched over inside a small crevice in front of an active lightning tower, all but passed out, with a gel from some other part of Lunar left on top of him. Lightning strikes the tower every so often. In so far as places to pass out go, this is maybe the safest possible place one could, for lightning is being drawn to the rod and coincidentally protecting the nearby Water Seraph from strikes.
By Seraphim terms, he looks utterly wretched (...moreso than usual) from the tell-tale signs of a great big ol' Seraph slap fight. Puddles of still water dot the landscape, including one big one underneath Lanval himself.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Solanine has posed.
The darkness of the crevice blooms, and spreads over the fallen Water Seraph, an unnatural sort that no longer allows the passage of the lightning's flashes to bombard him, and dampening as they can the thunder itself, if they were causing waves and ripples within his form. From within it coalesces the Seraph Solanine, and she looks towards Lanval with a softly sorrowful expression, though one tempered by having expected this outcome, just hopefully later than now, and not in such an oppressive place. She doesn't yet speak, but busies herself with contemplation at the recent battle, and the softening rain.
She thinks on what all those things mean. and actively channels her Blessing of Althena into White magic, directing the dark in hopes to repair Lanval's wounds and bring respite to his mind in this place of visual and aural fury neverending.
She notices the healing gel out of the corner of her eye, and wonders if she should make it vanish before the Water Seraph regains consciousness.
She looks over to Seraph Clarine, The Seraph of Light, the Guiding Star, and says "I have to guess that's Ragnell's doing... Will he appreciate that, or will it incense him further do you imagine? What do you think we should do..? I suppose... about that... and also... about all of this?"
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Clarine has posed.
Clarine and Solanine had been traveling together when they spotted Lanval. It was quite the shock - no pun intended - to find him there, in that crevice. To beings such as themselves, it was easy to tell that a great, fearful battle had taken place not long before.
Solanine moves to provide Lanval healing comfort. Clarine would do the same, but in this place where the sun cannot shine her power is lessened. And so, she simply stands off to the side, fidgeting with her hands clasped in front of her.
"...I...I-I do not know..." She replies, shaking her head. This is her answer to all of the above, as it happens. "I knew they must clash sooner or later...but I did not expect it so soon..."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
Darkness obscures and protects from sight, as if to remove fear or doubt about something unseen as the healing aspects of Solanine's elemental energies settle upon the manifested form of Lanval. Clarine moves to join in, building off of the comfort the light brings all the faithful who dwell upon the Silver Star. Between the two of them, it's enough to help keep the Water Seraph's health stable.
Light and dark swirl about the Oracle of Schturdark's person, mending wounds on the wounded. It takes a bit of doing, some exertion on both of their parts... but soon enough, as thunder rumbles again in the distance, there's another set of shudders suggesting that a will is still tied to that body of water.
Whatever governs life, the 'thing' that separates a live Seraph from a dead one, it's there. It builds in strength, until such time there is a vocal utterance.
"...Mmmmmmmph." From within the crevice, Lanval stirs some more... and then an eye opens half-lidded again, looking out to the radiance of the Guiding Star, and the dimmed air of the Knight Shade standing about them.
"Mmph." A fat arm slaps about the edge of the crevice a few times, as if to find grip. He doesn't quite get there, so it descends and ends up on his head, where he finds a Lemon Gel. (Tasty, tasty 60% HP recovery...)
A form of medicine nostalgic and familiar, albeit far more widespread down in Glenwood.
"...Thanksh," he slurs, "shparin' one of 'em fer li'l ol' me when they ain't makin' 'em here..."
Beat. Both his eyes open up half-lidded, then a bit wider. Water rises with a start, but the best he manages is clumsily falling back onto his seat.
"...Where'sh Ragnell at?" His voice builds in intensity, as if in a panic.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Solanine has posed.
"Gone before we arrived. We sensed the conflict from afar, the energies were significant even in this place's unnatural order and Seraphic magic isn't exactly common. We expected to catch Ragnell too, but, as you've recently experienced... she is elusive at best." Lanval thanks them for sparing a lemon gel for him, and though Solanine would've if she had any at all (It had been so long since she'd seen any medicines of Lunarian make) but it puts her earlier dilemma into focus, and she replies "Don't mention it. Save it for the next time you encounter her perhaps. We can patch you up here with our own power."
A punt perhaps, definitely a lovingly crafted white lie by omission but one she rationalizes away easily enough to show little to no tell in her speech. In memory of his implacable anger before, perhaps she hopes that rather than being potentially dashed upon the walls of this cave, such a potent item can serve him in the future in a time of great need. Especially if he does find a chance to use it during a conflict with Ragnell, it may open meaningful dialogue between them, or even ensure her potential defeat through her prior mercies. an unexpected consequence in the seeming division of Ragnell's desires and motives that might help her find her way. But if he were to use it heal a mortal friend in the furtherance of his own oaths, all the better too.
The Shadow Seraph's pragmitism and the naturally obscuring nature of the dark showing perhaps...
"So... what happened exactly? Did she happen to reveal anything?" Solanine looks to Clarine and keeps Clarine's response in mind as she asks Lanval to reflect upon the encounter. Sola is uncertain as the Light Seraphim, if more steady spoken at the moment.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Clarine has posed.
Clarine's panting a little once it's all over. It took a lot of energy for her, especially in this place. But soon, they're rewarded by Lanval slowly beginning to stir.
"Ah, thank the Goddess..." Clarine mururs gratefully with a sigh of relief.
Eventually, he recovers enough to speak, and asks them a question - where's Ragnell?
She lets Solanine answer the question...though Clarine fidgets a little at the white lie. She wasn't very good at deception...so in the end it was better that Solanine was the one to answer it.
Solanine asks what happened...but Clarine's gaze is fixated on Lanval himself, those golden eyes staring into him.
"Y-you...y-you do not...truly intend to go after her again in this state...?" She asks quietly, and with a hint of concern. She could hear that building intensity in his voice. She wasn't sure if that was what he was getting at...but she wouldn't put it past him.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
As Solanine explains to him why they're here and further takes credit for Ragnell's kindness, as Lanval continues to make it a bit of an adventure in terms of getting up out of this crevice. It's the natural order of things for the ground to shape water within it to its own, and for water to be at rest. He is fighting both of these things to rise up as he pockets 'Solanine's' Lemon Gel.
What did the Lightning Seraph reveal? Lanval doesn't immediately answer.
'Surely you do not--'
Clarine's hopes appear to be dashed as Lanval throws himself up and starts stomping off in some direction. The skies above build in power, preparing to throw another lightning bolt--
*KRA-KOOM*
Steam rises from where Lanval stands, a free hand up in the air as water droplets flick to the ground as a remainder of a burst of water thrown up as a shield to catch and redirect the lightning strike... and continues off towards one of the few shelters erected at the Thunder Plains.
Shelters where mortals take cover from the ceaseless crashes of lightning and stray Fiends. Lanval peers inside, and from there...
His posture slackens, and he leans up against said shelter to let himself slouuuuuuuch back onto the ground, that second wind (...second water?) of energy expended in that entire emotional motion.
"...She didn't hurt 'em... that'sh... good." That still doesn't completely answer Solanine's question, though!!
...
"Ragnell... she shtopped by," he says, "jusht gave advice ash ta when it wash shafe ta move." That sounds utterly harmless and even benevolent, and yet...
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Solanine has posed.
Seraph Solanine watches Lanval's sudden departure with interest and is so surprised it takes her a moment to parse what he'd just said to her She makes her way across the plain after him, first thinking to shadow-step to his location, but realizing that would mean abandoning Clarine to, makes a more terrestial journey with her, following Lanval's cadence as best she can, as she did make out the part about Ragnell teaching him when to cross, and while wondering if that were true, decided to put it to the test in the most direct way.
When they arrive, she hears Lanval say that she's glad she didn't hurt "them".. the structures? It does seem like something Ragnell could do, since it would be in service of the Lightning's freedom... but she just kind of looks quizzically, as Lanval provides little to no answers to their questions and what he does say is more than a bit mysterious in itself.
"So... are you saying... there was no fight, and... you were just a poor ...or unlucky... study of her helpful instructions on enviromental lightning evasion..?" She doesn't follow up with saying it directly but Solanine's voice piecing the statement together driiiips with "I find that somewhat hard to believe."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Clarine has posed.
Clarine panics a little as Lanval rises and starts stomping off.
"A-ah, wait! D-do not-" She starts, chasing after him. Her words are interrupted as a lightning bolt crashes down toward Lanval...but thankfully he manages to protect himself, and continues forward toward one of the shelters.
What he sees seems to make him relax, at least, and Clarine lets out another sigh of relief. Ragnell didn't hurt 'them', whoever they are - Clarine couldn't get a good look inside as to who.
This is probably for the best, as if her eyes met with those of one of the likely inhabitants then the world might end.
Even so, this is almost as much of a relief for Clarine as it is for Lanval. Even after all of this, she still wanted to believe in Ragnell...even if it meant fighting her occasionally when their intentions clashed.
Solanine raises a good question, however.
"...Then, why...?" She asks.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
Solanine has every reason to doubt the accounts exactly as he's communicating, however much of it he is. Something had him stirred up to want to charge off even though he's wounded, and the best he gives is painting Ragnell in a completely helpful light, indeed.
The both of them, the light and the darkness with individual wills of their own, ask the Oracle of Schturdark as to 'why.' One more passively, another pointing out the holes in the apparent logic.
"Mmm. I didn't shay there wash no fight," Lanval says as he takes his drinking gourd in hand and takes a sip of that water within to catch himself as he feels himself all wound up, turbulent, and worried. It's a meditative appeasement of thirst.
...
"She did... jusht come outta nowhere, shay it wash a good time ta get movin'. Ya take it on face value... coulda been the truth. She'sh one of the Lightning Seraphim." There is scarce reason to doubt her word there! Ragnell is, on average, incredibly kind and patient with her own kind - and she would know lightning better than any of them on grounds of being that.
So why did--
"...She gave that advice... in the context of me watchin' out fer the mortalsh shleepin' nearby." Are they still asleep? (We'll never know.) He lowers the drinking gourd towards his lap, but he's slouched so much he may as well be moments away from--
--yup, on his back, but at least he's maintaining some semblance of eye contact with them, through two half-open eyes.
"Ragnell ish workin' fer the Adversary of Man, 'n all... sho I had it out with her 'bout what she wash up to, jusht givin' out helpful wordsh like that..."
Lightning strikes again, at the first lightning tower they found Lanval passed out at. It's enough to get him leaning up (a smidge) as if to make sure she didn't come back. He relaxes - sort of - back down.
"Mmmmph. Felt she wash makin' a play fer the livesh of 'em here, sho we had it out." They had it out, all right. Lightning has changed some of the surrounding landscape through explosive power, and there's some new water basins where there weren't before. It was the nastiest combined rain- and lightning storm this place has seen in some time.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Solanine has posed.
"Would she?"
Solanine asks this earnestly after listening to Lanval fill in the rest of the story with relief of the plausible.
Lanval's description of Ragnell sound exactly how Ragnell operates, except for that detail. "Ragnell doesn't seem the most fond of humanity from what I've gathered, but she also doesn't seem the type to just wantonly murder the helpless... I've not dealt with the Adversary of Man, but if Ragnell is as loyal as she seems, and does what she does at their direction, I've been lead to believe through legend and my limited personal experience, that their plans and goals tend to be either on a grander or more personal scope than casual slaughter?"
She pauses and continues with an aside: "I wonder about their previous mantle, as the Trial Knight... there's something about the way they conduct themselves and the way Ragnell speaks that makes me curious...that makes them hard to predict and their motives inscrutable in a way different from that of your average Hellion, man or Metal Demon... I wonder again if they'll even target Filgaia for the near future." "Are they capable of doing things here, or with Obsession's seeming invulnerability and zealous human armies poised to aggress upon each other... is there even a need for Ragnell and K.K's intervention?"
"As all-encompassing as their self-proclaimed title may be, they aren't Man's only adversary, perhaps not even their greatest one...
If mortals engage in war amongst themselves, faction after irreconcible faction razing the land, provokng Obsession to obliterate the remains, perhaps there's little for Ragnell and her master to contribute except to watch...
Solanine pauses.
"Wait..." she looks around at the residual lightning and the watery terraforming after Lanval and Ragnell's battle and exclaims,
"Humans were sleeping in this place? During your battle?! How...?!"
If they were taking a sleeping poison that potent, she... wants to know about it.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Clarine has posed.
Clarine looks between the two of them, listening as they speak.
"She is not." Clarine asserts, as Solanine comments that Ragnell doesn't seem the type for wanton murder. "Or...at least, the Ragnell I knew was not... I cannot speak for what she has become, but... I would like to believe that is still the case."
She had to hold onto that faith. If one of her close friends truly fell in such a manner...
"...I cannot speak for her companion, either... That was my first time meeting them..." She murmurs.
"So...I cannot speak for her intentions, but I would like to think she did not intend your companions harm..." She says...then pauses, looking toward Solanine as she makes a very good point.
"That is... ...Ah...?" She says. She goes quiet for a moment, but then emits a sound of confusion as she tilts her head to the side. "...Humans are...incomprehensible..."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
The both of them reason, reasonably, that the whole of it could be the product of a gross overreaction spurred from heightened emotion on his part. (He 'swung' first! With the rain. A lot of rain.)
As Solanine pauses, Lanval doesn't speak up. He's just stroking at his chin some as he lets his weakened strength rest while lightning goes off again at that more distant lightning tower. "Washn't keen on figurin' it out after the fact," after the fact being 'after the damage has been done,' but that's not much of a defense for flying off the handle like that. Lanval, as far as anyone knows, rarely ever gets angry with others... Clarine, of all three of them, knows her far better than almost anyone else around, and her sentiments match with the Shade Knight's.
...Then comes the surprise at the idea that anyone could rest while that racket was going on, and Lanval has himself a laugh. First genuine one he's had.
"Welllll... Ragnell'sh lightning, I'm water... ain't no shortage of either mishbehavin' in theshe partsh~" Here comes the stupid cat-like smile of his... but that softens as he once more feels his fatigue, keen to just lay there for a little while longer.
"....Mmmm. Yer right though... shleepin' through even a lightnin' shtrike ta begin with... ya know, that'sh a blesshin' I'm juuuusht not gonna queshtion..."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Solanine has posed.
Seraph Solanine nods, and Lanval's talk of Blessings makes her think anew.
"I'm mildly curious why the people of this land use such a horrifically dangerous area as a thoroughfare at all... Guadosalam, one of the cities near here, is underground... why not just...continue... tunnel beneath the plains, deep enough that the lightning doesn't reach... but very few things done in the name of or by proclamation of Yevon make any kind of sense to me. Were I an Earth Seraphim I might tunnel one myself just to make the point."
She also thinks to herself she might decorate uit with murals of Althena's Blessing of Lunar along the insides for their education. But she supposes there are enough Holy Wars brewing among the unfaithful without something like that.
She was glad to hear Lanval's genuine mirthful laughter, it seemed to be something desperately lacking in Spira, missing among both Human and Seraphim, the product of a surprise that ultimately turns out to be harmless, when nearly every surprise in Spira is worse than the one before it...
It's a small wonder that like Clarine, Solanine is clinging to the good she's seen in Ragnell. She cracks a smile herself at Clarine's way of evaluating and contemplating humanity's odd quirks.
Lanval is likely right though, the humans probably cleared out when the weather turned.
This place is unpredictable but they'd eked out a kind of understanding with it. The addition of Seraphic storms likely caused them to vacate as soon as they could safely manage. She doesn't know that Ragnell is benevolent enough to have planned that by design, but it would certainly be teasingly clever, and perhaps it's just better not to question the luck.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Clarine has posed.
"...I can...understand that." Clarine comments with a murmur. She can understand why he jump to the defense of his companions, even if he wasn't sure they were in danger.
But, then, that familiar smile returns to Lanval's face and Clarine can't help but smile a little herself in relief.
...She can't answer Solanine's question as to why the humans elect to use this place at all. As she said before, humans were incomprehensible and that was her take on it.
"Yes, perhaps that is best..." She says, agreeing with Lanval. It was an important blessing, after all.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
"Mortalsh... they're gonna do what they're gonna," such is Lanval's famous philosophy. If they're going to walk about this hellish thunder plain and not make a tunnel or something, well, sure he gues--
*KRA-KOOM*
This lightning bolt's a bit too close for comfort. It misses the nearby lightning tower, in this case, and scorches the ground in the exact center space from which all three stand! Lanval turns a half-open eye behind him... no, that's not Ragnell.
"Mmmm... Clarine, Solanine... hey... thanksh fer checkin' on me." He stirs a bit more, trying to sit up again... you know what, he thinks, he doesn't feel like sitting up. He doesn't even really feel like projecting his manifestation any more. He should probably sleep in his bottle at first opportunity - his friends would be disappointed in him if he technically slept on the job.
Even then...
He remembers what he told Clarine, who was fidgety and uncomfortable with the prospects of a fight then, and nervous to speak to Lanval after his display of zeal after the fact. They're all Seraphim, so many causes are ultimately transient. Maybe this whole 'being a servant of a foreign deity' thing will blow through and they'll laugh about it...
"...All thingsh shaid 'n done... I gotta take anything Ragnell doesh sherioushly... she came within thiiiiiish much of killin' off Filgaia." He can't squeeze his fingers hard enough together. How does that convey a real distance if they're pressing together?! "...I know, neither of ya took the vow I did. Jusht... long ash neither of ya mean ta bring Filgaia harm, hey... 'm alwaysh gonna be glad fer yer company."
Beat.
"'n the Lemon Gels, too~"
They can laugh and make merry conversation about some of the weird decisions mortals make now, but it is inevitable that one day there's going to be another flare-up, another difference of opinion, and then lightning will stri--
*KRA-KOOM*
Lightning will strike figuratively and not so much literally, but the recent lightning strike's demonstration is nonetheless appreciated.