2019-07-13: Were You Ever a Baby?

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  • Log: 2019-07-13: Were You Ever a Baby?
  • Cast: Lydia Seren, Ivan
  • Where: Kilika - Town Center
  • Date: July 13, 2019
  • Summary: Ivan gets a lesson in vampires from Marivel.

===========================<* Kilika - Town Center *>===========================

Kilika is an island off the southern coast of the Spiran mainland, consisting of a small port and village, a large jungle and a Temple of Yevon. The island is renowned for being the hometown of High Summoner Ohalland, who was a star blitzballer before retiring from the game to complete his Pilgrimage and defeat Sin. As a result of this history, the Beasts are one of the most-loved teams in the entire league, and even rival blitz players will stop to pray at the Kilika Temple before a particularly critical game.

The port of Kilika was recently ravaged following an attack by Sin, and the surviving residents are slowly rebuilding. They have received unexpected support in the form of the outlanders who serve the false goddess Althena. A few dozen soldiers and craftsmen are using their strange arts - as well as old-fashioned skill - to help with restoration. The Temple of Yevon has put out the word that this assistance will be tolerated so long as the Guardsmen refrain from proselytizing their false creed; an uneasy sort of feeling hangs over the entire village as a result.

BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXsmMuXLtuQ


<Pose Tracker> Lydia Seren has posed.

Marivel USED to come to Kilika periodically but now that the Guard has both taken the place over and probably isn't so fond of the lady who said that she would murder their godess anymore, well, she doesn't show up quite as often.

Or so she'd have you believe. Instead she actually, aside from the period of being dead, hasn't visited Killika that much less than she has before she has just changed her outfit into red mage garb and though she has avoided the Guard itself, well, she's actually rather liked in Kilika and so she can slip around the city relatively undetected if only because she can smell the patrols before they can see her and so far, at least, no aspiring Kilikans have turned her in.

Also just for Kilika she has wrapped a domino mask around her eyes just because she is fully commited to this part now.

Right now she has dramatically dropped down before a flowerbed and is watering them with a watering can why are you like this Marivel.

<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.

Ivan has had a harrowing run of days, mostly over things that, probably, most other people would not find particularly harrowing. But Ivan is Ivan, and they've been rough days for him. He's back to showing his face again; the scarf thing is pretty much just for Lydia, though as twisted up as his nerves have gotten, it's tempting to just make it a full time thing.

He is looking forward to some kind of low-key downtime in Kilika, completing tasks for the Guard there and switching his brain/identity off for a while.

Running unexpectedly into another of weird characters he's met recently isn't quite as threatening as it might otherwise be under those circumstances; somehow the fact that Marivel is in disguise makes it feel like aknowledging her is optional.

He takes his time in, first, discerning that it is her at all, and not just some equally eccentric person who kind of reminded him of her, and then says: "Um, hey. This seems new."

<Pose Tracker> Lydia Seren has posed.

Marivel dramatically (don't count how many times the player uses the word 'dramatic' and its associated forms today) swooshes her cape around as Ivan speaks up and says, "Ahh! It seems you have caught me! The ... Phantom Marvel...!" She bows towards Ivan. "Well done. It must take a keen mind and a piercing sight to dispel the glamour of illusion I have wrapped myself in." No she hasn't done any such thing.

"I believe I heard of you, the mysterious Guardsman who helpfully donates blood even though it turned out to be unusable and also teaches children the meaning of friendship. Hm hm hm... Perhaps you can be trusted..."

She swoops her cape before her, partially covering her face with it. Dramatically.

"...with an audience!"

He offers the watering can and adds, "Could you get the right side?"

<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.

Isn't that... isn't that false identity a little too close to her real name?? Ivan watches the swooshing and carrying on with a look of mild concern, and he seems to almost unconsciously accept the watering can and start to water the indicated plants, even though it's off his aesthetic.

"I don't think I really taught anyone anyth--wait, what do you mean my blood was unusable?"

Ivan is not really up on modern medical science, or even Lunar's equivalent, save for some layman's herbalism, but there are certain connections one tends to draw intuitively, even if he's doing it only just now.

"Oh, shit. Did it make anyone sick?"

<Pose Tracker> Lydia Seren has posed.

At least she didn't call herself Captain Marvel, Ivan! We could get in trouble for something like that!!


Marivel ducks down and starts trimming flowers hwhile Ivan is watering them. It's such a strange thing that she's here and doing this considering the risk involved here.

"Oh do not feel too bad," Marivel says. "I am not certain as to the cause. It could simply be a medicine you are taking. Not certain what it means for your health. It was unusual but not 'Makes me gag when I consume it' unusual. Hmm... Of course it seems unlikely blood would radically change from Lunarians to Filgaians but the Blessing of Althena is an unknown element..."

She cups her chin thoughtfully. "But, ah, no. I tested it first and elected to not take chances. I am sorry it did not work out."

<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.

"...Oh. Good--maybe. I wasn't thinking about it but maybe it could be in my blood. Or it's just the medicine. Uh, well, never mind. If nobody used it then it doesn't matter. I guess trying to share blood was a bad idea." He frowns. The idea of potentially being able to contaminate people is unsettling, and doesn't play well with the pre-existing murder guilt. At least having your blood infused into other people isn't like a common scenario.

"Did you say you tasted it, though? You haven't had any weird fevers or something, right?" She's kind of acting like she's having a weird fever, but that was true all along-- wait, but the blood thing happened when they first met! What if Marivel has been delirious this whole time!

"...Also, why are we gardening?" He hasn't managed to parse why The Phantom Marvel is a gardener.

<Pose Tracker> Lydia Seren has posed.

"Well not all diseases come from the blood," Marivel says. "But blood transfusions is a complicated business. It might not be a bad idea to have a proper doctor take a look at it though, hmm... ARE there proper doctors on Lunar? I suppose probably not. There are barely any on Filgaia for that matter."

It may be a good idea to not reflect too much on what Marivel considers a proper doctor.

Marivel tilts her head back at Ivan. "Fevers? No. I'm a different species and also dead so I don't tend to catch illness. So long as there isn't something in it which can corrupt the spirit of a person I can drink it. Unless it's grody. I have standards. But I haven't seen blood like yours before so I was curious."

What IF Marivel has been delirious this whole time????

"Because I gardened here before the Guard decided to start murdering people and I am not about to let my hard work go to waste." The Phantom Marvel mutteres as she snips. "The people here have suffered enough and they will suffer more than they ought and if I can alleviate their suffering even a little what choice do I have?"

<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.

"Oh. You're dead?" Ivan says. "Did I know that?" Ivan wants to get one of those jars where you can collect money from people every time they commit a certain common offense, and in this case the offense would be 'telling him absolutely ridiculous shit about themselves' and he would get rich. But maybe he did already know it. It's been an exhausting few months for learning ridiculous shit about people and the world.

He shrugs uncomfortably. "I do have an illness. But it's pretty rare. And so is the medicine. So if either of those were what made my blood weird you might not have seen them before I guess."

Marivel explains that she is gardening to help alleviate the suffering of the people of the town. Far from seeming like the only choice she has, it never would have occured to Ivan to do such a thing at all.

"...How did you choose gardening for alleviating suffering?"

<Pose Tracker> Lydia Seren has posed.

"Mm, well, tis not rare knowledge but for people on Lunar it is so. So tis not a secret, but I also do not tend to blab aboout it here on Spira where people seem to both revere and be nervous of the dead. Still, Yuna seems to be kind to me so I try not to worry myself about being a target even if she is a wonderful necromancer rather than an average one."

She nods slowly. Ivan's explanation seems to make sense to her. "I imagine diseases and medicine no doubt evolved in different ways."

"Mm... I suppose for two reasons. I never had a green thumb but I think I managed to get decent at this sort of work through practice and effort so I am proud of it. It is also just habit. Filgaia needed so much help back then."

She loks to Ivan. "Tis a shame, you are being misused. If you could temper your reactions a touch you would make a good journalist. You have a way of finding rarely asked questions."

<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.

"Is being ...dead part of the blood drinking thing, or something unrelated that happened later?" He does think he remembers her saying that she was part of a sort of species or clan that all naturally subsisted on blood -- it's hard to imagine anybody being BORN dead. But maybe they sort of pop into being like Seraphim?

Marivel explains that she got her start gardening on Filgaia, which makes more intuitive sense to him. A flower on a dying world seems more likely to uplift spirits, perhaps, than thriving flowers in the tropics. But if it's habit, it makes sense... and maybe people do appreciate it. "It seems like a good garden," he says.

"A... journalist?" Ivan can read, and has taken notes during his travels, but is not much for reading or writing recreationally, given that his father's personal library was A) not for children to be touching and getting out of order and B) full of intimidating reference tomes that were not at all worth sneaking out of it, anyway.

Lunar hasn't got much in the way of newspapers yet, besides.

"What exactly is that?"

<Pose Tracker> Lydia Seren has posed.

"I don't know. Crimson Nobles are not by nature 'alive' in the way humans are. The closest comparision I've ever felt with another species was the Seraphim but that is probably not a perfect comparision either."

When Ivan compliments the garden, Marivel pauses in her work and looks towards Ivan. If her smiles before were something akin to artifice, this smile is not. It's a real one even if it is, at least, not nearly as horrifyingly pure as Lydia's can get. There's always this hint of sadness behind her smiles even if it's often hidden away. But in this case the rarity might make it seem more honest. She is genuinely happy to hear someone compliment her dumb little garden here.

"Thank you," She says, touched, before getting back to work.

"Well ask five people and you will get six answers but I personally feel that a journalist is someone who gives narrative to the news and in doing so makes it slightly more comprehensible to those that read their work. You find yourself in strange situations and you ask good questions, journalists need both of these traits. I suppose tis strange to say you remind me a bit of Acacia considering you two are very different people but in this aspect you seem very similar."

<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.

"Were you ever a baby?" Ivan asks. He feels almost rude asking this for some reason, but it will probably help to disambiguate the situation a lot.

What even makes someone dead if they can move around, talk, and eat, and were never alive anyway?

He shrugs off Marivel's warm reaction to the praise to the garden, feeling a little guilty in the face of it for having also thought that people might not even notice it with so much lush natural beauty around.

"They write down the news? Like in a book?" Ivan may be thinking of historians. "I don't think I've ever met or heard of Acacia..."

<Pose Tracker> Lydia Seren has posed.

Marivel looks towards Ivan for a long moment when she asks if she was ever a baby.

"Yes." Marivel says eventually. "I was."

A weird emphasis there that she does not explain.

"Well, I can show you..." Marivel draws out the latest batch of the Meria Bouletin which was probably not very cute and offers it to Ivan. "It's ah a little dark since it was about the Battle of Luca."

She gasps ever so faintly as Ivan admits to not knowing Acacia. "She is Lunar's number one journalist." She says straightfaced.

<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.

"...I think I was expecting you to say no," Ivan admits. How in the world does a living-dead baby work, and why did she make it sound like she was the only one? "So you're dead, but you grew up...?"

Marivel hands him a copy of the Meria Bouletin, which is indeed dark.

"Oh, these. I guess someone does have to write these..."

It's not something he'd given any thought to. Ivan blinks as Marivel gasps about his lack of knowledge of Acacia. She is interested in some eclectic stuff.

She is Lunar's number one journalist.

"...Oh? Okay. You know her personally?"

<Pose Tracker> Lydia Seren has posed.

"We... I have never found the word 'dead' to be, mm, sufficient as a word. Or 'alive' for that matter." Marivel admits quietly. "I always drank blood too, if that helps, even as a baby. Though, ah..." She sounds somehow on the back foot here. People actually don't normally ask her questions like this about being a vampire. This might be what she means about Ivan making a good journalist.

"Mm." Marivel says of knowing Acacia. "We work together. Not on journalism, I mean. Mostly in looking after Kamui."

"She is a kindhearted girl but I do wonder if she is suited for this life. Perhaps not. But perhaps it is drifter life that ought to watch out."

"I suppose dead or alive are just convenient shorthands." Marivel reflects ultimately before adding, "Suffice it to say though, we just simply function through a different system than commonly appreciated biological processes."

She tilts her head. "So. Were you ever a baby?"

<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.

"What is ... 'dead' about you? If that's like. A thing you talk about."

She explains that she is helping the journalist woman to... look after a child?

"You've got a lot going on," he observes.

She passes the question back to him: Were you ever a baby?

"Absolutely not," Ivan says automatically, because admitting to having been a baby feels like admitting to a profound personal weakness. Then he realizes she is probably just kidding and also he's being ridiculous.

"I mean. Yes. But not for any longer than necessary."

<Pose Tracker> Lydia Seren has posed.

"I have no pulse, I do not die when killed, and I do not age." She pauses. "Anymore. Ahh, sometimes I miss those feral days." She reflects warmly. "But I suppose reflecting fondly on one's youth is hardly unique to my people."

Marivel blinks in a kind of deadpan way when Ivan says he hasn't been a baby before.

And then admits to being a baby as if he kind of just had to. Somehow, Marivel seems to be at a loss for words. MARIVEL seems to be at a loss for words.

But eventually she adds, "Well, perhaps being a baby is overrated. Thank you for your help today, Ivan and take care of yourself. The war won't."

And with that she transforms into a cloud of bats and flies away.