2019-07-20: Decoding the Issue
- Log: Decoding the Issue
- Cast: Catenna, Ivan
- Where: Besaud
- Date: July 20, 2019
- Summary: Not long after their meeting in Besaid, Ivan seeks out Catenna to chat about what's happened.
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<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
The Caravan Kinship isn't exactly driving around Spira like they would drive around Filgaia. It's given Catenna more freedom to roam the landscape, gathering information and collecting gella.
Once more, she's paid her way through things by performing, lacking the ability to easily bring a kitchen with her. A few tourists are in the process of wandering off from a completed show, a large flat rock having served Catenna as an impromptu stage. A bit winded after the effort of dancing like Jean yet again, the Moon Shaman waits a moment for everyone to be out of view, then sighs with weariness and leans back to settle onto another nearby rock, uncorking a glass bottle of chilled water and taking a long drink.
<I think you enjoy that far more than you are willing to admit to the others.> The Owlet, soft and white, is perched on top of the rock, her words felt more than heard and not really unkind.
Catenna smiles faintly, her cheeks tinged with rosy colour. "I think you may be right. It brings a kind of appreciation with it that I did not often get much in my life."
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
Though Ivan was eager to leave Besaid after encountering the Kinship there, a mixture of guilt and possibly unfinished business soon bring him back, this time seeking Catenna out deliberately. He hangs back until he hears the music of the performance dwindle, and sees the crowds disperse, and then he approaches warily.
"Do you have some time to talk? Prefereably somewhere it doesn't need to be done in code?"
He slouches with regret as he realizes that somewhere private to talk could also be interpreted as somewhere private to murder her, and she doesn't owe him the consideration she's already shown in keeping his secret, much less the consideration of sticking her neck out in trust that he's really given up on the hit.
"Or you don't have to, we can stand around here and use metaphors if you want. Or I can just leave. Anything's good, really."
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
Not everyone is gone after all. The sound of footfalls and the sight of an approaching shape draw Catenna's eyes upwards again - and who she sees actually surprises her a little.
Lowering her bottle of water to rest on one thigh, the Moon Shaman tilts her head to one side, her eyebrows rising in shallow arcs. "I suppose that can be arranged," she concedes.
If she has considered the possibility that Ivan might shank her, Catenna shows no sign of it. She slides down off the rock, gesturing with a flick of one fan. "Over here is a little more out of the way," she invites quietly, beginning to move with a smooth gait that has just a bit of sway to it - her dancing shoes are a little higher than her normal ones. The Owlet flutters over to perch on her shoulder.
'Over here' turns out to be past a stand of high rocks, to a spot along the beach where the quiet rush of the surf would easily make quiet conversation inaudible much past this stretch of sand. With a quiet smile, Catenna looks out over the water.
It fades as she turns, bringing her attention back to Ivan. "I take it that the Caravan Kinship no longer present targets worth pursuing for you," she begins, her tone level and not especially judgmental.
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
She surprises him by accepting the request -- maybe she's not that threatened by him, considering how she threw him around the battlefield last time. Even so, he feels badly about the possibility that he left her wondering if she needed to always be watching her back for so long. Even people with amazing gravity magic need to sleep, or relax sometimes.
He follows her out past the rocks and to the edge of the surf, casting a baleful look out at the ocean before he looks back to her. The brief attempt at eye contact turns out to bring a powerful combination of terror and shame, and he continues in more of an oceanwardly direction: "Yes. It turned out... there was a small misunderstanding behind, uh... the ultimate purpose of the assignment. I meant to tell you specifically that I'd stopped, but..." he never actually mustered the courage to specifically seek her out and face her again in a non-murdering context. "...but I didn't." He shifts his weight, intensely self conscious. "I hoped Jacqueline might tell you." It's quite possible she did--but Ivan doesn't know either way.
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
Catenna turns to rest herself lightly against a large boulder sitting by the surf. The ocean laps against the far side of it. Folding her arms across her midsection, she crosses one angle over the other, pale grey eyes settling on the young man.
Her body language doesn't telegraph too much - mostly because she's watching him closely. But her expression's tough to decipher, reserved at it is. When Ivan does glance at the ocean like that, she dips her lashes just slightly.
But he's looking away, and Catenna merely tilts her head to one side, clearing her throat slightly but letting him speak his piece. And so it's spoken: It was all a misunderstanding. Brushing back a curl from her cheek, she nods simply. "I am glad that you stopped, whether you chose to tell me or not. I can see why you would avoid me. Things did not go especially well last time.
"One wonders what your plans are now, without this assignment. Particularly given that your friend Naelle did not seem to realize that you have, to this point at least, been a contract killer."
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
"I hope you weren't..." It feels presumptuous to say 'scared,' so he settles on, "...inconvenienced. From waiting so long to know for sure, I mean."
Ivan stays standing just as he is, moving only to fidget or to surreptitiously glance toward her for some sense of her response.
"Lubov put me in the Guard as a mercenary to gain favor with them -- I think he envisioned sending me after some of their more elusive enemies and gaining glory for it. The first of those was you guys. But -- he didn't count on Lord Leo being the kind of person who wants his enemies to be redeemed, not murdered. Not only wasn't it a sensible idea, it wasn't even an assassination, really... he thought I was going to be able to do it openly."
Ivan shakes his head, remembering Leo's shocked response and his somewhat chilling insinuation that it had been 'brave' of Ivan to provide even the highly edited version of the story that he gave.
"...so, that's been sorted out, and I'm between assignments now. I'm not sure what I'll be asked to do next."
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
"I was a little," Catenna concedes with a slight dip of her head, raising her shoulders and then lowering them again. "I would be lying if I said you were the first person who has ever tried to track me down and kill me."
There's a flicker of obscure sadness behind Catenna's eyes. Her lips come together, and she looks down for a few seconds, then back to Ivan again as he begins to explain things.
Exhaling through slightly parted lips, the Zortroan nods along with Ivan's explanation, her expression broken by a faint, wry smile as it's revealed how Lubov underestimated the White Knight's nature. "I had a feeling that the White Knight might object. He does strike me as the sort of person who is very... forward in how he approaches those who oppose him. Though I know he's quite upset with myself and Cyre."
As Ivan reveals that he's between assignments, Catenna nods, unfolding her arms to brush back a lock of hair. "What is it that you would like to do next?" she asks. "You seem, at least, to enjoy yourself when you are with Lydia."
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
"He is very upset, but he seemed almost... puzzled? I think he almost literally said he expected better of you. From what I've heard about the situation, it was pretty complicated. And Lady Mauri is kind of... fearsome, I can imagine anyone fighting pretty hard against her in self defense if a fight got started."
You seem, at least, to enjoy yourself when you are with Lydia.
Ivan looks sharply at her a moment, with wide eyes. Is that a thing that people who barely know him are noticing, now?! Whatever this is has gone way too far!
"What makes you say that?!" he asks.
When he recovers, though, he considers her question more earnestly. "If I had absolute freedom to decide what to do next..." he says, looking out at the sea, "I would magically rewind the world by about ten years and sort out a bunch of things that should have gone differently."
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
Catenna sighs and folds her arms, her shoulders rising ever so slightly, then settling again. "It was an unpleasant situation and we offered the Lady Mauri that we would trouble Althena's church no more provided we could seal a single statue of one of our Guardians - Celesdue of the Moon. The Lady... demurred. Rather violently. But that is old soup, so to say, and I do not know if chewing it for you will resolve our differences with the White Knight and his family."
The talk of Lydia clearly flusters the young killer, and Catenna briefly indulges in a quiet smile, but it fades soon enough. "Observation, mostly. Lydia is a very kind person."
But he takes her question seriously, and she can't help but read a flicker of regret into the way he speaks of things. With a frown, the Moon Shaman lowers her eyes, breathing out a low breath of resignation. "Isn't that always the way it is," she murmurs. "There are things we all regret in our lives...."
She too looks out over the water, rising from her rock and beginning to move across the sand. Her steps are light, almost silent, as she comes up to stand to Ivan's right. "I remember being there. I had just been cast out by my family and I was wandering alone, wishing I could change things that I could never change. I was the only one who chose to be something more than a weapon born from the womb of mankind, and my siblings loathed me for it. It is not an enviable place to be."
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
"Well, yes, observation, but what did you observe? I'll have to make sure not to do it anymore..." He hates to put so fine a point on it, but obviously the issue has gone beyond a few bent rules and cracks in his armor if near strangers are noticing it in the midst of the chaos of a large group.
... not that Catenna is an ordinary near stranger, given her history, and the similarities with his own.
She goes into some of those, now, telling him more about her life after she chose to go her own way from her family.
He lifts a hand to claw his hair away from his face in a self-conscious gesture.
"I don't like to compare my situation to yours. That sounds awful. I've mostly just done things I shouldn't, and refused to do things I should. And I probably won't change that. I can't relate to being cast out for wanting to do the right thing and have a real life."
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
"I'm not telling the story because it's directly comparable to what you've gone through," Catenna says mildly, her eyes still on the horizon. "I'm telling it because I think you deserve to know that following your heart can be a lonely and challenging road - but that you have advantages I did not. Friends, for one, and a sister I suspect would support you."
Letting that hang there a moment, Catenna cants her head to give Ivan a quick glance down, then back up. Her smile is small and knowing. "...I cannot say it is any one thing that I notice," she admits, her tone a little more relaxed. "Only that she seems to fluster you. I can understand that. Lydia can be very disarming."
The Moon Shaman briefly adjusts one of her sleeves; they only come down to a spot just above her elbow, belling dramatically around her biceps. The outfit really resembles something Jean would wear for a show.
"What do you think of Lydia?" she asks with a cock of her head.
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
Following what heart! Ivan's heart just wants to stop having to make so many decisions and for him to not have to be looked at quite so much. At any rate, it seems like it would be a lot less lonely to just quit, although it might be a much shorter and more terrifying life. He sits silently with her point, shrugging a little to aknowledge he heard it.
What do you think of Lydia?
That jolts him out of his silence. "What do you mean what do I think of her? She's... disarming, you already described her perfectly well, there's no need for me to add anything!"
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
There's something telling about the way Ivan tries to elude answering the question.
Catenna's smile is small and accepting, but the way her eyes focus on him is more penetrating. Is she reading something behind his expressions? Is he being transparent again? "I see," is all she says, brushing a coil of long dark hair away from one dusky cheek. "She can be very sweet as well, can't she? She has a way of seeing things in people that even others cannot see in themselves. I admire that in her."
The Moon Shaman holds her arm out; with a flutter, the soft white Owlet descends from the rock, coming to perch on her arm. With a shrug, Catenna turns to better face Ivan. "By the way," she says, "I am sorry I threw you in the ocean. I gather that you are not fond of the water at all."
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
"Is she sweet? I guess? I don't know. I don't pay attention to who's sweet or not," Ivan says. He folds his arms, feeling extremely transparent. What would someone say if they really didn't care, and why can't he gather enough composure to say something like that??
I am sorry I threw you in the ocean.
"It was probably the perfect place to throw me, under the circumstances," Ivan says. He imagines if he'd actually succeeded in that mission, he probably would have gotten into deep trouble within the Guard. There was a time when he had already realized that and was willing to do it anyway just to prove he wasn't soft enough to be persuaded.
But he's glad he failed, and was persuaded a little, and that they both escaped those fates.
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
"Sometimes you do not have to be looking for sweetness to see it. It has a way of insinuating itself into your life." Catenna once again smiles quietly, with something in her eyes that makes it seem like she somehow knows all of Ivan's secrets.
Is he that transparent? Or is she just sharp?
When Ivan answers her apology, Catenna blinks with something entirely different: Actual surprise. She raises her eyebrows and cocks her head to one side, a little frown tugging at her lips. "Well, it was in terms that I did not want to hurt you. But I also do not really have anything against you, and I figured from the swearing that water is not especially... welcome to you, if that makes sense?"
For a moment, Catenna hesitates, and then offers up a quiet smile. "...Do you know how to swim?" she asks. "If you don't, I can show you how... if you like."
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
Ivan makes a face. Having his life insinuated into sounds about right, even though he knows he took some of the steps toward Lydia. He could have just refused the cake and let her be sad about it and left it at that. He didn't have to start the treasure hunting thing. He didn't have to keep encouraging her. He DID have to give her a gift, because she saved his life, but it didn't have to be a bangle, maybe it should have been something dissappointing and utilitatian.
At Catenna's offer to teach him to swim, Ivan groans. "I do know how to swim, I'm just... ... ... bad at it?"
He frowns. Maybe that qualifies as not knowing how to swim? She probably gathered he's capable enough not to immediately drown, or he already would have done so when she threw him in. He couldn't honestly say it wasn't a little harrowing getting to shore that time, though.
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
The face he makes is virtually all the confirmation Catenna needs. She gives her lashes a quick bat, her smile just the slightest bit impish.
The slyness is gone just as soon as it appeared. When Ivan groans like that, Catenna rests both hands at her hips, the Owlet hopping up to perch on her shoulder. "That is all the more reason to practice," she encourages. "Spira is very beach-focused. It cannot hurt to learn comfort in the water. If you like, I can give you a few lessons sometime that might help you manage things a little better."
From her shoulder, the Owlet wiggles her tail - and then, quietly, comes a voice, low and feminine, more felt in the mind than heard.
<Please be careful in the water, dear heart. Obsession does still exist.>
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
"I will... uh... consider that offer..." Ivan can think of a lot of reasons not to go swimming with Catenna and the first 19 or so of them are about how it would be embarassassing, a few of them have to do with how he can't accept favors from somebody he tried to kill so he'd need to pay for it somehow, and yet another one is about the cold he might catch afterward.
"Actually, my sister tried to teach me to swim before, we couldn't even really figure out what I was doing wrong..."
At the Owlet's warning, Ivan blanches. "Do you have a sea monster stalking you??" Apparently that's the conclusion he jumped to from that vague statement. He adds sea monsters to the end of the list of reasons why he shouldn't swim with Catenna.
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
There are worse things than swimming with Catenna! At least she doesn't sink. "I am glad. I do not know if Lydia can swim, but it is a useful skill to have, nevertheless!"
With a blink, Catenna smiles as Ivan reveals his EXPERT TRAINING. "Oh, Talia, you mean? I'd never met her until she began hanging around with Jacqueline, but I can see the resemblance now."
When the young man pales before her, the Moon Shaman blinks once, then ohs softly, glancing at the soft white ball of feathers on her shoulder. "Oh, not at all. My companion talks in that fashion. This is Saarda-Shanta, a spirit of Celesdue, Guardian of the Moon. She has traveled with me for some time now."
Saarda-Shanta bobs her head, her big yellow eyes fixed on Ivan. If Catenna was reading him like a book before, the Owlet seems to see straight through him in a way a small bird should not be able to. <I went swimming once. It involved floating in a fish bowl.>
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
"Lydia can sort of walk under the water...." Ivan blushes a bit at having such a ready answer to that.
Catenna introduces her owl. It is a cute owl, but it pierces him with its stare in a way that is quite unnerving. Ivan is... not particularly calmed by any of this.
"Aaaaa," he responds to the owl, quietly. "Wait, that wasn't words."
He takes a breath. "I mean, a fishbowl seems like a good, manageable size. The whole ocean is a lot. I don't recommend it at all."
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
"Yes, it is one of her many talents," Catenna answers Ivan blandly, a little twinkle behind her eyes the only telltale sign of her actual feelings - a hint of mild warmth at having again coaxed another suggestion out of him that he'd rather not have her know. Alas!
Saarda-Shanta blinks twice, then bobs her head once again. <The bowl was dry, really. It had a propeller on it. I would not like to do it again, but at least it moved through the water.>
"Some of our companions are very clever with devices," Catenna reveals with a little shrug. "They designed a submersible to help Saarda-Shanta join me in the Gusong Monastery."
Curling her hand, Catenna lightly brushes behind the Owlet's head with the edge of her thumb, the tiny bird closing her eyes a moment. The Shaman herself merely smiles. "In any case, the invitation is open to you to practice swimming. And if you like, we can keep it between the two of us."
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
Ivan wishes Catenna would stop giving him all of those knowing looks when he says something about Lydia!
The owl explains her fishbowl adventures in greater detail.
"Oh--" Ivan blinks at the owl. "Isn't that more like boating than swimming?" Regardless, the thought of the little owl in a propeller-driven fishbowl is... super adorable.
You can keep it between the two of us.
Ivan looks back at Catenna flatly. "I don't know if you're aware of this, but you also are a ... person." That didn't come out comprehensible at all. "I mean. It's not a secret if you know about it too!" Technically it is still a secret, but apparently not secret enough for Ivan.
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
"Ah, but the thing about secrets is that you need two people to keep the really intriguing ones," Catenna points out - and here she can't keep a catlike little smile off her face.
"Oh, I am sure you could know something on your own - but in this case, I know something about you, and you know something about me. And that's what makes a secret, is it not? One of us knows something about the other, but it remains between the two of us. And it can stay there, of course. I am hardly one to whisper personal secrets in the ears of others."
The Zortroan leans forward a little, hands at the top of her thighs as she smiles neatly. "Besides," she points out, "I already know that you are a poor swimmer. What more is there to be ashamed of? Someone knows of something you could improve and is helping you get better, and no one else need know."
Catenna snaps her fingers and winks once. A couple of little sparkles actually dance in the air. "And that is how a good secret works, yes~?"
<You are taking after Cyre more and more, dear heart,> sighs Saarda-Shanta.
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
"I don't think it will be intriguing as much as sad..." Ivan says.
Regardless, Catenna attempts to persuade him that it is safe to swim with her there is nothing more to be revealed.
He... isn't so sure about that, in a very literal sense. "I mean, swimming is a little, you know. When you're not throwing people into the ocean in the middle of the fight, usually like... you wear different clothes for it and all." Ivan attempts to hide a fluster under a mask of general grouchiness. Listen, he has (doesn't have!!) a thing for Lydia and all, but it has not escaped his notice that Catenna is a very good-looking lady!
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
"What is so sad about learning?" Catenna asks with a shrug. "It is not like I was born an expert at being a priestess."
But Ivan gets to the real embarrassment of it all - and Catenna looks down at herself. She blinks a couple of times.
Catenna's dancing outfits are not exactly unflattering. This one reveals her midriff and legs and otherwise flatters her pretty intensely. She hadn't even stopped to think about its effects. A hint of colour comes to her cheeks, and she brings a hand up to clear her throat before her eyes return to Ivan.
"Do you have a pair of swimming shorts?" she asks lightly. "My people are nomads... it took me awhile to get used to the idea of swimwear. But yes, you do wear swimwear, and yes, it does cover anything immodest!"
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
Ivan now finds himself not wanting to admit he may have an expanded definition of 'immodest,' at least when it comes to his own dress and behaviors. Perhaps this is hinted at by the fact that he's covered from head to toe in dark clothing despite Spira's sweltering heat (the heat actually doesn't seem to trouble him, either mentally or physically, but it still tends to read as eccentric).
In turning his embarassment against itself, Catenna... may have somehow won.
He shrugs, face reddened, as Catenna affirms that they would be wearing swimwear and alludes to a time in her life when this may not have been the case.
"No, I don't, but it's not like you can't get them like anywhere around this crazy swimming-obsessed place..."
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
Catenna has no idea how the hell Ivan isn't sweating up a storm in all that black. But then, some people just find a way to brood, no matter the weather.
As Ivan's face grows redder and redder, Catenna brushes a curl back from hr cheek with the edge of her thumb, offering up a quiet smile framed by a small blush of her own - she's obviously more comfortable with this sort of thing. "Then I would recommend picking one up," she says with a little nod. "And if you wish, it is possible to keep a shirt on when you swim - though the water will make it a little heavier."
She seems to take his recognition of the ease of obtaining a swimsuit as as close as she'll get to open accedence to her invitation. "We can meet again at about this time in... oh... perhaps a week? Here, once again. It will be our secret. Not even Lydia will have to know."
The smile she offers up for Ivan is kind and honest and utterly believable. She'll keep the secret. The secret of what he looks like in shorts.
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
Ivan tries not to go down the path of wondering in an endless loop whether it's more embarrassing to wear too much clothes while swimming or the normal amount.
When Catenna sets an actual meeting time, and looks to him for acquiescence, he turns a little bit away from her smile, but doesn't refuse the invitation. He nods and shrugs. "I'd be pretty impressed if you're actually able to teach me to swim properly..." he says. He's almost starting to get superstitious about his troubles with water.
"I don't like favors, though, so how can I repay you?" How is this scenario even happening with someone he tried to kill!
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
A part of Catenna cannot help but want to hug Ivan and rock him back and forth until all his self-loathing vanishes. The rest of her holds off, because that job has been claimed by someone a little more metallic than her.
All she does is smile and shake her head. "Do not count yourself out so quickly, Ivan. You've learned how to fight, right? Swimming cannot be much harder."
When Ivan dangles the prospect of repaying her, Catenna blinks once - but she covers the flicker of surprise with a tap of a finger against her chin, looking out over the water. She lets a breath out slowly, shifting her stance to cross one ankle in front of the other. "...It is a little unusual," she admits.
"I suppose you can repay me simply by treating Lydia well. She has a very kind heart. In a way, she is like a sister to me." A lopsided smile tugs at her lips.
"...And if you really must do more than that, you can always bring me a basket of fresh fruit from the Luca market. Mysteriously it's hard for me to go shopping there these days."
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
Ivan sputters at the reassurance. Catenna has gotten the wrong idea!
"It's not a self confidence issue! I can do lots of things! It's an... inexplicably nearly drowning a lot issue!"
He throws up his hands. "I guess you'll see what I mean next week. Maybe." He has to allow for the chance that he just sort of panics at the last moment and ditches the invitation. (Does he have to allow for it out loud though?)
"I... can handle the fruit, though." He lets the request about Lydia slide by and hopes she doesn't call him on it.
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
With a little frown, Catenna taps one finger against her cheek. "Well. Perhaps we can help you not nearly drown next time. It is worth a try, right?"
She lets the frown turn upside down, her smile mild and accepting. "I shall hope to see you, then. We will figure it out at that time."
The fruit is a simple enough request. She nods, lowering her hands and folding them at her waist. "That is kind of you," she offers up. "But please take good care of Lydia as well. She deserves wonderful things in her life."
With a glance to the clouds, she takes stock of the time before clearing her throat. "I should return to Jay and the others," she says. "Until next week, I hope you'll take care of yourself. I know that Talia would want that."
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
Ivan slouches, contrite perhaps about trying to ignore half of Catenna's requested 'payment.'
"I'll, uh... do my best with Lydia. Within reason." It seems to Ivan that being TOO kind to Lydia is basically being cruel to her, since isn't he essentially leading her on at this point? Literally leading her on! She said she would chase him! Aaaah.
Catenna prepares to take her leave. "All right, yeah, I'll see you then. I guess. Probably." He shrugs at the request to take care of himself. "I pretty much always do.. uh... bye."
It's so super weird to have people he tried to murder telling him to look after his wellbeing...
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
"I am sure you will figure it out." Catenna has one of those knowing little smiles on her face again. Uh-oh.
Turning away, Catenna curls her fingers in a little wave, throwing one last look back at the young assassin. Then she's moving off, her dancing heels carrying her back up the beach at an easy, casual gait that leaves her practically gliding along the sand without really sinking into it.
Once they're out of earshot, Saarda-Shanta blinks at her. <You're awfully kind to someone who tried to kill you.>
"It is important to Lydia," Catenna says simply, shrugging. "And... I would have wanted someone to be the same way to me, long ago."
The two are quiet as they move off.