2019-08-16: The Worst Part is the Waiting
- Log: 2019-08-16: The Worst Part is the Waiting
- Cast: Lydia Seren, Ivan
- Where: The Moonflow
- Date: August 16, 2019
- Summary: Ivan and Lydia await the upcoming fight with the Shadow Dragon cult to rescue Talia, spinning plans and pep talks to try to bolster their spirits, to no avail.
===============================<* The Moonflow *>=============================== The Moonflow is a large river that bisects Spira's largest island into southern and northern halves. Strange flowers called Moonlilies grow on the Moonflow's banks, attracting pyreflies that gather on its surface at night, making the water sparkle. Although a beautiful area, the weather tends to be overcast more often than not, the souls of the dead providing the most reliable source of illumination. The primary method of crossing the Moonflow is aboard a shoopuf - an elephantine creature that can swim across the expansive river. The crossing service is funded by the Temple of Yevon and is free of charge. BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wcVnJQ-FN4
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
It turns out that at least part of the reason why Ivan stalked out of the house was because he had something to get off of his chest. That something comes out not in a yell or a scream or anything of the kind, but a pillar of fire that erupts all around him. Well... there's a bit of a yell in there, too, but he seems to be stifling it out of some consideration for not raising a false alarm that they're under attack again, and it comes out as more of a strangled noise of frustration.
Whether or not this spectacle proves cause for concern, he seems well enough afterward, without any fresh burns beyond the ones he got struggling with the bomb. His own fire has always been a friend to him.
After... detonating, he stands quietly amid flickering sparks, wondering what Talia's going through right now.
<Pose Tracker> Lydia Seren has posed.
Even when Ivan wants to scream his heart out he's considerate about it!!
Lydia isn't about to walk into a pillar of fire. She gave Ivan SOME time alone but figured she shouldn't give him TOO much time alone because that would also be bad!
She steps out afterwards, honestly feeling like she wants to scream herself and maybe unleash some heavenly rays against some unsuspecting nothings but Ivan's already well at the former and she lowers her head, looking away a bit as her fists tighten into fists.
They always go after the people she loves, she realizes. Her parents, her sisters, and now Talia.
She exhales slowly, closing her eyes tightly as if she might banish the world from her sight.
When she reopens them, there's nothing but flickering sparks. Fire can be pretty beautiful in a way. She approaches slowly.
"Hey," She says. There is nothing that can make this better except action and that action must be her rescue. "Do you want to eat something before we go? Make sure we're full strength?"
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
Ivan turns to see Lydia there. He doesn't respond at first, just looking back at her kind of glumly, like he's recharging energy in order to be able to continue his impression of being a person. But then he shakes his head and gives a shrug.
"We had just eaten when it happened," he says. "I don't think more food is going to make me any stronger."
<Pose Tracker> Lydia Seren has posed.
"Oh." Lydia says. "Okay. I didn't know."
She approaches him, weaving around the dregs of flame still flickering there and about. She rests a hand on his shoulder rather than go in for a hug or anything. She frankly wants to, but part of her feels like it'd be taking advantage of the poor guy, so shoulderpat is what she offers here.
"We'll get her back." She says. "And we'll teach 'em what it means to fuck with us."
She shouldn't say it like that, she thinks. You're going to make mom's ears burn red. They're children too...
..but they hurt Ivan. And Talia. And Ammy. Maybe right now she doesn't care about all those reasonable points. Even though she should.
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
Ivan shrugs again. He knows the message beneath what she's saying -- even though it's not really true that they can know what will happen when they charge in, but there aren't words that can solve this and in the meantime all they've got to prop themselves up with is optimism.
But sometimes the enemy is just better. More prepared, better equipped, more ruthless. What's really going on is they aren't sure and they're going to roll the dice on Talia...
"Did you guys settle on any kind of plan?" Ivan asks. "You don't have to wait for me to weigh in or anything, I think it's probably bad luck to let me help make plans that matter."
<Pose Tracker> Lydia Seren has posed.
Lydia is probably quietly appreciating that Ivan is not calling her out on the weak objective evidence Lydia has supporting her claim though Lydia wasn't exactly expecting such words to help. How could they? But sometimes you say the words that won't help because sometimes they mean more later when these troubles are over one way or another. He was reassured--not effectively--but someone at least made the effort.
"Well... Not anything we really haven't already gone over. I did-uh--consider calling over the pirates that came over here. They were supposed to fight Sin I guess but we stopped that? You remember right? Captain Harken? He'd probably like to at least fight ninjas. But that's what I got."
She kicks at the floor. "Sorry. I'm not really a tactical genius or anything. All I can really do is make noise." and Artillery strikes but they don't seem like they'd be very helpful barring a worst case scenario.
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
"It's not like I am, either," Ivan says, of being a tactical genius. "Thank you for being... a part of this at all."
She didn't have to decide after seeing the situation that she would dive into it to fight ninjas, or whatever she calls them. Lydia has the advantage that whatever happens down there, she'll probably survive it, but if what happens down there is watching Talia and possibly everybody else die, it's not really much of an advantage at all. Besides, death cultists might know how to kill even Lydia. Who knows. He needs to stop hyping them up like that, though...
"I'm trying to think, if I had a hostage... what would make me kill them and what would make me wait. It's... it comes down to whether you think you might still get what you want, right? You don't kill them unless you've got what you want or you know you're not going to. Is there some way with illusions or something to make them confused about whether or not Katherine really came?"
...Ivan may be trying to plan in spite of himself.
<Pose Tracker> Lydia Seren has posed.
"Yeah, that's why I'm thinking maybe don't call in backup. They may be ruthless but they also have like supreme confidence in their way of doing things so so long as they think they have a chance off winning just by hitting us real hard, they'll probably try to do that rather than kill a hostage--which could screw up their own plan. But I think if we uh... just kinda bring everyebody upon them, they'll probably be like 'we'll leave talia as a warning' you know? But I don't think they'll do it over a few people coming along."
She kicks her foot along the ground and pauses as Ivan thanks her. Her cheeks silver, though this is less because she's feeling flirted at or anything and more because she's genuinely embarrassed at being called out for helping for some reason.
Maybe because she kind of wonders if it's her fault somehow.
"I'm pretty sure that Katherine's illusions can do almost anything. I mean, she made an illusion house. There's probably some limits, but I don't know them. I'm sure she could make one of us look like her. Or all of us. If we confuse them, I think they would hesitate before doing anything we don't want 'em to--or at least they'll just try to hurt us, which is kinda good? Better they try to hurt us than Talia right? course there's no guarantees but... We can at least stack the odds as much as we can."
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
Ivan would be quite confused to know that Lydia was wondering whether to blame herself. It seems that they're all kind of internally angling for the blame. Well, all of them except probably Ragnell. Ragnell's really got life figured out except for that one thing that inspired her to try to destroy a world once.
"Yeah, maybe something like that -- if everyone is her, then they can wonder if people came with, or if she's alone and made a lot of decoys, or maybe she's not any of the copies and she's sneaking up on them from somewhere else... they wouldn't be sure what to do yet or if she broke their rules. Maybe...?" In his imagination, almost anything they might do would upset them enough to kill Talia in revenge. But it almost sounds like it could work.
<Pose Tracker> Lydia Seren has posed.
Lydia really isn't to blame but she's really seen a lot of friends and family kidnapped at this point and is starting to wonder if it's something she's doing. Talia isn't even the third person in her life in the past two years to be kidnapped. In fact, Lydia was ALSO kidnapped! So much kidnapping going around!!
"Yeah I mean according to their own teachings, she'd be expected to fight back at least a little right? They'd probably be pissed off if she didn't like rip a heart out of someone's chest or whatever these people do to express themselves."
She pauses. "Er, not that she's going to do that. But maybe they'll think she would?"
She kicks at the floor again. "Whatever happens though." She says. "It isn't your fault."
What a hypocrite, Lydia, but if the worst happens...
...She doesn't want to think about that, but she doesn't want him to...
...It can't happen. It just can't, she tells herself. "Fuuuuuuck this noise..." Lydia manages.
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
"Maybe?!" Ivan doesn't know the teachings of the Shadow Dragon Cult very well. He doesn't even know if they're honorable enough to let Talia go alive if they got what they wanted. He's a little more comfortable with the though that they wouldn't and their best hope is to stall them and free her. Because in that scenario there's no reason for him to do anything treacherous. It's probably good the others showed up, as well. They can watch him and keep him in line.
"I hope?"
Lydia tells him it isn't his fault. He kind of throws up his arms.
"I don't think I did it or I caused it but I sure as hell wasn't any help to stop it..."
<Pose Tracker> Lydia Seren has posed.
Lydia flinches when Ivan shouts suddenly, but she doesn't seem like upset by it--just surprised. She can hardly blame him for being angry. Or upset. It's just a shock. It's nice to think that the song that will play when this is all over is a victory one but it's hard to believe in that right now.
"Well, I wasn't even here." Lydia says grumpily. "But it wouldn't have mattered if I was. I would've been just as incapable of stopping them as anyone. Maybe nobody can stop them the way we're trying to stop 'em."
She lowers her head. "If their plan had made it even slightly capable to fail, they wouldn't have done it. Cause they're all a bunch of cowards, that's what they are. That's why they usually go after children..."
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
Ivan groans. "If it's like THAT then they sound invincible and it doesn't matter if we win because they can come and take anybody they want for easy revenge whenever they want to. I can't handle that, it's easier if we just screwed up..."
He hopes there is a 'later' where they can worry about these guys pulling something else, but if they get there, he doesn't want to think of them as holding that much power, even if it is because of incredibly careful planning due to cowardice or whatever.
<Pose Tracker> Lydia Seren has posed.
"Well..." Lydia says. "It's how I feel right now. That it doesn't matter. That some other friend of mine is going to get kidnapped. Or family member. Or whatever. If I count my own kidnapping this is like my fourth maybe fifth rescue mission. LUCKILY I haven't failed to lose anyone on a rescue mission but..."
She just flat out sits herself down on the ground. "...Sorry, I wanted to help but I guess I can't. Maybe we should start kidnapping them and see how they like it."
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
"It wouldn't even bother them, probably," grumbles Ivan. "They don't care about their own members. If we kidnapped them they'd think the ones we kidnapped ran away and try to come kill them or whatever." Dammit, it's just getting worse, and Ivan is helping make it worse. He doesn't know what to say to Lydia feeling like her friends will never stay safe for long...
"I... I think we need to stop talking about it and just try to fix it. Even if it can't stay fixed..."
<Pose Tracker> Lydia Seren has posed.
"Ugghhh you're probably right too. They suck! They suck so much!" Lydia throws her arms up into the air and flops onto her back, looking up at the sky. When Ivan makes his suggestion that maybe they just don't talk about it, Lydia doesn't answer immediately.
And then she says, "Yeah. You're probably right." Another pause. For a moment it might seem like Lydia doesn't have anything to talk about with Ivan. Maybe he really is boring and she's wrong for showing interest in him!
But then she says, "Did you read any more of that book? What happened to Luke?" She sits herself up again. "Did everything turn out okay for him?"
Wait wasn't Luke also kidnapped?? Well it was an accident so it doesn't count. "Though--you didn't read too far ahead didja?"
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
Ivan is taken off guard when Lydia goes not to 'let's go fight them right now' but rather to 'let's find a new topic to distract ourselves.' He looks down at her where she flopped onto the ground, a blank expression on his face as his brain skips off the track.
He doesn't want to think about anything else, yet!! He just wants to get through this...!
But maybe Lydia needs a distraction before she can refocus on the daunting task before them.
He sighs and sits down near where she flopped, and sets about recounting the story to her. At least that one ended happily. Well... for some of the characters...