2019-08-27: Watch Out
- Log: Watch Out
- Cast: Loren Voss, Lily Keil
- Where: Mi'ihen Highroad
- Date: August 27, 2019
- Summary: A chance meeting is had by mutual enemies. Loren gives a warning. Lily makes an observation.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
In the end, Loren has decided -- he needs to get out of here.
'Here' being Djose temple, specifically.
And not, well, forever. It isn't as if he can escape what hounds him.
But, as Loren stands on the steps to the temple, his gaze up at the sky -- the sun has set, it is just now growing dark -- he's increasingly finding despair giving way to a sort of manic desperation. He... isn't going to be able to atone for anything if he's... just curling up in the dark again.
Again?
...He must have, before. When it all happened the first time around.
Tomorrow. He's made up his mind, he's heading out tomorrow. His gaze averts from the sky; he rubs at his right eye, as if something were agitating him.
He has a headache again.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Djose Temple--frankly, getting out of here is wise. It's inevitable that the conflict will range here; it's a perfect location to camp in preparation to move up the Highroad into the Moonflow. Which... is precisely why someone else is here, actually.
Someone who understands that particular kind of movement from despair to mania, but who can't place it among the general malaise of Spira at this time, of people worried and afraid. She doesn't talk much about that sense, anymore.
What is there to say?
Not up in the sky, but down the way, farther into the rocky courtyard of the Temple, is a woman in travelling gear. She doesn't pretend to be Spiran, really, but her long, black hair rules out the question of being Al Bhed in general. Armored jacket, sturdy pants, goggles at her neck...
And familiar golden eyes.
"Don't priests usually get to bed early?" Lily Keil asks, but the lack of venom in her voice is a worrying sign. Instead of angry, she's... thoughtful.
She's watching, and it is a look vry much like a scientist observing her subject. Or a doctor observing a patient.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
North. He's going to head north.
And if anyone here says anything about it -- he's doing the head scribe's business, he settles on, the story he'll tell slotting into place for him with shocking ease. And, anyway, what 'the scribe' wants him to do anyway is find a way back...
He's about to turn back into the temple -- to prepare for the trip tomorrow -- when he sees a figure in the courtyard. He blinks, squinting into the gloom. Another refugee...?
Any chance of that is quashed when she speaks.
"...I'm a scribe, not a priest," Loren says, shaking his head. "What do you want? The priests are asleep," he 'reminds' her, staring her down in the semi-darkness. His hand moves to his hip, where a sword would normally be holstered.
There isn't one here, he's reminded; his hand drops to hang at his side.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Maybe someone would be proud of Loren's initiative.
Here and now, Lily looks right on, continuing to watch Loren in his reply. She doesn't use his name overtly--for the moment. But then, no one else is here anyway. "Where I learned about it, most of the scribes have also taken their religious orders. It's a fair assumption." She appears unmoved, for now. She isn't wearing a sword either, though.
...Just an old familiar knife, as weapons go.
"Heh. What do I want, huh? ...I guess if it's a fight I'd be in luck, wouldn't I? It's not like I need any more reason to want you out of the way than I already have."
"...I'm actually here scouting to see how much time there is before the Guard moves on this location. They'd be fools not to. Your presence is another variable. ...There are people who think you're dead, you know."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
He's spent weeks nearly sunk by guilt and despair, guilt over something he had done over a half-decade before. Maybe it was the recent business with van Houten -- maybe it was the crystalization of just what his fate would be, without question.
He's never going to find forgiveness. The only reason they have ever let him get this far is so that he can...
But if that's what his fate is, then...
If that's how it is going to be, then...
The breakthrough had only come the day before, when he had passed through it like an icy rain and reached...
...perhaps it could be called acceptance. Or perhaps, mania might be more accurate after all. There is no peace that comes with the place he has reached.
He feels wildly, wildly awake.
And it's into this storm that Lily Keil re-enters his life.
"If it's a fight you want--" he starts, some of that wildness within him itching to be loosed. But he shakes his head. "Start anything, Keil, and I'm calling the guards. You can explain yourself to the Warrior Monks." He, slowly, starts to descent the steps.
"...Mm." This, to her comment that the Guard is making its move north. "Tell me something I don't know. But they're not going to let them take another temple if they can help it," he says, pausing midway down the stairs.
Her other comment is met with silence.
"...So she is alive. I thought so."
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Guilt, despair--they're good for that. ...For Lily, mostly...
She finds herself watching him longer than she expected, even. 'Storm' is right; if she had Riesenlied's gift, maybe she could envision the sensation more clearly, but 'stormlike' is apt; it's as if that wildness comes in a fierce rain. He comes down the steps.
"That's tempting," Lily admits. "But I'll pass. It's a nice temple."
She tilts her head, thoughtfully, looks him over; it's different now that he's closer, away from the mass of people holed up inside.
"If they can help it," she repeats with emphasis. "That's the question. ...But like you say. I'm not checking if--I'm checking when."
She shrugs, after that. "Yeah, she is. Her and Fei both. And so are you, apparently."
She stops then, frowns, looking him over. "You're..."
"...Are you all right?" she asks, vague, but kind of guarded, looking him over in some apparent confusion. "You seem different."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
His stance shifts when she says she'll pass. It's almost, a little, like a fidget, a release of anxious energy. A part of him wants to fight, more than he ever did before, if only as a way of burning outwards what he feels inside.
How much long will it be before he has to pay back what he owes, in spades? He doesn't want to do it.
And he wants to do it more than anything else, to reach that point where he doesn't have to worry about 'when' anymore.
...I'm owed that much.
"'When', huh..."
Loren shakes his head.
"Probably not too much longer until they make the attempt. It's going to be bad." He shakes his head, lips twisted in something that might have been a grim smile from anyone else, and on him looks more like a grimace.
"...I figured they made it out. The golden girl lives again." He glances down at her. "She's a friend of yours, isn't she? I bet she asked you not to take revenge..." He outright scowls, as if to underscore what he thinks, there. "Anyway, forget it -- it's none of your business."
But he's going to kill her, he thinks again, like a promise.
Like a mantra. He can't suffer her to live.
Which, speaking of...
He regards Lily, as if assessing her anew. What was it that the Commander had said again -- turn an enemy into an asset?
His mind feels abuzz.
"...What are you talking about? I'm fine," he says, before loping another few steps downward, nearing her.
Are there other people from Gebler -- from Solaris -- in Spira? Or is it just him?
"So what about you? You don't look like you've changed at all."
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily has some of the same impulse... But less so right now, right here, around him. There's something unresolved there that saps the theoretical joy out of a good fight, out of making things simple, of having a reason to use power.
"I'm sure it will. These people aren't prepared for war. Not like us."
A grimace works. Lily looks into the distance for a moment, though of hcourse her attention doesn't really leave him fully. ...Even if the sheer hypervigilance she might've once showed is replaced by something else, something distant.
"The 'golden girl', is it? Is that how it is?" Lily glances to Loren, curious, though such a pleasant word doesn't quite fit the guarded exchange here. "I had something of the opposite impression of her. She doesn't seem cut out for the solder's life." A beat, and a faint noise that could be part of a laugh. "It's the kind of thing she would say. But I didn't ask one way or the other. ...And I'm not inclined to here. Even if I agree with her choice, even if we're enemies, you have a right to be angry at a betrayal. If it comes up again, we'll fight. That's all."
She considers--and shakes her head. Of course it's a vague feeling, how can she explain that? "...Nothing, I guess. Maybe the Ley up here is interfering with my Ether senses. Just something seemed different."
She smiles then, grimly, and there's some genuine amusement in it. She doesn't look like she's changed, huh? "...That's the secret," she says. "I haven't, physically. I look just like I did at eighteen. Not a single scar or mark."
She looks towards the path, vaguely, and then continues, "If I'm being honest, I'm trying to avoid making some big incident. Things are bad enough without waking up to find I've rearranged part of the lsndscape or something."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"Ha." It's not really a laugh, more like a dry huff of breath. "Anyone's more used to war than these," he murmurs, finishing his descent to the bottom of the stairs. "They haven't fought each other -- and those Al Bhed don't count," he continues. "They definitely haven't fought an outsider before. Sure, they have certain things in their favor, but..."
DeVriese had said not to underestimate them. There were forces out of Bevelle. More summoners, and all that brought with it. Sure.
They have numbers, he'll give them that. And on the other side, they have the unexpected.
And then, i hte middle of it, is Sin.
"...Think what you want," he says, narrowing his eyes. "She has a power few can match. They were considering her for the Elements you know -- why am I telling you this?" He shakes his head. "Anyway, save me your pity, or your sympathy, or whatever you want to call it. If I see her again, I'm going to kill her." His expression has gone hard, about as friendly as a hunk of granite.
"Even if I have to go through all of you and your friends to do it." At his side, his hand has curled into a fist.
He won't... he won't let her get forgiveness...
Thereafter he stares at her, as if puzzled, then shakes his head. "Well, fine, then."
She hasn't changed since he first saw her, really. He... he's not sure who he's looking at in the mirror anymore. It's the same old face, and at the same time, something is changing.
His brother, he thinks, had looked a lot more impressive when he was his age -- twenty, going on twenty-one -- before...
...Before he'd died.
And yet, when he tries -- just now -- to chase down how his brother died, he gets nowhere. Again, he rubs at the right side of his face, at his right eye, before his hand drops away.
He shakes his head as if to let the thought go. Never mind. It'll come to him later.
He remains put where he is, at the bottom of the stairs, watching her. "Restraint, from you?" He makes a noise that might be a sort of dry laugh. "Fine. I guess even a Lamb witch has to learn it eventually."
Says the man who just weeks ago upended some of the terrain around Lake Macalania.
"...This land's bad enough as it is, so maybe I ought to thank you for being so thoughtful, Keil." His left hand, at his side, twitches, as if in some sort of sympathy with the near-frantic push-pull within him. Running out of time, he's running out of time, he has to do something soon, he...
He turns back towards the steps, a melange of mania and directionless fervor bubbling within. He pauses about a step or two up, and glances back over his shoulder at her.
"...Watch out for the Maester."
And with that, he heads up the steps to the temple, slowly.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Anyone. That much is true. "...I agree," Lily says simply, though part of her questions the idea of agreeing with literally anything a Solarian of all things says. "It's not the same. Win or lose, it's going to be rough."
Lily doesn't think any amount of sheer power will do away with the simple facts of this war--that people introduced to warfare will suffer for it, that the soldiers involved will have lingering scars psychologically as well as physically. ...Well, most will, of the survivors.
There might be more like her.
"Hm. ...No argument on her power," Lily answers. Why is he telling her? She could make up an answer, but instead she'll file it away. She remember what Elly told her, about learning Ether their way, what it can mean...
"...So that's what's lit a fire under you," she comments, thoughtfully. "No, no pity. Not even sympathy. I can tell that you're serious. There's a purity to it that's... strange, from you."
She might not have realized she said that part aloud--it may not make sense. Either way, she can see...
Puzzled. That's fair--she's puzzled, too. But it's not as if she can tell him her concerns, what's on her mind--somehow, he or the others could make use of it, she's sure. But there is something odd. Hmmm...
His right eye. She notes; it's the same one as before. She watches that, for a moment. But--
"I guess," she allows about restraint. "You can thank the Demon of Elru for that much."
Not that she'll stop opposing Solaris. Still...
"Well, you're welcome," she allows, mostly to have something to say as she observes in those moments. This frantic nature is... strange. She can't help but feel some of it herself, can't entirely keep it separate. Which makes his comment even stranger to her.
"...?"
The Maester, he comments. But what does that mean? ...Which one, for that matter?
"..." He starts to walk away, and Lily doesn't stop him. She just watches, and if he looks back again, she'll be gone.