2019-08-29: Search Out Your Own Truth
- Log: Search Out Your Own Truth
- Cast: Josephine Lovelace, Lily Keil
- Where: Thunder Plains
- Date: August 29, 2019
- Summary: As promised, Josie shows Lily the cannon in the hopes it might jog her memory. Josie asks the most important question. Lily considers an impossible possibility.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
Josie is not the type to keep a promise -- not really.
But in this case she's made good on what she said to Lily and invited her along on the trek back north.
It's always better not to cross the Thunder Plains alone, anyway. As a few Fiends made plain (ex-Fiends, now).
"Here we are," she says, once they arrive at the place near Macalania where she'd hidden the cannon. Shuffling aside some fallen tree limbs and moving some dried plant matter, she soon has the somewhat dusty cannon out into the light and kneels alongside it.
"I can't open it up like this -- don't have the tools for it. I Wouldn't want to anyway, with all the sand and dirt around. But take a look." She pats the cannon on its top side, as if to show it off like a proud parent, a little bit. "We made some modifications, like I said. So it's not really the same bad news you got to know. But who knows?"
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Safer, wiser. ...It's convenient, in a way, the way monsters here in Spira tend to dispose of themselves so abrubtly. Strange in others. Mostly strange.
Still soaked from the transit, Lily crouches down, knees bending as she looks over the cannon and its hiding place. A nod, to the explanation. "Yeah, wiser not... Regardless, thank you."
To say that she has mixed feelings upon seeing this cannon arm would be an incredible understatement on Lily's part; anger, in memory; sadness. ...Fascination, questioning...
And sure. Impressed. It's quite the weapon.
"So I see," Lily answers then. "Still, it should be good enough. I shouldn't have to see all the innards, and it retains the same basic shell."
"Gryndille's arm..."
She didn't bother to bring a weapon besides her knife. Her armored clothing is more than sturdy enough to have made the journey anyway.
"...<Inbuilt cannon>," she murmurs in an ancient language, and, pulling off one of her gloves, reaches out to run a hand along the great barrell.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"It's made of pretty tough stuff," she says, nodding once. "But take it from me: dust and stuff plays merry hell with machines. And electronics. And ARMs, sometimes. Ever clean sand out of a pistol?" She flashes Lily a lopsided grin. "I made this sturdy enough to keep most stuff out, though I'm betting it's gonna need one hell of a tune-up once we're back in Filgaia..." She shrugs, nonetheless, and plops down on the ground proper, scooting to one side to give Lily room.
"You can see we added the lights. The trigger, the sight, the works. Gryndille didn't need any of those," she points out, talking perhaps to fill in the silence as Lily takes in a part of a machine that once killed some of her friends.
"Twll you what. If you're up for it, I'll show you its guts sometime." A pause. "On Filgaia," Josie clarifies."
A nod follows, at the comment that the case is the same. "Sure does. Don't fix what's not broken. And we kept what parts of the innards we had to," she adds, tapping some of the more solid casing around the edges. "But most of 'em were useless if you're not a machine."
The barrel is smooth and only slightly chill to the touch.
Josie, meanwhile, rolls up a cigarette.
"Hey," she says, glancing up from her work.
"What do you think?"
A pause again, before Josie explains what she means.
"Mistaken identity? Or... are you a descendant?"
She turns to look at Lily.
"Or are you Sharon?"
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"...Heh," Lily answers, remembering something--but then, memory is kind of a double-edged issue itself at the moment. "I have," she says simply. "I imagine you're right either way. It's not like you've had decent maintenance facilities for a while. I'm used to going long periods without that, but..." A gesture.
After all; she was at the warfront in the Avehan desert for some time.
"Yeah, I see. Its targetting systems were elsewhere, and you would've have had the materials to use all its hookups..."
She pauses, then. After a moment, "...Thanks. I'd appreciate that."
Lily continues her surface investigation, though she can only get so far; there would've been no need for an external trigger mechanism on the original machine, for instance. "...?" Lily starts, barely a noise, when Josie starts to ask questions. But that...
For a few moments, Lily stops, and only looks in the reflection the metal gives, vague and curved as it is, before she reaches into her jacket and pulls out a cigarette case of her own.
"...You want the truth?" Lily answers, without looking to the other woman at first.
She pulls one from the case, sets it to her lips, and as always, circuitry lights up the back of her hand, orange-red luminence prceding the flame that licks the edge of the cigarette.
Lily finally turns, exhaling, to look at Josie. "...I think it was right," the sorceress answers. "I don't know how," she admits. "But we've seen something like it, haven't we?"
"...A descendent wouldn't match biological signatures in the least. Our understanding of genetics is pretty limited, but we know that much. Maybe it was some kind of mistake."
"But it's like... I can almost remember. Like how when I realized I knew the language. I didn't know, until I heard it, at that ruin."
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"It's fine for most guns," Josie says, disarmingly. "Gunsmoke's not a problem, though I wouldn't do it in a desert. Even the Reaper's Hand I've been keeping up with." She gestures towards the cannon. "That is another story. Lots of crevaces. Big gun. Mystery parts, and here's poor little me with only standard ARMs tools," she finishes, mock-pouting.
"Bingo. So anything we couldn't make sure worked, we scrapped. That thing's still a bastard to carry, you know." She sighs. "Maybe I should get a buggy and strap it on? ...Except a buggy'd go flying back every shot. They make 'em light, you know. I'd probably need a tank or somewhat. At least when it's on the ground the recoil's down, right?" The absorbers and redirectors help with the essential physics of it too. "It was a trick a half to make it light enough to carry and not so light it'd fly away with each shot, you know."
Falling into silence, Josie lights her rollup with a snap of electricity. Soon she is smoking like a chimney.
"Let's hear it, Tiger."
She's silent, listening. Taking a drag of her cigarette, sure enough. But listening.
"...You think so. That'd make you older than me, kiddo," she says, lips splitting into a grin. "But you know, there's weird enough stuff in the world. Jadelet -- Jade, rather, that's Emeralda -- ain't exactly 'normal' either, if you catch my drift. So. Maybe you're Sharon. Maybe it's a mistake."
Her gaze redirects, towards Macalania proper and the sky above. "As long as you're okay with the possibility, that's all that matters. Right?"
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"Delicate machinery. ...It's funny, how fragile it can be, the more powerful it is, in a way. But I guess not that surprising. The same is true for blades, soldiers..."
Heh. Just normal tools. "Really roughing it out here, huh."
She considers; naturally, her mind turns to that very set of physical problems. How to make it work better, accomodate the recoil...
"I imagine so," she agrees. "I can think of ways to maybe compensate, but making it portable or generally accessible to others..."
Her heart's not quite in this science problem yet, though. Josie's smoking; Lily, too, takes another drag after she answers, looking down at the cannon again--at her work, if this is accurate. A beat--
"..."
Beat, "So that's where you'd go first, hm?" she starts, and glances back. Funnily, the joke helps. Lily gestures vaguely with her cigarette, "Emeralda is fascinating. And something, all right."
"The facts hang together, such as they are. But is that what matters?" She looks forward, off to Macalania proper. "...I guess so. I've been thinking about that very issue for a while. For a long time, I've wondered--who am I? Where do I come from? And now that I might have the answer..."
"I have more questions. What does it mean? Can I tap into that memory, to that expertise? Why is it different?"
"I would be a lot older," she allows after that. "I haven't really talked about it in detail... with anyone, so far. I told Fei I wasn't going to expect him to start using a different name yet, the last time we did, but otherwise? I was expecting... I don't know, a set of parents, dead or otherwise, a nation or city to point to, maybe a name, sure. But this is a little more than that."
"...Being some genius doctor didn't help me treat Elly's injury, though." A shake of her head, as Lily looks down, and places her hand over the gun again. This time, her hand glows, faint violet patterns alighting, as she... feels out, the internals, thoughtfully.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"Yeah. I don't know a broadsword from a flamberge, but the way I hear it, even the best damn sword in the world will fail if you don't take care of it." Pause. "...Unless it's a magic sword, I guess. Those things are always cheats."
She shrugs, as if to wave the question off. "Guess so. Besides, I've gotta be careful-like around here. Spirans ask awkward questions when you've got an ARM opened up in front of them."
She shakes her head. "Yeah. I'll worry about it, maybe, when we get back. Least of my problems, honestly, and it's not like I plan on carrying this thing around on the regular..." She exhales more smoke.
"I call 'em like I see 'em," Josie replies, grinning mirthlessly. "She's got Ether, she's got an understanding of Zeboim script... you and she ain't alike, mind. For example, you stay in one shape," she explains. "But it's close enough that I can say that you being Sharon... not as impossible as I would've said a year ago, right?" She leans now, scooting up to use the rebuilt cannon as a backrest, her gaze on the sky above.
"Yeah. That's how it is. First you start with 'what's in this ruin', and you work that out. And then it's 'what's this', which then leans to 'whose was it', and so on, and so on..." She waves a hand in the air, stiffly.
"Makes you wonder if there's really a thing called 'truth' in this world. Or just too many Guardians-damned mysteries."
She lapses into silence.
"See. What I figure... use the name you like best. Don't worry about 'should I be Sharon or Lily'. If you like one better, take it. You wouldn't be the first or last Drifter to change their name."
She takes another long drag.
"So? Don't rag on yourself, kiddo. You don't remember, and that's assuming 'she' could've done anything either. Hell, that doctor friend of Fei's couldn't do jack shit," Josie comments, with a jerk of her head. "So come off it and start with what you can do."
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"Mm-hm. A sharp edge is fragile; it needs to be maintained." Beat, "Magic, though, is always cheating. It's the same for if you're actually using it, though. Get out of practice, and it's as good as trying to run after being in bed for three months."
Spira is like that. Lily shakes her head. "One of the many reasons I'll be glad to see the back of this place. It's all wrong." She pauses, then, and nods. "I might be able to come up with something later on, when we have some real parts. If nothing else I can think of magic that could make it easier, if we have to do it in a hurry."
She thinks, though. Not just on Emeralda. That, "Generally. These... markings, are machinery somehow, but I appear to mostly be flesh and blood. There are no obvious differences except for the part where I don't scar." A year ago...
"If I hadn't met Fei," Lily admits, "I wouldn't have thought it was possible. But you know... I guess that's true. It's not so different from looking into the past any other way, is it? Archaeology is archeaology, whether you have a personal tie or not."
Lily inhales, exhales, a smooth cloud of smoke her answer at first, as she considers in silence the matter of truth. ...And then she's quiet, until after a few more moments.
"...If truth were easy to uncover," Lily says, "We wouldn't have people looking for it, through the ages. Maybe that's part of why Yevon rubs me the wrong way. In the Nisan church... part of the practice is to search that 'truth' out for yourself, with those around you."
She nods, again, thinking. "I guess it's true. ...She, I? Whatever. Robotics, human nervous systems, they aren't the same. And maybe..." She makes a noise of realization, "...Maybe it's the same. Maybe I'm just out of practice. If I really am this same person somehow... Well, it's obviously been a while since I've gotten up to that kind of work."
"Yeah. You're right. What I can do. I shouldn't get caught up in brooding." A glance Josie's way. "But the name? ...I don't know. But 'Lily Keil' is something my father gave me. What of his I want to keep, what of his to discard... I haven't sorted it all out, yet. It's... complicated. Too complicated, and it's going to bite me in the ass soon enough."
There's a little spark at Lily's hand, as she reaches the triggering mechanism, and her magic fades. "...Yes," she murmurs. "There... there is something... There's something, the asme kind of feeling I got before. There is a link."
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"Heh." Cigarette in her right hand, between the fingers awkwardly, she gestures with her left; sparks arc from her fingertips. "You're telling me. Don't learn it right or don't use it enough, it's all the same in the end." She reclaims her cigarette from her right hand and simply lounges for a moment against the cannon.
"You're telling me. Almost seems like a paradise, but it's actually more like some secret hell. Gotta watch your back. Gotta mind the rules. And then there's Sin. I've seen enough of that thing for one lifetime," she sighs. "Even the rest of Lunar at least made some kind of damn sense. Didn't have monstrous whales destroying cities..." Josie glances over at Lily. "Might be worthwhile if we're stuck her another six months or whatever, but let's see how the cards settle, first."
Her gaze lingers there as Lily speaks about her markings. The fact that she doesn't scar. "Who knows," she has to settle for, ultimately, because she doesn't know. "Guess we'll find out."
Her lips quirk into a half-smile. "All of you damn kids," she remarks, shaking her head. "But that's how it is. And I can't really complain since it's worked out for me, yeah?" She shifts, against the cannon.
"Heh. Maybe it's the same, here. It's not like I went into archaeology for the work opportunity. My auntie used to say, 'the truth will out'." She shakes her head and settles back. "Sometimes, I do gotta wonder, though..."
She stares at the sky.
"Well, one foot before the other, eh? Both of us should stop sitting around and thinking so much. I've got another piece of the puzzle, and maybe so do you."
A pause, then.
"And not 'Lily Albus'? Y'know, I know a priest..."
She feels something in the cannon shift. A rumble, inside it. Josie sits up, pulling away from the cannon. "Whoa--"
A pause, where she reaches for her fallen cigarette. "...No kidding. I felt that. It knows you. Or someone like you."
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily glances to Josie for a moment. "Mm-hm," she agrees, and says little more of magic for the /moment/--because in the end...
Well.
"The water's nice," Lily allows. "Can't complain about that part. But Sin... I don't even know. I guess I'm mostly not thinking about it. Not my circus, not my problem, right? I can't go chasing giant monsters in times like these."
"...But hopefully yeah. We'll be out long before then."
"Not me. Not yet. But I /will/ know. If I have to figure it out myself, I will." Then she actually grins back. "I'd say we're going to give you gray hair, but..." She trails off on /that/ joke, letting the truth speak for itself. "I think maybe if things were different I might get more into that side of the Drifting life, thinking about the real science. But they aren't, yet."
"A piece of the puzzle..." Pause.
"I /bet/ you know a priest," Lily answers--and then sighs. "Maybe. I don't know. You know, most--most /people/, most men, wouldn't be so even about all this. He really is something special."
But she doesn't talk about her injury; instead, she nods, taking her hands off the cannon and focusing for the moment with her hands on her cigarette. "Me, or someone like me. And I've never met anyone that much like me. ...Like I said before; my power's... changed, before, with Gryndille. Maybe it's 'growing', instead. Maybe I left something in it. ...Maybe I left more than that."
"Either way, thanks. I don't have all the answers... But this gives me at least another."