2020-03-14: Cardboard People

From Dream Chasers
Jump to navigation Jump to search
  • Log: Cardboard People
  • Cast: Loren Voss, Lan Lilac
  • Where: Damzena Desert
  • Date: March 14, 2020
  • Summary: Everything changes, without Loren ever being aware of it.

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    New and increased activities at Loren's level of engagement also mean a new and increased level of paperwork. Oh, of course -- it's nothing compared with what the higher ranking officers are saddled with. It's just the price of gaining that rank: no longer is he just the recipient of paperwork alone: some of it, he's creating anew.
    Yes, even as a medical officer. Yes, because of his assignments and duties and associations.
    ...Some of it's in triplicate, too.

    But while Loren is dutiful -- how can he not be, with the sins he bears -- and doggedly goes through the work that he needs to read and sign off on or attach his commentary to...
    It also hasn't escaped him that the reward for completed work is more work.

    So, leaving the latest behind, he's gone to take a quick walk and hopefully, hopefully forget about the pile that is -- physically and digitally -- still on his desk.

    Why can't anyone delegate their work to...

    That thought hangs for a moment, before he realizes, stopping in his tracks in the hallway, that they certainly have delegated.
    They delegated to him.

    Grimacing, the young captain stalks off for the atrium, vowing to make his planned fifteen minute break a thirty minute break out of sheer spite.

    Sure. Everyone hates him, but they don't have to rub it in.

    Or maybe, he thinks, pausing before the atrium entrance, it would be accurate to say that nearly everyone hates him.
    He's going to make a point of talking to Anaitis the moment he's off the clock -- assuming the engineer is also off. Even 'just talking' requires a level of coordination of schedules that just about drives him up the wall sometimes.
    Lunata had recommended taking it slow, but it's a different life between a Drifter and...

    He sighs, then opens the door.

<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

    Nearly everybody, maybe. But not Anaitis, and not Leah, and not Lan.

    She's still 'sleepwalking' at night, though Lan seems to think she's made her point - the frequency has diminished a bit over time. She likes getting real, decent, not grabbed-in-midday-in-the-plant-corral sleep!

    She knows what an 'atrium' is, okay, she just thinks 'plant corral' is funnier.

    When Loren enters plant jail, he isn't alone. At least Lan had the decency to not be asleep this time...? She's laid out on the grass, true, but sleeping people don't generally lie there rubbing their eyes. She sits up with a soft groan when she hears the door, sweat gleaming softly on her skin.

    There's a faint smell of sweat in the air underneath the plants, and from the grass stains on the bottoms of her feet and her clothes and general mussed appearance, it seems Lan was doing something strenuous.

    "Oh, hey," she waves tiredly, swiping a hand across her face before reaching for her towel. "Wanna help me try something I saw a Beastman do once?" lan no

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    Where possible, he's been keeping an eye on Lan -- it wouldn't do for her to have some sort of episode and start to slip under his control. But there's a lot to do elsewhere, and Loren has been rather distracted on top of that...

    He had only headed for the atrium on the thought that it would probably be unoccupied at this time of day. Green space is prized in Solaris -- it's an indulgence in their city where it exists and isn't being used for the intensive production of plants for food and medicines -- but down on the surface, things are a little different. ...Of course, this being a base wedged in the middle of another blasted desert does mean the atrium has a certain degree of attachment for those who have no off-site duties or desire to travel.

    And also a certain attraction to one star shaman.

    "What are you--" he starts with, no hellos or how are you, or anything else.
    But it probably would be weird if he did any of those things, anyway.

    And then she asks him something.

    Loren slowly makes a face.

    "A... what," he says, flatly.

    Does he want this knowledge.

<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

    While it's true that Little Firelight boasted an impressive (and frankly, probably unsound from a land stewardship perspective) orchard, being so close to the Badlands leaves it bereft of much else in the way of 'ambient greenery'. Lan years for green spaces, much like the Third Class must, and for a similar reason.

    Because humans need green things, whether they live beyond the clouds or on the surface.

    She travels occasionally, but rarely farther than a day's walk. It's safer in here. Leah and Loren had said that even the Stranger couldn't reach her here.

    It's no longer quite so satisfying anyway, to travel alone.

    "It's easy," she replies, and rolls over onto her front on the grass, palms beneath her shoulders and legs straight. "Sit on my back and we'll see if I can still do a pushup! That guy was really strong, he had three people standing on his back when he did it."

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    Plantlife without a purpose is indeed such a burden on Etrenank's limited space and resources that... none other than a First Class citizen are allowed to keep real plants. Lan was perhaps fortunate that Loren's family -- whatever other ills plague them -- still retain that rank in society. Otherwise...

    In the meantime, he asks a perhaps foolish question--
    And gets an answer.

    "Sit on your... what?"

    There's a long moment wherein he pauses, considering this.

    Then he shakes his head and vehemently says, "No! I'm not-- sitting on you. That's-- it, you could pull a muscle, or hurt your back, and anyway, I don't..."

    It would be completely fucking awkward if someone walked in on it!

    "Just use weights like a normal person," he grouses.

    If he'd known a walk was going to turn into this, he would have just powered through the rest of his work...

<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

    He considers it for a brief moment. Lan waits expectantly, braid coiling next to her elbow. She's certain she can do it now, because even if she hasn't been delving into ruins much she's at least been training. While not all of the workers here are suited to fighting, more than one or two have agreed to sar with her on occasion.

    "Awwww," she complains, and flops over onto her back again. "But it looked so cool when he did it! I mean sure, he was a strongman in a traveling carnival so doing crazy stuff like that was probably his job, but I'm sure I'm strong enough to do it now. Even just a few times."

    Lan humphs at him, lying back to cover her eyes again. "Foo. How am I supposed to hold weights on my back? My third arm?" This is not a thing that Lan owns. Just in case anybody was wondering.

    "Are you taking a break?" she asks instead, her momentary whim definitely not forgotten and being stored away for future remembrance.

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    For one thing, wouldn't this completely ruin any attempts to pass off her ending up in his room one fine night if someone walked in on that? And for another--
    Well, he just doesn't want to do it. How much does she think he weighs, for starters?

    He folds his arms over his chest, gazing down at her where she lingers on the green. "I don't care. You're going to have to pester someone else."

    He pauses.

    "And don't even think about asking the Major," he adds.

    ...Has he always referred to her as 'the Major' even casually?

    She complains about holding the weights up, and Loren's only response is to shake his head. "That's not my problem. Get-- a weighted vest or something. I don't know."

    He's being a little more short with her than usual. Is it work stress--
    Or is it his love life?

    "Yeah," he answers her straightfowardly enough. "I am. The orders handed down are keeping everyone busy." Aside from his own direct participation -- and information gathering -- there's the matter of other operations fielded.
    And the injuries (or illnesses) resulting from that.

    "What have you been up to?" Aside from... attempting to lift grown men with her back.

<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

    "Why, 'cause she weighs more than you do? You're not exactly a skeleton," Lan counters easily - though he's not a hulking muscle-y guy either. What he is, is distracted. "...Work got you down? I offered to help with the paperwork, you know." And Lan knows exactly why he shut that down - just because she can read Solarian now doesn't mean she has any business wielding a stamp or a pen in the name of the Emperor or whoever.

    Lan knits her fingers together above her head and stretches gently. "Mmf. Just training. I thought it'd be a good idea." She debates on continuing, but eventually does. "...I don't want to just give up. --More importantly!" she switches track, "You were going to talk to Anaitis, right? Did you go on a date yet? Have you kissed?"

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    "I didn't say I was!" Loren shoots back, as if he weren't already 21 and a captain, and instead a boy of sixteen or thereabouts. "I'm just saying, the weight of her prosthetics is more than..." he veers away from this topic suddenly, "and, anyway, it's not proper. She's a Major." Retired, admittedly, due to her injuries.
    Which keep giving him a headache the more he thinks about them. He checked her files.

    They were of course heavily redacted. Except there was a mention of a Voss Incident and...

    He can't remember her being present during the accident. She wouldn't have been flying with them. But, but, what if--

    He snaps away from that thought, shaking his head once in the process for good measure.

    Lan's comments at least give him a pivot point. "Certainly not. Even if you understood what you were doing, I can't have you sign off on... and anyway, our handwriting isn't the same!"

    It's wrong and it wouldn't fool anyone.

    "Training... I haven't had any time in ages. ...But you're not using a sword," he finishes, stifling a sigh. "It's not a bad idea. --Uh?"

    She pivots the conversation on him.

    He takes a step back, bumping into the door. "What... why are you... well, I did, but it's not--"

    Did he go on a date?

    Or kiss?

    As a matter of fact, neither has really happened, which is the source of at least some of his frustration but--

    His immediate physiological reaction is to flush a bright crimson. "No!"

    There is a long moment of silence. The sort of which, if there were birds in here, there would certainly be a well-timed birdcall intrusion. Instead, what they get is the sound of the ventilation system rattling along. Alas, for appropriate theatrics.

    "Not... yet," Loren admits, glancing away as if mortally chagrined.

<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

    "Well maybe later we can train together again. It's been a while, huh?" He's been busy, leaving Lan to practice by herself or with some of the braver base personnel - there's a difference between 'a soldier, even a Solarian one' and a seasoned Drifter, even if it's just dirty tricks and experience.

    Her expression doesn't change, except maybe for the curious tilt of an eyebrow. "You haven't? But you asked, right? Surely you had time for that, right?" Did he take what she'd said to heart? Or did he decide he knew better after all?

    Well if that's what happened then Loren has no excuse! That's why he's not King of Makin' Out with Anaitis Cliff, or anywhere at all really.

    Lan pushes herself up onto her elbows and narrows her eyes at Loren suspiciously. "What happened?"

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    "Maybe," he allows, though he shakes his head. "It's been really busy. The paperwork's a pain..."

    And that's leaving out the fieldwork he's been assigned, 'based on past associations with individuals of interest'. This is probably going to get him killed.

    ...Maybe that's what they all want. Maybe that's what should happen, after all he's done. His attention turns down towards the path, his left hand clenching into a fist. He feels sick all over again.

    And, strangly, a little bit pissed off. If that's what they want, then he'll just have to--

    But the conversation shifts over towards the subject of Anaitis, and of his love life, jarring his thoughts from those well-trod paths and jumping right over onto a far-less-explored wilderness. "Uh, what?" he chokes, as if trying to shift gears quick enough to keep up with her, in the face of such overpowering embarrassment that this is even a topic of discussion. "Of course I did! I told them--"

    He hesitates here, perhaps having reached the proverbial cliffside on the edges of the wildlands. "...I told them I, uh, liked them."

    His embarrassment only deepens. Is there a nice hole in here he can jump in (no of course there isn't).

    "..."

    He shakes his head as if in some form of self-defense. "Look-- look, why do you want to know this? Nothing's happened because, because we've been busy!" he insists, hazarding a look her way.

    "And what's with that look?! I'm not hopeless! Look, it's just... they're just..."

    He trails off, briefly debating just running away, but that comes with its own indignities.

    "Just... leave me alone, okay?" Loren insists, feeling like he's ten and attempting to fend off--
    Fend off, his... brother? There we go. Fend off his brother.

<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

    Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork. What's a kingdom even worth if it takes so much drudgework to uphold? No wonder people choose to chase dreams out in the wilderness. If Lan had to live under the same constrictions that Loren does... she definitely would have run away again, just for a very different reason.

    "...Loren?" He's got that look on his face again. The one that might be the 'real' him. The angry one, the lost one. Lan blinks, and the expression is gone, replaced by a spreading flush of pink. It shows up so easily on him. "You told them. You told them! Hey, that's great!"

    Surely that's one step closer to Loren actually learning to be happy about something for once, right?
    To him having something to be happy about?

    She blinks again. "Why wouldn't I want to know? We're friends. I thought that was something friends talk about." Maybe she was wrong. Or maybe it's just Loren being weird. But she frowns next, and pushes herself up into a sit, to turn on her hip and stare at him, a bit angry. "Who said you were hopeless? If I didn't hope stuff for you, why would I even bother asking?!"

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    The blush only deepens when she cheers him on. His right hand reflexively moves towards the door, pressing flat against the wall next to it. He tries to breathe evenly.
    It's really hard to do that right now, for some reason.

    It's... it's just...
    Really overwhelming.
    Really embarrassing.

    "How am I supposed to know what friends talk about," he grouses, shooting her a look. "For all I know, people talk about-- about... things," he trails off into, having completely run out of track on that line of argument. Odd are pretty good it's just him being weird.
    This is where Lan starts looking a little annoyed. "I don't know! Tell that to the look on your face, or, or whatever!" he snaps, unkindly, then just shakes his head. "Look-- look, it's not that I don't want to-- I just, I just don't want to screw this up." He runs his hands through his hair, briefly sweeping his bangs back. "There's stuff I want to, but I don't know how-- and I don't know what's too fast, or too slow, or, or, even what I should be doing!"

    Maybe that's the heart of it.

    "I know -- it's the kind of thing that we," and it still feels weird to say that, "that we should figure out together, but--"

    His shoulders slouch, and for a moment, perhaps, he just looks lost. "I don't even know... how to start."

    And it's not like he's exactly talking to someone who can give him advice -- can just tell him what to say. 'Figure it out together' was good, solid advice, until the point where the problem arises that it's Loren who needs to put it into action.
    And all he wants -- while knowing it's impossible -- is for someone to tell him exactly what to do and say.

<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

    He looks like he wants to be anywhere but here. Well tough business, because Lan wants to be anywhere else too--
    No she doesn't. She's here because she wants to be. Helping Loren and Leah.

    --Isn't she?

    No, she must be. It's just that they've been stationed here so long. The desert does things to people. So does 'civilization'.

    Lan realizes she can't remember what he just said. It would've been about Anaitis, or how he messed something up, or how he is scared of failure. Because Loren likes things to be perfect. Because reality and all its mess are horrible to a place like Solaris, and the people it nurtures--

    Lan realizes she hasn't moved or said anything. She's supposed to respond. She's supposed to help.

    She doesn't know what to do. Lan looks down at her hands. "I..."

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    He's turned inwards, thinking only about himself, only about his own problems.

    Even in matters of the heart, it seems, he needs someone to hold his hand and walk him through this -- he can't even figure it out for himself here of all places.

    No, a part of him realizes.

    No, he really is hopeless--

    His gaze lifts from the point it had been holding on the pathway and takes in Lan, who he realizes has been awfully silent.

    She has a strange expression on her face.

    "Uh, Lan?" he says, tilting his head slightly to one side. "Are you okay? You look pale."

    He's a medic. He notices things like that.
    He's also -- in spite of being prone to turning inwards and being generally self-absorbed -- not as tuned out to the usual tempo of their relationship as one might assume.

    Normally, this is where she'd say something to him. Yell at him, maybe, or possibly attempt to cheer him up, for all the good trying does. But instead she's looking down at her hands as if they, herself, her circumstances, everything...

    Were all alien to her.

    Loren takes a step towards her, and for a change, his own affairs are as far from his mind as possible.

<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

    The shaman blinks at her fingers. Once, twice.

    She follows the sound of his voice up to his face. For half of a breath, she looks at him like she's afraid of him.

    And then Lan lifts her hands to her face, covering her eyes and taking deep breaths. "Uh. Sorry, I just--"

    Lie. Don't go back.

    "I just," she stammers, wiping at her eyes. "I drifted off. What were we talking about? I'm kind of dizzy--"

    And she is, that's no lie, but things are tilting and crashing back where they belong -- a hundred strings holding her mind in contortions, all snapping one after the next -- a lock broken open

    She stares up at him. At Loren. He's paperboard, somehow. So ugly, sometimes. So human.

    It's sad. After the kindness Mirza had shown her while she waited for him to wake up, all the time she spent worrying about him. After she'd seen him as someone more, someone better. Someone who deserves better. Who could be better.

    And looming in the back of her mind like Lan's mother in a bad mood, Leah Sadalbari. The Watcher. Who calls Loren 'Ren' and misses her husband dreadfully. Loren's sister in law. Someone who could quite probably unmake Lan if it came down to it. But... even with the cold light of morning shining on the deception that's played out over long months, the memories are still there. The feelings that came from them.

    "Sorry," she tries to smile up at him. That's what that Lan would do, right? Try to reassure him. It's not that different from what she would do, after all. That Lan was her. "I think I need a shower and a nap."

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    She's dizzy?

    What is underway and can no longer be stopped within Lan's mind of course passes unnoticed -- he instead fixates on what he can see.

    She's pale. She looks like she's dizzy enough.

    What Loren does is grab for her wrist -- another violation of her space and person -- and feel for her pulse. This, he measures in silence, counting out the beats.

    "...Shouldn't be this elevated," he mutters, frowning. Even if she had just been exercising before he'd come in, it's suddenly like it's racing. He touches the back of his hand to her forehead, feeling for her temperature. "..."

    She just needs a shower and a nap, she tells him.

    He just regards her in utter disbelief.

    "Are you kidding me? You just spaced out there. I don't know if you're sick, or..."

    He pauses, Azazel coming to mind.

    "...Or what," he finishes. He pulls his hand away. "Come on. At the very least I'm going to check properly if you have a fever," he says, shaking his head. Grabbing again for her wrist, he makes as if he were just going to drag her along.

    Like always? Like she's just some thing he has to take care of, and not even treat like a person?

<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

    She should hate him, shouldn't she.

    He's one of them. Solaris. A city in the sky. 'Superior' to all the stupid, helpless, sinful Lambs. Her stomach threatens to turn when he grabs her wrist. No, don't, stop, go, look at you, reaching out to care for another person--

    She opens her mouth to insist that she's fine, he's overreacting, let go--

    And the back of his hand touches her forehead, assured and calm and a little irritated like her mother's always had been. Just a human being. She's warm to the touch, alive and freshly exercised and he's as lost as she is, isn't he?

    Just like her, Loren has forgotten so much.

    Loren, who has been becoming a little more human over the months.

    Her mouth creases into a thin line as he grabs her wrist again, and tugs her to her feet. "I can walk. I'm fine, I'm not-- it's not--" Not him. But Lan can't deal with that and this at the same time.

    And after all, he'd promised her that even the Stranger couldn't find her here. Even if Lan doesn't really believe it, it had been comforting to think of.

    Comforting to think that Loren and Leah, at least, had cared about her. She follows him silently, wrist warm in his grip, as hot tears pool in her eyes to spill down her cheeks.

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    Her pulse is fast -- perhaps faster than it should be, even freshly exercised.

    Her skin is warm -- but is that from exercise or a fever?

    In the end, measurements with the body of the body are not enough. He has to take this elsewhere.
    To the clinic, then.

    Other people are busy -- either afield or working on diagnostics in the lab or in the Gear bay or sleeping off a night shift. It's an installation, yes, but it's not quite the size of the Aveh desert base -- not this close to Meria. Not without Meria under their direct control, as it was in Bledavik.
    They don't encounter anyone in the halls.
    No one's in the clinic.

    He gets all the way into the clinic before he lets go of her hand.

    And he gets all the way into the clinic before he turns back to look at her and realizes she's crying.

    The door slides shut in the next moment. Loren just looks at her as if the world has somehow tilted on its axis and he hasn't yet found out the reason for the cause.

    "...What?" he finally says.

    And there comes with that remark the rare thought (for him -- contrasted against the rest of his life, towards people like her):

    Did I make her cry?

<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

    They walk in silence, only the sounds of their footsteps marking their passing. Once in the clinic, he turns to look at her; while she's still wet-cheeked and teary-eyed, at least she's not bawling all over him.

    She's got to get herself under control. She's got to be careful. Maybe the next time they go on a mission together she can wait for him to sleep or be distracted and then escape. Lan hasn't been a Drifter for nothing; she can escape into the desert where nobody, not even another Baskar could find her.

    She can be alone again for a while, get her bearings.

    Out there, alone, without even Ashansi to keep her company and tell her weird stories and fight snakes without his pants.

    He looks at her and she almost feels sorry for him. Sorry for Loren, who doesn't know what to do when his pet Lamb doesn't smile and try to cheer him up. "..."

    "...Nothing. I just thought of..." Of what? "Of Asha," she lies, and hugs her arms against the sterility of the clinic. It smells like chemicals.

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    He's not sure what he thinks about that.

    That she's thinking about someone else, and it's making her cry. That she's thinking about someone who didn't exist, and it's making her cry.

    He feels a twinge of bright jealousy, and he's not sure of who he's jealous: him, or her. Being the subject of such intense thoughts, or thinking so intently about someone else--
    He can't remember ever feeling like that.

    But then, he's been remembering a lot less these days. There's something he needs to do before anyone else finds what's happening, but he can't even remember what that was, anymore.

    Right now, though, that's just an accessory, something left to lie by the wayside. He regards her critically, then points over at a chair. "Just sit down. Maybe you've come down with something..."

    Or maybe it's something else. Some flare of her 'symptoms'. The Major seems to know what she's doing.

    But he's uncertain by nature, and he still harbors his doubts.

    "Just sit still for a moment. I'll read your temperature."

    And heartrate, with the device he pulls from a nearby drawer and holds inches from her temple, but there's not much point in telling her that it reads all sorts of basic vitals in a single scan. Blue eyes flick down at the screen, waiting for the answers to come back.

<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

    Dutifully, she has a seat in the proffered chair. She seems a little uneasier than usual. Maybe it's just because something might be wrong with her.

    Lan glances to the side, even though she knows by now what the vitals recorder does - though not how it does so. She'd been happy enough to chalk it up to science. Loren had trusted it to work, after all. And she'd trusted Loren.

    She'd trusted him.

    Her vitals come back normal. Even her pulse, though not resting-slow, isn't as elevated as it had been. Her blood pressure is up a few points. Maybe she's just stressed. Maybe, maybe.

    "...Hey Loren," she hazards, after a few long seconds of silence. What am I to you, she wants to ask. What if she doesn't like what he has to say? What could he possibly say that she would want to hear??

    "...Do you ever wish you'd gotten to meet Asha?" she asks instead, drawing her heels up to rest on the edge of her seat.

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    It's normal. He frowns at the readout, then glances back up at her. From the way she'd been acting, he'd been positive she'd come down with something. All of a sudden, her mood had shifted from her usual cheery pest self, to...

    To someone who suddenly seems completely stressed out. Like she'd just endured something life-altering, all in the span of a few seconds.

    He knows she has trouble with living like a Solarian. But it isn't as if that can suddenly change in a direction she'd prefer -- it's impressive enough that no one's raised a stink about her using the atrium so much as it is.
    Or maybe, he suspects darkly, it has to do with Azazel's pressure in her mind. But if that's the case, what does he do about it?

    What is the Major going to do about it?

    "...Yeah?" he answers, finally setting the tool aside.

    She asks him something he didn't expect.

    "Meet your... figment of your imagination? Would that even be possible?" is his initial response. But he shakes his head. "...I don't know. I didn't... I never really..."

    And he sighs, leaning against the nearby counter. All the while the other part of him just mocks him for even treating this as if it could have happened -- like he could have met her phantom face-to-face. Though, was... that the case? It all seemed really... like maybe other people should have seen him, somehow...

    The whole thing makes his head hurt.
    In the same way that the Gethsemane incident makes his head hurt, on those times when he stops and thinks about what happened in there (what he can remember especially now about what happened in there). Did he actually die--

    But if he's going by that metric, he's clinically died at least once already anyway. So maybe he should stop worrying about it--

    Ultimately all he can do is shake his head, once again. "I guess... I really don't know. I get the feeling he would have gotten on my nerves, and I'm not really a people person, but..." He pauses. "Maybe? It's a weird question, Lan."

<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

    The enemy of my enemy is my friend. The enemy of my friend is my enemy. The friend of my enemy is my frienemy...

    "I wish you could have met him. You'd have been a good influence on each other, maybe." Loren could've learned to deal with chaos a little better. Maybe Ashansi would learn to plan ahead. Maybe Asha was never real. But her memories of being friends with Loren... If that even counts as 'real', they're surely poisoned now. "Am I gonna live, doc?" she tries to joke. It's a familiar-ish routine. Not quite right. Not quite their Lan. But she'll remember.

    Lan looks around again. He doesn't seem inclined to poke her with needles or force medicine down her throat. Maybe he's seen whatever he needs to see and she can go be alone for a while. There's enough privacy in her room's onsuite shower to have a quiet, tidy little freakout crying fit and start trying to come up with a plan.

    She sighs, and stands. "I know it's a weird question. It would have been nice, is all. If you could have been friends."

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    Maybe.

    Granted, interacting with anyone at all -- anyone who doesn't do the perhaps understandable thing and find someone easier to get along with -- has the potential to have a good influence on Loren.

    Which, speaking of Loren, he has a strange look on his face, perhaps the result of considering at all that he might be a good influence on someone else and not... just in a 'well you're first class and so...' sort of fashion. "Huh," he says, perhaps intending to leave it at that.

    She cracks a joke his way. He fails to laugh, and instead just sighs. "Probably just get some rest and you'll feel better," he says, and all he can do is chalk it up to stress.

    He remembers when she'd pleaded with him in the park in Etrenank. It's probably stressful for a Lamb. ...But what can he do about it?
    He doesn't even consider the obvious answer to that, largely because it wouldn't work. There's no way in which he could make it work and not ruin his own life, perhaps even the life of his parents if someone were inclined to really bring it home. Such calculations are so routine that it doesn't even begin to cross his mind.

    She remarks again that it would have been nice, maybe.

    He looks away, and though he doesn't reply...

    'I don't need other people,' has been the story he's been telling himself for a long time.
    But humans are descended from social creatures -- whether they're born on the surface, or up in the sky. And social creatures need friends.

    He doesn't say anything. He just dips his head in a short, curt nod, then turns to set about cleaning up.

    It would be nice, wouldn't it. To not keep turning inwards out of neccessity.
    To have friends.