2020-05-08: To Be Certain
- Log: To Be Certain
- Cast: Xantia, Lily Keil
- Where: Meria City - Outer Regions
- Date: May 08, 2020
- Summary: Following an incident of some concern, Lily makes a house call to visit a recuperating Xantia, and the two discuss recent events of note.
=======================<* Meria City - Outer Regions *>======================= Outside the inner wall that contains the oldest parts of Meria City and the main castle itself is a newer city, the result of growth over the centuries well beyond the original parameters of the settlement. With Meria's good fortune in terms of natural resources, the city proper does not need to be terribly crowded, and so it doesn't compare in terms of sheer scale to the more compact metropolis of Guild Galad. Nevertheless there are a lot of people here, and that means inns, shops, businesses, and beyond the outer walls, farmland for miles. The port is active, carrying goods from the northen regions as well as the ore from its mines, and bringing in goods from the south. Meria City has relatively wide streets, but there are few gas-powered vehicles on them, considered to be largely reserved for the military. The buildings themselves tend to cluster together, sprawling slowly over time. The atmosphere here is often reserved, and quite proud. It is known among other things for a fine collection of teas brought in from around the world. BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj2d8U-CO9E
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Xantia has a chronic inability to stay in any one place for very long. The way she's described it is that she gets jittery sitting around waiting for something to happen, she'd much rather be out there looking for things that are already happening. This tends to take her all over the place, but wherever she goes, she does at least check in with members of the Black Wolves from time to time so they know what she's up to. She tends to only contact one person at a time, which is usually either Fei or Lily.
It is thus not exactly out of the ordinary for Lily to receive one such Memory Cube message from Xantia. The exact content this time, that was a little unusual, to put it mildly.
"Hey Lily. I'm in Meria right now, planning to stick around here for a few more days. I meant to send a message sooner, but I was kind of in bed a lot the past few days. I had that thing that happened to me before, you called it 'overexertion', right? Where I used too much Ether and got really cold and tired and miserable? Yeah, that happened. I figure it happened because putting Clarine's body back together took a lot out of me. There was this whole thing where a possession happened, but it was kind of more than that, and she'd kind of exploded before, so... Anyway, I'll tell you about it later, everything's fine now!"
Xantia is kind of a bad judge of when it's a good or bad moment to stop talking, or when things might be cause for concern. She's currently staying at a modest inn close to the edge of the city, additional information which she'd freely give out when requested. Though it's true that she feels much better than before, she can tell that things are not exactly the way they should be just yet. Thankfully she hasn't heard about anything urgent happening since then, so she's actually allowing herself a bit of extra rest, rather than push herself needlessly.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily Keil has been fairly restless lately herself, but hearing about exploded Seraphs and friends in bed due to overexertion is the kind of thing that draws a person to a place. As it turns out the message was in fact kind of concerning! Not as concerning as it could've been, but still definitely notable. So after gathering up the information...
Wait, where was Lily anyway? Well, that's a mystery.
Here and now, Lily has arrived at the inn in question and arranged to find which room was hers, walking up and--Knock, knock. "Xantia?" Lily asks. When given the go-ahead, she'll step inside, dressed in gray and red and carrying her usual medical satchel. "Thought I'd come check in, considering your message..."
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
"Lily! Come in, door's open!"
Nothing unusual so far, Xantia sounds like her usual enthusiastic self when meeting with a good friend. She doesn't look very different from usual either, no obvious injuries. She's just sort of... half-armored, missing the shoulderpads and their attached cloak that are hanging from the coat rack next to the door, and only one bracer, the other one resting on a small bedside table. The right one is the one she still has on, of course. That's the one that makes up her ARM, she almost never takes that off. She's also barefoot, her boots tossed haphazardly into a corner.
Though she's standing next to the bed when Lily enters, it's easy to deduce that Xantia was probably laying down on it when she heard the knocking. From her state of dress, it's also easy to tell that she wasn't planning on going anywhere anytime soon. Not super typical for someone who has trouble with idleness and takes very few 'indoor days', but such things do happen from time to time.
Still, the cheerful wave and general disposition don't make Xantia seem in any kind of mental state unusual for her. "You didn't have to do all that! I told you, I'm just fine!" She pauses, perhaps only now starting to realize herself, "Well, I guess maybe I get tired a bit more quickly than normal? But it's really nothing to worry about!"
Given that she also called it 'nothing to worry about' when she'd entirely lost the use of her left arm for a while, this may or may not mean anything.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
And so Lily does! She takes in the obvious and less-obvious details, eyes tracking from Xantia to the coat rack, to the small bedside table, to the boots in the corner. Lily's way of thinking is sometimes easier to grasp than at other times; she puts it all together pretty clearly. Well... Not all. But what's here.
"You must have been very tired," she comments, considering that this is the most still she imagines Xantia's been in some time. She crosses the room in short order though, pulling a chair closer to the bed and gesturing for Xantia to take a seat. "Then think of it as routine," Lily says. "We can get some interesting data while you're tired compared to what we usually get. It might be useful."
Lily does not look worried so much as that she isn't accepting that explanation as on its own in the least. "So tell me about what happened, and the last few days," she says. She can get some vitals as they talk probably.
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Xantia isn't really sure how to describe the state she's been in. Is it even the same as last time? She'd kind of assumed so off-hand, but when she really thinks about it, she's unsure. It's an effect that Lily tends to have, making her think about things she didn't think to think about.
A bit of a sheepish shrug is all she ends up responding with, then a nod with a slight smile when asked to consider this routine. "Sure, that's fine. I mean, I'm glad you're here, I wanted to talk to you anyway. Just, I hope I didn't take your attention away from anything more important."
She readily takes the indicated seat, and as soon as she does, as one might expect, she starts with a waterfall of words.
"So I was taking the train from Damzena, and since I was doing that anyway, I got a job to guard the cargo which I guess was important, they paid real good for that. I wasn't really expecting bandits, but I guess maybe they were? Anyway, bandits really did happen, from what I heard they may have been with Odessa even. Their leader was super strong, Zed was saying she was using Rahab's power, which, I don't know what that means exactly, I just know there was a lot of ice. She got me good in the leg with her spear so I couldn't get away from a big attack, but then Clarine got in front of me and took it for me."
She finally pauses a moment after that, remembering that moment of distress. "She... kind of exploded. I thought she was gone, but... I guess that can just happen to Seraphs, they do that so they can go and recover in their vessel. I didn't know that, though. So I got upset, and then I... did something."
Xantia scratches her head, unsure how to describe it. "It was like possession, but kind of... more than that? We did a double light sword attack, that was really cool." She's fond of that word now, 'cool', one of the few figurative usages of a word that she can consistently get right. "So since Clarine knows how I can heal Seraphs with Ether, I told her she could do that to put her body back together, but I guess that was probably too much Ether, and when I woke up that thing was happening that happened when I healed you that one time."
Xantia still hasn't exactly learned how to do 'long story short' very well, that was her best attempt. In the meanwhile, checking her vitals, her resting pulse is actually lower than it usually is for her. Which was typically slightly elevated to begin with, so perhaps not a bad development, but it is an inconsistency with every other time this was checked nonetheless.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
The power... of science? Maybe. Lily wouldn't mind hearing that she inspires that kind of thinking, though. In the meantime, she inclines her head about how Xantia wanted to talk to her, and then pauses. "No," she answers simply. "There was nothing immediately pressing, anyway; it's a bit of a waiting game right now." And there... There is the set of words.
Bandits, a train; all normal. Rahab--Lily's eyes narrow at that name. She knows it, clearly. The story going on...
Her expression shifts into some concern over Clarine exploding, but she looks more curious than worried about the sort-of-possession. Did she know about Xantia healing Seraphs, though? That might be new. "Interesting. So, first machinery, then a Seraph..."
Lily thinks about it for a while, and nods. "On the surface it seems to be similar," Lily admits. "Your resting pulse is lower than usual, which suggests a lower-energy state to me. If your Ether interacted with her being enough that there was overlap between her... form, her essence, and yours--then that might explain what happened. But it's just a raw guess, admittedly; I'd never considered that a Seraph would be able to interact that way with Ether at all, though of course it makes sense now."
"...So she's all right, then? The only lasting effect seems to be your lower-energy state?"
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Xantia never did mention before to Lily that she knows how to heal Seraphs. But perhaps it could be inferred how that happened. It was clear that Xantia could grievously harm them, given that during the Dazil Incident she was drawing the magic right out of Ragnell and erased part of her body. She essentially figured out how to use her Ether to do that in reverse.
While she doesn't bring that up, she does add something when Lily says 'a Seraph'. "I mentioned that, right, that I was trying to figure out how to make Light happen with the help of a Seraph of Light? That was Clarine. We ran into each other in Spira." Literally. "I wasn't really figuring it out though. So then Ragnell suggested trying a possession." And of course, Xantia thought that following one of Ragnell's suggestions was a great idea.
"So we tried that, but it didn't really work. I mean, the possession worked, but I kind of panicked, and pushed Clarine out somehow. So... I think maybe that happened in reverse this time, and I instead pulled her in closer." Again, doing a thing in reverse to make another thing happen. While not understanding how she's doing any of it, of course. But in the end, it did help her to understand one thing.
"And now, look what I can do!" She holds up her right hand, palm upwards, which then begins to glow a bright white. Light pours forth from it like a small waterfall, dissipating into motes well before reaching the ground. Xantia is of course all smiles at this development, it all feels like a big win to her with this being the result.
She couldn't really analyze it any deeper herself, but she nods at Lily's hypothesis. "I guess something like that is probably what happened. It's like I told Clarine, I feel like I just... understand her understanding of Light, and that's what letting me do this now. It's not the same as her light. This is my light." She smiles fondly, repeating the way Clarine described it.
"So yeah, she's just fine, and I can do this now, so... worth being a bit more tired for, right?"
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily can indeed infer--especially when Xantia clarifies the Seraph she was working with in the first place. "Yes," Lily answers. "That makes sense, then." She pauses, though. A possession... Hmmm.
"Reversal," Lily muses, considering Xantia again. It's similar to how she learns with her own Ether, really; learn a thing, examine it from another point of view, like sculpting, or rotating a three-dimensional model, more than like painting a picture. But here?
"So you can!" Lily notes, pleased--proud, maybe? It is a big result. But hmm... Her...
"Yes," Lily answers. "I understand; I've been working to understand a few new methods of Ether use myself, and it's been similar going. ...So far it doesn't seem to be a trap in and of itself, anyway." She lifts her hand, and a blue light hovers over her palm briefly, before fading. "It seems that your way of learning continues to be based on unforeseeable incidents, but once again you proved ready and able to turn that into knowledge for your future."
"Assuming that you recover normally, it sounds quite worth it to me. It's not unusual to have to recover after learning something new, either. Now, if you're concerned and need to recover more quickly, I can probably spare some Ether myself to help you along; otherwise, I think you're already doing what you need, and getting some rest. I assume you're eating well?"
She reflects, again, on that light. "Your light... Yes. It does feel different from Seraphic elements."
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
It's almost unfair, how Xantia seems to incidentally learn how to do new things, with barely any active thought put into it. Then again, it hasn't exactly been easy. Learning Fire as well as Light took her many months, and in both cases it took a traumatic event for it all to finally click. Also, in her case it may be that she's not learning new things so much as she's remembering how to do things that she used to know how to do. Which begs the question how she learned all these unconventional things to begin with.
It's something that concerns Xantia, but she doesn't much like to think about it. Trying to figure it out only ends in infinite mental loops, getting stuck in one of those doesn't do her any favors. Best to just stay distracted from those kinds of thoughts, which is thankfully easy when you have a friend to talk to.
Xantia calmly listens to Lily's analysis of her condition, and laughs out loud at the question if she's eating well. There's a pause afterwards, before she questions, "Wait, was that a joke or not?" It's still hard for her to figure out when people are joking. The fact that it sounded like a joke to her can probably be taken as confirmation that she has as little problem with eating as she normally does.
"Then, I think everything'll be fine. It's nice to know that I'm doing things right, though. I do what feels right to me, it's hard to tell if it actually is right." Yes, to her Lily is pretty much THE person who will know what the right way to do things is in any given situation. That's accurate, right?
Xantia closes her hand, instantly dispersing the light. "Guess I'll have to find a new thing to learn myself. The next thing should be..." She makes a face when she considers the rest of the elements that she knows she should be able to do. "Ugh, the next thing should probably be Ice, shouldn't it." Not exactly a fan of things that are likely to make her feel cold. Maybe that one can wait a little while.
Though it seemed like she glossed over it at first, she now returns to something that Lily mentioned earlier. "You said you're trying to train your Ether too? What are you working on?" And yes, she did catch that peculiar way of phrasing it: "...And what's this about a trap?"
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Fairness may not enter into it. Such a pace might drive one mad... And to be fair, of course, it does seem to frustrate Xantia herself at times. Lily will have to update her notes, meanwhile. She keeps an eye out for that kind of thing--and now--
Lily laughs faintly with Xantia. "I was serious, but it was also a joke. I see I was right to assume." If she'd been wrong she'd have to be concerned, right now. Not just because Xantia's body clearly needs the fuel but because... Well...
Xantia, not eating???
"Yes," Lily answers at the matter of rightness, "It's important to cultivate an objective point of view. It seems to be right for you, at least." Of course Lily knows--well Lily knows Xantia tends to come to her, which means she has to take the responsibility that much more seriously. Buuut...
"Heh," Lily answers of Ice. "This one at least I've done before; I learned ice when I was young, and I learned it through studying fire. You might have some success along a similar route. On the other hand, I can only use ice--not water, as Elly can."
Lily nods to the question, noting it interesting but not strange that Xantia caught it. "I'm working with Loren Voss on something," she says. "He claims that as a Solarian agent he has an interest in ensuring I have sufficient control not to cause an incident--and while I don't know what he's really after, I admit the chance to learn more about the Solarian approach to Ether is one I can't pass up. So far, I've learned about a more efficient approach to healing; his approach lets me use ice instead of fire, and rely on the individual's body more to use less energy forcing the matter."
"He may even be telling the truth; he certainly thinks of me as dangerous. Regardless, apparently his approach relies more on guidance and subtlety than the raw power you and I tend to use."
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Xantia reacts with dismay. "You can be serious and joking at the same time?!" She puts her head in her hands. "This gets harder all the time, how is anybody supposed to figure out what people mean when they say anything?" That moment doesn't last long, though. It's just the way things are - she can't let that cause her to actively doubt what people say all the time, she'll just have to do the best she can. She's pretty sure that she doesn't understand what an objective point of view is exactly, but that's fine, she got the most important part of that statement.
On the subject of Ice, she hms noncommitally. Lily probably has a point, but she's still not sure whether she wants to actively try. She's got this ice claw, maybe that's enough ice. So she feels now, anyway. Odds are good that she'll end up doing that eventually. Lily's final note on that is interesting, though.
"You know... for some reason I feel like it's the same for me. Or, that I'm just more used to ice than water?" That'd be a good thing, as far as she's concerned. It would be less like the way Citan said Solarians typically use Ether. She welcomes any evidence that points towards her not having once been affiliated with those people.
And speak of the devil - Lily does just that. That makes Xantia fall silent, and look quite perturbed. She slowly gets up from her chair when Lily finishes speaking, looking the other woman directly in the eyes.
"...I really don't feel good about this, Lily. I just... I can't trust Solarians." She wraps her arms about herself. "It feels awful. Saying it feels awful too. I really don't like it. But... that's just how I feel now." She lets her arms drop back to her sides, insistently asking, "You'll be very careful, right? Make sure that when you find out what they're really after, they won't be able to get away with it."
It's very foreign to Xantia, the way she feels about Solaris in general. Mistrust. Animosity on a level beyond what she's ever known before. It's supremely uncomfortable how this suddenly feels like the only correct response to her now. But, besides that, there is something else that she knows about, weighing in on this further.
"...Have you heard about Solaris going after the Carakin?"
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily actually smiles faintly. She's sure Xantia will get it well enough. With Ice, though... "Interesting," Lily muses. That it would be both of them that way, given the other similarities in how they use their Ether. Oh, there are still differences, of course, but, "There may be something to that. But really I use 'cold' more than I do water itself--it's, well. It's inverse fire, really, down to having more solidity."
But speak of the devil indeed. Lily looks right back--she is not surprised by this, exactly. But she seems... certain of herself. "What's awful about it?" she wonders. "Any Solarian we're likely to meet--almost all of them would be people we shouldn't trust. I trust Elly, but..." Lily shakes her head.
"I'm being careful," Lily reiterates. "And I plan to. I don't have any intentions of letting Solaris have its way as a whole. They're still the reason I..." She starts to trail off, and it seems distant, for some reason, that thought.
"No," Lily answers. "I haven't heard that in any detail, save that I know they've targeted Lydia Seren."
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Oh no. Ice is inverse Fire? If that means all she has to do is do fire in reverse, there's a very real chance that Xantia may end up doing that on accident one day. It's a bit of a horrifying thought, given that Xantia feels the difference between doing Something and Reverse Something is very small, and always a concern since in most situations it would be disastrous to get them mixed up. Maybe not as much if you're trying to attack a thing, but this parses as alarming news all the same.
It doesn't at all weigh up against the next bit of alarming news though, which is what Xantia is soon fully focused on. Lily clearly feels that this is the correct way to feel about Solarians, but...
"But Lily... I want to trust everybody."
At least she's self-aware about how readily she trusts people. Although there are limits even to her. She quickly amends, "Well, everybody who isn't hurting anybody else. And I don't want to assume anybody I don't know is doing that. But, Solaris..." She needs a moment to put together her thoughts.
When Lily finishes speaking of them, she's managed to do so. "That, what you said, 'as a whole'. That's what Solaris feels to me. A whole. Like everybody who lives there is the same. That's just... it doesn't seem right. But, my memories are saying that's exactly right." A conflict between her personal beliefs, and what feels like hard facts insisting on their being unquestionably true. She doesn't know where these supposed facts come from, but they're there now, upsetting her worldview. Memories without context.
Xantia, being as poorly able to hide her feelings as usual, feels miserable about this, having to question herself even more than usual. At least bringing up the situation with the Carakin gives her something to focus on.
"So, you don't know about Lydia? About her sharing her body with some sort of AI that calls itself OS? She never escaped Solaris, they just... let her go for a while. Spying for them without her knowledge the entire time. And now they've taken her back. She's back with the Carakin for now, but OS is still there. This isn't over. Not even now that Alexander Castle is dead."
She pauses a moment to let that sink in. "He attacked the Carakin with OS and Lydia's Solarian handler, Rachiel. Then OS and Rachiel suddenly turned against him. But, even so, I... I just can't believe that this is the end of it. I can't trust that this isn't all some kind of trick. I can't believe that Lydia is safe now. Not when Solaris is still watching, I know they are."
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
One day, out of nowhere--warm will be cold.
"Mm," Lily answers. Can she in good conscience support the idea of trusting everyone in the first place? ...No, not really. "I can understand wanting that--it's a problem to go the opposite way, and trust no one, ever--but I can't get behind it." Solaris, though...
"Mm." A whole... And her memories. "Obviously it can't be completely true," Lily says. "That's not how people or nations work. But we aren't dealing with some isolated people from Solaris--we're dealing with their leaders, and the people who are out to enforce those leaders' will. The others tend to stay isolated--who knows what they're like?" She shakes her head. "I can't say where your memory comes from. It suggests you may have had trouble with them in the past before knowing, which... does add up."
"...No," Lily answers, "That much I do know. Not all of the details, but enough. It's the stuff of nightmare, that kind of surveillance." Pause. "But Castle is dead, you say?"
Lily considers. OS and Rachiel...
"I don't disagree with you," she says after some thought. "Even if what you saw is exactly what happened, and exactly true--that OS and this Rachiel both turned on Castle--there's no reason to believe that it's all over. Unfortunately I don't have a solution, right now; I don't have any idea of how to free her or change her situation. So even if it's not all a trick--it's not over."
"...But it might not be a trick. We've seen--Elly was capable of turning on Solaris. Why not someone else? I'm not suggesting that you trust them--but if you let their behavior rule you..." She considers how to phrase it.
"Mistrust, when it's taken to the extent that you assume everything is a lie--that can steer you as badly as blindly believing everything, too. It's difficult, but you have to stay in each moment long enough to decide then, instead of later or sooner."
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Xantia could guess that Lily wouldn't agree with her on matters of trust. That's alright. She won't argue another's perception on that.
On Solaris though, there she will argue. When Lily says 'who knows what they're like', Xantia answers: "I don't know what every Solarian person is like. But I know what their society is like. How they're all made to believe the same things. How it's considered treason to go against those beliefs. They have no choice. They don't think a choice exists. They only know the one way to be." Though she sounded very sure of herself saying these things, she looks guilty for saying them out loud. "...That's what my memories are telling me." She nods quietly, agreeing that having history with them in some way adds up. She couldn't explain how she 'knows' all this otherwise.
"Castle is definitely dead," she repeats, feeling certain about that part of what happened. She saw him turned into an ice sculpture and heard him shatter after being tossed over a cliff. That's hard to cast doubt on. But even if that's true, she can't keep this from parsing as 'all part of a greater scheme' in her mind.
Xantia's never had much experience with mistrust, and she's kind of prone to extremes to begin with - it stands to reason that she'd take it too far. Lily correctly calls this out, which takes her aback a bit. She didn't realize that was a wrong thing to do. That there was a choice. These memories seem so absolute about things, it didn't even occur to her that perhaps they themselves are not to be trusted so completely.
"I... I see. It's true that Elly changed... So, I just need to remember that everyone can change." Easier said than done, perhaps. But being aware of it at least allows her to make an effort. She is silent a moment. Then she recalls that there was another detail that feels especially important to point out.
"Castle... he said that he was acting on the orders of the Ministry. You know what that means, right?" She pauses, continuing when she realizes there really isn't any reason to assume that Lily would know that. "If that's true, if the Gazel Ministry really ordered this, that would mean they see the Carakin as a threat to Solaris as a whole. I'm... really worried about what they might do next. Or... are already doing." Which is a big contributing factor for her obvious fear of Lily's safety.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"It amounts to the same for now," Lily answers. "Even if it's possible that they could change, or be otherwise... That doesn't mean we should doubt what we see; we have to assume they are as they present until we're given a reason otherwise."
It makes her consider harder what Xantia's past self might have been involved in, though.
Castle is dead, then. Trust, though? Lily has a lot of thoughts on the matter of trust and mistrust, of paranoia and perhaps justified wariness. Maybe she's not the best to talk about that--but then, maybe she's exactly the best for it for the reason that she understands.
"Right. It's possible, at least--if they show the inclination... It's a better world, if it's one wherein people can change. And I have trouble fighting for it if it can't be a better world."
She isn't fond of the one as it is, exactly. But...
"A threat to Solaris as a whole... I wonder why?" she muses, more academic than perhaps should be the case--before she shakes her head. "It's reasonable to worry--and like I said, I'll be careful. I'm specifically on the lookout for any techniques that are 'traps'--that shut the self down. And I'm not accepting any technological aids, either."
"...If anything though that makes it more important that we try to understand what they're plotting if we can."
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Xantia's started slowly pacing back and forth along the length of the bed. She's thinking about all this. Not so much about the past - there isn't much chance of putting together now what's eluded her for so long - but how she should deal with this in the present. Lily's given her good advice, but as for how she should handle this when it comes up, she's not entirely sure. Nor is she sure that any plans she makes now won't go immediately out the window if she has to confront Solaris again. These feelings are really difficult to resist acting upon, even if she doesn't know why they're there.
In the end, she seats herself again by letting herself drop down on the bed. "This is complicated," is the only definitive conclusion she can reach. Perhaps in time, she'll be able to make a better informed decision regarding Solaris. It's true enough that at the very least it can't hurt to be cautious. But the only thing she can tell Lily for certain right now is: "I just don't want them to take anyone else. I won't let them."
Xantia cants her head when Lily questions the motivations of Solaris aloud, clearly interested in the answer herself. "I wish I knew," she answers, not recognizing the rhetorical nature of the question. Lily phrases it better - she should probably be wishing for understanding instead, knowing without understanding hasn't done her any favors in this regard.
Xantia lets herself fall back on the bed. "See, this is why I try not to worry too much about what I'm doing. When you start thinking about stuff there's so many things that don't have easy answers. You start having all these... feelings." She sighs, and closes her eyes. "I never know why I feel the way I do. If they're normal things to feel, what it means when you have those feelings... I'm glad you can at least explain some of these things to me."
She sits up slightly to look at Lily, casually asking a complicated question. "What is it like, to be so sure about yourself?"
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
What's it like?
Lily of course won't argue that it's not complicated--she won't argue with wanting to ensure Solaris doesn't take anyone else, or the not knowing. But what's it like, being sure? Lily opens her mouth and closes it again, thinking, the question itself more than enough to give her pause. To be sure...?
"I wouldn't have thought of myself that way, once," Lily admits. "But I suppose I am. Certainty... Well." Lily looks into the distance for a few moments before shaking her head. "I need certainty," Lily says. "It's how it is, how it's always been. Not that I've always been sure of myself, but that I can see what I can prove, what I can demonstrate... I've always looked for what I can be sure of. It's true of my magic; it's true of most things. I needed it in order to maintain control; if I failed, the results were clear, noticeable. Fail to maintain control, and the world around me turns to fire. Easy, right?"
"...It's quiet," Lily says. "It's very quiet. There's just... knowing. People speak of an inner 'voice', but for me it's always been deeper than that, hasn't required words, and that's true now."
"And in that quiet, I can act. That's... the best way I can put it."
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
As Lily speaks, Xantia raises herself back up to a fully seated position. She wasn't expecting so elaborate an answer - though in hindsight, she probably should have. There was no way she could have expected this particular answer, though. The feeling of needing certainty is something she certainly knows well, but not in that way. Failing at certainty doesn't typically lead to dire consequences, in her case. That sure puts things in perspective.
"...Quiet, huh?" she muses. She can't suppress a chuckle. "You know, when you put it like that, it doesn't sound that great. Feeling like you need things to be a certain way... I thought that being sure of yourself meant that you'd always know what choice to make. If it feels like there's only ever one choice, that's not much of a choice at all, is it?" She pauses, then considers aloud, "I probably have it easier than you do."
Then she abruptly stands, and walks over to Lily with a big smile. "Well, I've decided I'm going to buy you dinner. Come on, let's go downstairs!" That sure came out of nowhere. Xantia looks quite pleased with herself, standing in front of Lily for a moment before she explains herself.
"There, I just gave you a choice you didn't know you had. That's what I can do for you." She rubs her chin, adding, "Although, maybe it's not really a choice, 'cause I'm not gonna let you say no."
Xantia's logic takes her to strange places, but at least she means well.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily has a lot of elaborate answers. It's something she does. This particular answer being strange, though--well, it's just how Lily thinks; some things are normal because they are what is there.
Consequences. Lily looks to Xantia and lifts an eyebrow, surprised by the response. "Huh."
She didn't really think about it in terms of ease or difficulty; just in terms of what it is. But Xantia walking over to her, "Dinner, huh?"
...A choice she didn't know she had.
"Well, you're good at surprising me," Lily allows, "There is that. ...Sure. Since it seems it's going to happen regardless." She laughs, faintly--but she'll go.