2020-05-20: Biting the Bullet
- Log: Biting the Bullet
- Cast: Lily Keil, Lunata Croze, Josephine Lovelace
- Where: The Thames - Upper Deck
- Date: May 20, 2020
- Summary: After the events at Aubefort, Josie checks in with Lily to see how she's doing. She's joined by Lunata, who wants to talk about certain decisions she's made of late.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
On the Thames, finding Lily is not the most difficult. Oh, part of it sure is that she stands out, is easy to recognize by her demeanor and by some extra senses as well, but in this case it's something altogether more simple; it's because she's down on a platform near the water working on what looks like an engine, comparing it to a book that's propped on a table and held open by a spare nail simply set on top of it. She's bare-armed, her jacket down on the ground, and her hands are a little greasy. No fire magic for the moment.
The book, perhaps curiously, is in decent shape, though that has any number of plausible explanations. It's not a terribly impressive engine--maybe meant for an automobile, or a Gear-sized weapon of some kind, and the book... Well, the text is basically unreadable ancient tongue.
Anyone who'd asked after her can say she borrowed a bay and took some spare parts over for some reason.
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.
Lunata is, through a pure stroke of luck, nearby, though she hasn't quite caught on to Lily being there. Instead, she's chatting to what looks like an adorable capybara beastman dressed in, Lily might find it a bit nostalgic, a Yggdrasil jumpsuit. "Yeah... I secured landing permissions, so let them know it's okay-- hmmn?"
A pause, as she twigs something and reaches to the pendant at her chest. "... oh. Lily?" She puts up a finger and walks nearby, staring to the large engine and the book on the table. "Working on some new stuff?"
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"Hey, kiddo."
It goes without saying that Josie has interposed herself into the proceedings, leaning in to get a look at the engine under construction.
She scrutinizes the younger woman with something approaching care. "...How are you doin'?"
No cigarettes out in here. No alcohol, either. Josie is without vices today, for whatever it's worth, bringing only herself to Lily's makeshift atelier.
Nor is she alone in the visiting.
"Hey, Little Bear. How's it been?"
Towards Lunata, at least, she's that much the cheerier, breaking into a grin, even.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"Found this in the junk piles," Lily explains of the engine; as she turns, it's clear that she's wearing the same gimballed pendant that she usually keeps on a restored chain, worn loose with its gimballed circles dark. ...'Kiddo', this time.
No cigarettes, no alcohol. Lily lowers her hands and the wrench she was holding to turn and look first at Josie, and then at Lunata. "...Hey," she answers Josie at a little more length. There's something not quite said, there, though it's not that she's avoiding exactly...
"Nothing major. I just need it to run some of the things I wanted to test."
She rises, and sets down the tools, turning to look properly at the others. "I'm..." She shrugs, shaking her head.
"Still seeing machine text when I close my eyes a little," she admits. "Working clears my mind, and working this way doesn't blow up the surrounding area."
"But before I get into that, since you'll probably ask.. How're you two?"
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.
Lunata's eyes glance towards the gimballed pendant. That was the resonance she felt. That's, at least, as clear as day; Lily mentions she found an engine in a junk pile, of all things, though.
Little Bear. She tries to not get riled up like usual, putting her hands in her Yggdrasil Alliance jacket. That thing is ancient by now, as far as Drifter clothes go. They tend to get damaged, after all.
"... wow," Lunata kind of blurts out when Lily shares what's happening. "Um-- geez, I don't even know what that's..."
A pause. "Well, I kinda do, I guess, if a clock is like machine text? I don't know. Uh--"
She scratches her head. "I might need some help from the Karlie soon enough?" ... hey, not bad, she came up with her own nickname.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"Yeah?"
This, at Lily's somewhat non-answer at her current state. Josie cocks her head to one side, regarding her, only to lopsidedly smile. "Heh. What's it for?" she says, gesturing at the engine with her one good hand. Her gaze tilts over at Lunata, regarding the girl. "You look like you're doin' well, kiddo," she remarks, planting her left hand on her hip.
Until Lily finally does answer what's eating at her.
"..."
She heaves out a sigh.
"Do what you gotta," she states, ultimately. "That was bad business, right enough..."
Briefly, Josie lifts her hand as if she were about to search for a cigarette, but then remembers where they're at.
"...Don't worry your pretty little head," she remarks off-handedly. She means Lunata, but without being clear about which one of them she means...?
"Karlie?"
It takes Josie a moment. "Oh, right. That."
She hasn't answered Lily's question.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"...I ran into one of 'my' old creations," Lily explains to Lunata, not over-gently but not harshly. A little quieter than conversational. "It involved a display, saying that it wanted to shut down after a long time. It was... damaged. Deteriorated." She probably doesn't mean literally though she does give Lunata a thoghtful look when she mentions clocks.
But of the engine she does go back to explain, "It's going to go in a car frame if I can manage it. But I need to get the basic engine working before finding that sort of scrap matters. It's not even 'ancient' tech, just a regular Merian engine."
It was bad business, though. And Karlie...
"Heh," Lily says. "Cute. Not sure it'll catch on as a general name, though," she says, a little distantly wry. Then she shakes her head,k just distant instead. "What do you need? I can probably arrange it."
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.
Josie mentions she's looking well. "Yeah? I guess I'm kinda moving forward. I mean, I got squished into a flat sheet the other day, but..."
Lunata pauses for a bit longer at that, wincing at Lily's explanation. "Oh. Uh... that's a pretty raw deal... sorry." A longer pause, as she scratches her cheek. "Do you think you can... fix it?"
She starts nattering a bit, saying, "Like-- you know, I'd feel awful if something happened to Big Shal too, and I'd want to do something to help her--"
She's kind of saved from just anxiously babbling away because everything starts fluttering as a VERY familiar white Gear descends from a nearby ship, seeking to make a landing as the sirens of the Thames blare to signify a craft landing.
The Rephaim.
Lunata flails her arms in its direction to go, "G-geez, read the room already! I know I said 'sure', but not like, 'now'!!"
Ah, is that what she needs help with?
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"Squished flat, huh." Josie appears to take this in stride, though she pulls an expression perhaps subtitled as 'what the--'
But she doesn't ask, and in not asking... perhaps demonstrates she understands the wisdom in not understanding something, sometimes?
Perhaps.
"A car frame, huh? Y'know, I'd been thinking about that once." She glances away from the both of them, gazing out at the sea.
"...Way before anything happened."
Presumedly, back when she was still alive.
"So, let me know if you need any help or whatnot. I've mucked about with engines, some. The modern sort, not," and she gestures, vaguely. "...But you get the idea. Shouldn't be too hard, if you got the parts together. Who knows, maybe I could strap the Nostos to it or somesuch."
Now that's the sort of diseased fantasy that might best remain a fantasy...
Lunata wonders if there's something Lily could do to fix it.
Josie glances over at Lily, and just starts to shake her head--
When a familiar Gear swoops in.
"Oh, hey. Those lot've been keepin' it nice for you, yeah? --Aha."
She's put two and two together, it seems.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Squished flat! "You're looking remarkably recovered," Lily answers, as her mind just sort of makes that into a thing that people can do because that's the nature of that scene. It's just fine. It's all fine.
"Yeah?" Lily asks Josie, and then nods. She catches on--back when she was alive, then. "Sure. The extra pair of hands will make it a lot easier; if I can get the parts together I'll let you know." She considers. The Nostos on a vehicle....
It's strangely appealing.
Lunata asks if Lily can fix it, and Lily says nothing at first--but then she's interrupted by a very, very familiar white Gear. "...Unfortunately no," she manages after a moment of Lunata flailing. "It was too far gone, and I would't know where to start. I've been 'remembering' things, but not that far."
Then she puts it together, too. Hmmm. "I see," she says. "Yes, we'd want to keep that out of too public areas..."
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.
Lunata settles down as the Gear lands properly, and the capybara waves out from where he's piloting up on the cockpit and marches it towards an open bay next to where Lily's working the engine.
"Geez, you're going to bolt so much stuff on that cannon it's gonna become a Gear on its own right," Lunata comments to Josephine.
A pause, as she looks to Lily. "Ah... darn. Um, sorry," she scratches her head. "And... yeah. The Yggdrasil's been trying to get a hold of me for a while, but I felt too ashamed to talk to 'em for a while after what happened in Spira, but..."
She sucks in a breath. "Well, I decided to bite the bullet and take it back after all."
She looks to the Gear again. "They managed to fix the broken arm, too... the one that Berserk broke." A pause. "Hey, what happened to that gun you were gonna make from the metal, anyway, Josie?"
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"More like one and a half, but who's counting, eh?" Josie quips, grinning at Lily. "Let me know what you need. I ain't exactly got much money, after all that business, but I've got a little time to kill. And who knows, maybe we'll get lucky or something..."
With apparently all four tiles in hand, she is, it seems, ready to take a break from her pursuit for the moment. Perhaps because the chase part of the business is settled, and next comes the deciphering...
In other words, the hard part.
"Not a bad plan, Little Bear!" she laughs, at the suggestion that with enough tacked onto it, the cannon's liable to become a Gear -- or close enough to it. "Hauling that thing around's a pain in the ass. Now, if I could only keep it small enough to hide, but easy enough to move..."
Presumedly, she means 'hide in the bushes' or similar because there's no way she's ever going to get that thing small enough to hide on her person. Nope. Physics refuses to bend quite that badly.
She's silent when Lily explains about Aurora, her gaze turned away from the both of them.
In fact, she remains silent until Lunata explains that she felt like she had to take it back after everything.
"Good on you. Listen," she says, turning towards Lunata. "You got tricked, sure enough. But you can't let that define you. Right? So buck up, and take back what's yours."
Which is when Lunata asks about the other gun.
"Oh-- that. Yeah, I already done it. 'Reaper's Hand'. Good balance, light draw despite the size. I guess I never did show it to you or nothing, huh?" She plants her good hand on her hip again. "Not a bad second to the Gawain -- in the end, you never forget your first!"
...She is talking about ARMs, right?
That smile of hers does fade after a moment, her gaze turning a touch distant.
"Heh..." She shakes her head, then.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily at least isn't taking up a ton of space, since it's only the engine rather than the whole thing. That said, still a bit. The matter of the hands, though--Lily laughs faintly, despite her overall mood. "Sure. Time is the biggest thing--the parts are all out there, I'm sure."
"It's definitely powerful enough to match," Lily comments on the gun, and it practically was for a while. "Somehow I think you like showing up with it all the same."
But... the Gear, Rephaim. Lily considers--and then nods. "I think that was the right decision," she tells her. "...Taking it back, that is. You can't change what you've done and what you haven't done, but you didn't have to continue as you were."
Lily has some opinions on hiding from problems for some reason. "...I'm not surprised that they fixed it. They always were handy with those things."
A beat, and she 'hmms.' "True," Lily agrees, and is almost definitely talking about ARMs. But she looks thoughtfully at Josie, after a moment.
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.
Lunata looks towards Josie and sighs quietly, saying, "If only we could just shrink Gears into like, a bracelet or something and carry them around. It'd be so convenient." Sadly, you're entirely in the wrong genre for that, Lunata.
She does pause when Josephine talks about how she got tricked, but she needs to take back what's hers.
"Um... yeah..." Lunata rubs at the back of her head for a moment. It's good that Josephine starts talking about the gun, because it lets her focus on something a little less dire.
"Ah, huh... neat. I'm glad you got something useful out of it in the end."
Lily also mentions that it's the right decision, and...
"Yeah, um... it's part of 'taking things back', I think you've got the right phrase of it, both of you."
A pause, as she glances aside. "I caught wind of a lead of a place I'm gonna go to, on that front as well."
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"A bracelet, huh? Why not go all out, and make 'em a pair of earrings?"
Yeah, right.
"Trust me, all you need is the money. Stuff like that out here in Aquvy's 'bout as common as hen eggs," she remarks. "It's not like it was growing up in Marze, or Fengalon forbid, Adlehyde. --Sorry, kiddo, but it's true. It was a pain in the ass out that way."
In fact, by her estimation, the only place that could be called worse would be Lunar. Ouch.
Turning towards the topic of the Gear, Josie dips her head in a nod. "Yeah. Look, I know you ain't gonna like me saying or what, but the fact that they fixed it... says what they think, yeah? They ain't bothered by what you did."
Because sometimes being a troublesome woman means saying what's true (or nearly enough).
A place Lunata's going to go to? Josie tilts her head. "Yeah? Go on."
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"Well..." Lily starts to consider that that describes the apparatus she uses for the draconic power armor transformation does fold down to a very, very small size. But she doesn't know how to apply that to anything else. ...It's probably fine.
"Especially for civilian markets," Lily finds herself thinking of the markets back in much of Ignas. But... Well.
"Then good," Lily says of the phrase. Then she consider Josie's statement and... inclines her head. SHe's not going to repeat it, but it sure does seem pretty logical to her. "Either way; only you can decide how you're going to be, one way or another. I'm glad you're doing it."
A pause, "Where's this place?"
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.
Lunata pauses for a moment to listen in on Josephine's opinion, nodding. "... no, I was... I mean, I was the one just-- reeling so much when we came back. I pushed them away, even when they were reaching out to me." She scratches her head. "... you all were..."
She looks to Lily again, and Josie when she mentions how much of a pain it is out east. "Heh, we sound like cavemen compared to the stuff out here, don't we? In a way, I kinda liked how simple it is, though... but that's the village girl in me talking."
A pause, as Lily asks and Josie asks her.
"I... think I found the village I was born in." A longer pause. "A Baskar village."
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
Josie just shakes her head. "Listen, kiddo. I'm not gonna say what you did was fine, 'cause it weren't. But it doesn't matter if it was fine or not -- they were waiting for you to get your act together. Right?" She glances over at Lily, once, then just as quickly looks away again.
"The Badlands were fine, for my business. Same with parts of Aveh, sure enough. Used to always have..." she trails off, then, and just shakes her head. "Anyway, never you mind that. Now, we're in the right place for some shopping, assuming we're able to get a few gella to scrap together!"
But speaking of village girls--
Josie arches a pale eyebrow. "Really. So you're a Baskar girl in the end?"
A pause.
"Well, what're you waiting for?"
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily isn't really commenting on past morality at all, for the moment. Just the present, and what it means. Tht remains true. "We still are," she says of reaching ot instead. Then she looks back at Josie, as she's looked at--but doesn't keep her attention there. She looks away, too.
Then she laughs. "They'd like you to think so," Lily answers of how the east sounds. "Though I lived in Nortune, which is another story anyway. I don't know about the simplicity... But I prefer the architectre in Ignas, anyway."
She has to appreciate the parts availble, though.
"Really?" Lily says, at the same time as Josie. "Huh. Well, whenever you want to go check it out, let me know. I'll go with you if you need."
Otherwise, 'same.'
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.
Lunata kind of winces as Josephine lays it on her straight, which she doesn't look like she's fully capable of handling right now. "Y-yeah, yeah..." she's still a bit unsteady, but pulls back up together as she loops around back towards the earlier topic. And, it is meaningful that Lily also reaffirms that she still is, too.
What're you waiting for?
"Um... well, the awkward thing is--"
She glances to the side.
"My adopted mom stole me from that village when I was a baby, because she said they were going to... sacrifice me."
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
'My adopted mom stole me from that village when I was a baby, because she said they were going to... sacrifice me.'
Josie makes the face of someone who has just realized they have inserted their foot directly into their mouth.
"Oh," she utters.
"Huh."
And then:
"Don't suppose that statute of limitation's expired...?"
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
The awkward thing...
"That's awkward," Lily agrees immediately, shaking her head. Awkward. What a word for that. "You hear rumors..." Can they trust the word of that woman? Probably. Weell.
"In that case," Lily says, "Definitely call me if you don't have someone else. They... probably don't still want to sacrifice you, but we can't be sure, and I'm not a Guardianist."
Thus, she can knock over some Baskars if it becomes necessary. It's fine. Super fine.
"I'd at least want to know what I was supposed to be sacrificed for," she allows.