2020-06-17: Something With a Little More Class

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<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.

    Lunata Croze was involved in a pitched battle that saw extensive fire damage to the Baskar Colony in Kasutho Island, and...

    A day later, she's back here in the Karlsefni -- looking definitely a little messed up, with lots of bandages around her seeped black from where her... wounds? Disruptions? to her undead body not functioning quite right. It's not the first time she's experienced this, but...

    "... come on... come on, answer me," Lunata grumbles from inside the Rephaim's cockpit where the Gear now stands in one of the Karlsefni's Gear hangars. She recently finally agreed to have the Yggdrasil send it here, but since then...

    She's discovered it's not responding to her.

    After an hour's work with no significant progress, she frustratedly hits the side of the console and slips on out of the Gear. This isn't working, and her heart isn't really in it either. She tries finding the Wolves, because there was something she wanted to ask them... 

<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.

"Not having any luck with it, then?" Leon asks.

He steps out of the workshop that he has in the Karlsefni's hangar. His hands are coated in black grease. He has a weapon in hand -- a familiar one, all told, but it looks more like the skeleton of it. The rough, half-finished form of Argent Divider is visible, but the casing is removed and it has grease smears all over it.

He looks up at Lunata, and then up at the Rephaim, and then he sighs a little. "I"m glad we got it in one piece," he says. "But... mm. I wonder why it doesn't respond."

<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

For what may seem like the first time in a while, Lily Keil is not working on machinery of any kind; instead she's near the workshop, walking around with an old book in ancient text, looking up from the text towards Lunata and up at the Rephaim. "...Hm," she remarks.

"I could take a look at you," she suggests to Lunata, though she doesn't aim to force the matter at the moment. 

<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.

    Usually, this would be where Shalune would step in with a well-intentioned, upbeat suggestion as to the Rephaim's behaviour, backed by hopefulness and intuition. Not this time. Instead, she's watching silently as Lunata tries to contact the Gear, her eyes alert as she looks for any kind of indication as to why it refuses to work.

    While she thinks, she absently turns a wrench over and over in her hands.

    It's rare to see her looking so solemn - but it only lasts visibly for a little while, because the moment that Lunata drops down to the ground she's perked up and hurried forwards to help support her. Still, there's something telling in the way she doesn't even answer Leon when he comments, her expression somewhere between tense and frustrated when not fussing over Lunata directly. 

<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

    Lunata is far from the only one to be in perhaps fouler spirits following the altercation at the Baskar Village.

    Just as Leon is far from the only one to have taken to his workshop space. She emerges from her own cordoned off section of the hangar, stripped down to nothing more than a pair of pants and an undershirt, her hair piled into a looser, messier bun than usual. Grease streaks one cheek and smudges the bandages wrapped around both arms (the ones on the left should probably get changed by the look of them); her left hand is absolutely smeared with it.

    She squints up at Lunata blearily, as if she were either a little inebriated or sleep deprived.

    Or both.

    "...What's goin' on?"

    It takes a moment for it to click.

    "Oh. ...Oh. Ain't you and it...?" 

<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.

    "No... no go," Lunata answers Leon as he steps up, wincing with her wounds nagging her. She blinks a few times, looking towards the weapon in his hands. She remembers something he said during a Dig a while back. "Hey... is that the new sword you were talking about?"

    A pause, "Well, old sword restored, I guess...?"

    Lily says that she could take a look at her. "Yeah... if you would, please?"

    Shalune's looking pretty solemn, and Lunata knows what that means -- so she stays close to the engineer as Jospehine speaks up and asks what's going on.

    "... I wanted to..." A pause. "I think I need some... help. Some advice..."

    She lowers her head, hands in her pockets.

    "I think I'm at my own moment where... like..." She scratches her head in frustration and anxiety, looking towards Leon and Lily.

    "What was it like... to have to make a stand for yourselves, even if that means... going against people you knew and liked?" 

<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.

"New old sword," Leon says, with a shrug. "I found a half-finished Argent Divider. I've made some improvements," he says, with a shrug.

And then he looks at Shalune for a second -- worried for a moment -- and then he looks back at Lunata. That's a heavier question than he expected. He blinks, then glances at Lily and finally Josie.

"Mm. Difficult," he says, as he considers. "I won't lie. The other Wolves' teams were... friends of ours. People we knew. People we'd had drinks with. But... I find that I can turn that part of my mind off, if I need to. Live in the moment, in the fight, and I'll trust my mind and body to do what they need to, to stay alive."

He tilts his head. "I don't know if that helps or not."

<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

It is rare to see Shalune that way. Lily doesn't imagine she'll be getting back to her book anytime in the next few moments, after all. She places a mark in it, glances to Josie, and puts it under her arm as she approaches Lunata, moving immediately to a few of the bandages.

She doesn't appear to be bothered by black gunk.

"...Some of them," Lily says, "I knew from the Academy," chiming in on the matter of the other Wolves' teams. "It can be difficult. What sort of advice are you looking for?"

"...It's a little different for me, but not that different. I'll explain if it's the kind of thing you're asking." 

<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.

    Having filled up her energy gauge a little by clinging to the other girl, Shalune nudges Lunata fowards towards Lily at about the same moment as she catches the worry coming off of both of them, and Leon's glance towards her afterwards. It makes her blink - and then smile sheepishly, even if her heart isn't exactly in it.

    "... I think I've got some ideas as to why the Rephaim might not be working," she admits, looking back towards the hangar. "But in the end they're just feelings. And I don't even know how to test them out yet. They don't really involve anything mechanical."

    Still, there is a determined look to go along with the frustration. She's fixed alien technology and ancient ruins, she reminds herself once more in the privacy of her own head. If she has to take a wrench to Ge Ramtos, she's prepared to give that a go.

    Reference to Seymour makes her expression darken again, and even if Lily's looking Lunata over the pink-haired girl still gravitates back in her direction. "From where I'm standing, they went against you first," she mutters, and then sticks a hand in her mess of hair. "... ah... sorry, that's definitely not gonna help." 

<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

    Time was, on Lunar, Josie had offered to take a look at Argent Divider. See what she could do. But he'd said there hadn't been enough left to try. Most of it probably still rested somewhere in a field in Elru.

    Now, she says nothing, her gaze resting on the half-finished weapon in silence. The fingers of her left hand curl inwards a moment towards her palm, only to relax again.

    "How about that," she remarks, ultimately, her attention sliding over towards Lily for a moment, then lifting again to take in Lunata.

    She pats her hand against her hip, as if searching for cigarettes, but there's apparently none to be had.

    She's silent for a good long moment more.

    "...I ain't a soldier, like these two," she says, gesturing towards Leon and Lily. "But I've killed a man before." Or two, or three. "It's different with friends, like as not, but I daresay they've the right of it. You do what you need to do... and you keep going. Without looking back."

    She watches Shalune for a time more after that, a complicated expression on her face.

    "...Given how that thing works, the problem probably ain't mechanical. I daresay you're on the right path, kiddo." 

<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.

    "Aha... that's pretty neat, how far you've come that you can fix up another even though the old one-- broke," Lunata does nod to Leon. "It was pretty tough in Spira without it, isn't it..."

    But ultimately, the topic of Argent Divider divides to the side as Leon speaks about the Wolves.

    Compartmentialising, he all but puts a term to it. Lunata doesn't look like someone who's actively practiced that before... and Lily also chimes in and tell her it's quite difficult.

    Josephine says you do what you need to do... and you keep going. And that the problem with the machine isn't mechanical.

    Lunata probably knows, on some level -- what Shalune already knows as well. The issue isn't that it's broken, it's that... she's not on the same level at it for some reason. And she's pretty sure it's because of what she's feeling.

    "Well-- um, I don't know if you've heard, but a big fight broke out in the Baskar village... the village I was born in," Lunata explains. "Seymour and K.K. were trying to create a new Sin, a Clysmian, and..."

    She lowers her head.

    "I... took a stand and... stabbed Seymour." Then he got pissed and threw down a Flare face-first at her, which explains her current situation, which Lily can sense as Lunata's body is all kinds of disrupted from great magical force.

    It seems to have disrupted the necromantic circuit that holds her body together, is the first sense she has.

    She looks to what Shalune says about Seymour casting the first stone, and doesn't quite argue.

    "... I've seen other people take a stand against someone important to them and they seem so... strong, not confused, not... feeling like they're still sitting on the fence and a mess about it?"

    She scratches her head. "I took a stand but... I still feel complicated. And that makes me feel... kinda... well, weak...?" 

<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

"What are they?" Lily asks Shalune simply enough, without saying much either way about whether she expects them to work. She has rather a lot of faith in Shalune's ability to wrench things anyway.

Sorry Josie, Lily's too busy to spare cigarettes at the moment!!

She doesn't comment much on Argent Divider because she already knows about this part--instead, she listens to Lunata as she examines her, her attention more on her form than on the story though the talk of a 'new Sin' is definitely.... Notable. She considers--and assumes Seymour is responsible for the disruption she senses. "I may be able to help this," Lily says, "But to be frank, I don't want to do it too close to other people. Privacy but also safety."

Then she considers, and... laughs, faintly.

"It's because we're good at pretending," Lily answers with a shake of her head. "It's not that strength means you aren't confused... it just means that you act anyway. Leon and I have training in how to ignore confusion and act, and worry about the details later."

"It's not weak to feel complicated; you were strong enough to do it in the first place. And, well..."

"It's easy to feel weak when you're injured." 

<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.

"Mm. Certainly," Leon says. "I'd gotten too used to the bloody thing. I'll be glad to have it back."

He listens to Lunata explain -- and his brow furrows. "It sounds like he deserved it, from what I've heard. Good," he says. "Some people are better at faking when they feel conflicted--and some people aren't as inclined to be emotional or confused."

He shakes his head. "It's as Lily sys. We're trained to ignore confusion and act. Feeling something doesn't make you weak."

He frowns. "It's what you do that matters, I think."

<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.

    "... yeah," Shalune nods towards Josie. It's not the whole truth of how Shalune's feeling about the Rephaim right now, but Josie's point is a fair one, even if it's a bit of cold comfort to know that the only way she's going to really be able to chase her suspicions is to dive in after them head-first. At least it wouldn't be the first time, but the stakes are what's making her hesitate this time.

    So for the time being, she just sort of purses her lips at Lily's question, frowning off to one side as she continues rolling the ideas around her head.

    Instead, she lets out a breath, and finds her way to one of her friend's hands. "... when we were in the Temple, it sucked," she blurts out, too quickly to be anything but honest. "I didn't want to fight you. I didn't want to have to face off against you. But... I couldn't stand the idea that someone had built up your hopes and just left you there, you know?"

    She's not sure she actually has a point, but frowns. "It's okay to feel complicated, is what I'm saying. I think. See, I'm doing it," she desperately tries to save at least a little face.

    ... :I 

<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

    "Did you find the right parts here, or...?" Josie does ask, on the matter of the Argent Divider --

    If only because ARMs (even swordlike ones) are her wheelhouse.

    The story Lunata has to tell is one that Josie largely knows the gist of -- but there are a few details more.

    "So that's what's up... Wonder how he can affect your connection with it, though. He's from Spira, yeah? ...And ain't he supposed to be dead?"

    Ah, the little details.

    "I guess it's that... Unsent business."

    She doesn't say it, but:
    Just like Lunata, in its own way.

    Perhaps that's a sentiment that's already understood. And speaking of sentiments--

    "...Lunie's got it in one. I don't care for them that screws around with others like that. Blame him, not yourself."

    Josie glances away, then, and lets out a long sigh. It's several long moments before she says anything more.

    "K.K. was there too..."

    They had certain things to say to her, things that might be one of the reasons why she's been up all night.
    The other reason lies in the rifle still reduced to pieces in her workshop, by her own hands. 

<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.

    Josephine's words resonate with her, but in a way, make it worse -- because she wants to be the kind of person who can just blame him and move on. Shalune kind of digs to where this lack of action, this confusion affected them too--

    Macalania Temple.

    It's what you do that matters...

    "... it did suck," Lunata answers as she looks somewhat listlessly towards Shalune. "I wound up fighting you all, I wound up falling into the lake, and even this, even now-- I..."

    She shakes her head. "He approached me, and I still wanted to believe him. And now this mess' gotten out, when I could've leaked the whole story early and probably stopped the village from burning down."

    Lunata slumps as she at least registers that feeling things, feeling complicated, is okay... even if it stings right now.

    But Lily also points out it's easy to feel weak when you're injured. "M-mm," she nods. "Thanks... I'm... going to go up that mountain, at least. Rephaim or no Rephaim. I need to... act. Even if it took a long time..." 

<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.

"In Shae Ving," Leon says. "Though--I had to do a lot of modifications. I'm using my current shotgun as a base."

He couldn't salvage the original.

"Shalune is quite right," Leon says. "There is no use in blaming yourself for what others do to you. It's right to be angry, though. And hurt, besides."

He shakes his head. "And maybe you could have done things differently, but the past has come and gone. The most you can do is learn from it, for the future."

<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

"It'll be good to see it back with you," Lily finally comments on the Argent Divider, nodding along at the matter of what Seymour deserves. For some reason she hasn't dealt much with him directly, but she certainly knows his reputation.

The Temple sucked. That's fair, isn't it? Lily wits through the others speaking up. "The Trial Knight?" Lily confirms from Josie, with a frown. "...Even moreso."

Lily shakes her head. "It's as he says. What was is past; you can't change it. ...And it may have been worse if you'd gone against him alone, for that matter. That's the trouble with what ifs--they never end."

"...But good. I'm glad you're resolved." 

<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.

    Shalune's thoughts on Seymour are a little more nuanced than Josie's might be, at least in this instant. When she said she was sorry for whatever had caused him to think of life as suffering, that came out a lot more genuine than she expected. But while he may not be at fault for what made him the way he is, she can't forgive some of the things he's done in service of his goals.

    She bites her lip against that anger, but then chides herself for doing so. She, Jay and Lunata have all faced problems in the past - usually with each other - because they thought speaking up would be the wrong thing to do. "It's not your fault," she says instead, stubborn and solemn. "It's not wrong to give people a second chance - to have some hope in them, especially given you were doing it for the kids. What's wrong is to take that hope, use it, then toss a fireball in its face."

    "We'll show him," she adds quietly. "We'll use this to stop the whole idea of the Pillars in the first place. Turn his plan completely on its head, and make sure the kids survive. Or just smuggle them out the village entirely." It's not even a joke, not with her mouth in that thin line as she lowers herself along with Lunata, glancing to Leon and Lily in turn. "Bet we could house them here for a couple days while we find someplace to put them up, I'm just saying."

    She remains where she is, then draws in a quiet breath and tries not to think of Lunata diving into battle against a Clymsian without a chance to mend herself. "Josie, let's make a sawn-off Argent Divider. That makes everything better, right?" 

<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

    She eyes v2.0 of Argent Divider critically, rubbing at her chin (and smearing her face with more grease in the process; she doesn't seem to notice or care). "I'd have to take a closer look and all, but it don't seem half bad. You sure you don't want to give a life as an ARMs Meister a go, Lion?"

    Lunata again reflects on the fact that she should have said something before everything that happened happened. Josie just sighs and glances down at the floor.

    "'Coulda, woulda, shoulda', huh? It ain't doin' you any good dwelling on that now." She lets out a bark of a laugh then shakes her head. "Just listen to Tiger, right? She's got the right of it and her head on straight! I ain't got no business telling anyone else 'not to dwell on the past'..."

    She's in a more morose mood than usual, it seems.

    "Yeah. Seymour, the Trial Knight, and now a whole new damn Sin to deal with. A 'Clysmian', they called it. Lucky us," Josie remarks, again reaching for where her smokes should be and remembering too late they're not there.

    It's Shalune who speaks of an actual plan, though, and judging by Josie's expression she's surprised -- but far from displeased.

    "Now you're talkin'." She manages a lopsided smile. "See? If you want something you can do, Little Bear, how 'bout that? Get the kids out, kick Seymour's ass back to the moon..." she ticks the items off, one-handedly.

    "...Sure, why not? Hey, Lion, we'll take the Argent Divider from here, yeah?"

    She at least winks. She's probably (probably) not being serious about making it into a sawn-off shotgun-sword combo. 

<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.

    There's no use in blaming herself for what others do to her... and the only thing she can do is learn from it. And Lily also points out that that's the trouble with 'what if's -- they never end.

    "... I think it was because I found so much of myself in Seymour," Lunata admits. "Because at a lot of times I found myself going, 'that's something I would've said'. ... and... I know that the difference between us, in how we split up and eventually fell apart, was... quite thin."

    Life was suffering. And it was better to not live it, with that conclusion in mind...

    She looks towards Shalune again and nods. "It's not my fault... but..."

    A pause, as she hears Shalune's idea.

    "Nah... I don't think what the kids need is a new place to live. I think the kids are resolved enough to speak up... they just need someone who'll actually support them, not manipulate them and use them to their own ends. But to that end..."

    She lifts her head up to the Rephaim again.

    "Yeah... I'll face him." A pause, as she stares towards Josie and Shalune. "Do not, under any circumstance, let thse two touch your weapon," she grumbles to Leon, pointing to what's going on with the Freiheit in the distance. 

<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.

"I'm not so sure," Leon says, with a half-smile at Josie. "I do all right, but some ARMs are easier than others. This one just... comes naturally, I suppose."

He rubs at the bridge between his nose, and he glances sideways at Shalune. He looks sympathetic -- but concerned. "I don't blame you. Sacrificing young people is a shit way to go about governance, as a general rule. But... be careful, Shalune. If you go into someone else's culture and tell them how to live their lives, tell them what their values should be, and you're passing judgment and taking responsibility for them. Be sure you're ready for that."

He glances at Lunata, then. He nods his head, after sharing a glance with Lily. "Good. You may not feel better for doing it, but I doubt you'd regret it. I--"

He looks at Shalune, then at Josie. "I think not. A sawed-off Argent Divider? I'd like some class."

<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.

    Lunata is hit with an 'eh?!' as she stares at where her own sawn-off shotgun is propped up at the moment, right after that line. 

<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

    "Quit bein' so stiff," Josie remarks to Leon, from her corner of the hangar. 

<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

"You wouldn't be the first among us to think that a monster or just an asshole had a point," Lily tells Lunata. "However thin the difference, it's there."

She leaves the matter of responsibility and cultures to Leon, for the moment. Instead she considers, "Another Sin..." She shakes her head.

The matter of Josie and Shalune taking Argent Divider gets a laugh. "That doesn't seem like it's going to happen," Lily says. "But as for the kids... Maybe so. But let me have a look at you before you go back in there, anyway. Make sure you take care of yourself before you take too much care of everyone else. ....After that, though--by all means." 

<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.

    "What?" Shalune puffs at Josie. "I'm trying to act a bit more my age, you know? I can have a good idea from time to time," she complains lightly as she folds her arms - though the fact she's clung to Lunata's side and her arms are actually around the other girl's does kind of mar her point a little.

    She softens again as Lunata speaks, and slowly nods her head. "... I was thinking the same thing. I don't think you're wrong to think you're both pretty similar... and I get it, y'know? I can see why that'd draw you towards him. Which is why I'm not going to think it's your fault," she insists. "It's just everything that's happened. If you could get through to him, it'd be great - if you thought you could get through to him, I'd understand."

    She looks a little chagrined in Leon's direction, having kind of jumped towards assurance rather than anything else, so she nods lightly in recognition of his point and then tries again. It's Lunata's homeland, after all, not hers. "Okay. Whatever you decide to do now - with Seymour or with the kids - we've got your back," she promises, knowing the power of saying it out loud.

    And then adds more privately, almost under her breath: "... an' I swear I'll get that Gear moving." Thankfully, she doesn't add 'if it's the last thing I ever do'. She's smarter than that.

    Instead, lifts her head up and looks positively scandalized. "Miss Josie, Leon doesn't think we have any class." Since when did she learn how to keep a straight face? 

<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

    "You keep that up," she quips, at Shalune's response, "and I'm going to be the little sister, at this rate."

    Well, it isn't as if the archaeologist ever made any pretense of being the least bit mature...

    Which might be why she shakes her head in the wake of her own comment to Leon, when Shalune similarly protests the statement, and shrugs loosely.

    "Listen, kiddo, some people just don't know a good thing when they see it..."

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