2020-08-07: What We Do For Each Other
- Log: What We Do For Each Other
- Cast: Xantia, Leon Albus
- Where: The Thames - Mess Hall
- Date: August 07, 2020
- Summary: Having been separated from the Wolves as a whole for some time, Xantia catches up with Leon regarding what's been happening on Kattelox... as well as a distressing development from within the Wolves' own ranks.
=========================<* The Thames - Mess Hall *>========================= "Booze! Booze!" Such is the rallying cry of the sailors and salvagers as they head to the Thames' mess hall following a hard day of work. The mess hall of the Thames is an open cafeteria that can house hundreds, filled with hard-working beastmen and crewmates working 'round the clock to ensure everyone's wetting their whistles and filling their bellies. As they say in the Thames: can't work on an empty stomach. So why don't you pull up a chair and grab some grub? BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YREOhjsSvOs
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Xantia has been absent a while from the Wolves as a whole. Like most things she does, it wasn't exactly planned that way, it just sort of happened that way. It all started with a hospital treatment in Kattelox City following a fight with K.K. in which she broke her ribs. Well, 'treatment', as she healed much more quickly than the prognosed six weeks, but she stuck around in the area anyway, following the insistence of the medical personnel to take it easy. And so she 'took it easy', by helping out the Digger's Guild in a newfound busy period filled with more than usual of the normal hazards. Fighting Reaverbots every day counts as taking it easy, of course.
This much isn't news, Fei and Lily had gone to check on her before Everything Went Wrong. Xantia said she'd meet up again soon at the time, but that didn't end up happening due to unforeseen circumstances. But now she's back, and returned to the Thames, in hopes of linking back up with the rest of the group.
One would never guess anything is out of the ordinary from looking at her, she is cheerful as always seated in the Thames' common area. Of course that does stand to reason: this is where the food is, and Xantia has just helped herself to her typical amount, if the stack of empty plates next to her is any indication. All that remains now is dessert, a nice juicy apple that she's bound to work through at a rapid pace as well.
Only one thing is a bit off. Xantia usually likes to be among people, but she's chosen to sit in a more secluded corner this time, away from where most of the bustle is going on. A subtle change, but one that didn't happen for no reason.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
Leon has worried about Xantia -- but despite the impression he may give, at times, he is neither all-knowing nor all-competent. He could only keep an ear to the ground, try to hear rumors, and hope that she wasn't dead. Fei and Lily looked after her as best they could, because... well... because Leon Albus is bad at the emotional side of life. He cares, but he rarely knows what to do with caring.
The Karlsefni has come to the Thames, though. It's one of the few ports where Leon feels safe docking the ship; it, after all, is also a massive Zeboim-era relic.
He stops as he reaches the common area. His eyes look for the secluded corners as he usually does -- and then he stops. His eyes catch Xantia, widen a fraction, and then he approaches with long and fast strides.
"Xantia!" he says, voice kept down. "I didn't expect to see you here... I'd been worried about you."
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Xantia's reaction to hearing her name spoken by a familiar voice is immediate. She pauses her apple-devouring to turn in the direction of the source, smiling brightly. "Leon! Wow, that was fast! You found me before I even really had to try to find you!"
That's about as long as it takes for her to process the fact that Leon was speaking in a lower volume, and lower her own voice accordingly. "I figured this would be the best place to go. It's easier to go somewhere the ship is at a lot than trying to find the ship itself. That was some really good timing though. About time stuff started going right again."
Leaving off on that for a moment, she pauses to take a bite from her apple. Things would have to be really bad if Xantia forgot about her food for a very long time. And indeed, she does look perfectly fine... aside from the worry that soon follows in her expression. "...I mean, yeah, I ran into trouble again, but that happens all the time. It's not me you need to worry about, it's the trouble."
And, on a dime, back to being all smiles. "But before that, how's things been on this side? Everything going okay? Any interesting jobs that I should know about?" She may just be a slight bit behind on current events, or she probably wouldn't be asking so casually.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"Well," Leon says, with a slight smile. "I do have a sharp eye for that sort of thing."
He closes the distance -- then he stops at her table, and looks down at one of the chairs at it. "May I?" he asks. He hasn't gotten any food yet, but he can wait. Instead, he looks back at her -- and he can't miss the way that her expression shifts so quickly, revealing a little of what's in her mind. "Well. Trouble has a way of making us worry about others."
He shakes his head once. "I'm glad we found you. Ah--" He hesitates, then his expression darkens. "We've had some trouble of our own. Have... you ran into Josie, of late?"
He says the name with such a careful, measured neutrality that it seems odd.
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
"Sure, sure!" Xantia is quick to confirm that Leon can sit wherever he likes. Not something that friends ever need to ask where she's concerned. There was a time when she wouldn't have even understood why the question was asked. She certainly doesn't think to do that herself most of the time.
She takes another big bite of the apple, nodding a bit on the matter of worry - she can't argue feeling worried when it's others suffering the trouble, too. Case in point... when Josie is mentioned, she cants her head quizzically. "No... should I have?" She's not entirely sure what's being implied, but she's sure that something is.
Since she can sense that this is important, she leans back in her seat a bit and elaborates, "Last time I saw Josie was at that Baskar village. I don't really know what she did, I... kind of was only really paying attention to K.K." She rests her free hand on her midriff. "...That's when I got injured. So I didn't really see where she went after that, either."
She inclines her head apologetically. "Sorry, I would've paid more attention if I knew something was going to happen. I'm guessing you haven't seen her in a while?" It's the most likely reason she can come up with why Leon would ask in that way.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
Leon pulls out a chair and has a seat across from her. Old-fashioned politeness runs strong in his habits; it comes from that upper-class upbringing that a couple of years as a Drifter has never quite shook.
"No," Leon answers her first question, a little flatly. "The last I saw her was a couple of weeks ago. She..." He trails off. Leon's expression is distant for a moment. He is considering how to say this, without either bile or remorse.
"Lovelace betrayed us," he concludes. "She sold us out to Odessa -- and aided them in attacking us. We escaped with our lives, but... she was after those tiles, and what they led to. Once she had them unlocked..."
He shrugs, slightly.
"...she turned on us," Leon says. "If you see her, avoid her. She cannot be trusted."
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
When Xantia attempts what was going to be one of the final bites required to devour her apple, she misses, her head sharply jerking aside to face Leon. An understandable lack of understanding is clearly visible in her expression after hearing the word 'betrayed'. She doesn't even notice the apple's remains falling from her hand and rolling under the table.
She slumps back in her chair, looking completely puzzled by this revelation. This doesn't make any sense to her. It can't make any sense to her, the entire notion of friends betraying friends feels like such a foreign concept. It just can't be what's really going on. There must be some other explanation. She starts searching for one immediately. It doesn't take long before she lands on a possibility. She still sounds a bit shell-shocked when she poses the question.
"...Are you sure that was the real Josie?"
Obviously that needs context, so she straightens up, regaining composure quickly the more she relates.
"I don't know why exactly, but it seems there's something on Kattelox that's been drawing attention. First Veruni, then Odessa... they're looking for something over there. And Odessa..." She pauses a moment, but can't think of a better way than to just say it straight out. "They can make clones of people. I've seen it. Brad, the hero who works with ARMS, and another one of their members. They looked just like them, but... they weren't the same. They even made a clone of Gwen. And... they said there were more."
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
Leon's eyebrows raise, at Xantia's question. He hesitates for a moment -- and then he shakes his head.
"I'm sure," he says. "Josie... she came with us from the Karselfni. There wasn't a time where she could have swapped out with a double of her. I can't imagine there being a time. And the things she said..." His eyes narrow, and he glances downward.
"She always had her anger. Her dismissiveness. The way she brushed aside a lot of questions," he says. "This time, she brushed aside ours -- and us. It was her, as much as we may not like it."
His hand curls into a fist. But, still. The fact they could make a clone -- several clones, at that -- is deeply disturbing. His expression is grave, as he looks at her. "If they can make such clones... that's terrifying. And she has thrown her lot in with them."
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Xantia lowers her head. That was obviously not the reaction she was hoping for. As much as she wants to hold out hope, she isn't going to question Leon's judgment - if he thinks it was the real Josie, it probably was the real Josie. Especially considering how easy it was for her to come up with a way to tell the real Gwen from the fake one.
And yet, when Xantia raises her eyes up again, they only show determination. "Even so... I'm not going to give up on her. There has to be a reason, and a reason why she won't say that reason." She raises a hand to preemptively stop objections. "Don't worry, I'm not going to do anything that could put any of you in danger. I'm just saying that... I don't want to have to choose between friends. So if there's any way that I won't have to, I'm going to find it."
This is to be expected from Xantia. Always wanting to see the good in people, especially those she's come to call friend. No matter how bad things may look right now, it's going to take overwhelming evidence for her to be unwilling to give people another chance.
That confident look fades away quickly, however, when she turns her mind back to the matter of clones. "...There's something else you should know. I don't want to believe this is the explanation, but just in case, I should tell you that... there might be a clone of me out there. And if so, they've been out there for months. I don't know if Lily or Fei have mentioned anything about it, but... there's a reason why I think that could be possible."
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
Leon feels no particular guilt at that disappointment. To him, it simply is what it is; he would rather it not be the case at all, but lying to soften the blow feels worse. He looks at Xantia -- then he blinks, when she says he won't give up on her. His expression is, for a moment, haggard. He thinks of Lily's father; of the family, the friends, and the comrades in Kislev, who have tried to kill him at every turn. For a moment, he looks much older than his twenty-five years.
"I don't know, Xantia," he says, softly. "Sometimes... sometimes you find out the measure of someone only after they've stuck a knife in your back. If I've learned anything, it's that people don't change."
He shakes his head and feels empty. "Not really."
He swallows, then, and then he looks at her. He blinks -- the haggard, withdrawn expression fading back into the more neutral, controlled one that's a good deal more familiar to Xantia. He let himself slip. "A... clone of you? Are you sure? You--have you encountered this clone?"
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Xantia, of course, has only the memories that she's picked up over the last few years. She lacks the kind of background, or at least the awareness of it, that would cause her to become even slightly jaded. She had the good fortune to encounter good people, helping her to become who she is today.
Which isn't to say that she doesn't know the sting of betrayal at all. Finding out that the man she'd thought of as a savior was responsible for her memory loss... she's not sure she'll ever be able to forgive that, no matter the circumstances. And yet...
"Maybe you're right," Xantia readily replies to the assertion that people don't change. "That's why it's so important that we find out who people really are." What Josie did may have been awful, but was that the real her? It's hard to believe that the past years were all a lie. Whatever the case may be... well, Xantia doesn't exactly have any cause to believe that she can't manage to maintain friendships with the most unlikely people under the most unlikely of circumstances.
All told, it's probably more unexpected for Xantia to place a hand on Leon's shoulder, and give it a little squeeze, forcing a smile for his sake. "Things don't always end the same. Even if they ended badly nine times, the tenth time could be the time where you turn it all around. Don't give up yet."
Xantia calmly sits back, though that sudden composure visibly melts away when she starts to think about the possibility of a clone again. "I haven't, but... I've heard things." Lily and Fei evidently didn't tell anyone else about it. She can see why they wouldn't have. But now, it's probably important for others to be aware of it. She crosses her arms, looking down at the table.
"There was a woman on Kattelox. Someone who sounded so much like me that I got mistaken for her when they heard me. She hid her face, but, well... if her voice is the same, and her build is the same... I know it wasn't me, she was there back when we were in Spira, and I'd never been to Kattelox before that." She raises her narrowed eyes. "But... Odessa probably was."
She pauses, then brings a hand to her forehead. "But... no. If that were true, why would she use that name...?"
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
Leon might laugh, if he found out Xantia thought of him as a good person. But, such is his mood of late.
He looks at her, curiously -- and then he blinks, in surprise, when she clasps his shoulder. The captain doesn't jerk away, but there is a moment of physical tension. He loosens after a second. "Mm. Maybe so... I guess, there is nothing to do but see."
He doesn't sound convinced, but he isn't so callous to deny her the right to be hopeful.
"That... hm. We would need to know more about these clones that Odessa has made," he admits. "But..."
But Xantia has her doubts.
"What name did she use?" Leon asks. "Yours? Or... another's?"
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
You can always count on Xantia to see the good in people, even when they can't see it themselves. Which doesn't mean it isn't fair to wonder about her judgment, given that she thinks of Id as a good person.
At the very least, she too isn't insistent about her viewpoint, simply accepting Leon's answer without her smile wavering. The acknowledgement that hope is something that still exists is enough, a 'maybe' is fine.
In the end, the matter of Josie is the easier one for her to digest, because she feels that she'll be able to approach it in a way that's familiar to her. The matter of clones, that is far more terrifying. She couldn't deal with having to doubt everyone's identity all the time. And then there's the matter of the woman who resembles her... clone or not, the question is not whether that's complicated, but just how complicated it really is.
To Leon's question, she shakes her head. "Not mine. Xenia. That's the name she used. As soon as I heard that name, I remembered-- well, more like, I saw a flash of memory. Ever since then, I've just felt completely sure that... 'Xenia' is 'Mother'."
Even just saying it out loud again has an impact. A sensation of 'this is correct' regarding one's past that's difficult to describe to anyone without amnesia. Xantia greatly values things that she can feel that sure about.
Yet even she to admit, "...I don't know if this Xenia is also that Xenia. But, I'm sure you understand why I'd think there's a chance. For someone to resemble me, and use that name that I didn't know myself until I heard it... there has to be something there, right?" She pauses, then sighs, shrugging helplessly. "But, I've found no trace of her. All I know is that she was on Kattelox that one time, and she was doing business with some shady scrap dealer. After that, it's like she just... disappeared."
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"Mother...? As in your mother?" Leon asks. He has to wonder; a lot of Xantia's background is still a mystery to him, though he recalls the time she had something happen -- and lost control of herself. His eyes widen for a moment, though, and he nods. "It isn't a common name. A coincidence is possible, but... unlikely. Especially if she looks like you."
But is she a clone, or, perhaps, a true mother to Xantia?
He glances downward for a second. Then, he nods his head. "So you've been on Kattelox, searching... and found neither hide nor hair of her, then?" he asks. "That is troubling. What do you plan to do next? Do you have somewhere you want to look for her, now?"
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Xantia nods, to the question of 'your mother'. "It's... weird to think about. I can't picture anybody, not like when I think of Father. Even that's only a vague shadow, but..." She falls silent a moment. She has trouble explaining what her condition is like, exactly. She gives up on the attempt, shaking her head, then looks away from Leon for a moment. "Well, it's not like I can remember anything about what it's like to have parents. I can't really feel any connection. It's just that, if I could meet one of them, they could tell me what I used to be like."
Refocusing her attention on Leon, she clarifies, "I don't just want to be whoever I used to be, not anymore. But, knowing about it, that's still very important to me. So, if there's any chance... I want to find this person."
She lets out a chuckle, in spite of herself. "I have no idea, really. There's no trail to follow. Believe me, I've looked." She doesn't specify further, but considering how important this is to her, and how long she was over there, it's safe to assume that she's been as thorough as she could manage. "All I can do now is... keep my eyes and ears open." She chuckles again. "That's how you use that expression, right? It's still a little weird. It's not like your ears are ever not open, the most you could do is cover them."
Xantia using figures of speech, who would have thought she'd ever start to get the hang of that? Even if she does seem to be doing it to distract from a difficult topic.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
Leon considers, for a moment, the place he lived before he was adopted. He knows it was from the western part of Ignas, in a small town; he remembers what must have been ruins. He barely remembers anything of that time -- a few holidays, at most. He considers it for a moment, and then he nods with understanding. "Memories that you've lost... mm. It is difficult--like a shadow, as you say."
He looks at her, then, and he tilts his head to the side. "I'm glad of that, though. You are your own person -- where you live, how you live, and what you do now... these things are important. But, I understand wanting to know where you came from."
He sighs, then. He would like a lead -- anything, really, to distract himself. But, Leon cannot force that.
"You're right," he says. "Keep your eyes and ears open, and be ready. We will, too. If we hear about this Xenia... well, we'll help you find her. It's what we do for each other."