2020-08-26: Karma
- Log: Karma
- Cast: Loren Voss, Leah Sadalbari
- Where: Kasutho Island
- Date: August 26, 2020
- Summary: After his ambition to kill the Black Wolves is thwarted, Loren finds himself under the Watcher's eye.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
He lies for a time in the dust. Everything hurts too much to move. It's a ridiculous prospect -- he's taken blades through him, he's swam long distances out of necessity, he's negotiated all sorts of discomfort, exhaustion, and pain in pursuit of survival. But this, of all things, has downed him.
Maybe his condition is making more a mockery of him than he thought. Maybe the deteoriation isn't just mind alone. The mind swims. He doesn't move.
It would have been shame enough. But.
In an instant, it had all gone wrong.
"...You should know, Captain Voss, that I am very angry."
How had she found him? How could she have known where-- what he was doing--
No, even before this moment it had gone wrong. Where had he made his first mistake?
He rises after a moment's hesitation, there at her feet, taking care not to breathe too deep lest his ribs scream at him again. Bruised, broken, the difference is academic and largely a matter of how he'll have to start the fixing. Loren looks up at her, in this moment speechless.
And light, green and unwinding into a mandala that turns infinitely finer upon itself, he starts to repair the least part of his mistakes.
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.
Major Sadalbari looks down at Loren as she stands, not moving to help or hinder him. He is speechless in the moment; this is fine. She is silent in the same few moments. The light comes...
"That will be sufficient for the moment," Leah pronounces, after he handles part of his wounds, but not all. His mind must be swimming right now, and that's fine.
"We can attend to your wounds after you give your report. Explain to me what you were trying to accomplish."
She does not look angry exactly. She is calm; her expression is level. Her fingers hang at her sides.
But she also doesn't so much as blink.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Or maybe it was his earlier fit. He's never right after those.
Maybe it's all of the factors combined.
Probably bruised, Loren thinks, taking a tentative breath. Probably bruised, because broken would be giving him much more to worry about and he can't feel shifting or the right kind of pain when he takes that breath. He hopes he's right, though, or he's going to have one hell of a problem later.
She cuts him off. He knows better than to push it, even if he's all kinds of messed up and everything still hurts. The light fades. Whatever his flaws, whatever he's lost, he's still good at obeying orders.
Most of the time.
"I was..."
He's in for it this time, he reflects, against the haze. If he'd nearly gotten court martialed for--
"...I was trying to kill them." Even at the best of times he's not very good at lying (to others). Right now, he has no chance at it. And...
"The orders were to... neutralize them. The Black Wolves. So I..."
Alone? At short notice?
He'd really been looking for her.
"...I saw suggestion of their presence in a report," he finishes.
He'd seen suggestion of her presence. Van Houten. He can't... even now he wants her to die.
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.
Leah can identify wounds fairly easily herself; healing is one of her abilities too. She can sense the shape of Loren's magic, see wht he's going for, make some guesses...
It's fine. He'll live. And he does obey orders.
"Were you?" Leah asks. Neutralize them, with his orders. And he saw some suggestion...
"What you were doing was wasting a highly valuable asset on a harebrained mission at the lowest level of planning you could've managed. It's as if you completely lost touch with your senses."
"Do you think I spend my time on you because I'm bored, Captain? Do you think that I am merely filling time with no better things to do?"
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
He just, in this moment, looks completely confused. "Highly... valuable? Major?" he utters, clearly trying get up to speed with her and whatever she's talking about. "Which asset? I only used--"
The moment when he realizes what (or rather who) she means by that is a sight to behold. Light breaks over rockhead, as it were: the sun has risen a little late.
He makes a choked-off sort of sound before he goes completely, utterly silent, rigid where he kneels at her feet.
A terrible, dreadful miscalculation has been made somewhere.
"Ma'am, I--" Loren finally manages to get out, trying to do the double duty of remembering to breathe evenly enough to stave off another potential fit and also remain unmoving in the event--
Well, it's shameful, but it really is this: 'remain unmoving so as to not draw undue attention to himself'.
It's shameful and it's dumb. She's looking directly at him already.
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.
"I did not stutter, Captain."
He gets it; the sun rises late, but it does rise, and he goes very silent and rigid. This is fine, Leah does not stop in concern or any other reaction, instead listening to what he gets out--and doesn't get out.
"You what?" Leah asks. "You were acting out of emotion instead of understanding? That should be what you're realizing right about now, after you realize that I have put a great deal of time into you thus far."
"Managing to kill them would have brought you glory, certainly. If you had succeeded. But the path to success is measured, reasoned, and deliberate."
"Have I made myself clear thus far?"
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
If he'd been struck dumb before, now he just goes pale -- paler than he usually is, that is.
Acting out of emotion? Lacking thought? He--
His hands twitch -- tremble really -- at his sides.
She owns him. He'd known that before -- that it was at her grace that he was still serving at all, that at any moment she could undo any charity she'd previously shown and end his career. He might have forgotten it at times but he's known that since they met again--
But it's more than 'that', he's realizing. Anything he's done, he's been able to do because she not only owns him, she's made him.
How much of anything is his own will? His own accomplishment?
He wouldn't -- couldn't -- have succeeded.
"...Yes, ma'am," Loren says, once he finds again his voice.
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.
How much is his own? Maybe now isn't the best time to ask it--given how much of what is 'his' he's missing, which Leah knows more about than he even can at the moment. Her response remains measured, but measured quickly--
She waits. Until he finds his voice again, Leah stares down at him. She waits. And there, then--
"...Good," Leah says after that. "Now, you can finish healing yourself as much as you're able for now and we'll return to base."
"...If you cannot have faith in your course, you will naturally falter at points like this. Remember this moment. And ensure you do not repeat it."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
As long as Loren's missing his memories--
(as long as he's broken, really)
--he'll remain under her thumb. ...No, that's not right.
As long as she's able to mold him, he'll remain her creation.
He's lost a lot. He's no longer certain whether or not that's a bad and terrible thing. He just has the ghostlike remnants of the understanding that there was something he wanted to do.
But it's gone now.
He had a brother once, too. He's gone now. Gone from this world.
Gone from memory.
He hasn't told her. He doesn't want to tell her. He knows what she'll make him do.
He doesn't breathe out, either, when she says he can heal his wounds now.
It's not because of the pain.
Instead, there is just light, a few heartbeats worth of time after she gives him leave to tend to himself.
A few moments later he rises to his feet, his gaze at the ground.
"My course..."
What is his course, anymore?
He knows better than to ask that.
Nodding the once he parts from her only long enough to retrieve the blade. His blade. It had been reforged from...
His hand closes over the hilt and he pulls it free from the earth that grasps it.
It doesn't matter anymore, perhaps.
"...Understood, Major."
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.
As long as Loren is missing part of who he is, he's missing part of who he is. There is much that is lost.
How much does she already realize is gone from him? Does she know what he hasn't said, like she knew where he was today?
If Loren wanted a course, she could surely give it to him. She could certainly arrange a life for him, where all he had to do was listen to her. But that, for now, doesn't seem to be his aim. ...So she dominates his destiny in that she is a superior, instead of in that she will decide his entire life. For now.
"Good," Leah says. "Now, to ensure that you remember this lesson, I'm assigning you to Shakhan's security detail for the upcoming Summit that ARMS is holding."
Leah looks to the sword, and back to Loren again. "It will be tedious. You will give it your best."
A pause. "...Medry will be working on it as well. Look out for her."
Leah turns to the side. "Now let's get moving. They gave you a reprieve, but I'm not interested in pressing it now."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
He should have realized that with the carrot (as it were) there would be the stick.
"With--" he starts. It's not 'protest', not yet. But it is as plain as anything that this is not an assignment with which he is thrilled.
As intended, no doubt.
"...Understood, Major," he repeats, inclining his head in a near-perfect nod. Loren will give it his best, because he has no other real option.
And then, he follows.