2020-10-06: A Question of Faith

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  • Log: A Question of Faith
  • Cast: Citan Uzuki, Fei Fong Wong, Emeralda Kasim, Ethius Hesiod
  • Where: Territory outside Bevelle
  • Date: October 06, 2020
  • Summary: After the distraction outside Bevelle's walls, a small group waits at the point designated by Leon and Cid. Anxieties run high.

<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.

    The retreat from the frontlines had gone without incident, which as far as the doctor was concerned was a small and much-appreciated favor. Of course, given the chaos, perhaps it wasn't entirely unprecedented -- particularly given the smaller groups they had been using during the sortie. Slipping into the wilds after a time, Citan's own group had made it to the designated recon point to await further word from Cid or Leon.

    Waiting, of course, is always the hardest part.

    But, for the doctor, hardly unexplored territory. Making the best of it, they had set their camp and dug in to wait, while keeping watch for both news or, as the doctor had suggested, the possibility of an ambush. With their own forces scattered after the initial attack, at least it meant that any counter-attack from either Yevon or the Guard would hardly take all of them... but it also means that their ability to fight back is greatly diminished.

    If, that is, such an attack was coming.

    For now it did them well enough to similarly be on their guard for Fiends, and so he'd asked Xantia to scout their surroundings. Which has left him alone -- at least for the moment -- with Fei and the others.

    Seated atop a fallen tree, Citan glances over at Fei. "..."

    At length he asks what must be on his mind. "You are worried about Elly."

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Well, their side of the plan went more or less off without a hitch!

.... But Fei's still really worried about Elly. For Fei's part, he is battered and bruised and bleeding but not broken. He's wrapped up his wounds by now--he can manage that much--andthen proceeded to wait. and wait. And wait.

...And wait.

His feet start tapping against the ground rapidly. tap tappity tap tap tap. And then he looks back towards Bevelle and--well, it doesn't take a country doctor to be able to tell that something's up.

You are worried about Elly

"What! Me? Nooo..." Fei says, his feet tapping increasing in frequency and heaviness. "I mean I'm sure she's fine. She'll be able to rescue the summoner and if not she'll probably Thermo Draagon her way out. I'm sure she's okay. She's got everyone with her."

He vibrates intensely like a hyperactive cat.

"She is okay, though, right? She should be?"

For some reason he figures Citan knows the answer here.

<Pose Tracker> Emeralda Kasim has posed.

Emeralda Kasim was not at Bevelle.

She wanted to go. As soon as she heard that the plan involved sliding down cables to air-drop onto a wedding that the Drifters were allowed (encouraged even!) to interrupt. And also saving someone who deserved to be saved! That sounded exciting!!

But she did not, because Fei asked her not to. That was all it took. For a little thing, Emeralda might have snuck out anyway, but for this, she followed directions without complaint. And, honestly, she could use the time to recover... getting shot by a giant beam cannon was, despite her strong face and the fact that she's pretty good at hiding it, not good for her.

The net result: on the Fereshte, she split her time between hanging out with the other kids and sleeping. Hard. Or at least resting; she spent a lot of time curled up and it was *usually* in bed. She had to eject a whole bunch of melted, solidified and slightly pitted metal. Presumably she got metal to build replacements from somewhere because she is, to all appearances, back in good shape after a week of recovery.

At the camp, Emeralda ran off for a bit. And now she's running back, having checked out whatever she was intending to look for. (Maybe Xantia. Or maybe she just wanted to 'scout' too.) "What? What? Is something wrong?" Emeralda hates waiting but at least understands an important fact: sometimes you have to camp and let other people catch up after their own adventures.

Or, in other words... Sit happens.

<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

    Ethius is staring out towards the skies, seated on the ground against a gnarled tree as he rests from injury. Hilde's parting shot did a number on both him and Matilda - odds are if the call for retreat didn't happen, neither would have left the battlefield under their own power. His share of the stolen Althena's Guard uniform is long-since ruined and discarded from the waist up, in favor of that same shawl he pulled around himself on the Fahrenheit like a small child hiding inside a comfy blanket.
     By his estimates, they may have done too good of a job fighting through Althena's Guard to get back towards the rendezvous point but he can't know for sure. He doesn't know anything about what Bevelle is like.
     Much of the Caravan Kinship elected to be part of the extraction team. Jay always threw herself headfirst into anything and everything she felt like needed help - as per the mission statement of the traveling merchants. (...Traveling merchants and whatever the hell Ethius is.)
     A dull ache creeps across his chest, prompting him to pull the shawl over tighter as Fei impatiently wonders and speculates aloud as to how Elly is doing. He remembers, way back when, how devastated Jay and the others were when an attempt to escape through a brewing Kislev and Aveh battle saw everyone separated.
     "..."
     He turns his head wordlessly in Fei's direction, as if keeping a gauge on Fei's emotional state may be just as important (if not ten times moreso) as keeping an eye out for Fiend ambushes.

<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.

    Once, the doctor would have had access to all means of instant communication devices. But that is gone -- and has been gone -- from him for quite some time. Things move at a slower speed when removed from such things, and he has long had the opportunity to acclimate accordingly.

    Fei, on the other hand...
    Fei has many other things on his mind. One does not need to even know the young man's history with the young lady in question to guess it: his body language says it loud and clear. Citan shakes his head, silent again as Fei lets spill a part of his trust in Elly, that she'll be fine, that she'll break her way out if she needs to.

    There had been a part of the plan that had worried him, but...
    There was nothing to do now but wait.

    It's then, though, that Fei directly asks him a question that...

    "..."

    ...the doctor cannot answer.

    "...I do not know," he is forced to say, looking away from Fei. "There is... much that I do not know about Yevon, or Bevelle's defenses..."

    Sometimes honesty is not the best policy.

    Emeralda interjects then and, with a faint grimace, the doctor does add, perhaps pursuaded by her very presence, "...However, I do not think that Elly would come to harm! She is a capable young woman, and she is not alone."

    But there's that 'but' he doesn't speak aloud, that still weighs heavily in the air. He glances over at Ethius for the moment, as if attempting to read the mood radiating from the mysterious man's corner of the camp.

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei Fong Wong probably would've called Doc a liar paradoxically if he just tried to make him feel better. He nods slowly, numbly even as he looks back down to his lap. Fei's control over his alterego has been pretty bad as of late though not as bad as it has been during the final push against Mother. He kind of stares ahead into the distance for a while, thinking about Citan's answer. Ethius continues to be silent as usual. He looks to the man but then gives the majority of his focus to Emeralda.

"No, nothing's wrong. I mean, I don't think so. I just--can't help but worry. There's no way of knowing how long it'll take them to rescue Yuna. Or how long it'll take them to get back here. Or what complications might arise."

"But I can't help but worry, you know?"

He lets out a slow sigh. "Sorry. I'm sure they're fine. They're fine."

<Pose Tracker> Emeralda Kasim has posed.

Emeralda is...

Well, she's not actually that mollified by these words. Emeralda is not stupid and she picks up on more than people expect - sometimes more than people want her to, which might be the case this time. She can pick up the worry, and figure out that they're hiding more than they let on.

Well, not Ethius. She can't read Ethius at all. She's looked at him strangely a few times but seems to have mostly left him to himself otherwise.

"We could go and pick them up," Emeralda says, immediately, because this seems like a good idea to her. "Maybe we can't go in the city but we can go *to* the city. We'd be easier for them to find there! And there's a lot of them so maybe we'd run across them halfway there." She may be overestimating the ease of finding a group in the wilderness a little, but, well...

They *could* go towards Bevelle, right? Except for the whole war thing.

<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

    "We followed the outlined plan to the letter." Ethius speaks up, unsolicited beyond the passing acknowledgement of his existence. Sometimes he goes out of his way to avoid even that! (It is the greatest scientific evidence yet that the universe does not consider him canon.) "Deviating from it by re-approaching the city at a heightened level of alert could bring jeopardy to any contingency or escape route by the extraction team."
     ...But as it is right now, they have no way of knowing for sure if the plan is still in play. Time is passing in cruel, taffy-pulled stretches in a time of uncertainty after a number of turbulent trials and encounters, one after another.
     "...That said, I can provide no further insight to the nature of what they would have had to surmount." He elected himself from the jump for the false flag operation and wouldn't have been present for the details of the extraction team's route or other challenges, unless he was eavesdropping.
     That time he wasn't, which is in itself suspicious - but there's that tone to him that remains clinical and distant, as if... is he worried at all, about their chances? Almost all of the Caravan Kinship went in there. What's his plan if they are all caught and executed? Does he have one?

<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.

    "It is... normal to worry, I believe," Citan says, simply. "I, myself..." But he trails off and shakes his head. "...But it is just as important to have faith. We cannot know until we know. For now, we must wait."

    Emeralda, however... has her own feelngs in this. Perhaps it is understandable, the doctor considers -- any child would want to see their mother to safety, if they felt her in danger. "..."

    But the fact of the matter is...

    Citan agrees with Ethius in this. "Yes," the doctor says, nodding. "While I do not intend to stand idle, reckless action could be costly... for them and for us. Once we make contact with Leon and Cid we may be able to learn more of the situation, and whether the other team was successful."

    Or whether a rescue attempt -- as difficult and as unlikely as it may be to accomplish -- is now necessary. It's on that unpleasant possibility that Citan's considerations now linger. "There are... yes, a great many factors in play. We will not be able to account for all of them even with the help of Cid. However, we will be able to account for none of them should we rush in. ...As Mr. Hesiod has implied," continues the doctor, glancing the once at Ethius, as if he could in fact have gleaned such a thing, somehow, "it is possible that should we rush in, we are the ones who may need to be rescued."

    He may have learned much of the peoples of Spira culturally during their last stay, but even then he had only been able to guess at the fate of the Summoners -- not a single native Spiran would tell him more of the tradition than the most outward-facing aspects of it. There was doubtless more yet that was hidden from his ability to even guess at. The faith of Yevon was not unlike a well -- the first few feet down were clear enough.

    The rest of it was pitch-black.

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei doesn't think Emeralda is stupid. He wants to be optimistic for her but he doesn't want to ouright lie to her either. What kind of example is that setting? His heart sinks when Emeralda suggests going to help them because yes, he'd love to do that, but if they're not on their way out at this point--they're not going to be GETTING out that easily. And getting in will be harder for them than it was for the team that had a big dumb battle helping them.

Ethius thankfully decides to be the bad guy so he doesn't have to. at least, not as hard as THAT. "For now," He agrees. "We should probably try not to risk anything. If they need to wait for their guard to lower, we could raise security more than it would otherwise be."

It's normal to worry. Fei wishes it was a little less normal so he could worry less. "...Not that I don't want to rush in there guns blazing, but... They aren't too much longer than it should've been yet."

He wishes they could all just be a little stupider. But it won't help Elly, so there's not much he can do.

"We gave every advantage we could. Just gotta...have faith I guess." He smiles down at his knees.

<Pose Tracker> Emeralda Kasim has posed.

Emeralda is not stupid... but that doesn't mean she understands everything Ethius says, either. 'Contingency' is not a word she actually knows. She looks at Citan as if expecting him to explain.

Sorry, Fei. Emeralda has determined Citan is a better place to get difficult words explained.

"I guess," she says afterwards, sinking down to a crouch. "It's just that, waiting takes a long time and I was hoping they'd be back by now." She thought it would be a quick trip. What's the point in a rescue if you hang around afterwards?

The questions of faith (and Fayth) may have at least partially passed her by. She hasn't asked anyone here about them, anyway, though she heard the Sphere recording just like everybody else. She doesn't bring them up here either.

<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

    Ethius turns his head a bit at mention of his surname, but at this juncture - with all the time he's been doing the Drifter thing - it shouldn't surprise him that his name's traveled. (Especially not after he used it in that Lacour Tournament of Arms from way back when, a curious anomaly but far from the topic at hand.) He looks back away from them as Fei smiles down at his knees and professes to keep having faith that the extraction team will be able to make their exit. Waiting for the word from Cid or Leon as to when that's happening, and where to be to rendezvous before they are overrun by any number of forces in play - Yevon, Guard, or Fiend.
     His head starts to turn downward as Emeralda talks about waiting taking a long time... and then a hand, up to his forehead. Waiting. He's... been waiting a long time too, hasn't he? How many years? It's closing in on five. Or four, since he started being more closely associated with the Drifter community as anything other than a strange man barging into expedition parties at their entrance.
     "..." Back to silence, again.

<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.

     "Think of it as 'something set aside for an emergency', in this case," Citan responds, nearly by reflex. "He means any thing or means they may have been planning to use for their escape." He may be used to translating in this way -- after all, he had taken care of Fei similarly back in Lahan.

    It's a funny thing. His own daughter has never asked him to clarify a word for him, once.

    "I am certain we will receive word from Cid or Leon soon. We must take care to avoid complications." But he pauses, as if thinking something over. "However... if we should not hear from them soon," a timeframe that he does not define, "then I recommend we begin to learn what we are able of the situation in Bevelle. --Not by entering the city, of course!" Citan interjects. "But we may be able to learn about what has happened without endangering them or ourselves. ...For now, however, let us consider that to be our 'fallback plan'? We should remain patient and see what will come."

    He stands after a moment, glancing up at the sky. "I am certain Xantia should be back soon. Mr. Hesiod, would you care to take up watch when she does? She may wish to rest."

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei isn't going to blame Emeralda for looking at CITAN for an explanation. It took some strength of will on Fei's part to not also automatically look to Citan. Fei... well, he actually is smarter than he looks, acts, or presently IS. With proper schooling, he might've been Elly smart. Or Elly stupid. They do some pretty boneheaded things too. Even Elly...

...
...

....It's fine! They're not too bad! It's fine. They can be plenty smart. It's good. It's fine.

"...Yeah..." Fei smiles sadly at Emeralda. "I was h oping they'd be back by now too. But... Gotta keep hoping. Because we don't got much other choice."

He looks to Ethius again. Guy is as silent as ever. And mysterious. He hasn't set Fei on fire in a long time. Maybe he should just get over it. But the guy still kind of CREEPS HIM OUT so it's hard.

"We could..check around with other villages." Fei says. "They might have gotten some news. Or talk to some travelers leaving the city. Or hoping to enter it."

<Pose Tracker> Emeralda Kasim has posed.

The prospect of something to do that might help reenergizes Emeralda. She hops back to her feet from her crouch (literally; she leaves the ground, at least for an instant).

"Great! I'll help," Emeralda declares. "I can go to one of the other villages! And listen and see if we can find them, or Cid, or... someone. The have to know where they are, right?"

So much for getting her to rest in camp right now. Emeralda seems to realize this: "And if he doesn't want to take watch I will!"