2021-01-02: Out of Phase
- Log: 2021-01-02: Out of Phase
- Cast: Lan Lilac, Loren Voss
- Where: Sylvaland - The Lost Woods
- Date: January 02, 2021
- Summary: A boy wakes up in an unfamiliar forest, next to an unfamiliar girl.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
It's been hours.
Once she'd dragged herself back to her feet and gone to check on him, Lan realized that Loren was out cold. She should just leave him there, shouldn't she? Take her things and run far away, go where neither he nor Solaris could ever find her again... if such a place could exist.
But he's hurt, and she hurt him, and he tried to kill her, and if Lan leaves him here will she be responsible for what he does when he wakes up?
But she couldn't kill him if she had to, even to put him out of his misery. The very thought makes her sick.
So she'd dragged him up over her shoulders and carried him up the stairs, into the light of a Filgaian afternoon.
She thinks this is Sylvaland. Lan hadn't traveled in Aquvy much, but the weather and the woods make it as good a guess as any. When she feels like they've gotten far enough from the Elw teleporter, she sets him down to build camp. She's got to get him back to Solaris. Or maybe she can get him someplace safe to do the ritual they'd talked about. If there's anything of him left in there, maybe that would bring it back.
It's been hours and he still hasn't woken up. What if that's it? What if he went to sleep and now he's going to die? What if he wakes up while she's asleep and attacks again?
Lan frets about it for what feels like an eternity, but eventually ties his wrists together behind his back before wrapping herself in a blanket and sitting down to stare blankly into the fire.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
It's nearly dawn by the time he stirs, rousing with a shudder and a groan. He shifts where he lies near enough to the remnants of the fire, aware of heat, of a cool breeze. Something overhead rustles. It sounds like the waves.
Grimacing, he at last opens his eyes and shifts again, trying to...
He can't move his arms. He has hands, fingers: he can wiggle those. But he can't move them.
They're... bound?
His shoulders ache. His wrists ache. He stares into the fire and it seems like it takes up his entire world, nearly.
"Where..." he croaks. His throat feels dry.
He tries to sit up. His body isn't having it.
All these things take the fore: his body's complaints. The sights and sounds and smells of the world around him.
It takes him a few more moments yet before he realizes -- appreciates? -- the fact that he doesn't remember anything. Who he is, where he is, or even what happened.
He should probably care about these things. He doesn't. More immediate is the complaints from his body, the stimuli from the world around him, rising like a tide to drown out the less important matters of memory and identity altogether.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Eventually even Lan has to sleep, though when she does it's fitfully - never quite deep enough to dream. Pathetically, she's grateful. Let her have just a little while before she has to go back...
She wakes up with a start and a sharp inhalation. He moved. Lan stares at him from across the dying embers. There wasn't much left to wrap him up in, but she'd at least put a few spare shirts and her towel on top of Loren to try and help trap some of the fire's heat. She half expects to see him up and charging at her again.
But he's just... lying there. Awake, and apparently at least a little bit aware. "Hey," she greets him softly, voice and eyes wary. "Are you...?"
Are you you again?
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
He recognizes her, technically speaking, but...
It's because he remembers seeing her before. When he was in that strange place. Before he'd collapsed. Before he'd awoken here. The memories are halting things: faded still images that he can conjure up with some effort. They're the only real things he can remember at all before this moment.
But he knows her, and that's something.
"I..."
He just, as he stares up at her, doesn't know how to answer that question. Is he what?
He can't move his hands and his body hurts, and he's thirsty, and a weird mix of a little too warm and a little too cold. But while he doesn't know anything right now, he's also pretty sure that's not the answer she's looking for.
He shifts again, trying to find a better position.
"...I can't get up," he settles for. He swallows the once. He thinks his wrists are bound. Maybe she can fix that for him.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
She'd... expected him to be angrier. Upset. She would be, if she woke up with her wrists tied together in a strange place! Maybe he remembers what he did, and he's ashamed. That would be a step in the right direction, maybe.
Except... something feels off. He can look her in the eyes, he isn't turned red or having a panic attack. (These are good things! she reminds herself quickly.) "Oh. It's because your wrists are tied. Hang on, if you promise to be good I'll untie you. Okay?"
Lan doesn't wait for him to reply, but tugs the blanket off and shuffles over behind him on her knees. "I'm sorry. I was just..." Scared. "I didn't know if you were going to attack me again when you woke up. I didn't know if you were going to be okay. But you're okay now, right?" Her fingers brush warmth against his wrists as she undoes the knots and helps him get his arms back in front of him. "Can you sit up now? Or do you need a minute?"
Even now, Lan can't help fretting a bit.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Promise... to be good? He blinks, as if completely and utterly confused by this. He doesn't remember doing anything bad. But, at the same time, he's the one with his wrists tied and getting them untied would be an improvement.
"I'll be good," he tells her even as she moves to untie him, quite calm in spite of his predicament.
What she says as she works on the knots tells him a lot. He'd attacked her? Huh, no wonder she'd tied him up. He doesn't know why he'd do that.
She hadn't tied them so tight it damaged anything in his hands but he still feels a rush of heat once they're freed. His shoulders burn and ache; he rubs at his wrists. "A minute... I think," he tells her.
It's indeed about a minute before he pushes himself upwards into a seated posture and grimaces. "Everything hurts... did we fight?" he asks her, after a moment of rolling his shoulders and wincing with the movement. It's an honestly innocent question, as if he'd been asking her if it rained earlier. Should he be mad about it? He doesn't feel mad -- everything else is overwhelming enough that things like 'you should be mad about it' fall in almost as an afterthought.
"Do you have any water?" he asks, because that's far more pressing on the scale of things he's concerned about presently.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
'I'll be good.'
He'd said that before, hadn't he. Atop the Photosphere, and later too. Lan blinks away the heat of threatened tears and stuffs the cord into her pocket for the time being. She picks up the blanket from where she'd been resting and brings it over to him so she can go about adding more wood to the fire. "Here. Sorry, I've only got one." The dry branches she'd gathered last night clatter quietly as she adjusts them among the coals.
'Did we fight?'
Lan goes still, and then her face tilts to stare at him. He doesn't--
"Yes," she answers after an awkwardly long pause. "We fought yesterday. ...Hey, Loren," she asks, in what she thinks is a fairly controlled voice, "What's the last thing you remember...?"
He asks for water and she passes over her canteen, casual enough not to betray her thumping heart.
Who is this? Is he really Loren?
No, even at his calmest, Loren wasn't so docile.
He feels like a stranger, wearing the face of a friend who tried to kill her.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
He fumbles with the blanket for a moment before somewhat awkwardly draping it over his shoulders. It's a little cold; he hunches over a touch. "It's fine," he says, because it's better than it was a moment ago.
She confirms it -- that they fought. Just the other day?
"In that... place?" he asks, because he doesn't know the name for it.
Loren, she calls him.
"...Is that my name?"
He wasn't a very good actor before, even if you called his Thomas 'persona' acting (it wasn't, name aside). He's not acting now.
What's the last thing he remembers?
It takes him a long, long moment before he says anything.
"I was... in that place. A hall? I could... see the sky through a hole. I saw you, I think. And then... I guess I collapsed. Was that after we fought?"
It says it as if it were an afterthought. He shows far more interest in the canteen she passes over and almost as soon as he can takes a gulp from the contents as if he'd just walked a few hours in the desert.
Something occurs to him as he lowers the half-full canteen.
"I'm... 'Loren'. Huh. ...What's your name?"
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
It's not getting any better. He's not getting any better. Lan concentrates on getting the fire going again. She doesn't know what else to do right now. When they've eaten breakfast and sorted things out, she can... take him back to civilization maybe.
'...Is that my name?'
Lan's hand, holding a stick to stir the ashes with, goes still.
Oh. ...It finally happened.
He talks about the hall, and the sky. So that's all he remembers. So... if she puts it together, then the last thing that could have happened was...
...
...Does that mean it's her fault?
"Hm? Oh, yeah. It must've been after we fought. But neither of us got hurt, so it's okay." Well, except that she swung him into a wall but he was trying to kill her, so Lan doesn't feel like apologizing for that. Like, at all.
Does he have his journal with him? She managed to grab his pack and bring it with them, but didn't open it. If he reads it, would that jog something?
...Should she let him read it?
Wait, what's wrong with her, that she'd even think that?!
"I'm... my name is Lan," she tells him after a long moment of silence. She even manages to smile a bit wanly at him. "I'm your friend."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"Oh... that's good."
It's very matter-of-fact. Does he actually feel anything right now? "My body hurts a lot... but I think it's because of how I was sleeping," he says, rolling a shoulder again experimentally and wincing for it. "I guess it'll go away." A pause follows. "Why were we fighting?"
He fumbles with the cap for the canteen for a moment, then hands it over. He didn't drink all of it.
She's his friend, she says.
"My... friend. Lan," he says, as if attempting to memorize it. "We were fighting," he says, with a faint frown. "Each other? Or someone else?" His brow creases. Try as he might he can only remember those snatches of memory. Then, nothing until just now.
It still doesn't bother him. As long as he's well, and as long as it doesn't seem like he hurt her, maybe that's fine.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
What's she supposed to do? When she'd thought before about what might happen if Loren completely lost his memory... it'd seemed like something far away, something that couldn't ever really happen. They would find a cure first.
And then she'd left, and it had gotten so much worse every time she'd seen him, but there was nothing she could do for him by then.
Lan reaches out and takes the canteen back from him, leaving it where either of them can find it if they get thirsty. It gives her a moment to think. What should she tell him? The truth? What if it makes him remember? Worse, what if it sends him into a rage again?
"...You were confused," she tells him at length. "We were trying to get through the ruins but you got confused by a trap, and attacked me. That's why we were fighting."
It's a lie, and Lan hates them, but she doesn't know what else to tell him that could preserve this strange, fragile peace between them. "...If you're still tired you can go back to sleep for a little bit. Or if you're hungry, I've got some food. Do you feel like finding a town later?"
Just... give her a while to think of what to tell him. She should tell him the truth. If he gets his memory back later, won't he be angry for lying to him? Or should she even care? Would he have tried to kill her if his brain weren't swiss cheese at the time?
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"I was confused... by a trap," he repeats, as if trying that one out as well. He seems to consider it for a moment, then nods. "Alright. Is that why I can't remember anything before?" It stands to reason, he figures.
Loren is someone who had also greatly disliked lies... while also heartily relying upon them, be they the lies he told to others or to himself. What will he think when he recovers his memories?
...Will he ever recover his memories? Is it possible that there's nothing else for it but to start over? Is this 'too far gone'?
"I guess I might, but..." He nods, when she says she has food. "I'm hungry." Maybe it's been a while since he last had anything to eat.
"Sure," he says, when she suggests maybe finding a town later. "If that suits you."
The Loren she had known would have insisted. He might be used to sometimes sleeping outside, or on a floor (thanks for nothing Kaguya) but he vastly preferred a proper bed.
This Loren acts like either/or would be acceptable.
"Do you think it'll wear off? The confusion from the trap," he says, apparently assuming this the reason for his present condition.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
How far should she go? How much will he get back? It's tempting, so very tempting, to try to spin a sweet story like she might for one of her nieces or nephews. In the event that he never regains his memories, he might be happier believing a fairytale. ...Could she do that? He'd never have to go back to Solaris. His parents will probably think he died. ...Mirza will think he died.
But he could be happy.
...Is this happy? For him?
Has Lan ever seen him happy?
"...You were losing your memories for a long time," she says haltingly. It almost hurts to say them, because Lan wants so badly to fix everything. Fix him.
"I think the trap just, made it worse." But... maybe there's some hope, still. Maybe he won't recover his memories. Maybe he'll have to make new ones. Maybe he can start over. They can start over.
"Don't worry though. I'll take care of you. I promised you I would." In a sense. And she's missed having someone to think about besides herself, anyway. "And maybe your memory will come back if you just take it easy for a while."
Lan digs in her pack for some jerky and fruit, and passes them over after taking one of the apples for herself. "At least one thing's still the same. You always did like food."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
He frowns a bit, at that piece of information.
"Oh," he says, and he turns both of his hands palms-up and stares at them. "So that's why." Was he sick? Was it just something that was happening to him?
It... doesn't actually matter to him, he finds, searching after it. Right now he's a little cold, and he hurts, and he's hungry, and he's still trying to deal with a world that feels intense to his senses.
Even in a forest, even with just the two of them, it feels... strong. Somewhere birds are already awakening the coming dawn. The leaves are rustling overhead. It's cool, chilly even. The colors in the embers as Lan tries to stoke them are so brilliant.
He's been born anew into a rich world. How can he think of much else other than his immediate concerns amidst this place that is trying to grab at all his senses at once?
"But that's good. That you'll take care of me," he says at last. What would he do without his friend, like this?
He smiles, if tiredly, at that. At her suggestion that he might recover on his own. "Do you think? Well, I guess we'll see."
He's more than happy to see what she's given him in terms of food, but perhaps he would have been satisfied with anything in his current state. Or ever, in fact -- he might have balked at some offerings but he's never been as picky as some of his compatriots.
It might be a small comfort for Lan -- he attacks what she gives him in about the same way, with as much preamble (which is to say 'none at all').
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
She finds herself watching him eat as she works through her own apple. His appetite is good, and he doesn't look sick. In fact... aside from moving a little slowly (he'd said he was sore, after all) Loren doesn't look like he feels bad. That cheers her up a bit.
She tosses the core into the fire once she's done, and settles down crosslegged next to the fire. "Yeah. And even if you don't get them back, I won't abandon you. You'll be okay."
Maybe this will work out for the better... whichever way that might be. "Try to get a little more sleep, okay? We'll head out later on. I don't feel like moving out just yet, so it's okay to rest a bit longer." She'd love to take another nap herself, truth be told, but...
Somehow, Lan doesn't want to close her eyes again. Dragging her pack closer, she searches through it until she finds what she's looking for. "Here, swallow this, okay? It's medicine." A spoonful of herbs, dried and crushed, folded up into a small slip of paper. "--Not the paper," she cautions him, and hands it over along with the canteen. "It'll help you feel better."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
He watches her when she tosses the core into the fire and, picking up his own discarded core, does likewise.
He seems mildly surprised at his own aim: the core hits the place he was trying for without him thinking too hard about it. Even without his memories, it seems his body remembers the score.
What does that bode for his... other talents? Perhaps it's best worried about once they've both had a proper night's sleep. As it is--
"Yeah... I think I will. I think I didn't sleep well," he remarks, watching the fire as it burns. "Maybe it'll be warmer when the sun comes up." It's still very chilly out and about here. Then again, for a place with the nickname 'the Lost Woods'...
She offers him a little paper slip with some herbs in it. The Loren she'd known would have asked at length about the contents. This Loren looks at them for a moment, then nods, then without hesitation swallows them (without the paper!) with a mouthful of water.
"A little bitter," he remarks, with a mild grimace. He takes another swig of water for good measure, then lies down. It's not easy to get comfortable on the ground, but...
But he's tired, his earlier sleep seemingly having done nothing. His body aches. The medicine and some rest should help fix both of these things.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
It's a little bittersweet, she supposes. Shouldn't he grill her about just what's in there, and then fuss about it even while choking it down? This new Loren... well, she should be happy. Happy that he's easier to deal with, a bit more tractable. It's not like she--
It's not the same as when--
It's another moment before Lan can think of something to say. "Yeah, it'll warm up later. And you probably hurt a little because of how you slept last time. The medicine will help a bit, and so will sleeping in a real bed once we get to town."
She's uneasy. And, if she has to admit it to herself, exhausted. But Lan doesn't want to sleep.
"...The first word was 'dream'," she begins, a little haltingly. "I heard it in my sleep, deep in the dark of the center of my heart." The words come haltingly at first, and stay soft. But it's a lullabye just the same, even if her voice is rusty, and even if it's been months since she last sang. "The second word was 'wind', guiding me along, fanning my wings from the arms of the gods..."