2021-01-14: Something We Have to Work at Every Day
- Log: Something We Have to Work at Every Day
- Cast: Loren Voss, Fei Fong Wong
- Where: Holst
- Date: January 14, 2021
- Summary: Loren and Fei cross paths in Holst. It is, quite probably, not the encounter either of them would have invisioned.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
They'd moved, ultimately, taking the first ship with a crew that didn't ask any questions to another part of the Crater Sea. If it weren't for the fact of a few things that Gwen -- and Lan -- had mentioned, he wouldn't even have had the sense that anything at all was amiss.
Someone is after him, he understands.
But as long as he's with the other two, it should be alright.
The ship had taken them to Holst. It was just a stop before they went somewhere else, but Lan wanted to see what they had in a town like this. They would need more supplies before long.
The person Loren had been would have recognized Holst for what it was: a dying town. The windmill is a sorry thing, only creaking and never turning as the dry wind blows through what remains of the town.
As sorry a sight as Holst is, though, the port they'd landed in had been even worse...
'Stay put', Lan had told him.
He'd really tried his best. But eventually he'd gotten up, had taken a short walk about what remained of the dying town. It hadn't taken long. And before long, he'd approached the remnants of the mine.
He remembers what Lan told him. Don't go in places like that. So that's not what he does. Instead, he squats down and investigates some of the rubble left from when the mine was still active, finding in the pile a few likely looking stone fragments. One of these he experimentally tosses into the air...
...and finds that he has the reflex to catch it. Huh. Neat. Can everyone do that? Or is that something he was good at, once?
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei Fong Wong's experience with Loren is mostly to deal with disdain and also to hear threats against the woman he loves. And also, you know, feel deep concern for his general well being. But he didn't go to Holst expecting to see him. Why would Loren be in Holst. Why is FEI in Holst? Nobody's got a good reason to be there. It's a nice place to die, but not one to live in.
But maybe that's why Fei is here. He has never been capable of looking away from the suffering in others. He lets out a faint sigh as he lookos at the town before him...
Only to see...
Loren. Walking around. And looking at rocks? What is Solaris doing here, Fei wonders.
Frowning, Fei approaches Loren--never one to avoid the guy. He crosses his arms as he nears.
"Hey," He pauses. "What're you doing here? Looking for another fight?"
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Someone's nearby. This is of no concern to him, which might be one of the things Lan will fret about later, if she isn't already fretting about it.
He snatches the rock out of the air mere moments before Fei speaks, then turns towards him.
The thing that's worth mentioning is that Loren and Fei are the same age. Yet, the way he's always carried himself might have made him seem older. Right now, the person who regards Fei quizzically manages, perhaps, to look a little younger.
He has no idea who Fei is.
"Looking for another fight," he says, absently fidgeting with the rock in his hand. Slightly, he frowns. "...Did I fight with you, too?" He pauses. "Wait. Are you... looking for me? Who are you?"
Some of Lan's caution and worry has bled into him, by now.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei blinks once. Then twice.
Fei is actually a little more accustomed with the concept of amnesia than most. Did something happen here? It doesn't seem like to be a trick. Maybe he's just a lookalike? Fei's posture isn't aggressive or anything just yet but he isn't exactly... free of tension.
"Did you..." Fei begins. "...Well, yeah. We fought a few times. I wouldn't say I was looking for you though. I just happened to find you. On accident."
Should he just say who he is? It might start a fight...
"I'm uh--I'm Fei. Fei Fong Wong. If you're not looking for a fight, we don't gotta have one or anything."
He frowns though. "Did you lose your memory? I uh. I know that's a strange question but... If someone already approached you, I'm guessing you have some idea about that maybe...?"
It is possible tat he's only lost some of them, he thinks, so he isn't going to relax just yet.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Hestitation rides his body. He looks for a moment as if he's even going to debate running off. But then Fei says that he's not looking for him or anything -- that he just happened to find him here.
The relief on his part is almost palpable. "Oh. Then that's alright," he says, smiling. Has Fei ever seen Loren smile? ...In a way that wasn't unhinged?
"Lan said to be careful," he continues, as if to explain. "But if we met before, and you're not looking for me..."
And he's just accepting what Fei's said, just like that?
"Fei, huh... Well, it's good to meet you. My name's Loren. But, I guess you knew that?" He scratches at the back of his head, as if a little uncomfortable on that point. Then again, it's weird to be in a world where everyone knows who you are but you.
Which is why when Fei wonders if he lost his memories--
"Oh! Did you know, too? They said I was losing my memories for a while. But now they're all gone." A pause, wherein he amends, "But it's not bad. I'd like them back, I think, but I'm fine like I am. ...Were we friends, too?"
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei manages, just barely, to not be afflicted with HORROR at the idea of Loren smiling. He has at times really hated Loren, but other times he just kind of--hoped his life would turnaround in a way that didn't keep him so high strung all the time. He just always seemed to be SUFFERING so despite him being pretty firmly arrayed against him and Elly--he sort of wished there could be a world in which that wasn't the case.
"Lan?" Fei ask though it's more off an exclamation than a question.
The girl who helped fight Siegfried with Solaris. He pushes down the anger that rises up within him. She doesn't deserve that kind of ire. She surely had her reasons.
"I actually lost my memories a while back myself. I never got them back." Fei admits. "Anything before I was ten? I don't remember any of it."
He frowns to himsellf and then looks up. "And I hate to say it but--we didn't really get along at all." He shrugs both shoulders. "I don't want to lie about it, but I'm not going to cause any trouble. If you get your memories back, we'll probably be enemies again--but it might never happen. And we don't have to be enemies if you don't want to be. I'm tired of having enemies so I'll leave that one in your court."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"My friend," he confirms, nodding. "She's been taking care of me since I woke up."
Once upon a time, it would have been Loren grimacing as Lan said too much. Perhaps now the shoe is on the other foot...!
"Oh, did you? I'm sorry to hear that," he says, in a manner that would have been completely incongruent with the Loren Fei had known. "Maybe you'll remember them someday. Hey, do you know anything about..."
'We didn't really get along at all.'
Loren's face falls.
"Oh." The fingers of his left hand uncurl and he permits the rock to slip from his grasp. It falls upon the mine debris strewn at their feet with a soft clatter. "So I had enemies... and you were..." Faintly, he frowns, furrowing his brow. "...Even before I started losing my memories?" He appears to consider this a moment more before nodding. "...Okay. Well, I don't have enough friends to really have enemies right now," and more's the irony, Loren as he'd been had mostly had enemies and only arguably one or two friends, "so, I think we're in agreement."
Some silence may follow after this exchange.
And then, as if scarcely missing a beat, as if what had transpired had just been a minor bump in the road, he gestures towards the abandoned mine. "Do you know anything about this place? We were just stopping by. I probably shouldn't go in, though. ...Lan says I used to know how to use a sword, but I don't remember."
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
"I think you had a sword but I don't remember you using it too often," Fei says thoughtfully. He wonders though--why hasn't Solaris taken Loren back? Even if he lost his memory, d doesn't have have a transmitor of some kind like that Elly did? Fei isn't going to LIE to Loren about his past but he definitely isn't going to help him make it back to Solaris. Hell, he doubts that would end well for Loren right now either.
"I'm not sure when it started..." Fei admits. "I think losing your memories made it worse. You did seem to be kind of erratic as you were losing them." He frowns. "...But yeah, before you lost your memories."
"...But, yeah. You're not wrong. When you don't have any memories, you can't really afford to make enemies but..." He frowns. "...I wish someone had told me who my enemies were when I was sitting around without any idea. A lot more people might be alive..."
He blinks. He can't believe he's telling this to LOREN of all people. "But...well... maybe not all those enemies have to stay enemies. Whether you recover your memories or not."
Fei thinks for a moment. "This place is just--a dying old town. There's a whole bunch over Filgaia." He quirks his head. "How is Lan? Before you ask, I don't know her too well myself. Only ran into her a couple times."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"Not too often? Alright. Lan said I was learning. Maybe I wasn't very good at it?" Loren wonders briefly, before shaking his head.
A little more important is the information that Fei presents him: that he seemed to have been more erratic for a while. That he...
"So I was getting worse... Lan said that's what happened. She said I attacked her." A pause. "After... getting hit by a trap?" He frowns, as if thinking it over. "It was something like that. ...I think."
'A lot more people might be alive...'
He looks troubled. It might be only a ghost of the sorts of faces Loren used to pull, in similar situations, but there's something about Fei's words that gives him pause, that makes him...
Really stop for a moment and think about his situation. "Who my enemies are..." he echoes, crinkling his forehead. "I wonder if..."
But the overriding urge in him is to let go. To release his hold on it and let it float out to sea.
And so, a heartbeat more and he does, even the tension that had gripped him receding.
"And if I don't... then there's no reason to be enemies." It's as simple as that.
He gestures away from himself, asks a question of the town and place about him. Fei answers. His response is, again, to frown. "Is that normal?"
He's forgotten even that.
"I woke up in a forest. ...The second time, actually. But it's different here. More empty. More..." He shakes his head. "Lonely. That's what it's like."
How is Lan, though? Probably coping with being a babysitter, at this point. "Lan? She's..." He pauses. "She's fine. She seemed worried. Like she was thinking someone was following her, I think. ...Oh, so you don't know her well?"
He pauses, then glances away. "I don't remember anything about her, to be honest. But she's been helping me since I woke up, so..."
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei supposes Lan would know more about Loren than he would but why isn't she mentioning all this stuff to Loren? ... Perhaps she doesn't really want him to recover his memory? Maybe she just figures she doesn't have to help it along too much.
"Yeah," Fei says of the town. "Filgaia's in rough shape. Dying. There's some places that are better off, look like paradises compared to this place. But more and more towns are ending up like this one." He shakes his head. "It's a shame. There are folks trying to fix things, but sometimes it feels like all we can hope for is to forestall the inevitable."
He cracks a smile. "But worlds don't die quick. Might be after long after both of us are gone."
Or after you're gone anyway. "Yeah... Most people probably moved out of here. Folks just running towards the places that are still doing well."
Lan seems to be fine. "Yeah, not really." Fei admits. "...Someone probably is following you though. No I mean--"
He looks back to Loren. "It's probably a reasonable presumption, I'll say that much."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Possibly she's worried about overwhelming him. Possibly she wants just a little time to decide what to do.
Perhaps it's even a little bit of revenge, in a way, on her part -- see how he likes it, now that the positions are reversed.
The situation is a complicated one, that is for sure...
And he's blithely going along with it.
"Oh... so the planet's dying." He shivers, if involuntarily. "And... there's nothing that can fix it?" He glances again off at the mine. "I wonder if the place I came from was like this. Is that why I left?" he wonders, craning his neck as he tries to get a better look at the town. "...But there are still good places," he says, glancing back at Fei.
"I really liked that forest. But I think it was too dangerous to stay there."
Lan seems to be fine. This is coming from a Loren who seems guided by only the present moment, however...
Someone is probably following him. He frowns faintly, but still nods. "Gwen said something like that, too. I wonder if they're after just me, though."
He pauses.
"Did one of us do something...?"
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
"I don't know if I'd say there's nothing that can fix it," Fei says. "I'm not really all that smart. Maybe there's a way, maybe it just hasn't been found yet."
He shrugs both shoulders. "Maybe it's just something we have to work at every day. Just every day."
He can't honestly say what Solaris was like. He doubts it was like this. But that doesn't mean it wasn't worse. Elly never seemed to be offput by the more 'primitive' surface. Not that offput. Is it just her general empathy? He's not sure.
"Gwen... Gwen I do know pretty well." Fei says. "She's a courier by trade--I'm not sure why she seems to do so much more than that--but she has always been kind to me. She's got a good heart and a good head on her shoulders."
Did one of us do something...?
Fei frowns. "I don't think it's about something you did." Fei admits. "Maybe more what they want you to do."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"Huh... maybe." Lan said that the Loren he'd been was pretty smart, but... he doesn't have any of that now, it seems. Everything he's encountered has been pretty interesting -- but he doesn't know anything about any of it.
"Every day. That seems doable, though. If you just do a little bit at a time."
He nods, when Fei talks about Gwen. "Oh! Then that's why she ran into us. Maybe she was delivering something? She's been helping us out a lot, too. I'll tell her I met you when we catch up with her." Perhaps Gwen is not presently with them, then?
It's not about something he did, but rather something he might not have yet done. "Oh. I wonder what that was," he says, scratching his head. "It seemed like I might have been--"
Someone calls out his name, then. Lan may have just discovered that he's wandered off.
He turns towards the sound almost reflexively. "Oh no." Glancing over at Fei, he smiles apologetically. "Sorry! I should go and find her. She'll think I'm in trouble and worry."
He does hesitate a moment, though. "If we see each other again, though... let's try to be friends?"
And then he takes off for the town proper, such that it is.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
THIS IS SO WEIRD.
But mostly it's...
"Okay," Fei smiles. "Let's try for it. it would be nice to have fewer enemies." And with that he waves Loren off. He watches him depart. He stares for a long while.
He stares into the open space for a long while.
And then he covers his eyes with his hand and starts weeping right there in the middle of town because mostly?
Mostly it's just sad. The saddest thing because that agreement? As much as he'd like it to be true...
Maybe even if it is true, it means that if they met in a vacuum--they really could have been friends instead of... Instead of what happened.