2021-01-29: Off the Record
- Log: Off the Record
- Cast: Loren Voss, Leah Sadalbari
- Where: Solaris South Aquvy Base
- Date: January 29, 2021
- Summary: Leah, as Loren had expected, wishes to speak to him in private.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
He had known, in his own way, that he would end up in here, right from the very moment he had come to on that packed earth near the smoldering embers of the fire and remembered everything.
It's just also true that Leah Sadalbari had shown him a little mercy and waited until he had undergone things such as 'slept' and 'a full medical and psychological evaluation'.
He's pretty sure nothing abnormal came up from the battery of tests. He's less sure about the psychological--
And far less sure about the woman seated opposite from him.
He should probably meet her eyes. So far, Loren Voss has not done that: he sits before her with his hands on his knees and his gaze tilted somewhere floorwards.
"You said... that you wanted to see me, ma'am."
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.
Some things are inescapable.
This base isn't one. Technically in Sylvaland's territory, it would be trivially easy to just walk out the door right now, instead of coming to Leah's office. The Major has her own office in this base, rather than simply stealing the local officials'. There's nothing on the walls, though. Nothing on the shelves. Perhaps she hasn't finished moving in, yet. Perhaps, more worryingly, she has.
Regardless the table is full of papers, a pen on it, as well as her clasped hands, together with fingers interlaced on the desk. It's maybe a comforting gesture.
Well, it might be on someone else.
"Yes, I did."
She looks him over, for signs of health maybe, signs in his posture about his mental state. And she adds, "The floor did not invite you to its office."
She pauses, waits for him to look up, and asks, "So. How much do you remember?"
Is there even a camera that pretends to monitor this room? It's not visible.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Technically, he could walk away from this. Even right now, there's nothing stopping him from standing up and heading right out the door.
In practice, there are many things that can't be walked away from. He could try to walk out but he wouldn't get far. He'd known this moment was coming for him.
And now, here it is.
"...Yes, ma'am." He straightens when prompted, pulling up into nearly (but not quite) formation-perfect posture.
His shoulders slouch, for one. And generally the look of someone attending their own funeral is not recommended when in formation.
He hasn't gotten replacement glasses yet. Are they still lying somewhere, wherever he'd lost them?
He glances away from her -- perhaps afraid of what he might find there. Or, perhaps, searching for any sign of surveillance equipment. But even if it were here... would it be as obvious as all that? His attention returns to Leah, whose very presence commands it.
"...Everything." Loren pauses. "I think. But I..."
His knuckles, resting on his knees, whiten.
"...I remember what happened. During the ritual."
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.
Here it is.
She doesn't put on the mask of military precision and instruct him to make that perfect formation-perfect posture. She notes his look. She notes his lack of glasses. And, as he glances away...
She doesn't. Her single eye remains on him. If there is surveillance equipment in here, it sure isn't visible. Though of course, there are ways...
Everything though, he says. Even seated, Leah has a certain presence to her, that much is true. Maybe some of it has to do with the fact that she is completely still.
"Everything," she repeats. "Of course, you wouldn't remember what you don't remember," she muses. "But that's what the psych tests were for. No, you're reasonably intact, now, whole again. That isn't why I ask."
"The ritual--Yes, that's why. I thought you might."
"We will discuss that. But you should be aware..." She lets that hang on the air for a moment. "I went to some trouble to have you restored. Keep that in mind when you imagine my response."
"...I have two responses to what I saw. There is a kind response, and there is an unkind response. I will allow you to ask which you wish to hear first."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
He nods at Leah's words, stiffly.
There are a good many reasons why Loren has dreaded this meeting with Leah since the moment he'd awoken and been able to grasp what had happened -- since the moment he'd been able to at least partially assemble the pieces of himself.
Part of it is the reason she mentioned -- that she'd had to put a great deal of effort towards even finding him. That he'd vanished in such a fashion. That he'd put off the cure and thus brought about the conditions for what had happened.
The rest of it is...
His shoulders hunch. His fingers dig at his pantlegs, gripping them as much as he can.
That ugly part of him. She'd seen that part of him. His gaze on her falters.
He can barely breathe. It feels like he's suffocating. He knows what the unkind response is going to be, he knows it, he knows it he knows it he knows it he--
...can't run away. Can he. Even if he asks for her kindness, it's going to be...
It's going to be waiting for him. Won't it.
Loren swallows against a throat that's run dry and manages, "The... the unkind response. Ma'am."
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.
She is not stiff, despite being still. She gives every impression of being made of water; unrippling, unmoving, but with the potential for a sudden wave at any time. It's that kind of stance. Maybe that's just knowing her facility for Water Ether, though.
But indeed she put significant effort into finding him--she told the truth about that. She hasn't elaborated her feelings on that matter, though surely they must exist. Simply that it happened. That it exists.
Her single blue eye is a vision of the depths. She lets her thumbs cross one another, the only movement save for breathing, which--if one notices--he is doing.
"So that's your choice," she reflects, considering him for another few moments. Does she approve? It's hard to say. But it would have been waiting for him regardless, and he made an answer of it.
"Very well." Leah pauses, for a moment, regarding Loren again. Then, she speaks. "You have heard the rumors that people who cross me disappear. That people who speak ill of Engil in my presence disappear, you may have heard as well. You have heard that I am one whom even Gazels fear."
"Not all of these rumors are true, but this one is: I have completely destroyed individuals of higher standing than you are for far, far less than the things you showed me in that 'dream.' I consider it a singularly unpleasant memory on my part, and there are many that for most would compete for it that do not."
"And I did not know whether stopping that vision of you would do you harm ultimately."
She waits for his answer to the unkind response.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Loren has heard the rumors.
She had even confirmed them -- some of them. Not that she had targeted those who spoke ill of Engil, per se.
Just what her role truly was, among the elect. He had thought of asking, here and again. But he'd never had the courage.
He's never been good at being brave.
She's completely destroyed people for less than what rests in his own head. That ugliness inside him. And he'd be a liar among liars to say that he'd never fantasized at all about killing his brother with his own two hands... Or at least simply wished that all traces of Engil would be erased from the world.
In a sense, he'd accomplished both for a little while.
So that's it, a part of him distantly thinks. So this is it. His shoulders slump. All tension he'd born before seems to be cut from him. His face feels warm; in counterpoint the rest of him like he's been submerged in icewater. In spite of Leah's earlier request that he look at her, his gaze tilts down towards the floor again.
She'd said there would be kindness. And he thinks he knows what it is now, too.
"If you... when..." He's trying not to shake. He's trying to at least keep it together. "Tell them I was brave, I," He has to take a breath. "Please don't hurt them. My parents," he says, as if to clarify.
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.
Bravery is a difficult thing. There are so many ways to interpret it, so many ways that people talk about it to make it attainable, but it isn't easy. It isn't simple. And whether she expects it of him or not...
It's ahrd to say that, too.
For a while he did manage it, in a sense. But as his shoulders slump, as the tension cuts out of him, Leah is still. He looks down, and she continues to regard him. If his face is warm, then everything about her is cold. The ocean depths are not warm. But he answers...
"..."
She looks at him thoughtfully. "I will tell them that," she says.
"...But I'm not planning to kill you or to make you disappear, Loren."
"I said there was unkindness and then kindness. The unkindness you have heard. The kindness is..." She begins to trail off, but decides to say it before Loren has a chance to emote too much. "That there are days when I blamed him, too."
"There are days when I thought of my ruined body, my destroyed career, and could only put the blame at the feet of the one who caused the accident. Not every day, of course. Not most days. There are other feelings that I have about it. But your anger is not alien to me... and it is acceptable."
"I'm not pleased," she gives as a caveat. "But to have feelings is acceptable. I do not expect you to shed all emotion, and emotion can be very ugly indeed. You have now seen some of mine. ...You have a right to be angry with the brother who left you that these... wastes, did not. So while I am not pleased, I accept it."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
She'll tell them that, and this is the point where Loren squeezes his eyes shut in a bid to at least keep some semblence of dignity here and now.
...Except, making him disappear or even killing him are not her intent. He jerks his head up, staring at her in a muddle of grief and deep confusion.
Because there was unkindness and then kindness.
And the kindness is that she, too, has felt this way. She's blamed him -- blamed Engil. His emotions are ugly and messy but he's not the only one.
"You," he manages to croak out, confusion washing away in the storm of the epiphany. And once confusion is gone, only grief is left.
The dam breaks. He cries in a way he hasn't in a long time: ugly and raw, the only slight dignity to be found when he buries his face in his hands. He hunches over; his breath comes in ragged sobs.
What is he grieving for, precisely? What had happened to him? His brother? Or is it something far more intangible?
If anyone asked him even at this very moment, he wouldn't have been able to answer.
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.
She is not quite so cold in this way--her expression is neutral, not complete stone. There is something hard in the lines of her face, something that doesn't go away no matter what her expression is at the moment. Not the burn scars she showed in the dream, though that is part of why--but age beyond her years.
Whether or not she has the wisdom to go with it is a matter of opinion.
But she said something else, in the dream, something Loren may or may not have been able to hear given the situation. She said that she does not have the kind hand to reach out to him; she does not have the soft touch of comfort that someone else might be able to grant. Perhaps it's no longer in her to do it; perhaps it's just because of their particular relationship. But she does not do anything of that sort.
You, he says, and she inclines her head as if to confirm the unspoken question. But then his face is in his hands. He hunches over. It is natural, really. It is what a human would do.
Leah's eye is dry, though her expression is not cruel. She unfolds her hands. There is already a box of tissues on the table, kept there for some reason. She does not need to push it closer to him. There are two pieces of comfort she is able to give. comfort that she can offer.
"This conversation stays between us."
That is one. Whether by inability or because it isn't her place, she does not step around the desk, does not bring a synthetic hand to his shoulder. The second--her third and perhaps final kindness of the day--is that the Major will allow Loren to compose himself before dismissing him. That is all. Until then, she will wait.
She is accustomed to waiting.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Whether or not he'd heard it, given the precise circumstances in which she'd said it--
...the fact is that on some level he knows their situation doesn't permit it. The days are long gone when he could have tripped and fallen, and had her comfort him over a skinned knee. Moreover, she has her duties. And he has his.
For her to stand and move to see to him -- to reassure him in any way -- would have been moreover a mortification that he couldn't have born. Not from her, of all people. Certainly not from her.
So Loren vents, lets spill some of his pain and grief. Eventually, his head still bowed, he makes a go for the tissues, as quickly as he can, as surreptitiously as he can.
She says only that this conversation stays between the two of them. She says nothing more, and that's a greater mercy than he could have wished for.
He's not... presentable, precisely. His face is puffy and reddened, in spite of his efforts with the tissues. But he is at least reasonably composed. If the stars align, perhaps he'll be able to dart back to the officers' quarters without anyone seeing him. It's the most he can hope for.
But he has some measure of composure now and so he asks Leah Sadalbari:
"Will that be all, Major?"
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.
What, exactly, are Leah Sadalbari's duties? This is something she has never fully explained to Loren, just alluded to rumors about. But they do preclude some things, and in this case, she cannot be that comforting figure, or will not, but in either case it doesn't happen.
Leah does not remark on his grabbing tissues; she does not say anything about his pain, only that the conversation stays between the two of them. She waits, as she is accustomed to waiting, until he looks up to her again.
It seems that this measure of composure is good enough for her.
"That will be all for now, Captain." She confirms it for him when he asks. "Expect new orders soon."
She spoke to Lan and the others of destiny. Is this a part of what she imagines that to be?
Regardless, she does not move from there until he has left. She watches him go.
Unblinking.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
She hasn't. Loren, in truth, doesn't want Leah to explain it, if only out of some nameless sense of fear. That he won't like what he learns. That, maybe, he'll be forced to make a decision one way or the other regarding.
Or perhaps that he'll even be in agreement with her. Or not be moved by it at all. Right now, he can't even name what outcome he fears most.
"...Understood, ma'am."
He stands, and for the moment, Loren Voss feels lightheaded.
He really just...
Maybe it's because it all came flooding back, so suddenly. Maybe that's the reason, if there is one -- he had forgotten more than he'd realized.
And remembered more than he had ever wanted to.
If he stops and lets his mind drift now, he can feel their presence upon him, nearly--
He hasn't called upon that fire again since -- hasn't wanted to, hasn't tried -- but he can just about feel its presence within him as well. It wasn't some lingering effect of the Guardian's purification. It's still here. It's just yet another thing he hasn't been able to really deal with yet.
Engil had an affinity for the element of fire.
It's fine, he decides, turning away from Leah and heading for the door. He doesn't need to deal with it yet.
One thing at a time.