2021-02-25: Call the Doctor(s)
- Log: Call the Doctor(s)
- Cast: Xantia, Lily Keil, Citan Uzuki
- Where: The Thames - Upper Deck
- Date: February 25, 2021
- Summary: Xantia decides she needs to take her problem to a medical professional. Fortunately, she knows two people who are so inclined!
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Something peculiar happened not too long ago. Xantia was supposed to go with Fei and Elly, to hold off the Guard assault on Bevelle in their Gears. But she never showed up for that. Not one to just no-show for no reason, especially if it involves a fight or helping those she's close to (let alone both) it'd be a pretty safe assumption that something must've happened. Sure enough, a message arrives through the memory cube a few days later.
"I'm sorry for not being around, I haven't been feeling well lately. I think I'm alright for now, but I think it's important that I talk to you about this. Just in case it doesn't stay that way. Could you meet me on the north end of the Thames's deck? I'd really appreciate it."
A bit lacking in detail, but all things considered, it's about as serious as one of Xantia's messages gets. One detail that she didn't think to include: she sent the same message to both Lily and Citan. As a result, they might be surprised that the other is there as well at the exact time Xantia proposed, though it's easy enough to put two and two together on this. Perhaps even so far as to connect the dots where it comes to what the both of them have in common.
Whatever the case, Xantia is already where she said she'd be well in advance, pacing restlessly up and down the deck, more than a little agitated. What about is hard to say just by looking at her, right now it just looks like she doesn't know what to do with herself. Which is an accurate assessment in more ways than one. It's probably safe to say that she knowingly picked a meeting spot that's out of the way of any major activity happening on the Thames on a daily basis.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily Keil hadn't involved herself in that particular Gear excursion. She knew about it, of course, enough to know that Xantia also didn't despite planning to, and so she was a bit concerned. And the message that shows up is even more concerning!
She's not exactly going to be surprised to see Citan 'actually called doctor' Uzuki given the situation, but she didn't exactly expect him either. But Lily is there where Xantia directed, arriving now and seeing her pace there. Xantia having extra energy is not unusual... but going to this much trouble for secrecy is, and the sorceress finds herself coming to a stop to look Xantia over thoughtfully.
"Hey," she greets her.
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
Citan has reasons of his own for remaining aboard the Thames while the rest of the Black Wolves had taken to the fields of Spira again. One of these reasons may have something to do with Gwen and her recovery. Another, perhaps to keep an eye on things in Filgaia and ensure that nothing causes a surprise from the rear, so to speak. The situation with Gomihone may be another.
And if there are other reasons yet, the doctor hasn't spoken of them.
It's a simple matter thus for him to meet Xantia at the time and location she designates--
And rather more the surprise that he isn't the only other one clearly here and waiting.
It's not difficult to put the pieces of this particular puzzle together, though.
Meeting Lily's gaze, Citan gives her a knowing look, his own attention traveling the once in Xantia's direction as if to suggest this very fact.
The young woman in question is of course already here, in this space within the Thames out of the way of the worst of the ship's heavy foot-traffic, and looking as if she were agitated. Something is on her mind.
"Xantia," he greets her, smiling though even that expression cannot wipe the fact that he is studying her carefully away. "I hope that you have been well?"
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Xantia actually starts at Lily's 'hey'. Not just agitated, but mentally distracted, clearly, having completely failed to notice the approach that she should have been expecting in the first place.
"...oh. Hey." A distinct lack of the usual kind of energy there, as well. She smiles, still, but that's not usually something that appears to cost her effort. Citan greets her next, and the automatic response is halted before she vocalizes it, opening and closing her mouth before correcting that false start. "...Well, not really. I haven't been able to stop worrying. I guess it might be nothing, but it's so similar, and..."
It's at this point that she realizes that she's starting in the middle rather than at the beginning, and she shakes her head. "Actually, let me tell you what I was thinking at the time, it'll probably make more sense that way."
With that, she reaches into her cloak, and withdraws a notepad, its front page almost completely filled with writing. She starts to read aloud, "'I was really hoping I'd never need to write on this. But for everyone's sake, I'd better make sure that they know what happened. Just in case this is the only way they'll get to find out.'"
Xantia pauses for a moment, taking a breath before she continues reading her own writing. "'I heard it again, the static-like noise. I was in my Gear, running some checks on it, and I fell asleep. I had this bizarre dream, then when I woke up, there it was. I didn't hear it for very long, but I'm positive it's the same thing. That's how it started last time. I can't be sure how this will affect me, so I need to stay away from everyone, at least for now. I hope Fei and Elly will understand that I couldn't go out in my Gear before I was sure I wouldn't end up attacking them. I'd never forgive myself if I hurt my friends again. I'll wait a little while, then if nothing's happened I'll talk about it. If the same thing is happening again, I'm going to need help. Last time made it pretty clear that I can't handle this by myself.'"
Xantia claps the notebook shut, looking to Lily as the one she's certain will understand immediately what's going on here. "...As you can see, I can actually talk about it this time. It's not like last time, where I'd keep thinking about saying something, or showing people what I wrote, and I just couldn't get myself to. So I think I'm not... being controlled, or whatever that actually was. Not yet, anyway."
Then she turns to Citan, who although certainly aware of what happened that day, may not know quite as many of the details. He wasn't there after all, and he would've needed to learn of things mostly from the other Wolves, as it's not exactly a subject that Xantia enjoys talking about. But given the situation, it feels pretty important that she does so now. "Doc... how much do you know, about what happened in Dazil? When I... attacked everyone?"
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
That agitation is clear--Lily could spot it even without feeling a little buzzing in her mind. ...Metaphorical buzzing--Important to hold that clear, considering. Lily regards Xantia's worry after a look at Citan, and indeed--almost says something. But Xantia pulls out the notebook.
"...So not controlled, but still affected," Lily replies to Xantia thoughtfully. "But that noise..."
Lily nods again, thinking about it, and she notes the question, of course. It's not really her place to explain this whole story, but Xantia's, so she instead offers silent support with her presence.
"You've done well to keep track like this--it means we're not going blind in this."
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
Xantia is practically a livewire. Her agita is well on display.
"Would you care to sit down? You seem uneasy," he suggests to her, knowing that she may be unable to given her present anxiety.
It's then that she produces the notebook and begins to read from it.
As she speaks, Citan frowns.
"Some," he answers Xantia when she turns towards him, only to shake his head. "Fei spoke to me of what happened that day. He said that you had seemed another person during. I must confess, I have wondered..."
Perhaps he may be best equipped to approach the situation all the more given his connection with Fei, in fact, considering the young man's particular... situation.
To put it mildly.
He nods, when Lily chimes in. "Indeed... this provides us with more context as to what may be happening. You are saying, then, that the previous episode was presaged by a particular sound... and that you have heard it again." He rubs at his chin, as if in thought. "And yet, you have not been... afflicted, merely affected. Has the effect been weakened in some fashion? Or..."
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Xantia looks around at Citan's suggestion to sit, then just shrugs a bit. She didn't really put any effort into finding a place to sit when she didn't immediately see anything that screamed 'this is a place for sitting'. But as he also noted, she's probably too worked up to do that right now anyway.
Following the outline of the situation, Lily tells her she's done well, and she lets out a short laugh, in spite of herself. "I'm glad you think so. It doesn't feel like I'm doing well. I just... have no idea how to deal with this." She pauses for a second, then adds, "Well, I have been thinking about it a lot, but before that... I want to know what you think." Xantia's confidence in her own thoughts is pretty low under the circumstances.
As Citan isn't fully aware of the important details, however, she has to get that out of the way first. At least this is easier than it used to be, if still not exactly pleasant. Given the way she begins, she's quite aware of the Fei parallel and how that's something Citan would think of immediately.
"Well, first of all, it's not the same thing as with Fei and Id. I'm pretty sure that it's only me, I think I'd have noticed by now if there was someone else in my head. ...Sometimes I wish that's what was going on, at least that would make it easy to explain." It counts as 'easy to explain' when this is part of your 'normal', anyway. This being the case, it makes it harder to admit the next part. She does so freely, but not without a pained expression.
"I... used everything I knew about people against them. Hurt them in the worst ways I could. So... it was me who did these things. There's no doubt about that. But I also used attacks of which I still don't know how I did them." More emphatically, she continues, "And, I wasn't in control of myself! I could only watch myself do these things, wanting to stop myself but I just couldn't! It's only because everyone kept believing in me that I was finally able to hold myself back long enough for them to knock me out."
The full story is longer still, but she pauses it there to get back to the current situation. "...I wish I knew for sure, but... I kind of hope this means that whatever happened back then it's working as well as before. Or, maybe I can hope this isn't what I'm afraid of at all?" Her attempt to smile falters quickly. "Really, I just... want to be better prepared this time. In case it... calls me again."
She looks from Lily to Citan, getting to the obvious reason for approaching them in particular. "Do you have any idea what this could be? Anything it seems similar to? Anything that could help me do something against it?"
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily is fine with standing. It's not a particular problem; defintiely not while this subject goes on, and Lily watches Xantia. The laugh... Well, she'd probably react the same way. "You may not know how to deal with it," Lily says, "But you're reaching out to others. That's better than doing nothing."
What they think, though... Hmm. She listens, as Citan indicates what he knows, as he mentions context. And then she listens to Xantia's caveat, and what she says after that. Using...
"It would be easier if it were already something we knew of," Lily admits, though the matter of it being like Id... Well. She isn't so sure that that would be better, considering what it means. Easier in that way, though, for sure.
But this... "So it was you, but not 'you'. It does admittedly seem at first glance that there's layers of self here--that there's another 'you' that includes you somehow. But what that means... Well, even saying it out loud doesn't exactly make it sensible."
Lily shakes her head. "But you were able to eventually hold yourself back. Logically, I suppose a progression would make sense; the idea that you were able to prepare somewhat for it."
"...But that's just supposition," the sorceress admits. "What it could be, what you could do..."
"I think we may only be able to learn the truth by finding someone who knows. There is..."
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
Xantia doesn't sit; this in and of itself is hardly a surprise. She seems far too 'awake' to be able to sit down. He nods instead, smiling tiredly a moment when she indicates that she is going to continue to stand.
It would be an easy thing to look between Xantia and Fei and make the call that because certain elements of their situation are the same that then the entire situation is the same. He nods when she says as much. "Indeed... while I do not believe Fei was 'aware' of Id as such," until that presence became lounder and impossible to ignore, perhaps, "the particulars of your experiences are hardly the same. I would not necessarily discount it, Xantia... but we should not limit ourselves simply because of the situation of another."
Indeed, the fact that she was conscious throughout almost makes him think of--
"Not another you, but a part of you, nonetheless. ...We are all 'communities' within ourselves, as some scholars have noted. It seems that it may be more true for some of us than others," he remarks, glancing upwards towards the ceiling. "But you experienced it more as if you were a prisoner in your own skin, and that alone is significant. Fei's experience is quite different. Hmm..."
He never has spoken much of what he suspects of being the cause behind Fei's more... dramatic changes, has he.
"Where have you heard this tone, Xantia?"
Is what he asks her, first of all.
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Xantia chuckles at Lily's praise for taking action. "Well, I've never been very good at doing nothing." If anything she's desperate to just... do something, anything. When she has no ideas of her own, asking others only makes sense.
She listens to Lily and Citan's observations. The 'you but not you' element... she nods several times, it seems like the correct assessment. "I think that's how it is. Still me... but a different 'me'. I don't know how exactly... 'it's the me from before I lost my memories' doesn't seem right either, then it wouldn't make sense for that me to also know what me me knows." She blinks, and rubs her head. "I confused myself. But I think that made sense."
Never missing an opportunity to bring up a certain someone, Xantia quotes something she feels is relevant to the situation. "'We kill ourselves to form new identities all the time.' Id told me that once. Maybe one of my old identities isn't quite dead?" She doesn't seem all that perturbed about that thought, just throwing that out there as casually as any random musing.
She's snapped out of that by a question from Citan. "Where...? You mean, what places? Pretty much all over... we were traveling through Ignas a lot at the time. Towns, a dungeon, on a ship, even just in the middle of nowhere. It woke me up at night sometimes. With time, it got louder, lasted longer, and happened more often. I used to think it was something about Ignas, since I didn't hear it in Elru, or on Lunar. But now I've heard it here too, right here, on the Thames."
Xantia rubs her chin as she thinks on this more, when her eyes suddenly go wide. "...I forgot to mention something important." Because it's related to something she's so used to that she doesn't even think about it most of the time. She looks at Lily when she continues, "The lines. You remember them, don't you? Just like the ones you have, on this thing around my neck, glowing gold."
Xantia places her hand on the jet black, shackle-like metal ring that's always been there. Not exactly by choice - there's just no obvious way for it to come off, and even Xantia's considerable strength has been of no use in forcing it. Not that she's tried since she was first told that circuit-like lines were visible on it when she attacked her friends. The strange similarity to Lily's bodily markings isn't what concerns her about it right this second, though.
"That's got to have something to do with it. Back then, I somehow knew that the best way to stop me would be to hit me there, with as much lightning as possible. ...I lost my memories all over again when that happened. I'm pretty sure I knew that would happen too. But I thought it was the best way to stop me." She can finally genuinely smile upon adding, "I got them back though. Well, the ones I made since losing them originally. But Lily knows all about that, right?" Not everything about that process was fun and games, but Xantia chooses to focus on the positive, as she often does.
Getting back on track, she continues, "...anyway. I don't know if knowing that actually helps me at all. Even if it does have something to do with it... what am I supposed to do about it? Like Lily's warned me before, even if we could get it off somehow, we don't know what that'll do to me. So, if that's all there is... there isn't anything I can do." Which brings her right back to not being good at doing nothing. Her frustration is easy to read.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily can sort of understand it--but her situation is different, still. And well... She does know Xantia. "Yeah," she agrees of her not being good at doing nothing. But you but not you--that 'me'...
"I think yeah, this other 'you' seems to have something of yours in her, too. It's hard to explain... But I think we're on the same page."
"...That sounds like him," Lily says. "I can see what he means, I think." At least, metaphorically.
Communities within ourselves... yes, Lily gets that all right.
The various places Xantia's heard the noise. Lily considers those next; the places where she has, and hasn't heard it. "So not Elru, or on Lunar... but here on the Thames, and in Ignas. Elsewhere in Aquvy, or just here?" What's the common point? She doesn't know. But Xantia mentions something important--
"Yes," Lily answers, "I remember the lines." Like hers, and also different. The ring...
"So what I would conclude from that is that it's some kind of mechanical or magical device--or something of both--since... Well. That's what the evidence suggests to me, based on what I've seen." She smiles back though. "I am glad you got those back. I do remember."
Knowing it, though... Hmmm. "It may not yet," Lily admits, "But even if it doesn't help you yet, it means you have more knowledge for when something happens again. We can piece this together over time."
"...The only other thing I can think to try is..." Lily sets her jaw, shakes her head. "No," she says after a moment. "I don't know what that would do, trying to interface with it."
"But that person you mentioned at the Main Gate..." Hm.
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
"'Memory' and 'self' are matters that have confused even the philosophers, I am afraid," Citan remarks, folding his hands over his chest. "Whether that is 'you' or a 'part of you', or something else altogether..." But he trails off, lifting a hand to readjust his spectacles when Xantia quotes a certain somebody.
"Id said that... did he," he remarks, and certainly it is just out of concern that he frowns faintly at that moment.
"I would say that... our older selves are never truly 'dead'," Citan says at last, more quietly than usual. "Rather, they become the stratum that our present is built upon."
He falls silent after, glancing over at Lily as she chimes in, and only speaks again when Xantia speaks of the location in which she had heard that tone. "Aha... I see. I had wondered if perhaps it may have been because of... no, it appears I was mistaken. You had made use of your Gear in Elru, correct?"
But even this may be barking up the wrong tree, perhaps, because--
Her ring had glowed at that time. She touches it.
"That... ring," Citan utters, gazing with fresh eyes at what he had taken previously to be some affectation of the young woman.
"I believe you may be correct. Perhaps that 'ring' is the cause. And electricity disrupted it... wait, that may mean..." He's bowed his head, furrowing his brow as he apparently considers the possibilities.
"...I may need to take a closer look at it," is what he says finally, shaking his head.
There are various possibilities here, and no one gained anything by acting hastily. "Though, I must confess, I do not have my tools at hand," Citan admits. "To retrieve them would take some time..."
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Xantia doesn't continue on the subject of other selves and whether they're dead or alive, because this is complicated and she's already managed to give herself a headache trying to wrap her mind around it. She just kind of nods through that, only stopping to shake her head when asked if she's heard the sound elsewhere in Aquvy.
"Just here. It's the first time I've heard it since... all that happened. I can't be sure if it's even the same thing. But I know I didn't imagine hearing it. So even though I don't warn to alarm people for no reason... I can't risk it. I don't want... for that to happen again." The look she gives Lily is full of guilt. She may never be able to fully put that incident behind her. She did a lot of terrible things to people, but corrupting Lily's Ether flow... understanding exactly how agonizing that must have been makes that a particularly shameful standout.
She confirms for Citan, "Oh, I get what you were thinking, but no, I don't think it has anything to do with my Gear. This was actually the first time I heard the sound while I was anywhere near Silvestris."
Looking between Lily and Citan for their thoughts on the ring around her neck, she can in the end only shrug. "I'm willing to let either of you do what you want with it, anything that could help me know more about it." After a pause, and a nod to Lily, she does add, "Well, as long as it isn't dangerous, of course. I don't want anything bad to happen... to me, or to you."
She tilts her head at Lily as she brings up that person. "You're talking about Xenia. Well, I still don't know much for sure, but whoever she actually is, I think she's the best chance I have of learning more about myself. Maybe she'd know more about this, too." She crosses her arms, frowning. "Lots of 'maybes' and 'wouldn't it be nices', but I guess I should be used to that by now where it comes to trying to learn stuff about my past." Still, she'll grasp at every straw she can get. As straws go, this one seems a bit more solid than most.
Finally, she sighs, and shrugs. "I guess for now it's fine if you just... know about all this. I don't think everyone needs to know yet, it still could turn out to be nothing. But, if something does happen, I feel better knowing that at least you both know about what's going on. As long as we can keep things from going as wrong as they did last time... that's what matters most."