2021-07-08: Without Limit
- Log: Without Limit
- Cast: Citan Uzuki, Lily Keil
- Where: Aphel Aura - Residential District
- Date: July 08, 2021
- Summary: Lily checks in at the laboratory but soon finds that all is not as it had seemed within her own genes.
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
Typically the laboratory is off limits to most within Shevat's Palace, Queen Zephyr has made an official exception in recent days, following the rebuffed Solarian attack on Shevat. In fact, those from Filgaia had been encouraged to stop by the laboratory when they were able to do so.
The researchers are more than happy to explain the reason why once visited. Many of those on Filgaia are in possession of what the researchers call a 'Limiter', a genetic sequence that throttles their inherent power and makes them susceptible to Solaris' control. It seems that Solaris' defeat was very near in that war 500 years ago -- in time they developed a means to prevent another uprising and capped the power of the people of the surface.
Shevat has, in turn, developed a way to remove such shackles, but the process, while painless, takes a little bit of time. Moreover, they only have the capacity to treat so many people at once...
Lily is their visitor today, and they have already done such things as draw her blood and compiled a sample of her genetic code as a precursor to identifying the Limiter within her, but...
But, judging from the conversation taking place in hushed whispers over by the consoles, something is going on here.
"Ah, Lily! There you are. I had heard that you might be here," says Citan, stepping into the laboratory himself. "Leon had wanted to speak with you when you were done in here, if you have a moment..." And he, too, turns his head in the direction of the very heated whispered conversation echoing from the other end of the room. The researchers are having a bit of a disagreement.
One of them is claiming... something isn't present? The other seems to think they missed it?
Strange.
"...Is everything all right?" the doctor asks, a little more loudly than before and towards the bank of computer consoles around which the researchers are gathered.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily Keil has some interest in the laboratory, but this is far outside her area of expertise. She's mostly just waiting around for the moment, but within her area of expertise is definitely picking up on the tension in the room. Drawing her blood was easy; compiling the sample was something. But the hushed whispers, the emotion sparking int he room...
Lily frowns, and that's when Citan walks in. Lily glances his way, and then, "Yeah? I'll have to find him then." But the whispers are that much more heated, and...
The doctor asks something, and Lily looks to them too. There's a bit of hesitation before actually speaking up, at which point the medic says, "You're welcome to tell him, too. He's my usual doctor."
Just in case that was what stopped them. But it's hard to say if that's what it was, before one of the researchers looks from the console to Citan and Lily and says, "This woman doesn't have a limiter."
"That's impossible," another reiterates, "She's never been here before, run it again--"
"I've run it three times! Not only does she not have a limiter, she--"
Squabbling starts again as Lily lifts an eyebrow.
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
"I do not think it is anything, ah, dire," the doctor adds, glancing her way for a moment. "Still, he had asked me to pass it along should I find you. Are they...?"
Attempting to analyze her genetic structure? Yes.
The increasingly angry whispering escalates in that corner of the room. One might well think that a shouting match were about to happen. Instead, their whispers become more audible--
Citan raises an eyebrow, but does not look Lily's way. He calls out, or at least, raises his voice enough that it's clear he's addressing them and not his friend here.
"...They certainly seem spirited," he murmurs to Lily, as a short conversation (too low to be heard from over here) is had between the two researchers before the junior of the pair (one assumes) breaks off to hurry over to them.
"Ma'am, er, miss, could you come over here, please?" He gazes at Citan for a moment, but shrugs. "He can come too."
It seems there's something they want to ask her about, but over there. By the consoles. Where they're still looking at her genetic code.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"Sure," Lily answers. "Thanks." Are they? Yes, they seem to be doing just that. Lily gestures vaguely at the equipment, as the whispering continues to escalate. "They do," she agrees on how... spirited they sound, and she can only pick up vague impressions. Her gift for empathy isn't nearly as precise as Riesenlied's, after all. But she can pick up confusion, all right.
The researcher glances between the two and then Lily nods along. "...All right." She follows over to the display, where the screen has all sorts of interesting data that is largely impenetrable to Lily, but may be less so to Citan. Her footsteps click against the tiles, and she peers at the screen, where they say...
"So where did you say you were from?" the senior of the researchers asks again. "You... have no limiter, you--"
"You shouldn't be walking," the other points out in consternation, staring at Lily outright like she's a rogue subject.
"What are you talking about?" Lily asks. "And I don't know where I'm from, I was raised in Kislev but..."
"Solaris? That would explain the Ether affinity--"
"Her markers don't match any of our Solarian records, whatsoever. They don't match any markers we have, period!"
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
"No Limiter? But, that would mean..."
It's the first question Citan asks.
"Either she never had one, or someone already removed it, yes. But there's more. We can't place her with any population on Filgaia today. And..."
Citan Uzuki, while a many of a great many (an astonishing variety frankly) talents, is no master of genetics. He has a grounding in it thanks to basic education at Jugend among other things, and has administered gene treatments before in Solaris in conjunction with others, but recognizing problems in the reconstructed model of a particular genome (Lily's) on screen...
Well.
He knows enough to know that something is seriously wrong here. It's... truncated. This section should be longer in a 'healthy' adult. But...
He stares at it for a long moment, as if taken aback.
'You shouldn't be walking', another researcher tells Lily. And that, in conjunction with some assistance he had given her, once...
...her condition then...
He's reminded of something he had read about once.
"Do not tell me... 'Hackman's Disease'?" he asks one of the researchers.
"Well... yes. Or 'congenital hypermyasthenia', as it's properly known," the more senior (?) of the pair answers. "Frankly speaking... most with the condition lose all ability to walk by their late teens. I cannot fathom how she can be standing here, let alone walking around. Is... something else compensating for it?" At this rate they might just end up attempting to sequence her entire genome rather than just key snippets.
Citan falls silent, bowing his head as if in thought.
He thinks... he might know the reason why she's 'healthy'. But it's far too outlandish to mention here.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily only knows what she's been told of these limiters. "...No population on Filgaia? But I'm definitely not from Lunar," Lily says, frowning further. She looks at the screen as if looking harder might make it make more sense to her, but it's a bunch of lines and graphics that she has no context for. If it were something robotic she might have a chance at puzzling it out, but...
"Hackman's Disease?" Lily wonders, and thinks back to her medical training--but it's outside the scope of a combat medic's knowledge, being something inborn that rather precludes soldiering in the first place. But she knows enough of medicine that she doesn't just ask who Hackman is.
Not that they'd be able to tell her. The 'proper' name makes more sense to her though, just from understanding the words. "Muscle weakness," she repeats, thoughtful. "That's..."
She looks to Citan for a moment, and then back to the researcher. She hesitates--she 's thinking likely along the same lines that he is, but...
"..." Lily takes a moment to place a hand over her left arm, where the blood was drawn; there's a glow of red at her fingertips, as the wound heals completely.
"...I use healing Ether on a regular basis," she suggests. "It might have something to do with it."
But Citan can probably recognize it--she's getting cagier.
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
"Yes... I do not think you are from Lunar," Citan agrees, glancing up towards the ceiling for the moment. "While it would answer this and that about your origins, the fact remains that I have not heard of a single natural Ether user from Lunar."
The one researcher's eyes widen as they let this sink in, too. "But-- that would mean that..."
That they have absolutely no idea where on Filgaia she has come from. "...Yes," Citan concludes. "For now, until we have more information to conclusively rule it out, perhaps we should assume that she claims descent from a here-to-now uncatalogued subpopulation. That would be the simplest thing."
He has managed to wrest control of the dialogue from the two researchers here, a thing that they have perhaps not entirely realized themselves.
He smiles, benignly. "After all... can we claim that Shevat's record is complete without question? The simpler answer is that we have missed some group or another. To speculate otherwise, without evidence..." He shakes his head.
The reseachers are themselves silent for a moment.
The more junior (?) of the two speaks up, "...Muscle weakness, yes, but progressive. Some geneticists think it should be called 'congenital progressive hypermyasthenia'. But--"
"But it's a mouthful," concludes his senior (?). "To be quite honest, it's a terminal condition. All the muscles in the body eventually..." They grimace and look away. "...You understand. But aside from what we see here, you seem healthy." They pause.
"Can... healing Ether truly...?"
Citan slowly exhales a long breath, then looks back over at Lily.
"And this still doesn't explain why she doesn't have a Limiter," the junior (?) says.
Citan, silent, regards Lily for a long moment more.
"Pardon me, gentlemen, but I should like to speak with my patient," and he straightens slightly as if to emphasize that point, "in private. A moment, if you would?"
He pauses for a mere fraction of a moment before smiling brightly. "Besides... if she has no Limiter, then I believe she will have no further need of your services. But of course, that is her decision to make!"
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"And I don't have Althena's Blessing," Lily agrees, on more solid ground considering magic than genetics. But the researcher's reactions make her nervous--as is increasingly clear. But Citan has a way with people, and his maneuvers have her in a better position than she'd expected in short order.
"...Right. It would seem to get worse." Can healing Ether do it? Lily thinks the answer is no, but she doesn't want to actually answer it. When Citan is silent, she almost speaks up again--and then suddenly--
"Ah, yes." Lily nods, and says, "That's fine. In fact, he's quite right. If I need anything else, I'll be sure to come back and see you."
Having recovered herself, Lily straightens, and starts to walk away from the immediate vicinity of the screens--the researchers find that they no longer have control of the situation and have no real reason to object, so...
"Ah, all right, but--it'd be very interesting to--"
And that is that, for the moment. Lily turns out into the 'lobby' area instead of in their lab directly. "...Thanks," she says first, when they're alone, turning back towards him.
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
The more senior (?) of the two seems gobsmacked for a moment as the proverbial rug is more or less pulled out from under the both of them. He shakes his head, then glancing at his junior (?) he can already tell that they're not going to win here.
This realization is perfectly clear in his eyes.
Some things just have to stay mysteries.
"...There is no need to thank me," Citan says, glancing up towards the high ceiling in here, in the atrium of the palace. "They are not... bad people. Merely... overexcited. Indeed, I believe I have been much the same, myself. But the more time one spends conducting research, the easier it becomes to end up 'disconnected' from the outside world. Not all who apply themselves to scholarly pursuits become this way, I should note. But whether it is from act of study itself or the natural inclination of those who pursue studies..." He shakes his head and sighs.
"...In any case... I would not worry overmuch about what they have said. Why, you seem perfectly healthy to me! And while your absence of a Limiter is puzzling, it also means that you are already functioning at your full strength and you will not need any gene therapy to remove it. That is not such a bad thing."
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"...That's fair," Lily allows after a moment. "If it were something more magical I'd probably be right there with them in being curious. I still am, a little. But I'm not so sure about.." She glances down, and shakes her head too. "Right. Not everybody."
She looks back to Citan again, "Yeah... if it were a major problem, I would've noticed it by now, probably. But it does add up, with everything we know so far." She pauses. "...I think I can get farther. You're right, though. It's not so bad, not needing to undergo... whatever that would entail."
Lily flexes her hands, idly reaching up to remove the bandage from her arm--there is of course no mark where the needle was used to draw out her blood before. "...It makes me wonder a few things," she admits. "But I think I've given them enough data for now." A look at Citan. "You seemed surprised, yourself. So I guess for all you've seen, there's still some new things out there."
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
"We all have our weaknesses," the doctor admits. "And at times, we become so taken with this or that and forget about everything else. It is not cruelly meant, in most circumstances.
But he nods, smiling slightly as she expresses her own feelings about the 'disease'. "Indeed! If it had not manifested by now, then there is little reason to believe it would be delaying itself. These are mysteries, but they are not the sort of mysteries that should consume you, Lily."
And he sighs.
"Is it that unusual for me to be surprised?" Citan wonders aloud. "Well, in any case, I will say that it was... atypical, from what I do know of genetics. But atypical should not be confused with meaningful."
He's silent again, gazing across the great hall of the palace. Has she already realized it, he wonders.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"All the same, they were making me a little nervous. I already have to hold back up here..." Lily trails off, and lets that be at that for the moment. Instead, she considers--"Right... if it hasn't manifested by now..."
Mysteries, and mysteries that shouldn't consume. Are there the types that should? She's wondered a lot, about where she comes from. And all the same...
"It is," Lily says, though it's perhaps a little making fun. "Right. It's not entirely surprising that something's atypical, considering--I have powers no one can particularly explain. But..."
Has she realized it?
"It has manifested, though. You were thinking it too, weren't you? That when my magic wasn't working..."
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
"Yes," is his response. "I had thought that you might remember that... when you were unable to use your magic..."
She had been afflicted by its loss, which itself had been strange, he'd thought at the time.
Citan speaks far more quietly than before, his good cheer absent. "This is my hypothesis, such that it is: your magic, or perhaps something about the way that you are using your magic, is compensating for your... problem," he hazards. "So long as you are able to make use of your Ether, then, you may continue to be well. But," and there's always that 'but', isn't there-- "this suggests that 'overdoing it', as Elly once had, could be far more dire for you. My suggestion to you is that while you lack a 'Limiter', you should take care to adhere to your own limitations." He looks over her way and shakes his head. "This is not to say that it would prove immediately dire. Rather... I would expect you would begin to experience symptoms as if the disease were beginning to progress. Whether or not they might become permanent after enough time... I cannot say. Even I have never seen a case of 'Hackman's disease' personally," Citan admits, smiling wryly. "I suppose you could say it is 'rare but well known' in certain circles... It has the qualities of being predictable and dramatic."
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
She remembers. It was strange, by most metrics, but it was certainly something that made an impression on her.
"...Limitations," Lily answers, and it's a bitter kind of word. She shakes her head, at that. "Your hypothesis... It makes sense."
"I think I share it. I'm not that familiar with it... but you can imagine I'm going to be, at this point." Through research, ideally. Otherwise...
"Short of situations like that, I can heal from most things. It would make sense, if I'm compensating for something like that, for that to be how, or why, I guess."
"...Well, thanks anyway. I'm not quite prepared to investigate that part here. I'll... have to think, about what it means."
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
"We all have our own limitations," the doctor continues, glancing again up at the ceiling. "Whether it is innate or imposed... there are things that we cannot accomplish, for good or for ill. Some can be overcome in time. Others..." He smiles, and there is a bitter cast to it as he shakes his head.
"It is not such a terrible thing, to acknowledge where one can go no further."
Citan falls silent after that, listening, perhaps, as she expresses her own feelings on the matter.
"...Yes. It is a lot to take in. Take your time." He pauses, then looks at last in her direction.
"Ah, but you must not forget! Leon had wished to speak with you," he says, raising his voice a smidge. "If you are finished here, then why not see what it is that he wished to say?"
Somewhat more quietly, the doctor adds, "He, after all, should be able to provide better counsel than I in these things."
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"...Isn't it?" Lily wonders, thinking about it a little. "I don't know. I don't think I've found that 'limit' yet. ...It's a while, before I'm going to be willing to say I have. There's so much further we can all go. I'm sure of it."
Take her time. But--
"Ah, yeah. That's a good idea." She nods, and looks back to the lab briefly, before turning to Citan again. "...I suppose that's true. Wherever I'm going..."
"Well, I know who I'm going with, anyway. ...See you around, Doc."
Lily starts away, at that, with a nod Citan's way.
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
"I see..." is Citan's response. So she hasn't found her 'limit' just yet.
"Take care that you do not overstep it by chance, Lily," is what he says to her, and that look in his eyes for just the moment there might be quite strange, indeed.
But she takes the hint -- and for anyone listening in, they'll catch that tail end of their quieter conversation.
They don't mean ill, those in the lab here. But nevertheless, they have their own goals in mind, and those take precedence.
"Take care, Lily," he says, and he will remain standing here for a while longer, gaze turned up at the ceiling of the palace hall as if some answer were written there.
"'Not the destination, but the journey'... If I had but realized that sooner," he remarks to no one at all. It will be a while yet before he, too, heads his own way.