2021-10-07: Responsibility
- Log: Responsibility
- Cast: Lan Lilac, Loren Voss
- Where: The Cape of Breath
- Date: October 07, 2021
- Summary: Loren returns the things Lan left behind at Assyria Base. Lan shares her food and some philosophy.
============================<* The Cape of Breath *>============================ Stretching from the edge of the slowly-spreading northern desert, the Cape of Breath is the lush southern region of Meria Boule. Farmland and livestock take up much of the hilly region, dotted with the estates and castles of Merian nobles, often at the height of elevation, but across temperate land to the west great forests begin, still part of the great resources of the Merian nation. In places the badlands of the north find mirrors here, hotter regions with accordingly sparser populations... where people could move. To the farthest south and east are the wide coastlines, each marked with large cities. Only the fortress nature of many estates at the hearts of settlements recalls much of Meria's more warlike history, after the great efforts of the late Queen to ensure peace for all Meria Boule, and the spread of knowledge. Nevertheless, the increasing spread of monsters can make travel without caravan or guards a perilous undertaking indeed. BGM: Wild Arms 2 - Field ~ Wandering
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
While Lan doesn't use the Memory Cubes super often (Little Firelight doesn't even have one), she does occasionally. What? She knows how they work! They're a super useful resource!
So what if she doesn't check her messages as often as she probably should? Who would leave messages for Lan, anyway?
But she'd left one for Loren a few days ago. 'i'm going to be near the cape of breath for a few days. if you're nearby can you bring any of my stuff from base? don't get in trouble. i made you something. :)'
...To be fair, she'd made things for more people than just Loren, but that's because Lan has had some downtime recently. She's set up a nice little solo campsite near the cape, one with a lovely view of the shore below. It's not too far from meadows with good wildcrafting to be had, and there's good visibility. So even if people should see Lan's campfire, she'll be able to see them too.
There's a ball of soft-looking yarn in her lap, seated far enough from the fire to be safe from any flying sparks, and Lan is working busily at something vaguely garment-shaped with a carved wooden hook.
If she has to go back into snowy regions, she's not going to be unprepared!
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
He shouldn't be doing this.
Shouldn't be retrieving the belongings of an escaped asset. Shouldn't be returning them to said asset. He shouldn't even be having contact with her in the first place.
The last is, at least, more for Lan's sake than Loren's own.
He'd done his best. Some things might be gone, but as it turns out, it really is possible for someone's belongings to sit around mostly unmolested in a base for over a year without incident. At least, he's pretty sure it's not all here. There's no particular way for him to assess that. He's not Lan. How would he know what had been in her possession.
It's not hard to find her campsite. That fact alone made him frown deeply once he'd seen her -- really, out in the open? Like that?
Loren, it should be noted, is no great wilderness survival expert and generally speaking, travels with a group which similarly needs little such expertise.
Loren, it should be noted, has also had to be plucked out of the wastes several times.
And so likely goes his opening greeting as he at last nears her campsite, the expression on his face a predictable and familiar one for Lan:
"Why are you out in the open? Have you lost your mind?"
He's got more than one bag on him. One's likely his own, but the other...
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
He shouldn't be doing this. And yet he is.
He could probably guess at the things Lan would like returned to her, even if he isn't completely familiar with everything she might own (it wasn't a lot, even when she was staying on base). There would have been, at one time, a handful of articles of clothing, a few decorative articles she made or bought to 'soften up' her quarters, a few things useful to her tradecraft, and a smaller number of precious finds from the few Digs she'd taken part in. After a year or more in storage, who knows what might still remain?
But, even as Loren starts fussing about Lan staying out in the open like this - hadn't they met up like this before? - she's ready for him when he arrives fireside. "I needed to be easy to find. Remember?" she counters reasonably, laying her things aside safely so she has hands free to tug the kettle from the edge of the fire. "Because if you had to spend time hunting me down, you'd have complained about that too." And if he's going to complain about it either way, this saves time!
There's a pair of mugs waiting, with a sprig of herbs in each. Lan pours hot water over them, releasing a scent that's herbal and vaguely lemony, before offering one of them to Loren. "You made it." She looks happy.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
He'd just taken all of it -- everything that had been in the storage box. It had been helpfully labeled, so that was fine. Whether or not it was all of it, though... that one he wasn't certain about.
But on whose orders had they even been kept? Under most circumstances, they would have been trashed -- even most soldiers wouldn't have their things retained if they moved off base. Even his brother's sword had been flagged for destruction, and had only survived by getting lost (and then broken on another world). The fact that her belongings had been retained meant that...
Someone had a reason for holding onto them.
...Just like always, she's miles ahead of him. And yet, he can't help but do what's expected of him regardless.
"And if someone else found you first?" he asks her, before she breaks out the logic.
"...Ugh," is Loren's remark to that, and giving up, he takes a seat at the fire, shrugging off the shoulder and drawstring bag alike. The latter he hands over to her. "Here. Don't take it anywhere secure," he says, and that's as much warning as he can give her. He had gone over the contents before carrying them off-base, sure. But he's not an expert in these sorts of things. Something could be easily hidden.
And he takes the mug from her at last, holding it gingerly in both hands. "Yeah," he says, without really looking at her. He can see it now -- the way she screamed, she writhed. The way she'd burned.
Ashansi isn't dead.
Who is Ashansi?
...None of his business, is what. He hunches his shoulders and breathes in the steam from his mug.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
"I could see you coming, just as you could see me waiting. How do you think I had the time to boil water?"
But she's not as interested in arguing as she is in opening up the bag once it's handed to her. Two shirts, her old shorts, her sandals - even with the broken strap, they're both still in here. "I missed this outfit," she smiles, tugging it out of the bag and burying her face in the worn softness of familiar garments. "--smells like the base," Lan mumbles, coming back up for air. "I kind of can't believe it was still there."
Laying the clothes aside, she digs a bit deeper and finds the things she'd been hoping for the most - a ball of steely thread, and a long, colorful feather (carefully coiled into a circle and tied up in a paper packet). And there in the bottom, sparkling faintly, is that ice ring he'd given her after a mission to Macalania Woods. "I wish we'd had this going up that one mountainside!!" She had, in fact, remarked on it even back then, and had given Seraphita and Azoth the completely wrong idea about the nature of her and Loren's relationship. Oops.
Seemingly satisfied that everything is accounted for - would she remember if anything was gone? - Lan tucks it all back into the drawstring bag. "Secure?" It takes her a moment to really get what he's saying, but she does. "..." Lan looks down at the bag in her lap and is silent for a moment. It's... weird, to think that she has back the things she was missing, but they might not be safe. "Thanks for bringing them back."
"...Are you hungry?" He looks grumpy (normal) and a bit pinched (less normal). "There's food. Have you eaten?" Because that's probably why he looks like that. "Was the trip here hard? I thought it would be easy to find me..."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"And now everyone can see I'm here, too," he grouses, because it's basically routine at the moment. "What if I got followed?"
He's been looking over his shoulder the entire way. It still doesn't guarantee anything.
"But I guess that'd be my problem..." He sighs, touching his fingers to his forehead as if put upon.
She can't believe her stuff was still there. "...Neither can I, honestly."
It can't have been an accident. It just can't. Still, he supposes he'll accept even a double-edged minor miracle. 'She's' already way ahead of him, besides.
At least the ring had been there, though, really, it's caused him more trouble than it's been worth. But, still... thinking about it thrown out somewhere, or sitting in the bottom of someone else's desk sets him on edge more than whatever problems and misunderstandings it might continue to cause.
It's not like Lan's going to not bring it up again, ever, anyway.
He just looks at her for a moment. What else can he say? Even if she looks at him like that... that's the exactly the problem. He can look and look at her belongings, but determining whether they're safe for certain, without question, is another matter altogether. And he may as well tell her.
Is he hungry?
"Yeah."
Is the answer to that ever 'no'?
He shakes his head. "No. Not really." He fidgets where he sits, as if uncomfortable. "If you'd been hard to find, I would have said," he sighs at her. Yeah. He definitely would have complained about that, too. Is he really so predictable?
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
"If you got followed, then..." What could they do? Lan's simple solution of 'beat up the followers' won't do Loren any good if he's branded a traitor. "...Then we'll say you were trying to convince me to come back. You brought my stuff to, to show me that it was safe. Something like that!" Would it work? Hopefully they'll never have to find out.
Lan stands up long enough to take the bag of her belongings into her tent, rustling around for a few moments. "I already ate," her voice drifts out through the flap, "But there's plenty left over. This is a great place to hunt. And fish too." She emerges with an armful of things, and a wrapped parcel. The parcel is handed over - it's a haunch of meat from some game animal, still a little bit warm, and half of a wild potato sprinkled with salt.
Settling back into her place by the fire, Lan sets about inspecting a hat and a pair of gloves - the gloves look just fine and normal, but the hat...
...has a pair of holes near the top.
"I know you've already got gloves but it's always good to have a backup pair. And this is for Seraphita." She puts them all down halfway between him and her, apparently pleased, and picks up her own mug of tea again. "I found some really valuable plants while I was on a Dig a few weeks ago and was able to sell them, so I spent some of the money on wool."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
He looks at her for a long moment. It's a rather dubious expression he's wearing, complete with crinkled brow and frown. "...Maybe," he allows her suggestion of a plan, which is to say, he means quite the opposite.
It's only 'maybe' where Leah is concerned. And even then... would she really permit...?
He fidgets with his teacup, staring into the steaming surface as if the future could be divined there.
"...Hunting, huh..." Once, there might have been the time when he would have balked even at that -- preferring the food cooked and prepared in the towns of the surface, if he couldn't return to base. But these days...
"Thanks," he says. He could get a meal himself around here easily. He could return to base and eat there. He doesn't have to eat her food. But he extracts the potato half -- putting his tea down first -- and sets about working on it.
He's... pretty hungry, besides.
His gaze turns after a moment towards what she's working with.
"...You made me gloves?" And Seraphita a hat, apparently. "You didn't have to do that."
He's still technically stationed in Macalania. Does she know that?
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
There's no way to know what Leah Sadalbari is thinking. Even Lan, with her moments of emotional insight - even Loren, having known her since they were children - the truth of the woman who became the Watcher is far beyond their comprehension.
And even if Leah's might and determination are terrifying, Lan still misses her just as much as she dreads her.
"Yeah! I found a bow in a Dig a few weeks ago. The last few ones I've helped with were pretty rewarding. I even found some neat moss - oh, but like I was saying, I found a bow. I haven't used one in a long time but I've still got the knack, I guess. And it's better than having to set a snare." Lan holds her mug with both hands, letting the steam bathe her face. She always feels so bad for trapped animals... it's really better to kill them quickly, when she needs to.
It's kind of strange to go for the potato first. But maybe Loren just likes starch - Lan has never met a potato she didn't like. "Hm? I know I didn't have to. I wanted to."
Even if it's not chilly out here, sipping at her tea warms Lan to the bone. Or maybe it's just the sight of someone sharing her campfire and her food. "Why wouldn't I? I bought the wool so I could, after all."
"...Don't let the rabbit go to waste," she tells him, if it looks like he's going to stick to potato this afternoon. "It died so we could eat."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"Huh. Really?" Not that he knows how to use a bow -- or really anything like that. There's a world of difference between the most basic sorts of weapons and what he'd been trained in at Jugend, he's found. Even with blades, he's found himself managing, at best. Up against a real warrior, though... who knows how that would turn out?
Do animals caught in a snare fight for their lives? Or do they go limp and wait for the end? He had never gone with Lan when she'd done it. Not even once. Even when he has had to manage for himself, he hadn't...
She made them both something because she wanted to.
"Huh..." Loren breathes, the potato cracking slightly in his hands, as if he's holding it too tightly. "You're still pretty weird, you know," he tells her, and just as he moves to take another bite of the potato--
"...Yeah," Loren says, putting it aside. He doesn't ask for utensils -- he's been around Lan long enough. It just always feels a little barbaric, runs the impulse, as he picks up the haunch. Using hands, like an animal.
"Yeah... it'd be a waste," he says, and not a small amount of misgiving runs along with him.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
It depends on the animal.
"You keep saying I'm weird like it'll change anything," she half-laughs. By now, she's vaguely aware that it's something Loren says when he doesn't know what to say - or when he can't say thank you. She's quick to hide any vestige of pity or sympathy.
Lan has been to Solaris. She's seen how they treat 'their own'.
"But it makes me happy to see people using things I've made. It makes me happy to know that your hands will be warm, or that Seraphita will have a hat that fits." She keeps talking even as he starts in on the meat, pausing occasionally to sip at her mug. "It's so different in Little Firelight than it is where you're from."
The meat is a little gamey, but it's good - fresh, and well-cooked, and there's a hint of some herb or seasoning. If he didn't know what it was, it could be any small animal.
But it's just a rabbit. Just what Lan happened to catch for dinner today.
"A waste, and it'd be cruel to the rabbit. The skin and fur will become something new later, and we'll eat all of the meat. Rabbit bones are too small to be useful for a whole lot, but I'll leave them where other animals can get at the marrow and the cartilage." If she were home she could harvest the sinew too, but there's no way to let it dry properly before she has to get a move on again.
"If we take a life to feed ourselves, we have a responsibility to it." They wouldn't have taught him this in Solaris, but it's okay - Lan can teach him now.
"...Are you okay?" Lan asks him, as if only now comprehending that he looks uneasy.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"Hmph," Loren mutters in response, shaking his head as he tucks into more of the half-potato. Just what is he supposed to say to that? It's just not how someone in Solaris would act -- or think. It's not even that they're cruel, back home, more that...
Maybe your family would. Maybe a lover would. But, anyone else...?
"Everyone was weird there, too," he says after a moment more, as if that doesn't further drive the point she's making home. His shoulders hunch slightly. "It's not like that in the cities down here. But in that place you came from, it was..." He trails off. It's not so weird -- that a weird place would make a weird person. But how does that start, in the first place? How do people get together and decide that's how it's going to be?
How does anything get started? And why is it so hard for it to change, once it has?
It's gamey, but it's good. She must have used something in it -- something harvested around here. He'd watched her do it in the past, but if he's being honest, he wouldn't know what sort of plants she used, or how to identify that. Or anything like that.
And that's before cooking it.
"They'll eat the bones?" That takes him by surprise. "I thought the bones... stayed around." He's read about fossils, in passing. Aren't those...
Whatever it is that he's thinking, he's wrong about it.
He's silent, still, when she tries to impart upon him a lesson. He's not eating in this particular moment -- his attention is down and on the rabbit. A responsibility to it. Huh.
Shepherds have a responsibility to the Lambs. He was taught that as a child.
Because, we're--
"Huh...? No, I'm fine."
He looks up sharply, as if roused from a reverie.
...There's no way he can tell her about Ashansi.
"I've been... busy. I'll want to go back soon."
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
There are times when Loren is more right than he knows; even by Little Firelight's standards, Lan is a bit odd. "Because if we work together, we'll survive more easily. If we love each other, we'll have more good days than bad." But if he were to ask Lan how something like that started, even Lan couldn't answer him. It's been this way in her village since long before anyone living there was born. "But there are bad things about it too, I think. If you love someone, it hurts more to see them go without. I guess when you think about it... even love is a double-edged word." Lan doesn't think love is supposed to be a weapon!
"But Little Firelight has way fewer people than Solaris. I wonder if that's why cities are so..." She trails off before she can say 'cruel' or 'uncaring'. "Because if you don't know everybody, there's always someone 'other than you'. But if they become one of you, then you love them."
It seems so easy to say. But it must be hard to do, or more people would have done it already.
She drains the last of her mug of tea and puts it down. "Well they don't eat the actual bones - you've never had marrow, huh. It's like... the stuff inside of a bone. Kind of buttery when you roast it. You can put it on bread." It's not Lan's favorite, but food is food.
She's not really looking at him anymore until he says he'll want to leave soon. "Aww... I guess you have to though." It's not like they can travel together again. Lan will be fine, alone. She always is. "I know you shouldn't be here, but I'm glad you came. I'll move camp tonight, after you've gone." Maybe that will make him worry less?
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"That's what they say back home," he tells her. "'We're all in this together', and things like that." His eyes dart away, though, as if to underscore a sentiment he dare not speak.
Of course, small town life has its downsides, as Lan explains. "Even love's a sword..." Loren echoes, frowning as if recalling something. "Hey..." he says after a few moments more, "isn't that Love Guardian... doesn't she have a sword?"
Why does love carry a sword?
"Maybe," he allows, to her explanation. But there are few enough First Class citizens that they'd be merely a quarter of any decently-sized city. Most of his social group has at least known of one another all their lives. And yet, by his measure, he could look far and wide through the wide avenues of the First Class neighborhoods before he found a friendly face.
They know him. But they don't want to know him.
And... he doesn't want to know them, either.
What's the other side of love? Not hate, whatever people say. Could it be something like this? It's certainly not hatred. But he can't call it love, either -- whatever it is that makes him want to protect the people he wants almost nothing to do with. 'They're all in this together'. Is that all it is?
This ruminating is called off when Lan tells him about bone marrow, though.
If there was ever a face that certain people who know and dislike the young man would love to see, it would be this one. "You eat the-- the--!!" he sputters, almost dropping his rabbit haunch. "You're kidding. That's bone stuff!" Which is not the technical term even in the slightest, but which might also display how well his brain is currently functioning.
Maybe it's just as well that they're not really traveling together after that...
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
"But they're not," Lan says for him. "They're not really together."
Why does Raftina carry a sword? "I wondered sometimes if it was because sometimes you fight to protect the things you love. Or because love can hurt. ...I guess you'd have to ask one of her chosen about it though." Would that be enough? After all, it's not like even Lan knows everything about Rigdobrite.
But the face he makes...!
"I said, it's a responsibility! Besides, have you ever been hungry - like, really hungry?" Lan leans forward, resting her elbows on her knees as she looks at him. "Like 'not knowing when you'll get to eat again' hungry? Because you'd be grateful for marrow then." Even Lan is grateful for cartilage when there's nothing else, as much as she doesn't care for it. "You don't just eat the muscles and the fat. You eat the organs, and the marrow - everything you can. Nothing gets wasted, because that was a life." She pauses for a minute, thinking back to Mirza's cooking. How food had just... existed. Where had it come from? He'd mentioned gardens, but...
It must be from the surface, she decides.
"Anyway, don't worry about it and finish eating before you go. Oh, and uh..." she trails off, as if a thought has just occurred to her. "Maybe... don't tell Seraphita where you got the hat."