2022-04-08: Sharing Means Caring
- Log: 2022-04-08 Sharing Means Caring
- Cast: Xantia, Lan Lilac
- Where: Goddonin
- Date: April 09, 2022
- Summary: Xantia invites Lan for cake and proper introductions.
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Things just have a way of happening sometimes. Like Xantia, Xantia has a way of just happening to people. Here she was, having just arranged to spend the night at the inn of the small village of Goddonin in preparation for her journey to the Shrine of the Fire Trial, when she happened upon a familiar face. Things went rather quickly from there.
"Heeey, Lan, is that you? What a coincidence! I've been meaning to talk to you and now here you are! C'mon, let's go to the inn, they have cake!"
...Maybe it's because she's seen Lan together with Gwen a bunch in the past that her mind immediately went to cake, since Gwen is strongly associated with cake in her mind (long story). On the other hand, Xantia welcomes any excuse for cake, and nobody really needs an excuse for cake anyway. And who's gonna turn down an invitation when cake's involved? This plan has no flaws.
Needless to say, a very short amount of time later, at a table for two out on the inn's patio, there's a slice of vanilla cake set in front of each occupant. One might expect Xantia would waste no time in digging in, but instead she stands up, clears her throat, and starts off on a monologue without any prompting or explanation.
"So! My name is Xantia, and I'm with the Black Wolves doing mercenary stuff! Mostly stuff that involves fighting or other stuff where it helps if you can punch things hard or lift big things. I do martial arts, and I have Ether powers, but they don't work like Ether usually does. I don't remember anything further back than five years since I have amnesia, so I don't really know why I can do these things, but I try to use them to help people and stop bad guys like Solaris from ruining Filgaia."
She pauses, thinks a moment, then scratches her head. "...was that alright? I usually just tell people my name, I've never really done an introduction of myself before, I figured I'd give that a try. I dunno if it was necessary, but since we just keep running into each other I thought maybe you don't know any of that stuff about me?"
She handles introductions like she handles most other unfamiliar things: spur of the moment and without knowing what's doing, but with a lot of enthusiasm all the same. Improvisation usually works well enough!
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Lan, on the other hand, is going to leave the Fire Trial to everybody else. ...At least, that's her plan. Fate may have a different opinion.
She's seen Xantia before - mostly during battles - and so recognizes the other girl when she's approached. And even if she hadn't, Lan tends to default towards 'friendly, even when clueless'. It turns out that Xantia's plan is in fact flawless, because Lan also likes cake and isn't about to turn down an invitation to it.
Once they're out on the patio, Lan doesn't have any hesitation: she's already picking up her fork when Xantia stands up and introduces herself properly. ...At length and in detail.
That kind of earnestness is almost painfully familiar, but in a good way. "It was a great introduction! You had all the important bits like your name and what you do and who you hang out with and everything!" And now Lan knows how Xantia knows so many people in Lan's orbit - if she's a member of the Black Wolves, it all makes sense.
"With Lily and Doctor Citan and everybody, right?" There are more members of the Wolves than just those two but Lan is not going to be the person to keep track of all of them.
"Let's see... uh, I'm Lan Lilac. Oh, should I stand up too?" She pushes her chair out and gets back to her feet, laying the fork down on the tabletop before she can forget. "Right!That's better. I'm a shaman from a village in the Badlands called Little Firelight. I do martial arts too! I think you're probably stronger than I am, but I'm pretty fast and bendy so I think that's where our differences mostly are...?"
She taps her fingers together for a moment while she looks skyward, thinking. "Oh! I'm trying to stop Solaris too, and other bad guys, but what I want most is to find a way to stop the deserts from spreading any further - to save Filgaia, I guess." It sounds impossible when she says it out loud, but anything can be born from the right wish.
Pause. "Oh, don't not eat just because I'm talking, you should start in on your cake!"
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Xantia beams when her self-introduction is praised. Yay, she had no idea what she was doing, but she did a good job! ...this is how things often turn out, but it's never any less pleasant when it happens this way.
"That's right!" She confirms when Lan names some of the members of the Black Wolves. "Also Fei, who is my brother! Not by blood, but by choice." That was Fei's way of putting it, she steals it frequently. "I owe them a lot, Fei, and the other Wolves... they gave me a family, a place to belong. I had no idea what I was doing until I met Fei and saw all the things we had in common, so... I'm happy things worked out that way, and to help them out with anything they need!"
She's positively glowing, talking about this. Wearing her heart on her sleeve the way she does, it's obvious how much this means to her. Nevertheless... "Even so, I still really want to know who I used to be. I don't feel like I need to be who I used to be, not anymore, but... I feel like I can't fully understand myself or others if there's such a big gap in my memory, you know? I have some clues at least, but it's been so long... I sure wish there was an easier way to get my memory back."
Xantia moves to sit herself back down just when Lan is about to stand up, and the moment of hesitation is evident. Is this the right moment to sit down? Lan didn't seem to know if it was the right moment to stand up, so there's probably no point in asking. Is it weirder or more normal to both be standing? That's the sort of thing Xantia feels like she'd know more instinctively if she had memories of her formative years.
In the end, she elects to sit, deciding it makes the most sense to mirror the previous situation. She nods along with Lan's words with a smile, not seeming very surprised as she idly seperates a piece from the cake and raises it up on her fork... only to stop short of bringing it all the way to her mouth as Lan speaks of saving Filgaia. She snaps out of her thoughts when Lan mistakes the reason for her not eating.
"Oh, uh, yeah, of course!" She takes that bite she was intending to. It hasn't entirely cleared her mouth by the time she starts talking again. "I was kind of surprised to hear you say that. To save Filgaia... I remembered a few things that made me feel like that's what I'm supposed to do. What I wanted to do before, and I want to do again now." She finally swallows her bite of cake. "I don't exactly know what I can do about the deserts either, but, well... I know Filgaia will never be free as long as threats like Solaris exists, so I'm just doing what I can for now."
More cheerfully, she adds, "Funny how much we have in common! You might say I'm from a Baskar village a little bit too, since that's the first memories I have. It's where I woke up after they found me in the desert."
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Not by blood, but by choice. Lan's eyes soften a bit. "That's a wonderful way to say it. I heard Fei was an artist but I didn't know he was good with words too! --Does that make him like a warrior-poet or something? I read a ten-gella novel like that once!" Lan feels fairly safe mentioning it, because that particular title was not a bodice-ripper romance. (They're kind of a guilty pleasure, okay.)
When Xantia speaks about the Wolves it's clear just how much they mean to her. It's great to have people like that in your life! Whether or not you really understand them. "It must be tough, knowing you've got a big... gap in there." Lan sits down again once Xantia's started on working on her slice of cake, because Lan wants to eat cake too and the formal introductions seem to be over now. "If you get it back, do you think it might change who you are now?"
What if you don't like who you used to be?
"You're not wrong, though. Sometimes I kind of keep going just by telling myself 'one step at a time'. Like even if I don't know the whole path to the future, I know what's right in front of me. I can fix things now, and help people here. I can worry about the bigger picture tomorrow." She picks up her fork and scoops up a big bite of cake, stuffing it into her mouth. "--Mmmm."
Chew, chew. "Mmf. So if--" Lan swallows. "So if we keep fixing little problems, maybe they'll add up." Like Mariel had said all those months ago.
"Did you wake up in Baskar Colony? Or... what was the name of Cyre's village again... oh, Wehaca!"
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Xantia would love to talk up Fei a bit, but considering Lan's question, she can only shrug. "Maybe? I don't really get art, or poetry, or anything like that. I just know Fei is nice and can make pretty pictures." Things don't have to be more complicated than that. It's best if they aren't, so Xantia won't have trouble understanding. Like she didn't understand anything about some of the 10-gella novels she read, so in the end she stuck mostly to adventure stories. Treating them all completely as factual accounts, of course.
She mms softly when Lan says it must be tough to be missing so many memories. It's always a difficult topic, hard to describe in detail to somebody who doesn't know what it's like. But the most important aspect of it is easy enough to understand. "I have a hard time being sure of anything. I just want to be able to stop doubting everything all the time."
Xantia puts down her fork. Is she done eating? But she's barely touched her cake! No, see, that's the problem, she hasn't touched her cake. Taking the whole slice in her hand, she takes a big bite out of it that way. Why bother with the cutlery, this is much more convenient. Good excuse to take a moment before returning to the conversation, too. Cake helps when it gets difficult.
Once she's swallowed that, she replies with conviction, "It won't change me if I don't want it to." Only to immediately cast a bit of doubt by adding, "At least, I don't think it will. I like who I am now, and there's a lot of things and people important to me that I don't want to lose. It's just information, right? I'll have to decide what I want to do with it, once I know, but before that I can't even really begin to think about it." She looks momentarily annoyed when she adds, "See, that's what I mean about not being sure of anything."
She promptly shovels the rest of the cake in her mouth, seeing no reason to waste time. Just like that, it's all gone. More cheerfully now, Xantia continues the conversation as if nothing unusual occured, because it didn't, not from her point of view.
"Sounds good to me! That's how I tend to do things too, just focus on what's happening right now. And if what's happening right now is 'nothing', then I go out to try and make something happen! I don't like to just sit there and not do anything."
So nods in response to Lan's first guess. "Right, the Baskar Colony! An old shaman and his wife took care of me." For some reason, Xantia's expression darkens, before she shakes her head, and abruptly changes the subject. "But that's not important. Actually, can I ask you about something?" She doesn't wait for a confirmation before she goes ahead and does that, casually enough but with a bit of a sharp edge to it.
"You know Loren Voss."
That wasn't a question. That's facts, she's sure of that much. "He cares about you." Also, not a question. The question, with the appropriate amount of bafflement, is, "How did that happen?"
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
To stop doubting...
Some people understand that desire more than others. Lan can't say she's a stranger to that wish.
And Xantia just picks up the entire cake slice like a sandwich and takes a big bite out it. Lan can't help but make a sound like she's trying hard not to laugh (because that's exactly what's happening). Cake does help when things get difficult!
"I think you're right though," the blonde remarks after a moment, resting her elbows on the table. "If you like who you are, you don't have to change. If you don't like who you are, you should change. ...Of course, I guess it's a lot easier to say it than to do it, or more people would change the things about themselves that they don't like." She certainly couldn't say something like that to Loren and expect to not be crabbed at, or for him not to be depressed all day afterward.
Lan digs into her slice with renewed gusto, picking off bites to eat with her fingers now that Xantia has thrown fancy table manners out the window. "...Did something happen? You didn't have a falling-out with them or anything when you wanted to leave, right?" It's not like Lan ever disagreed with her elders and stole off in the middle of the night, no sir...!
Just thinking about it makes Lan a little homesick. She picks up her cup of tea-- and promptly horks a mouthful down in surprise when Xantia zeroes in on the Loren issue. "..." Is Xantia getting the wrong idea?! It's not like she would be the first...! "...Yeah. We're friends." There's no lie, no shame there. Lan isn't ashamed of being his friend, even if Loren is ashamed sometimes of being hers.
"..." Her face goes a bit melancholy, a different kind of homesick perhaps. Or maybe just a little sick. "I was captured and brainwashed by Solaris a little before the Photosphere fell. The higher-ups assigned Loren as my handler, because we knew each other beforehand -- we met a few months before that and had traveled together when he was still pretending to be a medical student." Lan clasps her hands on the tabletop, fingers rubbing together. "So we spent a lot of time together. We talked a lot, about a lot of things. And when I woke up from it and realized what had happened, I still couldn't hate him. He was just so..." Miserable. Pathetic. "Lost. So I decided that I would try and save him, too."
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Of course Xantia would zero in on the Loren issue. If there's something that makes absolutely no sense to her, she simply has to know what's going on. It's gonna keep gnawing at her until she does. And what better way than to just ask about it directly? ...Someone else than Loren of course, like she'd get an answer if she asked that guy anything. Nothing strange about asking the other person involved, right?
Lan's reaction seems to suggest that she misjudged that a little, and she's surprised in turn. But not as surprised as she is at hearing the assertion 'we're friends'. She almost wonders aloud whether Lan realizes he's a Solarian, the people ruining Filgaia that they both just said they're fighting against. But there's no way you could miss that in the battles Lan was fighting in.
Of course, then the full story comes to light, and Xantia's expression quickly transitions from surprise, to sympathy, to anger. She lingers on that last one, slamming a fist into the opposite palm as she yells, "I should've known, so they did it to you, too!"
At least her anger is clearly not meant for Lan. It's anger that quickly melts away too, Xantia rubbing her temples as she actively tries to calm herself. "...Sorry. I just... hate to hear stories like that. At least you managed to get away. Others are still..." She shakes her head. Looks like the anger has settled into a mild depression, Xantia resting her hands on her knees as she looks down at the table.
"...It's difficult. There's people in Solaris I'd rather not fight, too. But... nothing is more important than stopping Solaris. Even what little I have of my past memories tells me so. Tells me to absolutely not trust any Solarian, that they're all the same, and can't ever change." She raises her head to look Lan in the eyes. "...Do you know what that's like? To be completely certain of something, to the point where not knowing the reason doesn't even matter?"
Well... at least it's pretty clear that 'the wrong idea' is about the furthest thing from Xantia's mind in this. That's... something?
And she's not done yet. Xantia's back to annoyance when she adds, "As for that Loren guy... he's got some kind of grudge against Lily and keeps trying to kill my friends. So it's kind of hard for me to see anything good in him... but I can see how that could happen, under different circumstances. It's a little bit like how it is with me and Seraphita."
She sighs. That was kind of a whirlwind of emotion. It never fails, when it's about Solaris. As if to force herself to think about something, anything else for even a little bit, she suddenly offers a reply to Lan's earlier question.
"...The Baskar shaman who supposedly saved me... was the one who blocked off my memories to begin with."
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Her eyes flicker toward Xantia when her anger gets the better of her for a moment. Others are still, she says. "Lydia," Lan nods solemnly. "I don't know how to save her, either. They did something to her, worse than they ever did to me." Because Lydia is a long-term project, although Lan doesn't precisely know what that entails. Lan was only a pawn, meant to be sacrificed in the battle against Mother... but then she survived. She could be useful again.
"I... hate Solaris so much." Xantia will understand, maybe - an unreasonable kind of hate, an entirely justified hate, a feeling so strong it makes Lan sick to her stomach just to confront it. Because before she left her village, Lan had never really hated anyone or anything. But the world outside Little Firelight can be crueler than she'd ever imagined as a child. "I hate them for what they did to me and Lydia, and what they're doing to the planet, and the way they treat each other even in their own city. I just..." She trails off, looking down at the table in turn.
"I felt that way once, when I was still with them. About the Metal Demons. I'd never even met one but I just 'knew' that they were all horrible, and even if it was tragic they all had to die, for the good of the world. And that was a lie, too. So... even if it makes sense, be careful about a feeling like that, okay? I'm not saying it's wrong! Just that... especially if you don't know where it came from, you should be careful with it."
She sighs when Xantia mentions that Loren keeps trying to kill people. "Yeah, but has Lily ever seemed outmatched? Not that I'm defending him here!" she hastens to add with a grimace. "You should definitely kick his butt if he's being a jerk! I mean, I sure have. But, it's because you can't let people you care about do the wrong thing. Even if they're being forced to, but especially if they're just being stupid and aggro about it. Because he can be a real brat when he feels like the world's done him wrong." She's still trying to train him out of that. It's taking longer than Lan anticipated.
"--Wait, why did the seal your memories up though?? He didn't even say??" That's super awful!
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
It really is uncanny how much Lan and Xantia's thought patterns appear to align, despite having been in entirely different circumstances getting to this point. Xantia doesn't really actively take notice of it, but later on, when she stops and thinks more about how the things she said could have been taken the wrong way, she may appreciate that this conversation went they way it did all the more for that.
Right now, it's all still pretty much spur of the moment, just saying whatever is on her mind with her emotions plain, like she usually does. That's what comes natural. There's evident sadness in her voice when speaking of Lydia. "I suppose it was easier given, well, her nature. It's not as easy to program someone who's entirely organic. But... I know she's fighting it, in what limited ways she can. She has her own will, and she doesn't want things to be the way they are now. There's just... something else in the way, with its own will." OS. A will entirely under Solarian control. What's the best way of dealing with it? Xantia has yet to figure that out.
Lan then speaks of hate, and Xantia falls quiet, with a complicated expression, making it hard to tell what she's thinking. Until Lan mentions the Metal Demons, which makes her eyes go wide, and her mouth slightly agape. Something about that seriously took her by surprise. She looks away, after being told to be careful about the way she feels, without knowing the reason. The confidence she usually projects isn't there. She was hit in a vulnerable area just now. She responds in a soft tone.
"I... had these feelings about Metal Demons too before. I think. It wasn't completely... conscious. But, at the Photosphere..." It takes her a moment, but she ultimately decides to leave it at, "...I went too far. So, I know you're right. I should be careful about... thinking too globally. Problem is, I'm not sure it's up to me. Sometimes, what I feel is stronger than me, and I can't control myself."
Turning her head back towards Lan, she gives kind of a half-shrug. "But, do I hate Solaris? Or anyone else? I couldn't tell you. I don't really understand what 'hate' is. No more than I understand what 'love' is. Even after all these years. At this point, I feel like the only way I'll ever truly understand emotions like that is... remembering them."
Really, strangely enough, Loren is the most comfortable subject here. Xantia can just sort of smirk in vague amusement at the realization that yeah, Lily can definitely hold her own against him. Even when he cheats, which in her estimation is often. The situation is more easily understood when Lan puts it as 'not letting people you care about do the wrong thing'. She has quite a bit of experience with that. By the end of that, she can't think of anything more to say except, "...I understand."
But then Lan continues to probe into the matter of how her memories were sealed. Xantia doesn't much like to admit this, which explains why she looks annoyed when she says it, but she does clarify, "He thought he was doing the right thing. Maybe he was right. But I guess I can't exactly know for sure because of what he did, without giving me a choice."
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Is there even a way anymore to seperate Lydia from OS? Lan knows that when Lydia was a child, she was a normal Beastfolk. "I don't know if there's a way to give her her old body back, but there might still be a way to get OS out of there. So we can still hope." Even if a happy ending seems impossible, Lydia's a shaman of Rigdobrite too. The Star Guardian embodies hope and generosity.
It's got to be a good sign.
Xantia doesn't 'hate' Solaris. But Lan does. Even though she doesn't really want to hate anybody, she... can't help it. "I know there's a difference between 'Solaris' and 'the people there'. I don't hate Loren, or Seraphita. Or really anybody from there. But if there was ever a place that just... was wrong, it would be there." People kept seperated from each other, people trapped in cells and laboring for the comfort of the First Class. The Second and Third Classes fighting over scraps, and begging not to become Worker Bees.
"Even your emotions... or, how you remember them. ...What could be so bad that he thought he was doing you a favor?" And how convinced of it was he, that Xantia couldn't talk him into unsealing them?! "...I hope you get them back somehow. I could always try to undo what he did, but it could be really dangerous." It's not like Lan doesn't have some background in matters of memory loss, but...
In the end, Loren hadn't been happier with his memory back.
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Xantia mms, not looking too convinced on the notion of getting Lydia her old body back. "Something tells me that undoing what was done to her would be... very difficult." Though she nods in agreement that there's still hope. "It's like I always say, not knowing the solution to a problem doesn't mean there isn't one, it just means you haven't found it yet. I'm sure we will, someday!" The straightforward way hasn't exactly worked very well, that makes it considerably more difficult for Xantia to come up with something immediate.
A difference between 'Solaris' and 'the people there'. It's something that Lan knows, but Xantia... as usual, you have but to look at her to know her thoughts. She fidgets uncomfortably at those words, so you can kind of already see what's coming.
"Actually... those feelings I have are kind of telling me that there isn't really a difference. That Solaris imposes itself on its people so strongly that its people will obey its structure without question. And they must - anything less and they'll be considered traitors. Like Elly." And Citan. Not everybody knows that though, and for some reason she finds herself more careful than she usually is about spilling secrets when they're about the good doctor. "So... as much as I want to fight against Solaris, whenever I do, I always have to stay very aware that I have those feelings, so that I won't lose myself to them."
She still looks a little uncomfortable as she lapses back into silence. Thinking about the times where she did lose control, perhaps. Not exactly the best of times.
"...It could've had something to do with that," she admits, in regards to her memories being sealed. "Apparently I 'couldn't be reasoned with'." All the same, even just quoting the man fills her with distaste. "I'd have to ask him the details. ...But I don't think I could look him in the eye anymore. I haven't seen him in a long time, but just thinking about it makes me furious all over again."
But then Lan says something very interesting. "...Undo it? You could?" Actually, thinking it over for even a second, that's not the strangest thing to hear. "I suppose you are Baskar, and it was some kind of Baskar thing he used to do that. I did learn a little bit about it, apparently it's very old, and generally considered forbidden knowledge these days."
One might expect her to eagerly accept an offer to try and undo this seal. But Xantia looks worried. There's a snag, of course. There always is. "You're probably right about it being dangerous, though. The way that grandpa--" Oof. Xantia winces in disgust, accidentally slipping back into that old moniker. She very pointedly corrects herself, "...The way that man put it, if I want to restore my memory, I need to do it gradually. If the seal is undone now, and all of my memories flood back to me all at once, there's no telling how it would affect me. It could cause me to lose all the memories I made since then. And that... that's something I absolutely can't risk."
There was a time where she would have done anything to get her memory back. Now, there are limits. Nothing is worth forgetting the family that she's found.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
"That's part of why Loren keeps fighting. Why he can't leave Solaris, even for friendship, or even if he knows that the country is corrupt. He's still got family there. If he were to abandon the cause, his family would take the punishment for it. And even then he'd still be hunted, just like Elly." It's why Lan doesn't feel too bad about having to beat him down - in a way, she's doing him a favor, even if his ego doesn't necessarily agree.
Lan picks up her fork again and picks at the remainder of her cake slice. "If you can take away the threat of punishment though... If we were able to show them a better way... maybe we won't have to be enemies forever." It's a pipe dream, and Lan knows it. But at the same time she can't help but wish for it. "...But it's not like Seraphita would believe it, even when people told her. So we'd need proof, and how do you get that? You'd have to take someone so far up that they couldn't miss it." And that's even harder than it sounds, she's sure.
"I said maybe I could!" she hastens to caution Xantia, fork halfway to her mouth. The bite of cake is soon forgotten. "It's what I helped do for Loren when his brain was getting eaten. He was losing his memories, and then he'd lost all of them. He was... if you'd have seen him then, you might understand." He'd been... docile, for lack of a better word. "All he wanted was to learn how things work, and help us with chores. He was... I dunno. Just kind. But it was different than your situation."
For Loren, it had been a last-ditch effort... and even if Loren hadn't wanted it in the end, Leah Sadalbari had left them no other choice.
Lan finally remembers to pop the bite of cake into her mouth, and chews. "--Mm. So yeah, it's definitely not something we should do if you aren't a hundred percent certain, or if there's any other way. If your memories will come back to you on their own, that would be way better." She's quiet for a moment, as if weighing something. "...But if they don't, I'll do the ceremony for you."
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Family... yeah, Xantia sure does understand how your perception of things changes when you have family. She'd never knowingly do anything that would carry a great risk of her family suffering. If it's the same for Loren... ugh, at this rate she might actually come to understand the guy that keeps using cheap tricks, and setting her on fire, and just generally causing trouble for those she cares about. This thought makes her look displeased, though she doesn't explain why that is to Lan.
...Now she almost wishes she hadn't eaten all her cake yet. Almost. Having something else to focus on would've been good, but on the other hand, not eating all of the food immediately makes no logical sense. In the end, she decides to reply centering on the other person brought up as a topic of conversation. "Sera definitely wouldn't have believed it, before. She thinks of herself as a hero, doing everybody a favor by doing what she does. But... she's already needed to intervene to prevent her fellow Elements from going too far, and using a weapon that would've caused massive loss of life. She must know that a weapon like that couldn't have been there without the approval of Solaris. I'm not sure if that's enough, but... I think, hope, that she might be starting to have some doubts."
Of course, then Xantia's ability to not talk about Loren is totally destroyed by Lan mentioning that. "Wha-- He lost his memories? Him!?" This throws her completely for a loop. Here she thought she'd developed a pretty good sense for people who could understood her and she could understand in ways that people who never went through that can't. She never noticed that about Loren at all. Maybe she didn't want to notice it. Since now that she knows this... that changes everything.
Xantia groans, placing her elbows on the table as she rubs her temples. It's too late, she already feels actual sympathy. For that guy. "I... probably know better than most what that's like. To wake up, not knowing much of anything about anything, just wanting to do something to be helpful to the people helping you. Always dealing with the uncertainty of who you used to be, what you used to want, how different things would be if you were still the old 'you'." Does she really feel an impulse to have a conversation about that now? With that guy? The sigh escaping her sounds extremely exaggerated, but it's really coming from the very depths of her soul.
In the end, as she raises her head back up, it's to reply to the offer, "...I'll keep that in mind. Obviously I have to keep the option open, if it becomes very important that I remember something. But, I still have some clues. As long as there's a chance I can get my memories back another way, I shouldn't risk it."
Abruptly, Xantia moves to take one of Lan's hands in hers, giving the Shaman an earnest look. "...Thank you. Seriously, thank you, for offering to do that for me. You have no idea what it means to me. Even if I don't end up needing to accept it, offering me that kind of hope is..." She struggles to even put it into words. Eventually, she settles on, "...Everything."
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
If Xantia looks displeased at the thought of reaching some kind of unwanted and distressing understanding with Loren...
...Well, Lan understands.
"Seraphita is really kind. She lent me her hat once when I was cold. I think that if more people were like her, the world might be a little better." Then again, if they were all just as stubborn as Seraphita can be, maybe it'd just be a different kind of messed up. "I heard a little of the things they tell the people there. They're told all their lives that Shevat is an evil kingdom that uses the surfacers for really evil plots, and that it's their responsibility to 'guide' us." The rare strains of contempt sound almost out of place in Lan's voice. "But they steal us from the surface and wipe our memories and use us as slaves, so Solaris has a really messed up idea of guiding."
It's easier, less bitter in her mouth, to talk about Loren again. "Yeah, him. He probably won't want to talk about it much, but... he might understand you more than either of you think." More than Lan could understand him, though she'd tried. So had Gwen.
Xantia reaches out to take her hand and Lan clasps her fingers instinctively around the other girl's. "You're welcome. I mean, you're right -- I hope we don't have to! And it's dangerous. I've only ever done it once. But if there's no other choice, and it's what you want, I promise I'll see you through." She holds on for a few more moments, pale eyes soft across the table, before letting go... and pushing the other half of her cake to the middle. "For now, help me eat the rest of this, okay? It's weird to eat when the other person's already finished, and food always tastes best when you share it."