2022-08-25: First Do No Harm
- Log: First Do No Harm
- Cast: Xantia, Citan Uzuki
- Where: Karlsefni Medical Bay
- Date: August 25, 2022
- Summary: Xantia approaches Citan to request a favor. But...
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
It's been rather quiet around the Karlsefni as of late. Regardless of what the other members of the Black Wolves may be
up to, the absence of Xantia alone tends to reduce the overall, shall we say energy level of the place by quite a bit.
Not that it's exactly a very notable occurance when she's not around - it's more the rule than the exception that she'll
be out somewhere, often on her own. She checks in often enough that it's not generally a concern.
There might be a bit more concern when it's been a few weeks without word, as it has been this time. But this too has
happened before. She may simply have gotten distracted by something of particular interest. No one should be surprised
if she just kind of randomly bounced in, having completely lost track of the passage of time.
This is what happens this time, more or less. Xantia does board the Karlsefni where it's currently docked, having made
her own way there through a seperate transport. What's missing is the usual energy levels. Though it's a bit slow going
as a result of dragging her feet, she does know exactly where she's going: the medical bay.
Xantia failing to knock is sooner rule than exception, but her appearance when she half-stumbles into the office is
anything but normal for her. The lack of her normal energetic demeanor is immediately obvious, and her eyes... a trained
medical eye is not exactly required to see that she's absolutely exhausted. A trained medical eye does help in quickly
determining that the likely cause isn't something that she's done, but rather something she hasn't been doing: getting a
good night's sleep, for an extended period of time. As such, one can make an educated guess as to what Xantia is coming
to see a doctor for.
And yet, the question that she leads with, before so much as a greeting, is likely to be the exact opposite of one would
expect in this situation.
"Doc... do you have something that can help me stay awake?"
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
It would be understandable. The outside observer might well suppose that the reason why Citan Uzuki had been more
rarely present upon the Karlsefni -- or with the Wolves in general -- over the last few months had everything to do with
with his family.
Which is not to say that his presence has been erratic or unpredictable. He announces his comings and goings -- the
best, really, after that incident the last year with Leon's old Gear and the mad wizard -- and checks in with everyone
on a fairly regular basis, particularly Fei and Xantia. But all the same: it is more common for him to not be present
than it is, of late.
Be as it may, however...
...he has noticed that Xantia has been rather less present than normal in recent weeks. This he can confirm for
himself when he's aboard the Karlsefni -- more often than not they haven't both been aboard at the same time -- and from
the logs and conversations with others. It would be easy to assume that she's simply lost track of time, or been
absorbed in one cause or another.
Citan however has more than enough reason to wonder after the deeper currents that steer the young woman. Whether
the others have noticed it, too, he cannot say. Soon, he has decided, he had ought to speak to Leon and Lily--
Perhaps even tonight. Xantia is aboard the Karlsefni and it's quiet.
It just so happens that Xantia beats a path to his door first. Rising from his seat and sweeping paperwork into a
pile in one movement, Citan regards the bedraggled Xantia with no small amount of concern. "Xantia? Are you unwell?" He
might be forgiven for assuming as such: has he ever seen her in such a state? "Please, sit down--"
It isn't illness, he realizes, as he focuses on the little signs and hints that betray the cause of her condition.
He knows many of the subtler signs of sickness, and Xantia desplays nothing but the tell-tale marks of extreme
exhaustion.
He is silent at her question, shifting his glasses a fraction up his nose.
"You have not slept for several days."
A statement, not a question.
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Xantia doesn't respond one way or another to the question whether she's unwell, but she does listen when it's requested
that she sit down. In a fairly uncontrolled manner, just sort of letting herself slump down. She's absolutely as
exhausted as she looks.
And yet, when Citan presents his conclusion, she still looks up to him, wonder in her tired eyes. "...How'd you know? I
haven't told anyone." She pauses, idly twirling some of her hair around her fingers. "It's not that I can't, it's that I
can't."
It takes her a moment to realize the odd phrasing. She shakes her head, in an effort to get the cobwebs out. "What I
mean is... I could probably sleep just fine. But I have to stay alert. I have to be ready if she shows up again." She's
silent for a moment, but she can sense the question coming, and preempts the asking of it.
"Xenia. You haven't seen her around lately, have you? She's spying on me, on us. But, she's not getting away with it,
not this time. Not now that I can tell where she is."
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
How did he know?
He's only ever rarely given to being blunt about things, and so what he does instead of tell her how she looks is
smile faintly and say to her, "I am a doctor."
It's not that she can't, it's that she can't.
Which is to say, it isn't that her 'condition' has grown dire in any sense as much as it means that she's not
sleeping.
He folds his arms across his chest, then, and shakes his head. "It is believed that to refrain from sleep may
eventually be fatal, Xantia. I cannot in good conscience enable you in this. What in the world is it that has you
thinking as if..."
Aha. If 'she' shows up. Xantia's instincts are true -- Citan, even suspecting the answer, would have asked just that
question to verify the answer.
"So... you think that she is spying on you, and thus you feel you cannot sleep in the event she shows herself. If
that is your concern, could you not ask one of us to watch over you while you rest, Xantia? I assure you that none of us
would let her get close to you."
Citan is silent a moment more, as if to further evaluate Xantia's present state.
"What is it that you fear from her, Xantia?"
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Xantia nods a bit. A doctor's insight, of course. It's a little like magic, in that she couldn't explain how it works,
but she's fine with just knowing that it does.
She looks annoyed when Citan makes it clear that he won't help her stay conscious longer. It's not a very aggressive
kind of annoyance, more akin to that of a child getting sulky over not getting what she wants. While very much realizing
that 'no' was going to be the most likely answer. She can't exactly say that she feels great at the moment, stands to a
reason a doctor wouldn't want to help extend that kind of condition.
She doesn't actually verbally object until Citan suggests someone watch over her while she sleeps. She shakes her head,
at first saying only, "That's not it." She doesn't elaborate further until Citan asks what she fears, which causes her
to look up with some measure of defiance. A very tired sort of defiance, but still.
"I'm not afraid of her! If anything, she's afraid of me!"
She seemed about to elaborate, but perhaps due to a muddled mind, can't really manage to figure out how she wants to put
it. The fire in her words quickly dies out as a result, she's calmed down by the time she's figured things out enough to
speak up again, without looking at Citan.
"What she wants isn't the issue. I just want her to stop, stop following me and my friends. I keep chasing her off, but
she keeps getting away. If she'd just hold still and tell me what I want to know... I'm not going to just let her to do
whatever she wants. If I make it clear she's not getting what she wants until I get what I want, maybe I'll finally get
some answers."
She looks up at this point, adding, "That's why I need to be ready to stop her, every single time."
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
Most likely, it won't get to that point. The body is good at preserving itself: eventually, unless she prolongues it
by some artificial means, she will simply collapse and homeostasis will be restored. But it would be better for her to
not reach that point. For one thing, there's no telling when that could happen, or where -- she could be in danger. And
for another... even one night's sleep might not tip the scale in her favor. She needs to be convinced to end this
madness.
As he'd noted, though, she and Xenia are both possessed of a powerful will. She will not back down easily.
"Then what is it?"
He gets what might just be the answer, after a fashion.
Raising an eyebrow, he regards her carefully. "Is that so? Why is it that you think she's afraid of you, or that
she's following you?" He pauses, then continues. "Is that why you feel you cannot sleep? If she were to arrive, we would
of course wake you. ...And if I may be blunt, Xantia, I do not think you could manage her in your current state. When
someone is tired, their reflexes are dulled. ...You and she are about evenly matched in speed, but if you do not sleep,
then she will surely have the advantage."
Never mind that he's spoken to Xenia in private, or that he knows a whole host of things about Xantia that he hasn't
spoken to her once regarding. Never mind any of his secret concerns. He cannot treat the cause. Still, while his hands
may be tied for fear of what might yet come, perhaps he can at least address this sequela.
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Sleep is another one of those magic-like things that Xantia doesn't understand very well, but appreciates for what it
does. Under normal circumstances, she wouldn't be seeking to avoid it so strongly. But circumstances have hardly been
normal as of late.
She looks to Citan with what may well be growing fatigue - now that's sitting down, she finds it more difficult to fight
off her natural drowsiness.
"Isn't it obvious? I keep catching her in the same area as me, and every time I do, she runs away." Not exactly uncommon
for Xantia to oversimplify things like that. But Citan pointing out that others could keep an eye out prompts her to
shake her head decisively. "No, you couldn't tell. Only I can."
Obviously, that one's going to need some elaboration. She provides that much readily. "If she's close by, I can just...
sort of tell where she is. I don't know why, I couldn't before. So... she could hide from you. But she can't hide from
me. Not anymore."
She shrugs a bit at the claim that she wouldn't be able to handle Xenia in this state a slight smile already giving away
that she thinks otherwise. "I can manage it. When I need my reflexes, I'll have them."
A baseless boast, for most people. Not for Xantia. She has indeed forced her body into peak condition before, when she
needed it to be. With how her Ether functions, it's something that comes natural. She can't do it forever, and may be
overestimating her ability to do that while already this tired, but given that it hasn't let her down yet...
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
"...And what is it that you think she fears about you?"
He knows what it is that Xenia fears. If their collective observations are correct, it is what Xantia may yet
become. Is there some way to dissuade her from this path?
He had hoped to locate Herod. But it is as if the man vanished those twenty years ago and has not been seen or heard
since. Whatever it is that he's plotting, it is a conspiracy that has been well-planned for decades, Citan suspects. It
is difficult to hide so completely in this world that even...
Which means any resolution of that nature may well be impossible. Xenia -- hostile towards him now besides -- would
hardly cooperate, either, insofar as divulging the man's location. Other measures may be needed to forestall the
inevitable, and... he is running out of good options.
There is a conversation, he considers, that he must have with Xantia. Perhaps one he should have had with her months
ago. But now... now, he cannot hope to, so long as she is in this state. He knows well the effects that exhaustion can
have on the psyche. So long as she remains horribly sleep deprived, she is likely to be emotionally volatile. The
questions he ought to have asked -- even now he can see evidence of this -- will not survive in such an environment.
But even considerations like that are swept away beneath the waves when Xantia tells him something very important:
she can sense Xenia's presence. "You... what? Is that truly something you can accomplish now?" If he looks and
sounds surprised, well. Yes. Of course.
"So this is why you are remaining awake. You aim to catch her should she appear. How long has it been since you last
sensed her?" She has nearly endless reserves, it's true, but even she must have limits somewhere. And worse, it could be
that such duress might even bring about the possibility they have all come to fear. "If you were to collapse and exhaust
your body's reserves before then... I really must insist that you rest, Xantia," Citan tells her, shaking his head.
If she remembers, will there be no going back?
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
The look Xantia gives Citan will likely only reinforce the notion that it'll be difficult to have any sort of difficult
conversation with her. Even if she well could force herself to stay awake and alert if the need arises, right now she is
in a relaxed seating position, which is plenty for her exhaustion to start rapidly catching up with her. Not exactly
what she was after, but the fact that she doesn't appear to be actively fighting it could be considered a good thing.
...Even if it makes her responses a bit more lackluster than they otherwise might have been, as evidenced by her reply
to the notion of what Xenia may fear about her. "Heh, well I managed to land a good punch on her, she wouldn't want that
to happen again." She's not thinking about it very deeply right now. Not that it's a guarantee that she would have, had
she not been this exhausted.
Seeing Citan's surprise seems to bring a certain amount of joy back to her - perhaps because she's more used to the
doctor managing to quickly figure everything out. "Yeah! It's like I just know, you know? Before, she used some sort of
signal if she wanted to let me know where she is - I guess now I can tell even when the signal isn't on. Which is how I
know she's been following me."
She shifts in her seat with an annoyed grumble. "...Problem is, now that she knows, she's getting more careful about it.
And she's learned to trick me, making me believe she's somewhere else."
In short, these two have been having a bit of a cat and mouse game going on. And trading roles in who the metaphorical
cat is in the equation. Given Xantia's normal levels of aggression in pursuing her goals, which tend to get multiplied
whenever Xenia is involved, at this point avoiding sleep may simply be the logical thing to do, in Xantia's frame of
reference anyway. Problem is...
"How long...?" Xantia blinks blankly, thinks for a moment, then shakes her head. She's always been bad at keeping track
of such things, but in her current state, there's not even a slight chance of her making an estimate of the passage of
time. At least this does help Citan in getting the point across. She sighs deeply, and scratches her head.
"My head feels fuzzy, that's the real problem. If I can't remember things clearly..." She grimaces at the mere
possibility of forgetting something important, again. "I guess maybe a little rest can't hurt."
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
This is precisely the wrong time for even the most benign things he could say to her.
He'd meant what he'd said in that meeting with the others months ago: speaking to her directly and laying all the
cards on the table was risky. Anything could jolt her memories: it's too much to hope for but think that her condition
is anything but unstable, to hear Xenia tell it. Complete psychic collapse and reversion... could that be the only
outcome? The cases of amnesiacs are quite varied in presentation, including those who never regained what they had lost.
Were they the lucky ones, he's been given to wonder, of late.
"Hmm... I see." So they even had an altercation, and Xenia... lost, at least insofar as Xantia landed a hit on her.
"Then it would make sense that she has been minding her distance."
She can't examine his questions any more deeply than this in her current state, he's realized. All the more reason
this either comes to a head soon, or...
Xenia had told him they needed to stop her from seeking her memories. He had answered that it might not be possible,
but that was, potentially, a lie. If he could provoke her into interrogating her motives... if she could see what others
had seen... and if most importantly, she could lead herself down the path... then perhaps it might be possible.
"That is... quite interesting, Xantia. I wonder if it might have something to do with your collars?" Or their
respective Ether signatures, which he privately considers the more likely explanation for such a thing. Feeling
another's presence... her power is continuing to grow.
"Hmm. I see. So she must be familiar with this sort of ability, if she has realized that you can sense her when she
is near. Fascinating, but..." He shakes his head, almost helplessly. "It is also troubling to realize how often she has
gotten close to us here! I suppose we should be grateful she is not more of an enemy. Why, when I think of the potential
for her to have collected intelligence on the Karlsefni alone..."
And they would, if Xantia is to be believed, never have realized she was there.
Xantia, however, cannot even answer this question of his. How long has it been since she had last noticed Xenia
nearby?
This... cannot continue.
Citan bows his head momentarily as if in thought. Managing a smile when he glances over her way, he says, "Then...
let us try this, instead. If you were to close your eyes here for thirty minutes, then I shall wake you when that time
has ended." Thirty minutes... it won't be enough to even begin to undo what she's done to herself, but even a few
minutes of sleep is some rest. It's not nothing.
Citan hasn't forgotten what the others had remarked at that meeting. Without a doubt, there will come a time when
Xantia will resent him for what he has done. If that must be, then it must be.
But let that be the cause of her resentment.
As Citan promises here, should she accept the offer, he will wake her.