2022-09-15: What Hasn't Been Said (Until Now)
- Log: What Hasn't Been Said (Until Now)
- Cast: Josephine Lovelace, Lily Keil
- Where: Outside Antenora's Diablo Tower
- Date: September 15, 2022
- Summary: Lily stops Josie to have a word. And then...
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
When she had envisioned this...
Well, in truth, Josie's not at all sure what she'd thought would be the most likely outcome. Would she trade barbs with her former comrades? Would it come to blows? Hell, she hadn't even been certain they wouldn't just off her immediately, which would have been a minor problem for them, perhaps, but...
But instead, of course, it had become more complicated than merely her attempting to explain herself somewhat and opening the door. As she had envisioned this moment, after all, she hadn't even once contemplated that Lily would say something like that to her face.
Or that Lily would ask her to wait. They need a minute, as Lily had put it.
So this time, Josie is good.
She doesn't walk off into the sunset as planned and instead, waits a moment, waits until all of the rest of the Wolves have disappeared into the depths of the Diablo Tower.
She turns towards Lily then and there, here as the sun begins to slowly sink towards the horizon.
"...You didn't tell them, did you?"
BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szXJTwDNYOU
She pauses, fixing her gaze on Lily. "Why?"
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
It wasn't what Lily expected, either, when she imagined Josie coming back to them. It leaves a far bitterer taste than she realized it would, though she understands well now. ...Perhaps too well, as she thinks of it. She wonders...
But they need a minute. And Lily looks to Josie, for a moment, before she looks to the door where they disappear. Probably, there will be more soldiers converging on their position soon. Which means it's better not to waste time. So...
The sun behind her, Lily looks right back at Josie. It has the strange effect of making her almost angelic for a moment, before the clouds pass over again. And Lily says, "At first... It wasn't anyone's business. You had your own reasons for concealing it, and we don't make a point of asking about one another's pasts. ...Didn't hurt Leon for him not to know, so he didn't need to."
"After..." Lily looks past Josie, before her eyes focus on the other woman again. "...What good would it have done if I had?" she asks. "No... I could claim it's just sentiment. But it's not, really."
"You betrayed us. But for once, I had the choice whether to betray you back. And I didn't do it. Because that's not who I wanted to be. ...Because I still cared. Because there was no point. Because Father didn't give me a choice. A lot of reasons."
"...It would've been finally turning my back on you, and I wasn't ready to do that. So no. I wouldn't be the one to finish that betrayal, this time. I wouldn't blast apart another friend. Another..."
She shakes her head. "I'm still not going to. But maybe you should, when this is all over."
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
No, they probably won't have long to hash this all out. The soldiers will realize what Josie's done and take action, with or without Antenora's approval -- assuming the woman hasn't already given the order. But that's always how it goes: not enough time. Never enough time.
But Josie's long since learned to take what she can get of the time afforded her.
It's what she'd figured, in the beginning. It wouldn't matter one way or another what she did or didn't do, as long as none of the Wolves -- Leon in particular -- were affected. But after she'd parted and on none-too-friendly terms, well...
Sense would say there's no need to continue carrying secrets then. But matters of the heart rarely make sense. Josie's well enough familiar with that.
"...So that's the way of it, eh? Just didn't matter enough to spill? Well," she says, shrugging widely, "fair enough. I guess you've cottoned to the heart of it all by now, anyhow." She smiles. It's brittle. "For all the good it's done me. But I dare say your instincts were right on for that one. Probably wouldn't've forgiven you, not nearly."
Josie folds her arms over her chest, glancing up towards the heavens. "...Maybe, maybe not. I've my own road to travel now, seems like. It ain't a sure thing whether we'll even meet again, right? Especially," and she unfolds an arm to gesture at the tower behind her, "with all this. Heh... seems like I've made more than a mess of things, yeah? And here I've asked you lot to go and clean it up for me..."
Both arms extend to the sides as she shrugs, widely, as if to ask the heavens themselves to weigh in on the affair at hand.
"So. Is that all you had on your mind? Or are you reconsidering that little confession of yours from before? Whew... Didn't think you had it in you, Rose-of-Sharon..." It's partially a smile.
It's also partially a grimace.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily will take out her lack of time on those soldiers; she already knows what she plans to do when she's finished here. ...It's strange, knowing that. But with Dietrich Keil elsewhere... her need to go in and confront Odessa's leaders is blunted pretty well.
"It didn't matter to them, but it mattered a lot to me. So I didn't." She nods, at that, though. That brittle smile... "I have," she says. "It adds up. But that's not mine to share. Maybe if you get yourself killed I'll set the story straight. Maybe not. ...No one else will do it."
Maybe that's not fair. But Lily doesn't think people like them accumulate a lot of people who'd do that.
"Wouldn't have forgiven myself. It's like Fei and Elly keep telling me... I gotta try to be the kind of person who can 'live' instead of just fight. And that matters."
She looks up, too, to the sky. "You do," Lily says. "Your own road... You always did, though. You just happened to walk it with us for a while."
"...No. Two things. The first is, I said what I meant. Your betrayal wouldn't have mattered near as much if I didn't feel that way. ...Don't get me wrong; I'm not planning to leave Leon or anything like that. It's..." She shakes her head. "It's different. But it's important. That's my feeling."
Wry, then. "...So which 'me' is it you're talking to this time, hm...? Is it Lily, or is it Sharon? Which one's the 'real' one? I still don't know. But I loved you, whoever I am, and it hasn't really gone away. I thought... I never had a sister, so maybe that's what it was. But now I don't think it's that simple."
"...So there's that. And there's one other thing."
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"Oh yeah? You'd let me take it to the grave? Well, what the dead want don't matter much, so the way I figure," Josie says, folding her arms over her chest once again, "you should do whatever sets you at ease. Won't much matter once I'm gone, anyhow. And there ain't anyone else to tell the story."
There's probably only one other person who can, wherever they might be in this world, and they're hardly likely to be the sort to want to clarify things any.
Just for their own reasons.
"Heh... seems like those kids are smarter than they look, nearly," Josie says, the unkind remark perhaps softened by the precise sort of smile on her lips. "Living instead of fighting... 'course, you and me, we've been fighting since the day we were born, yeah?" It's one more reason why they probably fell in with one another, one more reason for this whole mess.
"Always have been walkin' a road of my own, seems like," she remarks, smiling lopsidedly. "But I've decided. Better the road then pretending I can just settle down and all. Least this-wise, I know I've always got another horizon waiting for me."
Right up until the end, at least, whenever that decides to present itself before her.
But it's not as simple as that. It's never so simple as that.
"Heh..."
Josie dips her head in a nod. "Fair enough! Fair enough. Make sure you tell your boy that. He strikes me the 'brood silently on it' type," she tells Lily, shaking her head. "Don't lose what you've got, you hear?"
It's different, Lily explains, speaking further about that feeling. It's different but it's important.
Josie sighs out a breath in response. "Maybe you already figured it out," she says, after a long moment of silence. "But I saw a little of my sister in you, Tiger. Maybe that's why I let myself get so close, even." Her gaze glides away from Lily. "And then it weren't so simple anymore, all of a sudden, like."
It may be as close as she gets in the here-and-now to a little confession of her own.
But she's more than happy to leave it behind.
"Yeah? What other thing?"
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"I might. But probably it'd set me at ease to explain it to somebody, down the line. "
"Mm-hm," Lily says. "They are. ...But we have. It's always been like that. Maybe it always will be. But I'm willing to try."
"...I'm still willing to pretend I can settle," Lily says, "But I'm not sure it's any more than that. There's something to be said about a waiting horizon. I've gotten used to life on the road."
"...Hm. Maybe he is," Lily admits. "I didn't think about how it'd sound, as you can imagine..." She won't lose it. She doesn't plan to. But that long moment of silence gets a nod out of Lily. "...Might be. And I think... I have. I think I understand."
"It's not simple."
Lily is willing to leave it at that for now; it wasn't, but it isn't, either, still. If it were simple now, that would be easier. However...
She regards Josie again. "Yeah, you've made a mess. But I don't think you should let us clean it up. I'm saying you should go in and help them."
"...You don't 'owe' it. You broke that slate. It's not clean, but it doesn't matter what's on it anymore. Because if you were the type to leave matters to someone else, you wouldn't have done this in the first place."
"I can't promise you anything about the others. Or even really about me. You never know how this is going to go. ...But I want you to help them. And to leave the soldiers who are going to be here soon to me."
"I think... It's more than that, though. I think you'll regret it forever if you don't, for your own reasons. And regret doesn't look good on you."
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"Do what you have to, if I don't there there first or none," Josie tells her. "Promise I won't haunt you for it."
Josie shrugs. "Maybe you can! You're young, yet. I'm a dried up hag by most's reckoning," she continues, shaking her head. "Or maybe you can't. Won't be the last, won't be the first. Or however that's supposed to go, yeah?"
So she hadn't even realized how it would sound?
"...Don't I know it," Josie says, smiling wryly. "You 'n me ain't too different on that front, more or less... I've just had more experience." Some of her exes even had the kindness to tell her what she'd done wrong. Useful, that, particularly when it comes to educating Lily in the here and now, Josie figures. At least romance is easier to understand than sex.
(But of course, understanding something and excelling at it are two different things.)
And the other thing-- well.
Lily tells her all about the other thing. The part where this is her mess, sure enough, but that what she should do is...
"Go on after 'em? Heh. Alright, I'll hear you out. What, you think I should go and atone..."
It's not atonement. It's not because of anything she did that needs righting, to hear Lily put it. It's because it's not her style to leave things to others to manage -- not anymore. And it's because she'll regret it, without question, if she doesn't go.
"Regret... huh."
She smiles, and it might be her first truly genuine smile in some time.
"Well. If that's the doctor's diagnosis, then I suppose I've no choice, eh?" She turns, halfway, facing the tower in profile. "...Might as well tell Antenora the news to her face, anyhow. Seems a damn sight rude to turn about and have the others convey it on my behalf. Well. Looks like I'm not riding off into the sunset just yet, Tiger."
She turns, her back to Lily.
"...Looks like you're right on the soldiers bit. And here's me thinkin' we had a bit more time on our hands! Well... if the worst happens, lemme say this much, Tiger. Rose-of-Sharon."
She spins that black shotgun in her hand, once.
"Both of 'em are you. And you're both of 'em. You think I was always 'Josie'...?"
She swings the ARM upwards, pulls the trigger but once. The Odessa soldiers probably hadn't expected that one, not until the first of their vanguard crumples to the ground and the shouting and fighting begins in earnest.
Josie, for her part, runs right on past them.
"'Til next time, Tiger!"
The soldiers may have more to worry about soon than to chase after a turncoat breaching the tower.