2023-07-10: Her Circumstances
- Log: Her Circumstances
- Cast: Citan Uzuki, Lan Lilac
- Where: Aphel Aura - Residential District
- Date: July 10, 2023
- Summary: While delivering supplies, Lan encounters Citan and thanks him for the advice he once gave her.
====================<* Aphel Aura - Residential District *>===================== Shevat is a nation both ancient and strange, and perhaps no part shows this better than its capital and only city, Aphel Aura. Parts of it have weathered the ages better than others, and as a result the ring-shaped city of Aphel Aura features elements from either end of the technological spectrum. Consisting of a series of towers connected by stone bridges, at a glance the primary marvel of Aphel Aura is that it is floating in the sky, but there are also power lights and floating platforms, generally providing access upwards along the towers. On the outer parts of Shevat, plantlife is a given: the city has trees where they'll grow, smaller plantlife living in crevices, and moss living just about anywhere it can grow. Inside, living and working space is cramped but hardly uncomfortable: while the ages have taken their toll, many comforts are available to the residents of Shevat: heating, running water, lighting. Some residents even have access to Shevat's computer systems. Rooms tend to be circular, sometimes subdivided into wedges to make better use of space. The bottoms of a few towers serve as aquifers for the city. Most of the remaining tower bottoms are used for storage, but there is one tower that is an exception: this tower, visitors may be surprised to discover, is not used by anyone or for anything. The rubble and debris in this room remains exactly as it had been left over five hundred years ago, during the great war. This alone has been left as a memorial and reminder of that war. BGM: Xenogears - Shevat - the Wind is Calling -
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
Shevat is ever a wandering nation. Some of its long-time residents almost feel it to be a curse: they are wanderers, with no berth to call home. While some might consider the Shevites free, able to wander the skies as they wish, others might just as easily name it vulnerability. It is true that all places and nations must suffer what blows nature brings to them, but few might be as exposed to the elements as Shevat, even with their shields and deflectors to disrupt the slings and arrows of the weather.
Shevat has no choice but to 'weather' even storms. Today brings a deluge: good news for Shevat's aquifers and better news for the energy the wandering nation can steal from the bolts that crack across the sky. But it is poor news for those who live in the city. Shevat is not blessed with large open spaces indoors, and but for a few who must, very few are outside in this storm if they can help it.
Citan Uzuki most certainly isn't, though he dreads the moment when he'll have to head out. A request from one of the old residents of Lahan to talk about their health (well, he had been their doctor once and best knows their history) had been sidetracked into a discussion from one of the resource management team about dwindling medical supplies, and by now the storm has gotten truly fierce. So far, he has been able to bide his time by going through the inventory to see what could be substituted if they're unable to resupply in the next few weeks, but the afternoon is slowly tilting towards evening.
Either luck will turn his way and it will abate before time forces his hand, or... he'll have to go out into that mess. He is hoping for the former.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Lan remembers being excited for rain, when it had happened on Lunar. She'd danced in it and sang! Water for anybody that wanted it, enough to spread lush greenery across the surface of the moon, to fill its lakes.
Don't get her wrong! She's still appreciative of so much water!
She would just be more appreciative if she weren't out in the middle of it, is all!
The door is thrown open, a gust of humid wind and a sideways splash of water and a sopping-wet shaman all hurtling through at once. "Pfeh!" Lan Lilac sputters, wet hair in her wet face, a wet satchel slung across her wet body, and a slightly-less wet parcel clutched in her wet arms. She hooks the door shut with one (you guessed it!) wet foot before unfolding herself from aroud the parcel and holding it out like a valuable prize.
"I brought more bandages! And some other stuff! --Oh, hi Doc!" she smiles at Citan.
She looks healthy, and happy. And soaked to the bone, but that's what happens when you deliver packages in the rain. Gwen probably doesn't have to deal with this kind of weather much, and she has a Gear with climate control. "Where should I put these?"
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
It's true, though -- in many parts of Filgaia, the land is dry and rain itself a blessing from the heavens. Shevat has the fortune of being able to collect water from the skies themselves (the clouds, the rain), and only rarely does their water supply dip to dangerous levels. The discomfort they might experience today will be mitigated in the long term.
In the end, Citan will grin and bear it if that's how it must be, just like any other Shevite would. He and his clothing will dry... even if in the moment he might be disinclined towards the general experience.
The door slams open, turning his attention away from the inventory. Someone has just come in from the storm. "Goodness, you must be--"
Well, this is a familiar face!
"...Miss Lilac? Fancy seeing you here!" He eyes the package in her arms. "Oho, so you are our 'savior' today, I see!"
He waves to a nearby counter, in much the same moment as one of the citizen workers indicates the same. "Well, I certainly was not expecting a delivery quite so soon," he adds, adjusting his glasses. "Have you been working alongside their supply network on the ground for long?"
It has been some time since they last crossed paths, after all, particularly with certain matters keeping him in Spira until only a scarce few months prior.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Goodness, she certainly is. But Lan will dry out as well, and it's probably a good opportunity for the cloudbear to experience real humidity again.
"Ahaha, I dunno about savior... maybe part-time deputy courier?" She puts the parcel down where they indicate it should go and casts about for a towel or at the very least, a more appropriate place to drip for a while. The parcel is, at least, not very wet; she must have shielded it with her body as much as possible on the run from somewhere-or-other.
Since the floor in front of the door is already wet, Lan goes back to it and stands where she won't do too much more damage to the floor. "Supply--? Well, it's nothing that formal, really," she explains. "I pass along a few things now and then when I find them or make extra of something. Like tonics and stuff." And bandages, apparently.
"How have you been? How are your wife and Midori?" Lan... actually remembered a name? And got it right?!
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
No towels here, alas. Perhaps the bear will enjoy the soak it's had, after a fashion -- Loren had said to her that it did drink water (and probably, enjoys drinking water).
Citan shakes his head. "Nevertheless, it is much appreciated," he says, approaching her where she stands by the door. One of the other workers ducks into a nearby doorway, perhaps to look after a towel for their surprise relief-deliverer. "Even if no one is expecting a need soon, it is never good for essentials to drop low," he explains. "Fortunately, delivery routes are rather more open these days, though they still need to exercise some caution. It would be a poor turn of events were Solaris able work out elements of Shevat's supply chain... but, ah, now is not the time to talk of such things! However small it might be, it is appreciated."
How is the family? "They have been well! Thank you for asking after them. They -- and I -- have been grateful for the peace of the last few months," Citan tells her, though a wry smile finds its way onto his face. He knows it won't last, and so does Yui. Still, even a moment's respite is the better for avoiding the alternative. And, perhaps, someday...
"And you?" he asks, turning the lens on her, in a sense.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Speaking of Runeberry, they're being very good and very quiet in Lan's satchel. For now.
She shakes her head. "Shevat's people helped me out when I needed it. I got hurt badly a few months ago and some friends brought me here for treatment." Of course, surviving to be rescued had been its own ordeal. She will never, ever miss Nutribar gruel. "They fixed me right up, see?" She lifts the edge of her top briefly to expose a round, fist-sized scar that clips her lowest left rib.
She's so chipper about it. Like she'd run out of sugar and come here to borrow some, instead of... whatever that was.
"Oh, I'm glad! Midori was so cute, even if she was quiet. One or two of my little cousins are like that - not big talkers." And very cute, naturally.
And her? "Uh-- I'm pretty good, actually," she smiles again, and it's a little different from her earlier good cheer. This is smaller, quieter. A little fragile, but still very earnest. A different kind of scar tissue, perhaps. "I... never got to say thanks, did I? For the advice you gave me. I poured all my problems out on you and you were so kind. So... thanks, Doc. You really helped me!"
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
It's a way of repaying a debt, Lan explains.
"Oh, I... see," Citan says, indeed seeing the mark of a rather significant wound in the same moment that Lan lifts a part of her shirt for him. Briefly. And he is a doctor, for all that his expression grows minutely more tense in those fractions of a second.
She is indeed chipper about having taken such a wound. And it would have likely damaged the lung, at that? He can't recall mention of such a case in Shevat, but then, he is not here about as often as he is at home.
Such are the needs of the world, at times. Or even, worlds.
He at least appears mollified when she says that his daughter is cute. "She takes after her mother, fortunately," he says, though that smile suggests the comment is largely in jest. "And yes, some children can be like that. I do not think it is anything to worry about." Of course it would be fine if he could hear his daughter's voice but... that isn't up to him to decide. She can express herself and that is enough.
As for Lan herself--
"Oh... well, then," he says, as if he weren't immediately certain how to respond to her gratitude. "So it was of use to you...? I am glad that I was of service, in that case. The least that I can do is listen." He pauses, glancing up towards the ceiling for the moment. "...So, your circumstances... have they improved?"
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
She wouldn't call it a debt, if he mentioned it out loud. Simply that Shevat has been good to her, so she would like to be good to Shevat in turn. If she brings them supplies, maybe they will be used to help someone else. And the circle continues, on and on and on.
But he wouldn't have heard about a girl with a collapsed lung - at least, not a girl that was Lan. Her lung, her liver, her rib; they had been repaired before she arrived in Shevat, by someone who could not make the journey with her.
"She looks just like her mom," Lan agrees. That pretty face and those big brown eyes... Midori will be a beauty when she grows up. "It's just another way for someone to be," she agrees again, nodding. "If everybody talked all the time imagine how noisy it would be." It'd be unbearable after a while!
She finally gives up and wrings her hair out a little, just the bits towards the front. It's heavy when it's wet. She tilts her head a little further to the side, watching him briefly. "It was," Lan nods.
Her circumstances... She has to think a little about it, carefully. "The circumstances are... well, the same? But I got some perspective, at least a little bit! Nobody wanted rid of me. People worried about me instead, especially my crybaby little brother. He wasn't scared of me. He was scared for me." He'd asked her to stop using it. She'd agreed to try.
"I talked to people and my heart's a little stronger," Lan continues stubbornly, rambling to Citan yet again. "You were a great help."
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
Even if he checked, he wouldn't find any evidence of her presence if he looked for those criteria alone, and that will have to remain one of those mysteries to which Citan Uzuki will not get an easy answer.
...Unless he, like, directly asks one of the people who were involved about it, but details.
She'll likely become more like her mother in time. Even as they speak, isn't this about the time Yui does training with Midori? They had both hoped it wouldn't be necessary, but the world has continued down a particular pathway. And time, too, has proceeded without missing a step. Better she be prepared, particularly if she cannot express herself as others might. "Indeed! Why, better that she be silent than a chatterbox like myself!" Citan jests, bowing his head and extending his arms.
He worries, about his daughter. But he also accepts that they can but prepare her for the world that exists.
'It was', Lan says, wringing out her hair.
But the circumstances remain the same.
"I see..." he says to her, folding his arms across his chest. "But, at least you are not alone. Having 'comrades in arms' -- or not-so-armed! -- can be a boon with a burden such as your own. It is good that they understand... and that they do not fear you for it."
It is much the same with Fei, isn't it...? He, too, has a few fellow travelers who do not mind the secret he bears.
Still, though... still, that does not mitigate the danger. For their allies, for the rest of the world. But should one be in chains for the rest of the world to be free? How great a danger must someone pose to become an intolerable threat?
So far, Citan has not come to a conclusion he likes.
"I am... glad," he tells her. "Have you found anything that might prove a solution for your... situation?"
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Is Citan what people consider a chatterbox? Lan had always thought he was just a good conversationalist! Though, like Lan, she gets the sense that maybe some of the things he says are to fill silence. Too much of that is just as bad as too much noise. Lan finishes wringing the water out of her hair and huffs a quiet laugh.
The circumstances - for Lan and for the world - remain the same.
She flicks water from her fingertips, tries to dry them off as much as she can on the seat of her shorts before someone actually finds a towel and offers it to her. She beams at them, all the day's missing sunlight in that one smile, before wiping her brown limbs down all business-like. "I'm pretty lucky after all," she muses at his words. "Even if things are scary when I think about them, I know I can depend on folks to be kind to me. To treat me the way they always did."
She'd realized it, after the temple of the Gerudo. She was afraid of what the Stranger might use her for, but a tiny corner of her heart was simply afraid that she would be alone for it.
"They're really kind, everybody. Even the folks I accidentally hurt forgave me. I... don't know yet if there's a way to fix me. To dig it out. But I think I could live with it, even if there wasn't." Because Lan wants to live, to run through the rain and catch her dinner in between towns and get stronger and stronger.
As if suddenly realizing how much she said, Lan studiously works on blotting her hair dry-ish, looking down with an squidgy kind of embarrassed expression. "So-! So I'll keep looking, for as long as it takes."
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
There's that, and then there's his habit of expounding at length on a given topic when given the space to do so (and often, he'll take it even if it's not given). Yui has teased him about this before -- but then that's the sort of thing they differ in, between the two of them. No, she isn't exactly the quiet type herself, but...
Perhaps the old tale of the hedgehog and the fox would suit their conversational styles: the fox knows many things but the hedgehog knows one big thing. He is clearly the fox in this analogy.
And she has always been adept at striking to his heart with one well-placed statement.
She gets the towel she's been seeking, someone finally finding a dry clean one that they can spare and handing it over; it's rare that Shevat is forced into a storm of this strength, opting to avoid thunderclouds when it can. But even with their shield there are things in the skies that are best avoided. The Veruni have been active, and there is always Shevat's ancient enemy, Solaris.
"Is that so? Then that is well... but I would urge caution. There may be those who might yet react in fear," he tells her, once she has toweled herself off. "Not among your allies, of course, but... others," he says, glancing away. "Such is the way of the world, I am afraid. When someone is considered to be dangerous... but that is when we find our truest allies, as well."
Even if it isn't true. Even if you are merely thought to be dangerous. He learned that lesson well as a child.
He doesn't look back at her, whatever expression he now wears hidden from sight. "To wish to simply 'exist', though... that is no crime. I but wish I had an answer for you and what plagues you."
He doesn't. Not here.
He at last glances back, readjusting his glasses and smiles brightly. "Well! May your search bring you what you need, Miss Lilac. I trust that you are not leaving Shevat immediately? I would recommend against it, things being as they are! Eventually, we will pass through the cloud... I hope."
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
He reminds her that not everybody will be as accepting; that not everybody will take the time to see through the curse to the girl it festers inside. Or perhaps worse, some people would no doubt attempt to find a way to turn it and her to their own ends.
"I'm being careful. I don't show anybody I don't know. I don't use it unless I think there's a really good reason. A life and death reason." She wasn't always this way. But she's had to rethink her way of life several times. What's once more?
Once her hair is as dry as it's going to get by toweling, Lan wraps the towel around her upper body like a shawl.
He wishes he had an answer. Lan wishes he did too. "Hey, don't worry about it. You already helped me, remember?" It would be nice if Citan Uzuki, simple country doctor we swear, could magic up a solution, but this just isn't that kind of world. Lan folds the very very moist towel as neatly as she possibly can and uses it to sponge up some of what she dripped onto the floor. "Nope. I'm going to go have tea at this one cafe first, at the very least! Maybe cake too." She straightens up, returning the towel to a different worker.
"It can't rain all the time, right?" Lan asks, feeling philosophical as she steps aside to finally let people do their dang jobs.