2023-08-20: Course Correction
- Log: Course Correction
- Cast: Lan Lilac, Loren Voss
- Where: Halmetz - Root Pier
- Date: August 20, 2023
- Summary: A tipsy Lan attempts to defend Azoth's honor. Loren fights a shoe and loses.
===========================<* Halmetz - Root Pier *>============================ The city of Halmetz is built within a great tree, easily the size of a city. This is one of the only living ones to remain, with a proud and majestic canopy visible for miles as ships sail up to it. The majority of Halmetz is built inside of that tree, but the exception is the harbor district. The harbor is built along a massive root that reaches out into the sea. The root acts as a pier, with a paved road on the top, and small offshoots act as smaller piers for a variety of boats. The harbor is busy, with a road leading into a hole cut into the tree. Some businesses are out here, including a few foundries and other businesses that produce too much smoke for the inside of the city. BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wEIuPU3i2E
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
They'd gotten to eat that cake, Gwen and Loren and her. It was wonderful. She'd wanted to spend time with both of them!
But all things are temporary, even get togethers. Gwen had more work to do, Loren did that thing where he got all antsy about being so close to too many people at once, and Lan bid them both see-you-later. She's glad to have returned the cloudbear to its rightful parent, but... wow, freedom is really quiet.
So she decides to go someplace louder, where there are plenty of cheerful people. And because booze helps with that, she got herself a mug of nice beer and drank it.
And then she got another one.
And Lan, who hadn't really been drinking as much as she used to, is starting to feel nice and warm and fuzzy around the edges, and she's starting to remember why she used to like to be drunk so often.
"Hmmm..." Lan looks into the empty bottom of her second mug. She can probably have one more. She doesn't want to have to work with a hangover tomorrow, but she doesn't quite want to stop yet. She pushes the mug back across the bar, digs into the pouch at her hip for her coin purse--
--her hand closes around something irregular, cool. It fits nicely in her palm. It is not money. Lan uncurls her fingers to find a large, lumpy freshwater pearl.
Oh, that's right. It's the pearl Azoth had left for her, after she'd let him out of the pit trap in the forest.
Something long dormant percolates slowly up through her memory.
Outside, the tavern door slams open - followed by a sheepish "Oh, sorry!" - before Lan is back on the street and runnning... and upset.
"LOREN VOSS!" Is... is that a battle cry??
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Was there ever a time when he could interact with people in a 'normal' fashion? Forget about the fact that he's dealing with the surface world and its generally more 'boisterous' nature compared to Solaris (...most of the time). Was there ever a point where interacting with other people hadn't eventually become taxing?
The cake had been nice. It had been nice seeing Lan again -- and Gwen, though he is far more reluctant to admit that even to himself. But he'd eventually felt the pressure of social interaction and the noise of the other people in the cafe, and had ultimately departed.
Once he would have chalked it up simply to surface-dwellers being, well, themselves. But it's not like he was all that social in Jugend, either. And besides, the fact is, there's no difference between Solarians and those of the surface world and beyond.
Leah had said it. He can accept that, now. The purpose of Solaris, of its social order, of the sources of all his pain and suffering--
She had given him no choice but to accept it, even if now it still lodges like a lump in his throat. It could have been different. None of it was necessary except for the sake of the strata in and of itself.
He's wound his way back down to the lakeside. There's still enough time before he needs to make his next connection: it's easier to rendezvous with a team this way for this sort of operation than to risk their transit catching Guild Galad's (among others) eye. For now, he doesn't have to do or be anywhere, save perhaps to resupply for the next leg.
Instead, occupied again by his thoughts, Loren skips another stone across the lake surface.
Though perhaps, the correct description of the moment would be 'Loren had been occupied by his thoughts'. Someone -- Lan -- shouts his name.
...Maybe he's wrong about it, but doesn't she sound... mad...?
Like a deer in the headlights, he freezes there on the shore, waiting for some reassurance that this is a mistake of some sort. It has to be a mistake -- it's not like he's done anything (recently), right? ...Right?
The cloudbear Runeberry, ignorant of such concerns, headbutts his shin.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
It can't be. She was so happy to see him. They (well, he and Gwen) skipped stones. They ate cake!!
Lan, meanwhile, runs... and runs... where is he, anyway? It takes her a few minutes to end up near the water's edge again, and she only even gets there because that's one of the few places in Halmetz that she's familiar with. Plus they were just there a couple of hours ago.
But that's good (for her)! She's still got some energy and focus left when her eyes land on Loren Voss, Enemy of Sad UwU Robots and Guy Who Won't Admit Gwen Is His Friend! There's a faint flush high on her tawny cheeks, but she's not far gone enough to have noticeably lost any of her usual grace. "Loren!" Lan barks, proving that a name can also sound like an accusation, and levels a pointing finger at him.
"You were mean to Azoth!!"
The... the same Azoth that ruined her lung and nearly killed her. The Azoth that is not-so-secretly an incredibly dangerous Gear, who has been chained to Solaris and Gebler in a way far more permanent than Lan ever was, and is far deadlier than her to boot.
Yeah, that Azoth...
Oh no, and now she's running right at him!!
She doesn't waste any more time, suddenly right up in his face -- dropkicking him several feet down the shore, if he's not feeling evadey today.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
She's been drinking. That's the first thing Loren notices as she makes her way towards him. It's not as if this is the first time he's seen her after she's had a few: she's not drunk yet, but the signs are hard to miss if you're familiar with her and her habits.
She's been drinking and she most definitely really is mad at him.
"Wait--" he starts, in those moments before she levels that finger at him. Is it possible she has gotten the wrong idea about things--
He was... what?
Loren blinks, uncomprehending. "But he-- you--"
oh shit she's running right at him
He turns and bolts, instinct taking over for the point where he outright has failed to keep up with the sudden twists and turns this evening has taken. It's just unfortunate that he had a delayed start and Lan is faster than he is.
The next couple of seconds are a bit of a blur. What he's conscious of is rising from the rocky shore on his hands and knees, of scrambling to his feet faster than he'd thought possible. What's going on? Why is it going on?
He doesn't hesitate this time. He takes off at a clip along the lakeside, seeking something he can use as a barrier. Did something happen to her?! Is she really just a little tipsy?
"Lan!" he calls back, gasping with the effort of getting out her single-syllable name. "Stop it!"
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
If it makes Loren feel any better, the very nature of a dropkick leaves Lan on the ground afterward too. It probably doesn't, but. He'll at least have a few moments to scramble to his feet while she's busy doing the same. Plus she's still wearing a dress, which surely must be doing something to afford him a few critical seconds...?
...No, no, she's just as nimble in a skirt as she is in a pair of shorts. That can't be fair!
"You, you yelled at him and called him a pathetic robot that only follows orders and...!" She's admittedly scraping the barrel of her memories of a months-ago conversation, here. She doesn't have much to go on other than a few sentences half-remembered and the echo of righteous indignation.
Lan pelts after him, sandals crunching in the pebbled shore. "And you made him avoid me!! I had to dig a hole and trap him to figure out what was going on!"
Unlike Loren, who lives a comfotable desk job life much of the time, Lan does enough cardio to carry on a conversation while chasing him down like an alarmed and confused prey animal.
And then, finally, Loren is granted a reprieve.
Apparently not patient enough to run him down, Lan hops on one foot, yanking at her sandal to pull it free--
And wings it right at his head. She's a lot slower about chasing him afterwards. "Come back and say you're sorry!"
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
He would have assumed that a skirt would have made it more difficult for someone to run well in. Maybe it's only the case with a tight skirt, though--
Of course, even this fact is something he will better appreciate out of the moment. In the moment there is only the awareness that he must flee.
"I-- I didn't!" he gasps, brightly aware of the injustice of this particular accusation. There are a lot of things he could -- and would -- say about Azoth, but this isn't one of them!
He's reminded of what Azoth had said to him months ago, then. Of what Lan had done to catch up to him.
The next time he sees Azoth, he promises himself as he jogs along the lakeside, put through the paces for the first time since his initial deployment in Aveh, he's going to wrap his hands around his throat.
...Not that it would do that much good, frankly, but the idea makes him feel just a little bit better in the moment.
"He tried to," huff "kill you!" he shouts back. Once he did more actual field assignment work (and still does, sometimes) but as a captain he's a long way from his second lieutenant days. Lan has the advantage, until oddly, the sound of her footfalls after him stop. Slowing, Loren makes the fatal mistake of turning around.
He's just in time to witness her tugging off her sandal and winging it towards him. It flies towards him like a righteous missile flung by the hand of God and takes him square in the middle of the forehead.
He drops in a heap upon the lake's shore. The sandal that domed him bounces high in the air until gravity again has its say and it drops down, earthbound once again.
It's a final disgrace to Loren's pride, perhaps, that it lands right on top of him.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Oh yeah. Azoth absolutely bamboozled Lan with his clever truth-bending and coy acting skills. Loren probably actually didn't say that! But good luck convincing Lan of his innocence when Loren's loooong track record of saying deeply shitty things to other people (and robots, and monsters, and Seraphs, and...) is here to speak for him.
He tried to kill you, Loren reminds her, and Lan is precisely drunk enough to not stop herself from shouting, "SO DID YOU!"
She comes to a stop on the gravel shore, hands twitching upward like she wants to cover her mouth, and watches as her sandal descends from the sky to add one last insult to his injuries. Thwap.
There is a silence that lasts several seconds, broken only by the gentle lap of the lake's waves against the shoreline.
Crunch, shuff. Crunch, shuff. The gravel is cool on the sole of her foot. It's a little uncomfortable, bordering on pain.
Lan stands over him, no longer blazing with anger. She goes into a crouch next to his shoulder, forgetting to tuck her apron between her knees, but drops onto her butt and then the point's moot anyway.
Lan Lilac raises one terrible, powerful fist...!! And bonks him on the forehead with the meatiest part of it, and again, and again. Bonk, bonk, bonk. It barely rocks his skull against the ground.
Her eyebrows are drawn together, her mouth a tight line, her eyes soft and... is that hurt?
Bonk, bonk, bonk.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
So did you.
There's more than one reason for him to stop and turn beyond the absence of her footsteps. He hasn't forgotten that. Sometimes he might, for a little bit, but invariably something happens to come roaring back as a reminder that, yes, he tried to kill her that day in the ruins of the light shrine in Spira.
It's true that he'd been out of his mind, his psyche largely dissolved under Primarch's elemental influence. But then, the fact that it had gotten that far was his own fault for one -- and for another, that had truly been something wretched and ugly and grasping and uniquely his own.
He can't deny it and neither can he accept it.
And for his sins, he takes a sandal to the forehead.
He's aware of her approach: it might have dropped him, but he's not unconscious, simply stunned. Eventually it reaches the point where even rising to his feet seems fruitless: here she is by his side, and Loren gets one good look at the expression on her face before he closes his eyes, his expression contorted nearly in a wince.
Sure enough, Lan takes her hand to him and... lightly bonks his head with the meatiest part of her fist.
"...Stop," he says after she does it the second time, cracking open one eye. "I told him," Loren starts to say, only to shake his head ever so slightly and utter instead, "I rescinded the order. He's not going to stay away from you now."
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Shouldn't she have forgiven him for that? He was sick. He wasn't himself. He suffered too.
And yet.
Bonk, bonk, bonk. At first it seems like she's ignoring him, but after one more round of that -- can it even be called chastisement? It doesn't really hurt -- Lan unfolds her hand to lie across his forehead, like someone might do to check for fever. Her expression is still a thing of pain, perhaps of concern.
"Okay," Lan nods after a moment. Her hand is warm on his face. "Don't... take away my friends. Don't take choices away from me." Even if they could hurt her - because couldn't anyone, really, if they wanted to? "Maybe especially don't do it to Azoth. Like yeah, it's okay to seperate people that are fighting, most of the time! But..." Here she flounders a bit, her hand retreating momentarily before she firms up her resolve and reaches out to help him sit up instead.
"But just don't make decisions for me like that. Do you understand why I was mad at you? Why it's not okay with me?"
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
If she had forgiven him, should she have? He had thought maybe that, perhaps, she had, but... now he knows she hasn't. No great shock comes with that realization, precisely: he's not so naive as to think that most people in this world would have. Still, it doesn't mean that that it evokes nothing. It's rather like uncovering that there had been a wound after all, long after one had limped away from the site of the initial injury. That moment of realization, of knowing that things were not as you'd thought -- or hoped -- while acknowledging the reality that they were never going to be like that in the first place.
Her hand rests on his forehead even so, though, and he knows still less of what to make of that. He's silent for a time, gazing up at her from his place on the rocky shore.
"...Even if you'll get hurt, huh," Loren says, his gaze away from her -- off to the side, the only other place it can go. Even if she gets hurt. "I wanted to protect you. He's... I can't control him." As long as she's their enemy, she'll get hurt. Next time it happens, she might not even get saved.
As long as she's in opposition to Solaris, she's his enemy, too.
And still, with one hand, she helps him up into a seated position.
"I know," he says, perhaps a little more forcefully than necessary as he closes his eyes again. "You just said why. All I wanted to do was..." He trails off, grimacing. He should have listed to his father, he thinks suddenly, desperately. Except-- then he would have bought into the lie. Except then he would have truly had his back against the wall, with nowhere to run.
"I'm... tired of losing people," he confesses, opening his eyes to gaze nowhere but the small lake's rocky shore.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Forgiving him wouldn't mean he didn't do it. That some part of him didn't... wasn't capable of a thing like that. It's just that Lan thought that she already had.
Maybe she can't remember what forgiveness really feels like. Maybe it's Lan who...
"Even if I'll get hurt," she acknowledges, because she will.
He knows. Lan is quiet for a moment as he tries to explain but trails off. He suddenly sounds so defeated. He'd only been trying to protect her. And Lan is young enough and still naive enough to feel her heart swell a bit with the idea that even if he'd done something stupid and wrong, it'd been for her sake as well.
The peagravel crunches softly behind him. Lan's skirt finally makes her clumsy as she awkwardly walks the last two feet towards him on her knees, settling back down right behind him. There's a second's hesitation.
Lan tilts forward, arms wrapping loosely around his shoulders. Her burning face rests on his shoulder, the silk of her hair brushing the shell of his ear.
"I'm sorry. You were just scared," she mumbles, where he can't see her guilt.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
What can he do in response to that but slump his shoulders? That ugly, selfish part of him rails within, saying all he needs to do is /keep/ her from harm, whatever her wishes might be, but he's learned better since than how he was taught. People are people, and even if there's still a lot related to that concept which he's learning/unlearning, he can't, as he is now, seriously think again about taking away someone's freedom.
Even if it gets them killed. Even then. How is what she wants any different from his own struggle with his parents, and for years now?
But it still means that he can see the future ever more clearly and he doesn't want to catch up to it.
The gravel crunches near him and he lifts his head even as she settles behind him and wraps her arms over his shoulders. There's heat and pressure all along his spine and in the moment, his mind goes blank. He tenses, uncertainly spreading like wildfire across a variety of axes.
She's treating him like a child in need of comforting.
She's gotten close, closer than he's comfortable with.
This isn't the first time this has happened. And yet, he's still--
...dreading the moment she'll part.
It takes Loren a moment more to remember to breathe, her hair brushing past his ear. His mouth works silently a moment still longer: he can't find the right words.
For her, or for this feeling.
He swallows hard. "It's... fine," he finishes lamely, hoarse regardless. "It's fine. I..."
Would it be better, really, if he knew what he wanted from her? Or is it better to be like this?
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
He certainly could, if he put his mind to it. If he betrayed her 'for her own good', brought her back into the fold. Asset Spicule is surely still useful enough to not be disposed of. Surely Leah wouldn't let it happen. Surely her mercy extends so far.
Lan would certainly even smile at him when she saw him, from inside her comfortable and safe and gilded cage.
Smile at him, just like Mirza does.
There was a time when that wouldn't have sounded very bad to him, wasn't there? Not as bad as the alternative. Would Lan be proud of him if she really thought about how different he is now? Or would she finally find her limit for his ugliness, pull away, make an awkward excuse and spend the rest of her now hopefully less-short life avoiding him?
Dangerously close to such knowledge, Lan leans her weight against him and tightens her arms a little. "I was... I just remembered being so angry with you. Because I was still scared of Azoth. ...I still am, a little. But I was never going to stop being afraid if I couldn't even talk to him."
He's warm. Stiff like he's considering whether to leap up and whirl on her, spitting and indignant. He would have, once.
"But I still shouldn't have kicked you. If you fell in the lake and drowned, Runeberry would be an orphan."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
It would be easy. She would never realize what he'd done.
But Loren would.
He can never, ever tell her about these thoughts of his. However they might plague and nag him for the uncertainity of her response, the thought that she might turn away from him in horror is too much to even contemplate. Better to lock them away. Better that, even if her interactions with him keep bringing her into harm's way.
Even here, he's selfish. Perhaps he can't help it: the idea of losing her -- however it could happen -- is too much for him to bear.
There's no escaping her now, that's for certain. A part of him still wants to, if not run at least pull away, but a part of him wants to remain where he is. Perhaps, in his own way, Loren is alright with that in the moment, as much as he fears for what the future will bring.
"I can't control him. If... he were ordered into the field against you, I can't stop him," he says, as she leans closer. "If he malfunctioned again, he wouldn't listen to me. And..." And he'd been afraid of what Azoth might have done, if he and Lan had met again. Would there be no one there to pluck her from death's doorstep a second time?
He doesn't relax. He's in a way much like that moment when she'd awoken from that brush with death, all tight and on edge. "Just... be careful. Run away, if it gets dangerous. I--"
Whatever he had been about to say, though, is lost when Lan goes on. She shouldn't have kicked him, because that could have left Runeberry an orphan.
Loren slumps, all tension at last bleeding from even his frame. "...Seriously?" he asks, perhaps of the universe at large.
As if on cue, something cottony and slightly damp arrives at their side. Runeberry might be partially insubstantial, but they do have a wet nose.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Azoth has likely done more damage to Lan across their shared history of battles than most anybody she's fought (except maybe Loren, who is an outlier and should not be counted). It's probably hard to not injure your fleshy opponents when you're an enslaved machine consciousness trapped in the body of a killer robot. "I... probably won't be able to fight him again, even if I have to. Not for a while, anyway." Lan considers this, like something prickly she has to pick up with her bare hands. "I think my body might freeze up if I tried."
Lan wants to be someone who is brave and capable. And part of being capable is... knowing some of her own limits. Even if Loren might not agree that she's ever even considered them!
"If it gets dangerous, I'll run." She's quiet for a moment, as if considering her next words. "...You run away, too. If something's too much. You can't save your country if you're dead. And I'd cry. I'd cry, like, forever." Lan also cried once because she saw a particularly beautiful dungeon entrance, and because she broke a plate that wasn't hers, and once when she ate something really really delicious and comforting after a hard trek on low rations. Is he supposed to be flattered??
He slumps, and she slumps with him, boneless in the way that drunks or sleepy children can be. He's warm. She's warm. The nose that pokes inquisitively at her thigh is cold and damp. "Baby," Lan calls Runeberry, in the way that someone might call a cat 'kitty'. "I promise I won't make you an orphan, okay?"
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
If it gets dangerous, she'll run. That at least is worth some comfort -- some, if not, perhaps, a lot. But Loren frankly will take what he can get.
"...Good," he says in response, though his face (hidden from her, given their relative positions) pulls in a grimace. "That's called 'going AWOL', Lan... That's how you get court-martialed." Well, if it's a part of an official assignment or operation, that is.
Though a tactical retreat -- assuming there's no one higher ranking to counter it -- is another story.
"I'm not... planning on that." Not like that, precisely, not anymore. But this is another thing that he thinks cannot be said aloud to anyone. He stiffens, slightly -- more than he already had been -- when she says she would cry, forever.
"...Didn't you cry once because a cafe had that tea you liked?"
There, he feels a little better, paradoxically, when he's reminded that Lan is a bit of a crybaby.
Of course, Engil had once said the same about him.
Here right on schedule and interrupting an already awkward moment is Runeberry. "Can you not," he says, though whether he's speaking to Lan or Runeberry is perhaps unclear.
Probably the latter, since Runeberry is gumming his hand, though.
"...Come on," he says finally, squirming against Lan's grip. "It's gonna get cold out here. Do you have a place to stay?" And it's not exactly comfortable sitting on the rocky shore, anyway. Of that, he is woefully aware.