2024-03-15: That Was Unwise
- Log: That Was Unwise
- Cast: Loren Voss, Leah Sadalbari
- Where: Bledavik - Noble Quarter
- Date: March 15, 2024
- Summary: Loren has a surprise visit from Leah.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Long gone are the days when Loren would be the only one here sifting through the contents of the medical ward's supply cabinet and taking inventory. There are other people with that responsibility now: the perks of his promotion to captain within the medical division. By the same token, though, that doesn't mean that there's nothing to do--
Rather the contrary, as he's found to his dismay over the years. Once, most of his work had been in the field -- gathering information, investigating locations, supporting operations -- and over time, it's been pared down to the support component of the three (save those moments such as in Energy Nede where his considerable field experience with previously-unknown civilizations makes him optimal for infiltration).
Most of the rest of the time is spent on administrative tasks back on base. Absent the presentation of some truly horrific injury, he doesn't do medical intervention outside those rarer moments of operation support that require it.
It's especially the case here, where there's less of a 'front line' for Gebler to concern themselves with -- so long as the war between Aveh and Kislev remains cold, that's likely to continue to be the case.
Or so long as the higher-ups maintain their 'watch and see' stance as regards Energy Nede.
Maybe it's all for the best. He can stay here, squirreled away from action and the front lines and any chance of danger or encountering anyone he'd have to explain himself to. He can even make himself believe that everything is normal and nothing is wrong, and that everything will somehow work out.
...
There's been an uptick in reported food poisoning cases, Loren notes, squinting at the screen of his device in the cramped back office adjoining the surgical suite on-base in Bledavik. Probably something he's going to want to flag -- most likely, it's soldiers sampling something dodgy from the stalls in the market ward, but if he's wrong...
He'd rather be wrong about his assumptions than wrong about the source. Composing a quick note, he sends it out then, sighing, leans back in his seat, slips his glasses from his face and rubs at the bridge of his nose. He's not going to make any friends with that recommendation, but...
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.
There's always something to do, when one has rank in a military structure. Even Leah finds this to be so... Though most of the paperwork she can foist off on someone else, if she chooses.
Most. Some things are only for a few eyes, her two (two) among them.
But she's in Bledavik, too. She is here, silently opening the door and then closing it less silently.
"Loren," she says.
"You've been busy. And showing a certain kind of initiative, for that matter."
Whatever he's doing now can wait.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
But it's probably fine. It's not as if Loren Voss is known for being friends with anyone in the first place. It's not as if he has anything to lose by making an unpopular recommendation.
...Once upon a time, he would have heard her coming.
Now there's no sign of Leah Sadalbari's approach if she wishes it so, and so his first warning that he's no longer alone in the office is when she speaks his name.
It's a good thing he had placed his glasses down on the desk first or he would have dropped them on the floor. As it stands, he jolts forward in his seat and scrambles to his feet. "Ma'am," he says to Leah, standing stock still.
She continues. Loren pauses, as if uncertain. "...I just sent the message," he voices, his expression betraying all of his confusion. Surely even Leah Sadalbari can't have already read his work communications?
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.
Once upon a time, she would've been obvious. But not anymore. That, like many other things, has changed.
"Good day," she says at 'ma'am', calmly. There is no mischief or amusement in her gaze. Just focus.
"Not that, though I'm sure whatever it is it's of quality. We have seen your work."
A pause. "...No, a different kind of initiative entirely. The kind that sends messages through the Azoth."
"That is what interests me today."
She steps into the office, further, until she's in front of the desk.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
There are things that Loren is good at. For example, staying focused during a tense situation: he might worry and panic, but when the chips are down, he does what needs doing.
He's good at completing the mission, regardless of the cost to himself.
One of the things he's bad at is being caught in a deception. The shock that settles into his expression tells the entire story in and of itself: even if Loren had tried to lie about what he'd done, the look on his face when she tells him exactly what he did would have still betrayed him.
"I--" he manages to get out. The initial panic that gripped him gives way as it must to inevitability: his shoulders slouch.
And he lifts his head and he looks right at her. "...So you know," Loren says to her with care, as if handling a delicate and dangerous thing.
'And now what happens,' is the question he doesn't speak aloud but which is as obviously unstated as his earlier guilt.
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.
Leah has known this for some time, about Loren's talents. She knows many of them. And their lack.
She stands there, witing through that initial panic; she takes in the details of his slouching. It is....
"That, I don't object to," she says. "Because of course I knew. There is little that happens in our organization that I do not know."
"You warned her because you care. Because you worry what will happen, if she cannot purge that man's taint from her body."
"...Had you asked me what I thought of it, I would have told you. Instead, you gave the Azoth a message and chose to hide it from me."
"That was unwise."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"..."
To say anything seems superfluous. Of course she knows. Whatever he does or thinks he's doing, she's one step ahead. It's as if she can even see the thoughts in his head before he's dared speak them aloud.
He's aware of the buzzing in his ears. He's as aware of it as the swirling torrent that feels as if it's gripped him, rising up around him as if seeking to drag him down and under. But Loren is in this moment left feeling as if he's instead simply keeping afloat in that sea even as the stormhead gathers.
He should be panicking. He is deeply aware of the fact that a part of him is panicking. But it's also as if an equally large portion of himself has simply shut down out from stress, preventing the panic from traveling as far as it otherwise might.
That's all true. He'd warned Gwen -- and by proxy Lan -- through Azoth because he thought the message might be understood best that way. He hadn't the guts to deliver it himself. And in his own way, it was the only way he could think to see how...
...how they were.
And because he doesn't see another way. Because he knows what Leah will do. It's enough that Lan insists on standing against Solaris, but if that tainted Ether remains within her, then...
It's one of the reasons he hadn't told Leah. Hadn't asked her counsel. He's always been uncertain about her true designs or what it is that she wants, but now, more than ever --
He fears her.
"...No," Loren agrees, his gaze not leaving Leah. "It wasn't."
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.
Leah does not make any correction as to the idea that she can read thoughts. Maybe she can, now. She can do a great many other things that she couldn't do before.
He wanted to know how they were, though. He wanted to find out...
"But you already think you know what it was that I had in mind," Leah says. "...I want you to be able to boldly take action. Not hide from me. Next time you feel the need to warn her, do it yourself, not through Azoth."
"I hope that she can purge that magic from herself. But I will not have our work destroyed by that man, no matter what measures he takes. No matter what hostages he takes."
"If something like this happens again--where you skulk about to benefit the enemy, instead of our work--"
"I will test your growth myself, in a different way."
She lets that hang on the air for a moment. "But for now, I have new orders for you."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"...I did," he answers, still adrift in that liminal space, caught halfway between boldness and fear. He'd thought he'd known what she was planning, particularly given her words about Lan in another time and place. He'd thought, he couldn't bear that happening, even if it's an inevitability.
And so he'd done the only thing he'd thought he could do under the circumstances. But even that, as Leah points out, was only going halfway. If he'd felt strongly enough to warn them, he should have done it himself--
But he knows he couldn't have done that. There's no way in the world he would have had the guts to have faced them both after what he'd done.
And by the same token, neither could he have not breathed a word of it to either of them. In spite of everything and even though it flies in the face of orders, to say nothing of his own best interest, he'd still done something that could have -- should have -- gotten him court martialed at the very least.
And for what? Did it even help them? Or is he just enabling the Stranger's agenda?
He realizes with sudden awareness that his hands, whiteknuckled where they hang curled tight at his sides, are shaking.
If he could cleave to one side or the other, then that would be something.
But Lan had taken his measure correctly: he's just a coward. He's still pulling to the middle where it's safe, instead of...
Like some white-hot bolt across the sky, her words cut through the numbing fog. Next time, if he dares attempt something like that again...
Next time she'll take his measure. His eyes widen and he scarce dares to breathe.
"...U, understood, Major."
It feels like an iron grate has slammed across his soul. So this is who he is. So this is what he is, when all is said and done.
She says she has new orders. He hesitates before he says anything, gazing at her as if to try -- as fruitless as it might be -- to glimpse whatever lies beneath her surface. And Loren nods, as if to bid her go on.
The last time she'd given him orders it was to tell him to go to Energy Nede. Before that, the business at Sumer. What awaits this time?
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.
Loren is in a difficult position, but Leah appears to give him no mercy. She is unbending, unyielding, as iron as the mask she used to wear and has since dispensed with. Her eyes are harder than her limbs once were.
His hands shake. She sees that, too. And the way he understands, with that widened eye look...
"Good," she says, when he says that he comprehends.
He can try to glimpse it, but there is little there to see--except one thing.
Except a distance in her eyes, as if even looking at him she is looking not through him, as so many times before--but past him. Past the wall, past everything here, into distant Eternity.
"...Practice with these 'Pokemon'," she instructs. "We need to understand Nede. We need to understand their culture and their technology, in order to have countermeasures against the problems they've put in our lap."
"And report to me your findings. ...These creatures may be able to advance our timetable significantly."
"And keep an eye on the Nedians that have ventured into our world. They may yet be useful to us as well."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Is mercy something one usually finds in any military organization, let alone one like Gebler? If he expects mercy here and now, or anything like mercy from Leah, then he should have taken up his father's advice and withdrawn from the services. Maybe he should have instead have sought work in research as Rainer Voss had recommended the last time he'd been home and instead opted for that sort of life, if it was mercy he was after.
But it had already been too late for that. He's caught himself between the screen and the windowpane, and there's no way in either direction that he can see.
There's no mercy to be found in Leah's gaze and that's a reality that Loren will simply have to reconcile himself with, so long as he continues to walk the path that not only his father but his brother had advised against.
...He knows what Engil would have chosen to do, and that only twists the knife. Engil is dead. His story is over. Loren's still goes on. And yet, and yet--
It would have been better if circumstances had been reversed.
It's not the first time he's thought this.
Neither will it be the last.
Leah has orders and they're simple ones after a fashion. --She already knows, he finds himself thinking, that realization coming as a shock even though it shouldn't have. Of course she already knows what 'allies' he'd made on Energy Nede.
In other circumstances, they'd use their infiltrator operations for something like this. Likely, they're planning to do just that. But despite being a medical officer, Loren has gained an unusual set of skills, and Solaris, for all its might, can find itself surprisingly shorthanded for First Class personnel with his particular set of skills.
But, no, wait, more than that, what's a surprise is that she thinks they can use Pokemon to...
"...Are you certain?" he asks, and he can't help but think of how... uncompromisingly willing the Pokemon he'd met had been to travel along with him. "It doesn't seem that they can stand against the Ten Wise Men, either."
But keeping an eye on the Nedians... that, at least, is easier for him to understand. After all, it would hardly be the first time he'd kept watch on another.
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.
It was too late; it is too late. Now, things are advancing quickly... And it seems that Leah is not willing to leave Loren behind.
What would've changed, had Engil lived? It's impossible to say now. But Leah does not bring him up now. Neither does Loren.
"I am," Leah says. "The ones we've seen are largely ordinary; strong as monsters go, but not something that draws our attention. ...But there may be stronger. Creatures made of Symbology..."
"Most of Solaris would disdain them, for not using Ether. But I do not. Creatures with magic in their very bones could be useful for our objective, beyond just their combat power against the Ten Wise Men."
"...indeed, if all goes well, the Ten Wise Men will be solved before we have to move."
A paus. "But yes, I'm certain. That is all." She waits a few moments--to let it sink in, to let him ask a question--but not long.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
There's nowhere left for him to go but forward and towards whatever waits ahead.
Leah, after all, won't allow him to fall behind.
"They're different from other monsters," he says, taking those first few tentative steps across what appears to be more stable conversational ground. "I didn't know Symbology could create things like this."
Of course he didn't. Symbology research in Solaris is a non-starter: perhaps there are a handful of scholars interested in it but they would be the minority as with any other non-Ether sorcerous applications. He wonders what the top brass must be thinking about it now.
Though he can make a pretty good guess, given Leah's own comments now. Some of them are going to be in a tough position, caught somewhere between their own chauvinism and the obvious influence of the ones who pull the strings in Solaris.
People like Leah. People who work for Krelian.
But then she says something puzzling. "...Before we have to move? Have they figured out a weakness?" he asks, unabashedly baffled by this remark. Not that he has doubt in what Solaris can do, but he'd been under the impression that the Wise Men were literally unable to be harmed in a way that mattered.
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.
"Neither did I," Leah answers, and perhaps it's humanizing. Perhaps not. "I have seen many things, but they've taken Symbology farther than we have by far. Their technology is ahead of even ours. Don't underestimate it."
Leah, as it happens, does not particularly mind when the higher-ups end up in tough positions. It's a 'them' problem, for sure. And a pleasing one.
Because Leah is now even more than she was before, there. Trouble.
"Not yet," Leah answers. "But they've done the impossible before. Even though we don't yet have a countermeasure ourselves, they may devise one, working with the Nedians."
"And if they do, then they can take care of our common enemy without losses on our part. That is why we need to understand Nede, and their monsters. So that we can operate smoothly as regards them."
"...Think on it."
She turns, and starts to go for the door.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
It would be wrong to call it a 'relief', precisely, that Leah remarks that even she had been surprised by such things. But neither is it entirely cold comfort -- at least in this, she's still human... for whatever it's worth.
"I noticed that," Loren says, adding, "While I was there," before glancing away from her briefly. Their medical science alone... even without looking deeper into their medical research some of what he'd learned had already made his head spin. "But they don't fight. They could have made weapons from their technology, or their Pokemon, but they've given all that up." At the very least, fighting the way that the people of Filgaia or Lunar do -- or the people of Solaris do -- is effectively anathema to them. Pokemon aren't weapons as such, either -- they're partners.
How are the Nedians that have left the confines of Energy Nede likely to think about the worlds they've stepped into? Loren had been aghast at the ways of the surface world at first, but...
As much as Energy Nede had not been particularly shocking to him in its ways and technologies, Solarians and Nedians have vastly different ways of regarding the worlds outside their boundaries.
Leah, though, implies there's some secret solution in the works.
No, more than implies: she tells him what Solaris' plan is. "Wait, you don't mean we...?"
And if they succeed, then it solves their problem for them. "...I see," he says, but the expression on his face says differently. Even in this, his heart is troubled.
"Then, as you have ordered, I'll see what I can learn," Loren says, turning his head to watch Leah as she goes towards the door.
She, after all, will be watching him every step of the way. He's certain of that.