2017-08-09: The Lotus Sets Its Roots
- Log: The Lotus Sets Its Roots
- Cast: Riesenlied, Ida Everstead-Rey
- Where: Linga
- Date: 9th August 2017
- Summary: Riesenlied visits Ida, and winds up exploring her mindscape to try to help soothe her woes...
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
It's evening in Linga. Ida sits in her hotel room, poring over a strange white metal disc with a magnifier. It's one of several--the rest are on the table she's sitting at, atop a length of blue cloth meant to protect both them and the table. She's in stocking feet, and her shirt-sleeves are rolled up past the elbow. She has been poring over these bizarre devices for the past hour, and hasn't made any headway--there's no sign of markings on them, or writing. They're blank. Perhaps they're intentionally blank?
She's not expecting visitors.
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Riesenlied has finally found the time to separate herself from so many of the activities and events that have befell her since the end of the Lacour tournament -- or at least, spared herself enough time to come to Linga, her eared hood draped over her head as she checks to the inn to inquire about an Everstead-Rey and... eventually comes knocking to Ida's door. It's a telltale way that she knocks, not that they've devised any kind of special linguistic for it. Just a habit.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
There is absolutely no reason for Ida to get jumpy over someone knocking at the door, and yet she does. She sits upright, curling her hand around the magnifier to keep herself from dropping it. The disc falls from her fingers, landing softly on the cushion of fabric. Ida closes her eyes, takes a breath, and reminds herself that she knows that knock. Today, it conjures up relief and resentment in equal measure, with a chaser of guilt. Ida swallows it all with practiced ease, rises from her seat, and walks over to open the door.
"Riesenlied," Ida says, with a broad smile. She certainly looks well enough--certainly better than she did after Harken was through with her. "Do come in." There's another chair opposite the table with the blank artificial mediums on it. Ida locks the door behind the both of them, as is prudent.
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Riesenlied looks just a little pale as she-- pauses to glance towards the mediums for a moment, after she enters. She looks to the door for a moment, then lets out a little breath of relief as she slips her hood down, the fabric spilling in with her ashen-blonde locks. She's been injured again, though it seems to be well treated and sealed with bandages around her forehead. "Miss Ida... I'm-- glad to see that you are recovering, after what had happened in Lacour."
A pause. "Those discs..." A pause. "Are they... Mediums?"
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida's eyes dart up to Riesenlied's forehead a moment, and she frets for a moment before deciding to just not ask. There isn't a flicker of it on her face. "I'm glad to see you well, after a fashion," Ida says. The discs. Riesenlied recognizes them. Mediums? "Is that...?" Ida picks up the disc she was working on, earlier, eyeing it. "They're the wrong shape and material, and there's no inscription on them at all. They're blank."
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Riesenlied drapes her arms around each other to say, "... I know. But I've seen them before." A pause. "Or rather, I saw someone who had a very similar device. 'Artificial' Mediums, Miss Avril called it." She glances towards Ida for a moment longer, before she expresses softly, "If it is blank... is it like how a Baskar Medium can be inscribed? I am not familiar with its inception or usage, I am afraid."
She hesitates. The shape is also familiar deep in her past... but she doesn't want to touch on that memory.
She sits down gently. "I have... something of yours."
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida has no idea who Miss Avril is. She files the name away for future reference. "These were gleaned from the Temple of Rejection," she says. "I believe I will need to speak with Miss Avril about them, then." Ida sits down opposite Riesenlied. For a moment, her face pulls tight, as if she's expecting an unpleasant revelation. A little break in the facade. "...what? What is it?"
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Riesenlied settles just for a moment, in quiet thought. "... that was where I first met Miss Avril. ... the Temple... it called to me -- yet, it rebuffed me in turn. A paradox..." she drapes her arms a little closer to herself as she recalls on that unpleasant memory. "So it held Mediums...? How curious..."
A pause, as she hesitates just for a moment, then unveils a little jewel box -- and opens a little clothed object around it, then unwraps the cloth. The lotus-leafed brooch is seated on the cloth, polished and wiped clean of blood. "... it seems Milady Harken acquired this from you in your fight."
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
More than just mediums, but Ida doesn't elaborate. She just feels exhausted for what seems like no reason--suddenly, with no warning. She sits up a little straighter, as if her aunt were here and critiquing her posture. She places her hands on the table, watching as Riesenlied withdraws the box.
The crest. She didn't even realize it was gone. Her father made it for her, and she completely lost track of it.
Ida stares at the brooch, and a soft shudder passes through her. She doesn't reach for it--she just stares at it. "Thank you," she says. The words are there, but the feeling is not.
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Riesenlied glances towards Ida for a moment longer, before she lowers her head. She probably could've expected that lack of feeling from someone else, but for Ida, it was a little bit stranger. "The Raye Clan..." A pause. "Or rather, perhaps a derivative of it? I recognise the symbol." She lowers her head just a little more, before she slips her hand to her purse and also draws another item -- this time, a letter.
"Sibyn also asked me to give this to you. ... she is shy, but she wanted to thank you for your help back at Old Petra. So I suggested that she write a letter to you, if that is all right." A-aww, someone has an admirer!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida blinks. She blinks more than strictly necessary to express confusion, because she's about to start crying and Riesenlied has done nothing to provoke it. "...Who?" she says. She reaches out to take the box, but it's almost an afterthought. She reaches out to take Sibyn's letter, failing to suppress a tic of some kind as she forces a gentle smile onto her face. "Thank you. After this... difficult few weeks, it's very welcome." She wants to scream that no it's not, everything is wrecked, don't give her more to take care of. She does not.
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Riesenlied lowers her head as she says, "Ah-- you might not remember, but she's a neonate who was present at Old Petra. She told me of how you encouraged her to take action when everything went down with Id. ... I appreciate it as well, of course." She sucks in a little breath as she glances towards Ida for a moment longer.
She reaches her hand out. "Miss Ida... are you feeling okay?" she asks, tenderly. It isn't probing or inquiring, just -- open, empathic. It's the tone she uses when she counsels someone.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida remembers that terrified young woman who barely survived her first engagement with powers beyond mortal ken. It hits far too close to home for her, right now.
Very well then. You see this as a game, then a game shall it be. A game for a child who knows not her own limits.
"It's nothing," Ida says, and it is as transparent a lie as there ever was. Riesenlied's fingers brush against hers. Ida shrinks back, but doesn't pull her hand away. "I'm nothing." Something approaching acceptance appears in her eyes, but it's not a very gentle peace. It is the acceptance of someone who knows that something terrible is about to happen, and they are powerless to stop it. Someone who knows there's nothing they can do.
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Riesenlied pauses just for a moment longer, thinking of that fear Sibyn must've felt when she saw the belltower levitate like gravity were simply not a thing, a rule anymore. How it flew as it crushed her comrades, her siblings. How foreign that all must be to her, and yet, in the midst of that--
--how brave Ida was, to rally her and encourage her to save her comrades, to head to the mines, to help others who are wounded to seek shelter. How they both acted in tandem to work together to save guardsmen and Metal Demons.
"Miss Ida..." she whispers gently. "I do not think you are 'nothing'. You have been one of the bravest souls I've seen, both on and off the battlefield. You have dared to venture to understand ancient history where others only seek to shun it. Miss Miang also believes in you."
She leans a little closer. "What happened?"
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Riesenlied pauses just for a moment longer, thinking of that fear Sibyn must've felt when she saw the belltower levitate like gravity were simply not a thing, a rule anymore. How it flew as it crushed her comrades, her siblings. How foreign that all must be to her, and yet, in the midst of that--
--how brave Ida was, to rally her and encourage her to save her comrades, to head to the mines, to help others who are wounded to seek shelter. How they both acted in tandem to work together to save guardsmen and Metal Demons.
"Miss Ida..." she whispers gently. "I do not think you are 'nothing'. You have been one of the bravest souls I've seen, both on and off the battlefield. You have dared to venture to understand ancient history where others only seek to shun it. Miss Miang also believes in you."
She leans a little closer. "What happened?"
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida's lip trembles. Again, that mixture of relief and resentment wells up in her, and while she takes Riesenlied's hand, the other hand slowly clasps into a fist. "You say that," she says, "and I fear you're mistaking a stubborn, willful child's foolish decisions for bravery." She is trying to stay decorous. "I just want to run. I just want to hide until all this is over, and--and then--" And then what? Ida's head droops, a lock of hair slipping free and dropping across her eyes. "You have purpose," she says. She doesn't meet Riesenlied's eyes. Anger creeps into her voice. "You can stay sane and true in a den of monsters. I--"
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Riesenlied-- sucks in another breath, and then holds her hand gently. She doesn't rush anything. "... I can be afraid too, you know."
It's very tender, the way she expresses that. There's no facade at all, the way she admits weakness. "Many people think that I am fearful, the way I can't quite muster faith in anger and vengeance. And sometimes, what I do hurts people, and I know that all too well."
She lowers her head. "But I think it isn't just a child's decisions that led you this far. It isn't just a child's decisions that had that Fang displayed with the hope of coexistence one day, at the Fairgrounds. It isn't just a child's decisions that led you to investigate Gylfi, and Old Petra in turn."
There's a much fainter breath than even Riesenlied realises. "There is bravery in admitting fear as well. In admitting what you can do on your own, and what you need help with..."
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida's fingers tighten around Riesenlied's hand. The vulnerability in her voice when she admits that is unmistakable. It makes Ida feel worse. "I ran away," she says. She's not addressing Riesenlied's points so much as berating herself even more. "Do you know why I'm even here? I'm here because I don't have the stomach for the way things are back home. I--I don't have the stomach for it, despite never wanting for anything because of it. And I don't--I don't care enough to confront them about everything. I don't want to leave." Tears trickle down Ida's cheeks as she raises her head again.
"Everything I've done, I've done because it would please someone else. I--I don't want to be me anymore."
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Riesenlied draws in a soft breath, as her wings stretch and a soft aura of what looks like ambient motes of light start to emanate around the room. It's gentle, and noninvasive -- it has a lightly calming feeling, unintrusive and simply there, like it's there to set a scene.
She quietly moves to gently place her arms around Ida, ever so gently, if allowed.
"... what do you want to be?"
Maybe it's from that point Riesenlied tries to ask Ida, to rebuild her confidence, ever so slowly. Because she knows that the strong Ida she knows is in there somewhere, if in need of guidance. "We all do things because it would please others. I'm no different. We turn away from the things that we fear, that we can't stand. I'm no different there either. I spent a lot of time in Ignas with all of you, perhaps too long, turning away from the horrible things that are happening to us in the Gutter."
She kneels down to her level, looking at her in the eyes softly.
"It's okay to have rough spots. But I'll help you find the Ida you want to be. Everyone deserves their own agency."
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
If Ida didn't know better, she'd describe that light as 'angelic'. It takes the edge off, but the pain is already buried deep. She starts to tremble as Riesenlied embraces her--as if unsure how to react, or whether she even wants this. "I don't /know/!" She follows it with a sob, remembering how K.K. reacted when she said the same thing. How helpless she felt. "I--I've done so much to hurt everyone. All of this is...
... You fight for naught but yourself, child. You fight for no cause but to affirm your self-righteousness. To flee from your own weakness. Naught more than a half-hearted unguent for your guilt-ridden ego.
Whatever shreds were left of Ida's composure evaporate. She starts to sob, her body shaking from the force of it. She presses her face against Riesenlied's chest--her mind is a roiling, seething mass of emotion, anger and disgust and resentment and despair. Was she hiding this all this time?
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida looks back at Riesenlied with big, reddened eyes. She feels vulnerable in a way she's never felt before. Nevertheless...
"Yes, please."
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Riesenlied smiles more gently, nodding. She takes a deep breath... and focuses, as her wings spread broader -- there's a quiet and uncomfortable noise as the Pinions around her begin to spread, serving as focal points to better cloud the area in the mote of her photons, which comes with shed blood in that process. But before long, the limning aura of light begins to overtake the both of them.... ....
... and the two slowly descend towards what seems like a wide expanse of soft pastel colours, without a defining boundary or a horizon. It feels calming to be in here -- the aggressive edges of negative emotion have been stripped away, leaving one more capable of asserting oneselves mindfully. "... I-- have not fully mastered this power yet, mind you. Forgive me if there are imperfections..." A pause. "Let's start from the beginning, then...?"
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida has no idea what's about to happen. All she knows is that it has to be better than this sad, pathetic state she's in right now--barely capable of coherent speech, sobbing in the arms of someone who has every reason to despise her. She closes her eyes, and feels herself...
...descending...
Things start to take shape. A wood-paneled floor that was once luxurious and polished, now covered with scrapes and scratches. A set of elegant armoires, gouged and scratched, yet full of neatly-organized file folders. A workbench that seems too tall for Ida to sit or stand in front of comfortably, covered in mechanical odds and ends. A tiny sculpture of a Metal Dragon in flight, with an unquestionably human rider. A worn leather divan.
Ida and Riesenlied sit on the couch. Ida looks briefly startled--she runs a finger through her hair, not knowing when it got loose from its bun, or how it got so messy. She's wearing an undershirt and the same white linen slacks she had on in the hospital. A length of odd metal cloth lies draped over her shoulder, and over the back of the divan.
"...what?"
That's Ida's eloquent response to all of this.
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Riesenlied looks about the workbench and the room for a moment, her lips drawing just a little bit of bated breath as she glances towards Ida in this mental landscape that she's created for the both of them. She pauses for a moment, before placing her hand to her cheek. "Ah... usually, your mind races to create a space that you'd find comfortable and familiar."
She looks around with a pleased little smile as she says, "Is this a workshop from your childhood, perhaps...?"
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
"...pieces," Ida says. That desk shouldn't be so large, and nor should that workbench. That window shouldn't be that high off the ground. But that dragon statue, though--it's just the right size. "This is a reproduction of a sculpture in the Master's Gardens," Ida explains, reaching over to pluck it off the endtable at the end of the divan. "Industry Astride The Dragon. I liked it. I once took it and played with it along with my dolls." The inexplicable metal cloth rustles. Ida seems to recognize it, and how it's oddly frayed at one end. She pulls it around herself like a blanket.
"Pieces of my home. I've never seen it so... shabby, though."
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Riesenlied laces her fingers together as she glances around -- it's as if they've been shrunk. "Everything is large here. Is it because we're seeing it as you did in your childhood?" She looks warmly towards Ida as she drapes that metal cloth around herself, then inspects the little figurine as she looks towards it.
"Industry astride the Dragon..." she repeats in murmur. "To be frank, it almost seems-- oddly respectful, even if I know the bones of such Dragons are used in industrial ways, never to be recovered or laid to rest..."
A pause, as she tilts her head. "The shabbiness... may be a suggestion from your subconscious. A note of your state at this point in time. We can work through it. Focus on the important things, Miss Ida. The things most precious to you." The cloth, the sculpture... they must have had a lasting impression on her.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida can only nod. She remembers tagging along with her father, and having to be boosted up onto the workshop chairs because she couldn't climb up into them on her own. How he put on her dark goggles and apron before his own, even though she was only watching. "I was never truly scared of them--the dragons. I knew the world outside thought they were frightening, but to me... I wanted to learn more. I didn't even realize your kind existed until I started reading about them in books."
She runs fingers along the metal cloth. "Kalve gave this to me several weeks ago, along with... what was left of Devil's Due. He didn't feel it was right to repair it for me."
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Riesenlied blinks once, before she places a hand gently on Ida's shoulder, looking down to the cloth. "Noeline told me briefly... that you and Kalve had become-- um, close." There's a tender chuckle, as she tilts her head. "I am glad for the both of you, of course..."
But, ah, that might not be the best thing to bring up right now.
"I could see how you could come to admire Dragons when your city has so much heraldry associated with them," she expresses. "Like that brooch I returned to you -- the dragons upon it look majestic, not menacing." A pause. "Is that where your interest in studying them, as well as Devil's Due, came from?"
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Surprise crosses Ida's face, followed by realization. Of /course/ Noeline told her girlfriend. How could she not? "I, ah," Ida says. "Y--yes." She practically jumps on the change of subject, though she pulls the cloth a little tighter. "Yes," she says. "Not just that. Father took me to the museum when I was small, and every time we were there, I'd ask to see the Dragons. He'd put me on his shoulders, and even then, I couldn't see eye-to-eye with them. I liked to pretend I could climb on them, and go flying off. Like--"
A life-size mockup of a Metal Dragon skull sits in front of the divan, as if to illustrate. But then--
"I saw them. I appreciate the sentiment. I do. However... You didn't answer my question. Think about it. Consider it well, which is more important. The spirit of your promise, or this... Whatever you want to call it."
It's Zed's voice. He sounds gravely-serious. Riesenlied sees him looking down at someone--Ida, probably--like she's a small animal, and he is the predator moments away from eating her.
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Riesenlied is surprised to hear Zed's voice -- she doesn't quite understand the context of his intense line of scrutiny... but she could guess. She looks back towards Ida. "Zed is young," she has to first remind Ida. "He voices his sentiments purely, but that can come with a callousness of its own."
It isn't really accusatory of anyone, though -- more of a -- statement, just a matter-of-factly thing that she feels needs to be laid out. "But I understand. A childhood dream, that doesn't quite match with the reality of the situation."
She looks towards the figure again, smiling. "It is like Sibyn, is it not? She has lived a life within metal walls where she is promised glory and awe in conquest. She had to seldom think about retaliation or backlash. She grapples with that situation now..."
A pause. "As do you."
She places that hand back on Ida's. "A childhood dream may have its limits, but it is the seed of inspiration within it that carries us to the future. A Metal Dragon does not fly before its wings are tempered."
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida looks away. She snuggles up into the metal cloth, her shoulders sagging. Riesenlied feels the sensation of an emberace--but not Noeline's, or Ida's, because there are too many arms holding her. It's phantasmal, but it seems to soothe Ida somewhat, as well as make her more keenly aware of an absence. "I don't see how," she says. "Or if it's purpose enough to save me."
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Riesenlied looks towards Ida as she keeps that patient expression up, moving so that they can be level, feeling that sensation, and draping her arms in turn around Ida's. "What do you need to be saved from?" She bobs her head to one side. "Who did you hurt -- who did you think you hurt?"
She turns her head to one side. "Moreso, what did Zed say about your promise?"
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
"...He felt..." Ida swallows, trying to remember. Mostly, she remembers Zed's rage, his accusation. "I was being forced to choose between my honor and my career." Not precisely, but the general idea is there. She pauses a beat, and sighs a heavy sigh. "As if I had honor. Everything my family built has been built on the blood and bodies of others. If not in war, then in... in the conditions the industry inflicts on those who don't have the money to escape it."
The window grows larger, seeming to tilt downwards, as if someone was peeking through it. It changes shape ever-so-slightly, to the window in the door of a motor-coach, driving over a bridge. The river beneath is thick and brackish, and decked on either side with little tin shacks. Rows upon rows of little tin shacks, larger tenements of brick and stone, little shops nestled next door to factories full of growling, roaring machinery. Some days, there is a stench in the air so thick that it lodges in the throat. On other days, there is also a haze in the air that turns the sunlight filmy.
People lived in those little tin shacks on the bank of the river. Ida never saw them except in glimpses.
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Riesenlied doesn't look like she's familiar with either the trappings or the setting, but she surmises this must be more of Guild Galad. She looks towards the shacks and the tenements, however, and then expresses with a quiet reservation:
"It is eerily similar to the Gutter."
She concentrates for a moment, so as to create another window for Ida to glimpse through. Similarly, she's privy to a little view of a heap of trash and junk -- darkened and permeated with layers upon layers of frost in a cavern that does not even so much catch a glimpse of the sunlight. Much like the Guild Galad ghettos, the Gutter is similarly made of ramshackle odds and ends, little huts made of the remnants of a bulkhead here, the wing of what might once been a Metal Beast there. A filthy, squalid pool of nigh-frozen water sits at the bottom-most layer, upon which several Tainted huddle around a makeshift campfire. Their living metal physiology affords them no comfort from the cold.
It's gone, before it can get too distracting. It's there as a comparison.
"Industry and rapid progress are too often built on the backs of those that can be exploited. The same is true of its relation to military and warhawk politics. I have spoken to you of how it has poisoned our culture for centuries."
She lowers her head. "If there exists such a rift in you... what it is that you want to fight for, Miss Ida? Your heraldry has proud roots in fighting, but it has become an ally to the military-industrial complex you now see before you. I understand well the burden that family places upon you... but..."
She looks sympathetic as she turns to her again. "Is this you?"
She holds her hand out. "If you don't think so... let's find the real you, who must exist in the midst of this. Searching for her own path."
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
This is the first time Ida's seen the inside of the Photosphere. She was not expecting it to look like home.
She shivers, and holds Riesenlied tighter. "I don't know," she says, her voice a high, thin whimper. "I don't want to say I do because it will make you happy. I--I don't like it. No one should have to live like that, ever. /I/ don't want to have to live like that, but..."
"I don't know if there /is/ a real me."
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Riesenlied looks towards Ida and says, "I don't think we are just one persona. Forcing someone to choose only serves to contradict themselves further... don't you think so?"
She looks towards that window again for a moment. "I think--"
She looks a little more intently. "I think there is an honourable Ida out there, somewhere, the Ida who's willing to fight tooth and nail to save her friends. Who'd join expedition to rescue kings, to fight Metal Demons, to plumb the depths of the ruins no matter what danger it brought her. An Ida that's been spurred on by childhood stories, of the fancies of an industrial town built high on fossil and labour, ever cast in its shadow."
Her smile is a bit more wan. "And I think there is a career-focused Ida out there too, the Ida who is tied with the Everstead-Rey company, who wishes to do good by her parents. The Ida who presents Fossils in study proudly, who wishes to do right by her name and her clan. An Ida that enjoys that attention within academic circles and is detail and study-focused, but stressed by the pressures brought about by such a position."
She sucks in a breath. "And why do they have to be contradictory or exclusive to one another? We are complicated beings, Ida, all of us. Neither of those facets of you are lies, now are they? The experiences you have had so far are all true, and they form who you are as a person up until today."'
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida looks back at Riesenlied, and listens. It seems like Riesenlied knows more about her family than she does, but... she's not sure if she wants to talk about that right now. "There is also an Ida who feels very small and very helpless." Riesenlied feels cold metal fingers--a gauntlet--brushing against her throat, for just a second. "Who feels at the mercy of old, powerful things that could kill her if they so chose."
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Riesenlied tilts her head in turn. She can't hope to know about Ida's intimate family situation, of course, but... she's had time to glance the inner workings of academics from afar, and from what she gleaned from what happened at the fair, and from the whitepapers published... there was prestige to be considered there. She-- winces just for a moment, placing a hand to her throat.
"... we all live in the shadow of ancient threats every day. My brethren. Id. That masked man -- Grahf, I believe."
She breaths quietly, and concentrates for a moment...
The landscape shifts gently to that of a dry, arid, cracked wasteland. It is strange, the way the land seems richly metallic in its veins, so similar to Filgaia, and yet unlike it in many ways. No life could ever possibly dare to seek growth here, and yet...
A single flower, sprouting from a small fragile blossom stands there, defiant.
"... this flower is called 'Laevateinn', in our myths," she expresses as she shares the memory, the myth. "It is and has been my inspiration. There are many times when I feel small and helpless myself... after all, I am oft in the line of fire for advocating strange and heretical ideas amongst my brethren. Many elders have called for my scrapping, long before we met."
There is a tender little sigh.
"But..."
The flower bristles, as it peaks up to the sun. To the winds, that spur it onward.
"We aren't alone. Individually, we may be weak and helpless... but we can also find refuge in solidarity."
The scene shifts to the Gutter, again, as a weak and limping Metal Demon gasps from where it attempts to walk across the street on half a leg, scraping by on his forearms -- before another bulkier one shifts to support his weight as they walk together. At that fire, lit by sparks from an ancient machine, several demons huddle together as they contribute to an iron pot that contains enriched gruel from MRE crates that they scavenge.
"We can kindle the light of hope together."
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
"K.K.," Ida whispers, in what seems like an addition to Riese's list. She doesn't say much after that--she just processes the images, and listens to Riesenlied's words. There's a hint of hesistance to accept them outright--but it seems more like Ida weighing the words on her own, rather than accepting them out of hand. The image of the Gutter flickers and wavers, like a pool of water someone disturbed. And then it is a pool of water, calm and still, the bottom thick with mud and debris.
It's called a lotus, Dearheart. They grew them at the monastery, and in gardens all over the world. The lotus sets its roots in the river mud, and grows until it breaks the surface, where it makes a beautiful blossom. It symbolizes beauty growing out of ordinary things, and hope growing from ugliness.
Ida listens to her mother's words, a tear flowing down her cheek. Clasping the metal cloth with one hand, she reaches out, and plucks the lotus blossom free from the pool.
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Riesenlied pauses, and things seem to just make a little bit more sense to her now.
She looks towards the lotus, with a quiet smile of her own. She waits until Ida has taken the lotus for her own, before wicking away at that tear, ever so gently. "I am glad that similar stories and flowers exist here as well." She draws in a quiet breath, before she expresses, "... I have spoken plenty with the Trial Knight myself. ... I admit, that they are harsh, yet they have let me learn truths about myself that I had perhaps shied away from."
She looks towards the air for a moment longer. "... recovery doesn't happen overnight, Miss Ida. But it is useful to see things for what they are, in perspective."
She seems content to let that be for now, letting Ida spend time with her mother's words, and the lotus. It holds a lot of meaning to her, and she's not about to take that away from her.