2019-01-12: Caged Bird
- Log: Caged Bird
- Cast: Lan Lilac, Loren Voss
- Where: Etrenank
- Date: January 12, 2019
- Summary: Lan, going stir-crazy, wants to go out and experience some of Etrenank. Loren obliges.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
For all that she was set up in the guest room and has occasionally even been invited into Loren's for reading lessons, Lan... really, really spends a lot of time in Engil's room. She never touches anything more than the bedclothes (not that Mirza would ever leave a corner untucked, but Lan likes to feel Helpful) and seems to spend a lot of that time meditating.
Even when Loren was with her on Filgaia, she never spent this much time in quiet reflection.
Seated cross-legged on the throw rug once again, Lan has been quiet and still for upwards of an hour when she finally opens her eyes, heaves a sigh, and unfolds herself from the lotus position.
She's so close...!
But then, if she could figure things out just by wishing for it, she'd be some kind of super genius.
It'd be really nice if she could do anything besides 'be here'. There's got to be someplace she can find new books, or clothes, or... anything other than the Voss's (lovely, stylish for space people, incredibly high-tech) home. She frowns and goes to the window, looking out over the wall. Well... if he's been home for a couple of days, it's probably fine by now...
Which is what brings Lan knocking at his bedroom door a little bit after lunch. "Hey. Can you let me out of the front gate? I want to go look around, and I want to look for new books. Okay?"
She knows damn well that she can't go out without Loren, but this way at least 'coming with her' will have been his own idea, somehow...?
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Let this stand as the record: in all the time since Loren has been home, he hasn't left the house.
Sure, it could be argued that he has a good deal of recovery to attend to -- his body might be whole, but there's still the recovery from the treatment to manage, and of course the adjustment to the fact that he's a month out of synch when a whole calvacade of events have taken place in the interim.
And yes, there was the matter of his parents and their being home -- together even if it was just for a few days before his mother's granted leave expired.
And fine, there's also been the promised lessons with Lan -- language and anatomy, as he'd said (though even this hasn't been enough to get more than a partway past the basics).
But he's still not found even an hour in all that time to step out. And no one's come by, either.
He seems to just remain in his room when not bidden elsewhere.
Then there had been the message that had arrived the other day and the heated discussion he'd had with his father about said message the other night, one that Lan might have caught a fragment thereof. He's been distant today, barely out even by his standards.
And then there came a tapping, as of someone gently rapping, rapping at his chamber door.
He opens the door a moment later to squint at Lan. "What is it--"
She explains.
He grimaces as if put upon. "I can't just let you wander around, you know. You're not even a citizen." He glances back over his shoulder, at a half-completed model resting on his desktop. It appears to be a Gear...?
"If there's something you need, we can just order it, you know."
But that's far from the whole of what she was asking, and even an idiot like he knows that.
A certain silence reigns supreme for a long series of seconds.
And then:
"Ugh."
Followed by: "...Fine. I'll go with you. I guess might as well go out before we return to the surface."
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Lan is... very, very glad that Loren's parents are home. Even if the relationships between all three of them (four including Mirza, though Loren would certainly not include her in the family diagram) are strained and... a bit distant, she's been able to see a side of him that she hasn't before.
Lan has only known Loren the med student, the soldier, the explorer... but never Loren the son. It's kind of odd.
But it's still good to see that he's a real person, and didn't just climb out of an egg somewhere in Etrenank.
But... if he'd hatched out of an egg or been found in a cabbage patch, it would explain part of why he's so weird.
"I don't want to order clothes, how would they even begin to fit me?!" The idea is practically alien to her. Sure, magazines and catalogs are fine for things like books and houses and housewares, but things that have to be a certain size? While he's grumping, she follows his gaze to his desk and the model kit. So he's the one who built them, after all... "That's the spirit," she smiles at him when he finally acquiesces. "Besides, if you don't come out and look, how will you know if stuff's still the same? What changed? Maybe there's someplace new that you'll love~" Almost as much as Lan loves sunshine and getting off of space future house arrest. "Meet me down by the front gate when you're ready!"
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Leah must have pulled strings. It's already the case that his mother had cashed in as many favors as possible to see him after his return to Lunar -- he'd be surprised if she had anything left she could use. And his father? Forget it -- there was nothing a disgraced researcher could do to obtain the necessary pull. Given Leah's words in the hospital...
...It made his guts twist in guilt.
Even if he was grateful. It's been two years nearly since he's seen his father. A few months since he'd last seen his mother -- and that only because of the circumstances.
The last time the three of them had been in the same room had been at his graduation.
Longer still since there were four of them.
Which only made his father's pressuring worse.
Of course he doesn't understand -- his father is a researcher, not a soldier like the rest of them. Of course, he knows his father is worried. But it's still just so...
Even if he had the choice to request reassignment -- he doesn't, not after what he'd asked Leah, those many months ago -- he wouldn't take it.
But all of this is just scenery to the request Lan makes of him now -- just context for his unusual degree of grumpiness, even now.
"There are body scans?" he says, a touch incredulous when she asks how she'd even know if they would fit.
And yet, he still agrees, in the end.
Perhaps because this may in fact just be the last time he'll be home.
For real, this time.
He closes his eyes as if aggrieved. "Maybe. This place doesn't change that much."
He's pretty sure of that.
"Fine. I'll see you there."
It's probably about ten minutes proper before he arrives out by the gate. If she was expecting a key, or for him to even push the gate open, she'll have to be disappointed. He merely approaches it, stares it down, and says, "Hey. Open up."
It obliges.
"I guess you'll want to walk to Zebul district, huh? Normally I'd borrow the spare," spare what? "but sounds like you want the tour or something. ...Besides, it might protest since you're not in the citizen database." He shrugs, as if to say, 'what can you do'. "Well, you wanted to come out, so let's get going."
The avenue stretches along, passing perfect walled home by perfect walled home, each and every one sealed in by a gate like the one belonging to the Vosses. Above, clearest glass walls them off from the sky... and Filgaia, below.
"If it's books you want," he says, as they walk along, "There's only a few places in Zebul that sell physical books. Lucky for you, though. Second and Third Classes don't even use them. Unless they're in research or something, anyway."
They take up space, and space is a premium here. It's easier to just download what you need from the network.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Lan was ready to leave before he ever even answered his door. She waits as patiently as possible in the yard, her hair neatly pulled back with its silver ribbon. Even in Etrenank, there are things that Lan won't or can't give up...
"Oh, there you are!" she beams at him from beneath the single tree. She can't help it - she's been waiting for weeks to leave this yard. But when he just orders the gate to open, and it does... Lan can't help but stare for a moment, before darting out onto the walk as if Loren might change his mind and seal her away again. "Of course I want to go out! I've been inside for a month! Sure, let's go to the Zebul thingy...!" she practically laughs.
Borrow the spare? The spare what? She can't smell a stable anywhere near here, and something tells her that animals of nearly any sort are practically non-existent here - at least, compared to how Lan knows them, as things that just are.
As they walk along, she tilts her face up to look at the planet now and then. The big continent is Ignas, which puts her hometown right about... She stares at the Badlands, and wonders if the ever-encroaching edge of the desert has completely swallowed her village yet.
Loren says something about books. "...Huh? Oh, I've finished all the ones you got that are still at my reading level. Is this like that thing I saw you using, the data screen? It can keep books inside of it, right?" she guesses. "But I like the feel of paper, and the smell of ink. Even if I can't take a book with me, there's still just something kinda luxurious about them~ Like a hot spring! You can't take it with you, but you can carry the experience!" She seems very proud of herself, clasping her hands behind her hips as she walks alongside him.
After a moment, Lan glances over at Loren again. "Isn't there anything you want from town? Not even a new model to put together? Or something for your parents?"
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Naturally, even if she had tried to ask it to open, it wouldn't have. It works on a two-tier system: the ID etched into his DNA, and his voiceprint.
Neither, naturally, being things she possesses.
"It's the commercial district for the First Class," Loren explains as she darts on out the gate. If he'd had any doubts left about how much she wanted to get out of their house -- out of their yard -- well, here's his answer.
It's almost, almost a little bit funny.
He follows after.
The 'spare what' might be answered as another person comes riding down the road in a device that looks a little bit like some of the automotives in the Seed Cities, except without the 'wheels' part. Indeed, it seems to be floating. The sole occupant presents the two of them with a curious gaze, as if attempting to make head or tails of what they're doing, but...
Loren's expression darkens. "...But let me be clear on one thing: most people here won't speak your language. So let me do the talking. And stay close. No wandering, got it? Like I said, you're not in the system, but I'll be able to vouch for you."
And if someone really pushes it, he has the paperwork on her with him. It'd be a pain if they thought she was a lost Worker Bee.
And if they took her into custody... probably Leah would have to sort that one out.
"I mean it. Don't go where I can't see you."
He, of course, does not look up at the world below.
"Yeah. It's more convenient to use a tablet, but some people like books more," he says, with a shrug. "I guess I don't really care either way, but some people make a point of collecting them. It's a status thing, like having a garden." Both luxuries in a place where it's impossible to build beyond what exists already. He just has some books himself as a natural result of being one the elect.
There is something nice about having something you can touch, though... even if he doesn't voice that thought aloud to her.
"This is 'town'," he says, ever pedantic. He shakes his head. "Not really. Maybe something to eat."
Something for his parents...?
Well, that's a thought.
They continue along, passing yet another seemingly identical manor. Off, ahead, the homes give way to what looks to be a large plaza of some sort. Reaching there will take some time.
~*~*~*~*~*~
It's clean, white. Sterile. Glass and smooth metal, as far as the eye can see, and broken up here and there with the bright lights of various businesses. Signs. Etherial holograms advertising this or that productserviceevent. Solarian script on an endless scroll. A news feed, complete with news anchors and images fed in of the event in question.
Sound, a sursurus of voices, advertisements, music. It's a far cry from the quiet of the manor house's home.
And there people. Not as many as the larger cities on Filgaia. Far fewer than the other lower-class districts in Etrenank. But there is a crowd of people here -- paused before the holographic displays and watching on, chatting with one another, or simply going about errands.
Most of them are blond. The ones who aren't...
Well, Loren knows they're house servants. You can tell just by looking.
"Over here," he says, guiding her into a particular shop. It uses a more subdued lighting than some of the others.
...Probably because this is a bookstore, and thus meeting the needs of a different sort of clientele.
"Well? Take a look around," Loren says, gesturing towards the shelves of books.
Realization seems to hit him. "...Right. You'll need me to tell you what they're about, huh..."
A pause. He does not look back, does not even want to see what sort of stare the book seller is giving him. "<She's with me,>" he says, in Solarian. "<Bill it to Voss.>"
Shrugging off the irritation, he stares at Lan fixedly. "So? What are you looking for?"
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Asking the gate to open was actually in the first five things she tried. What, she watched Leah and Mirza do stuff sometimes! It's too bad that politeness hasn't been getting her very far, in this weird city in the sky. Zebras, gazelles, worker bees...
She gets out of the way of the cart-thing, staring openly at the floating vehicle as it and its occupant putter on by. "Why was he staring at us?" she asks, but thinks maybe she already knows. Does she really stand out that badly here?
~*~*~*~*~*~
This... isn't a town. Not the way Lan is used to them, dusty and sprawling collections of buildings and people and a hundred tangled stories all weaving into what people will call 'history' one day. It's a ... she doesn't know what it is. Sure, there are people, but... When they leave the manor houses behind, Lan takes a single step closer to him on the sidewalk and reaches for his hand. "Don't lose me," she doesn't quite request. Even if she'd been able to come out by herself...
It's starting to become very apparent that she wouldn't be able to blend in for long, even without trying to speak Solarian.
Everybody here looks as if they live the same life as Loren. Maybe not in Gebler, or even Solaris's normal military forces, but... privileged. They look as though they all belong, as if they just know where they belong. Lan catches herself staring at the crowd and hurries after Loren into the bookstore.
She wanted a book, sure, but Lan hadn't really given thought to the fact that she would have to find one to buy. "Uh... I just wanted something different. A new story, or maybe something I can read once I practice a little more." She leans to one side, peering past him at the shopkeeper as Loren speaks his weird space language. Lan smiles at him, because kindness costs nothing and has even occasionally gotten her a nice discount. Her usual state of dress being something akin to 'desert skank' doesn't hurt either.
"How about something simple? What did you read when you were still learning?" Being unable to speak Solarian, Lan has thankfully missed out on most of the propanganda. "I remember that I had some books that a cousin gave us, but they would have been given away as soon as I outgrew them. Isn't there anything about the stars, or what makes people people?"
Those aren't children's book topics, are they...?!
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Why was he staring at them?
Loren just gives her a look. The sort of look that's paired with the once-over, as if to underscore the lot of her.
Even wearing their clothing, she stands out amidst the pale coloration favored by the elite...
A fact that is bolded and underlined within the shopping district proper.
She grabs for his hand. He glances over, gazes at her, puzzled now.
At least until he takes in the look in her eyes, that look that might be more at home in the gaze of a lost and wayward calf. Etrenank, for someone who wasn't born here...
He can sort of understand, in his own way. Hasn't he had stares before? At least no one -- not many anyway -- are staring at her and whispering in the plaza proper. She's just another houseservant tagging along with her master to their eyes, he figures.
Meanwhile he's always going to be a Voss.
Still. He doesn't let go of her hand, as embarrassing as the situation is.
He moves quickly, as quickly as he can, into the shop.
He wants to be over and done with this. At least he'll be headed back the surface after, and this can all be gone and forgotten.
Though the hurdle of actually shopping... is another story.
The bookseller doesn't smile back. He lifts a blond eyebrow and stares at her instead.
"<She's learning to read so she can be more useful,>" he explains, finally turning to face the book seller proper.
"<Really,>" says the bookseller, leaning on the counter as if this is the most interesting thing he's heard in a while. "<She looks like a dim one. Are you that hard up for assistants?>"
Loren pinches the bridge of his nose. Emperor, why... did he even wake up today? "<Yes, really. Maybe a children's book? ...Do they even print those?>"
Sardonically, the bookseller smiles... and shakes his head. "<...Thought so>," Loren sighs. This is a disaster.
He turns back to Lan. "...I used digital books when I started," he explains. "If you're looking for something you can hold and that's easy..."
Something about stars. Or what makes people people?
"...You want a biology book?" he blurts out, before shaking his head. "...No, forget it. Come on, let's see if there's something..." He reaches out to pull her along, desperate to vanish into the stacks (and get away from the bookseller).
Stars, at least, he knows.
And after a moment of browsing, pulls down a slimmer volume. "Try this. It's mostly star charts so there's not a lot of text, just labels."
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
On Filgaia? Even on the moon? There had been things that Lan could use as touchstones. Things that she could compare to her own life, her own experiences, the smell and sound of rain and wind, the hum of soil as worms work tirelessly to break down dead plants into nutrients for fresh green leaves.
Here, the only green is in pots, or on clothing, or in the eyes of the lily-white people wandering the streets. She'd thought he was a city boy, but the truth was much, much stranger...
Loren is an alien, through and through!
And so are the people in his weird space city! When the shopkeeper doesn't smile back at her Lan shrinks back behind Loren, her smile turning into a puzzled frown (and no doubt only confirming some of the bookseller's theories about her). That's weird. Maybe it's because this smock-thingy doesn't show any cleavage?
"Bio... no, you already have lots of those," she shakes her head, ponytail waving behind her. "Biology is what makes us human, right? But what about... I dunno, stories? History, campfire tales, philosophy? The things that make 'humans' into 'people'." She follows him deeper into the stacks, complacently tugged along by the wrist with only a single glance behind them at the bookseller. "..."
When he hands her the book, Lan isn't looking at him. "...Hey... Was that guy saying mean things to you?" she asks, looking up to see him holding the star book out to her. She takes it, flipping it open to a random page. The chart... Lan squints at it. It's familiar...
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
It was strange for him when he'd arrived on the surface. Adjusting to the shift in gravity hadn't been the half of it. Sure, he'd known what to expect -- they'd prepared him for it in Jugend, and there had naturally been an entire assortment of materials for him to review.
Still. It was a world where water fell from the sky.
A world marked by excessive shifts in heat and cold.
A world where you had to be mindful of insects and other things keen on introducing themselves to you.
A world where the glare of the sun -- to say nothing of the solar rays on the skin -- could blind you.
A strange living, dying world.
Only Lunar had been stranger still.
"Oh. Stories. That's what you meant."
He thinks for a moment. "Guess they'd be further to the left." Away from the sciences. "They probably have some novels-- er, no, forget those." They're probably too difficult for her to read.
"They might have some stories about the founding of Solaris..."
He's not looking at the bookseller. This is probably just as well, since the bookseller sort of rolls his eyes and settles back behind the counter as they vanish into the depths of the store.
"Hm? Not really."
Yes, runs the thought. Just vague enough for it to be deniable, just pointed enough to wound. So, the usual.
"So how's that one? That's the stars in the northern hemisphere -- you'd be able to see them from most of the Aveh desert," he says, pointing at a constellation.
It's not a formation known in any of her stories. Abstract, like it's meant to be a stick-figure outline of a warrior.
"Or did you want to look at literature? ...Philosophy work's probably beyond you, honestly... and it's not that interesting."
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
She remembers a lot of these stars. But the constellations...
Well, it's no wonder, right? That Solaris, divorced from the world below, would see different things in the night sky than Filgaians. Even if Lan doesn't recognize the figure of the warrior from her own culture, she understands that different peoples would need different stories. "I don't recognize the constellations, but the stars are all where thery're supposed to be," she murmurs offhandedly to him, eyes tracing the invisible lines of the 'real' constellations that this book simply doesn't seem to know.
It's okay if the 'overlay' is different, because what's underneath is always the same.
"It's just..." she trails off quietly, grasping for the words to define the concept. "...It's just different ways of interpreting the same things, isn't it?" Her attention is glued to the stars... and then it isn't, her pale purple eyes drifting toward Loren's torso.
If everybody sees the same stars, but takes away a different impression...
Doesn't that mean that every human is fundamentally similar, too?
She reaches out, forgetting the book in her left hand, to trace a shape over Loren's torso. "The meridians are all the same. So if we go from there... then every human has..." The pads of her index and middle fingers threaten to brush against the fabric of his tunic.
"It's like that," she breathes, mouth curving into a smile. "It's like that! There are stars inside of people too!" Lan seems pretty elated, even for someone babbling nonsense. "I finally found it! Loren, you're the best!!"
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
There are Official Constellations as recognized by the Solaris Astronomical Association (an organization that is... somewhat fringe; not for their science or politics or anything like that -- it's all settled regardless -- but simply because it is settled and has no value for Solaris as a military player and thus is populated almost entirely by the nerdier set of the nation), numbering 52 in total. Most of them reflect the foundational myths of the empire itself (here is the constellation of 'the Emperor', there is the constellation of 'the Garden' and naturally 'the Warrior') while others are more staid ('the Furnace', 'the Clock'). Still, there are some outliers.
The Griffon. The Swan.
The Mother.
"Hm?" Loren glances back over his shoulder, having turned to browse the shelving for anything else someone like her might be able to read. "I guess. It's the same stars." His attention leaves hers, sighting a certain title on the top shelf, just out of reach. He blinks. Is that really a copy of...
He reaches for it, leaning one hand against the lower shelf as a brace, straining his grasp.
The meridians are all the same. He's not really listening. Her hand reaches out.
Her fingertips brush against his tunic, just barely. He still starts at that barest touch, nearly jolting perilously into the bookcase. "What are you--" he starts to blurt out, whirling towards her as he reaches out to steady the shelving.
...'Stars inside people too?'
He falls silent, just staring at her.
"Well, yes, technically speaking there are--"
wait a minute, what did she just say
He makes a small noise that might be embarrassment, might just be him clearing his throat. He glances away. "...It's only basic astronomical theory. I don't know what you're so happy about."
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Yes. Because it's all the same stars.
The book is informational whether or not one likes Official Constellations. Because of it, because of the underlying message... Lan finally understands what she's been trying to grasp for the last month. There is an underlying paradigm to the technique she'd used a year ago or more, the one she'd never been able to use again after the Stranger had murdered her. --Had injured her, she corrects herself absently.
Because if Lan were truly dead, she wouldn't be here.
It's as simple as that.
"It's because after spending a month trying to take hold of something, you dropped it right into my hand." Lan closes the book gently and holds it against her chest like a talisman. "I was able to... against... the Stranger, I..." Lan blinks away the threat of tears and swipes at her eyes. Ugh, she's always going to be like this, isn't she? But then, Mama had always said there was nothing wrong with following her emotions.
Lan beams at him, Loren with all his strangeness and his stubbornness and his darkness. "You helped me out, is all," is what she decides to say. And she reaches out to him, a single finger extended...
...to gently poke a nerve cluster beneath his left pectoral muscle. If he doesn't dodge, a stiffness in his muscles that he might not even have noticed will loosen. "See? It's all stars!"
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
He continues to give her a look that suggests he still doesn't quite get the angle from which she's come at him from. "...Okay?" he attempts after a moment's worth of silence, tilting his head slightly to the right as if he's trying and failing to get what she's talking about.
'Take hold of something...?'
And yet, the moment when all the lights are flicked on and realization strikes home-- yes, there it is now.
Oh. Something she had tried against... him.
Azazel.
...He can understand this, can't he. It's similar -- a little too similar -- to how he had struggled to understand and make use of the Medium he possessed for so long before...
Even now he's not sure what had provoked the change. Had it been because of his desperation in that fight? Or had something else provoke the awakening?
And then she blinks her eyes and looks for the moment like she's about to cry. "Hey--"
And smiles at him nonetheless.
"That... helped you out? Realizing people 'are stars'?"
She reaches out to him in the next moment. He backs away a step. ...Not quickly enough, though. She jabs a finger at a point on his chest. "Hey--?"
Which is followed by silence. A baffled silence. "...Pressure points?" he wonders, brow screwed up in consternation. "I've heard about those. ...Martial arts, isn't it."
Stars. He thinks... he's starting to get it now.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
It's okay if Loren doesn't understand yet. Lan hadn't really expected him to. He's a little slow when it comes to things that aren't concrete, written-down-in-a-book facts. She tilts her head in tune with him, mirroring the gesture without ever really thinking about it. "Not that we're stars. But that we have stars inside of us. That we're the same as the universe, just... shrunk down a little, I guess." Lan smiles at him, even if he doesn't totally understand yet.
"I've been trying all month to find..." She grasps for a word, the concept, and comes up lacking. "A rhyme or reason to it. A way to explain something I saw once."
She had reached inside of the Stranger, but not the same way he had done to her. Lan had felt the meridians inside of his body tangle around her 'fingers', had known the instant her chakra had disrupted his. It might have been the only thing that saved her...
...Save, perhaps, the Stranger's own strange mercy. A bead of sweat gathers at her hairline, hidden by her bangs. Don't think about it.
Martial arts, isn't it. She nods. "I only learned from an auntie who had learned from someone else, you know," Lan tries to explain. "When there's so much left unknown... Don't you have to learn the answer on your own?"
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"I know that," he says, a hint of irritation sneaking into his tone. "You do know that's essentially accepted theor..." What had started off as strong and huffily overeducated peters out. No, she wouldn't know that, would she?
Loren considers explaining to Lan the matter of star death and supernovas, and the theoretic offspring of dying stars, of the essential fusion of elements. Of physics, chemistry, and the origin of the universe, perhaps.
For a moment there Loren bears a thousand-yard stare.
"...Never mind."
Some challenges are not worth it.
"Something you saw once?"
He pauses.
"When you were fighting... him?"
Azazel. It shouldn't have been possible: the illusions. That degree of power.
And yet. ...And yet.
When there's so much left unknown...
He shakes his head at her question, as if he doesn't understand it.
Don't you have to learn the answer on your own?
"I don't know. If someone else can show you the way..."
Working out things on his own has never, really, been his strong suite. Even if 'on his own' has been the natural way of things for some time now. At some point, you're no longer a student. At some point, you're thrust out into the wider world.
At some point, there's no one else to rely on.
"And what if you can't? Then what?"
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
A Solarian education - even a Third Class one - is vastly different from the scraps of knowledge pieced together by generations of Filgaians. If Loren had learned by memorizing neatly-written, carefully-curated volumes of data, then Lan had learned by tracing her fingers along the threads of a quilt assembled by her entire village. She doesn't seem interested in whatever 'essentially accepted theor' is, watching him expectantly as he apparently comes to terms with something in his own head.
Her lips thin when he mentions the Stranger, but Lan doesn't go pale and dizzy again. Maybe she's getting strong in more ways than one, Lan thinks optimistically. Maybe one day she'll be able to remember it without wanting to --finish dying-- be sick. "Yeah. When I... when we fought. After he..." She rests a hand just above her navel, where that thick, gnarled scar hides underneath the Solarian-made smock. "After he hurt me."
Loren won't let her fall back into the dark, right? Into the water. Even if he's only so fond of her... He wouldn't leave her in the Photosphere. Surely he'd save her from herself too, if she needed it. Lan's eyes are a little glassy when she smiles back at him, even though she's truly happy.
If you can't rely on others?
Lan takes a step closer, and another. Wraps her arms around him gently, and rests her chin on his shoulder for a moment briefer than taking a breath. "Then we have to figure it out on our own." As if she's conscious of how much the stolen moment might cost him (she isn't, not really), Lan steps away from him. "Don't worry. I'll be there to help you if you need it. Okay?"
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
By contrast, his own memories of his encounter with Azazel are clearer... the parts he lets him self reflect upon, that is. No doubt it would be easy to press down the rest of that path if he so chose, but he can remember enough from what he hasn't purposefully blocked out to know that some things are better not knowing.
And, by contrast, as he looks back over at her, he doesn't have a single mark on his body from that encounter. "..."
But for what he can permit himself to recall, it's nearly as if it never happened to him at all.
"Back then, huh."
She'd been alone, as had he.
Loren does not, in fact, figure out her intent until it's far too late to back away or use a nearby shelf as a barrier or, well, something to avoid the fact that she steps in close and wraps him in a hug.
"What are you--"
Does he look like he needed a hug, or help, or something?!
It's into the middle of this tableau that someone else coughs. Loren turns his head.
Surprise: it turns out they weren't the only customers in the shop today. There's a blond Solarian man standing there, gazing at the two of them as if he is working out what the two of them are doing and coming to a certain conclusion.
Part of Loren's soul dies in this moment. Extricating himself from Lan he moves to grab her by the wrist, walks a few steps towards the front only to about-face back towards the shelving, let go of her hand and haul himself up across the bookshelf to swipe a particular volume before moving at speed back towards the front. "Come on!" he calls to Lan, before waving the two volumes vaguely towards the bookseller as he speedwalks towards the exit. "<These two, the bill goes to Voss!>"
The only saving grace about any of this is that he's not going to be here in another couple of days.
He's never leaving the house again.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Loren never looks like he needs a hug. Sometimes Lan has to wonder about him...
Thankfully for Loren's sanity (and possibly his parents' social standing) Lan doesn't even linger in his personal space. By the time the other customer clears his throat, she's already taking a step back. Too bad that the damage seems to have been done!!
For her part, Lan just smiles pleasantly at the new face. She has no idea what kind of damage such an act could do to Loren's already-shaky reputation. She just wanted a hug, and to comfort a friend.
So when Loren grabs her by the wrist and turns to leave, Lan follows him with only a muted "?" sound of incomprehension.
The hastily-grabbed second volume only makes her eyebrows rise a little closer to her hairline, and then Loren's babbling something at the shopkeeper before Lan has to hurry after him or be seperated.
Her sandals (the only part of her clothes she could keep) scuff against the smooth streets as she trots hurriedly after him. "What's wrong? --Hey, aren't you going to pay for those?!"
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
They're probably going to spread that old one about him being into Third Class citizens again. Great. Just great.
At least he won't be here to hear about it. The worst he might get is some awkward messages from his father if he hears about this one.
At least it'll be easy to clear up.
"I did pay," he says, brusque. Then, with a sigh as he continues down the grey avenue of Etrenank's first-class streets, "They know who I am, and even if I didn't, they had my ID the moment I stepped in. They'll just bill it to my family."
He's silent a few more moments.
"Come on. Let's go somewhere else. I don't want to be here."
He leads her along in silence a distance through the noise and bustle of the shopping district, until they emerge just beyond it into a regimented garden. It must be a park, if a small one, marked primarly by shallow reflecting pools between the well-structured foliage.
"Maybe you'll like this place better. ...They're not real trees, though. I didn't realize that until I was down on the surface myself."
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
He can even say it was Lan who hugged him. It's the truth! Too bad nobody but Loren's father is likely to care enough to believe him.
She follows after him, long legs keeping pace with the slightly shorter (but still totally average, of course) young man. "...They let you run a tab?" she asks after a few minutes. "So they send the bill to your house." That makes sense! Even if Etrenank is huge, it has an edge. There is a place where the city ends. It doesn't seem like anybody could just pull up stakes and just disappear, especially if 'ID' is taken so seriously.
He'd repeated it to her, after all. That Lan isn't a citizen here.
But even if he's upset, the place he takes her to next is much better. There's grass, of a sort - it's so low to the ground and even!! Is it real?? - and even better... Lan practically jumps for joy. "Water! And it looks so clean, too!" He's barely even explained the not-really-trees before Lan is pulling off her sandals and tugging the stupid itchy 'pantyhose' thing down her legs. "Come on!" And unless Loren's really fast, she's going to wade right in.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"...Something like that." More accurately, they can just bill to the family automatically, so the cost -- minor as it is -- has already been debited. It's not a place where anyone of note can just disappear from, though, no. And even if someone did steal, somehow, they would either find themselves less the cost of the item anyway... or more likely, at the mercy of the sentry drones.
Stealing isn't worth it when the cost is potentially one's life or hard-earned status.
It's different than it is on Filgaia.
Or Lunar, for that matter.
At a bit of a loss, and not really willing to return home just yet, he's brought her here. "Yeah. I used to play here as a kid," he comments, looking again at the artificial trees. Funny, they look less real now that he's seen living versions--
Some fell 'alarm' skitters across his senses. He whips around in time to see Lan finish peeling off her stockings and--
"That's not for swimming!" he barks, grabbing for her arm, perhaps too late. He may have to lunge after her.
This may be to his peril.
The books, at least, are tossed aside to a safeish landing in the grass.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
She's already taken one step into the water by the time he reaches for her, but he catches Lan's arm before she can get any further out than that single wet foot. "Huh?" She turns back to look at him, eyes wide and uncomprehending. Why wouldn't water be for swimming? Sure, she can see how maybe you shouldn't drink it since it's so shallow and still, but...
Lan looks from Loren's upset face, to the tantalizing sparkle of clean water. Then back to him. Something sour twists in her throat.
She'd been so happy, for a few minutes.
Before she was reminded, anyway.
She steps back out onto the path, water trickling down her ankle to puddle on the sidewalk. "..." Nothing makes any sense here. Why would there be water you can't swim in? Why can't she go anywhere on her own? Why is she...?
"I want to go home," Lan sighs.
She picks up the stockings and uses them to pat her foot dry, settling down on her butt on at the edge of the water to look out over it forlornly.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"It's for looking at," Loren explains, looking at her as if she may be a slow child rather than a woman a few years his elder.
Well, looking at, and if you're Loren and about thirteen or fourteen, getting shoved into by your older brother.
Though that was hardly the first time.
He'd expected her to struggle against him. Impishly hop into the water anyway. Something like that.
But instead she steps back and just looks for the moment lost as she gazes back at him and breathes out one single lament.
She wants to go home.
Once, twice, a few times, he'd thought that. Down on Filgaia, at least at first. On Lunar, when he had believed himself there trapped.
And now that he's home he just wants to never come back.
He sighs too, dropping down heavily onto a nearby bench, sprawling out as he stares up -- down -- at the world of Filgaia.
"You're in luck, then. We're due on base in Bledavik in two days."
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Nothing makes sense here. Why would people choose to live here, in an artificial hell in the sky, when there's a perfectly good world available already? Why would they pour water out to be looked at and not swam in or drank? Is water really so worthless here?
What's just sitting around in these 'looking pools' would be a wonderful gift to bring home to her village.
There's a difference between the Lan that Loren thinks he knows and the Lan that has spent a month caged up in a strange world. A difference between the Lan that exists happily on Filgaia and the uncertain, fretful creature that had greeted him on his return home from the recovery tanks. The Lan that lives on the ground would have brushed off his concerns, his sharp rebuke. But in a strange land, on an alien world...
There might be consequences, for herself or for Loren.
With her arms wrapped around her knees, Lan gazes quietly out over the sparkling surface of the reflecting pools. She wants to say something, but doesn't know how. Just that she's unhappy here.
She almost doesn't hear what Loren has to tell her.
But she does.
"...What?"
She turns in place to look at him, eyes wide like someone who desperately wants to believe a tall tale. "...Really?"
Bledavik. Lan may not be particularly fond of the city, but it's far closer to her home than this is. "Are we really," she trails off, swiping at her eyes with a loose fist. "Thank goodness. Thank goodness, I thought we were going to be here forever...!"
She's probably not crying with relief.
Probably.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
It's different, for him. It's just where he was born and raised. Below, where things grow and change, where there's no control over the temperature, where sickness and death roam ceaselessly...
That's what's strange.
When he thinks he doesn't feel at home in Etrenank anymore, it's not for the city and its nature in and of itself. It's not even for the beliefs and leanings of his people -- why would he? -- or the desires of his emperor, of his nation's aim on the world stage.
It's just an exacerbation of the fact that he doesn't fit in, as someone who can't connect properly with other people here, as someone who in spite of his birth might as well be an outsider... and the twisting sense that he's fitting in better among the Lambs just because no one there knows his face or his family or what his brother did or... anything. Any part of that at all.
It's stupid. It's so incredibly stupid.
After all. He'd found out that Jair -- the guy in engineering, the one he'd had a crush on for months now -- had survived the Tzadkiel's destruction. And knowing that, what did he do with it? Did he have the guts to talk to him?
Of course not.
Leaning back against the bench, he's closed his eyes.
Essentially, you're a coward. You don't even have the strength to sacrifice yourself for the cause--
The tone in her voice rouses him away from a neurotic mental slide. He straightens, lifting his head, opening his eyes. Loren squints, scrunching up his forehead. "Are you crying...?" An awkward pause follows. "...Of course we were going to go back. I told father I wasn't--" He cuts himself off, shaking his head. "Forget it. All you need to know is that I'm not staying here, so you aren't either."
And even if they did they'd probably take her back to the surface -- a shaman's more useful on the ground than in the sky, and she'd sufficiently impressed Leah that it's quite possible she'll stay in their retinue for some time now.
The way he figures it, at least.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
She's... probably crying.
Lan swipes at her face again and turns to look at him over her shoulder, eyes threatening to turn pinkish and puffy around their edges.
Scratch that, she's definitely crying.
"I want to go home," she tells him, and feels kind of silly the instant the words are out of her mouth. She didn't know another way to say it. "I want to go back to Filgaia. I want to touch the soil and swim in water and climb a real tree, Loren."
Lan feels a little bit like if she stays here too long she might shrivel up. "I didn't know. I thought we might be here forever. Or for another month." She licks her lips and plays with the end of her thick braid, knotting and unknotting the silver ribbon near the end. "Just... I'm really, really glad, is all!" she sniffles, the words turning into a weak laugh as Lan slowly uncurls, letting her bare legs rest against the weird, emerald-green grass. It feels softer than any she'd ever walked on.
She takes a deep breath in through her nose and counts to five before letting it whoosh out through her mouth, and slowly tilts backwards to sprawl on the ground like a starfish. Above them, Filgaia waits.
"I'm so glad."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
She's definitely crying.
He makes a face. What are you supposed to do when someone cries? When he was a kid, it was easier to handle this kind of thing, but now that he's grown, he...
"...Stop crying." Pause. "Okay?"
He's not sure he'd cry this much over not getting to go home. Being trapped on Lunar had messed with him but good, but even that wasn't...
This.
He slides forward, to the very edge of the bench. "Is it really that bad?"
Being here.
He stands, then, glancing up at the world of Filgaia below.
And exhales one solitary breath.
"It'll be good for both of us to be back in action. I don't like being idle."
Stepping forward, he stoops to recover the books.
"Let's go back."
Home, in this context.
But also, to return to the planet.
He's no more at home on Filgaia than he is up here, but at the very least, doing something is better than doing nothing.
It is after all why he'd made that deal with Leah.
Better to possibly die with his boots on than certainly die up here.
"Come on."