2019-03-13: Again and Again

• Log: Again and Again
• Cast: Josephine Lovelace, Leon Albus, Lily Keil, Elhaym van Houten, Fei Fong Wong
• Where: The Narrow Sea
• Date: March 13, 2019
• Summary: Crossing to Elru, the Black Wolves reflect on what was and what may soon be.

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<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

    It can hardly be called 'robust' in comparison to what was. Yet, with the fall of Mother, ships are finally sailing to northern Elru once again. Compared to the time prior, it makes chartering -- or outright borrowing -- a ship far easier than it had been mere months prior.

    Today the waters are an even grey, with a sky to match; the waters are choppy but far from dangerous. The sun is a mere afterthought behind the clouds. To hear the sailors tell it, this is how it often is upon this sea in this season.

    They should reach Elru within the next day or two. This is no great sea.

    Josie has taken up above deck, leaning against the railing overlooking the sea below. From one hand she dangles loosely a cigarette, as if uncaring should the sea steal it from her.

    She had been quiet after her recovery, vanishing for a day before returning once more. As Josies so often do she hadn't bothered with an explanation.

    And here she is now, as they speed along to stop the world from ending, once again.

<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.

Leon is injured, himself.

He is sitting against a mast, resting on a crate. He has a fresh white shirt on, tucked into trousers; bandages are visible underneath the white shirt, and his usual coat and vest have been tucked away. The shotgun blast to the chest has been healed, but he is still the very definition of sore.

He manages to get up, moving sluggishly. Footsteps are a labor; knives and ice shoot through his chest and abdomen with each step. He still walks to Josie's side, then reaches into his pocket, and pulls his pipe out. He leans against the railing too much, before he silently lights it next to her.

"Long days, weren't they?"

<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

As she usually is on the sea, Lily too is abovedecks--she stays up here as much as is possible. But... She has been tending to Leon's wounds, now and then too, with regularity. Lily herself displays no injuries whatsoever; it is as if she was never hurt during the battles, as if she was not given a scratch.

From her perch much higher, though, Lily finishes climbing down, her boots thudding against the deck as she looks to Leon first, and then to Josie.

"..."

Lily steps towards the railing, and looks out to the sea, too.

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

Elly is not badly beaten. Not physically, at least. She was roughed up, of course, by explosions and so on, but she didn't get shot in the tummybits.

So there is that.

After her bout of weeping she had been relatively immobile for a little while; she had leaned against Fei a lot. This continued for - and this was perhaps eerie - almost exactly thirty-seven hours, before, in the middle of being coaxed lightly to eat some porridge, she blinked and seemed to visibly regain tone and focus.

Of course she still wasn't HAPPY about this turn of events.

Now she emerges on deck, wearing her Kislevi naval coat again. She has the collar turned up, against the wind, which is rustling through all that long red hair as she steps forwards. She has to guard herself - this ship is a good deal more sway-y than the Kraken.

"... You all seem well," she says, with a smile that is partly hidden by white wool collar.

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei ran into Ragnell in a pub and got into a barfight shortly before getting on the boat. He is now sporting a hilarious black eye from when some burly dude punched THROUGH Ragnell and into his face. He's learned a very valuable lesson, probably, about challenging invisible people to a fight in a bar.

I mean maybe not that scene is still ongoing but, you know.

This hasn't stopped him from being there for Elly to be leaned on. Elly's pain and frustration, honestly, has made it difficult for Fei himself to get the rage on that you might normally expect from him. He's just worried about her. Even the barfight was more for principle than an act of emotion.

At least Josie's okay. For a level of okay. Fei makes his way up top and waves a hand towards Josie, trying to be as nonchalant about the eye as possible.

<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

    Silence maintains from Josie's end of things, even as she's joined and addressed by Leon.

    But ultimately she says: "Yeah."

    Which is followed by: "Wasn't expecting that. Even after knowing everything." She doesn't specify which she means. Her father's reactions to the words she had wanted to say to him? What he had done to her when she'd drawn on him? The depth of the business in which he'd been entrenched?%R Or... K.K., and the rest of it?

    "How're you holdin' up there, Lion?" she asks, by the by. "Heard you had a nasty time of it."

    Ultimately she straightens -- regarding first Lily, silent at the side of the ship, and then the pair of the young loverbirds, as she tends to think of Fei and Elly.

    "Heh. They say misery loves company," she comments, corner of her mouth turning in a half-smile. "C'mon over. You kids don't drink or smoke though, do you?"

<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.

"I can only imagine how you felt," Leon admits. "We were betrayed, but... it was different circumstances." K.K., he thinks, is simpler--at least, until Ragnell made it less simple. That thought is joined by the sense of a presence of red hair, and he glances over his shoulder.

"Elly," Leon says. "It's good to see you." The Captain turns his head to regard her and smiles, and there is a visible wince in how he lifts himself up on the railing. Leon has always been a little old-fashioned; he tries to stand up straight when anyone that he regards as a subordinate approaches. Or, for that matter, a superior. Or an equal.

Anyone, really.

He nods once to Fei, too, and there is a glance to Lily. Then, Leon takes a puff on his pipe. He blows out a smoke ring over the sea, the way he taught Fei to do. "I'm afraid I do," he tells Josie.

<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

Some things don't change. ...Leon's habit of standing up straighter is one of them, as far as Lily is concerned.

"So it does," Lily allows from Josie, but then she glances over to Elly and Fei, then. Black eye, naturally. A smile... Lily, for her part, is not really dressed for the chill; she doesn't bother with a coat, at the moment, just a standard shirt, buttoned. "Glad to see you up and around," she tells Elly.

Then... Well. "Different circumstances," Lily agrees. "...And my father didn't fail to acknowledge one of us entirely." Lily, naturally, remembers that--remembers what was said... what wasn't said. Who didn't matter.

Lily breathes in--the sea air, the cold. Her markings, again, aren't visible; they haven't been outside of casting, since that battle with Gryndille.

"It seems... To happen again, and again. I admit, some of it doesn't... seem like it happened, yet."

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

Lion, Elly thinks. She smiles a little. She steps closer, and tells Josie, "I'll drink a little. You know, I remember once, oh, a million years ago, when one of the black ties tried to give me cigars."

Not literally a million years ago. Elly looks towards Fei for a moment, and then back to Lily and to Leon. "Thank you," she says, dipping her head. She looks out to the gray sea and wonders what to say, what to think, what to do here. There has to be something to do other than to sit here, to exist, to wait.

She looks back to Josie finally, perhaps hoping for liquor.

Though Lily confuses her briefly with a double negative. Her brow knits slightly, then she seems to resolve it.

"What do you mean? The Trial Knight's threat, or...?" she asks Lily, before once again returning her gaze to Josie and asking, "Can I do anything for you?"

(Internally Elly feels faintly sea-sick for a moment. I should stop swivelling my head like a radar dish, she tells herself. She will never listen to this advice.)

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

"Misery loves company." Fei agrees. "But if the black eye's getting you smiling, then I'd say it was worth every icepack." Fei manages a small smile at that. Maybe the saying is more true than he would like to admit. Is he supposed to say 'sorry about your sister' here? He doesn't. He is, but he doesn't say it just yet. He feels like it'd be like punching the wound right now. "I drink a little, but only a little." Fei admits. He's largely given it up to encourage Lily on Lunar to ease up on it. She seems better, from what he's seen, but it might be the lack of malevolence. Or maybe it's the catharsis.

"You know, we're bein' gloomy and all and...it was a bad time there. But maybe..."

He trails off and looks over to Leon, then Lily. Sharon? He's not sure which is proper. He looks at those markings. Gone. He can't ask about it in a group this large. He wants to.

"Well, I mean... maybe we should take a moment and appreciate that we avenged your friends?"

<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

    "So, what happened to the other guy? Or gal," she amends, commenting on Fei's shiner. "Hope you gave 'em something to think about."

    She grimaces. "...I should have expected it. He's always been a bastard."

    Still.

    " Sounds like he went 'round the bend at last. Mm..." Josie makes an unhappy sound.

    'And my father didn't fail to acknowledge one of us entirely.'

    She pauses, gazing off at the horizon for a long moment, before turning from the unruly sea to look back at them.

    "She was my older sister," Josie says at last. "Just a couple years older. Black sheep of the family." She lapses into silence again, glances away.

    It wasn't the only thing that had happened. K.K., and that woman, Ragnell.

    "I could use a good cigar, honestly," she comments, after a time. Her gaze flickers over at Leon. "But I don't think you or Tiger really count as 'kids' anymore, do you?" she comments, goodnaturedly. "...Though come to think of it, I did take you drinking once, didn't I, Red."

    It had been hard cider. It had not, perhaps, ended particularly well for Elly.

    "Still. Knock yourself out," she says, taking one last drag of a rather bedraggled cigarette before flicking it off into the sea. She offers Elly -- and Fei -- her flask next.
    "Hand's still a mess," she says, waving her right hand stiffly as if to indicate why she didn't use it. She jostles the flask towards Elly and Fei. "C'mon, take it. I've only got the one good hand. Cut a girl some slack?"

<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.

"Haven't for awhile, Josie," Leon says. He certainly hasn't felt like he is in his early twenties for ages. Twenty-three, now, to be precise. He takes a long puff on his cigar, and watches Josie for a moment longer -- watches her offer the flask back to Fei and Elly.

"I figured she was your blood," he admits. "The way you were angry--the way you said it to him. I thought it must be something like that. Do you have any idea where she is?"

He leans forward, not intending to drink. One vice is enough right now, and he likes the feeling of the warm pipe clenched between his teeth. He does another long pull, and exhales smoke from his nostrils, eyes closing.

"Having vengeance... it does feel nice," he says. "Finally putting that beast to rest. I wondered, for awhile, you know. What happened, if we won? What would we do? It's strange to not have to ask that, though."

The answer is 'too much.'

<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

"The Trial Knight's threat, I suppose. ...Krosse, generally..." Lily shakes her head. "I'm not sure. I just have a lot of things on my mind."

"..I could probably use a drink, though." She doesn't go for one right now, despite that--she does indeed remember that, remember Fei there. And... Well.

"...I see," Lily says, when Josie mentions her sister; she won't simly leave it there, though. She isn't so awkward as all that. But what should she say, there? "...Well, we'll give him hell for her, too then."

Lily does not have a cigar, though she finally pulls her cigarette case, lifts an eyebrow. "Don't we? I happen to think Leon could still pass as a dashing young soldier."

The markings return, briefly, as Lily ignites the end of her cigarette, breathes in, and out.

"It... Yeah. Being done with that, it... It is good. I wish..." She starts, and then stops, shaking her head. "I don't know what I'm thinking, lately. But it does feel good. We can... appreciate that."

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

"Oh, I would be glad to give them to you, but I lost them long ago," Elly says to Josie with a faint laugh. "I thought it smelled nice. I don't know if that's unusual. I never even lit it." She reaches forwards to take the flask and raises it to her lips. She takes a pretty healthy belt --

-- and freezes for two seconds --

before lowering the flask and handing it to Fei. She is silent for a moment because her tongue is burning. She takes a deep breath - and has a momentary realization. Lily may be able to tell she just did something with Ether.

In Elly's mouth, the rotgut is mostly encompassed with frozen water. She swallows it. It sits in her stomach with a faint plop, though not an audible one, thank God.

"I had thought... that it might have been your mother that you and he spoke of," Elly says to Josie. "Were you and your sister close?"

She looks to Leon then, although words do not quite form.

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

"I don't think I could give Ragnell anything to think about." Fei says. It's hard to tell WHO he is insulting with that. Maybe it's a plural insult.

Unfortunately, they can't dodge the elephant in the room. He wonders if maybe at some point Josie was a very different lady than how she presents herself now because she certainly acts the role of the black sheep, actual archaeologist besides.

"Sorry." He grimaces as Josie remins him of his surroundings. Elly takes the flask first and Fei takes the flask from Elly. He looks at her for a few moments.

He looks at her a moment longer.

Then he quietly hands the flash back to Josie without having a sip. Yeah, he learned a valuable lesson before he tried and decided to act on it immediatley.

"How did she...?" He begins.

He shifts quickly to the .... more pleasant topic of blood vengeance????

"It's nice to know that--like they always say revenge makes you feel cold but... if it feels nice, then I guess it's a good thing." Probably helps that Gryndille is an automaton rather than UNCLE JIMMY WITH HIS TWO CUTE DAUGHTERS WHO WILL NEVER SEE HIM AGAIN.

Yeah that probably helps.

He smiles at Lily. "I'm glad."

<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

    "Caught up with her, did you? ...Guess it didn't take," she says, shaking her head. "This ain't gonna get settled until we catch up to them." The Trial Knight.

    "Tch. Too bad, Red. Well, maybe when I'm next through November, eh?" she says, on the sad saga of the long-lost cigar(s?).

    "...You're telling me. Though you lot really make me feel my age sometimes," the wayward archaeologist sighs, glancing up at an overcast sky. "I'll be damned if you all don't look much older than twenty at most."

    And here she is, pushing into her mid-thirties. At least she can take comfort in the fact that she's too well-pickled to spoil too soon...
    Even if she hasn't had much to drink (today).

    He asks her soon after if she knows where her sister is. She doesn't look back at him. Her gaze still skyward, she ultimately says, "Yeah. I buried her."

    Awkward.

    Were they close?

    Josie doesn't answer Elly at first. Doesn't look at her, either. "My mother... died a long time ago," she explains, and on the subject of whether she was close to her older sister answers simply: "Yeah." She doesn't elaborate; just shakes her head.

    Particularly when Fei hazards after the 'how'. "A fire." She lifts her right hand as if she could stare through her glove. "Same fire."

    Revenge is a gentler, easier topic -- she's all too willing to let the conversation there drift.

    It felt nice, huh. She arches an eyebrow. "Heh. It should have, after all that... I can't say 'I share your pain'. I never knew them." Lopsidedly, she smiles. "Still. I know how it feels. ...They'll rest easy now." Her own gaze grows fleetingly distant, before ricocheting back to the here-and-now once more.

    There's still a lot to do. Between K.K., Ragnell, and another end for Filgaia. "Wonder what they're playing at," she mutters, taking her flask back from Fei and swallowing a nip from it as an afterthought before capping and pocketing it again. "Maybe it doesn't matter. Just got to put a bullet through their heads and settle it, eh? ...And then I can get back to business."
    Being a savior so much doesn't... sit well with her, but it's not like she has a choice. It's far, far too late to back down.

    Poor Riesenlied.

<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.

"I don't blame you for that," Leon says. They were still in their early twenties; they went at life hard, and it was easy to forget that they were older. He hesitates, though, and then he frowns.

Buried her, he thinks.

"I'm sorry," Leon says, reflexively. "We'll find him. But... the Trial Knight, first." If he could be much help; he doubts it. His chest is still on the mend, and there is the rather taxing matter of the rumors that started to swirl. Some soldiers seen in Elru, with word already reaching the Wolves from their contacts in New Arctica.

He doesn't like a new problem cropping up at the same time. He glances back at Josie, and then shakes his head. "They're at rest, but we're not. You're right about it not feeling cold, Fei," Leon says. "But... there isn't much peace in it, either. The original Wolves may be able to rest, but... we still have a lot to do."

He glances down at the ocean. "And a lot more questions to ask, now, besides."

<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

Lily keeps her eyes out, to the sea, as smoke trails upward from her hand. ...She does notice what Elly does, though she doesn't look--she doesn't use her eyes, like she wouldn't use her eyes to puzzle out a scent, identify a tune.

"Heh."

There is at least something small to laugh with, there. "Well," Lily says, "You get good at taking care of your skin when you're in the desert frequently." ...Is this a joke? ...is it not a joke?

"...Some vengeance is... different, from others. Some is more complicated. But this, this is good." Lily indeed thinks of someone different they have revenge to take on. Someone... else.

Lily thinks of that fire--a fire that makes for a burn. But, "...Still, I appreciate the thought," Lily says to Josie. "I think... They will. But-" They won't. Leon says that, and he's right. "I aim to find out," Lily says of the two, "...But mostly because I need to, to stop them. Their reasons, their desires... They aren't important. They're the enemy; that's just how it is."

"..."

Questions. Leon says it, first. But, "...Yeah. We do." She glances down. "Don't worry though, Fei. You were worried I'd lost myself, but..."

"I haven't. Maybe I'm finding her, away from what Father wanted me to be."

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

The flask is passed along. Elly's expression says: Maybe Fei made the wise call here.

Elly nods at Josephine, and then she listens. Her eyes turn towards the deck as Josie speaks, and as she doesn't speak. There is a shape in the silences that tells Elly things that she hears. She takes a deep breath and lets it out.

The topic turns to Ragnell and K.K.

"I don't know," she says. "I think K.K. is ... provocative, deliberately... I've told you about the time I met them in Bledavik, before I left, didn't I?"

She looks out to sea. "Maybe it's a bluff," she says, "but it's the kind of bluff that you aren't going to call casually, is it?" (She asides to Lily, "I hope that's right.")

She puts a hand on the railing and looks out to see. Lily speaks of her father, and Elly hears that too. The thought of fathers is troubling to her, and she looks up towards the sky instead of the ocean for a few seconds, before asking Leon, "About... what to do in the grand sense? Or do you mean with regards to everything K.K. is doing?"

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

TOP TEN ANIME BETRAYALS ELLY.

Fei laughs faintly at Josie having to feel her age. Sometimes Fei feels like he's a billion years old too, but to be fair there are two kinds of old. Sometimes it's more a matter of the old cards you collect than the precise number of times you've been old. Maybe this is getting a little convoluted which is why Fei tries not to think about it too much.

"Ah." He says, hoping it wasn't one he started please very much thank you.

He tries to think of something nice to say, something that can make it hurt a little less but--honestly--he can't think of anything. Maybe Josie doesn't need it anyway. She seems tough enough and some wounds should make you howl.

Like a wolf.

Black wolf.

Heh.

Fei says, "Well I guess we gotta play around with what they're shooting for, but Ragnell's acting one way and being another. Sure of that much. Doesn't make much sense to me but, well, I just hope--"

He trails off. "Nah. Nevermind."

The Trial Knight first, he thinks. However tempting it is to let other people save the world for once.

"Fair enough, Leon." Fei says to him. "I'm just glad it's at least one burden lightened."

He smiles at Lily's words. He doesn't quite remember what she's referring to, exactly. Or rather he does, maybe? Kind of vaguely? It's always weird swapping between identities and information still gets lost sometimes.

"I'm glad for that." He says. "I'm excited to meet her."

<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

    It's close enough to a joke for Josie's purposes. "You're telling me. It's that or be a granny by thirty-five."

    But the conversation soon turns towards darker, less certain ground.

     'I'm sorry', Leon says. All Josie can do is shake her head.

    Some wounds make you howl, alright.

    Some wounds loose the dogs of war.

    "Yeah," Josie answers at length. "No argument there. I've got business to settle with that one, myself."
    Which is, in its way, the same business she needs to settle with her father. "Yeah. It doesn't really matter," she agrees in the end, turning her head to watch the far-off horizon. "Guess it's the scholar in me, heh..." A pause, as Elly weighs in. "Yeah. Yeah, they're certainly that. Maybe that's what's making me think about it. But in the end, I'm a fish. Even if there's a hook, I can't help but take the bait." She closes her eyes a moment. "If they want to lure us out there, then they got us. I just intend to take my pound of flesh in the meanwhile."

    No peace in it, is there. Dark eyes slide sidelong at Leon. Josie takes another mouthful of rotgut.

    Even this isn't all that warming, on a day like this.
    With conversation like that.

    "Sharon, huh," Josie comments, at considerable length, as if reflecting on that particular name.

    "Heh. Rose of Sharon..."

    You don't get to be a wizard's daughter without learning some herbology.