2019-10-28: You Noticed It Too?

From Dream Chasers
Revision as of 18:39, 30 October 2019 by Lilac (talk | contribs) (Created page with "*'''Log: You Noticed It Too?''' *'''Cast:''' Lan Lilac :: Lan Lilac Leah Sadalari :: Leah Sadalbari *'''Where:''' A Solaris Outpost in a Desert *'''Date:''' October 28...")
(diff) ← Older revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
Jump to navigation Jump to search
  • Log: You Noticed It Too?
  • Cast: Lan Lilac Leah Sadalbari
  • Where: A Solaris Outpost in a Desert
  • Date: October 28, 2019
  • Summary: After her return from Spira, Lan is debriefed by the Major.

<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.

Despite the desert outside, the base itself is actually cool and comfortable. ....Well, comfortable temperature-wise; the people within are more inclined to keep to themselves than not. Regardless, the directions given Lan are solid; once she's inside, Leah actually steps out to /meet/ her, into the lobby area in normal enough attire for her--tall boots, though she skips the coverings on her mechanical arm and half-arm. Those instead are visible, as she steps forward. Slacks and a rolled-up dress shirt. It's fine, right? "This way," she directs. "I've taken over one of the local offices for a while. How was the trip?"


<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

Lan actually rather liked Spira. To be someplace so beautiful, so full of water - to learn what it's like to live with and on the sea - had been refreshing after a lifetime in Little Firelight and the surrounding continent. Lan isn't wholly unhappy to be back from the moon again, but she's going to miss the sea breeze.

And the clothes, the clothes were great!

But she's got way more pressing matters to worry about lately, like kinda-sorta-secretly meeting with Leah (though there's only one person she feels like she really needs to keep it a secret from). It's supposed to just be a normal debriefing, right? But what she has to say feels like gossiping.

She lost her white-ish cloak somewhere after washing up on the beach months ago, and has traded it out for a loose shawl with tattered edges. Underneath is another version of her favored outfit, a bandeau top in salmon pink over faded blue-ish shorts. Lan doesn't look like she's had a haircut in the months since Leah last saw her.

"It was fine. Listen, something's going on--" She at least has the good sense to clam up until they're where Leah is leading her to, though she's obviously that worried kind of fidgety the whole way.


<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.

Leah of course only really saw the Temple; she wasn't in Spira for the most part, just for that last battle assisting. But the reports, the photographs do indicate a great deal of natural beauty.

...At least there'll be a lot of sea breeze in this archipelago, if not... here in the desert.

It /could/ be a normal debriefing, anyway. As it stands, Leah looks over the new outfit, considers it for a moment, and then--

"So, there /is/ something," she replies, looking thoughtfully at Leah--and then nods. "A moment."

She walks briskly, her steps uneven as always--ste-step, ste-step, with one leg heavier than the other, until they reach an office. She shows Lan through first, closes the door...

And then abrubtly a camera on the wall shorts out, and the only indication Leah did anything will be if Lan sees her focus for a moment. The room has a desk, a couple of chairs--it's a basic office. She moves for one of the chairs, though one in /front/ of the desk where she indicates Lan to sit as well.

"Tell me what you know."

...The words are an order, read on a page, but it sounds more like an invitation in her tone.


<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

There is something, indeed. Good. Lan's not imagining it then, if Leah already knows about it.

Lan's /pretty/ sure Leah can't read minds.

She waits until the door is closed, until the camera shuts off - not that she was expecting the camera, that was a coincidence - but doesn't let Leah make it quite as far as the chair. Lan doesn't think about Leah's storied military career or her reputation as a terrifying woman who silences the powerful. Lan just steps into Leah's bubble for a hug, because it's been forever and she's only had /Loren/ for company for the most part, and he's being even weirder than normal.

Yeah, Lan was lonely.

And if there's anything weird about Leah's body temperature, Lan doesn't seem to care - it's not like she doesn't /know/ already.

"Something's wrong with Loren," are the first words out of her mouth after, once she's actually sat down in the offered chair. "His memories are weird. I'm not too sure when it started, but... you noticed it too? Did he say anything weird?"

Shouldn't Leah be asking /her/ that?


<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.

Leah makes a point not of disabusing people of the notion, but no. She cannot precisely read minds. ...It can seem close enough, though.

Leah does /not/ make it to the chair, in fact; she isn't that fast, and lan's plan actually works fine. She steps into her bubble, and Leah turns slightly towards her, immediately considering--

...And concluding, right then, that it's something completely normal--after that instant, Leah wraps arms around the younger woman in turn, though one is indeed harder, chillier. The /core/ of Leah's body is still 'person' temperature, though. "...It must have been difficult," she says, before they actually do sit down.

"Memory... Maybe that's the problem." Leah looks thoughtful--but she looks back to Lan's eyes before nodding. "Not what he said, but what he did--he seemed confused, disturbed by me. More accurately, by my prosthetics--it's like he'd never seen them."

"I am... concerned. If you can tell me your theories thus far, we can work on a plan to help him."


<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

Even if she were to somehow slip free of Solaris's grasp, Lan has never been the kind of person to put a knife in another's back. She's probably the safest pawn Loren could have accidentally brought them!

"I think it's his memories. That, or..." Lan takes a breath and thinks back to her first inkling that something was wrong. It's not like she could write down her worries! Even if she were the kind to keep a diary, it'd be really naive to think that would be secure.

It had been on the Thunder Plain. "We met back up at an inn. He'd lost his brother's sword shortly before that, but he walked in from the rain holding it. He was acting funny then, but I didn't really understand yet. Because Loren's always hard to understand, anyway, but... He looked at me weirdly, and for a moment I thought he didn't recognize me either." Because why else would he have looked at her so intently, like the sword he drew was one he intended to use?

She plays with the ends of her shawl between her fingertips, speaking with the slower cadence of someone putting all the parts of a story in order. "It was so important to him, Engil's sword. After it was lost, some days he just... wasn't functional. Even getting him to eat something was a struggle, he just didn't seem to /care/. But then one day he just seemed to snap out of it and left me behind. And when we saw each other next, he lied about it. He said that he just went back to where he lost it, and found it."


<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.

Really, it would be fair enough. But Leah has gleaned the same information--it isn't Lan's nature, and Lan is more focused on Loren now than on herself. But memories... Yes.

"That sword..." It had been reforged, of course. Leah sets her jaw, thoughtful as she considers it. "Didn't recognize--as if..."

The story in order moves. Leah considers it, and nods. "It would be," she admits. "I can't speak against it; I keep his ring, after all." She pauses, and considers it. "So, it was lost, and eventually he found it... but he was changed, after. Different."

"I think your instinct may be correct--a problem with his memory would account for his reaction to you /and/ to me. But I don't know why, how, or the details of it. I wonder..."

Leah taps the desk, thoughtfully--and then, "We'll have to gather more information. See if you can gently inquire about the sword--about any memories that seem to be off, without telling him they are. Memory is... tricky. If he suffered a head injury at some point, then /telling/ him something is wrong may only aggravatage him before we know what's going on. ...My position makes it more difficult for me to approach this subtly; yours, on the other hand..."

The meaning seems to her to be clear, at least.

"Regardless," she says, changing tacks, "Thank you--for looking out for him, out there. I know you also care about him--but I appreciate it, nevertheless."


<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

Ring... Lan thinks of the ring Loren had brought her, when he'd come back with his brother's sword. "That's not quite true though. He remembered me, and I think he'd been thinking about me too. He came back with a present for me, along with his brother's sword. Hang on--" She digs into her pockets, one of the secret ones sewn into the lining of her shawl. The ring Lan shows Leah isn't romantic at all - it looks carved of unmelting ice, and is freezing to the touch. It's clearly magical. "He brought me this and thanked me."

"But after that, he mentioned something. He... didn't have a training accident, did he? Not like Engil did." Lan doesn't need to hear Leah say it to know the truth. "He said he could never be forgiven, that people died. That memory isn't Loren's."

She twists the ring between her fingers, shuttered gaze staring down at her feet. Leah asks her to look into it carefully, and thanks her, and Lan looks up. "It... it's not a problem, you know? He's my friend - or I'm his, even if he seems to hate it so much. But Leah... you knew Engil. There's no way he would possess his brother, right?"

Oh right. Lan's a shaman, and thus superstitious.


<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.

"Hm?" Leah rearks, and then tilts her head, looking very carefully at Lan. "A ring..." She looks it over--unmelting ice, cold. It doesn't bother Leah, naturally, to look at something so cold. Instead, she considers--he thanked her. "He thanked you..." Pause.

A training accident. Leah's eye goes distant, for a few moments. Lan can tell, if she looks--for that instant, Leah isn't /there/ at all; she's back, back in memory, some years ago...

But she returns after a moment. "Yes. The fact that it isn't a problem is why it's precious, I think. He's very lucky to have you in his life. More than he realizes." She pauses, then, and--shakes her head.

"Heh. To think, he'd return to me /now/, after all these years? ...No," she says simply. "If it were him, I would have sensed it. I would have known. He is gone from this realm, as he has been--if he watches over us, it is in silence, unknowable to our eyes."

Leah's eye settles on Lan. "Loren had no training accident. The people who died were Engil's squad--/my/ squad. That memory does not belong to him, and whatever has forced it upon him had better /hope/ that it is merely a head injury, because if it has physical form I will rend it asunder such that it will never be placed together again."

The /weight/ of her voice in that instant is astronomical--But she breathes.

"...No. It isn't Loren's memory. If /that's/ the case... Then of course, he'd..." She frowns.


<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

He thanked her. Whether it was of his own recognizance or on someone else's advice, Lan may never know... but he did.

"I couldn't be sure," Lan admits with a quiet sigh of relief. "I couldn't sense anything from him spiritually, but possession - /actual/ possession - is so rare that most people never get to see it for themselves. I don't have any experience in fixing it, and I never met Engil to recognize him." Not to mention, any 'tests' she could try on him would definitely have spilled the beans about her concerns to Loren himself.

She puts the ring away again and slumps a bit in her chair. She doesnt know what she could begin to say to someone like that. Who lost like that, who grieves like that. So she stays quiet for a moment, and wishes not for the first time that she'd had a chance to meet Loren's brother, Leah's husband. "So for now, all we can do is watch out for him. At least now you know why he looked at you weird. We just have to try and find out why his head's messed up." Easier said than done.


<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.

Who can say? Even if someone told him--he still went through with it. ...Leah isn't talking. Instead, though--

"Mm," Leah answers. "That's sensible. It's reasonable to consider all options. It's good, that you're considering it. But no--it isn't Engil's doing, of that I'm sure. Which leaves us to find what it /is/..."

Leah broods, frankly. She looks into the distance for a little while, without seeming to notice, more emotionally affected than she is inclined to let on--moreso than she lets on is /possible/. Somehow, though it is not /fresh/... It is not really a wound that has /healed/, either.

"...Yes. That is all. I will watch over him--and I know that you will, as well. Together, we can learn the truth."

"...And when we do, we can act. Be it some curse, some injury..."

She looks up. "We have a difficult task before us. But we will succeed. I know this. ...Call it faith, if you will."

"Thank you, for telling me. ...Naturally, I can get the rest of your statement as well..." She begins to rise, and looks over to the wall. "But perhaps I should get you a drink first."

And give them both a moment to digest what's happening.