2020-02-15: In A Green Space
- Log: In A Green Space
- Cast: Loren Voss, Lan Lilac
- Where: Damzena Desert
- Date: February 15, 2020
- Summary: Loren, needing to talk to someone about his recent attempt at asking out Anaitis, seeks out Lan.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Etrenank is largely a sterile city: plantlife is few, and only those of the First Class can own their own real plants. Yet, even that place has public gardens -- very early into the city's history the founders saw that it was a necessity for the people to have plantlife to maintain mental stability. Even dosing with drugs only overcomes this basic human need so much.
Even the Third Class has their small green spaces, tucked into little 'atriums' between the housing modules.
Even their bases, hidden from the sight of the Lambs, have these gardens.
Even Damzena.
It doesn't seem quite right, if you compared it to the green spaces still around Filgaia. It's too neat -- like someone took a vaccuum cleaner to the trimmed grass. The bushes are eerily symmetrical. The flowers have not even the smallest blemish. There are no bugs, no birds. No wind or rain.
But here in the heart of the base is green. Every so often, someone is in here. It's possible to book space even, if one wants solitude here.
Loren knows no one has today. He's come in here on a hunch.
The glass door opens. Is she here...?
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Lan knows that you can 'reserve' time in the greenyard if you want to. She just doesn't really understand why anybody would come up with such an idea. There should be enough green space for everybody! At all times!
Of course, coming from Little Firelight, on the ever-encroaching edge of the Badlands, Lan understands that there just... isn't. So, unless someone else 'reserves' the greenyard, Lan can often be found there in the days and evenings.
This is apparently preferable to her early attempts to set up a campsite on the lawn, at least from an administrative viewpoint. As if Lan is inexperienced enough to let her campfire spread to the bushes!
Loren is in luck. She's here today. A blanket is spread out on the perfect grass, with Lan Lilac spread out on top of that. One hand tucked under the back of her head as a pillow, the other resting on her abdomen, she's napping peacefully underneath the filtered sunlight.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
That incident... had been extremely fun and exciting to clear up with the base commander and everyone else on the administrative foodchain above him. He hopes he never has to do that again.
Right now though he's in luck -- she's here, and she's... taking a nap.
Okay. Make that somewhat in luck.
He sighs, then settles himself down on the green alongside her, his legs crossed. Loren manages to sit quietly like that for a good thirty seconds before he reaches over and prods her in the shoulder, hard.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
To Loren's credit, he was very clear in regards to Lan 'never ever doing that again'.
It's peaceful here. Of course it is - it's that very peacefulness, that sense of slowly creeping wellbeing, that makes green spaces so essential to everybody - humans and everybody else alike. If he weren't such a Loren, he might even have felt the same urge to take a load off.
Instead he decides to interrupt Lan's nap, and that's when things get strange.
He pokes her, intending to wake her up. In the space of a breath Lan frowns in her sleep and the hand that had been resting on her stomach, covering her scar, clamps shut on his wrist. Inhale. A sudden, sharp twist of his arm, the bones in his wrist grinding uncomfortably. Lan jackknifes her legs, pivoting on her hip with the momentum, and bowls him over onto his back, her knees in his chest. Exhale. Humans don't move like that, do they?!
Kneeling half atop his chest, with the offending wrist still in a deathgrip, Lan opens both eyes sleepily to gaze down at him. "...? Huh?"
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
He prefers to sleep in his bed, not on the ground. In the dirt!!
Even sleeping on the floor is at least a floor.
He prods her in an attempt to wake her up, expecting her to mutter and perhaps grump in his direction when she finally does arise.
Instead he finds her hand curled around his wrist, and it might as well have been a manacle. "Wh--"
Loren starts to twist his wrist in an attempt to break her grip, but in truth maybe gets less than one degree of movement into that motion before he receives her knees right into his chest. He goes over like a felled tree, his head hitting the turf just inches from a pristinely manicured bush, his legs still entangled.
What the hell just happened? Is she-- is this...
He unfolds his legs, seeking some sort of purchase on the ground beneath him, tugs at his arm (pain rolls up his arm in response) and there meets her gaze as she opens her eyes. His left hand lingers somewhere near to her torso for a moment before dropping flat back to the earth again. She doesn't look like someone in a fugue state.
"What the hell," he states flatly. He jerks at his arm again.
She looks like someone who just woke up.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
(Is this 'him'?)
In response to his question, Lan yawns. But she does at least let go of her vise gripe around his wrist.
"Mmmn. Morning. Er, afternoon...?" She blinks down at Loren for another moment before seeming to realize their relative positions. "...Oop. Sorry~" And like she hadn't just done ninja moves to him, Lan crabwalks off of Loren's chest and back onto her blanket, where she settles crosslegged. And then has the gall to yawn again, covering her mouth with the very hand she'd raised against him.
"I 'sleepwalked' again last night, so I'm catching up now." She's pretty sure that the garden isn't bugged, but... well, Loren will know what she means.
Lan blinks and shrugs one side of her body, brows furrowing faintly. "Why does my shoulder kinda hurt?"
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
He snakes his wrist away, wringing it out while overdramatically wincing over it.
"Do you normally hit people who wake you up," Loren crabs at her, levering himself up once she gets off him. "It's almost mid-afternoon," he adds pointedly, dusting himself off. At least the stains don't show as much with a captain's uniform, but still...
He is at least silent when she says she was sleep walking again. He gazes down at his wrist, the one she'd grabbed before. With his own preoccupations, he'd nearly forgotten about her... problem.
Until she'd grabbed his wrist like she intended to pull his hand off.
Then she asks why her shoulder hurts.
"..."
He looks rather pointedly in the other direction, as if he's as innocent as a guilty person can be.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Technically speaking, Lan's 'sleepwalking' only exists in the first place to keep Loren from having more problems. She's a thoughtful friend!
"I hit you?" That... would explain why he was flat on his back on the grass, wouldn't it. And why she was in a possible finishing stance of 'horse defeats the wolf'. "Oops. Sorry," she apologizes again. "I guess I'm still in that mode. If someone gets too close while I'm sleepwalking, I kind of..." She gives a 'you know' kind of shrug and handwave. Like she's trying to insinuate something, or maybe tread water.
Because if she attacks everyone, there's no way Loren could have had, had relations with her that one time.
And to be frank, it also prevents wrong ideas about what is appropriate behavior around sleeping, helpless Lambs. He glances pointedly away, and Lan huffs a quiet laugh.
"Is there a mission or something? Or were you bored?" she asks after it seems he's not going to stop sulking for a few more moments.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Technically, technically...
"Nearly twisted my hand off," he confirms, briefly grimacing as he shakes out his right hand.
Walk it off, Loren.
He does raise an eyebrow at her explanation. It... does make sense. A fairly twisted amount of sense, to be sure, but it makes... sense.
It also does -- he has to pause a moment before the mental arithmatic reaches the conclusion that she is vaguely getting at -- help him out in other regards.
Though truth be told he has no idea what the rumor mill is up to lately -- and neither does he want to know what the world's saying about him and his 'pet Lamb'.
But if it keeps him -- and her -- safe, well... he'll just deal with his bruised wrist and ego.
She then asks what, precisely, brought him out here to rouse her from her restful slumber.
"Huh?"
It takes a moment for the wayward train of thought that had lead him here in the first place to come back to its station.
"...I need some advice," he says, at last.
"...Anaitis. I tried," and here he lowers his voice. "I asked them out. But..."
He hangs his head. "I should have realized. They're not that experienced with Lamb language. We were in public, so I didn't... want to speak in..." He straightens, then shakes his head. "...Forget it. No one cares about that part. Anyway, they didn't understand what I was asking, and, well, I lost my nerve." In this, he's resolute enough, his gaze fixed on a point opposite him in the garden.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
It only takes a single name to put everything into perspective. Anaitis, the person that Loren has a crush on, which is freaking adorable and also something Lan wants to encourage because having a crush is something Normal People do! And Loren could definitely stand to learn how to be more normal.
"But you did it! They said yes, right? Because you said 'public', and not 'on base' and--" Lan takes a moment to just be quiet and follow along, because Loren's revealing the problem on his own. "So... when are you going to try again? They went out with you, right? They just didn't understand what 'going out' means?" It's almost as if Lan has seen this play out before...!!
She continues, reasonably. "But they did spend time with you, right? Do you think they'd say yes if you asked again, and were really clear about it?"
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Loren would bristle if he knew that his lovelife (...maybe he shouldn't even be giving a label like that at this stage) was something even remotely 'adorable', but fortunately, he doesn't!
God help him if Leah gets involved.
"...Kind of. I asked them if, uh, they wanted to hang out and then..." He gestures vaguely, and his shoulders slouch. He hadn't even had the guts to put it how he wanted to put it and instead had treated it as a more friendly thing rather than a potentially more-than-friendly thing.
He looks over at her, as she asks him quite plainly when he's going to try again.
He looks down at his hands. "I..."
He really is a coward. So what's the worst that could happen? Anaitis seems to want to at least be his friend, and doesn't he want more (more? that's weird) friends? Even if they say they're not interested in... dating.
Even setting aside the potential issues with a captain dating a colleague.
Even if the absolute worst thing happens and Anaitis is offended and creeped out and never wants to speak to him again, he... doesn't lose anything. He's just back at square one again, like always. Nothing changes.
He knows this and still hesitates, because he's a coward, and wants to protect the unsustainable 'maybe' of now.
"I don't know," he says, curling his fingers in towards his palms. "They're... hard to read. They're a little strange, I guess. ...But they seemed happy." Was it just the festival, though, or was it...
"They've been... really nice to me." Most people aren't. With just cause, he allows. Most people don't tend to care for people who kill their classmates.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
She watches him silently, listening. The way he hesitates. The way he doubts.
She's struck by the realization that she's never felt that way. Even the pain of not knowing, that's part of falling in love. Lan wonders if Loren knows how important it must be. So important that everybody does it naturally.
"Would you be okay if you never found out?" she asks slowly. Lan... isn't even sure it's the right question to ask! Maybe he doesn't really need her help. Maybe he just needs some nudging, and he'll figure it out on his own.
She settles her hands on her knees. "If they've been nice to you, and they seemed happy spending time with you, it's not weird to think maybe they'd like more." Lan pauses to think back. Ashansi had been hesitant, too. The only hesitance she'd ever known from him, in fact, was his shyness about his feelings for her. Even if she couldn't return his feelings, even if she couldn't let him save her. ...She misses him.
So if Loren is in Asha's place, and she were Anaitis...
"...If Anaitis is a good person, they won't be upset if you like them, even if they don't like you back in the same way." Lan shakes her head, and tugs her braid into her lap to play with the ribbon at the end. "And then it'll be out in the open, and at least you won't give yourself an ulcer or something from worrying. Does that make sense?"
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Would he be okay if he never found out?
Never asked. Just watching, thinking. From afar. Even if Anaitis became 'merely' his friend, he...
He'd keep wondering. Until the day he died.
That day...
He closes his eyes a moment, his expression tight. Not long. Maybe. Maybe, not long.
He doesn't want to think about it at all right now. He pushes it aside, feeling the sick feeling pass along with it.
He stares down at his hands when he opens his eyes again, unable to really look at her. "..."
It's just weird. He's used to thinking about other people -- a lot, really -- but accepting that... it won't be returned. He was... fine with that.
Well, no, that's a lie. He just accepted that, because it wasn't as if he was... after what he did...
The sick feeling returns; he bites the inside of his left cheek in response. So-- what? Because he's a murderer, he has to be alone forever, until he dies? He's fine with the dying (sort of) but...
He's twenty-one now and he's not sure he can stand it much more. Loneliness is worse than death.
He swallows then as she continues on -- as she so reasonably and logically walks him through the problem. She'd said she'd never dated -- never been with anyone else. But it almost sort of sounds like she had.
"...Of course it makes sense. I'm not a child," he replies, prickly towards her more in self-defense than true animosity. "I just have to..." he take a breath, "be direct." He's still staring at his hands, his gaze there lingering for a few moments more.
Before he lifts his head and looks over at her.
"How do you know this stuff, anyway? I thought you said you'd never..."
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
He's really struggling with it.
And then he surprises her with a question she hadn't been expecting. Her lips part as she tries to think of how to explain it - this weirdly private, maybe just weirdly weird thing. It's a long handful of breaths (and a few 'er's and 'um's) before Lan just takes a deep breath.
"I never dated anybody, no," she confirms, shaking her head. "Not that I never had the opportunity. But I just... there's never been anybody that I felt that way about." She tucks her lower lip between her teeth and considers how to word it, ribbon coiled gently between her careful fingers. "Asha said he loved me. But I didn't love him back."
If she had, could she have found a way to save him? Would she have been able to let him die for her, the way he'd planned to, rather than be the Judas goat who led her into the wolf's mouth? She tugs the bow tighter.
"I've never loved anybody. Or even just wanted anybody. So I guess, in this scenario, I was Anaitis. And I still wanted to be his friend, even if I couldn't be his beloved."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
It's hard. It's so so simple and the risks aren't what they seem when he turns the problem over in his mind. He knows that. But it's hard, in way that is difficult to articulate.
If only it were easier to connect to other people...
He can't say he completely understand, with Lan. She'd said before that she doesn't feel... the things he feels about other people. Not yet, anyway. Not like he does. But he can sort of get it. He wonders if it's easier -- because you don't need anyone else. Or if it's harder -- because you could be lonely, a single person in a world where others pair off (or more than just two, sometimes).
He doesn't ask her that -- if it's hard or if it's easy. He just asks...
"I never met him, so I don't know. Maybe it was just him. Or maybe not."
A weird thing to say, he reflects, about someone who was a dream. A hallucination.
...Even tailored to her, she didn't love him.
That's... huh, he thinks.
'Huh' is the only real thing he can think about that.
He wonders again if it's lonely, or if it's the opposite of lonely.
She still has friends.
Could he live with 'just friends'?
Well, what else would he do?
"...Yeah," Loren says at last. "I think I get it." He takes a breath, then rises to his feet, his gaze up at the higher-than-average ceiling, to the glass panels far above.
"...Thanks," he says, as if nearly an afterthought. "No promises, but..."
But he'll do his best, whatever that is.