2021-08-13: Hold Out Your Hand

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  • Log: Hold Out Your Hand
  • Cast: Lan Lilac, Loren Voss
  • Where: Buckeye Station - The Depot
  • Date: August 13, 2021
  • Summary: Loren and Lan finally talk.

=======================<* Buckeye Station - The Depot *>========================

Buckeye Station's rail depot has returned to functionality, thanks to the blood, sweat, and toil of underpaid local workers. The central station is a large, stately building, all local stone and ornamental brass. Inside, travelers can purchase tickets, food, drink, and newspapers from all across Aquvy. Murals on the walls depict the history of the Anaheim Rail and Freight Company--and, secondarily, Buckeye Station itself. There is ample seating, both inside the station and at the covered waiting areas next to the tracks.

The depot is never truly quiet. There are always at least a handful of civilian travelers, and Anaheim's black-coated security officers keep a watchful eye on the place. It /is/ a strategic investment, after all.

BGM: Wild Arms 4 - The Dark Grey Buckeye
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

 
    All journeys eventually come to an end. Even haunted ones.

    When they arrive back at Buckeye Station - the very same place they'd started out from!! - Lan says goodbye to everyone. Even the golem! After all, it was thanks to Asgard that she'd learned you can actually defeat a train. Or is it that a train is capable of being defeated...?

    She'd better not think too hard about it.

    She hasn't forgotten her heavy feelings from just after the final battle. It's just that Lan is getting better at compartmentalizing.

    Just look at her relationship with Loren.

    It had been nice to see him again.

    Pack slung over her shoulder, Lan goes to stand by the end of the platform where she can gaze off into the distance a bit. Well, if a train is no good, maybe she can just walk. It's not like she had anyplace special to go to - she's a Drifter, after all...

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    It's a trip best forgotten about. And if he's lucky, that's just what Loren itends to do -- forget this ever happened.

    But now he's got some sort of fresh problem on his hands: not only has he missed the train he was supposed to catch, but he's wasted more time on a ghost train. ...Well, that's assuming there was even any normal passage of time on there, actually; he hasn't checked.

    Maybe there will be another ship heading in the same direction. Some cargo ship he can beg onto. Maybe he can get a pick-up from a proper ship if he begs the right person. Regardless, he's going to have to explain this to his mother sooner rather than later, and...

    He'd retreated soon after being left on the station, slouching onto a bench nearby in a haste to escape those he'd been stuck with. Even (especially) including...

    There had been black ribbons uncurling off her body as she'd struggled with the train. Is it... happening that casually now?

    He's turned his head, just enough to watch her as she wanders towards a different part of the platform.

    He wants to run away from this. Escape somewhere into the train station and just... continue not to deal with it. But...

    He sits like that on the bench for a good five minutes more before he stands up, takes a breath, and walks right towards her.

    If he just does this quickly enough and runs right at the problem more or less, he'll have done it before he can chicken out--!

    "Hey--"

    Another, shallower breath.

    "...We need to talk."

<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

 
    She's still standing there, enjoying the view, when Loren suddenly gets up from wherever he'd been hanging out and makes a beeline right for her. Lan is only vaguely aware of it until he's practically at her elbow and speaks up. "!" Oh, does he want to travel with her again or something? Well it's not like she's against it, but it'll cause more trouble for him - and probably for her as well.

    Hey, he says. "Oh hey!" Lan replies, turning fully to face Loren. Has he really never seen a ghost before, she wants to ask. She could tell him that they're not always spooky - mostly they're just stuck, or lost--

    But the look on his face is unusually serious, even for him. Apprehensive. He's not... going to ask her to come back, is he? He has to know by know that she won't.

    They need to talk.

    Lan's half-smile freezes. "Huh?" she hears herself say. "...What about?"

    She knows what about. She knows what about and she's not ready. She wanted to for so long and she put it away and now Lan isn't sure if she's ready to take it back out and look at it, not here in the light--

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    It's not, technically -- especially if you overextend the definition of ghost a bit -- the first time he's met a ghost but it does't mean he's gotten any good at it or even likes it even a little bit. But it's a discussion to have, perhaps, another time. Because if he doesn't go and ask this now, doesn't get right to the heart of the problem, he's going to end up not talking about it.

    And who knows when or if he'll get another chance?

    Next time he sees her, he might have to--
    Or maybe she'll--

    He blinks, shoving those thoughts back into the dark recesses of his heart, putting them away because he's not ready to deal with those possibilities just yet.

    "About you," Loren says instead, focusing on her, willing himself to ask the things he really doesn't want answers to.
    But it's not about what he wants -- and it probably never has been.

    "That power you have. Az-- the Stranger. What's happening to you. All of it." His left hand curls briefly into a fist; he pushes back at the thought that even now tries to scrabble its way up out of the depths and into the light.

    It's not just altruism. He needs to know even if he doesn't want to so he can get a handle on this, before something happens. In the vision, he'd set her alight.

<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

 
    About her.

    Lan's smile strains to stay on, but her eyes are large in her face.

    This is... she'd spoken to Doctor Citan about it already. She'd tried to ask advice. She'd told Gwen.

    But there's a terror in the idea of being known, somehow--

    --Is it just that Loren was there with her and Leah in Gethsemane? Or is it about--

    --the pieces that were taken from her, and replaced, and she'd wanted to keep them for herself--

    --the memories that had crawled up from inside of her and forced their way inside of Loren, there in that underground vault full of lights and someone's else's goddess?

    She wasn't ready for this. She wanted to talk about it so why does the idea that they'll do it here, now, make her so...

    "I'm sorry," she blurts out. Lan looks past him, at the people waiting for their trains, and swallows hard. This isn't how--

    She realizes she's backing up when her hands curl around the fence. "I didn't--" Not near all of these people. She whirls and jumps in one motion, hopping the fence. "Not here!" It's not a far jump, any Drifter has made worse. The instant her feet touch ground, Lan is hurrying away--

    No, scratch that. She's running. Not as fast as she can, not entirely with the intent to lose him, maybe-- but she doesn't want to talk here, and she doesn't stop running until they're far away from the station, ducking out of the sun beneath a shade of a scraggly tree. Why can't she think of what to say? Why can't she say anything? "...I'm sorry," Lan pants, folding up against the bark.

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    The first thing he notices about the look on her face is her eyes. She looks... she looks...

    Terrified is the only thing he can put as a caption to the expression she bears.

    He has a moment to consider this, consider the time, the place, the presence of other people, the...

    'I'm sorry', is what Lan blurts out, before she backs away from him and ascends the fence.

    'Not here!'

    And she's over the fence. She's running.

    Loren, left speechless, is the center of attention for the crowd here. "I-- I didn't do anything!" he protests, shaking his head. And while it's a fair bet he would have run right out of the station anyway to chase after her,

    it's not the only reason he turns and runs for the other end of the platform, pushes through the crowds and erupts from the door of the station, likely with some indignant shouting in his wake.

    The only good thing is that no one is chasing after him in this.

    Even though she has the head start, he can still see her. Even though she's faster, he's not very good at giving up once he's set his mind to something. And--

    He stares at her for a moment once he reaches the tree and drops down onto his haunches, pack slumping onto the ground behind him.

    "You're a real... pain in the ass," he tells her, breathing hard. "Look. Look, if you really don't... want to-- fine. I get that. I don't want to... talk about it either! But I feel like... if we don't..."

    He wheezes out a breath then and, tossing his pack to one side, just drops to lie flat on the dirt.

    "Why did you... have to run so far away..." he manages, panting hard.

<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

 
    He isn't wrong. 'Terrified' is a very good description for how Lan feels.

    "I'm sorry," she repeats herself helplessly. How is she supposed to explain herself when she doesn't have the words? But if anybody can understand her, wouldn't it be Loren?

    Isn't that kind of what scares her the most, because she knows why he can?

    "Because I couldn't think," Lan manages after a few moments of silence. "You surprised me and I... Just out of nowhere you brought all of that up and, and I know what I did to you back then, and I'm so sorry."

    There. She said it. Even if he was already losing his memories, even if it was inevitable that he'd forget everything. He'd seen it, hadn't he? And that was what tipped him over the edge at last. "I didn't mean to do it, but you... you saw it, didn't you." Lan wraps her arms around her knees and rests her chin there, toes curling and uncurling anxiously in her sandals as she avoids looking at him for a few moments.

    "...You said 'we'," she notes eventually finally turning her eyes to his sprawled form. "It always used to be 'you' and 'I'. You don't say 'we' much."

    Is she... is she changing the subject?!

    But it seems to have made her a little happier, somehow?

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    Loren is well-acquainted with nameless unfocused terror, the sort of thing that prompts someone to run away. He gets it -- he's done the same thing.

    It's why he's not so much angry at her as cranky about it. And tired.

    "I had to," he says, from his position on the ground. "If I hadn't, I wouldn't... have been able to ask," he continues, still breathing hard. "Face it, you would have started into something about ghosts... right? Or... something." He waves, tiredly, from his prone position.

    "I said," he says again, "I don't want to talk about it. And if you don't want to, then... good! We'll pretend it never happened. That'd... be easier." His chest rises and falls.

    And she apologizes, right into that space.

    "...Quit it."

    Loren's tone has taken a tone for the angry. He's risen up sharply, first on his elbows to gaze up at her, then shoving himself upright.

    "Yeah. You did that. I don't want to even think about it. But... so what!?"

    His hands have curled into fists; he's gained an almost manic energy about him. "Haven't I-- didn't you say what I did to you was bad?! So what're you-- what are you apologizing about!"

    It isn't a conscious calculated move in any respect. But later, he'll look back on this moment and realize, hey, when he's as worked up as this, it's not as if the memory was able to gain purchase in his psyche any...

    She remarks that he'd used 'we'.

    Still in the grips of the strange manic fury, he responds to her thus,

    "So?!"

    After a moment more he takes a breath, tries to smoothe out the wrinkles and kinks in the bedsheet of his mind, and finds himself left staring at her still.

    "So..."

    A long awkward pause follows.

    "...It is him, isn't it?"

<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

 
    "We did just ride a ghost train full of ghosts." In case he forgot! It would be totally reasonable to say something about ghosts!

    It would have been easier to talk about ghosts...

    He's angry. ...Why? Because she apologized? Lan stares back at him, eyebrows furrowed. "What-- why are you mad at me?! Because I'm sorry? Why shouldn't I say I'm sorry, just because you hurt me first?! Do you think that me hurting you just... makes us even?"

    That can't be it? And even if he doesn't want to think about it... even if he doesn't want to talk about it, he came to her to do just that. Lan unfolds herself a bit, getting to a half-kneel as if she's going to stand up. "It scared me that I could do that! It scared me that I did it to you! Because you're my friend, just like Gwen. And after that you just... you just shut down," she tells him, looking down again. "And I thought I'd... not killed you, but..."

    So, he says.

    "...Yeah, Lan admits, only having a vague idea of just what Loren thinks of as 'it', but there's nobody else 'it' could be, anyway. "It's him. He's... it's not like he's in my mind or anything. It's not... not like I hear someone telling me what to do." There's just something that's part of her now, and it wants to make her into a brand new creature.

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    "I know that," Loren grumbles, grimacing as she brings up that point. "I don't want to talk about that, either."

    But does he want to not talk about it more than he wants to not talk about this?

    "What?! No, that's not-- look," he tries, visibly struggling to try to thread that particular mental needle. "...Look, shut up! Wasn't I trying to kill you or something?!"

    He sounds angry. The expression he makes when he blurts that one out, though, is an entirely different emotion, and he lapses into silence after, looking at her for a long moment.
    Yeah. He'd been trying to kill her. It's not as if just because he was coming apart at the time he can't remember what he did, or how he'd felt, more or less.

    And then she goes on. It had scared her, she said. Because she'd been able to do that. Because she'd done it to him. Because she'd even thought she'd killed him.

    He looks away.

    It's like something is prowling outside his door. It's here again. And he can feel it, the shape of that memory. But it still doesn't feel like it had before. He can think about it without being overcome by it.

    He's still silent as she admits that it was 'him', still gazing away from her.

    "And I've got a piece of it, too. ...That's what happened," he says, finally. "Hey..."

    He finally turns his gaze back towards her, rubbing at the back of his left forearm. "But that piece of it... it really happened to you." On some level, at least -- but he's well acquainted at this point on what mindspace can be like sometimes. "He..." Loren hesitates here, uncertain if it's the best way to phrase what he can recall, "He took you apart."

<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

 
    She'd thought that maybe it was avoidable. That he was just angry. That he was confused. "...Yeah," she nods quietly. "You tried to get me to go back with you. And when I said no, that we were going to go our seperate ways again, you said that if I wouldn't come with you I could just stay down there." He'd looked -- just for a moment, just after she'd said that -- haunted.

    "And when I... when I did that, when it got into you. You passed out and you didn't wake up, and I didn't know if you were going to try again and I didn't know what to do so I tied your wrists. I thought if I could maybe get you back to somebody from Gebler maybe they would know what to do. But then you woke up and you were gone." She's settled back into a seat against the base of the tree, with her legs crossed, but despite the determinedly-casual posture she's still stiff and uneasy. Lan still doesn't know if she did the right thing. All of it, from running with him to leading the ritual that only that Loren had seemed to want.

    When Loren turns to look at her again Lan is still there, leaned forward with both hands in her lap. She's not quite ready to curl up in a ball again, but neither can she make herself lean back against the tree and pretend everything is all right.

    The corners of her eyes crease tiredly when he finally says it.

    Her throat is dry when Lan swallows. "...Yeah. ...Yeah. Over and over." Her throat is dry, but her eyes are wet. "I don't... I don't have a single mark from it. Nobody would ever believe me if I had told them." The only mark the Stranger gave her is the one that started everything, the twisted mark just above her navel. It's not as fresh, no longer such a stark pink as it was when Loren met her. But it still catches sometimes when she stretches.

    The tears finally break, spilling down her face as Lan tries to speak calmly. "I lost count. I don't know when it stopped. I don't know if it ever did stop. Nothing makes sense so I try not to think about it because if I do I think I'm going to go crazy."

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    Isn't that how he looks now, if just a little bit?

    Haunted?

    "...Yeah," Loren says eventually, reluctantly. "I remember." It would be great if he'd had parts of the whole business that had remained sunken away in his consciousness. It would have been nice to have only learned about all of this at a remove, once he'd been told about it by someone else. Unfortunately, if he thinks about it, he can remember more or less the whole sequence of events with reasonable clarity. He grimaces, but says nothing else.

    It had been an unwanted lesson in the sort of person he really was.

    "...I know. Honestly..." he says, slowly, "I probably would have done the same thing."

    Slowly, he settles down, seating himself on the dry and cracked earth a distance from her. He's not all that much more 'at ease' than she is, sitting in a stiff and awkward sprawl himself.

    And after all that, he'd come back to this. He's not sure himself that he'd made the right call in asking for that ritual.
    But even if he hadn't, Leah would have made it a certain thing. He's realized it by now, anyway -- she would have always found him and brought him back, whether he and Lan wanted it or not.

    Over and over, Lan confirms. No marks. No one would ever believe her. There's something weird about her, now. Something that he feels as if he were both extremely close to realizing and terribly far from at the same time.

    "...I met him once, before all this," he says, head bowed. "He... looked like my brother." It feels like running his hand over an ancient scar, flat and smooth. "I guess he... did all sorts of things. Stabbed me. Slit my throat. Took me apart. ...But only the last one counted." Loren lapses into silence for a moment more. Then: "...But that's why I can believe you. He does... things."

    Things like that.

    Her tears spill over, and he realizes belatedly what had been so weird about her posture, her poise. Something in his chest tightens. Maybe if he'd been anyone else, this would have been the moment he'd have embraced her, or at least put a hand on her shoulder, or...

    "...Sometimes it's better not to think about things," he says at last, quietly. "Sometimes... it's just not..." He exhales a heavy, heavy breath. "...sorry."

<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

 
    How must it have felt, to wake up again?

    To have been happy, mostly, or at least content, and to choose truth, and pain, and ugliness, because... She doesn't even know why he wanted it. Maybe just because he thought it was right.

    She doesn't bother trying to wipe away her tears, letting them fall onto her folded hands as she looks out at nothing in particular. It hurt. It stills hurts, to think about.

    But the Stranger had first come to Loren wearing his brother's face. It's a fresh hurt in her chest, thinking about it - the brother that Loren had both hated and missed dearly. She remembers how he'd looked, curled up in a ball on the floor of that room in the Dreaming. How that Dream Engil had said that he didn't hate him. How Leah had sounded so tired, suddenly so old.

    Sometimes it's better not to think about things.

    She's silent for several breaths, even after he apologizes.

    "...Hey. You said you remember, right." It's not a question. Lan doesn't look at him yet, but wipes at her face as if she's hoping that she'll stop crying soon. "...Why did you want me to come back?"

    She has ideas, but no answers. Because he was lonely, because she was there, because because because...

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    Or maybe, he just thought it was better to know than to remain ignorant. That maybe, he had a home to return to, people to see again. Maybe it was just the fact of being so empty even if he had a sort of happiness, a sort of contentedness. Of not knowing who he was, really, what he ought to be doing.

    He's still not sure he chose right. But maybe that's the curse. You want to forget who you are, and once you do, you want to remember. And so on and so on it goes, in an endless loop, never satisfied. Maybe there was never a right answer.

    It's a lot, sometimes. When he thinks about things now...

    There are other reasons, new reasons, that he doesn't want to go home.
    Or, perhaps, they're not really new at all. Maybe it's part of what he's been running from all this time -- the fact that he also deeply misses his brother, as much as he might hate him.

    Unlike Lan, he doesn't cry in this moment. He doesn't look at her while she does, averting his gaze as if to give her at least some privacy. He stares at the cracked earth instead and distantly wonders when it last rained. If it'll ever rain.

    He doesn't look up when she asks him, then, if he remembers.

    "Yeah," Loren says, not looking up, and simply nodding the once.

    Why did he want her to come back?

    "..."

    He looks up at Lan just once, then looks away. Shifting his posture, he brings his knees up and loops his arms around them. He doesn't say anything for a long time.

    "...Because I missed you. And... that was all I could really hold onto," he says quietly. "I thought... it was the only thing keeping me together."

    And when she'd refused he'd snapped. He'd actually tried to kill her.
    ...That part of him is... really ugly. He wishes he could rip it out of himself, toss it aside. But...

<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

 
    He'll look over to see her wiping her eyes, but she doesn't look away from him when he does. It's not shameful to cry when you need to.

    He remembers. Lan waits - not with bated breath, not hanging on every word, but patiently. She's still, because she thinks he'll answer - maybe he won't, maybe he doesn't want to say. Maybe it's embarrassing for him. Maybe it was just something secret.

    He doesn't love her, and she doesn't love him, but they don't need to. They've never needed to. It was a relief to have someone that didn't love her in a way that she couldn't reciprocate.

    He looks over again and she's not quite dry-eyed, but she's looking at him; elbows pressed into the sides of her knees and her fingers woven together. She's quiet, as long as he needs her to be - a far cry from the usual rhythm of their relationship.

    All because he'd missed her. Because he was coming apart, and afraid.

    Was it anger, when she'd refused? Or despair?

    "...I miss you too," Lan says quietly. Shifting carefully, she scoots over the few inches it takes to properly sit beside him - not encroaching too far into his space, but still close enough for her knee to brush against his leg.

    She's still looking out at nothing, eyes still wet but no longer crying. "...I missed the lie, too. Thinking that I was finally doing what I was supposed to be doing. I missed Leah. I missed being..." She makes a vague, encompassing gesture. "I dunno. I missed knowing what I was doing. Being comrades. Feeling like part of something."

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    Maybe she doesn't care. But he cares -- she can cry if she needs to, but it doesn't mean he has to stare and make it more difficult for her. Privacy is a rarity in Solarian life, even for the First Class, and that's why he values it so greatly.

    Quite a paradox, really. Bemoaning being left to his own devices by his peers while also desiring isolation. But then again, Loren shattered to pieces a long time ago, and he's still far from whole.

    It's probably another reason why it takes him some time to answer. It's something he doesn't want to answer, something he wants to hide away in the depths of his heart because it's a little shameful. Because it's a little sad, a little pathetic, more than a little at odds with the self he tries to project to the world. He doesn't need anyone. He'll work with others because it's expected, but at the end of the day he's going to be alone, and that's fine--

    Except, no, not really. So when he'd been coming completely apart, he had sought after the only thing that he'd thought he might be able to cling to. Maybe, just maybe, he could keep going a little longer.

    But...

    It had felt like a rejection. And, yes, he had despaired. In his shattered state, he'd ricocheted that pain right back around again.

    Loren nods just once, head resting against his knees. He doesn't say a word, not even when she scoots over closer to him.

    She missed the lie. She missed the togetherness that had been, as paradoxical as such a desire would be.

    "...You could come back," he tells her, after a long moment. The Major would smooth over the rough parts, probably. No one else would blink an eye. Except...

    He slouches, his arms slackening around his knees.

    "But you shouldn't," he concludes.

<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

 
    Privacy was scarce in Little Firelight as well, but the dynamic was completely different.

    Loren who doesn't want to depend on anybody, but must. Lan who wants to be part of something, but can't. What a pair they are.

    "..." She could come back. He'd said it before, more than once. She's already drawing breath to explain that no, she won't, when he finishes.

    He'd said that he couldn't abandon it - his family, his home, the country where his brother died. "...Because it's still messed up," Lan says after a pause. "Because even if I was okay with being... erased again, it wouldn't be right to do it - not for the reasons they'd use. And even so, they would. And you'd remember, anyway. I don't think you'd be happy this time, either."

    She looks away from him. After a moment, Lan gets to her knees and shuffles over to her pack, dragging it back with her.

    That long wrapped shape is still there - just like it had been on Mt. Gagazet. Lan sets the whole thing across her lap, picking at the leather cords holding it. When it's unwrapped (is that a dress it's wrapped in?) she pushes her bag away with a foot and and fits her hand into the grip. She knows the basics of using a sword, and it doesn't look entirely alien in her hand, but...

    "Hold out your hand, okay." She won't wait forever - if Loren hesitates to offer it, she'll reach for it. Insistently, Lan wraps their fingers together around the blade of the sword. "I'm giving this back to you. Not because I'm going to say goodbye or anything, okay?" she cautions/reassures him, peering at his face with a serious expression.

    If either of them squeeze too hard, their hands will be cut. It's a balancing act, of sorts - but not a particularly difficult one. "Promise me you'll use it for things you know are right, okay? Promise me you'll use it to-- to save the world."

    Yes, she's serious.

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    He can't manage on his own. That's the lesson he's been forced to learn, over and over. Not even because he's bitten off more than he was able to chew, or anything like that, just the simple fact that if it weren't for the intervention of others, he would not have even gotten this far. And even he's uncertain now whether that was kindness or cruelty.

    Leah should have seen him sent home a long time ago. Even if it would have meant that he...

    Instead, he makes Lan an offer.
    Even if he undercuts it with his own opinion on the matter moments later.

    She herself lists off the reason why she shouldn't, and his only response to that -- to all of that -- is to nod, head still resting against his knees.

    He only stirs and halfway starts to uncurl when she pulls away from him and drags her bag towards her.
    Then all the way once he sees what it is that she's got. What she's untying. What she's...

    "Was that a dress," he can't help but wonder, because he's himself.

    'Hold out your hand', she says, and he hesitates, because he's himself, but relents a few seconds later, unfolding his fingers as he stretches it out towards her and,

    "Hey, what are you... that's a sharp edge," he remarks, but she's taken care to fold his fingers around the blade rather than along it. He's aware of the edge without being (immediately) cut by it. And it will remain that way until/unless...
    He keeps his hand still, frozen in the position she'd folded it in. He's not stupid -- he can see that if he moves too much or if he grabs at it, he'll cut up his hand. And so will she.

    "...Okay," Loren says, looking at her as if there were a million questions ready and waiting behind his eyes. But he doesn't ask them, not yet. "Then it's not goodbye."

    Just like with Anaitis.

    But she wants one thing from him in return for it. He has to only use it for the things he thinks are right. He has to...

    "...What?" he utters, as if she had asked him to flap his wings and fly to the moon. "But I'm not... I can't just..."

    And his gaze flits down towards the edge of the blade. What would Engil have done, if he were in the same position? ...He's not his brother. But it's as good a starting place as any.

    "I'll... try," is what he says. "I don't know about 'saving the world'. But... I want to at least save my country." He pauses, staring at the only thing he has -- reforged, recast -- of his brother. "Even if it's from itself."
<Characters> Pearl says, "Hmm fair"
<Characters> Pearl says, "It's the same point cost, I'll allow it"
<Characters> Emeralda Kasim says, "or could, anyway. - yeah it is the same AP cost but it actually does cost 5 more FP to actually use"
<Characters> Emeralda Kasim says, "and if you're having to pop Extend every time that may matter"
<Characters> Pearl says, "Yeah"
<Characters> Emeralda Kasim says, "for Mariel I am making her MA a giganto heal rather than a buff (she has the big buff as a sig), it's nice to see more support ones"
<Characters> Pearl says, "It's 65 FP with 5FP for target"
<Characters> Pearl says, "Including extend, so it's costed right but it becomes a late game buff"
<Characters> Kaguya says, "Widespread only works on Deathblows"
<Characters> Kaguya says, "so it'll still be 10 per target"
<Characters> Pearl says, "oh well"
<Characters> Pearl says, "that seems honestly pointless then"
<Characters> Kaguya says, "swidespread, or your giant buff?"

<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

 
    "It was the only piece of cloth I had big enough to cover the whole thing," she explains with a half-roll of her shoulders.

    It's a sharp edge. Lan knows this, because she'd cut herself on it before. On that battlefield, at Kattelox, when she'd taken this from him - when he'd run from it and her.

    It would be easy to cut herself again. It would be easy to squeeze his fingers into it, until they bled, they both bled, and the ink in Lan became the ink in Loren too.

    Lan doesn't look away. She doesn't run from the thought. She holds it in her mouth, in her heart, like a poisonous thing she doesn't dare let pierce her skin.

    Her fingers are warm against his, and gentle beneath their calluses.

    "It's not goodbye," she agrees. "We'll keep running into each other. Over and over again, I bet. And ...even if we're not on the same side most of the time, and even if we get in fights and argue, we're both going to do what we think is right. We're going to try to save who we can, when we can. whenever we can." Because he's a medic, and Lan is a dreamer.

    It seems to satisfy her, and Lan carefully, so so carefully extracts her hand from his, leaving him Engil's -- Loren's sword.

    "We don't have to be what we don't want to be."

    She doesn't. She won't.
===== +WHERE ===================================================================
_ Great Spiran Sea Venetia Vuong, Hiro, and Marivel _
_ Armitage _
_ Meria City - Central Commercial Isiris Shango'Ra and Elise Riesdale _
_ District _
_ The Thames - Market Gwen Whitlock and Azoth _
_ Buckeye Station - Market District Yue Rohay and Avril Vent Fleur _
_ Buckeye Station - The Depot Lan Lilac and Loren Voss _
_______________| 5 IC Rooms Occupied / Sat Aug 14 01:43:50 2021 |_______________
_ Observer, Drifter, Bystander, Antagonist, and Staff _

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    It's not as if he can really fault her there. He doesn't say anything and instead, simply nods. He still has the sheath.

    All she would have to do would be to squeeze her hand. Then he'd bleed. She'd bleed. Just like old times, almost. But she doesn't. And he doesn't move at all.

    Her hand's warm. It's been a while since he's touched anyone at all, skin to skin, let alone their hand. It's just nice. It's just nice in a simple, uncomplicated way -- here is someone else, and they are alive.

    Here is someone else, and he's not alone. Not even if a part of him even now wants to be.

    "...Yeah," Loren says at last. They'll meet again. They'll fight again. That's... just how it's going to be. And with any luck, they'll do that without losing sight of the things they want to reach, the people and places they want to save. Or each other, for that matter. Maybe someday they'll even achieve their goals. And then...

    Her hand at last parts from his. He can still feel the heat and pressure, even after she moves away, leaving him with his brother's blade.

    "Yeah," Loren says, taking the sword by its hilt now. Someday he'll even figure out what that is.

    But for now, he'll accept the role he's been given and see if he can work out the remainder.

    Slowly the young man rises to his feet, sword held loosely in one hand, and breathes out a sigh as he glances up towards the sky above.

    One step at a time. He's still picking up the pieces.