2023-12-01: What You Lack
- Log: What You Lack
- Cast: Loren Voss, Leah Sadalbari
- Where: Damzena Desert
- Date: December 01, 2023
- Summary: Loren throws himself into combat training, trying not to think about all that has happened of late. Leah, however, finds him and has a few words for him.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Loren gasps for breath, sweat trickling down the sides of his face. It feels almost as if he's reaching his limit, and yet...
Readjusting his grip, he again rushes the practice dummy in the training hall. He's the only one still in here.
Simulation training (whether for operation training, Gear piloting, or medical procedure) is, of course, an important part of any officer's routine, but it's not the only thing that matters. Particularly when it comes to combat, Loren's felt, and particularly when it comes to weapons training. And of course, it goes double for officers like him, who didn't learn the basics in Jugend and had to learn -- in his case -- the sword after the fact.
...Especially since he's doing this on top of his already required medical and Ether studies. Solaris doesn't like it when their graduates deteriorate after Jugend so there are incentives to keep one's skills sharp. And the volume of requirements has increased of late, almost as if--
But there's one other reason why Loren is in here, hitting the training dummy as if he were attempting to instead smash it to pieces.
It's because when he does this, he doesn't have to think about what's happened so far and what might still happen.
He's panting by now as he backs away from the dummy, blunted training sword slipping from his grasp as he all but collapses onto his haunches. It feels as if his heart is going to pound right out of his chest. ...No more, then. He's finally hit the wall.
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.
As Loren falls, as he hits his wall, the door to the training hall opens. The footsteps that come are entirely ordinary; boots on the padded floor. There is no special gait, no particular step-STEP quality to them as once there was.
That particular bit of uniqueness has been healed away.
Loren may or may not recognize Leah's presence before she steps up nearby, looking over the training dummy. She considers it, for a few moments.
"I remember these," she reflects. "I remember how it felt, to train until I couldn't any longer. I did this too sometimes, you know."
"...But not now." Leah reaches out--and then swings with one fist, knocking the training dummy's head off with one stroke.
"Skill in battle isn't what you lack, Loren."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
He's alone in here. For that reason and that reason alone, Loren lets himself fall back onto the training mat...
...just as the door opens. It would have been bad enough if it had been literally anyone else already.
Leah Sadalbari steps into the room.
He knows it's her before she even walks into his field of view. Too late, he lunches up onto his feet, hastily hauling himself to just about kneel before her as she steps close to the training dummy he's abandoned. He watches her more or less mutely, his chest continuing to rise and fall with the effort of his breathing. She remembers how it felt to do exactly what he's attempting now--
Because that time is gone to her, now.
With one blow, she knocks the dummy's head from its torso. Loren can't help it: he flinches.
"L-Leah, I..." he says, once he's able to speak. Slowly, he rises to his feet.
What do I lack? he can't help but wonder, silently. If it's not skill, then...
Maybe it's conviction. Even now, as he gazes at her, restored -- no, transformed -- from the woman he'd come to know into someone else entirely, a part of him can't help but balk.
"Is that..." he starts only to trail out. His gaze retreats from her. "...Is that why we lost?" Not what he'd lacked, specifically. But perhaps... none of them had matched Leah's conviction.
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.
She is different--different from how she was, mere months ago. From how she had been for some time. But is her 'core' different? Is what she planned different?
What has changed?
Leah notices the flinch, but doesn't comment on it this time, simply turning to regard him. He starts to speak, but rises to his feet. His silent question receives no answer. Instead...
She smiles, but it is not a pleasant expression. He may not see it, since he looks away.
"Is that what you think?" she asks.
"...It is not unfair, to think so. We didn't achieve our obvious objective, and we lost a base. You look for things we didn't have, to explain why, in light of a righteous cause, we still didn't achieve our objectives. Is there 'justice' in this world?"
"...A separate question. Do you think I didn't plan for the meddling of Drifters?"
She smiles, and it is a little nicer, this time. "No. We lost nothing we were not prepared to lose. And thanks to you, we didn't lose the soldiers we could have, either. You made a difference."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
What has changed? He's still trying to figure that out. Or, for that matter, if anything had changed at all. Perhaps he always had been deluding himself about Leah's aims, Leah's intentions. Had he just been seeing what he'd wanted to see, believing what he'd wanted to believe?
Or, even, what she had wanted him to see and believe all this time.
Loren hesitates. "...Yes," he says at last. It is what he believed: a failure to complete their stated goals is a failure, however he looks at it.
She asks of him something he can't answer. Does something like 'justice' exist? Once he would have thought 'certainly' -- once, he had thought that without question there was some law of action and consequence of that sort in this world. "I--"
But Leah has another question for him. Loren stares back, silent as he considers what she's just said.
"Yes, but--" he starts, shaking his head. When he speaks again, all his doubts come forth at once: "What did we accomplish? We lost the base and we lost that... sample," he says, of the man in the tube that Siegfried and his ally had claimed. "We didn't destroy our enemies, or even-- the others," he finishes, with more trepidation than before. That's right: very nearly, Azoth had evaded self-destruction. Perhaps that would have claimed the lives of several of the Drifters who had come to the site. Perhaps it might have even put an end to their real enemies. But, instead...
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.
It's hard to say.
He doesn't get a chance to answer the first question--which is for the best. He would likely not like Leah's answer to it. So instead, she waits for the answer to the other one--he makes a very reasonable set of statements there.
"That's true."
"Hmmmm."
She turns to the camera in the corner, and the hidden one behind it. She destroys both with a pulse of electric Ether.
"...For old times' sake," she explains wryly, and turns. She seems more... alive, somehow, than she has most of the time since that mission.
"We put something dangerous into the hands of our enemy. It's a risky ploy, but one I believe will pay off. And as far as they know, they got away with a valuable prize."
"Such acts are necessary for our plans to come to fruition. Armies and bases will not bring back to the world that which we need, Loren."
"Of course, Azoth very nearly became quite a problem. I'll have to consider how best to address that."
"But I suspect you'd have found a way to survive. You're good at that. It's something we have in common, I think."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
It has never been a good thing when Leah takes out a camera or surveillance system. Maybe not for him as such. But he recalls other incidents.
As it stands, here and now, Loren's heart sinks.
But that much is true: as he wrestles with what might be or what could be, she seems more alive than he's known her to be ever since the accident.
That 'person' in the tube was a trap, she explains. And Loren, even as he is, still manages to grimace faintly, ever the more on his guard. "Was that the real aim? To get... that into their hands," he clarifies. He should be glad that it's not a loss. He should be glad all they lost was a base: better a base than the people who would have lived and worked at it. Better they lose that base than see Siegfried's march of destruction continue to more Solaris installations.
...Assuming that prize they had claimed would be backfire for Siegfriend and his allies soon enough to stop them.
"..."
He again, hesitates. But some things can't go unasked: "Was that... not intended?" He speaks of Azoth, now. He'd wondered to Azoth if Leah had intended he destroy himself thus. And he'd noticed that he alone had been shielded. He could have indeed shielded himself further -- or beyond, if he had gone so far as to use Drive to amplify his abilities.
But perhaps everyone else there wouldn't have survived that, and that included Lan and Gwen. He doesn't look at Leah.
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.
"One of them," Leah clarifies. "We would have preferred to have also defeated Siegfried outright. But you will find that in understanding what it is that we have planned..."
"It is best to plan such that no outcome is a 'loss', if we can help it. And in control of the world, we very often can help it."
She doesn't mention whether the lives there were meant to be lost, of course. Instead...
"No," Leah says. "It was not. It would have been..." She considers.
"An acceptable loss, to my superior," she says. "But not my preference. I think that the Drifters, for all that they oppose us, can yet do us much good."
"...And I did not lie, when Lan called me her friend, at another battle," she admits. "You should know that I could--I will--sacrifice her if it becomes necessary. No one life is more important than the mission."
"...But perhaps it is my own 'individualism', like Azoth's, that leads to such an outcome even when it is not entirely logical."
She shakes her head. "I mention this not to shake your faith... But to add to it. These doubts you experience are normal. ...That which is rigid and stiff inevitably ives way to that which is soft and pliant. An inflexible army does not triumph. An unbending tree breaks in the wind."
"You must learn where to bend... and where to break the enemy."
"Azoth would destroy you, given the chance. Do not forget this."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
That admission, perhaps, mollifies him some; Loren seems -- by degrees -- that much less ill at ease than he had appeared. There's a certain wisdom to her words: if you arrange for things to be in a state where nothing is a true loss, then you need never lose anything. The idea of reframing it that way is appealing. Perhaps, it might even be attractive.
Especially in the light where -- if Leah can be trusted -- it might well be that the destruction that had nearly been wrought had not been her intention in the first place. There are those who would have found it acceptable, of course, those higher up the chain of command than her, but...
There had been another battle since, Leah says, and Loren pauses, thinking back to recent reports. Wait, which one had that...
Lan had been there.
Leah tells him something very important about Lan, or rather, her intentions towards her, should it become necessary.
Loren has never been good at a proper poker face when it actually matters: he stares back at Leah, something like muted horror dawning in his expression. The only thing that matters is the mission. And of course he knows that! He has known that as long as Lan remains their enemy, there's a very real chance she'll end up killed. This is not the first or the last time he has considered this possibility.
Rather instead, what Loren has just had is a rumination he had prior recontexualized: it's possible to achieve their goals and still not attain something he wants. Or that what's important to him, that what he wanted to save, could be sacrificed for the sake of their ends. He looks away. He looks at the broken practice dummy.
And he looks back at Leah and he thinks again about what she's lost, beyond the hope of reclaiming.
"...I know," he says at last. He has to hope what he can offer will be enough, and soon enough. He has to.
To bend and not break... to break what can otherwise be broken... is that what he's really missing? Even now, compromising himself... it hurts. He's never been good at being flexible. Even the way he's thinking now is too traditional -- even if he knows the structure underlying it is fake -- and too unyielding: she speaks of alternative frames of view where he can see only failure.
"I'll... keep that in mind." Wind is the enemy of earth, Loren can't help but think to himself.
But Leah has a word of warning for him at the last.
"And I know. He's a machine," he says, closing his eyes. He can support Azoth, but he can't trust him. Hasn't he already seen the wages of Azoth let off his leash? Azoth is an asset to be supported but he would absolutely destroy Loren and all he holds dear if given a chance.
...Isn't that right? Or is this, again, what Loren chooses to believe?
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.
'If' Leah can be trusted. Loren has seen much of her, but has he really seen enough to know her? It's hardd to say, of course.
Leah watches Loren's reaction to her statement. She sees the something there, that something that is like horror, and she regards him for a few long moments, waiting to see what it is that he will say in the end. And he of course says...
He knows. "Good."
Water is flexible. Water moves, and flows, but in rage can wash away all resistance. This is Leah's element. Maybe she was always like this.
...But probably not.
"I hope that you do." Keep it in mind, that is.
"He is a machine. And a machine can be a valuable ally... even a friend."
"But he is not. And he never will be."
Leah looks over the dummy, again.
"...As I said. Skill in battle is not what you lack. You've grown a great deal, since you left Jugend."
"But will it be enough? I'm counting on you, Loren. I've invested a great deal in you."
"...Don't disappoint me."
She turns, and starts for the exit.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Once upon a time, Lan had asked him what she was to him. She had meant to find out, in her own way, whether it would ever be possible for him to value her.
What should she be to him? When he thinks about it rationally, then of course the route he's on is the correct one. His parents, his people: how could he ever choose a single person over these things that should and do matter? How can he cast all of this aside for one person?
He can't. It's not possible.
But even so, a part of him wants things he should. It irrationally desires so many impossible things. He hopes he won't lose something -- someone -- important to him and yet he knows it's inevitable.
Once upon a time, he'd told Lan he'd change Solaris. He knows that's impossible, now. The rot was there from the foundation: it's built on something foul. The only hope it -- he -- has is that they can achieve a perfect world and render its presence needless.
Earth is solid and this is the element to which Loren cleaves strongest. But he has talent with water yet, and has since his induction into Jugend. There is a flexibility in Loren, if only the slow bend towards the inescapable. Even the earth moves. And even water may cease to flow.
Ephemeral fire, his least talent of all, may simply be suffocated under either.
But wind is another matter altogether.
Much like Azoth, who while just as machine as Schiehallion, cannot be friend or ally in truth. Loren has already seen that truth, and yet, it is still easier to pretend otherwise, isn't it? His mouth presses thin. At his sides, his hands curl loosely into fists. Who will Azoth nearly kill next time? He can't forget that.
But Leah has one more thing to say to him.
It's important.
Skill isn't what he lacks. He's grown, yes. But there's still something missing, she all but says. Will it be enough?
For the moment, Loren feels like he can't breathe.
Then:
"I won't," Loren says, as she starts to depart. If he can at all help it, he won't. Even if...
His gaze turns back to the decapitated dummy as she walks towards the exit and he stoops to retrieve the practice sword. That's right. The time for failure is past. He can't afford any further mistakes.
There is no more room for 'even if'.