[COMPLETE]

[egoistically]

WHO: Van [egoistically] and Asch [not_about_logic].
WHAT: Meeting, because Van would like explanations for certain actions Asch has taken in the past~
WHERE: The dock, possibly moving from there.
WHEN: This evening.

Comments

[not_about_logic]

Of course. Of course he did. Whatever Van's "attention" meant. And it was never what Asch wanted or what he needed, always what Van felt was best. He was a father, a brother--he had been a friend, if you could call it that--a mentor. He was everything. Something seized up in Asch's chest and for a moment he could feel his heart flinging itself against his ribcage, and everything was tight, too tight.

What was he supposed to say? The replica is better than I am. He can defeat you; I can't. Or maybe, Is this what you always wanted? Is this what you took me for?

The trouble was that Van didn't respect him, and half of it--Asch knew--was because he'd given him no reason to. He couldn't trust Van's vision, and who was to say that Asch hadn't been the one to betray him first?

All he could see was Van, Van's back to him, his shoulders and his stark, broad profile against the darkness, no more than a shadow himself. Damn it. Van was the smartest person he knew; he was the strongest. He'd never been able to accept the flaws in him; perhaps he never would.

"There's no fonons here," he said at length, the words wrenched from someplace deeper. "I don't know whether or not the Fon Master is able to draw on his own fonic artes. I'm certain, though, that neither the replica nor Colonel Curtiss is capable of creating even low level fonic artes here." Report finished. Sir.

[egoistically]

Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. Fresh air off the water went in before being released; a pleasant change from the salt water air he was accustomed to back in Auldrant. He was certainly thankful for that much, at least. He was enjoying the silence, the warm night air, the complete relaxation of it all. Granted, he was still tense as ever, consistently calculating in the back of his mind how he might get home in the morning, how his plan could continue in his absence, but at that very moment? He content to let it all drift to the very back, contentment in the present taking over the forefront.

At least until Asch began to give him what could be described as an excuse of a status report. He really had become lax in his duties as a General. Tsk.

Honestly, Van would have been fine not discussing 'business' for the rest of the evening, but it seemed as though the subject wasn't leaving any time soon. Another sigh, as though the entire thing was positively tiring for him, requiring much more effort than he could manage to provide at the time. That, obviously, was not the case, but the impression could be observed as such. He was mostly just tired from the days events, waiting for Asch to arrive, only to be whisked away to another world and ariving with a none too enjoyable welcoming committee. It would be preferable to simply find an Inn and turn in for the night.

But there was too much that required discussing, and the mention of the lack of fonons concerned Van. Lorelei was holding his body together, keeping him alive; if fonons didn't exist in that world, what would become of him? How perplexing.

"Then you realize," Van finally turned to Asch, only to give him a rather fatigued look of amusement, "that I will probably die here, in that case?" He laughed, more forced than anything. "Proves to make your job of disposing of me easier, does it not?"