It's called friendship

[songbird9.livejournal.com]

Who: Lilith and Song
What: Yet another Calum-related debate, followed by plotting. The scent of future epic is in the air.
When: Wednesday, shortly after Chase's post
Where: Radiant Garden and a gummi ship



Song strode briskly into the hanger, looking pale but determined, and spoke up without wasting time on greetings or formalities. "Lilith, I'm coming with you. If killing him's the only way, fine, I'll get out of your way, but I won't let you do it without at least trying to save Josiah."

Lilith continued silently down the metal catwalk towards the smaller gummi ships, not bothering to turn around. Her pace was brisk, fueled by rage, and she abruptly turned to descend towards one of the smaller but faster black gummi ships near the end of the catwalk. After a few more steps, she coldly replied, "You're not coming."

Song sucked in an audible breath and jogged to catch up. It was painfully obvious that she was still weak from the illness, but the firm set of her features made it equally clear that she wasn't planning on backing down.
"I am. He's my friend. I told you I won't stop you if there's no other way. Just let me come, we'll talk on the way, and you tell me if my plan has any chance of working."

"No." Lilith still didn't meet her eyes, her own hair blanketing her face. "You'll only complicate things." She approached the gummi ship's panel door and typed something quickly into the keypad next to it. The door slid open silently and the demon took a step inside... and stopped. Her hand clenched into a fist at her side. "You still don't understand. You still don't see."

Ignoring her refusal, Song stayed a step behind the succubus. She almost scoffed at the last words, remembering a similar line in someone else's voice. I thought you understood. I thought you saw why it has to be now...
"What don't I understand? Explain, and maybe I will."

Silence. Lilith continued further into the gummi ship, although the door didn't close behind her. "Go home, Song," she called behind her. "This is not your concern anymore." Quietly she added on, her voice almost inaudible in the depths of the tiny craft. "It's none of anyone's concern."

Song stepped into the ship, though a part of her wanted to surrender. It was the tone of Lilith's voice. She could feel her gut clench in protest of her disobedience.
But she didn't leave.
"If you tell me, in full honesty, that there is no possible way to save Josiah's life... Alright." She spoke softly, and slowly. "But if there is a way, if you and I or you alone can get into his head and break Calum's control, even if we can't destroy Calum himself, then we have to try. I cannot just let you go, and sit here knowing that my friend his going to die and I'm not doing anything about it. I just can't. We have a responsibility to him, Lilith. You as well. Do you understand?"

Lilith was sitting at the controls, her spine still rigid enough where she wasn't even close to touching the back of the chair, but she wasn't checking any of instruments. She quietly sat in the chair behind the console, staring straight ahead. She opened her mouth to say something, closed it, and then started again.
"I don't have a responsiblity to anyone other than myself," she whispered coolly, but there was a strange note in her voice, one that didn't sit right with her words. "Not to you, not to him, not to-" She stopped, as if the words were strangling her.

Song took her own seat, quietly asserting her place on the ship. "Not to Calum? Really? Just like I had no responsibility whatsoever to Xemnas, or even Orpheus?" She went silent for a moment, but not quite long enough for Lilith to reply. "You haven't answered the important question. Can we save Josiah?"

Lilith didn't turn to face her - during their entire conversation, she had not once looked Song in the eyes. Both of her hands curled into fists, so tightly that her knuckles turned white.
A long stretch of silence passed, and finally the succubus murmured, "I don't know, Song. I can't... it's like he's gone. I-" She stopped again, but this time she didn't even bother to try to continue.

Song's voice softened in response, stubbornness replaced by gentle reasoning. "Perhaps Calum has him locked up so tightly that he's blocked from you. Is that possible?"

"I don't know!" Lilith snapped, whirling to face Song, allowing the woman to see her face for the first time. She was pale, and her eyes were vaguely red-rimmed as if she hadn't slept in awhile... or as if she had been crying some time earlier. And her eyes were filled with unspeakable rage, fear, frustration, and most surprisingly of all, grief. "I don't know what to expect when I go there. All I know is that I'm going to have to do this again, and now all of you are pulled into this because you just won't stop. Not Calum, not Josiah, and most of all, you."
Her voice lowered to an icy whisper. "Why can't any of you - ANY of you - just leave me be...?" She turned away, covering her face with her hands. "I can't- I can't keep- please. Just let me do this. One last time."

She was shocked by Lilith's outburst, so much so that for a moment she couldn't speak.
A minute flew by as she tried to reorganize her scattered thoughts, and then review what Lilith had said.
"It's called friendship, Lilith... Sometimes it isn't as fun as they say, but that's how all matters of the heart are, really. I think we both know that."
She took a breath, and let it out in a short sigh.
"It's... I know you don't want us hurt. You'd rather not have to worry about us. You probably wish you didn't care at all..." She was stumbling slightly for words, her little speech interspersed with short pauses, but her voice was peaceful and sincere. "Obviously, you do care, just like I do, which is why I can't stop. Why niether of us - none of us can stop. So... I'm going. And we're going to find out if Josiah's still alive, and we're going to save him, if we can. And... maybe..." she cut herself off, biting her lower lip.
She couldn't bring herself to go that far. Not without evidence to back her up. It wouldn't be fair to Lilith, to suggest that Calum might somehow be spared, be turned, in anything resembling the way Xemnas had.

Lilith didn't reply right away - she had gone back to adjusting the control panel with an uncanny familiarity, her hands flying across the lighted panels. She paused after the engine began to softly hum, and then said quietly, her voice now devoid of any of the emotion that had been in it before, "It doesn't matter. It's going to end the same way again anyway."
There were words just beyond the very edge of that conversation, words that explained that, once again, there was more to the situation than Song would ever know, more to that rocky relationship than either Lilith or Calum would ever let on... but just like before, the words remained unsaid.
She flipped one of the smaller controls and the gummi ship began to quietly hover in the air. "Don't try to stop me, Song. I am going to end this."

This time it was Song who wouldn't meet her eyes, couldn't quite manage to look at her. Instead she looked straight ahead, bracing herself for the take-off. "Just give me a chance, that's all I ask. Help me try my way, and it that doesn't work, you can do whatever you need to do. And... I'll help you, if I can. If that means fighting, or just staying out of the way... but if won't try, or at least let me try to save him, I... will make this more difficult for you. One way or another." It wasn't much of a threat, really, but Song was already feeling exhausted and losing her sharp edge. She was counting on the flight to give her a chance to rest before the real struggle began.

"We may only get one chance," Lilith replied sharply even as the gummi ship disappeared from the hangar and reappeared into colorful gummi space. "You just-" She made a frustrated gesture and then shook her head. "I hope that girl can afford whatever time you plan to take. Calum's bait usually never fared well."

"Can you get me into his head fast? My own spell would take too long."

Lilith's jaw clenched and her grip tightened on the wheel. Obviously the idea of entering Calum's mind was the last thing on her want-to-do list.
"I could."

"Good." Her voice had relaxed again. or rather, it seemed almost devoid of emotion. She was in planning mode. "I'm betting he'll be too observant to fall for a simple distraction trick, unless there's something specific you can do to get me in there without him noticing. Otherwise, what would you suggest? Would it be smart for you to keep him busy outside, or would that just make him more likely to smite me out of spite?"

"You want to confront him one on one," Lilith confirmed, unable to keep the incredulity out of her voice. "After all of this, that is the most suicidal thing you can do. Not to mention that two of those other human girls are going to be in the way as well."

"Confront him if I have to," Song corrected, "but what I actually want to do is find Josiah. Free him. Break Calum's control, or loosen it. Preferably without too much interferance from Calum himself. What's the best way to do that, or am I just gonna have to wing it?"

Lilith was quiet as she thought about the problem, tapping the control panel in contemplation. The silence lasted for a very long time, and it almost seemed as if she wasn't going to reply at all.
"I'll distract him," she said finally, her voice hardly above a whisper. Again, that odd note had entered in her voice, and the words didn't even sound right. "I'll distract him, and you see if you can undo whatever hex Calum cast."

She nodded. "Alright. When you get me in, it'll be just like any other dream dive, I expect? Mind but not body, so I'll have to stay out of his sight, or else I'll be sitting there at his mercy, right?"

"Yes," the demon replied shortly. "But you'll have to work fast. I may not be able to hold him for long. He does, after all, control the body of my current master."

"Right... If I'm really lucky, maybe I can mess with the time in there. Sometimes it doesn't flow the same. I won't count on it, though." She frowned, running the rough plan through her head to see if they'd missed anything important.
"Can you tell me what I might expect to face, and how to deal with it? You know him best."

Lilith shook her head. "It was different before, whenever I entered into his dreams. The... situation was different." She didn't elaborate, but her wording suggested that the "situation" was something other than the current status of their relationship.
She shrugged her shoulders, even as she sat back in her chair. "The person he is now is not the same person whose dreams I entered in so long ago. I can't tell you what to expect."

"Ah." Any disappointment Song may have felt was almost unnoticeable, hidden in her neutral tone. "Well, I'm used to improvising. You just keep him busy as long as you can, and I'll do my best to free Josi. If I fail... well, nothing for it. At least we'll have tried." A pause... then, quietly, "Thank you, Lilith."

"Thank me if the body count by the end of all of this is only one," came the dismal reply. She reached forward to flip more switches on the console, and the gummi ship's speed accelerated as they headed towards the coliseum.

Song considered arguing, just on general principle, but she'd worn herself out too much already. Wordlessly, she leaned back in her chair and watched the prismatic reaches of gummi space flow by, silently counting up all the times she'd run headfirst into danger and wondering if this would be the time when she didn't scrape her way out of it.