Lerche is a pleasant company on the condition that he not be accompanied by Vito. It is not to say that Vito perhaps does not enjoy being around Lerche. Saying so would be absurd, when often he went on months on end with only the older man to dissect his thoughts. Dear Celestial. He didn’t even think he’d had problems with his few lingering thoughts.
The problem lies within the fact that Lerche felt far too interested in his thoughts– for someone who merely wished to survive day in and out.
“Vito,” Comes the steady voice he’s long been familiar with, “Have you had enough of dancing around me?”
“...” Quickly averting his eyes, Vito tries to not look constipated. Because he’s not- At least shouldn’t be. Lerche’s last gambit with an odd looking snake still left him feeling queasy, but not ill. “If anything, I wonder if it even matters to you.”
“Why you wish to live?” Lerche laughs in that curious way of his, “I find that rather important.”
“Years down the line does not count for importance,” Vito pauses before tilting his head, “And that does not seem to be something you can afford down on the Surface.”
Lerche leans back onto the withered tree, lamp light flickering against his weathered skin. That specific look comes over the man- one Vito has seen several times before. One he pretends he didn’t have the name for.
“Landmarks are those that are weathered and worn.” Lerche’s smile turns tighter, “Isn’t it so, even the most astute would only know what stays?”
Vito muses over that for a second. There is not much fault in that.
“Well, why do you?” Vito replies earnestly. It’s not something grand or terrifying he needs to keep close to his heart. He’d rather not, counted as enough reason to him. Want and will was the way he lived.
Lerche seems mildly taken aback.
To the Vito who followed him around, it was the equivalent of stumbling backwards in shock. Lerche is emotive- all good storytellers were- but the genuinity hidden in that mere gesture sends Vito into an emotional recoil. He’s not sure what to do with the fact that he might be a bit endeared- and not just obligated.
“Me?” Lerche echoes, as if haunted with what thoughts came from that. It’s only fair that he gets cross in the ricochet of his own question- but to Vito’s disappointment Lerche laughs. “Isn’t my age enough? Seeing everyone scour research to reach what I’ve long got.”
Vito shakes his head, assuming that his question will lead nowhere once more.
“I don’t need a reason, I just don’t feel like dying.” Vito muses over it some more, before he makes a move to sharpen his knife. Cleaning would be a good call too- goop covered and dull from trudging through an unfriendly thrush. All that for an unidentifiable plant he’s sure Lerche will discard two days past.
To his surprise, Lerche elaborates.
“Instinct and want do not always go hand in hand,” he grieves, “Did you know I had a child?”
Vito very carefully does not react. He doesn’t touch the feelings that come hiding behind the thin layer of curiosity- he’s finally learning more about his companion.
“Well, I would only know of what you’ve told me.”
“A legacy” Lerche sighs, “A legacy is a treasure one may not often get to have.”
Vito’s not sure if he should point out that his child is very decidedly not there. But as tragedies are on the ark, he has the grace to let Lerche say as he wills.
“As such, I like the idea of a legacy. Not being one- I wouldn’t dare.” Lerche smiles, “Owning a legacy though… Not that is what that child was.”
“Then what do you mean?”
“Well, I’d like to one day tell a legend I see first hand. Change? Destruction of what we know?”
Vito’s stare could only be described as disbelief.
“That’s what it is? Or- well, then what?”
“I lied,” Lerche smoothly adds on, “Perhaps I just want to see all that I can see- you know I’m fond of things like that. My child has long gone on her own path and I have no need to haunt her steps.”
Vito doesn’t believe him. Vito surprisingly doesn’t believe in a lot of things Lerche says. Perhaps it was the trust in what he’s fed is for some greater part of living. Brushing off the implication that Lerche just had a family he’s long separated from Vito can’t help but feel irritation at how easily Lerche marks his words as bullshit.
“Alright.”
Lerche barks out in laughter, “Maybe you’ll be a part of it, Vito. You’d be a brilliant talent to bring into my stories.”
Vito sighs and shakes his head with exasperation before settling back into the rhythmic grindstone.
“You won’t get much story from me- or at least more than you already have. If there’s a journey it ends with that terrible escape. I just wanted to live.”
“Is that so?” Lerche taps the binding of his book, “If that’s so, you should’ve just stayed with the Order.”
“...What?”
“Wasn’t it easier to live up there? You certainly don’t seem pleased with the state of ‘life’ down and around here. The endless faction wars, the greed, sitting ducks that we all are,” Lerche flicks to a page with sketches of the corpse of a Unity Order soldier. One that Vito had to fend off and bury, “All you had to do was submit Show your hackles and your neck. They wouldn’t bite the herd they lead.”
“Just because I miss ignorance does not mean I will simply retreat back into it.”
Vito hadn’t meant to let it sound so harsh. He knows his decisions are impractical, after all he saw Reue fall his way to the top. He’d seen plenty of people go that path. Easy. Safe. Convenient. He can’t help but wonder if they felt nothing of it. That submission.
Or was it truly the thought of yielding to another that plagued him?
“It’s not that much different down here.”
“It is.”
“How so?”
Vito struggles to find the words. Before laughing mirthlessly.
“For one, I like to think that everything I did was of my own will.”
“So it was the idea of choice? Is that it?”
“They didn’t give me a second option, so I had to find it.”
Lerche seemed to think that Vito was hiding something deeper. Perhaps something more inspiring- more meaningful- something worthy to document in that almost eternal book of his.
“If that is what you consider true,” Lerche relents, ”But besides instinct and beside will, there is something else that is controlling you.”
Vito carefully does not let himself linger on what that implies.
—
“Factions are like sheep,” comes Lerche’s abrupt voice. “Led by the nose until they must meet their use.”
Vito laughs, “Aren’t livestock like those far too valuable for slaughter? Not even your generation would have been familiar with them”
“Words that outlived their time, I fear.” Lerche simply shrugs off, “Perhaps it’s poetic that only people are merely livestock now.”
Vito hesitates as he holds onto Lerche’s bloodstained bag. No sign of wear or struggle as if the owner was attacked. He’s not sure he’s ever seen Lerche try to fight. Patience was a learnt trait and he’s reminded of it constantly when confronting the oddities that cling to that man.
“Is there any particular reason you’re telling me this?”
“You seem bothered.”
Vito wants to bite back with ‘shouldn’t you be as well?’ or ‘It’s natural.’ He could afford pity and grief on the ark- he could not assume that Lerche had the chance to be the same.
“...Weren’t you just talking to them?” Vito tries to grasp some kind of fact to relate back to Lerche, “Wouldn’t you lament the fact they will no longer have their story recorded?”
Lerche smiles very slightly.
“Oh Vito, I record deaths before I record lives.”
“What’s the point of recording deaths if you don’t even- If they don’t even live?”
Left with silence, Vito stands up from where Lerche was waiting for him. This time it didn’t look like a simple raid done by another faction- the kills were too brutal. Too careless with equipment that had long been forced into scarcity. They didn’t have the knowledge the ark did, but they developed technology too quickly- in a way the head of the church likely couldn’t agree with.
The itch comes again. Why had they let Lerche live?
“Do not take me for a biased person, my friend.” Lerche nods to the broken crowd by his feet, “But I warned them appropriately.”
“They never had a chance.”
“Indeed. Another late night for you?”
Vito glances at the buildings and then to Lerche.
“If factions treat people as livestock, what are you?” Vito lets the unspoken ‘we’ run away. He knows that he didn’t want that answer.
“I don’t know.” comes honestly. “But I find that doesn’t matter.”
Vito doesn’t catch himself fast enough, but he catches Lerche just fine. His hands moving faster than his mind- he grabs Lerche’s arm.
“Lerche.” comes seriously, “What do you want from me?”
Objectively speaking- the answer Vito wished most for was to be a simple mercenary. The trade off of daily necessities being provided in order for putting his neck on the line was simple, but anything that came from this guy couldn’t be. Vito’s done this same routine until his nails stained red and his mind worked on practicing indifference. It’s cruel that the only moment he truly acted on the hesitation was when Lerche felt so distant.
The world was cruel anyways, so Vito packs aways those feelings.
Lerche meets his eyes calmly. If it had been someone else, that would be a sign of sincerity. Instead, Vito watches as Lerche studies his own face with strong fascination. As if he didn’t feel any real threat at all.
… Not that Vito would do anything anyways.
“I just find you interesting to have around. This old man has the luxury of boredom after all.”
“...”
Lerche turns his body fully as Vito is hit with the hilarity of it all- one who sat through a bloody conflict and one who didn’t. One would think Vito had been there for the massacre judging by the blood on his hands.
Taking a sticky step closer to Vito, Lerche leans into his shoulder.
“It’s not often you run into someone who values death as much as you do.” Vito feels oddly stifled- unsure what to do with any part of his body. Lerche laughs into his neck- warm air brushing against Vito’s scarred ear. “And I’m not keeping you here, Vito. I’m not your shepherd.”
Vito’s heart clenches hearing that.
He couldn’t.
Would he survive?
He pauses. He’s not entirely sure what to make of that thought that suddenly hit him. Not so gently as a ship hitting shore- but as if a heavy caravan had derailed and knocked into him.
Never before had the air felt so arid. A miracle despite the (bloodied) puddles around them.
“Aren’t you?”
Lerche’s face is hidden from view, but he can feel the way the man’s face shifts against Vito’s stiff body.
“Now what does that mean?”
Somehow Vito isn’t convinced that Lerche doesn’t know- if anything Lerche knew better than Vito himself. Feeling intense resignation, Vito lowers his head and looks down at Lerche’s shoulder.
“You’re exhausting.”
“And yet you stay.” Lerche smiles, “It’s not like I treat you poorly, so does the reason matter?”
It does. Vito reminds himself.
“Alright,” Vito says.
Perhaps Vito was like a dog. Loyal even when it bites back at him. He still can’t get used to the killing no one calls murder. He can’t stand finding Lerche’s neutrality despite claiming the same for himself. And yet he stays.
Backing away from Lerche in a poor attempt to separate himself with these feelings, he wonders how he’s still falling into the same pitfalls he criticized merely years ago. Nothing changed except the environment. Vito wonders why he’s fine with that.
Lerche is smiling. Looking at him as if he was ready to accept whatever Vito chose- including leaving. There is no choice in that- he knows that he cannot leave and still be himself.
Want and will are different things, Vito acknowledges.
“... I don’t know why I bother.”
Lerche takes that as an affirmation that Vito would be following once more. Turning heel without checking behind him, Lerche heads for their next destination sooner than expected.
“Well, I managed to bargain for some dried meat for you before it happened.” Lerche gestures backwards (presumably to the sack Vito was carrying for him), “Nothing they would bother to confiscate.”
The bag feels heavier than mere food supplies should be.
