Before we talk about how things are going with Lydia, let’s take a moment to see what I was up to in NL. I made Luka and Annabeth, doing renders from when they met (21 and 18) and when Carlo knew them (35 and 32), with Luka’s base model being around the time of OreHosa1 (55). Also, I hadn’t mentioned it before, but I did a render of Lydia when she was four (and with her hair a little longer, she looks just like a tiny Lia) and one of Maya as a baby (absolutely adorable). I’ll probably try to do House Sheeda tomorrow.

Okay, now let’s get back to the Lydia storyline. It was taking me a good while to edit yesterday’s session for archival purposes while condensing it for the blog post. As such, not nearly as much happened in this round. Lydia makes it back to her room in time to get changed and be ready for roll call. Because her roommates stand to get into a lot of trouble for the previous night’s prank, none of them say a thing about her being out all night or coming back in male Army PTs. She gets through the day’s training but doesn’t see Carlo in the hotel restaurant during evening chow. She’ll be going back to Di Maio (their post) in the morning and the day after she’ll be shipping out for her Midshipman’s Cruise. After that, it’s back to the main campus of the Academy to finish out her last year, then her first duty station after that… In other words, there’s no telling when she might see Carlo again. She knows with his personality, it’s going to be annoying dealing with the fallout of the previous night, so she could just leave things be. That isn’t what she chooses to do, though. (As with before, I merely set up the scenario, gave the bot the options and let it decide.)

She could have waited until after lights-out or gone right over and she chose the latter. When she first gets to Carlo’s room, his mind is fuzzy from the partial activation of his Demonlight Core, so there’s an opportunity for Lydia to pretend that the previous night was just a dream so he can carry on with Lia in blissful ignorance. Lydia doesn’t do this, but is nevertheless somewhat vague and makes an odd comment about being pushed away, which prompts Carlo to think he actually stopped things before they got too far. Again, there’s an opportunity for Lydia to make the choice that’s harder on herself but easier on everyone else, but she doesn’t take it and instead gets mad, thinking Carlo’s deliberately trying to excuse himself from what happened. Carlo insists that isn’t the case, so Lydia lays it out quite clearly and then tells him she just wants to be with him until morning. He asks her if they’re going to repeat the same mistake and she insists that she’s fine with that.

She hugs Carlo and being too far gone at this point, he hugs her back. She wants him to toss out all the baggage he’s carrying around and accept her just as she is. He notes that she isn’t just some girl, she’s a midshipman, the daughter of Colonel Han and the sister of his fiancée. For their fraternization, it could mean the end of her military career before it even starts, and there’s no way either Luka or Lia will forgive Carlo for this. Lydia rather boldly states that she doesn’t care about the consequences and will deal with what comes when it comes.

Before things can go any further, Lydia realizes she needs to get back before the lights-out roll call. She criticizes Carlo for not knowing about this rule, but he reminds her that he went to OCS, not the Academy, so the rules were different. They have a little banter and right before Lydia leaves, he pulls her back in for a kiss, thinking this is going to be good-bye for them. She gets back to her room before roll call, but after lights-out, she finds herself restless. She could leave things where they lay or go back to Carlo. Her desire to spend more time with him outweighs any other concerns, so she sneaks back over. Carlo is a bit colder to her this time, having resolved himself not to get in any deeper, but she manages to prevail over him. He points out that later that month, over Founders’ Day Weekend, he’s supposed to go back to his family with Lia to announce their engagement. He asks Lydia what she wants. She seems to think he’s just going to toss her aside, that none of his feelings for her were real. He insists that they are real, which is why he’s asking her what she wants to do. He’s in an impossible condition where he wants to do right by both Han Sisters, but that can’t happen. (Unlike with his other romances in the story, concubinage doesn’t enter into his mind as an option here.) Lydia doesn’t want to give Carlo up, but Carlo then points out that he’s basically done the same thing as Jean-Paul, worse even, and how terrible that will be for Lia. Lydia really doesn’t appreciate Jean-Paul being brought up, understandably, and likes it even less when Carlo tells her he wants to come clean with Lia. Lydia puts him in a no-win scenario where he can’t be honest and he can’t lie, and that if he tries to square things with Lia, she’s out the door. Then when he decides that he’s not getting anywhere by worrying about it right now, she gets onto him for running away from the problem. Women, am I right? Anyway, for the time being, Lydia just wants to be there with him and so they actually manage to just go to sleep and get through the night without incident.

Lydia wakes up early in the morning and has the opportunity to take her leave, but she decides to wake him up, presumably to say goodbye before leaving. She points out that they still have some time, and Carlo jokingly tells her there’s not much romance in a quickie. With her pride acting silly (and other motivations as well, no doubt), she actually takes him up on it. By this point, Carlo has not only resigned himself to the current situation but actually becomes more proactive. This suits Lydia just fine, but you may recall from the scenario with Doc that when Carlo takes the lead, it triggers his Demonlight Core far more strongly. As for the consequences of that, we’ll pick that up next time.

Also, in Zeta, in the Noriko scenario, I must have hit the button accidentally, because the scene proceeded, the AI acting in a way I hadn’t planned on and was forced to respond to keep the narrative consistent. Yes, I’m amused to have the AI pushing me into directions I don’t intend. It’s nothing too major at this point, but still, the interplay between man and machine is a key point of intrigue.

That covers things for now. Stay tuned for where it goes from here.

No Comments

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Leave a comment