2022-01-30: What Is The Shape Of 'Your' World
- Log: What Is The Shape Of 'Your' World
- Cast: Ruri Hoshino, Alexis Kerib
- Where: The Nadesico (The Moon)
- Date: 30-01-2022
- Summary: Alexis, concerned for a young lady, checks in on Ruri. Ruri lets slip just why he should be concerned, and finds herself faced with difficult questions about her own desires for an ideal world -- and how other people fit into her imperfect reality.
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
Well, after that, the adults were all quite bothered. No one was very happy about the fight they'd stumbled into, and Ruri watched them have their emotions, stoic as ever. ... at least the Captain was happy to accept Archimedes as a new member of the crew.
(Maybe she could just tell Ruri had feelings about her...)
The most troublesome thing about it is all the paperwork. Their parent company isn't really interested in the Nadesico fighting those people -- their gaze is further out in space, towards Jupiter. They asked some questions, but in the end, Mr. Prospector wasn't wrong. The Nadesico couldn't make their delivery if the recipient got kidnapped.
Oh, well. It's not like Ruri can do anything about it.
She's on the Nergal Networking System, right now, filing the operation reports. Well, that's where her communication windows are, anyway -- a whole bowl of them, surrounding her, granting her a little privacy from the people seated in their own miseries nearby. Because physically, she's on the bridge of the Nadesico, and she's only left for brief periods since the attack on Frontier 7. They're in a safe port on the Moon, now, one of Nergal's space holdings, but -- well, maybe she's a little unsettled, too.
(Even if she isn't doing anything as embarrassing as retiring to the meditation chamber-slash-holodeck.)
... meanwhile, Archimedes is in her room, where she was grounded after Haroing one too many times at Erina Won. Ruri plans on appealing her sentence, but first, she has work to do.
<Pose Tracker> Alexis Kerib has posed.
It takes Alexis a little doing to find Ruri online. Not direly much doing; she's more connected on there than in the real world, so once Alexis understands, in a metaphorical sense, what he's 'looking for,' he can trace his way to her fairly quickly. (Besides -- the Nadesico is, in the data sense, fairly loud.)
Ruri receives a direct message. It waits for her, patiently.
<Hello,> it reads, simply. <This is Alexis Kerib. Is now an acceptable time? I'm concerned about you. My deepest apologies if this is still too invasive a method of initiating communication.>
He waits.
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
Ruri has a new message! The data is directed at her, so it's not entirely different to hearing her name called out across the cafeteria, except that it is a message in the bowl.
That's a very shallow way of approaching it, though.
She is aware that the message is coming from a guest -- it doesn't have any of the privilege-flags of messages from Nergal users. She is aware that it is a valid guest account, because the checksums and balances have all been accounted for. She is aware that it isn't being sent from the Nadesico, because it doesn't have any of Omoikane's signatures.
That's what she knows, when she opens the message.
She still wasn't expecting that.
Her eyes widen, as she reads a message -- which is just a moment after she opens it, Ruri is the fastest speed-reader on the Nadesico and somehow still has the best comprehension of anyone on board -- from Alexis.
It means the delay in her response doesn't have any other excuse.
> Hello, Mr. Kerib.
> ... it's fine. This is a normal way to contact people
Ruri pauses, again, hands to her console. It's not so much typing as translation; the spirit isn't so removed. They're still words on a screen. Even Ruri can't tell how the person on the other end is feeling -- though she has a good idea how the computer she's using feels about it.
(Omoikane doesn't feel very good about it. That is how he is feeling about it.)
But if she can't figure it out, at least no one can figure her out, either. Well, not that most people have a chance of that, anyway. Her expression hasn't shifted much.
> I guess... you heard what happened?
> It's all right. Only a few people were wounded on the Nadesico, and nothing was serious.
> We'll be done with repairs soon, too.
<Pose Tracker> Alexis Kerib has posed.
Alexis hasn't heard absolute jackshit. Ruri gives him a bunch of information for free. Wherever he is, he's having a very good time.
> I actually hadn't. There's a young lady I take care of who had some questions for me, so I was making time for her.
> I'm dreadfully sorry to hear that things are going so poorly. You must be out in space, yes?
Alexis actually has to consider this carefully. He doesn't want to fully expose Akane, but he could probably use bits and pieces of her story to help himself, here. He needs to be cautious not to give Ruri enough to connect.
> She withdrew a lot after that attack on the colony last year... she cares so tremendously.
> Where do you stand on such matters, then? You seem like someone who cares much more than she lets on.
Alexis considers asking to meet again -- but not yet, he thinks. Put out some feelers. See what her brain lights on -- then use that, should he get the opportunity. He'd been moving too quickly -- carelessly, even -- before. Ruri-ruri presents a delicate profile, and one that needs to be cultivated gently.
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
> Then, why were you concerned?
It's something she inputs without really thinking about it, which is the peril of being tied so closely to the connection, she supposes. As much as she's feeling disconnected from the people she's met, she hasn't forgotten Eight's warning -- or her crew's wariness, either. She can honour their suspicion with that much interrogation.
She apparently doesn't consider the idea that someone would be concerned for her just by virtue of her situation.
As if there has to be a reason.
But -- he takes care of someone... he was making time for her.
Maybe it makes a little sense, if he's taking care of someone like her, too...
There's nothing wrong with Ruri's comprehension -- it's all her thoughts in the wake of it which slow her down. It's enough to give her time to see the rest of his messages, as they come in.
> Yes.
> We're in space.
The first answer to his question is factual, all dry data. It takes a moment more for another set of messages to be committed to the network.
> I'm functioning adequately
> It was an unfortunate situation, but there wasn't anything else we could have done, I suppose.
> It's the Captain's decision.
She studiously avoids confirming or denying how much she personally cares.
<Pose Tracker> Alexis Kerib has posed.
Even as a being as much of data as of the real -- a creature of thought, of connection (yet closed in his way) -- Alexis feels the need to obscure and misdirect. He gives Ruri a lot of time to respond further. She'll do better if she does, he reasons.
> We got off on the wrong foot, which was mostly my fault... and you seem to be in a very difficult position on your vessel. I've been in command of such things myself before. This would be aeons ago, but even so...
Alexis considers asking a very hard question -- then decides against it. He'll make a supposition instead, then put the onus on her to disagree or not.
> It's hard, when you don't agree with every element of the situation you're placed in... it can be a little frightening, too
Alexis scrapes the news for more data. He's fairly certain he knows where the Nadesico was, now, even if not the particulars of its participation...
> I presume your operation was against ZAFT, judging from your friendly connection with the captain I met. It is strange to me to see humanity divided in such a way. The last time I was on a world like yours, it was a more... cosmopolitan place. Granted, I had been in a special zone for such interchange, but people's hearts were more united.
> It takes a brave heart to function adequately in an unfortunate situation. Especially when you aren't the one deciding how the situation proceeds.
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
He's apologising..? He was very troublesome, but Ruri has to give him credit for recognising what he did wrong. Well, she thinks, he must be trying, if he's talking to her like this.
But...
Does she disagree with it?
Ruri frowns, glancing aside. (To her left, in the window bowl, is another of those technical reports. More paperwork.)
And... Captain York...
Ruri hadn't said anything, at the time, but she does wonder how her new connection with Ra Mari affected her own Captain's judgement, when that speech came over their comms. She doesn't know if it swayed her. She didn't ask. But...
(But Ruri thinks of the Captain as someone whose judgement is easily affected.)
It doesn't make any sense to feel bad about her recent lack-of-interaction with her in that context, though. This was, after all, a mission. And it isn't like Ruri was making the final decision, anyway.
Her communications are quiet, for long moments. But the channel is still open.
> I don't quite understand how old you are, but I wish humanity wasn't like this, now.
> I don't know what changed, but the geopolitical situation is very complicated.
> I suppose there's some reason for it, but it seems the Federation has been restricting the food supply to the PLANTs. Because of that, ZAFT tried to take a farming colony... but, many colonists already lived there.
> So it wasn't as simple as giving them farmland.
> In the end, the Nadesico couldn't tolerate ignoring people who asked for help, even if the aggressors weren't asking for anything unreasonable.
> Nergal had business there as well, but I doubt that factored in terribly much.
Ruri sighs. Her shoulders hunch, as they lift. It's a burden, on them.
And she's still speaking in such dry facts.
> We kept firing on that ship... even though it was far inferior to the Archangel and the Nadesico.
> They had a lot of decompression, though Omoikane's sensors picked up bulkhead activity.
> I guess that kind of firepower made them retreat, so it was the tactically superior option.
> But
She looks aside, again. To her right, this time. The damage report. That won't help her, either.
It's a moment longer before she inputs,
> I don't think anyone here feels good about firing on humans.
Even when she's describing the mood of the ship, she's talking about the people around her.
<Pose Tracker> Alexis Kerib has posed.
Alexis seems to think he has Ruri on the hook, at this point. It's hard for him to be sure, of course, but he's had this shape of conversation before. Ruri is a little unique in how she relates to things, of course, and occasionally she throws something that Alexis isn't expecting.
But he doesn't mind this. On the contrary -- if the humans he sought out weren't all a little different, he wouldn't be very stimulated by the interactions, would he?
He waits to send a message. He lets Ruri talk for as long as she seems to want.
> Beings that travel as I do approach the world a little differently. In a practical sense, you may think me immortal; certainly my experience eclipses yours by a factor of thousands.
> The 'last time' for me was a completely different world. This one hurts so much, in comparison.
After a moment's thought, he finally asks the question:
> Would it be permissible for us to meet? This is a clumsy method of interface, for me.
It's a tremendous lie. Alexis is a creature of data. This is as good as any other... save, of course, that it puts himself and Ruri on a fully even level, without the benefit of his physicality.
> You're a very kind young lady, to consider both sides in your approach.
He adds it almost as an afterthought, but he knows it'll pay off later to have said a few more kind things to Ruri on his way to what he wants.
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
The world hurts, Alexis says.
(How do immortal beings understand hurt, given pain is a measure of injury, and injury is something tied to mortality? Ruri wonders.)
> It's frustrating to watch adults lie to each other and play zero-sum games.
> They're foolish.
She doesn't quite say it hurts, but it's her response to that pain. Frankly, she finds Alexis's openness -- what she sees as Alexis's openness -- about his emotions to be a flatly embarrassing thing, just like the outward displays of her bridgefellows. But...
At the same time, doesn't that make it kind of familiar?
She hesitates, as those next messages come in. Would the Captain really be fine with that? She wonders. Would Mr. Hoary? A lot of people were sceptical of a strange alien just appearing on the ship, after all.
... but maybe she's a little resentful of being thrown into a battle like that, herself.
It's not anyone's fault, of course. They couldn't have known about the distress call until they got that close, thanks to the Minovsky interference. By the time it hit their sensors, they were already close enough that it was a moral decision whether to act or not act. None of them meant to stumble, blindly, into this complicated situation.
It's not the Captain's fault that they had to fight.
But Ruri is still the one who had to fire the Cannon, again and again.
It takes a while, but the message eventually returns:
> It's all right with me
> But it would be complicated if you came to where I am now.
(Ruri is, once again, on the bridge of the Nadesico, the one place with the greatest concentration of people who could do anything about it.)
She runs a quick background scan of Omoikane's internal sensors, and does a quick background reassurance to Omoikane that she knows what she's doing.
> Can you come to the observation room?
It's called that, but no one's in there, anyway.
> I'll be there in a moment
Once again she commits the message before remembering to properly punctuate it -- the one sign of her nerves. She swings back to the window of her report, and now she's focusing on it, it only takes a minute longer to finish the comments on her use of force and upload it to the company.
Ruri dismisses the window bowl, and requests something else. It's in Omoikane's window, popping up in front of the console:
< NOW AUTOMATING SYSTEMS >
"Ah, Ruri-ruri?" Minato asks, looking over. "Are you all right..?"
"Yes," Ruri says, even though none of them are. "But after making those reports, I need to step away for a moment... excuse me, I'll come back."
Minato's smile is troubled, but she smiles for Ruri, anyway. "Come back safely," she says, in the traditional call-and-response of employees leaving their fellows for lunch. (Generally, employees anywhere aren't twelve, but...)
---
The observation room of the Nadesico might seem to be poorly-named; it is far LESS observed than the computer control room, as far as concentrated awareness goes. Rather, it is defined by its vast viewscreens, which are currently playing a convincing facsimile of greenland. There's a convincing replica of grass under their feet, too.
And true to Ruri's word, it's less complicated than the bridge, because no one is here right now.
<Pose Tracker> Alexis Kerib has posed.
Careful word choice pays off in spades. Alexis spends a moment thinking, then says, simply:
> I'll be there momentarily
He gives Ruri a small amount of time to get there first, just in case she sprints directly there; it wouldn't do to seem too eager, if she herself was. But after about two minutes, he chooses to relate to Ruri as a waiting friend. And so, he is there, in the observation room, far from the prying eyes of most on the Nadesico.
He has not chosen to seat himself, or anything of the sort, though he doesn't exactly try to take up enormous amounts of space, either. He makes no effort to present himself as loomingly powerful; even seated, he'd present an impressive figure to Ruri.
A comfortable, simulated world. It is very familiar. Alexis likes that of all the places Ruri could choose, this is the one she's chosen. He casually walks back and forth a few times, appreciating the unreality of the whole thing, while Ruri wraps up.
When she inevitably does arrive, he even allows her to initiate the conversation. He stops wherever he is, orients most of the way to Ruri, glances slightly to one side, but says nothing.
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
Ruri isn't hurrying. She has some sense of when something is wrong in the ship even when she's not at a console, thanks to her connection with Omoikane; compared to sensing the severity of the enemy's attacks on their Distortion Field, checking with him to make sure he has no changed feelings on her meeting is easy.
Besides, she... isn't entirely sure she's doing the right thing, here. She's annoyed at the adults, but they'd still want to know about something like this, she knows that much.
But it's not like she sent him anywhere important, so why is it their business, anyway?
They don't talk about how Ruri must be feeling about what happened. They don't even try to guess. They just take her neutrality and don't question it, because they're all too busy being consumed with their own stupid emotions.
Fools.
(It's an uncharitable interpretation, but no one ever taught Ruri about the nuances of things like these, after all.)
When she comes to the observatory, it's with that same general feeling of being bothered, but her face is as stoic as ever as she looks up to Alexis. "Hello, again, Mr. Kerib." It's quite proper, which fits the way she stands up straight, and doesn't quite fit her uniform, in context.
It's also apparently her idea of initiating a conversation, because as far as she's concerned, they already initialised it.
<Pose Tracker> Alexis Kerib has posed.
"I'm glad you decided to come," Alexis says, once Ruri arrives. His movements remain inscrutable -- is he floating, or is that just the extent to which his cloak obscures his movements? It's genuinely hard to tell, as he glides across the ground effortlessly to make space for Ruri.
"You mentioned the adults lying to each other. Is that a general reflection on the state of the era, or something unique to this ship?" he asks, curious. He hasn't bothered to contact any of the others on the ship. There are a few he could probably entertain himself with -- he has a sixth sense for these things -- but Ruri is unique, in her way.
There's a moment where he considers a followup question -- or at least seems to be, from the incline of his head and the shift in his posture -- but he doesn't stay there for very long, in any event. Instead, he volunteers, "When I was last part of such a vessel, it was because I'd been lied to, myself... some things do repeat, I suppose. Even in a gentler world, these things do happen. As long as there are others, there is deception."
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
Why would he be happy about that?
Questions like that still cross her mind -- and the floating, she definitely wonders about the floating, even if she'd scarcely admit to believing someone could do something so fanciful -- but she notices the way he makes space for her instead of insisting she enter his space, and Ruri can appreciate that, at least.
Ruri's impression of affection is flat as a shadow, and shadows don't reach out and hold you. She prefers to have her personal space.
"Yes," she says, and rather than a joke it's simply the mathematician's answer; both queries are true. She is measured, even, a deep pool in the raging inferno of the Nadesico.
She listens to his follow-up, that thing which almost was a question. Her hand lifts, crosses her chest as it curls by her shoulder -- a barrier between herself and the world.
"It's not that anyone is lying to me, or anything like that," Ruri corrects him, a little more quietly. "Everyone was very frank about what they expected from me. It wasn't the sort of situation where they needed to lie." Nergal paid for her education, so they just told her what to do. They didn't have to convince her.
... because it's not like she had a choice, back then, she supposes.
"But the Captain is lying to herself about Mr. Tenkawa's feelings, I think... or Mr. Tenkawa is lying to himself, maybe. Ms. Reinard is lying about what she'll do for her own feelings. Mr. Akatsuki is always lying about something or another, I suppose. And Mr. Prospector is closest to Nergal, so he's certainly lying." Ruri's impressions aren't entirely correct, but in many ways, her young perspective isn't incorrect, either.
"And I suppose the world is lying, too... if the situation is complicated like this." There's an edge of sadness, to that, before Ruri shrugs, brushes it off with a light rejoinder. "Well, it's out of our hands, anyway."
<Pose Tracker> Alexis Kerib has posed.
Oh, the resentment is strong here, Alexis muses. He can tell there's an iceberg of emotions beneath the surface here, despite Ruri's flat affect. This is a young woman who is deeply unhappy and expresses herself only in recaps.
She'd make marvelous kaiju.
"That almost sounds worse, to me," Alexis says, offering Ruri his most gentle affectation. "Such dishonest people -- and yet you, they seem to only express their feelings to as demands. Honesty can be cruel as well, delivered without care, don't you think?" A lesson he'd learned in his thoughtlessness, long ago -- now weaponized.
Alexis reads. He knows the situation on Earth, in the most general sense. "Ah -- this is a Nergal vessel, then," he muses. "The corporation that pursued its interests through the planetary defense screen in the middle of a war. I can see where you'd expect lies from such an organization." He turns that over a moment, glancing fully away now.
The flames at the back of his head flick and lick at the air, then slow for a moment. "If you could choose a different world," he muses, "what would it look like? Would it still be so large, so complicated?"
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
"... they're fools," Ruri says, though quiet as it is, there's little teeth behind the dismissal. "I guess they took me in, but they don't really feel like family. It's not like they didn't employ positive reinforcement," a deeply cynical way of describing praise, "but obviously they were making use of me."
Those are Eight's words. Alexis isn't the first one to try to press Ruri about her choice in the matter.
Maybe that's why she's finally opening up, a little.
She frowns, glancing aside. "But... the people on Nadesico aren't that bad," she allows, puts some distance between her handlers and her comrades. "They just believe me. I guess that's not their fault. I am just as good as anyone else here." Here, she feels a stab of guilt, expessed only in a long blink, lips pressing firmly together. Because she was resentful, she didn't say anything about this man, but...
She shakes her head, looks back to Alexis and safer topics. "Yes, the Nadesico is Nergal's flagship. Though since we've made nice with the Federation again, we're just mercenaries, right now." But... that next question...
Eight told her to be careful, Ruri remembers. But it's just a thought experiment, isn't it? Alexis has shown no willingness to sacrifice Haros to make his point with hypotheticals like that, so surely it's fine. It's fine, except...
What does the world Ruri want look like?
Possibility is entirely outside the facts of her remit; caught off guard, there is something a shade more open to her eyes, opening through to the deep water of her pain. Her hand lifts, fractionally, as if to go towards him. It falls to her side, instead.
"I... I don't know," Ruri admits, at length. "Ms. Won seems to know exactly what sort of world she wants... the Captain knows what she's moving towards, too. Just like Ms. Subaru is very confident in what she can do. Everyone seems to have figured out what they want, more or less, but... mm, I'm not so clear on that, actually."
Ruri never feels more small than when she watches all the passions of the Nadesico, carried along with them, without any clear convictions of her own.
She glances aside, swallowing her grief, before her eyes return to where she knows his are hidden. "... I just wish... people didn't have to die so much, I guess," she makes the statement, finally. "I know it's all very complicated, but it just seems foolish, to me. When someone dies, they're gone. Everything they experienced... from their perspective, it's gone." She repeats the phrasing, as if the horror is that that their thoughts and feelings go missing, in the world. "But we're still killing each other... and not even just our enemies, either," she remembers Jiro Yamada, who didn't deserve to die for his nonsense. "I want to say I don't understand why someone would get rid of someone else like that."
There's a certain qualifier to that statement which drops like a rock, deep, deep down. Splash.
"But I don't want to be deceitful, myself."
There it is.
<Pose Tracker> Alexis Kerib has posed.
Ruri gives Alexis much more information than he was expecting, yet again, and he's excited to have it. His mask is one that often hides his excitement, though. He is free to emote as he will without giving away the game -- certainly to someone like Ruri.
"A simple wish, and not the first time I've heard it. You truly are a kind person, Ruri Hoshino," Alexis says. "It sounds like such an easy thing, but other people do complicate it so." He paces. It's strictly an affectation, but it makes him look more thoughtful than, perhaps, he is -- makes it look like he needs more time than he has to construct his thoughts.
At her final pronouncement, Alexis offers a gentle, "To hurt so much when someone dies, in an era like this. Again you and she approach the world in a manner so much alike..." He doesn't need to spell that out for Ruri, though; the version of Akane she imagines will be infinitely more useful to the conversation than the one that actually exists. (She, after all, has managed to numb herself much to the notion of something dying, under the right circumstances.) "It's something to consider, at least. If you could simply move the world freely, how would you move it?"
Hmmm.. has he gotten enough latitude to get away with saying something that sounds inexpert? ... Let's find out. "Of course, it might be... disappointing, to the others, if you were forthright about such things. It sounds like they expect much more from you than they allow you to expect from them."
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
Ruri isn't used to people exploring her thoughts like this, when she's used to closing everyone off. Her crewmates respect her distance, by and large; the people she's met since she came back to Earth can't be said to have that experience with her. They keep prying, and...
It's not really a mode of conversation Ruri is used to.
Maybe that's why she's letting so many things slip, now.
... is she a kind person..?
Ruri looks a little troubled, as she tries to work out whether it bothers her. It's... not entirely the sort of thing she's used to being noticed for. How she felt about a situation wasn't really...
Well, it's just a little more surprising, or something like that. He alludes to that girl again, the one he's talking care of, and Ruri wonders how they could possibly be alike.
After all, the last time she met someone around her age...
Again he brings her to wondering how she would change the world, and Ruri, thus directed, doesn't think to wonder why the conversation has come to rest here.
"... it would be nice if everyone would stop fighting," Ruri admits, finally, one hand reaching over to grasp the other, in front of her. (Holding her own hand.) "Though I suppose it would take quite a lot more effort than just wanting to get along. Adults are... complicated, like that."
She has to address the facts of the situation. She can't look away from the realities of a life at war, either.
Objectively, it's a sad state for a child.
Maybe that's why Ruri keeps insisting she's so grown-up.
"But... it's not as if I'm not allowed to be as embarrassing as everyone else," Ruri says, with a little shake of her head, and it's not quite what Alexis said. "If I wanted to have childish outbursts about what we have to do, it would be very much like the bunch of fools here. But I'm not really like them." One hand squeezes the other, in a subtle gesture. "We're all civilians, but I was preparing to operate the Nadesico for six years, apparently." She approximates, in a place she really shouldn't have to. "So I've had quite a bit more preparation for this sort of thing."
But that's why her incompetence on Mars was even more notable, she supposes.
Even though she'd been trained for so long, they still ended in a position where...
<Pose Tracker> Alexis Kerib has posed.
"It's thoughtful of you, to avoid subjecting others to such outbursts," Alexis says. His mask betrays nothing about why he thinks this is such a great inclination. "They seem to cause you such pain, and it's better not to pay such a pain forward, yes?"
And as for the world Ruri would want... "Oh, that would be a much better world indeed," Alexis affirms to Ruri, softly. "A world that knew peace in such a way... it would be much kinder to heroes and children than this one. A world of adults' complications does not treat such things with much kindness."
He stands a hair straighter, abruptly. The flame at his head diminishes. "... I wish I had more time to explore this," he says -- always so soft, so oblique -- "but there's something important I must attend to for the young lady. To tell you the truth, this is already longer than I'd expected to divert... she'd asked me to check in on a sick friend of hers. I thought to talk to you, first, and I lost track of time..."
The components are all true. Whether they're true in a way that is relevant to each other, in the order presented, well...
"I wish you luck in building a kinder, simpler world, Miss Hoshino." With Akane, giving her someone 'familiar' had been key; with Ruri, Alexis sticks to the same politeness he'd give an adult. He excuses himself, stepping past Ruri -- and out of the Nadesico.
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
Or, put succinctly: it's better not to express her feelings.
"... everyone is already troubled enough," Ruri says, the words halfway to mumbling. She is someone who never had to ask for love or support, unconditional, overflowing; even when she forgot the shape of it, she remains someone who never learned to request help.
That's why Alexis's reassurance doesn't strike her as troubling.
He's just saying the truth, after all.
Her hands lift, curled together near her heart, as he supports her wishes for the world regardless of their feasibility in the geopolitical climate. "It's foolish," she puts her wishes down, reflexively, "but..."
Her voice trails to nothing, and she doesn't manage to pick it up, before he remembers he had somewhere to be. Ruri looks up to him, and even on her stoic face the surprise is obvious, with an edge of added embarrassment. (Or perhaps the word is 'disappointment'.) She was... distracting him..?
(She doesn't know how right that shred of intuition really is.)
It's nice, she supposes, that he's so attentive to people he's taking care of. Even if he's a strange person, that speaks well to him, doesn't it? Well... it's probably why he thought to check on her in the first place. Since he realised it was a difficult situation...
It's not appropriate to be jealous of someone like that. It's a good thing she has someone looking out for her, unlike everyone who are all so busy with their own problems and anguishes.
... and isn't it something of an excuse to want things from other people when she has to improve herself to meet the demands of a world at war? She's not a child, she insists, to herself, counter to the facts. So she doesn't need someone to hold her hand.
(She's still holding her own.)
They're an awful lot of complicated feelings, all swimming in the lake of gold looking up at Alexis, still quite expressionless. "I see," she says, mildly. "I'm sorry I sidetracked you, Mr. Kerib. That all sounds very important."
She turns, as he leaves. "... goodbye," is her acknowledgement, still entirely proper, still entirely composed.
Left alone in the observatory, she grasps her hands to herself, tightly, all curled shoulders, bowed head, bangs hanging ramshackle over her face.
"Tch..."
Ruri throws her hands down, shaking her head. She's disgusted at something or another; she's pretty sure it's herself.
But her face remains stoic. Her tone remains even. It is the most horrible coincidence imaginable that her upbringing made her so oblique, to the people who spend the most time with her.
Because Ruri walks out of the observatory, and when she calls the next person a fool, they don't question why her mood is sour.
That's just how Ruri is, after all.