2022-02-12: Stardust Obfuscation
- Log: Stardust Obfuscation
- Cast: Elisa Kafim, Yuliana Dispersal
- Where: Britannia - Pendragon
- Date: 2022-02-12
- Summary: Yuliana and Elisa plot various nefarious plots and have a generally marvellous evening.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
It is a lovely little apartment in Pendragon, picked up for business reasons, and it is evening. It has a few rooms, but the living area is connected to the kitchenette by a bar, and there is a television that is off. On the counter at the moment are a few things, most notably including a few bottles of sparkling water and a bottle of wine. The wine is partly emptied already, currently in Elisa Kafim's glass.
"And so," Elisa comments as she hands over a glass of something distinctly non-alcoholic, "First week's profits are up, the energy conversion is working well, and we've even had some interesting visitors over the matter!"
She gestures towards the couch, where there are a number of notebooks and papers on a small table, and also more comfortable seating. Elisa for her part is dressed in what she was wearing today for business purposes; a nice black suit, a green tie, her hair worn long.
"I'm so glad you could make it. We really couldn't have done this separately, I think."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
Pendrago isn't precisely friendly territory, but neither is it flatly hostile -- and is anyone going to tell Yuliana Dispersal what to do, in any case?
She takes the glass in pianist's fingers, trembling just so. Yuliana's in a suit, too -- not an REA suit, she's more diplomatic than that, but it's crisp and dark blue and interrupted around her neck by a warm yellow-salmon-green splotched scarf. Her hair is short, all covering her face on one side. Covering a war-wound, perhaps. (It is, but that isn't the point.)
"Wonderful," she purrs, head dipping in a nod. "No wonder they will enjoy it, here. It is so hard to find a place of quiet in this world." And yet, Yuliana saunters over to drape herself on a couch in the heart of Pendrago, seat of her greatest rivals.
Is she really doing them a favour?
MONTHS AGO
'I offer nothing,' Yuliana Dispersal reaches out a hand, palm-up in peace and friendship. 'Nothing at all.'
LEADING TO NOW
"We do make such a marvellous team, don't we?" Yuliana asks, sinking into the couch. She pops her class on the table, for a moment, so she can fish a pill-case out of her pocket and dump a handful of pills into her palm. She dumps the lot into her mouth, chases them with sparkling water.
It's a statement, of course. Be welcome to Yuliana's hearth, into her life. Be welcome, even though this is Elisa's apartment.
(It's also eminently practical, though, coming to the end of the day.)
"It's thanks to your delightful little Fold crystals that we were able to distribute the effects," Yuliana says, replacing that pill-holder, reaching up to grasp a necklace hidden by her neck decorations to pull the crystals away from her skin for a demonstrative moment.
"This string should be particularly exciting," she adds, tapping one of the crystals. "I found a particular place to consume the other day. An entire district built on the heart... who knows what neutralisation will radiate off of that, but it will be terribly interesting, don't you agree?"
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
What a lovely scarf, Elisa has reflected before. She is fond of it. She is fond of Yuliana, in fact. But she goes for the wine, not the water. "Of course, I've never had much trouble enjoying a bit of quiet," she says with some amusement. And back then, months ago...
THEN
'How fascinating.' Elisa watched Yuliana for a long moment before she reached out her own hand. 'You really do, don't you...?'
NOW
"Quite!" it is a statement, and one that Elisa has learned to appreciate. But then, as a doctor, she knows what it means. It is Elisa's apartment, but it is only Elisa's in the moment. It is important to make it a ... welcoming space.
"My," Elisa answers. "Did you really?" She likewise takes a seat on the chair next to the couch, where she can mostly face Yuliana and talk with her. "In turn it is a matter of your particular ability that allows us to interface with this sort of energy in the first place. But that place..." She considers. "Tsutsujidai?" she wonders. "I visited it, once. Very interesting."
"I look forward to seeing what results it will give us. Oh..."
"That reminds me. I'm going to be using some of our energy store. Giving Britannia something else to think about, while we do our work, thanks to that new friend I told you about. The girl with the kaiju."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
"Lovely place," Yuliana agrees, companionably, "lovely author. He plays along perfectly, so I suppose he hates me! Hardly matters, hardly matters." Reduplication is something of an artifact of her mother tongue; it's proved to be something which speaks to her engagement, which means it might, indeed, matter quite a bit. "It's a little rough around the edges, so I reveal the whole fiction, but it's really quite delicate delightful."
She does that a lot, too, slips out one word before the other, as if her brain can't quite decide which descriptor to settle on. It will calm down when her tranquilisers kick in and her mind isn't racing quite so much. ... mostly.
Yuliana leans forward, against the arm of the couch, hand reaching over to rest on the armrest of Elisa's chair instead. This, too, is typical of her, entering the space of others. "Ho?" She asks, all rising-tone engagement. "Dear little Jude, is it..? I'm curious to know how she'll handle energy like that... well, it will go well if it's in Britannia's backyard, either way."
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
"I wonder how he'll feel when he realizes he knows both of us?" Elisa wonders. "He appeared here, if he's who I think he is, just yesterday. Quite hostile at first. But I charmed him enough, I think. Fascinating fellow." A beat, "But I'm not going to spend too much time there, I think."
Elisa is used to it. She doesn't especially mind, though it occasionally makes following Yuliana's words somewhat more difficult. But things that are difficult are often worth the trouble!
Elisa is pretty open about her space; she is in fact a very affectionate sort of person given the right circumstances. So she doesn't mind at all. She lifts her glass and tilts it briefly in Yuliana's direction. "Indeed! I'm fairly curious, myself. I'm only letting her dip her toes in the pool, as it were, but it will be the first real test of our harvest."
"She'd like to meet you sometime. ...I suspect she won't find it as pleasant as she imagines, but not everyone can appreciate you properly."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
"Alexis Kerib -- a terribly shy fellow, all in all. I'm sure I'll visit again sometime!" Yuliana is a generous friend, who offers information freely! In this sort of situation, at least. It certainly suits her to cooperate with Elisa, to be cooperative with Elisa.
After all, Elisa has a unique power, too.
Yuliana laughs. It isn't an unkind thing, other hand to her lips, a positively jovial chuckle. "My, my. A sensitive soul, is she? She'll learn." She oozes over the side of the couch, entirely relaxed, entirely self-assured.
"I wonder, then, how she'll use this sort of power... could she bear it?" Yuliana forgoes pretending to sit up entirely, legs coming up to drape over the couch, all sprawled out on her belly. One hand comes up, elbow to the armrest, to prop up her chin. The other still reaches out.
Tragic, really.
"It would be quite convenient, will the ivory tower torn down by the souls living there. Surely one day, they will come eyes open to the world they left..."
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Free information!! Elisa is pretty free with Yuliana, too. But there are reasons for that. It's not just her fascinating abilities. "Excellent. I'll likely talk with him again, too. He's offered to furnish me with kaiju, you know. That could be very convenient."
"Indeed she is. It's a fascinating ability, hers--but if she doesn't understand how to interact with the world around her as well, she won't go nearly as far with it, I think."
Elisa sips at her wine. "I think she will. At least, her 'friends' will be the ones using it for now; I'm not quite close enough to her yet to think she's ready to try the Power for herself."
She lounges, for her part, rather differently from Yuliana; she is light, she could move at any time. Like a cat.
"Indeed. We cannot move forward without understanding from where we come."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
All good relationships start with a transaction, but...
"What a generous offer, no?" Yuliana asks, on Alexis.
She tut-tuts, at the idea of Jude fumbling through the world. "The light has blinded her," she notes, ruefully.
Yuliana claims space, filling everything around her, pulling the world in. She is a fisheye-lens for the room, all curved in, all falling down. At rest, she is the MOST at rest, and yet --
There's always something missing.
Her head cants, palm to her cheek. "Do you think?" She asks, casually, cheerfully. "It is something of an obscured obtuse factor, even now. You know they have an entire flock of white-coats working on figuring it out?" All at once, Yuliana inverts, twisting around to flop on her back, instead. Head on the armrest, she looks up, upside down, to Elisa.
A hand reaches up, to flick at her hair, as if she has eaten her entire feline concept and taken it for herself.
(There is no animalesque designation which quite describes Yuliana Dispersal.)
"It's quite funny, really. Oh, I'll give them credit. They've worked out a cocktail to place me on, more or less. Quite convenient. They think I don't notice how convenient. That's funnier." The medications, in context; she keeps them no secret, around Elisa. "But why? For what purpose? Oh, no one knows."
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
"I'm sure he sees much to gain from it. But then, that's fine." Elisa does not mind if her aims also help others. A rising tide lifts all boats, they say. ...Even if some happen to be crushed and founder in the storm in the process.
Something missing just means something to find!
"But there's a charm in that, of course. I appreciate her single-minded focus on kaiju. So few people are open to the possibilities our larger neighbors afford us."
"Mmmm, in a general sense I do," she allows. "But a bit of mystery just prompts us onward, doesn't it?" Elisa looks over to Yuliana, pleasantly.
"it is convenient, isn't it?" she wonders. "That is pretty funny. But then, we doctors so often fail to see how perceptive our patients can be..."
She smiles. "We could collapse that particular question anytime, you know. Whenever you find it useful."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
"They are part parcel of life," Yuliana agrees, easily. "Before humanity rode into war in mobile suits, we rode horses, no? What a shame to forgot their place in the weave of the world."
Yuliana has no strong feelings on kaiju, one way or the other, but it costs her nothing to be supportive of Elisa's interest in them. It's an interesting detail of her character, drawn to destruction.
Perhaps that's why she was drawn to Yuliana, too, she thinks.
Her hand drops down, palm-up, onto Elisa's armrest. "Alas, looking in, eyes open see so very many things," she says, sounding more amused than dismayed. Her smile's all upside down, like this. "Could you see? Could you see? I wonder what you see, under darkened sky."
Her other hand reaches, up, towards the ceiling. "Veils on veils the opportunity struck," here her hand clenches to a fist, "all sent to madness and annihilation!" Her voice rises, to a fever point --
And just like that, her hand opens, her arm drops back down to her chest, her smile returns. "Hm-hm-hm, but it's several layers of classified redacted, I suppose. A terrible headache for the dear Major!" Major Pham; she made Elisa aware of her superior officer, eventually. "He's such a dear. Keeps me on such a long chain. I'd hate to give him more paperwork."
Her head tilts, against the armrest. "Of course," she adds, cheerfully, "I'm neither saying that would never change..."
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
"And as the world progresses, we see more and more of them! It means something, I am sure of it." Elisa of course has a great interest in kaiju... as destructive as they tend to be. Perhaps that has something to do with her affinity for the stranger abilities she has acquired over time. Maybe.
Maybe it was the reason for a lot of things.
Elisa peers over Yuliana, noticing that amused smile. She listens, and tilts her head, as Yuliana moves to her amusement, to her opportunities...
To that fever point.
"Things can always change," she agrees pleasantly. "Of course, what I see at the moment is pleasant enough..."
"But do let me know if that changes. There is little classified that I cannot find, if I put my mind to it."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
"Perhaps they're heralds," Yuliana supposes, cheerfully, on kaiju. It is rather nice she has such fervent hobbies, isn't it?
But -- her emotions do peak and wane, like that, at times sudden or erratic. Once again Yuliana shifts on the couch, to lie on her side, one arm dangling out into the emptiness between them as her cheek rests on her shoulder. "Do you see me?" She asks, abstracted, affectionate. "Do you, really?"
She doesn't challenge Elisa's capacity to dig into state secrets; she's entirely confident she could. But in the end, the mystery of Yuliana is a great power the REA holds; it would be difficult for her to share something like that after a few meagre months of furtive contact with, let's be frank, a terrorist cell.
Even if they've been rather pleasant months!
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
"Yes, that's a nice, poetic way to put it. Heralds. Of what? Who knows! But heralds, certainly."
But the question, hmmm...? Elisa tilts her head, in that particular way of hers that suggests she's thinking beyond the surface of the question, into something a little deeper. She remains fairly well contained, an energy coiled in her chair. She considers that. Does she really? After all, Yuliana has asked her.
"Some," she says in the end. "I do not see all of you, not yet. But I like what I have seen so far. I look forward to seeing more."
Pleasant months! But Elisa is naturally, remarkably... open, for a person so closed to psychic senses.
"So not enough yet, I think. But some."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
Yuliana is open like a WOUND, torn point to point, all emotion screaming her existence, forcing enforcing --
As shen opens herself and nothing after nothing pours out.
There was a right answer to her question, and a wrong answer, an unbelievable answer; Elisa manages to navigate between them to find the interesting answer, and Yuliana barks out laughter, untrapped hand coming up to press against her forehead. "Hahaha...! Not all, not yet! A fine reply!"
Labile -- but not angry, not yet, not now.
"My-my-my, what a marvellous star the skies have sent to me," she wriggles her fingers, as she looks over to Elisa. It's her little joke on 'Celestial', given the fraught nature of just saying the name out loud. "How positively delightful!"
She shifts, on the couch, to bring her trapped hand under her and leverage herself up to something roughly approximating a sitting position. Just so she can reach over and grab that glass of sparkling water for another drink. Is she the sort of woman who can never get comfortable..?
(Obviously yes. How she made it to Captain is... well, it's not that much of a guess, it had much more to do with what she could offer than how well she could stand at attention.)
"Such a shame I'll need to bloody your nose a little," she sighs, all rueful remorse. "What with that little business with our base, back there. Clearly I can't make a mess of my own backyard, you understand." Unlike Britannia's backyard, which she is apparently entirely happy to mess up.
How nice the restaurant is doing so well!
"Speaking of messes -- do you have that ranged unit prepared, yet?" Someone as distinct as Yuliana would struggle to assist Celestial Being without giving her entire game away, as soon as she got into melee range of whoever the cell was striking.
Her obvious solution was to get Elisa's assistance preparing her a unit she'd be able to play keep-away with.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Elisa, being a doctor among other things, is rather comfortable with wounds.
"Hm hm~!" Elisa replies, and it is a nice little joke on Celestial, isn't it? They can't go on and say things completely, not so obviously as that. She smiles, at being called delightful. That is good enough. She remains effortlessly comfortable herself, as always. It is a rare situation indeed that sees this gymnast on the back foot.
"How terrible," she agrees with mock remorse as well. "Somehow I think we'll both survive. I'm rather interested to see what they get up to, out there..." Because she's not involved with it, so far. "But all the better for plausibility, isn't it?"
Britannia's background can be very well messed-up. But the ranged unit--
"Yes, I've prepared a selection that should suit your purposes well enough. I'm having my darling mechanic make some touches to it at the moment to better suit you."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
Convenient, isn't it? It takes a particular type of insight to appreciate the wounds of crimes long-past, after all.
(Just what kind of human experimentation results in someone like Yuliana, anyway? She has all the hallmarks of a Cyber-Newtype from the 0080s, but she's never used that word to describe herself. It's one more mystery to add to the pile!)
Someone like Elisa, who listens with her ears, may well have an advantage on reading Yuliana -- because her remorse sounded entirely genuine. It's only the character of the words she ties with it which complicate the situation to mockery. Like this: "I can't imagine why your people would suspect the REA at all, my dear," delivered with all the doe-eyed disbelief of someone who truly can't fathom the concept.
It helps that she laughs, afterwards. She hasn't explained precisely how it's so funny, so personally, but that's just because those actions are classified.
Living in the contrast, she smiles, sunnily, to Elisa. "Marvellous! Of course, I'm something of a melee specialist, but I think you'll find I'm an apt soldier regardless of range. I shall do my best not to tinker over your dear assistant's additions!" Her pinky extends, from her glass, in something of an air-pinky-promise.
(Yuliana has something of a reputation in the REA for causing the engineers infinite headaches by making her own personal adjustments despite not being part of the maintenance wing. She doesn't have any of the clearance and does none of the paperwork. It's INCREDIBLY rude.)
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
For her part, Elisa probably could dig into the truth. But where would the fun be in that?
Well, there'd be a little fun in that. But it's not worth it yet.
"Of course," Elisa answers gamely, and can make guesses in the meantime. She rather likes making guesses. But she doesn't voice them just yet. "Terrible, terrible."
But of course--there is the matter of... the soldiering. "I'm sure. And it's fine if you do; it'll just give her an excuse to make more. She seems happiest when she's working on such things. ...And the more she works, the more likely we'll see more things like our dear crystals!"
She likes Shari. And Shari... actually appreciates Yuliana. Weirdly enough.
Air pinky promise... good enough.
"Ahahah. Well! You'll like it when you see it, I think. I think it's something you can be... proud to use." Doh ho ho.
She slides over a document on it, which reveals the top of the list as the Landlion.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
"Such a dear," Yuliana agrees, easily, on the topic of Elisa's assistant. She isn't, really; universally, Yuliana loathes souls that sensitive, the green-eyed monster on the outside rim. But it costs her nothing to be nice to Elisa's supporting characters.
Most of the time.
Yuliana leans over, scans the list, looks back up to Elisa.
She takes another sip.
"Maybe I'm a lion," she says, conspiratorially.
It seems that suits her perfectly well.