2022-03-14: What 'Reveals' You
- Log: What 'Reveals' You
- Cast: Ruri Hoshino, Alexis Kerib
- Where: The Nadesico (The Cosmos)
- Date: 2022-03-14
- Summary: Ruri has a lot of feelings about recent events, but she doesn't want to show them to anyone. Alexis shows up anyway.
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
The ND-001 Nadesico is docked with the ND-002 Cosmos, at present, for repairs; one cradle in another, it's the night repair crew at work now, because the Nadesico's shift cycle has suggested it's time for the normal crew to sleep.
(This is not, entirely, the same as day shifting to night, though certainly the lights have dimmed to simulate the experience; since the Nadesico is a spacecraft, some things are more artificial than real.)
Ruri's room is a spartan affair. There's a radio atop the headboard of her bed, a lone speaker and a control setup to either side; there's little decoration on her walls. That's not to say the ceiling is bare -- fish spin and dangle on a carousel, and a great big whale dangles on its own wire, too large for friends.
She doesn't remember where they came from. She's just... always had them. Perhaps that's why she dreams of the water; they're the last thing she sees.
(The first --)
She's not looking up at them now, though. Seated on the side of her bed, Ruri, in her yellow and white pyjamas, hugs her pillow to her chest. It's a very light pink, like her sheets, with a bit of a frill to the edges -- a frill which tickles her cheek, as she presses her face into it.
Ruri criticises everyone else for having emotions where she can see them. But... that doesn't mean Ruri doesn't feel bad, sometimes, either.
That giant was... very insistent on tearing through the Nadesico. Ruri was annoyed that no one moved Ranka out when she was obviously struggling, but... well, it was easy to think about an obvious fear reaction instead of paying attention to hers. And Omoikane has enough trouble telling who his allies are these days, even without their targeting data going haywire...
But...
That's not the only frightening thing that's happened recently.
Making friends... actually, that's scary, too. Not that it's entirely a bad feeling, but... if she paid attention to that song, she'll know Ruri cries too, and... it's foolish, isn't it?
Ruri makes a miserable little noise, burying her face in her pillow.
<Pose Tracker> Alexis Kerib has posed.
It's about 30 seconds after Ruri makes a noise into her pillow that her radio beeps -- insistently -- several times. It's not actually a beep it's supposed to make -- it's an altogether unfamiliar sound. In truth, it's a warning -- or perhaps a courtesy.
"Ah -- hello," comes a familiar voice, through the speaker. "Is now a good time? Apologies if this is an unwelcome intrusion; I'm not actually sure which device I've synchronized with... is this a communications terminal?" Alexis, at his most characteristically hapless-alien. "Really, if you'd rather not take a visitor, there's no need."
After the abruptness of his first approach, Alexis has... started to learn to be more careful with the way he approaches Ruri's space. She positions herself as just as much of an adult as anyone else on the Nadesico -- and to work with her, Alexis needs to respect that.
Alexis, for his own part, has actually remained exactly where he was during the Darklops's assault, even still. When you relate to the spatial world as a suggestion, 'a place you aren't seen' is rarely worth giving up for no reason.
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
30 seconds of silence.
Ruri would never do something this embarrassing around someone else. Ruri is put-together; Ruri is stoic and unmoved and sensible. Ruri doesn't have -- stupid twelve-year-old emotions. And she certainly doesn't need anyone to tell her she's wonderful and perfect and loved.
Which is why she makes such an alarmed strangled noise, when she hears a voice coming from her radio. Ruri's head shoots up, only to scrub her face with the frills of that pillow. (See? They're actually practical.) She swallows the lump in her throat down, her lips pressing together sternly.
It's not a communications terminal, but Ruri's familiar enough with radios to figure out how it might have happened, so a few flicks of switches and dials, and she transmits back. It's enough of a delay that -- well, Ruri was going to tell him he was entirely unwelcome, and she didn't want to see anyone.
Except... that's not entirely true.
Sometimes things are scary because you want them. Ruri desperately wants to connect with the people around her, even when her actions don't entirely reflect that.
Instead there's dead air on her side of the transmission for four-point-six seconds, before Ruri responds: "... it's fine, Mr. Kerib. What's the matter?" A little wobble to her voice, but she's remarkably good at putting the mask back on, for her age. It helps that even Ruri's idea of a gratuitous display is still really quite restrained, as emotional outpourings go.
<Pose Tracker> Alexis Kerib has posed.
Hm, Alexis reflects. What's the play...?
"Oh -- well, you know. It's not that anything's the matter, as such." His voice is the same as it ever is -- level, even. "I just realized it had been some time since I checked up on you. You know I'm busy with the young lady, but that's really no excuse for such a long silence. It's hardly respectful to you. So I suppose I wanted to -- apologize, and then ask if anything was weighing on you."
He knows there's something weighing on her. A second passes -- not quite long enough for Ruri to formulate a full response -- before Alexis follows up, "Would you mind if I came in? It would be nice to have a change of scenery... I've been quite bored at times."
He thinks that's probably sufficient, for now; he doesn't want to press too firmly on the boundaries of her world. The shapes he tends to find pleasing... have a very specific amount of remove from others, after all.
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
Ruri frowns. She doesn't need to be -- to be checked on -- but if he feels he has to apologise, she must have given him some impression. (Ranka, after all, was fairly logical in her apologies, and they came from Ruri's behaviour.)
She doesn't quite get to saying that, though, offended or otherwise, because he keeps talking. Ruri looks around, unsettled; she'd feel very exposed, at a time like this. But she complained to Kaworu about being treated as a distraction, and this is -- really something of the opposite of that.
"I... I was about to go to sleep," Ruri says, after a moment, prematurely excusing her hair being down and her pyjamas. "But... I suppose it's fine. If you have time to speak, I'll see you."
She thinks to insist on him not treating her as an afterthought, but she doesn't actually say if anything is weighing on her.
... of course, she's still got a pillow between herself and the world.
<Pose Tracker> Alexis Kerib has posed.
"I'll be there in a moment." Alexis takes a moment to remember how he relates to Ruri. It's actually harder for him, in some ways, the more he gets -- entangled, with someone, to simply choose to move toward them; it's never impossible, but it takes him that littlest extra bit of mental effort to wrap his head around how to get there.
After all -- he tries so hard not to entangle himself with others at all, except insofar as it allows him to run his usual patterns.
Alexis appears in Ruri's room, just out of her field of vision -- probably thanks in no small part to the pillow between herself and everything else. "Ah -- thank you for this. I appreciate the allowance. I couldn't help but notice, as I traveled, the state of your vessel... you have some terribly hasty-looking field repairs. Did something happen...?"
Again: he knows something happened. He did it. But there's only a small handful of ways to trace that line -- and right now, no one has a link between any of them. "Whatever it was, it must have been quite stressful for everyone aboard the ship."
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
BGM Shift: Thrice - Digital Sea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_2ARZDlg4Q
It is, again, a spartan sort of arrangement. There's no bulky furniture to hide behind, in Ruri's room; no place to sit. This is a place for sleeping, and precious little else.
There are no distractions.
Nevertheless, she is distracted.
As soon as Alexis enters, he's being watched. Not by Ruri; it takes her a moment to realise he's here. She's not nearly as sceptical, anyway, despite her airs.
When she looks to him, it's with the same stoic expression she wears for everything. If her eyes are a little red, maybe it's just the lighting; it's dimmed, in here, all ready for bed.
"We were involved in a battle in order to protect a civilian craft," Ruri reports, voice more-or-less even. "Unfortunately, as our enemies were very persistent, we took some damage. We're fine, but we'll need to repair our nuclear pulse engines before we can travel through atmosphere safely again."
That is, obviously, not something a bridge officer should just be telling an unknown alien, which is a clue as to just how rattled Ruri is. It's not that she doesn't distrust Alexis, at this point -- but she doesn't trust him, either.
(She just doesn't know what to think about him.)
And once again, she reports the bare facts of the situation, not how it affects her.
Even now it's perfectly obvious it affects her.
Her fingers tighten, in her pillow. "I suppose they're upset," Ruri allows, talking around he point. There's a hint of scorn to her report, as she adds: "At least everyone didn't have to go and collect themselves this time." No one took the Angel very well.
Never mind how Ruri took it.
"I..." When she comes to herself, she trails off on her pronoun; her shoulders hunch, a little, as she hugs her pillow to herself. "My functioning isn't compromised," she adopts the language of the machine, a shade defensively. "I'm not so foolish as to let myself be affected by things like this..."
She hugs that pillow a little tighter, as if to cover up the stab of guilt in her gut. "... not that there's not reasons to be upset," she feels bad, dismissing things like that, knowing why Ranka reacted so badly.
<Pose Tracker> Alexis Kerib has posed.
"Ah! How very kind of you. I'd picked up scattered radio communication about such things," Alexis says, on the topic of protecting a civilian craft -- which is true, for a given value of each of those words. "How unfortunate that the damage was so extensive." He looks around for a place to sit.
All told, the Nadesico's tactical stance -- the disposition of its nuclear pulse engines, the amount of damage done to it... that's pretty secondary to Alexis. He's done the damage he wanted to do, and set himself up to make the connections he wanted to make.
"Just so," Alexis says. "Still... it's a little unfair of them, if they're taking it fairly well, not to come check on you just because your -- functioning isn't compromised, was it?" He waits several seconds to say anything further, glancing around the room. His eyes rest on the whale at the ceiling for just a moment. Something hung like that -- it's a bit of a childish affectation...
He makes sure to remember that, but doesn't comment on it. "It's a bit of a breach of esprit d'corps, don't you think? Managing the Nadesico's systems is your responsibility -- with so much damage done, that's a real weight on you! They ought to support you more." It's a bit of an annoying needle to thread -- encouraging Ruri to take up a child's space, without affronting her desire not to be seen as a child.
Then again -- Alexis has done it before.
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
There is no place to sit. Ruri's room is remarkably undecorated... well, aside from those aquatic creatures hanging from the ceiling.
It's certainly a contrast to the practicality of the room.
Ruri shakes her head, when Alexis says it's unfair, but -- she's embarrassed, really, by what that means. Embarrassed enough to stay quiet, until he finishes his statement.
She looks down at her pillow, rather than up to him.
"It's... not their fault," Ruri says, finally. "Since I didn't say anything... it's not like I complain about it." She stretches out a hand, palm up, to look at the back of her hand. "... IFS implants increase aggression, Mr. Kerib. Well, I'm not really the type to yell, but I don't react like people my age do in a fight... my emotions don't get in the way."
Her hand drops, to her lap.
"... well, I suppose a strange girl like me is difficult to understand, particularly when there are girls having a normal reaction to aggression like that." Her shoulders lift, and fall, as she takes a breath. "I... won't say it wasn't frightening. The Jovians typically engage with the Aestivalis wing before they attack us directly... I've never seen something so dedicated to getting in our face. Our Distortion Field absorbed most of the damage, but... Mr. Kerib, when I'm one with the systems, I'm aware of all the Nadesico's processes. So I knew just what I had to do to keep everything together." Judging by that slight dismal edge to her voice, it wasn't trivial.
<Pose Tracker> Alexis Kerib has posed.
"IFS implants... I'm afraid I'm..." Is he familiar, actually? It takes him a second. He needs to go back through his personal narrative, and...
... hits a wall.
"Apologies. I truly am unfamiliar, but I can understand, in the general sense. They're among the things that separate you from the grand mass of humanity." He laughs, though it's a surprisingly gentle thing -- not at Ruri, ostensibly, as he follows up with, "I suppose it's absurd for me to put my finger on the scale on that particular topic, either way. We are both creatures of the stars(aliens), are we not?"
For lack of a place to sit, Alexis translates slightly further away from Ruri -- offering her more of her space back, perhaps. "No, no -- the truth is, I'm quite familiar with this type of feeling! This isn't difficult for me, at least. The young lady is -- similar to you, in this way, I suppose. She lacks an implant like yours, but something about her separates her emotions from 'normal,' in that same way... she also seems to make better connections with the inhuman than with her classmates."
The teal panels of his face blink off for a moment, as he thinks. "Regardless of whether it's their fault, it really does seem as though they treat you more like a piece of the ship than a person. Just because you relate to something different from what they relate to -- you're surrounded by somewhat thoughtless people, aren't you?"
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
Recognition flashes in Ruri's eyes, as Alexis invokes the meanings of stars. She explains, evenly, without begrudging him his ignorance. "The Image Feedback System. Nanomachine implants which allow humans to issue direct commands to machines." She taps the back of her hand, demonstratively. The pillow shifts between her arms. She hasn't put it down. "These markings. In normal people, they increase aggression and emotional dysregulation, but..."
Well, Ruri isn't quite like normal people, since she's so sympathetic to electronics anyway. Perhaps it's simply not so much of a leap for someone like her.
Apparently, it's a feeling Alexis is familiar with. Ruri hears Alexis relating how she's treated -- remembers Ranka covering her mouth with both hands, as she read her file. She wonders if it's really that... obvious.
She lowers both her hands to her lap, which at least shifts her pillow from portrait to landscape as she looks up to him. "But I am part of the Nadesico," she points out, plainly. "The systems were designed with me in mind... so, it would be difficult for a normal person to operate them. Anyway, it's incorrect to say they don't treat me as a person, Mr. Kerib. Sometimes it gets on my nerves, but... people here let me exist."
Ruri at least remembers enough of her advice to insist: "It's impolite to keep implying they're unkind, Mr. Kerib." But, the conclusion -- "You don't need to spare my feelings. Actually, the reason no one's checked on me is I don't let them do that, since I keep my worries to myself."
She shakes her head, glancing aside. "... I guess I'm like that girl. I can't really... connect with people. Not that I don't try, or anything like that... well, the intern is a little like me in some ways. Since we like music, I tried, but..." One hand folds over the other, one her pillow; her legs fold in, under the bed, ankles all criss-crossed. "I don't know... for some reason, I'm nervous."
Well, how can she give voice to a worry she doesn't remember?
(When the people like her went away --)
<Pose Tracker> Alexis Kerib has posed.
"Hmmm... you really are quite kind," Alexis says, with a small nod as Ruri chastises him for his impoliteness a bit. "You'll have to forgive me -- it can be difficult to understand a dynamic you aren't part of." They're not quite the same, Alexis realizes. His current project had been utterly willing to accept the unkindness of others at a casual suggestion.
The blank between twelve and fifteen must be terribly taxing, he reasons.
As Ruri explains she's already the heart of this highly evolved machine, this mobile battleship -- he feels almost angry, for a moment. Someone really took a lovely potential meal, took a single bite out of it, and walked off without another word. "It's okay to take these things slowly -- to hurt, to be nervous. Even to decide they're not your form of expression!" Alexis says, a little brighter now. "Sharing music is quite intimate, in a sense. It's okay to take things at your own pace, or tell her you're not ready for that."
He thinks carefully about how to phrase this, now; his cloak shifts just slightly, as he thinks. "I knew someone, once, for whom the mere act of having a song played to him was quite painful. Sentiment can be overwhelming... it's fine to shrink from such things."
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
"... it's all right," Ruri excuses him, after a moment. "I suppose you're not quite used to people, either..." It's an easy guess to make, with how much he's presenting himself as clueless and alien. That Ruri buys it is -- well, testament to her age, really.
Her hands bury, in the pillow on her lap. She thinks she's being subtle. "I didn't precisely have the bravery to share first... but, I heard her singing, so I tried too. But Omoikane writes very honest songs... it's a little embarrassing for someone else to hear. And one thing led to another, and I told her I didn't remember where I came from, either... well, it's not like it's the first time I've discussed things like that, but it's the first time I've seen someone else read my file, I suppose. I guess something there bothered her... I don't know." Ruri brushes it off, verbally, in just the way she can't shake it emotionally.
"I'm not a particularly sentimental person... it's burdensome, since I don't really understand what upsets people. I can't..." Ruri shakes her head, hair fanning to either side of her, before she looks up to Alexis. "You know? It's hard to reach people like this." With the question, she invites inclusion; how strange, that she finds an alien more relatable.
<Pose Tracker> Alexis Kerib has posed.
"Indeed -- I've never been much of a social butterfly myself," Alexis says, with a very small shake of his head -- in a way, he's answering all of the things she's said at once, with that. There are elements of his past that he's already been forced to acknowledge in full, simply to move at all; unlike sorting out the finer points of his narrative, those he's free to use as he will. "When I was working in administration, I was actually quite stiff. When it came to appreciating the depth of human emotion, I suppose I was 20,000 years too early."
He laughs, a bit -- at himself, perhaps. It's not long before he doubles back. "... Ah -- you shared your file with her? I don't know how much help I could be, but if I could read it, perhaps I could figure out what it was that bothered your -- intern, you said?"
It's a risk. Alexis rarely pushes for information, but... he's starting to feel that there's something in Ruri's background he's missing -- something he could use. It's not that she's a kaiju user -- he knows the ways in which she's special, broadly -- but those eyes... he needs more.
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
"You were an office worker..? Then... I suppose you have something in common with Ms. Haruka." Ruri says it like it's a good thing, but then, she holds Minato in greater esteem than she'd admit to her her face.
20,000 years, though... he's an awfully old man, Ruri thinks. Well, she thinks that, but Ruri -- who is, let's remember, twelve years old -- doesn't have much emotional distance between the ages of 'forty' and 'forty times five-hundred'. She's at a point where twenty seems to be a perfectly mature and capable age, so it's really no wonder she can't quite conceive of the gulf in experience.
She hesitates, for a moment, when Alexis asks so directly, looking up to the ceiling. Well, it's not that she doesn't have a sense of how unhappy Omoikane is with their visitor, but...
"Omoikane," she asks, anyway, "can you bring my file up again?"
A communication box appears, without delay:
< YOU HAVE ACCESSED THIS FILE >
< 2 TIMES TODAY >
"I know." Ruri shakes her head, swallowing. "But I'm not dwelling this time, really."
That's not the point Omoikane was trying to make, but he's not going to argue with Ruri in front of a man like Alexis. He doesn't care to give him the ammunition.
Instead, the communication window pulls up a series of photos -- her foster parents, presumably -- and a short text description.
< Seven years ago,
< Ruri, an unidentified orphan, was adopted by a couple who worked at a Nergal subsidiary computing research laboratory. Ruri was intellectually nurtured within the laboratory, and trained by her foster parents to be a Nadesico crew member, a ship slated to be completed in six years.
< In return for a large compensatory award for her education, Ruri was handed over to Nergal. >
"That's... all I know, Mr. Kerib. I remember meeting Omoikane... but I don't really remember anything before that. These are the records they kept... so I suppose that's what happened."
<Pose Tracker> Alexis Kerib has posed.
"Oh yes. It was an age ago now, of course -- indeed, another universe! The boundaries between them are really quite thin at spots. I've been to a few. You'd be fascinated to see how similar -- and how different -- they are." He doesn't dwell on that, though. Too much dwelling on it and he'll have to confront the full shape of himself, and he prefers to maintain only the shapes he can weaponize.
Ruri offers him much. He moves to look at the communications window, a few teal panels blinking in an irregular pattern as he looks it over. "... hm," he murmurs. "I see. You weren't kidding around with the unique nature of your experiences," he says, his tone becoming youthful -- as if the years simply part and reveal something else.
"... Now, forgive me if this is a forward suggestion," Alexis offers, "but is it truly so bad to forget things, before a point?" Moving too directly on the full data in the file would be obvious. Better to use it as a springboard for something else. "I'm told it's actually fairly common for humans to change their names and faces, and simply -- move on. You have quite the chance to redefine yourself."
There's something he considers saying -- and indeed, one of those teal panels blinks on and off as if he expects to speak again. ... but it stops, and it passes. Whatever it was is something Alexis decides to leave unvoiced.
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
"I see," Ruri says, surprisingly, with recognition. "It's not so different to the principles of phase transition, I suppose. Our engines work through the Inflation Theory to phase from our universe into a vacuum with less potential energy in order to gain immense power... of course, it doesn't work without a vacuum to begin with, so I suppose we can't be accessing a place that's too different."
She doesn't particularly dwell on it, but it might explain why they can't go planetside right now. The reason is universe crimes!
And speaking of just giving Alexis information for free: her file.
"Mm," she hums agreement, after he reads her file and makes that first remark. "I've... never met anyone entirely like me."
It turns out Alexis begging forgiveness is prescient, though, because Ruri frowns when he makes his suggestions. "It may be convenient for adults to forget things," she scolds him, mildly, "but I want to know, Mr. Kerib. I want to know where I came from, and why I'm like this." She pauses, taking a breath, and looks up to those face plates. Facing it -- "I know the truth might be unpleasant. After all, I'm aware of the function of human laboratories, generally speaking. I know that orphans are convenient test subjects." Her brow arcs upward, here, in a subtle touch of sadness; it's a poor reflection of how much the questions ache, bone-deep, unwritten. "But I think I must have had parents... I must have had friends."
She looks up, to the ceiling. "I've always had those," she adds, a shade wistful. "But... I don't remember why."
Her memories are all disturbed water.
<Pose Tracker> Alexis Kerib has posed.
Alexis simply offers, "My mistake. The young lady is so touchy about where she went to middle school, let alone earlier... I assumed the feeling was more common for humans than it must be." He allows himself some verbalized planning: "I wonder if I ought to check up on her... perhaps I've allowed her pain to grow in silence."
He definitely has, but that's neither here nor there.
"If there's anything I can do to help you find those missing memories, Hoshino-san," back to that respectful distance, that adult-to-adult posture -- "Please let me know. As always, you need but cry for help and it will be answered. I may not be able to find the answers for you, of course, but if you're certain you wish to know... I can at least start looking for where to look."
He might do that anyway, he thinks.
"Now then -- I think I've monopolized a bit too much of your time, so late at night," he concedes, floating slightly away. "Thank you for permitting me to check up on you, though... it was quite nice to see you again."
He gives one last look to the whale. "What an interesting memento it must be," he reflects.
Assuming Ruri doesn't keep her eyes locked to him, he leaves, in that way he so often does.
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
"Some people don't want to know," Ruri explains, sounding a shade tired about it all. "And I suppose that's fine."
She looks -- surprised, though, at the idea that someone could help her find her memories. Her eyes widen, as she looks back to Alexis. "I want to know," she insists, hope all caught in her throat like a chicken-bone.
Ruri nods, though, when he drifts away. It's foolish, she supposes, to be so forward about something lost so long ago. "I'm... glad you're doing well, Mr. Kerib," she says, looking up to the whale again. "It's..."
But what it is falls to implication, as she looks back to find herself alone in her room again. Ruri glances aside, a little shamefaced.
"... I'll really be seen as a fool at this rate," she sighs, to Omoikane. "How inappropriate... gratuitous displays like this aren't like me." Is she really so influenceable that she'd try being this embarrassing just because she saw another Nergal youth doing it...?
And someone saw her... how embarrassing.
The communication window which pops up is insistent, because Omoikane has known Ruri long enough to know where the lie is in those emotions:
< IT'S HOW YOU FEEL >
"Oh, well," Ruri sighs, as she returns her pillow to the head of her bed, and slips under the covers. "It's not that important."
It bothers him, but Omoikane turns out the lights for Ruri, anyway.
At the same time, he sends a message through to one of the administrators of NERV. A simple text message, all bounded in a box:
< THE ALIEN CAME BACK >
He'll tell Ruri about it when she wakes up, because he's a very honest person. An honest person who knows what's most important to Ruri -- and who has his own ideas, about who to trust. Kaworu is their friend. Alexis...
... well, perhaps Ruri thinks of him as a friend.