2022-06-21: This feigned world shall ensnare us lest we weave together
- Log: This feigned world shall ensnare us lest we weave together
- Cast: Yuliana Dispersal, Elisa Kafim
- Where: Khanka Administrative Region
- Date: 2022-06-21
- Summary: Yuliana and Elisa discuss Athrusa Hsieh, the nature of reality, and their bond together.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
Yuliana has been -- more or less stable, since Elisa corrected the REA's interference. Of course, there are always a few incidents; her sources at the laboratory report that she fell into a rage during her last battle in the Bloody Valentine conflict and required retrieval. That's not outside expectations, for someone like Yuliana. By and large, they've managed to keep her stable, and haven't embarked on any ambitious experiments of their own.
(Her friends at the Institute aren't capable of telling her the details of most of Yuliana's military assignments, of course, because there was no relevant data for them or because that data is classified. The linking factor between her work and her treatment is Major Pham, who remains outside Elisa's grasp, for now. They're able to say Yuliana is working, at least.)
... and apparently, the head scientist has been making remarkable progress in her most recent project, thanks to Elisa's help. Doctor Petrov reports that Doctor Devi has become even more frightening, over the past month, and three scientists were fired -- but she hasn't been able to contact any of them since they left. That's probably fine.
But perhaps it's no wonder, with reports like that, why Yuliana would reach out through their complicated lattice of deniable contact details to find where she's last landed. (Relying on Elisa, more and more...) The two of them are, tragically, busy with their various plots and obligations -- which may explain why they always come together in these stopover hotels, like this one in Khanka. Aside, of course, from the fact that damages to them are someone else's problem!
Yuliana sits on a plush couch, holding the requisite glass of sparkling water between long fingers well-suited to the piano or a switchboard or the trigger of a gun. Her lips fall from the glass, as she continues: "... and those people can appear anywhere, you know -- I even ran into one in an electronics store, the other day, some country bumpkin of the like fool enough to macronise chickens. He ran off before I could try anything, of course. Ugh! Those people are so flighty!"
The distaste in her voice makes it abundantly clear she's complaining about sensitive souls. Newtypes are always troubling her.
"Though..." Yuliana starts, as if there's something else, before she sighs and shakes her head. "Well," she diverts herself, leaning forward to place her glass on the coffee table, "I can at least say Medical have been minding their manners, since your little visit. I've not had much to do with them, leaving the obvious maintenance aside..."
Her fingers fan through her bangs, as she leans back, on the couch. "... really, love, I'm grateful," Yuliana adds, softly, warmth supplanting the acid of her tone. "I'd be lost without your care, I'm sure... you've saved me quite a bit of pain, telling those whitecoats to release the throttle. Since the good Doctor left, I'd be hard-pressed to name anyone who really gave a damn for my welfare. For all I'm plagued by modern society, things are -- they're better, now I'm not returning to such horrible treatments."
It's the kind of vulnerability which Yuliana is reluctant to show to anyone -- but which Elisa has seen a little more of, since coming to her rescue. Perhaps in admitting her life wasn't all gloss and shine, she's offering Elisa the parts of her heart she simply can't leave exposed, doing the work she does.
But...
... even so, she's mentioned someone else.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
it isn't perfect, but her friends will do for now. After all, Yuliana is stable...
Major Pham might be an issue one day.
She is pleased with Dr. Devi's progress. But she isn't talking about that at the moment; instead, she is on the other couch nearby, and she has an unidentified drink of her own. She is listening to Yuliana speak, as she often does. "Ahahah," she laughs at the matter of macronizing chickens. It is, of course, obvious that she is talking about Newtypes. Elisa is happy to listen to her rant a bit. However...
"It's so nice when things work as they should, isn't it?" The matter of Medical behaving. And Elisa smiles, when warmth fills Yuliana's tone. "I could do nothing less," she says, and considers the matter of the good Doctor again. The good Doctor who isn't her, who she hasn't yet had the chance to go and meet and see about...
"Modern society is such a plague. But I am glad that this, at least, is not. ...Have you had a chance to run into our dear Doctor again since that time with the children?" The white knights.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
'Our' dear Doctor, Yuliana notes, gaze lidding for a moment. Don't think she hasn't noticed the casual possessiveness which has settled over Elisa's approach, in recent months.
It's flattering... she thinks.
But Elisa's methods are antithetical to Athrusa's desires, and perhaps that's why her head cants, fingers fanning out against her cheek. A moment's pause. Deliberation.
"... unfortunately, I haven't been in a position to apprehend her since," Yuliana says, after a moment, which is an answer tangential to the question Elisa asks. "You can imagine it requires some advance preparation, slippery as she is."
And that much is true, because Yuliana didn't try to catch her, last they met.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Elisa doesn't even blink about her possessiveness. It just is what it is; if Yuliana cares for the doctor, then obviously that radius of care must naturally extend from Elisa, as well. It is as natural as the wheel.
Which is very natural.
"Hmmmmmmm," the witch considers Yuliana's answer. It is a true answer, but it is not precisely what she asked, either. This is something she notices; this is something that makes it all the more important to visit this... doctor.
"Yes, quite," Elisa replies pleasantly. "It rather must. Still, I'm sure you will have your chance sooner or later."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
They're rather wrapped up in each other, aren't they? And yet, Yuliana has enough experience in the world to at least recognise it, as it happens.
But is it really a problem?
Yuliana sighs softly, which is -- hardly the first sign things are strange, around Athrusa, but is certainly more evidence for the pile. She normally enjoys her work; she's hardly a reluctant monster. "Yes," she agrees, pleasantly enough, "I'm sure I will. Fool as she is, it wouldn't even be hard..."
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
If Elisa has noticed what she's doing, she hasn't mentioned it. But surely she has. Is it a problem that Yuliana has..? Time will tell. But that soft sigh--
"Hmmm," Elisa half-purrs, considering Yuliana for a moment. She tilts her head, takes a sip of her drink. "Do you want to capture her?" she invites her to tell, casually, conversationally. After all, Yuliana usually enjoys her work.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
Does she want to capture the good Doctor? Yuliana's hand lifts, to grasp her opposite arm. Limbs crossing the body like that, she would happily tell you, clearly signal discomfort or nervousness or some other unsettled condition -- in a heated room like this, it's surely some base attempt to shield the body, to protect oneself, to soothe. She wouldn't be caught dead being so obvious about her emotional state, most of the time.
Most of the time.
But, that invitation... how could Yuliana refuse Elisa, when she cares about how she feels about it?
"It's just... a complicated situation. She's intimated she didn't leave of her own free will," Yuliana says, with a pensive frown. "There's something about it which bothers me, since everyone wants her. I'm certainly not being told everything," she adds, bitterly. "For that matter, why they'd send me to retrieve the one doctor who was looking out for me all those years... it's all very well and good to call it a test of loyalty, but that's a rather stupid play for someone who is normally much more clever. No --" Yuliana snorts, with derision, "I'm the bait, I suspect, given she still cares for me. But even then... the situation doesn't add up."
... Yuliana might refuse to interrogate the situation to Athrusa, but that doesn't mean she hasn't noticed something's strange.
"But... it really shouldn't matter to me," Yuliana scowls, as her fingers tighten. "She's just a character from a previous chapter... getting too attached to the facsimiles of this world is beneath me. They're not real. This place, those people... it isn't real... it isn't real." And there's something about that belief, repeated like a prayer, which doesn't entirely make sense -- if it's so unreal, why is she invested at all? -- but Yuliana, dwelling at the threshold, has no better answer.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Elisa notices, of course. And she listens. Oh, of course she listens to her dear Yuliana.
"Hmmmm..." She could, of course, play this a few ways. She could encourage her not to think about, validate those doubts of hers. But Elisa has a different way in mind. To conspire is to grow closer, after all. And she always wishes to grow closer...
"It is strange," she agrees, "When you put it that way. There must be some other reason that they want her. Some reason that she had to go."
A smile, indulgent, as Yuliana says it isn't real. Yuliana has no answers, but Elisa always has answers. "...Is it not so that what happens in one chapter can influence the next? It is only dramatic if a character from a previous chapter becomes relevant again. Ah, it is not real, but it is a powerful facsimile of reality."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
They're alike, in that way. Unfortunately, there's a vast gulf between Yuliana and the world which gets in the way of closeness -- even when she makes the attempt. A shame about that young woman, but it's hardly as if Yuliana can't work with that situation.
(A gulf like the space between two couches, perhaps.)
"She got into a fight with Medical, I'm sure," Yuliana says, on Athrusa having to leave. "It would explain her references to the lab -- and her amnesia, at that." Are the REA's scientists capable of doing such a thing? Perhaps the better question is why Yuliana knows they're capable of it.
Elisa has answers, but something about them knits at Yuliana's brow, brings her teeth down on her bottom lip. "Those old stories, coming about again -- but it bothers me! Am I some worn narrative, just the same? To be committed to some page, remembered as a tale?! All the discordant parts of me, how -- I take those pills to live amongst the imitations, I prey on sensitivity, I am unbound and erratic, I, how I am hopelessly in love with you --" her eyes squeeze shut, arms folding across herself. "Isn't it unbelievable?! There's too much of me! Some hackneyed attempt at false depth! That those facsimiles can move me --"
In the course of one outpouring, she has shifted entirely from suspicious to upset; tears spring from her eyes, as her breath hitches. "Please, tell me, Elya! Am I even real?!" And perhaps it informs a little more of her dire situation, after the party --
She did have quite a reaction to that book.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Quite the gulf.
What a good few questions! Elisa nods, at Yuliana's clear knowledge of the matter--but there, it bothers her. There, she sees it--the delicate balance between together and apart, the tiny fraction of a slice that makes the discordant concordant--or shatters it. Yes...
"You are real. I see you. I see that which informs you. ...But the world is a pernicious thing. We cannot be completely apart from it, not yet. It is only natural that in water, one gets wet. In this way do we pick up attachments to this world, in pieces and in bits. It tries to ensnare us..."
"But we are not the same as the others. This you know."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
Yuliana's hand lifts, to grasp, by her shoulder -- the physical mirror of the way she hangs off of Elisa's words. That acceptance... it's almost heartwrenching. It's all she's ever WANTED, the one thing she has never been able to accept.
That it comes with disparaging this pale world they're dwelling in is scarcely a cost at all -- compared to Elisa's inclusiveness.
"I know," she repeats, she affirms, she believes.
She rubs at her eyes, with a self-conscious little smile, and glances down beside her. Another moment's deliberation -- and she pushes her hand to the plush cushioning, to push herself up. Yuliana weaves around the coffee table, to sit next to Elisa, instead.
It's an interesting comment, perhaps, on just how far she's willing to go to reach anyone at all like her. Offered any hope at all...
(But is Elisa really the only one Yuliana is attached to?)
"It's... it's funny," she says, with slight delay, as she settles in. "We've known each other only months... but I feel like we've been together so much longer. When you say you see me, I... I believe you. I really do."
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Almost.
She repeats, she affirms, she believes. yes. Of course she does. That self-conscious smile--and Yuliana pushes up, weaves around the table, and sits next to Elisa. A rare moment of affection happens; she moves from where she'd leaned on the edge of the couch, and leans Yuliana's way instead, reaching to her hand. Any hope at all... But no. No, she is not the only one Yuliana is attached to, and that must be seen, must be tended, must be investigated.
"If this world is false, who is to say that 'time' is any realer?" Elisa says with a small smile. "It feels that way to me, as well."
"Because I do."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
She could do nothing else but believe -- having made the invitation; a beloved existence which must now come to pass.
They are, all of them, in motion.
Yuliana is still surprised, when Elisa moves; her expression gentles, and she leans against the witch in turn, weaving her fingers between hers.
"Oh, Elya..." Yuliana sighs, eyes lidding, as she smiles down to their hands. "I thought... I was alone, for so long. It's so lonely, being real in a fake world... at times I thought I was mad, just as they said. I couldn't reach anyone... oh, I hate it."
The core of her vendetta, of course, is not really righteousness; it is jealousy, green as her eyes.
"And then I found you!" She exclaims, softly, with a light squeeze of her hand. (Elisa may well have been the one to find Yuliana; never mind that.) "And you... you were one of us," isn't she alone?, "you knew... you knew..."
Distantly, she supposes such a thing is dangerous.
But does she really care?