2022-07-04: I'll exploit that predictable desire for complexity
- Log: I'll exploit that predictable desire for complexity
- Cast: Yuliana Dispersal, Rena Lancaster
- Where: Azadistan
- Date: 2022-07-04
- Summary: Rena happens across Yuliana, and tries to get to the bottom of her attack in Ravnui. Yuliana, seeing Rena alone, enacts her typical social violence. Unfortunately, in order to hurt her, she tells Rena a series of details which are close to the truth.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
Azadistan is a lovely country, just full of opportunities! None which Yuliana has occasion to take, right now -- but it's always nice to visit one's neighbours and see if they need anything. A cup of sugar, some military support... having friends is nice, isn't it? Of course, none of the officials she's opened channels with have much interest in entangling themselves with her... but that's fine. She's offering out of the goodness of her heart, after all. No one is obligated to do anything, in such an amiable arrangement.
:)
And so, having stopped in for a friendly visit, resident Captain-come-dignitary Yuliana Dispersal has plenty of time for her favourite thing: sightseeing! In her typical dark suit and typical light scarf (gold and green, today), she strolls cheerfully out of a cultural museum, munching on a bag of roasted chickpeas she's acquired from the attached cafe. The historical building stands out, starkly, on a street shaped from steel.
She is astoundingly civilian-stanced; it would be difficult to guess, without knowing her, that she was pointing a gun at Myrme just a few days prior. Yuliana certainly doesn't look like she's armed, now.
(She is. She had to fill out eight forms and three errata requests to try and justify how she lost her sidepiece to, quote, 'a gun-eating bug', unquote; but having gotten through the unbending bureaucracy of authoritarian socialism, she safely has another sidearm strapped somewhere sneaky. You know. To help with the diplomacy.)
But that's all in the past, and will surely never come back to bite her, in just the way Yuliana is biting those chickpeas.
Monch.
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
Rena heard about the altercation with Yuliana Dispersal. She is concerned, to say the very least. She had her disagreements with the woman; she thought they were professional, rather than ones involving weapons. She has reevaluated this, but isn't sure what to do with that information.
She didn't come to Azadistan looking for her. She is here briefly -- one flight in the morning, another in the evening, and checking on some paperwork and collecting some supplies for Londo Bell -- but has a little time for sightseeing. The blue-haired woman is grimacing as she walks through the midday sunlit plaza, eyes on the cultural museum.
Being from Winter Wonderland, she thinks this desert weather in summer is horrible. She manages to only grimace.
Then she looks down. Her eyes meet Yuliana's across the plaza outside the museum -- and they widen, with recognition and then many more emotions. She hesitates for a moment; then, she starts towards her, because ignoring her is out of the question.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
Yuliana maintains it was all a terrible misunderstanding.
For this reason, if no other, it's worth questioning.
She doesn't much enjoy dry heat, either -- she's adept at humid heat (thanks, Indonesia!), and at dry cold (thanks, Zaftra!), but marrying the two just ends with something miserable. (Well, humid cold is just the rainy season, but that's miserable for reasons other than not growing up in it.) But Yuliana, who does an awful lot of travelling around the world, has long since learned how to smile through it all.
Like when she meets Rena's eyes -- and she's smiling.
Consequences.
Obligingly, Yuliana pauses in her stroll, turning towards the other woman. "Ah, Rena!" She calls, first-name-basis, entirely friendly. "What a surprise to see you out here! Are you squirreling out something from Azadistan? Hmm, I suppose I can imagine remnants hiding out around here..." She patters on as if it were wonderful to see Rena, as if they're pleasant associates.
And in doing so she puts the onus for breaking that spell on Rena, sleight-of-handing the responsibility into her hands.
"Fancy some chickpeas?" She asks, holding the bag out -- which, coincidentally, Rena would need to get close to her to accept. Surely there's nothing sinister in that invitation. (That invitation is entirely sinister.)
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
"Captain Dispersal," Rena says. She shakes her head, as she approaches. "No, I'm afraid not. Azadistan is sending us some non-perishables and I'm overseeing the transfer." She keeps her tone carefully controlled -- approaching Yuliana, then wincing. The feeling of her aura -- her presence -- washes over her. The 'void,' as some came to call it; that sudden deadening of her senses, and the sensation of nothing in its place.
It takes Rena some effort to approach. The experience of being near Yuliana is disturbing, to say the least. And the way she smiles at her, speaks in a friendly tone, and offers her chickpeas...
"I already ate, but thank you," she manages.
She is quiet for a second, after that. She looks Yuliana over, then tilts her head to the side, and raises an eyebrow. "I heard there was... a situation with two individuals under my command."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
Yuliana catches the wince; her smile gains a measure of commiseration, for a moment. "Busywork, huh? That's too bad," she sympathises, and in the sympathy, frames Rena's visible discomfort as a result of the transfer she's overseeing.
"Sure, sure," she agrees, cheerfully enough, pulling her bag back. Entirely friendly; entirely agreeable.
Oh, don't get her wrong. She's really looking forward to how Rena handles this one. But if she let that show, she'd ruin the whole game, wouldn't she?
And there it is. "Hmm?" Yuliana probes, with a curious hum. "Oh, yes -- a terrible misunderstanding, that. I'll overlook Arriety's little pet assaulting me, of course; I'm sure it thought it was being helpful at the time." She waves her free hand, as if it were all water under the bridge. (It isn't.)
"Tell me," she presses, sounding quite concerned, "did Callisto get back all right? After she slipped in the rain, she was terribly disoriented... I offered to call her an ambulance, but she insisted it would be too costly." The lack of travel insurance in Ravnui. Terrible, really. (It isn't.)
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
"Something like that," Rena says. She left some details off -- she would say it isn't to bore Yuliana, but it's really born out of distrust. She doesn't find it to be busywork, but it is a little annoying. She would have preferred drudgery to who she found here.
But it is an opportunity. And, at worst, she doubts Yuliana would try to murder her in broad daylight.
"She made it back in one piece," Rena says, focusing on Callisto before she focuses on Myrme. She hesitates for a moment. "I gather you weren't injured by Myrme, but you did lose your sidearm. I'll talk to her about eating firearms."
She hesitates for a moment more. "I heard that you had an... altercation, at the time they showed up," she says, keeping her tone carefully neutral.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
It's an approximation, but Yuliana is polite enough not to press on it; knowing Londo Bell's particulars isn't the most important thing to her, right now. Certainly it's nice to know, and she won't forget hearing it, but...
Yuliana is a very polite woman. She's not going to pry. Or kill someone in the middle of the street. Right?
Right.
"What a relief," Yuliana says, about Callisto -- and if she had anything else to say, she's diverted into the topic of the bug, instead.
Her hand comes to rest on her hip, as she listens to what Rena has to say; she gestures, with the hand still holding those chickpeas. "Oh, that was a personal matter," she demurs, smoothly. "Really, I'm a little embarrassed to get into it... you know how personal life can get so complex, I'm sure." Her smile fades into something which looks a lot like vulnerability, for a moment, glancing away.
She looks back, and asks: "By the way -- how is it that bug can eat something like a gun? It -- sorry, she," Yuliana corrects herself, entirely deliberately, despite the fact that she's already absorbed that Myrme isn't a thing, "looked much like an insect, but she ate through that metal and gunpowder like it was a delicious snack... it's rather strange, you know."
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
It's difficult for Rena to gauge Yuliana's reactions, she realizes. She grew so accustomed to some empathic sensation -- and even knowing how often that could be misleading, by reading a surface emotion that was strong when what was important was deeper or being confused by a muddle of emotions, she had come to rely on it. Telling what someone is thinking by a glance -- a vulnerable look, for example -- is challenging.
Her expression softens, for a moment. But, only for a moment. "Life certainly can," she agrees. "Especially these days."
She hesitates, as she considers that. "Myrme is a strange case. Londo Bell's examined her... and she's safe, but she has some abilities that go beyond just looking like an insect," she admits.
She frowns, though, at the dodge of her question. She heard that Yuliana attacked a woman -- though, she finds the details are lacking.
"If you need a new sidearm, I'm sure we can requisition one," she says. "I hope it wasn't one with a lot of sentimental value."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
Yuliana knows very much how much of a black box she is, of course, and she spent years learning how to perform emotional stability -- which is quite convenient, in situations like this.
She'd tell you it's only fair. This is how most of the world lives every day, after all.
"Safe, is she?" Yuliana asks, sounding a little sceptical; her hand lifts, to brush through her bangs, and she shakes her head. "Well, I suppose she wasn't terribly aggressive after she got something to eat... I'll take your word on that, Rena," her first name, again.
She waves her hand, as if to wave off the thought. "Oh, no, no," Yuliana assures Rena, personably. "It was standard issue. I wasn't expecting to draw it, but, well, when a strange creature drops out of the sky to strike one's head in the middle of the night -- responding to the threat is precisely what we're trained for, mm?"
Yuliana sighs, as if with regret. "You may want to speak to your attache about getting her pet to attack soldiers in the middle of the night," she advises Rena, with a shade of regret. "I'm sure she meant well... but imagine if she'd gotten tangled up with someone who shot first and asked questions later?" Yuliana, of course, means Arriety harm -- but the arc of her brow and the concern in her eyes feigns something much more innocuous. "I'd hate for her to get hurt."
Of course, the idea that Yuliana isn't the type to shoot first might be a little incongruous with the idea that she drew her weapon on Myrme immediately, but surely that's fine.
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
Rena frowns at the use of her first name, but she doesn't comment. Even if she doesn't much like it -- but in this case, formality is a shield, and she can't very well demand it. They are off duty and Yuliana is acting friendly, even if she has her doubts about that coming from a place of friendliness on Yuliana's part.
"I suppose I can see why you were surprised," she says. She keeps it from sounding flat, for the most part. But she straightens up at the mention that Arriety might be harmed. "I'll be talking to her about what happened." She tilts her head to the side for a moment. "Though..."
Her brown eyes narrow.
"...I'd suggest, in the dark of night, remembering someone might construe your actions differently, from a distance," she says. "After all, we're soldiers of the Federations. We wouldn't cause harm to civilians. We certainly wouldn't do so in the dead of night. Having a... disagreement with someone in those circumstances..."
She hesitates, but it's deliberate. "...Well, you can see why might they have assumed something was happening that needed to be stopped."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
Yuliana smiles, when Rena trails into her next point -- and perhaps she meant for it to be self-effacing, but there's just a little edge of a lift to her lips which makes it less than entirely embarrassed.
She's only human. She can only do so much, in the face of something so funny.
"Ahaha... you're right, of course," she laughs -- abashed? -- and at least remembers to transition her smile to a grimace at the end of the statement. "I wasn't in my uniform at the time," never mind that Yuliana is almost never dressed in the REA's official colours, almost as if she's the sort of person who hinges on deniability, "but certainly, someone might still recognise me. Of course, I was never really going to hurt anyone," is that really such a given?, "but it does look terribly suspicious, I'll agree."
Yuliana sighs, as if troubled. "Well -- if I can speak personally for a moment," intimating a secret to Rena, getting her involved, implicitly demanding the closeness of keeping those secrets, "this is hardly the first time someone has misread my intentions. I'm told I'm a hard woman to read... it can be difficult to... reach people, from where I'm standing."
She looks up, to the cloudless sky. "I'll admit such an aggressive approach was my fault... but that woman evaded all attempts for her family to reach her before then. Well, they're friends of mine... and I understand life's been hard for her since she ran away. Ah, it's..." Emotion creeps into her voice -- upset -- as she reveals just how much she's struggling with trying to help people.
And then she shakes her head, and looks back to Rena. "Oh, never mind me," she insists, with a shade of embarrassment. "I'm sure you're not invested in my personal issues." They're all lies, of course, even if the truth is a couple of streets over.
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
"Someone might. And get the wrong idea," Rena says, her voice cool. She hesitates for a moment at that, though. She catches the twist of her lips; the hint of a smile, and Rena isn't sure if it is amusement or embarrassment or something else.
Then, she nods. She won't protest if Yuliana speaks personally.
"You're hard to read," she admits. She straightens her back out. "...And I think of myself as good at reading people. Take that as a compliment, if you want, I suppose."
She frowns, and then she looks up at the sky for a second -- then back at Yuliana. She hesitates, when it seems like she is upset. But, she thinks to her own family; she thinks to how she was tied to them, and how she left them to find a new family.
Rena hesitates, for a second. "So you were trying to help her family," she says. She falls quiet. "Why did she run away, do you know?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
Yuliana will take that as a compliment, because getting in the way of a Newtype's crimes, to ask Yuliana about it, is always a good thing. She doesn't say as much, though; she's busy tugging on Rena's heartstrings.
She sighs, gesturing with that bag of chickpeas. "What reasons do happy young women ever have for running? She wanted something different for her career, and her father couldn't approve of her trying something which might not support her the way she wished." Activism certainly does have limited prospects, for all it's perfectly legal and permissible, on the surface. People who are happy to disturb the peace in acceptable ways have a long future of sign-waving ahead of them. People who actually see enough to change things...
Well, that's when they get friendly visits from people like Yuliana. Just so.
"But I don't wish to gossip overmuch about it," Yuliana says, with regret. "As I said... it's a personal matter. Of course, I regret your people being caught up in it, but surely you understand that these things can get strikingly messy. You'll forgive me for not being able to explain at the time, I hope... I was much more concerned for the way Callisto collapsed, to be honest." She's not being honest. The entire premise, in fact, is wrong; Yuliana scarcely knows the elder Kironov. That her story at all resembles the truth is only one of the oldest tricks of lying -- weaving in half-truths to add fidelity to the falsehood.
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
"Mm... yeah. Still, if she wanted to leave... I don't think that should be ignored. Ideally, she could work it out with her family..." Rena trails off; an unsaid 'but' is there. But, sometimes families can't see eye-to-eye. But, sometimes, what a parent wants for their child or what they do isn't for the best.
"I see why it could get messy," she says. She looks down, after a moment, then shakes her head. "Callisto is okay. Don't worry about that. I'll tell them what you said."
She frowns, her expression distant. It's not hard to see that something about this -- about someone leaving their parents -- has struck a chord with her, and not in a strictly positive way.
She looks back up at Yuliana. "Just... remember what people say about the Federation," she says. "They think we want to stamp out any disagreement. To make sure things stay the same. But we're here to make them better."
Rena tilts her head to the side. Her now-shortened ash blue hair bobs with her, the red dyed streak doing the same. And when she smiles, now, it's genuine. "For everyone."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
"I'm sure I can rely on that," Yuliana says, when Rena says she'll tell her friends about this, and... it's grateful, isn't it? It sounds grateful -- it uses all the right words for gratitude; despite that, there's something in the way they're arranged which is almost...
I Know You Know I Know is Yuliana's favourite game. She's playing it with so many people.
She enjoys this game, too -- and if she weren't selling herself as someone who doesn't like to talk about her personal life, she'd enjoy twisting the knife a little more about women fleeing their families. (Okay, that one isn't entirely a lie -- she actually doesn't like to talk about her personal life. It's absolutely a tool to serve a purpose here, though.)
Yuliana's fingers come to rest against her cheek, as her head tilts, bangs fanning through the air and revealing a little more of her face. She smiles, to answer Rena's own expression; certainly it looks genuine. "Of course, we're all moving towards a better future," Yuliana agrees, smoothly, easily.
(This isn't entirely a lie, either. Such a glorious future...)
"The way things are is far too agonising to maintain, wouldn't you agree? I would hate to be an agent of entropy. Perhaps that's why I prefer to act than stay motionless... even given such a terrible mistake, I hope we can come to an understanding." She does not hope that, but it's convenient for Rena to hear that she does.
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
Rena nods her head, with a smile on her face. Even if part of her still wants to push the point -- to argue, like she isn't satisfied -- about the younger Kironov. She refrains; she only has the barest facts of the situation, and Yuliana seems genuine.
She thinks -- she hopes -- and she doubts, at the same time. The uncertainty is confounding and frustrating, leaving her on uneven footing mentally.
"We are," she agrees. She hesitates for a second, and then she glances downward. "And they are. We need to try to make things better." But do they agree on what that future should look like?
She doesn't know.
Rena looks back up, then she nods. "I'll... talk to them about it. Thank you for explaining it to me."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
Yuliana knows precisely what she's doing, showing vulnerability to Rena while she's alone with no one to help centre her out of the emotional emptiness Yuliana eminates. Strictly speaking, it's not even the most tactically advantageous move -- giving information to the enemy almost never is -- but Yuliana can't just pass up the opportunity to hurt Rena while she's alone and unprotected.
She's a petty, spiteful, cruel woman, and she's entirely at peace with her elemental hatred. It's simply who she is.
"Any time," Yuliana lies, easily and with a smile. "I'm sure we'll find a path to a more equitable society." That certainly is a nice word to describe the future, isn't it?
... from a woman who was trying to track down a wayward daughter, rather than talking to her father. Perhaps Yuliana has her own cultural context, too.
"I'm so glad we could clear this up."
But... did they really clear up anything..?