2022-07-08: Cat (Wrangler)
- Log: Cat (Wrangler)
- Cast: Anti, Mari Makinami Illustrious
- Where: Alleyway, Tsutsujidai
- Date: 2022-07-08
- Summary: Mari meets Anti, preoccupied with a broken music player, and offers him some advice.
<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.
There's a boy in the alleyway, between the garbage cans. He's dragged out an abandoned music player; he put something inside. The voice coming from it is tinny and whining out of speakers which have definitely been rained on one too many times; Ranka's voice is sweet, regardless.
The cat's diary records the number of times it took a nap
The swing's diary records today's acceleration and the takeoff of dreams
The clock's diary lists the number of times its beloved has glanced at it
Then, in the diary of my lips is written the number of times I've called out your name
One two three four five and six...
The music player grinds and splutters, and that boy -- pale hair, eyes like sunset, and he hasn't washed for over a month -- turns his gaze to it, with a light grunt. He shoves it with a finger, as it splutters,
Thursday, some month some day-dream
Are we getting clos --
Are we getting --
Are we getti--
Are we get
Are we
are we
are we
... and the music player chokes on the last song it could play, clipping over itself, descending into choppy nothing. The grinding of the tune is surely not intended. Anti, who was not intended, pulls his hand back into his lap as he sits and watches the music player die.
When things break, they're thrown away.
<Pose Tracker> Mari Makinami Illustrious has posed.
Are we
are we
are we
o/` "... Are we getting closer?" o/`
It's a song. Very familiar. It's a voice. Possibly familiar.
It's a person, probably unfamiliar.
The duty of that diligent and dying music player is taken over a few seconds after its last, skipping gasps of music deteriorate into a rasping death rattle of noise; the source comes in the form of a slender woman, back leaned against the alleyway wall on the other side of the leftmost trashcan that enshrines the pale-haired boy and what has become the grinding corpse of his music player. The young woman, dressed in a black shirt, torn, tan pants, heels and a red jacket draped comfortably over her shoulders, seems content to just enjoy the ambiance of the music player's lingering ghost: eyes shut behind red-rimmed glasses, an ephemeral kind of smile lingering on her lips, she sings Ranka's song, bringing a gentle, flighty warmth to the lyrics.
o/` "The universe's diary,
records each time one star meets another~" o/`
The face, effused with a serenely whimsical look, might be unfamiliar.
The voice, though...
Regardless of her identity that's how she'll remain, brooking no interruption at least until the song is done, like it was her solemn duty to see the music player's dying act through to its finish.
Some things, after all, are important.
<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.
There is a voice -- and Anti startles.
He jumps up from where he was sitting, one gloved hand pressing to the ground, unfolding a leg against the ground, pressing in, pushing from elbow and knee; he unfolds like a letter or a blossom or a gunshot through the chest, coming to press himself on the opposite wall of the alley.
The people of Tsutsujidai don't pay much mind to him. He is used to going unseen, unheard, unnoticed.
But that voice --
He's heard her singing, before.
But that song --
Even so, he wanted to hear it.
But that face --
Anti's is deeply untrusting, a scowl settling over him, tension in his lips and his brow and his shoulders and his shins. He... doesn't recognise her. If he had accepted Asuka's offer... would he have been able to?
It's too late for that, now, Anti tells himself.
... but listening to her finish that song, he can't bring himself to flee.
He watches her without turning his gaze away, and he listens.
<Pose Tracker> Mari Makinami Illustrious has posed.
Anti startles, clamoring up the wall with the tense readiness of an unfurled snake, prepared to strike.
His newfound companion does not so much as budge in the face of it. Her eyes remain shut. After all;
the song's not done, yet.
o/` "The curtain's diary,
contains rumours that the wind has spread of someone kissing~
The rocket's diary,
counts down on its fingers till the day of takeoff~
Like that, in the diary of my lips,
I dream of a countdown like that with you~
Seven six five four three to one...!" o/`
Her singing drifts, the soft "tu tu tu"s fading into an easy background leading to those final lyrics. It's not quite Ranka's song, not exactly. After all, it's not Ranka singing it. The stranger standing across from Anti brings her own energy to the lyrics, her own spirit. But in sentiment, it remains the same:
o/` "My diary is dreaming of kissing you~" o/`
Someone who genuinely loves to sing, doing what they love.
It's only when those final lyrics come and go that one bright blue eye cracks open. It rolls up and down, sizing Anti up with a curious "oho?". She knows the description of the young man; how could she not?
But rather than pounce upon a target, Mari Makinami Illustrious just smiles at a stranger.
"Are you sad?" she asks, abruptly. She doesn't offer any clarifying context.
Her gaze, however, has fallen to the dead music player at Anti's feet.
<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.
The song's not done, yet. Anti doesn't leave, yet.
He feels an intruder to the emotions, invasive, a cat introduced to an island; he does not belong here, listening to this music. The Second would, certainly. As for her, he's made his intentions and his feelings clear.
Hasn't he?
Pressed to the wall he listens, as the lyrics find their end. She smiles; he does not. She recognises his description; he does not. She drops her gaze; he does not.
His lips part. His statement is without volume or presence, breath drawn in and held, all anticipation: "..."
Isn't he?
"... why," he settles on, finally, at length, and the word is pressured by his lungs letting that air free again. He speaks with quiet intensity; it doesn't much resemble the furious volume he uses, in battle. He forgets to rise his tone at the end, and so the word doesn't much resemble a question, all in all.
"Why do you care?" He remembers, this time, when he draws in another breath and clarifies his question. "Why does it matter? It's done. It can't be helped."
The music player?
<Pose Tracker> Mari Makinami Illustrious has posed.
why
"Hmm?" is the initial response to Anti's breathed word that has forgotten the importance of its context in tone. The brunette's eyes both crack open at this, the sinking light of Tsutsujidai lighting up her glasses with reflections of orange and yellow.
Why do you care? Why does it matter?
"Hmm," is the second response to the clarified question. Mari brings a hand to her jaw, the motion rustling her draped jacket as she rubs her chin pensively.
"I guess I'll answer the second question first," she decides. Her right heel turns on the uneven alleyway ground with an effortless flourish of motion that sends limp jacket sleeves fluttering behind her as she faces her newfound friend in music fully. "'Because part of hurting is coming to an understanding about what's important to us.' It's why pain is just as important as pleasure. If you're sad, you should ask yourself why! If you're happy, you should question what made you that way! It's the crucial crux of being human: we experience, we learn. We grow~. Besides..."
She takes a single step forward. Easy. Casual. Like the single step of an inquisitive cat.
"... just because something's fulfilled one role, doesn't mean it can't embrace another. There's always a next step."
Her head tilts. Another step.
"As for your first question!"
Why does she care?
The answer comes with the sudden flourish of twin fingerguns, aimed at Anti!
<3 "I care because I'm Mari Makinami Illustrious, ambassador of the human heart~!" <3
Whereupon, she winks, and fires her fingerguns expertly.
it even comes with little "byewww byewww" sound effects because mari's a pro
<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.
Anti, if anything, grows more tense as Mari embarks on her speech. It's not that he can't agree with the concept of interrogating his experiences -- he was designed that way. But she speaks of being human, inclusively, and in that moment the intensity in his expression flares up.
He takes a step back, up against the alley wall. His next step puts him in a corner. His lips curl, over his teeth, as Mari aims those phantoms guns for him, in a blatant grimace.
"I'm not a human!" He barks out, and the anger in his voice now makes it entirely believable that this boy was -- "I'm a kaiju! A kaiju..!" There's no point in hiding it, he thinks; if this was the girl in the Evangelion, she must already know.
All their secrets are leaking out, and she doesn't like it.
"... it's none of your business!" He echoes, again, hot and insistent. "What's important to me... I can't change why I am, all right?! That's the one thing... I can't change," and the volume falls from his voice, as his chin ducks, pressed up against the brick.
"It's what she wanted. Even if our enemy is closer to us, I have to crush the Vessels of Light. I must... destroy Gridman. I know... I know it's more complicated than that," Anti insists, hands tightening, at his sides. (A glimpse of dark grey, between glove and sleeve.) "But it's still why I exist."
His head tilts forward, a fraction further; his bangs fall over his face, shadowing his features.
"Kaiju don't have feelings about it... they just act."
<Pose Tracker> Mari Makinami Illustrious has posed.
There's a point when someone's tone reaches a certain cadence that it becomes impossible not to recognize them. There's truth in emotion.
It's clear who Anti is, even before that confession, just by the sharp spike of his voice. Blue eyes flutter in a blink of recognition.
The kaiju she fought, in the slice of what should have been Tsutsujidai, with the strange scent.
The kaiju who yelled and hollered and thrashed.
The kaiju who could talk, and think, and...
...
The kaiju who so adamantly tried to keep her from getting involved.
Somewhere in the midst of Anti's heated tirade, a knife's smile has tugged at Mari Makinami Illustrious' lips.
"A kaiju, huh... hm, hm..."
Hands tucked into her pants pockets in a casual and subtle show of non-aggression, Mari takes her first two steps when Anti's last wedges him into the corner. Her second step takes her just in front of the twin garbage cans that once framed the young man angrily proclaiming himself kaiju.
Mari knows NERV's standing orders regarding the Entity of Interest known as Anti: to capture, for interrogation.
Mari knows the threat assessment leveled against the Entity of Interest known as Anti: high.
Mari knows that he attacked Liam. That he almost killed her. And that's why...
It's a sudden motion, the way Mari ducks forward. Fast. Very fast, very fluid, bringing her from standing several steps from the pale-haired, dangerous youth --
-- to squatting just in front of him, her long fingers looking to wrap around the dead music player on the ground.
He's a kaiju, he insists. He can't change it, because it's what she wants. Why would a kaiju ever think beyond that point?
A soft "hum" escapes the bespectacled, would-be Child's lips, her fingers snaking around that worn down player like a loving embrace. She only has one thing to say in the face of his angry insistence:
"So why were you listening to this?"
<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.
Anti just wants the outsiders to stay out.
... well, that's what someone wants, anyway.
He doesn't look like much of a threat, for all his sunset eyes are glowering like banked embers -- but then, if he's a kaiju, looks can be deceiving. The most threatening things can be leashed in the chassis of a pale boy, strange and aloof.
"...!" Anti hisses in breath through his teeth as Mari flows forward, and in that instant his centre of gravity drops -- his arms lift to meet that centre -- one heel shifts back to press into the wall, while the other slides forward, weight rolled onto the balls of his feet. Ready to leap. Towards, or away?
Mari's movement ends at the music player, instead.
Anti's teeth bear another breath, drawn and exhaled between them, as he looks down to see her cradling the ruined device. "..." He says, lips parting without sound, as he listens to his heart pounding in his ears.
(Anger and fear are not so far away from each other, on the emotional scale. This he has learned just the same.)
"I..." Anti starts, and his stance settles to distribute his weight evenly on his feet again; perhaps he straightens just to try and get some distance, emotional or literal, between himself and this strange musician. The position of his arms shift, with a shade of awkwardness which speaks to his awareness of them, to fold over his chest instead.
"A girl... gave it to me." And the strangeness of Anti possessing anything is something he leaves unsaid. "... I wanted to know what it was. I... like music," he says, and the words are dredged out with some difficulty.
"... I'm running out of time," he admits, downcast. "I... know what's going on. I have to tell her... in a way she'll listen. But I have to... I have to..." Again, again, the pressure bears down on him, trails his words to nothing. "If I can't do what I was built to do," he insists, with a shred of bitterness, "I'm as good as that machine."
Broken, worthless, discarded.
"There are rules," he says, fingers tightening against the indigo of his suit. "I have to follow them."
He frowns, glaring to Mari. "You people... if you keep coming here, you're more targets for her to feel bad about. This is our problem. I can fix it. I can... change to fix it. I have to. I'm not the one who needs rescuing." Of course, Mari never said that. Of course, denying it leaves a certain implication about the necessity of a rescue, in this place.
"Since I'm a kaiju, I'm the one acting."
<Pose Tracker> Mari Makinami Illustrious has posed.
'I... like music.'
There's a certain, alien expression, to describe the shocking sentiment of experiencing something unexpected, something that tugs the heart in a way you never thought possible, in a way that stirs critical conflict within it.
'I like music,' Anti admits, in a way that has the same sentiment behind it as someone begrudgingly dragging their heels to a festival they've secretly been looking forward to all year.
So what else can Mari do in response to that save to wink and share that important phrase to perfectly sum up this turning point in a learning kaiju's life experience:
"Ah, deculture~."
To all else, Mari is a surprisingly patient listener in the face of someone who is supposed to be an enemy, and wounded someone she's decided she rather likes (NOTE: Mari rather likes many people; this in no way diminishes her affections). She leans back on her heels just on the edge of a precarious tipping point, big blue eyes peering up at Anti as he works through the motivation of holding onto that music box. A little "ufu" slips her lips somewhere before she imparts that critical knowledge of ~deculture~, but otherwise, she remains quiet.
Quiet, as he invokes 'her' again. Quiet, as he tries to convey a desperate thought past the pressure choking his voice. Quiet, as he compares his ultimate fate to that of the music player.
Quiet, as her gaze half-lids, and she feels the rain- and time-damaged surface of that machine against the pad of her thumb. There are rules. He can fix it. He doesn't need rescuing.
"... Do you know what the -most- important difference between a human and kaiju heart is?"
She lets the question linger for a few moments, before that piercing gaze turns back up to Anti, standing tense before her crouched, leisurely position. She rests that machine carefully against the tops of her knees, balancing it there delicately as she provides her own answer.
"Kaiju are born from a sentiment, designed for a purpose, and they pursue that purpose relentlessly until it's accomplished, or they're destroyed. They don't think about why. They don't know about rules. They don't consider feelings, even of the ones that gave them life. They don't know what salvation is, or the complicated questions of existence. Kaiju hearts are pure."
Fingers tap into place, along the surface of that music player, as if to draw attention to its decrepit existence.
"In comparison, the human heart is utterly defiled~."
The pronouncement might seem like a denigration; and yet, Mari says it was if it was the warmest of praise.
"They're full of doubts, and questions, and insecurities. They feel the weight of what they're supposed to do and what they want to do bearing down on them every day. They feel the shackles of rules clamping tight and how desperately they want to tear free. It's a very painful thing, knowing how vulnerable that heart is. How much it needs others to keep on beating."
And then --
clap!
-- goes Mari's palms.
"I've decided! I'm going to keep this -- just for a little while!" The music player--? "And I'll pay you with a little piece of advice in exchange. What do you say~?"
<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.
Deculture...
Anti doesn't know the boundaries of that word; he files it away.
He doesn't ask, because he's busy acting. He is acting, of course, for all it sounds like he's denying everything. In his bitter insistence, Anti has encoded a great deal of information:
... this is a time-critical problem.
... 'she' won't listen to arguments, even though she desperately has to know something.
... someone here needs rescuing.
... Anti has pressures he can't ignore, limitations on his actions; he is not a kaiju who fixes things; he wants to be.
... the system of Tsutsujidai takes outsiders hostage in order to torment 'her', even as they try to help.
... there is an in-group here, which Anti is part of, and Mari is not; the problems of Tsutsujidai are their problems.
... monsters act, unlike humans.
Anti has not, strictly speaking, asked Mari for help. If someone were watching him, in the panopticon of their family bonds -- he would see Anti pushing her away, unfriendly, denying.
He's more clever than he looks.
So he looks at Mari, just the same, as she details the differences between their hearts. His fingers tighten, clasped to either arm; his grimace, if anything, is pained. Listening to her talk about the defiled human heart, the scrap of grey between his gloves and his sleeves turns just... a shade... lighter. (More metallic. More alive.)
As much as he wants to say he's relentless...
He flinches, just slightly, when Mari's palms clap together.
"I'm an auto-intelligence kaiju," Anti insists, bitterly. "I was made to learn the strengths of my opponents and adapt myself to use them. I had to question... think about 'why'." Well, he says he had to, but learning about his opponents and questioning aren't precisely the same concept -- even if one, naturally, might progress from the other.
Maybe Anti was always built to fail. Or maybe he just exceeded his own design specifications.
"But if you want that... fine. It's broken. It failed. It doesn't matter any more." He externalises his fears onto the music player so effortlessly; he's learned this, too.
He's silent, for a moment longer, as he scowls about getting advice from his enemies.
"Go ahead," he issues, gruff, finally.
<Pose Tracker> Mari Makinami Illustrious has posed.
Anti does not ask for help.
Anti, specifically, does not ask for help.
So what else is Mari Makinami Illustrious to do?
Blue eyes dip, briefly, towards the sliver of silvering grey at the boundary of Anti's sleeve and glove. It lingers only for a second before she tucks her fingers beneath that damaged and failed music player to create a cradle for it as she lifts back up onto her feet with the slightest and most sprightly of "hup!"s. The player jostles lightly between the boundaries of her thumbs, but stays in place within its comfy bed of fingers.
She's very amiable, in the way she nods along to Anti's biting insistence. His denials. She doesn't argue them. Of course she wouldn't! All she says in the face of it is something recited in fluid English:
"'Our need shall be the true creator.'"
But begrudgingly does the failed kaiju agree to Mari's terms; the Evangelion pilot all but beams, embracing the battered player to her heart with an airy "hurray!" as if he'd just bequeathed upon her a great gift and not a discarded, broken box. It -is- a great gift.
What else could she possibly think of something that he put so much of himself into?
But there is a quid pro quo to be satisfied here. And in the face of Anti's gruff scowl, he receives the gift of a cattish smile.
"If you want to grasp the things you want, you need to fail at the things you need. Listen well, young man, for this is the most critical piece of advice I can offer you:"
Mari leans forward, and down. Until she's within his personal space, until her lips are lingering near his ear, to confide something important:
"Embrace your taint~."
And with that, she stretches up to a stand again, her smile damnably persistent.
"I'm sure you're going to do great," she coos, and despite the teasing edge, it sounds somehow paradoxically sincere, too. Framed in her hands, she lifts that music player, head cocked and eyes shut behind the glimmer of her glasses.
"Don't worry, I'm going to make very good use of this. I'll be back to return it to you soon~."
A single step back. A second. Anti very specifically does not ask for help.
"Maybe by then, I can show you that even failures can find new purpose."
Mari very specifically does not offer.
Some things don't need to be said to be said.
<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.
The true creator...
Anti knows who his is. Doesn't he?
He can't treat the music player with that kindness. Or, perhaps, he is afraid --
It's confronting to see Mari embrace it like that, even though it's failed.
Anti isn't the sort of stray who smiles, but he can recognise someone else who would be treated with the analogy of a warning sign. He leans back as Mari leans forward, but his arms, folded tightly together, are quite trapped; he can't do much about her closing into his personal space, like this. He prickles, aware of the danger. He is only thinking of the danger.
When she straightens up, she has left him with something dangerous -- yes.
What he wants, and what he needs... embracing his flaws...
"Fine," he agrees, gruff, to Mari's plans for the music player. If he speaks dismissively, he can pretend it doesn't matter, to him.
His eyes narrow, as she doesn't offer.
"Just like him..."
Without elaborating on who 'he' is, Anti straightens up, from where he'd pinned himself against the wall.
"... I won't fail. I'll convince her... and she'll give me a new purpose. I won't leave her alone, because she needs me."
Another set of interesting concepts, all linked together, tethers to a cage. And underpinning it all -- his fears of failure. His knowledge that it is an entirely credible threat.
His fears of...
His fingers jerk, with the pain of those scales digging in, and he leave the thought at fear.
"I..." Anti starts, looking to Mari, faltering, for a moment. "... the girl with red hair... it just worked out that way. I have my own priorities. There's someone I have to protect. But..." Anti pauses, glancing away.
"... I don't feel good about it," he settles on, because he doesn't know about apologies or gratitude.
He takes a step away, another -- bends his legs, and leaps up, onto the brick wall at the end of the alleyway. It's a good ten-foot jump, not to mention to spring up onto the roof from there. Anti flees the scene, without even waiting to see if Mari can help him figure out what to say.
<Pose Tracker> Mari Makinami Illustrious has posed.
Woe betide Anti;
Mari is well-versed in the kind of stray cat who expresses their interest with dismissal and their kindness with claws.
One might call her...
<3 The Cat Wrangler <3
Still, there are curious clues to be gleaned from the things Anti says. 'Just like him' is one that earns the curious tilt of Mari's head, but as Anti doesn't elaborate, Mari doesn't press; after all, a mystery is only as good as the anticipation that simmers the longer it is unsolved.
His other words, however, cause that enigmatic, undesignated Child's expression to soften just slightly from its whimsical default.
Her eyes fall, watching the spasm of fingers in the aftermath of his declaration.
'... and she'll give me new purpose.'
"... mm..."
She says nothing in dismissal or support. After all; she's given her advice. But its as Anti hesitates -- as he works his way through uncertain, alien expression -- blue eyes flutter in a blink. Her head cocked owlishly to her left, Mari peers at Anti as he works through what could have been an apology, if it was a sentiment that he had the tools to reach a conclusion on.
"Oho?"
'The girl with red hair'...
Mari Makinami's lips curl coquettishly upward.
"Oho~."
And with that, Anti bounds upward with an astounding vertical leap that carries him from where he lands to the very top of the building's rooftop. Mari whistles out her amazement as she watches the boy who claims to be kaiju disappear out of her line of sight.
"'I want to make it up to her' is what you say, stray~," she croons to the open air. She looks up at the empty sky for three seconds longer, smile wistful. "But I'm sure her highness will be pleased to know her kindness hasn't gone unnoticed."
By the fourth, she turns on one high heel, gently bouncing that music player in her palms as she walks like a proud mother with a newborn.
"Righty-o! We have a lot of work to do, partner, and I'd say we have a very limited amount of time to do it." She considers the state of failed machine in her hands, her smile broadening as she disappears past the alley's corner into the crafted world past its slim passage. Seeing a fledgling heart take its first tentative steps into the chaotic world of humanity...
"How exciting~. Who couldn't help an adorable kid like that?"