2022-08-31: Hierophant, At Summer's End
- Log: Hierophant, At Summer's End
- Cast: Kaworu Nagisa, Rei Ayanami
- Where: Tokyo-3, Japan
- OOC - IC Date: August 31, 0096 (2022)
- Summary: Kaworu and Rei discuss the end of summer, cooking, and new homes.
<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.
At the edge of the fortress city of Tokyo-3, a festival is wrapping up. The sun has set; the stars are out; the fireworks have flashed among them; the stands have run out of yakisoba and goldfish. While a few torches still burn, their citric smoke driving away the mosquitos, the people who remain are those who need to put everything away.
Them, and Kaworu Nagisa, who watches the peaceful death of the festival, and August with it.
He does so from the edge of an overpass that crosses overhead, specifically while sitting on that edge, one leg perched underneath him while the other dangles off the side, one arm draped over his knee while the other rests on the railing upon which he hits. Despite this dangerously precarious position, he looks immovable--like nothing could dislodge him unless he willed it.
He also does it while wearing a yukata: dark gray pinstriped with light gray, held together by a steel blue obi. Straw sandals dangle from his feet as the night breeze tousles his short hair.
The walking cane he'd carried for so many weeks is gone now. So, too, are any slings, bandages, or braces. While his would-be assassin had done their level best to erase him from this world, he's finally fully healed.
There's one person--well. There's several people he'd like to share this with. But there's one person who's been by his side nearly the whole time. That's why he called Rei Ayanami and asked her to meet him here, on this road bridge overlooking the remains of a festival neither of them attended.
<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.
Rei Ayanami had been seated in the hated room. Things are different.
The room smells different (basil essential oils).
The lights are on.
And Rei is occupied on her phone. Perhaps this is not a step up for most people, but she had been taking notes. Scrolling endlessly through something and making notes on paper. Series of listing codes, on hotel stationary.
The phone rang. An invitation.
Now,
Rei is here.
Rei did not wear, exactly, her school uniform, but it is clearly part of that uniform. The blouse, to be precise, accented by the tie. The dress is at home. She has black leggings on, worn high. Tennis shoes. The habitual nylon bag, in this case almost completely emptied out.
"Administrator," Rei says, once she is close enough. Her head tilts down at the sight of the yukata, gray-in-gray wrapped by grey. Her head turns to look towards the lingering smokes of mankind before them.
Her head tilts slightly. "Does it still hurt?"
<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.
While it might be essentially all gray, it is important to be able to see different shades of it, isn't it? (Don't worry; it is definitely not fifty.)
Kaworu enjoys Rei's presence, approaching, moving closer, until at last she's close enough that even her soft voice can be heard. It's then that he looks up at her with his usual lopsided smile.
"Good evening, First," he greets her, pleasant and warm like the breeze that blows around them both. A breath of a laugh leaves his throat when she asks her question. "Yes, but the remaining pain is negligible. I do still get headaches every so often, but it's a low, dull throb centered around where I'd been shot, never lingering for long. I imagine it, too, will pass in time." It's hard to know for sure, but at the very least, it's not something that will carry with him to the next world.
"I wanted to thank you for all the help you've been to me, Rei Ayanami," he continues, still watching her. "When I first asked you to assist me, you said you'd reconsider whether you wanted to continue once I was healed." That time has come, he doesn't say; that much is obvious, after all. He looks back over at the flickering torchlight below. The smell of smoke and citron, much like the trees up at the Litra shrine, wafts over then. It's acrid, but not in a bad way.
"It's been a pleasant summer, hasn't it?" he remarks then, watching the people bustling below. "Watching others enjoy the food I made gave me a deep satisfaction. I feel like I finally understand why you and Shinji are so taken with cooking now."
<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.
Rei listens.
The description is evocative. Rei doesn't seem to emote during it; she lets her head nod once. And then there comes something else, something that should really be less of a surprise to her. Even so, her eyes widen slightly. Her face turns, and the rest of her follows after; to the railing overlooking the embers of the festival.
"Yes," Rei says, about the summer. Her head tilts forwards.
Is it true?
Her residence - perhaps her home - was destroyed.
The Magi were violated and driven to a pitch nearing their total destruction.
Woundings. Mutilations. Horrors, near and far alike. Precious things were lost.
And yet,
heat and laughter and a splash
a hand holding another as the engines drone
the ocean, eternal, in the setting sun, not alone
"... It has been a good summer," Rei says, head tilted down slightly.
<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.
Kaworu didn't expect Rei to emote much. That just isn't her way. That's fine, though, because he does have a solid idea that she cares about the details--she made it clear in a thousand little ways over the past weeks. Normally, he wouldn't have bothered. For her... he feels comfortable sharing that extra bit.
Perhaps that's why he's talking a little more than he normally would, especially around her. He brings up their future, only to pivot to the immediate past. There have been many terrible things about this past summer--his near-murder being only one of them--but...
"I'm glad to hear you agree," Kaworu replies, tone rich with warmth as she steps closer to the railing. "I've had quite a bit of time to think about various things these past few months. In the end, I really don't mind suffering, as long as I can be close to the ones I hold dear. This time will inevitably come to an end, just as this summer has. But for now, I am at peace, and that is enough."
He huffs a faint laugh. "It's something Captain Hebikura and I will probably never quite agree on. Even so, I must bow to his experience in resolving a conflict with a dear friend. His advice has made many things better for me..." He smiles over at Rei. "...and for you, too, I believe." A beat. "He helped me put in paperwork requesting upgraded housing for you and me. The process has been a bit slow, but recently the request for you underwent significant forward motion." (No doubt because Commander Ikari's attention was brought to the matter, as Rei would know.) "You may have somewhere new to live within the week."
He pauses in thoughtful consideration; then he adds, "You may have options to choose from, even."
<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.
Rei looks over towards Kaworu. Her eyes are soft.
The words are not really very cheerful ones, if you look at them, but the delivery has a gentle tone to it and Rei empathizes, profoundly, and so she says: "Yes," softly, at it being enough.
Her fingers lace together, staying outstretched as she looks into the gloom of the night... but soon enough she is looking towards Kaworu again. Her head is tilting, a look with the clear cast of curiosity crossing her face. The nature of Captain Hebikura...
... but it doesn't quite escape her lips.
"Congratulations," Rei says, because it seemed like the right thing to say.
"I hope that I can, select," Rei says, looking then back outwards. She takes a breath - hesitates a moment - and:
"A net falls upon me. Gentle, like the rays of the morning sun. Here, there. A residence. Treasures. But, others cross it. Clothing, care. The decay rates of food items, none quite similar one to another." Her fingers curl together. Her head sags forwards, resting against the relaxation of her thumbs.
"Differentation. I think I am becoming another person."
Without lifting her head, she turns her eyes towards Kaworu. "But, I do not know who that person is."
Back out to the emptying grounds.
"... will you cook curry?" At the new place that may not be so far in the future, implicitly.
<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.
The torches down below are starting to dim, their flames flickering as they lick less and less of the night. It looks to Kaworu as though clean-up of the festival is nearly done for those who put it on. He didn't have a chance to attend--he didn't want to go alone--but as time has gone on this long, watching it close without him gives him a strange but intense sense of hope:
Perhaps there will be a chance to go next year instead.
The mixed worlds are always the strangest ones. This one is one of the strangest yet. The pace is so much more languid. And because of that, it might just take his breath away.
Rei congratulates him. "Thank you," he replies. "A sense of peace, and a place to belong, are so very important. To Shinji... and to you, and to me."
She expresses her wishes. Kaworu meets her gaze as he listens to her speak. She doesn't know the person she's becoming. His smile broadens as his eyes gentle. "No matter how you may change, you are still you," Kaworu replies--another idea quite different from Hebikura's. "Growth, and thus change, is natural. It may seem otherwise only because your growth has been stymied for so long. But you will always possess an essential core 'you' that will never change." He lifts his gaze to the scant stars visible over the city lights. "You and I both will."
A pause.
"I enjoyed the privilege of living across the hall from you. I'll miss it when you're gone," he adds wistfully.
Will he cook curry, though? Kaworu considers this for a moment. "I don't know," he admits. "I will still study it, but I don't need to cook for myself. I suppose I could still use a kitchen to cook for someone else." Another moment of consideration. Then he concludes, "I suppose it depends on where I'm assigned to live next."
'Assigned to,' he says, rather than 'choose to.' Even now, he still talks like that. But then, he is assuming wherever he goes, he'll be alone.
<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.
Perhaps he will.
Perhaps they will; all of them.
Rei's face colors slightly, for reasons she cannot quite say. She looks away. What Kaworu says has the ring of truth; something that even if she looks inside, she cannot say anything against. An essential core 'you', that will never change.
And then he speaks--
-- and it feels like a farewell --
And for a fleeting moment Rei feels something enormous. There have been the senses to her, now and again, that there is Portent in the air, that something moves that she cannot see; that words are spoken that she cannot hear, even if perhaps she can dimly, dimly make them out. The dialogue of the remaining whales; the sonatas of the stars.
This is different, because it is not happening near her: it is within her. A deep seated and unexpected pressing upwards. A sensation of weightlessness and a crushing longing for something in a dimension Rei does not understand. Her face colors a little more.
Someone speaks in a place Rei can't hear, and the words are more of a mood-song; something melancholy, regretful. The same place that echoed that truth. A sense of something inevitable.
Yet,
can't I?
Why can't I?
It's just not
possible, that's all.
The feeling recedes even as she rises into the much shallower and more familiar waters, and here there is another sensation; a wave, but not a gentle wave with salt and spray but something colder and heavier, more of a blow. A sensation that disrupts intention-- but not entirely:
Rei reaches over. Her fingertips rest on Kaworu's casually-slung leg. They curl a little. A faint tug; to draw back, towards the bridge itself, and towards Rei.
"If you cook it," Rei says, "I will eat it. And if you want it, I will cook for you, as well."
Is that so?
<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.
Perhaps, yes. As long as that future is not interrupted, it remains a possibility--a star of hope.
It is a farewell, of sorts. They'll of course still work together; they'll attend school together; they'll fight together, sometimes from within the same entry plug. But it was different living across from each other, wasn't it? It gave them a sort of closeness. Even if the Manyoso is big and empty and lacking in charm, being close together gave it some charm.
(To him, anyway. But Kaworu has never been one to mind whatever living quarters he's given. No matter how small the cell, they cannot shackle his spirit.)
But then, it always was temporary. It always is. He wonders if the next time around, they'll have this chance again, or if--like many of his most cherished moments--it's a shooting star of an experience, there and gone forever. Other meteors may fall, but this one will never come again.
For a moment, he feels terribly, achingly lonely. The side of his head throbs. He looks not at her but at the last flickering lights below, the ones he's appreciated but has never truly been a part of from the beginning. He doesn't exactly pretend to be something he's not--not quite--but he's always leaving it unsaid.
It's not as though he's never gotten a chance to live among Lilim as one of them before. But the base parameters of their reality have become so much more unforgiving... and they were never kind to begin with.
Portent. A premonition of things long since written in the Scenario. When it ends, so will all of this. He isn't afraid of it; after all, they will meet again. But he hardly welcomes it, either. This cycle that has gone on so endlessly long... He wonders what it would be like to be Rei, to be torn asunder on a metaphysical level, unable to connect with her primordial past. Unable to remember. Every cycle, a blank slate.
He looks over at her, and wonders if she would wonder the same of him, if she were allowed to know enough to wonder about such things at all.
But she isn't, and so she can't. She can instead only think and feel the things she knows. In that way, as she reaches a hand over to rest on his calf, to draw it closer.
His eyes widen slightly.
And then he smiles. Below, the torches gutter out and finally die, but their warmth can still be felt: on the breeze, on his skin, in his gaze.
"Then I suppose I must keep cooking," he murmurs, ghosting fingertips on the curve of her shoulder and letting his palm settle there. "I've read of something called 'curry bread'--a type of bun that is baked with curry inside of it. I would be honored if you would collaborate on that with me one day, First..."
His smile broadens as his eyes shut. "...after you've invited me to see the home you've deemed worthy of you."
<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.
The smoke lingers in the air; a fragrant reminder of what has passed, and what may yet come again. And if it should not?
Then something new has happened.
Rei smiles, then; it is small but real, her lips pulled upwards along with the rest of her face. "I know what you mean," Rei says. "I have never eaten it." Her hand relaxes; her fingers spread apart, and her thumb moves round.
There is a faint moth-flutter in the back of Rei's thoughts at what Kaworu says. Something... it slides away. A premonition, perhaps. Her head tilts down, and her hand shifts, and there is the gentle pressure of fingers against fingers.
"But soon," Rei says, "I will."
And a little while from now,
with the warmth of summer gently escaping
and the cooling winds brushing leaves comfortably,
Rei Ayanami turned the key of the apartment at the bottom of the row. It opens with a faint creak, the metal of the door shedding a few flakes of rust and of ivory-white paint that was once the perfect vision of a world view that would cast its gaze to the stars.
In. A blockade. Narrow foyer. The walls in here were grey and dingy; a little too far apart. Rei looked round, and something about the air kept her from removing her shoes.
Step forwards. Around the wall. Towards the suggestion of light. The kitchen, dark and dusty. The WC door ajar. But turn...
The windows were dirty on the inside, the outside spattered with dust that had been indifferently disturbed by the occasional rain-runoff from the higher echelons of the eccentrically placed building. But they were hardly dark.
Step in - into the light - in front of the dingy graying panel wall, rising up to meet them. Turn south, and face a little west -
There it was. The Moon, its gibbous-white shape waning, a fingernail in the clear blue sky.
All alone, Rei smiled.
And the masked palm civet in the washing machine began to scream.