2022-10-27: The chains of Command
- Log: The chains of Command
- Cast: Yuliana Dispersal, Leina Ashta, Major Pham Van Vinh
- Where: South Korean Function Hall
- Date: 2022-10-27 (ICly some ambiguous night in late October)
- Summary: Leina meets the man laying claim to Yuliana, and tries to do her a kindness, despite Yuliana's best efforts. Despite what Leina saw, Yuliana still can't bring herself to speak ill of Major Pham.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
The Sixteenth Annual Ethical Forum on the Enduring Welfare of Orphans -- an initiative begun after the One Year War -- is holding a grand gathering for those involved which no one will go so far as to call a 'party'. It's a fundraiser, nominally, but it's just as much an opportunity for powerful people to socialise. And, of course, wax lyrical about how much they care.
The fact that there are high-ranking members of the military here is... a statement, certainly. Captain Yuliana Dispersal is, for once, a small fish in a big pond, considering the senior commanding officers milling about this party. (Gathering.) Major Pham Van Vinh brought her along, and whatever the reason he gave, they both know the real reason is to show her off.
Which isn't to say she doesn't still have an assignment. Waste not, want not. Here in South Korea, plenty of dignitaries from many countries have gathered, but the OCU has the home-team advantage; Yuliana's banking on that to corner them where they're comfortable. One particular diplomat, to be exact, who she's off discussing policy with (strictly off the record, you understand) in one particular corner of the hall.
The man looks a shade -- uncomfortable? Discombobulated? -- and it isn't at all clear, to most of the party, why they'd send a soldier to negotiate anything. But diplomats, generally, tend to benefit from being more open to the world...
So, it's really just her usual prey.
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
The Yumi Foundation is here of course, and she's been cautiously given leave to attend to help with logistics. She's been going Stir Crazy, so she actually advocated to attend in person, in fact she insisted. She felt she had to EARN those VIP Sheryl passes that Sayla had dangled in front of her. If she's going to commit a nepotism then she's going to commit her own kind of penance for it. As a result she's in her wheelchair in a formal jumpsuit, a lace bodice neck jumpsuit that swath both arms in elaborate lace. There's coverings on the wheelchair to hide the more childish aspects of it.
She's been helping with logistics, which means mostly she's going through the halls and backrooms of the party with a datapad and a phone, her eyes on the party itself as she tries to cover the 'needs' of the movers and shakers within this place. She hates it, but it's strictly necessary.
Her walls are very much up right now, thankfully there's enough... normal people here, normal soldiers, that it isn't so harrowing.
Even if she's trying to block out the ambient noise of the more senior ones.
"Champagne tray to the OCU Officers at Section 11."
Her wheelchair moves forward, so she can catch another angle of the party through tipping the door open a crack. However, she's already tracked the position of every single person in this party, it's mapped out in her head even before her eyes confirm it-
Save one particular person - no make that two particular people that she sees now. She was on the guest list tonight, so she suspected this but...
... her eyes float over to the diplomat. She can't read him, but she has eyes.
Poor man.
Letting the door fall back in place.
Dialing on the phone she waits for it to ring, "Annie, let the diplomat by Captain Dispersal know that he has a call waiting, identify him first. Have Chae-Yeong on the line. Have her let him know he's won an all expenses paid vacation to New Zealand for himself and his family for a week. Yes, I'll cover it."
Leina opens her datapad and accesses the security cameras, and settles in to wait, and watch until the moment the man is saved.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
OST: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIfI2XGLHs0 Ego Likeness - Everything Is Poison
"... so we were quite surprised when you were disinclined to participate," Yuliana explains, gently, gesturing with an open palm. "I'm just trying to understand it, so surely you can offer me some explanation as to why you don't fancy the endeavour?"
The diplomat frowns. "We just... don't feel as if the development of... oh, frankly, I don't know," he shakes his head, frustrated with the echoing silence in his head. "It's just not possible right now."
"Isn't it?" Yuliana wonders, with all the confusion of someone who needs it explained to her. "Because I was looking over the numbers, and I think you may have overlooked --" it's her usual trick, of course; introduce doubt into dignitaries' minds and lay track for a solution the Republic will like better while they're vulnerable. Since she's just asking questions, it's difficult to say she's ever being intimidating.
Unfortunately, she's interrupted. "Excuse me," one of the waitstaff interjects. "You have a call waiting, sir, if you could just come this way."
"Is it really important?" Yuliana asides, with a light frown.
"They're asking to identify you," the waitress supplies, to him, as if in answer to whether it's important.
"I... had better take this, then," the diplomat excuses himself, and give him credit: he doesn't look outwardly grateful until he leaves Yuliana's side. The waitress leaves, with him, leaving Yuliana to huff out a long breath and lean against the wall in way entirely unfitting to the decorum of an officer.
But it's not so long after the diplomat leaves that someone else approaches Yuliana -- a balding Vietnamese man in his sixties, wearing a black suit where she's in a black dress, standing a few inches taller than her.
"Major," she greets him, with a loose wave, one foot resting on the wall with a bent knee. "How are you liking the function?"
"Straighten up, soldier," he insists, dry of tone -- and the most interesting thing, perhaps, is that she does, her slouch forgotten as she stands straight again. "Tell me some good news, for once, tonight."
"Hmh... don't tell me Major Zeng's upstaged you again?" Yuliana needles him, with a smirk, though his expression remains unimpressed. Her gaze darts to the side, for a moment, with a light frown as she looks back to him. "Unfortunately, sir, I haven't been the best at making friends myself."
"You're behaving yourself, I hope," Pham says, and it's certainly one way to describe their conversation.
Yuliana frowns, again, and insists: "Of course! But there's not much I can do when people are called away. It would be impolite to insist." Or, on another level: they're wise enough to her tricks, somehow, that she'd have to escalate her force to keep working.
And now she's the one who looks uncomfortable, though it's a subtle thing.
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
The moment the man steps away, Leina's eyes track a man with a major insignia on his shoulders moving towards Yuliana. With a quick tap of her datapad, she's checking Major Pham's picture on the guest list and confirms it. Her wheelchair's already been moving as she gets to another vantage point.
The cameras don't have audio installed, due to the nature of these private diplomatic discussions.
Again her hand barely tips a door.
'-are you liking the function?'
Leina listens to him order her around, even here, making demands. Yuliana needling him back. 'I haven't been the best at making friends myself.'
"An understatement." Leina mouths, muted.
There's this subtle shift of discomfort. The authoritarian air despite the party atmosphere. And...
She remembers that party, with Glemy's hand on her shoulder. A squeeze saying everything about his possessiveness, his authority over her.
Not everyone needs to use touch.
Slowly she opens the door wider, and her wheelchair rolls out. It's a subtle thing, her approach. Even more subtle how she approaches from Yuliana's blind spot. Perhaps she wants to see if she senses her before she says the words...
"Good evening. You wouldn't happen to be Major Pham?" Leina has on a smile that even seems genuine. "I'm Leina Ashta, of the Yumi Foundation. Maybe you know my Guardian, Sayla Mass?"
She has to establish who she is of course, for him to be willing to give her the time of day.
A glance out of the corner of her eyes at Yuliana, "I just wanted to commend your subordinate here for being a model representative of the REA. We've had such fascinating conversations as of late. I've found her perspective to be... refreshing?" The smile continues, "She's caused me to want to give our efforts in Indonesia a second glance, to make certain the resources are being properly allocated."
Those green eyes of hers give him a pleasant look, "When I saw you were present on the guest list, I thought that I'd like to meet her guiding hand in person."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
"... were you watching me?" Yuliana asks, a shade of sullen nerves over her, in the slight way her head tilts and her lips tighten.
"It isn't often I get to see you making friends myself," Pham points out, euphemistically. "I'm sure you don't mind?"
"No, sir," she allows, without complaint, before her eyes dart to the side. "But it seems we've company."
Which is to say: she definitely noticed that offensive hollow where information ought to be. She warns him, just the same, as if the both of them are entirely on the same team. (And surely they are; they even match.) Whether she needed to warn him is an open question, though -- it's difficult to tell what the Major's emotional capacity is when he's standing so close to Yuliana, but his awareness is keen enough to notice a young woman in a wheelchair approaching them, anyway.
Perhaps the point is that she was willing to, in the first place.
She turns to face Leina, and the Major looks her way, just the same. "I am," he confirms, with a short, severe nod. "And you are...?" Leina Ashta, she says, and he nods again when she associates herself. "I'm familiar."
Yuliana smiles to Leina, of course -- and if it's a little tense, a little screwed on, surely it's a trick of the light. That tension grows a shade more obvious, when Leina opts to praise her efforts instead of bring her concerns to her supervisor; her first thought is to wonder what Leina is up to, that she's hiding her knife.
And perhaps it's familiar -- the way he places a hand on her shoulder, as Leina speaks of it. Yuliana blinks, long and slow, and still she stands straight.
"I'm pleased to hear the Captain has been having such a positive effect on your nonprofit," Pham says, though his tone remains quite cool. "I have always been a proponent of using our resources to improve the world." And perhaps he means the military resources Yuliana has at her disposal.
Surely he isn't saying she is one of those resources he makes use of.
"It's very encouraging to see the next generation so engaged in philanthropy," he issues, to her, and perhaps it is praise. ... though, it's notable that he's the one talking, when Yuliana has always been so eager to speak.
She hasn't said a word to her, though she hasn't stopped watching her, either.
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
She noticed her coming. Interesting. It feels like it puts a certain perspective on her range too. After all, how long has Leina been rolling around in those back halls where staff walk all night.
These are things one notes when it comes to learning how to survive in the world.
Leina notices both how tense Yuliana is, and how forced that smile is and how SILENT she is.
Especially as that hand descends upon her shoulder. It's hard to keep smiling at him. It's hard. She feels like she's standing and facing that mirror, grimacing because her muscles hurt from all those hours of fake smiling.
The hand was on her shoulder then too.
"I thought that might be the case. It's very clear in the way she advocates for the REA's interests that she must be acting as not just the instrument of your bloc - but of her direct superiors as well."
If Leina's hand is curling up a bit tensely on the wheelchair rest, then it's easily attributable to many things.
"Why thank you. I consider it my responsibility, given that I'm originally from a slum on Side 1. Even with all the privilege I'm afforded now, I can hardly forget where I came from."
A beat pause.
"That's another thing I should commend the Captain on. Given my humble upbringing, the people of Earth are often put off by me. Why compared to some of the 'courtesy' I've received - she's been quite welcoming."
Leina does not look at Yuliana in these moments save a momentary glance, before it returns back to the man. When it comes to the language of power, she has to keep her attention on him at all times.
"In fact, she recently extended an invitation to me to attend her wedding - but it occurred to me. Planning a wedding while prioritizing her duties... I can only imagine how stressful it must be for her, even if she's been nothing but professional. If it isn't too forward of me, I thought I might suggest she be extended an extra week of leave prior to the date?"
She gives him an apologetic look and there's a certain amount of sympathy for his position in her tone, "I understand how much a man like yourself needs good people ready to deploy at a moment's notice, but it is the most important day of a woman's life..."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
Yuliana has ever been a melee specialist; it would do her little good to be able to identify her prey at range, when she has no hope of reaching them.
(That is, at least, the story which can be told about it; the truth may have far more to do with what occupies her mind.)
But Yuliana was taught how to lie quite thoroughly, so it's not such a demanding ask, to have her smile over her true feelings. She hears, certainly, the way Leina identifies her as an instrument. (A tool.) The bitterness wells in her throat; she swallows it down, unobtrusively.
"You've done quite well for yourself," Pham assures Leina -- and doesn't, notably, directly comment on whether Yuliana's actions are his own will. The Republic has ever valued deniability. In that same cool tone: "I'm happy to hear Captain Dispersal has offered you such consideration." Despite Leina's origins, he thinks, and does not say.
Major Pham is aware of a great many things, including Yuliana's distaste for the people who aren't living on Earth.
He's silent, for a moment -- evaluative. (He is a man who commands silences; he is aware, as well, of Leina's efforts to direct the conversation. He allows small indiscretions. He is 'permissive'.) "My special operatives are the best at what they do, Miss Ashta," he assures her, dry, "and certainly they can handle some extra pressure. But she is acting as a woman, I suppose..." ... as if Yuliana is just playing at normality, instead of really being one of those women whose wedding days are the most important ones to them.
It's vague enough that it could be dismissed as the way the Major speaks, but Yuliana, certainly, hears it; her eyes blink shut, again, just a hair too long to be natural, and her smile tightens around the way her teeth grit.
"I'll take it under consideration," he allows, at length. "Now... if you'll excuse me, miss, I've many people I must speak with tonight. It was lovely to meet you."
He leans a little closer to Yuliana, and adds, quietly -- though not, perhaps, quietly enough for Leina to miss, given her experience -- "Don't embarrass me."
Yuliana's gaze flicks aside, but a subtle squeeze of her shoulder brings her attention back to him. "Yes, sir," she murmurs, in turn, and he nods, as he straightens up and leaves.
It's only once he's gone that a scowl crosses Yuliana's face, one arm crossing her trunk to grasp her opposite elbow. "Oh, out with it," she grouses, far less tame, but still at a perfectly civil volume. "I can see very well you've comments to make!" Just get it over with, she thinks, morose.
That's how she thinks.
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
"She certainly has." Leina agrees with him. As he offers that his special operatives are the best at what they can do that they can handle extra pressure...
... it is the remark that she is acting as a woman, I suppose...
She has to swallow bile at that.
"I'd appreciate that. And it was a... pleasure, to meet you as well."
One of the few outright lies she's told. She sees him squeeze her shoulder, and she can GUESS what he said.
"Have a nice evening."
She wishes him nothing of the sort.
And then, Yuliana scowls.
"No. Not really. If you really want me to talk about it though? I've known men like him."
She looks somewhat abstracted, thinking of Glemy. "I don't think you're his instrument, just I know it's important that he believes you are. Weddings are stressful enough to plan even without men like him hovering over your life."
Leina's green eyes fall upon her own.
"Which is why I thought I'd try to get you an extra week with your beloved, away from him."
Leina's wheelchair starts to turn around, like she's assuming that Yuliana won't want to talk to her anymore after that, "That's all. Nothing more, nothing less."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
"He's a generous man, and an accomplished soldier," Yuliana insists, fingers tightening about her elbow. "I'll not speak a word against him."
Or perhaps -- it would be wiser if she didn't.
She's still frowning, though. "... I..." Yuliana starts, caught between insisting she's not some tool and the stark realisation of just what her position is.
"So, what?" She asks, sharply, even as Leina turns away. "You're being nice? Is that it? Am I supposed to believe that?" Yuliana issues, with no trust at all: "Isn't it true you're just making me aware of it?!"
'It', of course, being the potential Leina has to make life difficult for her, with the wrong word to her superiors.
It's interesting, perhaps, that she issues Leina with all those demands when she was about to leave.
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
"Of course not. That'd be dangerous to you."
As Leina just spells it out...
'Isn't it true you're just making me aware of it?!' "... I was going to leave without saying anything. You've made it clear you don't like talking to me."
The wheelchair has already fully turned back for the door, Leina's neck turns towards her. "You've made it expressly clear how unalike we are, but I've had my entire life controlled by a military man before. I was ten, and a prisoner of war. He treated me like his prized possession. Tried to turn me into a 'Lady'. Another girl the same age who was there with me, he treated like a weapon - and nothing more."
She stops looking in her direction.
"He put her in machines as punishment when she disobeyed, sometimes I could hear her screaming all the way from the room he was forcing me to practice the piano in."
Leina folds her hands into her lap, "I was just thinking, that some people deserve a little more kindness in this cruel world that they've been given. That's all. Make of it what you will."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
A prized possession... a weapon...
Yuliana's fingers tighten, just a little more. Her other hand lifts, to tuck in with its fellow, arms tightly barred across her chest. "And do you expect me to say I was screaming? Don't... make me laugh," she scoffs, to cover the way her voice grows a hair unsteady, in the wake of it.
She swallows, again, and tries not to think about any number of assignments to Medical to correct her various problems.
"Ever since I was assigned to him when I became a Captain, the Major has been very invested in my progress." And perhaps Yuliana thinks she's defending him; perhaps she doesn't hear the way she hasn't, entirely, disclaimed Leina's story.
Quiet and sullen, she insists: "... I don't get you at all. Tch... you're a real fucked up kid, you know that..?" Defending her -- what nonsense, Yuliana thinks.
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
"No. I don't."
Expect her to say it. She knows. She knows at some point in her life she was screaming. The Cyber Newtype process in the REA is not kind. She doesn't even need to know the specifics, to know that.
"I can imagine he has been. He does seem to enjoy exercising power over others."
Her tone is still conversational, civil. Noone is likely to hear them from here, but she doesn't expect to hear a straight answer anyway.
"... Yeah. I know."
As she agrees, that she's a real fucked up kid.
"You don't have to get me. If you ever want to though."
Pause.
"All you have to do is ask."
And perhaps that's meant to evoke their recent conversation, when she asked specifically a question, to try and 'get' Yuliana.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
Being fair -- being entirely fair -- there are many things humanity have made, walking around like women. Just...
... none quite as perverse as Yuliana, taking the very concept of connection and denying it.
What a shame that she went through such grueling physical and mental conditioning, and didn't even get a sense of intuition out of it!
"There's nothing wrong with exerting power in that position," Yuliana grumbles, first, but quietly. No one can likely hear them, but she has been taught for so long to protect the Republic's interests; so often she insists they are blameless, they are entitled, they are justified. It's not only a way to justify her own actions. "He's a Major. He is used to being obeyed. That's just the military structure, sweetheart." And perhaps -- Yuliana can't give her a straight answer.
She can't even express this plainly to Elisa; what hope does she have of being honest with someone she hates as much as Leina?
It's notable, perhaps, that she comes to his defence before addressing her own grudges. And when she does, she says: "... oh, but why should I bother asking? None of this is real... it's all just a story I'm witnessing." What she does not say -- what may be more clear, in the contrast between the statements -- is how comforting it may well be to insist on the fakeness of reality, when people like Major Pham stand behind her. "So it hardly matters...!"
Her eyes shut, tightly. She hates Leina very, very much; it's difficult to reconcile that with her not selling her out, to her superiors. She thinks less of Leina, for her mercy. Hates her more, for her mercy, as if she's the pitiful sort of person who needs it. But -- she can hear the way Leina is pressing on the same concerns Elisa has, and she can't dismiss that so easily, the idea that she might have stumbled on something true. (Yuliana thinks of it as stumbling, uncharitably.)
Something about it... just...
"But I have enough to do tonight," she insists, bitter, "that I've hardly the time to focus on you." Or, less sullenly: she has no intention of attacking Leina at the party. She's not here to make her life worse, for once. "... even if I wanted to address such impolite implications," she defends her hatred, scowling, "I'm not to make a scene."
And why does she keep -- sharing her wounds, with this wretched girl?
To hurt her, surely.
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
The look Leina gives Yuliana when she talks about how there's nothing wrong with exerting power is just flat. There's nothing in those eyes at that moment. The green eyes just stare as she ties herself in knots trying to justify it.
"Maybe I just have a problem with authority then. Good thing I'm not military." The look in her eyes remain flat, "Maybe I just see the hollow spaces where a person should be. Mostly inside men like that."
Her hands lace together, and despite her words she does not sound like she's being mocking.
More speculative, like she's trying her best to work through what Yuliana is saying for herself, like a problem she's solving, "Maybe you're obeying someone you yourself think is fake. In this story where you're his subordinate. We're all actors in this theater before you, and must play our part. Even the sole pair within the audience is called up to the stage."
Looking forward, she starts quoting a man, "And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages."
Pause...
"I don't want you to get in trouble."
The wheelchair starts rolling away from her.
"Despite it all, the consequences are real, aren't they?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
"You..." Yuliana starts, when Leina describes her problems with authority -- and cuts herself off, shaking her head. No, she insists -- no, it's not like that. There's no way she'd understand.
She's still quite tense, as she supposes: "Yes, yes, you're starting to understand your position." As if Leina were describing her own position, instead of Yuliana's, isolated by the limitations of the theatre surrounding her.
Yuliana swallows something down, and insists: "Do have a good night, Leina." She can be polite enough for that -- and true to her word, she doesn't set out to cause problems for Leina, as the party goes on.
The consequences are real for her, she thinks, because she is real.
And how is a reader placed within the story and all its winding threads..?