2022-11-03: Fly Me to the Moon
- Log: 2022-11-03 Fly Me to the Moon
- Cast: Kaworu Nagisa, Rei Ayanami
- Where: Tagbha Base, the Moon
- OOC - IC Date: November 3, 0096 (2022)
- Summary: Kaworu and Rei have a conversation on the Moon.
<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.
The Earth is so huge in the Moon's sky. It hangs in one fixed place, looming larger than life, vibrant with shapes and hues, while the Moon remains for the most part still and gray. Even in the colony cities and various bases therein, it simply doesn't have the color (either figurative or literal) that the planet does.
But there's a simple, elegant beauty in that. Just as those on Earth have gazed up in wonder and adoration at the Moon for millennia, so too can those on the Moon gaze back at the Earth.
There's a spot like that in Tagbha Base. Though it's by and large a practical facility, there are practical reasons to need to be able to see the Earth while in a protective space. Rei would have been left there to gaze upwards while Kaworu had left to see to business.
EARLIER, ON THE EARTH:
"Rei Ayanami," Kaworu had said, approaching her the other day after a round of synchronization tests. "I've been ordered to take a trip to the Moon to assess the progress of my Evangelion's construction. However, the headaches I've been having ever since I was attacked have remained persistent. There's reason to be concerned that the trip through space could exacerbate that condition, in which case, I'll need an assistant to support me--just in case."
A beat. "Would you mind being that assistant?"
NOW, ON THE MOON:
"Thank you for waiting, First," Kaworu says, airtight doorways opening and shutting in his wake without need for interface. As he was back then, he's in his black-and-purple plug suit, but now it includes a sleek, transparent helmet fitted over his head and into the suit's collar.
Rei would have been given something similar for her own. It seems like Tagbha Base has very few living personnel, so those present get around in suits rather than relying on oxygenated buildings.
Kaworu floats forward with elegant ease; just as he might have drifted past her, he catches the side of the bench where she's seated and flips around to seat himself next to her, legs folding as he settles in. It might be a bit of a marvel how at ease he is in low gravity--but then again, maybe not.
All the same, he looks up through the viewroof. The Earth looms like a promise. "Was it everything you'd hoped for?" he wonders.
<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.
EARTH:
Rei, still damp with LCL, looks towards Kaworu. She blinks several times, and reaches up to unclasp the white neural-synchronization clips from her hair. As she shakes loose that residual dampness - rarely dripping, but always clinging - she answers Kaworu, with only the smallest catch in her throat -
Vast.
An empty place.
Pleas in mimickry.
The moon.
says, "Yes."
It is a very small catch; and Kaworu can likely tell the reason, from this vision and from prior ones, is that Rei often becomes tense around space, in so far as she becomes tense about anything, here or there, then or now.
There are things out there, sometimes, after all.
TAGBHA BASE:
Earth.
A blue place.
A womb, crowned by man's adornment.
Small. So small.
Space.
A black place.
A womb, crowned by man's adornment.
Vast. So vast.
The pull is lighter.
The stars are ruthless, like lamps.
I cannot see the Moon.
But it is here.
The Moon. Eternal Moon.
Watching over the Earth.
Slowly, so slowly, it slips away.
Slipping. Nothing is eternal.
nothing
is
Humanity.
I look at the place where humans dwelt before 1961 of the earlier calendar.
Flowering into space. Dying in space. After then. Not before.
Not before.
The seas are wrong.
Wrong?
A blue marble.
A precious thing.
But the -
'Thank you for waiting, First,' says Kaworu, and Rei hears him, and she turns her head, enough that the spell seems broken. She shifts her position slightly, though her arms remain slack.
"... I can't say it," Rei says. "I don't know what to say. ... I don't think that I hoped." It sounds, obscurely, apologetic. Her head is turning. The Earth is capturing her again, if gently.
<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.
There are lots of things in space. The belief that it is nothing but a void is pure fallacy. But from Earth, it certainly seems empty. Perhaps for all intents and purposes, it even is. But it's that 'something' that makes all the difference.
Rei knows it. She of course knows it. But he invites her anyway--because he promised her.
This is the place she said she wanted to go most of all.
He smiles fondly as she looks at him settling in next to her. She'd seemed quite entranced, but he waits for her response. "That's fine. It's good to approach something you desire without expectations. That way, it can simply be," he replies.
He looks up with her at that blue marble. For a long time, he's silent--so that both of them can simply be. He's already completed his inspection and spoken with his would-be handlers; he has nowhere to go and nothing to do until the return trip to the Earth in a few days.
In time, he begins to hum. Rei may or may not recognize it as Debussy's Clair de Lune. A bit ironic, all considered, but in Kaworu's view, it's only that much more appropriate. Perhaps from here, it should be Clair de Terre?
<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.
It is said that the nature of form is, itself, emptiness; in this, perhaps, space itself holds a lesson.
Rei sits, next to Kaworu, for quite some time. How long?
Well, it's long enough that for most contexts it would be awkward; but of course, that barrier is not present between them.
It is long enough that the Earth's face has changed - not much - but a little. Not the part that is visible - the crescent, if a rather fat one, which shows the surface of Britannia's western coast. It has moved slightly; there is more of the Pacific Ocean visible, instead.
Rei turns her head slightly. There is a small mouthpiece in the helmet; Rei knows it links to an integrated 500ml water supply. She drinks.
She speaks, then.
"I look from here, and I know that there is no 'down', or 'up.'. I wish I could stay here forever; eyes, to watch the Earth, as it turns through the heavens. Were the oceans always such a color?"
A beat passes.
"Are you feeling well?" Rei finally asks, turning to break her gaze from the Earth and look towards Kaworu. The reason she is here, after all.
<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.
Not untrue. There are things everywhere, but what are 'things,' when you get down to a sub-molecular level? What are the spaces between bonds? Get tiny enough, and it all simply... vanishes.
Yet on the scale on which they exist now, they are here. Together, in comfortable silence, watching that most precious azure jewel.
When Rei speaks at last, he stops humming and looks over to her to listen. He chuckles a little in fondness as he gazes up again. "Yes."
That there is no 'up' or 'down,' or to watch the Earth forever, or that the oceans were always that color? He doesn't specify. Perhas he means all of it.
That's before she asks how he is, though. His smile remains, unabated. "Yes, thank you. It was good to see a familiar face again, but it's even better to be able to spend time here with you." He pulls one leg up to hook his heel on the edge of the bench and drapes his arm over his thigh.
"I haven't had a headache so far this trip, either," he adds, since he knows that's actually what she was talking about. "Perhaps too much concern was placed on the possibility." He leans in to meet her eyes and murmurs, playfully conspiratorial, "But those who would control us needed a reason."
<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.
"There is no 'thing,' I think," Rei says in echo to Kaworu's concurrence.
If the thing isn't real, and what it bonds with isn't real, what is left?
The bond.
Rei's head tilts downwards slightly. The wall and boundaries of Tagbha base become clearer. The distant grey plains of the Moon, beyond. Facing this way, of course, but why should it not? The view is best from here. It would be a pleasant place to eat your lunch, even if you were an inveterate Oldtype.
Rei's hands rest on her thighs. "The gravity," Rei says, "perhaps. Fluid will flow differently, through your body. The spaces between the cells." She takes a deep breath; lets it out.
But Kaworu is leaning in to meet her eyes. Somehow the barriers of the air bubbles around them fade away. It's a slightly sidewise gaze.
"A reason?" Rei echoes.
<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.
Tagbha Base may be an austere place, remote even by Lunar standards, but at least there is this view. And isn't it fascinating to be able to watch the shift in the Earth's phases in real time? Even though he's used to this view, Kaworu still enjoys it. As for the lunar plains, they have their own charm. It would be nicer to include the Mark.06, but Kaworu knows--however much Juggler might insist otherwise--that the world is something that must be held with both hands.
Ultimately, this bond is more important to him. Besides, the Mark.06's time will come. For now, he must wait a while longer.
For now: gravity. "Yes. With less gravity, there is less pressure. More freedom--but too much freedom can leave one disoriented. Lilim crave freedom, and at the time, they crave structure. For without structure, one cannot define one's relationship to others."
His smile remains as affable as ever, but for a select few, it's extra-fond. Rei is one of those few. "Yes," he replies. "For us to come here together. Strictly speaking, only I was needed." He leans back and gazes up again. "But I promised to show you this view."
<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.
"It's conflicting," Rei says. "Stressful. It's difficult."
Synonyms? Or nuances?
"... Then, you arranged it," Rei says, or asks, looking back towards Kaworu.
For some reason her stomach feels light; not the same sensation that she has often got when she enters an area of different gravity.
Words want to rise from inside of her, like the mist that rises from the sea.
Often enough Rei either lets them go past, in ignorance, or occludes them, but for once, she says, with simplicity, "Thank you," and then turns her eyes away. Her face does not bloom pink, but there is a faint heating in the cheeks.
She lets her gaze be drawn back up to Earth.
"'Freedom,'" Rei echoes. "Why is it desirable?"
<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.
Kaworu's gaze softens into something more rueful, something perhaps bittersweet. "It is," he murmurs. "But the Earth is the Lilim's world. And that's simply how they are."
Then he arranged it. His smile grows. "Yes," he confirms. Of course, even. As he just said: he promised her.
And so in turn, she thanks him. Words of gratitude... They aren't words that Rei Ayanami often speaks. Kaworu accepts them with grace and an equally simple, "You're welcome."
This is what she desired. But it's what he desired as well. They both gain this way.
Her question pulls a thoughtful expression to the fore, though it doesn't sweep away his smile. "Freedom means the ability to both think for oneself and make a choice accordingly, and to be able to follow through on that choice. In other words, it means to exercise one's own will. Free will is a gift granted by God, and to make use of it is to express one's gratitude to Him for gracing us with it.
"Even so, there are some for whom freedom is terrifying. They would prefer to devote all of themselves to another, and in doing so sublimating their will to them. So it isn't equally desirable to all."
He pauses. That smile of his finally dimishes by a mote or two.
"For me... freedom means I have the chance to choose love over fate. Fate would shackle all of us Children to an inescapable, inevitable end... but in choosing love, we--no... I have the chance to divert it. Even if only in some small way." He shuts his eyes, as if to listen to some inaudible tune. "That is why I desire freedom."
<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.
The Lilim's world.
Yet he is here.
Rei gazes at the Earth. Britannia recedes, making Earth seem all the more slightly bluer. There is a hint of a cyclonic storm, or at least a storm pattern, towards the south. A suggestion, perhaps, of lightning in the dark, where the Sun has not yet reached.
A gift granted by God.
Who is God?
An idea of exterior complexity. Substrate and superstrate.
I don't know.
Does -
- does the -
- the administrate -
Rei swallows.
"... I don't know if I understand," Rei says, her gaze returning moonward, and now that means it's looking at the floor; a reversal of her usual habits.
"But I think that I have heard what you mean," she continues, fingers curling as
she doesn't QUITE end the sentence,
because there's more to add,
"Nagisa," Rei concludes.
<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.
Yet he is here. Yes. There's no one more keenly aware of this contradiction than Kaworu.
Degree by degree, the Earth revolves; Britannia has risen and now falls, bringing in signs of a storm in the blackness. Kaworu admires this for a time as Rei is momentarily silent. It often takes her some time to collect her thoughts. He always is willing to wait for it.
When she does speak, he looks back at her. There is acceptance--perhaps resignation--in what remains of his smile.... until she addresses him by name.
His eyes widen slightly. Then his smile broadens with warmth. Though she's important to him too, so often he doesn't have the chance to spend much time with her. To hear her call him by a name is thus a comparatively rare treat.
For his part, he's used her title of 'First' as a sign of respect, as opposed to how he addresses Asuka as the 'Second' as a sign of cold distance. If she wishes to use names, though, he's happy to follow her lead. He's happy that she's taking the lead.
"It's all right if you don't understand. I think 'freedom' has a different meaning for you. I look forward to bearing witness to you exploring it for yourself and finding your own meaning with it, Rei Ayanami..." He considers. "Rei?" he repeats, tone lifting as if making a suggestion, or perhaps seeking permission.
BBSYS: Post 374, 'It's Just A Jacket' has been published to Cutscenes & Logs by Lina Lombardi.
<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.
Rei's face pinkens a step more. For some reason she finds she is holding her breath. It happens to her rarely; it is more likely that she would forget herself, but the body is a stubborn thing.
Her lips thin just the tiniest bit in that delay...
... and the color seeps further into her cheeks...
And her shoulders come together a little, and her eyes fall moonwards again, and she says with a hint of a kind of gasp, "-- Alright."
A name used, in most cases, by those who are older than her. The ones who have authority.
But,
Rei knows -- if only from observation and long and repeated exposure even if much of it was unconscious, things brought from the peaceful sterility of a psychological sea-bed by the encouragement and warm turbulence of other people -- it has another meaning.
That stomach-light feeling is back, Rei feels.
"Do you want to sit for longer?"
<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.
There is a tension in Rei's reaction, perhaps not unlike her tension over space. Kaworu recognizes that it exists, but he's not entirely sure what to make of it. Perhaps it's unsurety over this shift in their relationship. Truthfully, Kaworu wouldn't mind any name at all, but he likewise recognizes that this is a change--for her, and for him.
That this exchange has inspired something new in her, though he doesn't recognize precisely what. But it's all right. Because to change, for Rei, means to come closer to her own definition of freedom.
Kaworu simply smiles at her. "Rei," he repeats, low and fond. It's different, somehow, from the way Commander Ikari says it. From the way Dr. Akagi says it.
It's like he's honoring her soul (rei), rather than addressing a zero (rei).
"Yes," he replies. He scoots closer and, should she allow it, leans against her, plug suit on plug suit, black on white. Then he gazes up to admire the Earth with her (him) at his (her) side.
The silence that follows is as comfortable as a familiar pair of shoes.
<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.
Rei feels it. The nuance - the intention behind the word, perhaps.
How does she? She doesn't know. So many things to her are nothing; or are signal but one she cannot decrypt, save in the most general sense. The world, often, is chaotic and confusing.
But Taghba base, in its silence and near-abandonment, is not one of them. Here in this enclosed place, sheltered if not kept alive, she feels a certain comfort. It feels like a place where she can exist.
She doesn't resist, or object, or move away from Kaworu as he leans against her.
And a minute or two later, her head tilts, just enough for the clear domes of their helmets to contact. There is a soft 'tak,' and the subtle resonance of the "touch talk" phenomenon.
But Rei has nothing to say.