2022-12-12: Rusalka is a helpful faerie about the demesne I still keep
- Log: Rusalka is a helpful faerie about the demesne I still keep
- Cast: Yuliana Kafim, Alma Stirner
- Where: Colombo, Sri Lanka
- Date: 2022-12-12 (OOC date: 2022-12-10)
- Summary: Yuliana deals with her feelings after the Nega Force's failed attempt to capture Banagher. Unfortunately, Alma has to deal with them, too. (CW: brainwashing)
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
It's the 12th, and Yuliana has spent all day trying to untangle the mess that is the destruction at Vladivostok. There were phone calls. The ominous kind with only one end audible, in shuttered lighting, which end with some mild assurance or another. In the end, she left Alma to finish the report so she could leave on time, at least. (The message has already been authorised. Yuliana's kind of careless with her paperwork, but her team knows there'd be hell to pay if they messed it up, so it's never come back to bite her.)
Yuliana's apartment, tucked away in a residential area of Kotte, is a ground-floor affair -- one doesn't want to catch a case of Zaftran window disease, working so closely with so many of those infections. It's big, too. Housing is assigned based on need and accomplishment, in the REA; it's quite typical for a Captain's personal quarters to be comfortable, but maybe not this comfortable. Of course, sometimes need can be punctuated with a bribe, in the right hands -- because even though the requirements of living are granted to citizens under socialism, personal possessions still exist, and money becomes the vehicle for claiming those comforts.
There's even a study and a spare bedroom! With a very nice bed, even! It's occupied, at present.
The main living space is open-plan -- the kitchen separated from the living room by a countertop. The furnishings are very nice, but there are a few hints, here and there, that most of the graspable objects here have been thrown about at some point in their lives. The couch, of course, is too large for that, in comfortable black leather. Yuliana drapes over it, dressed in inside clothes for once in her life -- black shorts, a purple shirt proclaiming 'THAT BITCH' in loud, pink English lettering, neck exposed. There's a necklace, dangling down, which the scarves she wears outside usually cover; the crystal there shines, darkly, almost ready for use.
One leg is drawn up to her chest; her scarred arm drapes over it, holding a can of iced tea loosely between her fingers. She's not really watching the news, on the television set up along the wall. More idly observing it, with vague amusement over the propaganda which tends to be fed over open channels. She spent many days, as a child, being taught to pick out those rhetorical tricks. It's rather fun.
Yuliana isn't really in the mood, right now.
<Pose Tracker> Alma Stirner has posed.
Alma is a journaler by nature, which means paperwork actually comes perfectly naturally to her; she has no complaints. Really, Yuliana could ask her to shovel a latrine and she'd do it with a smile, at the moment. She's incredibly happy to be useful, here.
Despite the fact that she's spent the last several days doing a lot of boring tasks Yuliana doesn't want to do, in favor of more interesting tasks, Alma's makeup is impeccable. She's gotten from 'casually okay' to 'actually good' over the course of the last several months; it's been a project, and an important one!
She peeks out from her bedroom, seeing Yuliana; even if she can't feel Yuliana's heart, well... she can tell something's wrong.
Alma meets her with sunny enthusiasm. (Her necklace and earrings blunt any way that this might become pushy, keeping Alma's heart firmly to itself.) "Yulie," she says, moving over to the kitchen. "I made some cakes while you were gone... they're not, like, anything special. But they're good..." She's given up on trying to recapture the flavor from the One Year War, for now. These are simply technically very proficient cakes.
"Do you want some...? Or do you just wanna talk about something?" She knows that the mission Yuliana went on ultimately went poorly, but she doesn't want to put her on the spot, either...
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana's own bedroom door is closed, and stays closed.
Alma's not allowed in there.
The nice thing about the paperwork -- if anything can be said to be nice about this arrangement -- is that Yuliana did see to the parts she had to oversee, at least; all those phone calls were attended to, so Alma didn't have to chase up anything outside her authority.
Yuliana isn't totally hopeless in her responsibilities.
(She does, however, make a surprising amount of typos, especially when it comes to mixing letters up. Wen will have advised Alma not to point that out.)
That green gaze shifts, from 'vaguely in the direction of the television' to 'vaguely in the direction of the kitchen'. "Did you..?" She wonders, lightly, before she decides she's mollified by the shift in perspective. "Oh, very well," Yuliana sighs, rocking forward to put her can down on the coffee table, "I'm certainly not the sort of person to refuse a spot of cake. Bring it over here, would you?" No, of course she's not getting up.
<Pose Tracker> Alma Stirner has posed.
That's fine! Alma would honestly rather bring her the cake. She trots over to the fridge, taking it out; it's a chocolate cake with aggressive green buttercream frosting. There's no real sense of design to it -- just a pleasant shade of cover over one of the first things Alma would have made when she started baking.
She sets it out for Yuliana with no pressure, then moves to find another seat -- near, but not on the couch. (The one she's on is a little uneven, given it's at the far end of throwable. She doesn't mind if it wobbles a little as she shifts her weight; that just means she'll have to be pleasantly still.)
It's Alma who'll have to supply the conversation. That's not a problem. She's read the reports. "I saw how things went with the Unicorn! To think that Mineva Zabi's involved... that's kind of heavy." Alma chews on that a little. ... something occurs to her.
"I already know Banagher and Leina... I think they'd go along with things if I suggested them. I'd need to get Mineva to help, but..."
Her cheeks puff out a little bit. "That's going to be difficult..."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Wonderful," Yuliana compliments the choices Alma had to make with that cake, leaning forward to pluck the slice up. She has fancy little spoons, of course. Munch.
Yuliana, of course, is busy chewing on cake; this is hardly the first time Alma's had to fill the silence which seeps into all corners of Yuliana's space. Isn't it nice of Elisa to make sure she'll have cake here?
"... hmm?" She hums, around that spoon, lips pouting about it before she taps it lightly back to the saucer. (The saucer is new. Yuliana doesn't have many old plates.) "That could be troublesome... Leina does so love to propose ridiculous notions. She's cunning, that girl." As if Yuliana isn't.
She shrugs, gesturing, with an open palm. "Not to worry," she assures Alma, "all will be well. Elya's assured me she'll deal with that Leina... I gave her to her, so you don't have to do something about her, either." There's a particular comment to be made on the way Yuliana invokes Elisa's diminutive in conversation, here, though she avoids it in public.
People like Shari and Alma can't be called threats, so it's fine.
"Really, it's..." Yuliana pauses, lightly, looking aside to the window. The blinds are thick, and drawn. Snipers, you know. "... unfortunate, that opportunity presented itself this way. I had to press my advantage, of course... but Leina could have been of use to us. Ah, but I don't imagine she'll be terribly helpful, now... since I attacked her paramours, after all."
It's not that she feels bad; she'd do it again. She just feels bad that it will be so difficult to spin Leina around, after something like that. She's a horrible young woman, by Yuliana's estimation, but... she did seem to recognise the emptiness of the human heart.
And Yuliana is sullen, reflecting on it.
<Pose Tracker> Alma Stirner has posed.
Yuliana's a bit of a downer. Normally, hanging out with someone like that might send Alma into one of her moodier spirals -- she's always been a very malleable young lady in some senses, even if her principles are normally iron-wrought.
Here, she just continues to go with it, watching Yuliana shove a little more cake in her mouth. That part feels good. "Hmmm... well -- I guess that's fine," Alma starts, though in that way that she has that indicates she doesn't consider this settled. "Still -- if she's going to keep hurting you, I can bring her to Elisa, I guess!"
The gears start turning, bit by bit, as Alma contentedly watches Yuliana eat the fruits of her labor. "Wait -- that's it! Aah... maybe it's a little presumptuous, but Leina already likes me a lot... I bet I could help get her to see things your way. Maybe Mineva, too?" Her brow furrows. "Or -- well, if Leina already likes me, maybe I'll need to convince Mineva first..."
It feels like she's promising Yuliana the world -- but then, fighting for the worlds of those dear to her at her own expense has always been her way.
"I was scared of you when I approached you, but you two really set things right..." Her expression takes on a serious -- even determined! -- cast. "So let me do the same for them, for you, okay?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana's moods do tend be all over the place. Sometimes she's on top of the world; sometimes the world's crushing her, instead. She's always been bad at regulating herself, and in her own space, she has no need to act a role.
She sighs, at length, taking another bite of cake. "She is hurting me, isn't she...? Wretched girl... I don't understand her at all." Yuliana understands very few people. But that's fine. She only really needs to understand one... person?
For the sake of Yuliana's meta, we'll call Elisa a person.
"Tell the truth too plainly," Yuliana remarks, gaze tracking the tassels of her sideboard, the photographs, "and they'll never forgive us, you know." There's a photo of a girl in a hijab with a short Indonesian man and a tall Zaftran woman behind her; another photo, artful black and white, of Tri Darma Dian in his military regalia. A photo of Wen, Parminder and Yuliana, in some remote location, looking entirely too beaten up and glad to be alive. And in front of everything else -- a photograph of Elisa, which looks to have been taken by Yuliana herself.
She looks over them, vaguely. Family, coworkers, her wife. There's something missing, in that spread of photographs. Anyway.
"But if you'd like to get through to that miserable Zeon devil... hm, why not?" Yuliana remarks, with a shrug of one shoulder. "You're such a thoughtful girl..."
<Pose Tracker> Alma Stirner has posed.
"Yeah... I wish they could just accept it easier!" Alma says, with a shake of her head. "Really, it wouldn't be bad or anything. I'm here and I'm fine," she laments, moving over to the couch. Her hands come to rest gently on Yuliana's shoulders, and she asks, "Let me help you, okay?"
If she's given the green-light, she'll start giving a massage. (It's something Lilith often needed, physical as she is -- but that's far from Alma's mind, now. It's just a skill she happens to have for a person who happens to need it.)
Here Alma's cheeks puff out all poutily. "Hey, I'm from Zeon... ah, but I guess I'm working with the REA now, so it's kind of different. And Londo Bell, before that... er -- still!" Here, she gives away the game, a bit -- her other loyalties really just do not matter, do they?
"I wanted to help with Cascade, too, but they seemed... kind of put off by my presence, or something? They seemed really worried about me... ah, she still does, actually." Looking off to the side, toward those photographs... doesn't give her any answers. She doesn't even notice what's missing.
"You deserve thoughtful people in your life, though! And frankly, I'd rather be your thoughtful person than Lilith's or Puru --"
Her eyes screw shut for a moment. She moves closer to Yuliana, scrunching in on herself a little.
"... Y-Yuliana," she whispers. "Tell me I'm useful to you. And if I'm not -- tell me more ways I can be. Please. Please." It's not that she doesn't know it -- but the need is suddenly deep.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Oh, all right," Yuliana sighs, leaning back. Her eyes flutter shut, though, at times, it's closer to a flinch -- she carries a lot of tension in her shoulders. Everyone always tells her she slouches about too much, and it's unbecoming of an officer.
But how is she to communicate how casual she is sitting up straight? Frankly, Yuliana can't fathom such a thing.
"You're with us," she assures her, claims her, mildly.
A long breath inward, through her nose, as Alma brings up Cascade. "They're a difficult person," she remarks, a touch annoyed. "Don't mind them, Rusalka." Well, Cascade probably doesn't have any photos of friends displayed, either.
Just don't compare Yuliana to them. She's not like them.
She hears the shape of Alma's reassurance, hears what she trips over; irritation stabs deeper into her, and she scowls, for a moment. "Don't be so--!" She starts, and her fingers tense; she takes a breath, and spreads a hand, over the back of the couch, beside her.
"It's all right," a woman running from uselessness at full speed assures her, and assures herself that Alma's the one being used in the process. "Hush... come here. You're so useful, Rusalka... I'm so pleased Elya helped you here." She is more reassuring, now, and why she'd change her approach...
Well, Alma is hers either way, so it doesn't really matter.
<Pose Tracker> Alma Stirner has posed.
There's a tense several seconds as Alma gets the reassurance from Yuliana she craves -- and provides it in turn, if perhaps not by the vector she was hoping for. Her hands stay where they are, on Yuliana's shoulders, not moving for a little while.
Alma gets called that name, again -- each time she hears it, now, it starts to feel a little more like hers. It's funny how that works. "I am too," she says, managing to scramble for that lifeline. "I don't want to go back to being angry, like I was after the war... I'm scared of being alone, you know." The tone starts to turn into a pout -- almost a playful one -- by the end.
Not a lot of depth or interest to those feelings, it seems.
Alma moves toward the spot Yuliana's arm outlines, and gets herself situated, leaning just a little too close. "I'm glad you have such a good sense of this kind of stuff... I thought getting used to this would be a lot harder. I hope someday, everyone sees you the way I see you." She's happy, right?
And if her jewelry seems just a little too green, well -- it's just the lighting as it is in this room.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana embraces Alma to her side, hand curling, loosely, into her hair. She's quite chaste, but she's always been a physical person, the world's emotional landscape denied her; it's the first scrap of reassurance which jumps to her mind.
The lightning in this room is a little green. It suits her.
Shallow feelings are just fine, too, because it's nice to know just where someone stands. Complex characters can be so... exhausting to figure out.
"Yes," she assures her, turning her head to glance down at Alma, that green light catching in her eyes, "someday... everyone will. It will be wonderful." She tells Alma, and she tells herself, as she looks down at another empty doll.
She's so much more aggressive towards Dr. Petrov, these days. It's her fault, of course.
"Just wonderful..."
Yuliana is less isolated, not more, she tells herself, now they're putting these wretched Newtypes to use. She used to live alone, you know. She always forgot to replace the plates after they broke when she was alone. Perhaps she's forgotten her pills, too, the way her fingers start to tremble.
(And it's so, so easy to dismiss the world, when it's an unreal thing full of shallow actors.)
<Pose Tracker> Alma Stirner has posed.
Alma cuddles in; she genuinely likes touch, and indeed, the way she likes it isn't dissimilar. It comes from the other end, of course -- when you're constantly sorting out everyone's feelings, a touch can cut clean through it and get to the heart of the matter.
(Here, of course, there is nothing. Yuliana has her own way of cutting clean through Alma's experience of the world... but then, that makes the touching all the more important.)
Alma stares off into the middle distance; there's nothing going on behind those eyes for a long time. Usually, she'd smile at this kind of cuddling, and there's certainly a vague urge to -- but as she settles in, she finds she doesn't feel much of anything at all.
At least, not until she notices those fingers shaking. "Okay, you. We handled food... it's a little early for sleep..." Her head tilts a little to one side, and she puts a hand on her cheek, tapping at the side of her head.
"Oh! Medication and a shower for you, I think. Probably water, too!" Something nags at her, and then she asks, "Oh -- and do you want me to head to the store, or stay here for that? I was thinking of making something more substantial tomorrow... I got my pots and pans from the Gwennangorn finally."
Something occurs to her. "I think I need to change the recipe, though. I'd usually do a red wine sauce for what I'm thinking of, but that's risky -- oh, I could try making a compound butter instead..."
Being preoccupied with Yuliana's needs seems to get her more fully out of whatever anxious, needy state she found herself in.
This is happiness, right?
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana scowls, as she looks past Alma, to her fingertips. "What do you... ah," her eyes widen, a little, as she spies her reaction.
"You can go tomorrow morning," she decrees, her hand dropping to Alma's shoulder. "I..." Yuliana frowns, again, and looks aside; if there's any vulnerability in her own eyes, surely it's a trick of the light.
(That lovely, green glow.)
Yuliana closes hers, and takes a deep breath in. "It's so wonderful... how my darling Elya has arranged for you to remind me of all these things. She's so thoughtful!" A beat, and she assures Alma: "As are you, Rusalka."
From the Gwennangorn... from Lilith's ship... "But how terrible that you've been stuck with the same old pots for so long," Yuliana says, and as if it's a favour: "we'll fetch you new ones, after work, I think." Gut everything from her, Yuliana thinks, all wrapped up in the heated reassurance of her spite, until Alma can't even be recognised any more.
Everything. Everything!
<Pose Tracker> Alma Stirner has posed.
Alma freezes up, for just a moment, at the idea of new pots and pans. It's such a small thing -- but it's so scary, and so final. But...
... she lets the tension back out of her body. It's fine. "You're so nice to me," she says, wrapping her arms around Yuliana. "Thank you."
Rusalka settles in for now. If Yuliana thinks it's better for her not to leave, then... well, all she'll do is remain like this, she supposes.
Surely, this way, Yuliana will be happy.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"You don't need them," Yuliana assures her, wrapping her up in her arms, holding perhaps just a little -- too -- tightly. "You don't need them..."
The old pans, presumably.
Or the depth and expression of the world.
Yuliana holds her in her grasp, and eventually she calms, and perhaps, yes, she's happy.
Happy enough to take care of herself, anyway. And isn't it so nice not to have to worry about that?