2023-01-14: Screaming would make me feel better
- Cast: Ennil El, Eisen Daiwel
- Where: Tsutsujidai - Greenhouse
- Date: U.C. 0097 01 14
- Summary: Ennil drops off some supplies with Eisen, and they get to talking about their own personal struggles.
<Pose Tracker> Eisen Daiwel has posed.
Things at the Greenhouse, a big project started by Liam, have been fairly quiet for the most part. It takes time for plants to grow, and for the most part, Kaiju problems and otherwise have been... well... quiet. Uneventful.
During that kind of quiet, Eisen has made himself useful by checking out the hardware in the area. Ennil El had produced some useful equipment that allowed him to improve the monitoring on the place. And he's currently working on setting up a Laser Link system to the High School so that any issues that come up may be transmitted.
The flag system will have to wait for a later time.
He's typing away at some very simple software, trying to link the two systems together through a very simple pipe between the laser link and the monitor program. The troublesome part is that he can't exactly go to the other side and ask 'did you see that'... because that requires the laser link to work in the first place. So it's a bit of a tedious project.
He halts for a bit, fingers off of the keyboard. His longcoat is off to the side, and he's just wearing nothing but his plugsuit at the moment. It seems he favors to be ready at all times. He runs his right hand through his hair, then looks up at the black of it, rubbing it between his fingers.
"It's getting long." He mumbles to himself, noting that the black is peeking past some of the green at this point.
<Pose Tracker> Ennil El has posed.
On other days, Ennil has sent runners - Borr or Calibur can much more easily transport her finished work at speed, and she can always type up the necessary technical details and send that along as well. But today's haul is delicate - heavy lenses she's carefully filled and polished - and jostling them around at Hyper Agent speed might leave them with scratches that defeat the point of carefully restoring their purity.
So, tucked very carefully into a bag, itself tucked very carefully into her arm, under the shade of a black umbrella, Ennil carried it herself at a leisurely pace through Tsutsujidai's streets.
She huffs a bit as she enters the greenhouse, alerting Eisen to the visitor in his space, and lowers the dark canvas bag gingerly, straightening herself out and plunging a hand into her hair to grip it and drag it into a quick ponytail. She's been letting it get long, too. She peers at him, at the constant readiness suggested by wearing a plugsuit every hour of the day...
"Did my best with these. Should help tighten things up. Don't exactly have the equipment to do fresh work, and optics was never a specialty - but cameras get busted out so frequently, it's good to know how to improvise."
She peers at him a moment more. That persistent sense of dissatisfaction, too.
"You kind of give me the same impression. Surgery, programming, mechanics... a 'Mad Scientist', I guess? I know a guy I'd describe that way..."
<Pose Tracker> Eisen Daiwel has posed.
Eisen's head doesn't tilt when he hears that huff, but if she's particularly observant, she might see that typical human little 'twinge' of the ear, as it pulls to listen to something it just heard.
His glowing eyepatch is facing in her direction, as she enters, so she can't exactly see his expression quite as well. But when she speaks, he suddenly motions at her. A finger pointing in her direction. His head slowly turning. "Excellent work!" Before dropping the dramatics and getting into a more relaxed pose, and bumping his hip against the counter he's standing next to for a moment, as she speaks of the impression he gives off.
"What's with that look?" He remarks, almost a bit defensively. "You can't describe a Mad Scientist such as myself like that, and look disappointed like that." He demands of her with a slight bit of self-aware amusement, though there's some legitimate sounding indignation intermixed with it all.
He then gets a bit closer, offering his hand out with the expectations of being given the canvas bag. Even his stances when he's looking to accept something like that are a bit overly dramatic. "But I will forgive you. For you bring the key to my latest experiment!" He seems to be in a bit better of a mood than last she saw him. Assuming that him hamming it up like this is him being in a better mood.
<Pose Tracker> Ennil El has posed.
He's so...
Dramatic. She actually chuckles a little. It's not mean-spirited, she's just startled. "Oh. You're right, of course. No, I'm really impressed with you, honestly." She does pass the bag over, though, and waits for him to find a place for it before she continues. "I'm looking forward to what you can accomplish with it!"
A guy like this is so larger than life, she feels like she has to step around him a little gingerly. "You saved the life of someone important to me, so I'm grateful. I know he was preparing a gift for you," (Vit knew from Max, she knows from Vit - office gossip, of a sort,) "...did you receive it?"
She finds a space to lean herself, regarding Eisen curiously, but softly. She quirks up a little melancholy smile, and offers, by way of apology for prodding at him:
"It's my duty to support Gridman, you see."
<Pose Tracker> Eisen Daiwel has posed.
Eisen can't help but be a bit... confused, when she says that she's impressed with him. There's this little adjustment of his eyes. This kind of 'suspicion' kind of looks. It's not mean-spirited, but he's clearly not used to people actually saying great things about him. "Hoo!" But he picks up immediately and declares; "It is good you have recognized my greatness." It seems he's taking it in stride and running with it.
"Hmm. Ah, you mean... Yuta." Gridman? He isn't sure yet which name to use. He was saving Yuta, but ended up saving Gridman. It's all so confusing. "Yes, I did receive the flower." He then remarks, nodding his head, his expression a bit hard to read in that regards.
"It is? I didn't think you were part of his inhuman coterie." He then answers Ennil. "But then, admittedly, Bor and Vit didn't exactly show up for that mission..." At least he knows their names. Calibur and Max are the ones Eisen has interacted most with. "So, what do you do? Are you..." He squints, trying to assess her. That eyepatch on the right starting to whirr, almost as if analyzing her.
"Capable of cutting holes into dimensions, and pulling out devils?"
<Pose Tracker> Ennil El has posed.
He's hard to read. That's to be expected. He's still thinking of Yuta, and that's understandable.
"He's grateful too," she says, of their shared subject. "That you saved Yuta. He wants the chance to talk with Yuta Hibiki."
She knows how Gridman thinks about that scar, and how much worse it could have been.
He makes the read on her, and she has to grin a little again. "That's true. I'm not a Hyper Agent exactly. I'm..." She moves to say human, but she stops. "A friend, of Gridman and his companions, and they needed someone to bridge the gap between them, while Gridman was recovering. To reach out to each of them. I came at the right time."
That second question, though, is an interesting one for her. It's easy to answer in some ways, and difficult in others. "Ahahaha, I wish. No, my specialties are mostly in that sort of thing," with a finger angled at the bag, "patching things up, mobile suits, things like that. Before I came here I was a perfectly average Vulture. Mostly. ...I am a little more resilient than average, though."
<Pose Tracker> Eisen Daiwel has posed.
"I know." Eisen huffs, as she keeps bringing up that boy's name as if he were gone. What he 'knows' he doesn't exactly explain. Instead, he returns to leaning against the counter and finally puts the bag she handed him on it, and then puts on some gloves. He then prepares microfiber cloths which he lays out on it, and carefully pulls out the lenses.
Eisen doesn't know much about lenses and magnification sizes and the like. Sure, he knows enough about engineering to be dangerous... but it's not the field he focused on. When he wanted the lenses for his own 'eye' created, he ended up relying on an expert after all. But he can at least check for scratches.
Leaning in, shifting down to his knees for a moment, then getting back up, he nods his head. "Impressive." He remarks, before carefully returning the lenses to the bag, making sure they don't rub against eachother. "Nicely done, Ennil." He's clearly trying to focus on something else other than this conversation for a moment to collect his thoughts, before he finally props his butt against the counter and lays his hands on the edges. Fingers looping around.
"That must be a nice ability to have. Reaching out and connecting people." Eisen notes with this subtle tone of... jealousy? "Still - those are some amazing skills." He adds. "What got you involved with Gridman initially?"
<Pose Tracker> Ennil El has posed.
He huffs, and she does flinch, just a little. It's never pleasant, to step too far in and end up watching someone retreat. She shrugs it off and lets him focus on the mechanics. She gets that impulse. It's why she got so good at making things.
"It's what I like doing. People are always throwing away things they could still use. If something doesn't fit in where it is, all it takes is someone who'll see what it could be."
...Isn't that right.
Eisen comments on the way she's managed to bring people together, and she smiles. "I met him... as an enemy, actually. We were both exhausted, recovering from the battle... He let me sit with him in Aya and share hot chocolate. It was kind of him." It's an odd thing to admit to - especially after everything she's said up to this point - but it's the truth, and Ennil El doesn't make a habit of lying.
She thinks a little, about connecting others. It takes her a little while to circle back around it. "Are you a lonely person, Dr. Daiwel?"
<Pose Tracker> Eisen Daiwel has posed.
There's a sudden loud, albeit metalic sounding, bark suddenly, when Ennil remarks about people throwing things away. From underneath one of the cabinets, a hound appears. It seems a bit larger than your average dog, and parts of its body are coated in metal. At this point, it is impossible to tell if this was just an experiment for the fun of it, or because this creature needed it. But whatever the case may be, it presses its head under Eisen's fingers near the counter.
Eisen glances down, and shows a faint smile. "Hungry, Wulf?" He asks, before reaching into his pocket, and pulling out what looks like his own rations, and breaking some of the dried meats off. He then offers it to the ground - not wanting the hound to lick into his hand.
It lazily lays its head down, and eats.
"Yeah, I get that." He whispers then, with a bit of a wrylook, before gazing up to her and raising his posture. Listening to her speak of Gridman being met as an enemy. And he... can't help but laugh.
"Did he decide to punch you because he didn't like what you had to say?" He jokes.
He has a certain experience with Yuta.
But then that smile and expression dies off to a more neutral one as she asks him if he's a lonely person. She'll note that he's not making eye-contact. Instead, he looks down towards Wulf. "Seems a lot of people wonder about that now-a-days." Eisen expresses.
"I want to say I'm not. I have a lot of allies surrounding me. People who are extremely capable." He notes. "But you could say I have led the life of someone who prefers to be alone most of the time." Which isn't explaining it very well.
So, he grins, and shows her his teeth a bit. A more viscious look than he probably means to give. "I'm working on it."
<Pose Tracker> Ennil El has posed.
She's surprised, a little, to see the hound emerge. But it makes her smile, to see Eisen be warm in his own way with him.
That smile quirks up into a little smirk when Eisen asks if Gridman threw a punch at her. "Heh. I don't think I ever pushed him that far." There's no judgment to it, though. People express themselves in all kinds of ways, don't they?
He looks away. But he doesn't lie to her, or avoid the subject. That means something too.
"I have lots of allies, too," Ennil says, and it sounds like an admission. After all, it's something they have in common. "There are even people I care for." That, actually, softens her smile again, but it does slip after only a few moments. "I hate being alone." It's not like they're exactly the same person...
"So I'm working on it, too. It sounds like there are people who are waiting for you to get there."
<Pose Tracker> Eisen Daiwel has posed.
The hound sits down on its haunches, and then shifts to rest at Eisen's legs. Notably, it sits there more like a guard-dog than like a 'friend'. Staring at Ennil with its eyes. Almost as if saying that it doesn't trust her.
Eisen doesn't know better.
"He couldn't handle a healthy dose of truth." He answers, a bit defensively. Though he then does add; "But I didn't exactly have the whole truth either. I guess... it's the first time I actually 'made up' with someone." It was easy to do so with Yuta somehow. The boy... so accepting.
His hand returns to his hair, toying with it a bit, staring at the black, twirling it around his finger as he continues to listen to Ennil. A lot of allies. People she cares for.
"I'm still trying to figure out what it means to care for people. Or... if I can. But while I enjoy being alone a lot of the time, I don't like... I don't like when people disappear from my life either." Which may not be fully the same thing as liking to be around people. Still... "I... think I am enjoying reaching out to people." He's not fully sure yet, as he stops toying with his hair and looks at his hand instead, turning it into a bit of a claw.
A small smirk again.
"Hmm?" Then, confusion again, as Ennil says that it sounds like peopel are waiting for him to get there. "Get where?" He should understand, but it seems there's something being lost in translation that with a normal person, should not get lost in translation.
<Pose Tracker> Ennil El has posed.
For some reason, hearing him put it that way is kind of... Well, it's what you'd expect from a Mad Scientist, right? "Ahaha... He's a sensitive one, isn't he. You wouldn't expect it from a guy who can turn into a seventy meter giant, but he's soft on the inside. I'm glad you made up, though."
She does, actually, remember years when she was still learning this sort of thing too. She's sympathetic. "Mhm. It feels strange to look where you expected to see someone, when someone or something reminds you of them, and have them not be there. I lived through the Neo Zeon War. It happens to me a lot. Their absence feels like... it's an absence in you, too."
Her fingers find the tip of that ponytail and gently flick it. It's getting long...
He takes her a little literally, and she gives him a somber smile. "What I mean is, I think it's good that you're reaching out. I think those gaps aren't as wide as you think they might be. And if they are, I think the person on the other side will try to find their way across, too, if you let them know you want that."
She levels her gaze on him, though it's his choice whether to meet it or not.
"You shouldn't throw out things you still want. They might just need to be treated a little differently to show you what they're worth."
<Pose Tracker> Eisen Daiwel has posed.
"I... never thought to put it like that." Eisen remarks when Ennil speaks on peoples' absence. "Is that it? An absence in me?" He looks down, touching his own chest over his heart a bit. Is that why it hurt? It does play well with what he felt. When creating a bond with someone, it was like giving a part of yourself to them, and them disappearing meant they... took that piece with them. Ripping it away on their way out. A wound that would not heal easily.
"Something like that, I guess." He decides, and then shakes his head a bit at what seems to be an internal thought, not something spoken out.
Before focusing on the topic at hand; "I don't think you know some of the people I consider my allies. Some of them are..." How to say? "Prickly. Like a cactus." He moves his hands as if to mimic the form of a cactus. But that's just being afraid, isn't it? If they decide not to let him in... shouldn't that be fine?
Leveling her gaze at him, he notices. He tries to bring his gaze up a bit, but the moment it gets close, it deflects and he glances aside. Almost like a magnet with the same poles being pushed towards eachother. Eisen can't do it so easily. But he tries to stay 'near'.
"I'm not throwing things away. I'm just..." He motions a hand upwards, flexing his fingers in a claw-like way. "Still learning how not to hurt the things I want." Pause. Correction. "The people I want to make bonds with."
<Pose Tracker> Ennil El has posed.
It's rough watching someone else feel these things. It almost makes /her/ want to look aside, but she wants to be here for him while he does it. To be difficult to push away - sometimes that's the only way to reach someone.
She nods along through most of it, and she does notice him doing his best to meet that gaze. She grins a little when he describes his allies as 'prickly'. She's only gotten to meet a few of them, but she's /seen/ Asuka in action. It's not hard to picture at all.
She watches him turn his hands into claws, and finally finds her moment to speak.
"You don't want to break things. You're worried that the /way/ you want things will scare others away." She laughs, low and soft, and her look softens... though it also sharpens with a little bit of mischief. "I don't know all your colleagues, but I've met a couple. Here, I'll do an impression - something she told me. I bet you'll hear it right away - though nobody can say it quite like her, don't you think?"
Her lips curl up into that catlike smirk, and her eyes glitter in the light of Eisen's little lab.
"Every human being has the ability to embrace happiness just as much as they do to break it. The fact that you're scared to take hold of it just means you deserve to fling your arms around it that much more fully, don't you think?"
It doesn't /really/ sound like her - Nobody but Mari Makinami Illustrious could ever fully embody her - but it's unmistakably the kind of thing she would say.
<Pose Tracker> Eisen Daiwel has posed.
"Well, sometimes I want to break things. But... not the things I have grown to like." Eisen answers Ennil, wanting to be fairly clear on that matter. After all, he /is/ an Evangelion pilot. And his aesthetic is... someone who breaks things. Kaiju, specifically, most of the time. "Sure." He then adds.
Eisen's a fairly observant person. In fact, it's one of his most notable traits. That doesn't mean he always -understands- what he is observing. But when he watches that glitter in her eyes, he suddenly shifts a bit closer. Not 'you are in my personal space now' close - like he used to do with people - but still... closer than she might like.
"Woah, I thought those were contact lenses. But the way the light reflects off of them." He mumbles, seemingly having missed everything she just said, because he got hyperfixated on something that wasn't at all even relevant to the conversation at hand.
He seems to catch himself in this though. "Sorry." Lifting his hands in a defensive manner, and stepping back a bit. "Ehm - that's Glasses." He then remarks. "The tone. I... can you repeat that?" He asks apologetically.
<Pose Tracker> Ennil El has posed.
"Yeah. Of course. I get the urge, sometimes." She doesn't sound happy about it - the fact that she's someone who breaks thing isn't as /natural/ as it is for him. But she can't really deny the effects her actions have on the world. She always notices.
He gets /very/ in her space. It's a little much. She blinks those big blue eyes a couple times, the light from the device over his eye spilling green across their lenses. She catches him muttering, and it does make her flush a little.
Being examined so clinically... well. He is a Mad Scientist. He's very insistent on that point. It's still a little tough to be under the microscope, though. He seems to clue in, eventually... and admits he missed her message, though he picked up the tone well enough to identify the source. Mari really is hard not to notice.
"Ah. The thing she said to me was... that people can embrace happiness just as much as they break it. And that... if you're scared to take hold of it, it just means you deserve to throw your arms around it. She said it the way she says things, of course... Loud and pushy, but in kind of a funny way. I like her."
<Pose Tracker> Eisen Daiwel has posed.
"I... don't know her well." Eisen admits, rubbing his hand at the back of her head. "She's kind of like a cat. She'll show up when she wants food, but otherwise, you won't see her." Is the best example that Eisen can give to her, and it's clearly coming from the perspective of someone who has never owned a cat before.
"But... I can't say I understand her words." He crosses his arms a bit, closing himself off just a little bit. Or maybe, it's embracing himself? "But I've decided that Kaiju don't fear anything, and that I shouldn't fear the hurt of rejection. If they do, it's... natural." He seems confident, though lacking the context, it may sound rather strange to Ennil why he's talking about Kaiju all of the sudden.
"What do you get the urge to crush sometimes?" He then asks. "What do you seek to crush? Your enemies? The world? The galaxy? The ants beneath your boot, or more something like... feelings of anguish?" Which is the first time in this conversation he is actually directly trying to connect back to her. Trying to ask her about... well... herself! "And don't think I haven't noticed you tried to push off my comments about your eyes." He then adds, lifting one hand from his cross-armed stance to half-point at her, before returning to that posture.
<Pose Tracker> Ennil El has posed.
"Ehe... cats can be affectionate creatures. Calibur keeps a bunch at his house. You just have to let them approach you in the way that suits them." So she does agree with the metaphor, at least.
"It's not easy to move ahead when you have to watch where you step," she admits. She's not surprised to hear him call himself a kaiju - not after talking with Akane, with Alexis. "Making yourself a kaiju is definitely one solution... Though it may be a lonely one still."
"The thing I want to crush..." She glances aside, this time, trying to work her way through it. She doesn't like hurting people... she doesn't want to change the world. Not the way someone like Char would seek to do it. Eisen keeps seeking. He's got her under the microscope again. Now he reminds her of Kaworu, though Kaworu is never this forceful about it. But both of them like to force you to say it for yourself.
"Is myself. Have you seen Akane Shinjo's kaiju? The way the insides are... hollow. A frame, stretched over empty space. I think... when I feel that way, I want to scream and swing my fists and crush all the empty space out of myself. All the absences."
He goes back to her /eyes/, and she flicks her head back to him again, holding them wide and a little puzzled. "What've they got to do with anything? They're just... the eyes I happen to have, that's all..."
<Pose Tracker> Eisen Daiwel has posed.
"I've been alone for a long time. But an ally~... " He pauses himself there, shaking his head. What is Rei. Can he call her... "A friend of mine said, even Kaiju seek to connect with humans sometimes." And he will hold onto that. He wonders if Rei will ever understand how impactful such a simple truth was to him.
"But I'm maybe not like other people - who can't stand being alone." He then adds, seeing a bit. He doesn't make eyecontact, he's not needing to make a point. But he keeps at least trying to connect with her. Even if, as she notes, it's a bit... forceful. Still learning to connect without hurting people. Those claws still fail to sheathe.
But when she says 'herself', he looks surprised. Tilting his head back a bit. It's not the kind of response she might expect to get from your average person. Someone who would just roll their eyes at her. No, it's more like... there's a bit of understanding.
"Do you feel more whole, when you let yourself yourself scream and swing your fists?" He asks her, as he raises a hand in a rather peculiar position. She's probably seen enough of the world to recognize it's an open palm waiting for her to throw a fist into it.
"When I used to scream when I felt empty... I always felt more empty. Giving up the energy I could have used to fill that space instead." He remarks. "It's easier when you have someone, or something to punch, that allows you to take something from them, to fill that void."
He doesn't want to speak on the eyes yet - he'll get back to that. He wants to focus on this. Which... is remarkable, since he normally jumps topics more quickly.
<Pose Tracker> Ennil El has posed.
At first, when she sees that hand go up... she doesn't move. It's not usually like her, to want to throw a punch just because. But she does smile, and tip her head to it. She understands what he's offering.
/Not all pain is bad, y'know. Sometimes pain helps us learn more about who we are./
"You're right. Afterwards, the things that were gone are still gone... and I'm so tired. As long as I was fighting alone, it was always like that." Her fingers drum against the counter, lightly. "Now I have comrades. It's different. I keep getting scared that when I get angry and start wanting to scream again, I'll be their enemy... But I was their enemy once before, wasn't I? They could choose to be kind again."
/You helped me learn a bit more about myself... So you shouldn't feel bad about it!/
She slowly draws herself up. She looks over to that outstretched hand... in a different shape than she's seen before. She slowly forms a fist... and shakes her head, softly.
"Not here. I want to watch where I step, while I'm here in Tsutsujidai. We might break something I care about. But I'm sure we can find a nice empty spot out in the garden somewhere, later. I think it might help us both. To scream out all the frustration, without leaving ourselves empty, afterwards."
<Pose Tracker> Eisen Daiwel has posed.
"It can be exhausting to fight the emptiness." Eisen agrees. He is no stranger to depression. Even right now, he's on a bit of medication to help with that. Though his supply will not last that long anymore. Rations are running low. But he hopes he'll come out on top. Or, if they get out soon, he can maybe get a proper prescription.
"Look, if you ever want to scream, just come to me. I'll scream back, or I'll take it. I mean, I've got plenty of practice, what with Asuna around." He jokes somewhat playfully, touching a hand to his hip.
Not to mention, didn't he say he got into a matter of fisticuffs with Yuta? Though there might be something concerning about that, what with Eisen looking like he's approaching being an adult.
When she stands up properly and forms that fist, he waits for her to throw it. But instead, she says 'not here'.
"I think Liam will get angry if we do it in the garden." He's thinking of the Greenhouse. "But I saw a Gym downtown that's been closed. I'm sure in trade for some supplies, the former owner would open the place up again."
<Pose Tracker> Ennil El has posed.
Eisen tells her they can just... scream at each other when they need to, and she smiles. "...Yeah, I appreciate that. You're an alright guy, Dr. Daiwel. For a Mad Scientist."
She waves back to the equipment behind him, and that bag she brought. "We both have jobs to do, but I'll definitely take you up on it when I need it. If you can take a picture of the place for Vit's phone or show him how to get there, I'll be able to meet you there whenever."
She loosens that fist and... thrusts her hand out into the air, instead. Moving halfway into the space between them. Not something for him to throw a punch at, but something to reach for, all the same. A sign of respect between kaiju.
"As long as we're both doing our best to care for the things we want, I think I can call you a comrade, too."
<Pose Tracker> Eisen Daiwel has posed.
Eisen puts his other hand onto the counter and leans a bit, glancing at the bag as she waves at it, then looks to Ennil again. "Don't let it get out that I'm an alright guy. They might start thinking I've gotten soft." He jokes with Ennil, showing a toothy grin.
"I'll get Vit a picture of the place later. Though I don't really know how to get that to Vit's phone, what with communications being down." He points out, as he watches her shift her hand.
He raises his posture anew, keeping his hand lifted to the air a bit more firmly. But instead of loosening her fist, she thrusts it into the air about halfways. So, he puts his 'claw' onto the fist, capturing it gently.
"I'd like that." Eisen tells Ennil then, when she says she knows she can call him a Comrade. But he tells her that in more than just words. Trying as hard as he can, he makes eye contact with her in that moment. That glowing green device, and his eye, making proper eye-contact with her, just for a second or two. But it's there. "Comrade."