2023-02-18: ?!reality extends beyond the walls which snare mE
- Log: ?!reality extends beyond the walls which snare mE
- Cast: Elisa Kafim, Yuliana Kafim, Kaworu Nagisa
- Where: The Silent Castle, Kaffeklubben Island
- Date: 2023-2-18
- Summary: Kaworu comes to visit the voidwives, and brings with him a horrific revelation: he can see Yuliana's heart. Yuliana doesn't take it well, but in the end, they're both pleased enough to make the acquaintance of someone else real... though Elisa will have to have a conversation with Yuliana about just how many people are, because she's terribly upset by the challenge to her solipsism. Once Elisa assures her it's fine, Yuliana teaches Kaworu the common sign languages of Earth. TRIGGER WARNING: PSYCHIC HORROR
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
As it happens, the Silent Castle today is only silent throughout most of it. This particular chamber has the sounds of a roaring fire, crackling merrily in the fireplace. This is... most of the sound, however. Out in the other chambers, the servants are quiet, going about their tasks without words or looking up.
But this is not about them.
Here and now, in a vast central chamber, the ladies of the house have gathered. It is a lovely sitting room at two scales; plus couches and chairs at human scale and a gigantic, comfortable chair in which the taller Lady sits. Elisa Kafim, half-Meltrandi and terrifying witch, is seated in that huge chair, beside which is a smaller one for Yuliana. She is some ten meters tall--nearly 33 feet--Macronized, and she is dressed in black. Voluminous black clothing drapes her--a long dress and cloak. She is wearing dark slippers as well. Because Yuliana reminds her that the floors are chilly.
However, most of the sound in the room now is absorbed by the many rugs, furs, and tapestries hung all around to warm the place socially and physically. This is especially true in this particular chamber...
But it is Yuliana and the flames that are the warmest. And their... welcome?
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
It is dark, out there. Night is only barely beginning to break, here in the polar regions so close to the north pole -- there is light, but little of it, in the eternal grey before dawn. The ice floes around Kaffeklubben Island, the northmost landmass in the world, are still thick enough to be treacherous. Even with the warmth of the world, it is still cold, here; cold enough for the snowbanks to gather, thick, along the walls of the Silent Castle.
The gate may open, though. A servant passes the message along -- and they will see the visitor.
Seated beside her half-Meltrandi wife, it's hard to call Yuliana entirely human, these days... but certainly mostly so. Which is to say that she stands at 5'5", a mere 1.65 metres.
Teal fuzz over her head is the beginning of her hair growing back, from where it was recently shaved, which means that the webbed tentacles fanning out behind her ears are all the more prominent. A black capelet across her shoulders warms them, because her green halter top doesn't cover her arms; the lower parts, exposed, are dark and scarred. Her throne has been altered to allow comfortable sitting despite the black snakelike appendages which slither out from her spine; they curl on her lap, with jaws made of grasping hands and eyeless frills currently lowered down along their length. Her crisp black pants are folded, one leg across the other, as her human hands rest on either armrest. She, too, has dark slippers. The floors do get rather cold.
She is still warm-blooded, and so is her smile.
<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.
It isn't difficult for one such as Kaworu to find Yuliana. She has an extremely distinct presence, and on top of that, there is a certain group of old men (made older still with the rebuilding of the world) who've taken an interest in her. Kaworu approaches the Silent Castle by himself, but he did not come alone. Some ways away, he is watched. Dressed in his NERV administrator uniform like it's a temperate day in Tokyo-3 and not the bitter frigidity of the North Pole, he strolls up through the drifts of ice and snow with his hands tucked in his pockets, wind howling white through his silver hair.
Perhaps that alone is worthy of interest of those within the Silent Castle. A servant opens the gate and passes along a message. Kaworu waits patiently until he is ready to be seen.
When this is so, he walks calmly and with his usual lopsided smile until he reaches the audience chamber. He looks up upon the macronized Elisa and her wife, taking in both of them; and though he takes in both of them, and gives Elisa a slight nod of greeting, his gaze lingers on Yuliana. He shows no indication of being put off either by Elisa's size or Yuliana's new features.
"It's been some time," he tells her by way of greeting. "I wonder if you remember me, Yuliana Kafim?"
If nothing else, the white-winged star emblem on his chest marked underneath in English letters with K.NAGISA ought to give her a clue. But it has been some time since then--already half a year, if not more.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
It is so dark, and so cold. But not here. No, the lights--firelight, primarily--are warm, and sufficient.
She does not smile upon the entrance fo their guest, but she does incline her head to him in greeting in return. "Good day," she says, for it is day even if the night holds sway here. "And be welcome to our home." ...In theory, anyway.
The servant gave them preparation to see him; now she is quite interested in this young man who would choose to visit their castle, and speak of Yuliana...
Elisa turns her head towards Yuliana, in curiosity. Does she remember him? She is content to learn that first.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
It is well that Kaworu acknowledges Elisa just the same; Yuliana is watching, and she is judging. She will tolerate no disrespect to her dearest wife, in her finest resplendence. "Yes," she agrees, and echoes Elisa, "be welcome."
(She is so, so brilliant. Certainly Yuliana had encouraged her to stretch her legs even before this interloper came to visit. Isn't she just the most stunning creature in the room?)
"Administrator," Yuliana, for her part, does smile, though it doesn't entirely reach her eyes. She inclines her own head, in acknowledgement. The fins at her ears curl. "I do. You were managing Evangelion's pilots, back then. So, tell me -- what business brings you to my dearest Elisa and I, this day?" It is day, even if the night still holds them in their grasp. So Elisa says; so it is.
The snakes at her lap have no eyes to see. Nevertheless they lift from the fabric of Yuliana's lap, and turn, as if to stare straight at Kaworu.
<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.
Kaworu's smile broadens enough to squint his red eyes shut when Elisa and Yuliana bid him welcome, one at a time. It may be in theory, but is theory not how Lilim navigate a universe so full of unknowns?
But Elisa herself is quiet for now, letting Yuliana take point since it is, after all, her that Kaworu came here to see. And Yuliana does remember him, something on which Kaworu is ambivalent. "I am primarily an Evangelion pilot myself. Managing them is simply an additional task I must perform," he says. The snakes in Yuliana's lap rise as if to stare sightlessly at him; he smiles at them as well. "I'm here because one who considers you a friend asked me for help in communicating with you."
If the sensitivity of the soul could be measured on a 1-5 scale, Yuliana would have known Kaworu as maybe a 2.5 up until now. Sensitive, but not especially strong. In return, the void around her buzzes less harshly against Kaworu's senses. But this is the North Pole, and Kaworu is brought here by his handlers; he is far away from that which could identify him if he were to unfurl the light of his heart, and there are things set to keep it that way--to keep him handled, if there are any problems.
There shouldn't be. Or at least, the only one for whom there is about to be a problem is Yuliana. It is as though someone who had been curled up in a ball on the floor suddenly leaned forward and rose to their actually quite significant height. "She had some different ideas on how to do so, and I could have simply gone along with them," Kaworu is saying, his physical form still and undisturbed despite the unfolding of his true presence. Even this might not be an issue, except--
--he is something different entirely from a Newtype, and he is not canceled out by that garbage data--
--data through which he swims, so to speak... "I thought this would be simpler in the long term," he's saying, "but..." ...until he reaches that distant shore.
It's as though a figure in a television show had suddenly looked at the screen, shuffled forward, and pulled themselves out into the real world. It--he--they--consider the solitary woman before them with a sympathetic furrow of the brow.
"Are you quite all right?" the monster from through the screen wonders.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Elisa basks in Yuliana's regard. She is quiet, but self-assured. Yuliana indeed remembers him, and that is a good enough start. Elisa regards him again in light of that. 'Administrator', and that uniform--she has worked against NERV in the past, of course, in her pursuit of kaiju matters. But it does not bother her. What business, he asks?
"A friend!" Elisa remarks. "How lovely. Yuliana, do you know if this friend is 'friend' to you as well?"
Elisa has no such senses. She is cut off from the world of the Awakened, differently from Yuliana but no less starkly. But she has other senses; other matters to attend. And yet...
This friend. The unfolding of his presence...
"But?" Elisa wonders, and as he regards Yuliana, she too wonders if she is quite all right. Elisa frowns, in thought, turning her head towards her.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Is that so?" Yuliana asks, and sounds curious enough in the asking. Kaworu might not be the most sensitive of sensitive souls, but Yuliana has never feared them truly knowing her heart. No, surely the closest is -- Yuliana smiles, up to Elisa, warmer still in that moment. "I wonder this as well," she says, as she looks back down to Kaworu. "Who do you speak for, now?"
She has her suspicions, of course, but the game is in having him say it.
But he has other ideas -- on how to speak.
Come, then, to distant shore, across these countless graves. We colonised this land; long was it empty.
She is an abyss, unending and black. There is no ending, no walls to dash oneself upon. Neither is there, strictly speaking, a ground; no above, nor below. Nothing is here.
Nothing, stretching out forever, and no hand long enough to reach the gap.
i am that i am that i am that i am
One voice, one emotion, one concept, human, echoing, alone. It is stilted and it is shrunken and it is small.
hear
i see
can touch you
not taste
feel
This is a place of madness, without honour, and there is nothing here. The nothing lances up, sharp and spiked, a dozen grasping fingertips with a dozen bending joints.
preserves
she loves
She possesses me
she needs
perceives
-- all behind those eyes, pupilless, endless green.
And when she looks at him, when she sees him, she screams. She screams in her heart and she screams with her voice, wordless and panicked and shaken. "AAAHHHHHH--!!"
Behind those eyes are those eyes and those eyes and those eyes, endless, green, opening deep to her skin...
U'OU LLOIA JOW?, demand ten voices in Yuliana's mind, speaking through ten throats.
U'OU LLOIA JOW TH'OU WPSH'IATH NILJ GH'IALJ OT NILJ KOTH'IA?, all voiced sounds unvoiced, all unvoiced given voice.
NILJ LLPH'IAKH'YOW-SH KOTH'IA!, twisted and clipped and made long.
KIATH OW-TH!, those grasping spires which cannot be fingers curling about the psyche of her.
This, at least, needs no translation, as Yuliana rocks violently to crash herself against the back of her own throne, and those snakes snap and tear at the air in front of her.
<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.
"Her name is Rita Bernal," Kaworu replies, because he has no reason to misdirect on this matter and he's not one for playing these kinds of games. "I expect you know her well, though I too wonder if you consider her a friend in return. All the same, she seems to care about you a great deal, and she did ask me quite earnestly for my help."
And as vast as his soul is, what he finds across and within the abyss is something small and shrunken and so, so sad. Hethey raises a hand to reach out to her, and never mind all those spiked and doubled joints; hethey have birthed countless children just as sharp and strange.
The First Angel reaches out to her, and she screams.
The voices flood around both of them. Kaworu waits for her, for them, with inhuman patience, a patience that some would call saintly if there were any further illusion that he is a human being. We will pretend for a little while longer, though, for the sake of the other member of the audience, who must see nothing of this but her dear wife screaming aloud. Kaworu keeps his hand outstretched and waits for Yuliana to sort through it all. It may take some time, given the violence she now inflicts on herself, but he is not disturbed.
"Take your time," he adds gently, and perhaps with no small absurdity.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
"Ahhhh," Elisa answers of Rita Bernal. "Yes, she is a dear friend to my Yuliana," Elisa remarks. She doesn't specify whether she considers her a friend, of course, save to say, "I know her as well."
She smiles. She looks to Yuliana again, and back to Kaworu, and...
And then... And then it all goes strange. She hears the Presence, and winces suddenly, as if in pain herself. "Ah--" She starts, "The rage..."
She recognizes the echoes of those words, this close to her Yuliana, and it is enough. Barely enough.
"What is this...?"
She looks to Kaworu, sharply. He seems so patient, with a hand outstretched. "What are you doing!?" Elisa demands. "If you harm her I will TEAR YOU APART with my bare hands!"
She moves to rise. "Who are you, to upset her!?" Her voice begins to echo strangely; her Power begins to rise. But she does not target Kaworu yet.
...Perhaps only because she fears what might happen should she interrupt what is occuring. Perhaps only because she believes She will have it covered in this way.
Perhaps because she must know. It is hard to say.
"Tell me! Now!"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Perhaps Yuliana might have given him a straight answer, were he not HERE.
The pain of being seen is one that Yuliana -- Yuliana, at the real, true core of herself -- can respond to in only one way,
elya elya elya protect me love me embrace me
She cries out to one woman, even as another wraps her impossible fingers around her soul and clasps ribboning-tight. She cries out, as she has ever cried out, into the hollow abyss of herself, unheard --
Save for those dozen-dozen eyes, unnatural and vast, and
staring
right
at
Kaworu.
"AAahhh--!!" She cries, and it is all she cries, for a moment. She grasps at the sides of her head -- all but throws herself back and forth in her seating. It's well that Elisa thought to pad it well.
It hurts. It hurts! Being looked at, being seen, it hurts! All those winnowed edges of her, being seen, it hurts! The pain of being hurt, being seen, it hurts!
"-- no!" She cries, at length, as she lurches forward now and falls. The snakes to either side of her hit the stone first and arrest her momentum; it isn't a violent landing. "No, don't... he is... he is," she gasps out, with her voice, with her words, trembling and bird-boned.
To Kaworu, instead, she asks: "Who... who are you?" With one voice, and one throat, human and comprehensible.
<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.
Kaworu's crimson gaze turns to Elisa as she rises to her considerable height. Despite her size, her strength, her anger, he is unmoved--not quite dispassionate, but clearly not threatened, even though her threats are just as clearly not just threats. It's clear that he's unmoved because despite her demands, he says nothing. He simply stares back at her, level and calm, for a moment until Yuliana cries out and lurches forward.
Then he turns his gaze back to her, and those dozen-dozen eyes. They stare at him, out from the abyss, horrific and unknowable to any human mind.
Kaworu smiles back.
But Yuliana is in pain, and he looks back at her in concern as she lashes herself back and forth and down, the snakes finally pinning her down and letting her gasp out her words.
She asks who he is.
"I am the First," says the youth, "and the Last; the Omega, and then the Alpha." He steps forward; step, step, step; and then he knees down, to offer her his hand anew. His smile is kind and gentle. "But you can call me Kaworu." A beat; then, he asks, "Will you be all right?"
Since she had already answered his question earlier of if she's all right now.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Elisa begins to move, as Yuliana cries out. She expected occasional issues, padded the throne well, but this is far beyond. To see the pain of her Yuliana in this way, of her wife--
She falls. "Yuliana!"
But the snakes protect her. And she gasps out her statement, her requirement, and Elisa relents; her power is still gathered, the Void echoing around her, but she does not focus it. She does not channel it.
...But she is very, very interested in the fact that Kaworu does not show any concern at all for her power. At first, this interest is paired with rage, but when Yuliana calms her, it is simply fascination, though not enough to outweigh her concern for Yuliana. No, that is all, at the moment, and he approaches, kindly...
"You are..."
No, this is no 'boy'. Elisa kneels down, rather than sitting, to reach out her hands to cradle around Yuliana; she does not interrupt the gesture to offer her a hand; she may take it, if she wishes. But Elisa creates a cavern, a warmth, a place she may hide if she chooses instead, or that may be her support at her back if she wishes.
"Why have you come?" she asks, calmer than before. "I assume it is not simply to distress my wife, since you show concern for her well-being."
She is not distant in the moment; she is utterly focused, utterly present.
"I must care for her."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
He is red, and they are green, green as envy and more jealous still. He is the First and the Last, and he is... concerned.
Oh, God! He really, truly is.
Yuliana's hand is dark and trembling, in Kaworu's, as she dares to reach out and take it. Elisa is here, she knows; she can feel her, and her characteristic unwarmth, cool about them. "I... I don't know," Yuliana chokes out, as she rises -- with someone else's help. She sounds so hopelessly, totally lost, as she repeats: "I don't know..."
But --
But Elisa insists on her care, and perhaps Kaworu even FEELS it, through her fingertips -- Yuliana's unbridled, bone-chilled horror. "Elya!" She gasps, and parts from him, to stumble back into the cage of her wife's fingertips. (She has, surely, the normal amount of joints.)
She presses herself to Elisa's palm, and hitches out: "Why?!" why are you TALKING LIKE THEM, my beloved wife, you are not like them, we are different, we are BETTER, do you jest?!
But without that horrifed mental backbeat, it might sound like the same question she asks of Kaworu, looking long to him over her shoulder: "Why would you intrude on me this way?!"
<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.
At the very least, he is a Child. Beyond that, he is certainly no boy. Kaworu observes, without looking directly at Elisa, how she cradles her hands around Yuliana, as if she might scoop her protectively up to her chest. Yuliana herself seems quite horrified by her concern, and given how little she seems to like him perhaps that's understandable, but she takes his hand all the same. He stands, elevatoring up with slow grace to carry her with him.
It doesn't last either way, for Yuliana gasps at Elisa's care as if offended, reeling back away from him into her hands. He lowers his hand, tucks it into his pocket, and watches the wives; he glances at Elisa for her questions, then gazes again upon Yuliana. For both of them, his faint smile is now faintly smiled.
"I believe I already told you both: Rita Bernal asked for my help in finding a way to speak with Yuliana Kafim," he replies. "It wasn't my intent to distress either of you, though perhaps that was unavoidable." Gently, his lips fall into a frown of concern as he considers the Things that harrangue Yuliana still. "You are still encaged."
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Nearly, Elisa does exactly this thing. She almost picks Yuliana up and brings her away from this strange being before her. But she calls out to her, and then she asks why, and Elisa does not appear to notice. Instead, she looks to Kaworu still, and considers him.
Those questions of theirs... Hm.
"...Ah," Elisa answers, and comes to understand. "Because she cannot reach her with her power," Elisa says. "She can only speak with my Yuliana indirectly..."
"You are mine," she tells Yuliana, as if finally considering the question. "Do not forget."
Then she leaves her hands where they are, so that Yuliana can press herself there. She considers...
"Yes," Elisa says. "She is encaged by this world. Reaching out to her, She has attempted to come closer, but is stymied by this world's resistance. The torsion of these forces entraps my Yuliana, and wounds her."
"...I should have recognized your intention," she reflects. "But I did not expect you to hold such power, to be able to reach her in this way. A 'real' being, yet apart from us..."
Hm.
"She is precious to Her. And to me. I will remove all obstacles to my Yuliana's life. All."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Ritechka..." It's a particular Zaftran affection, crafting nicknames which as as often longer than the original name as they are shorter. Still -- there is affection, there, unfeigned. "That is as she sees? The knowing perception?" Her words crowd over herself, and perhaps Kaworu, at least, can perceive why:
Yuliana is not alone. A woman haunts her, through the wound she makes of the world as she walks. A woman who gazes through those torn psychic cracks, possessive, in the way of love. A woman with ten throats and ten mouths, who can speak as many phrases as she likes, simultaneously.
It is a method of communication which is Real.
She does not yet have the lips to speak it.
Knowing Yuliana's fear, her pain, her jealousy and her rage, maddened by the isolation she has always known?
"How horrible..." Yuliana murmurs, curling into Elisa's palm.
Elisa tells her, though, and Yuliana nods, against Elisa's cool skin. Her eyes fall to her right hand, to the violet-gemmed bracelet, there; to her wedding bands. "I'm yours," she murmurs, and does not try to escape her protectively-curling fingers. "I'm yours..."
Surely she's just being foolish.
Surely it doesn't mean anything.
Surely it's...
No, it must be Elisa's will that the dolls were echoing, Yuliana decides, and her heart is lightened to realise it. When they said such a thing, so rote -- they only echoed Elisa's desire. Of course Elisa would speak it. It comes from her.
Everything comes back to her.
She sighs, and relaxes, into Elisa's hand. "I am loved," she says, as she turns her head to regard Kaworu, again. Elisa has explained the conditions of her caging; she does not (dare) gainsay her. "My Elisa is my fiercest protector... though all this world's against us."
Yuliana shifts, just so, leaving her chest at an angle to Elisa's palm; a little easier, perhaps, to regard him. "I would offer you nothing," she says, with a shade of apology, "but I've nothing more to give. My Elisa has claimed me... even so, it is good, I think." A pause, as she glances up to Elisa's larger eyes, before she looks back to Kaworu. "... yes, it is good to know you truly exist."
She takes a breath, her fingers smoothing, over Elisa's cool skin. Unlike hers, scarred and marked, it's flawless. Yuliana remarks on it often, and thinks of it again, now. How lovely...
"Ritechka cannot reach me in this way. The attempt was too flawed. This world cannot create us. It is... sad. But the future will be better," she insists, a shade reverant. "For now, though... she speaks with the violations of her kind. I forbid it. I recognise only the physical world, a thing denied her. All she has is that Gundam... but they'd not even taught her signals before she left, I suppose." Hand signals, that is. They're a terribly convenient trick in the military.
<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.
"Precisely," Kaworu tells Elisa. "As I said, I thought it would be simpler this way."
And it isn't as though there was going to be anything good on the other side of the void. Regardless, he listens to Elisa's take on his comment on Yuliana's state of being. Most of it he accepts at face value, except--
"'Real'?" he echoes. "Most beings are real. They simply can't reach her, that's all." He looks at Yuliana. "The walls of your cage keep them from you, and you from them, with walls too high and thick for Lilim to possibly climb." Again, his eyes shift subtly with sympathy. "It's truly terrible, what's been done to you."
He doesn't interrupt the chant Elisa and Yuliana echo back and forth to each other. On the contrary, he admires it in silence. Love... It is a wonderful power--the greatest in all the universe. Yet it is a rose with long and sharp thorns. Handle it carelessly, and...
For it's as Elisa says: Yuliana is caged, but she is not alone. It, or rather She, is not something Kaworu could see from the outside. He doubts Rita has any idea that She exists. To have only that as company... it grieves his heart.
"Your devotion is admirable," he tells Elisa. "I have someone I love like that, too, so I can understand some of your plight." His smile is bittersweet as it turns to Yuliana. "I'm glad you appreciate how much you're loved, Yuliana Kafim."
Her almost-apology gets a shake of the head. "You needn't offer me anything. I have nothing I want from you, save, perhaps, your cooperation in regards to Rita. I do this because I recognize how much she cares for you." He falls silent to listen to her; he acknowledges her in silence. However, he does give her a considering look. "That was actually what she sought me for at first: to teach her sign language, that she might express herself to you through the Phenex. Would that suit you better after all?"
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Of course they simply echo Elisa's will. And that will... Well.
Elisa's will is strong.
She is loved, Yuliana says, and it is true. All this world is against them... and she does not offer Kaworu nothing. This is well. Elisa has claimed her, and this is true. She considers him. He exists, and the future will be better. Rita... Hmmm.
Yes, she speaks in that way.
Kaworu explains. "Hmmm," Elisa remarks, as to 'reality', and perhaps she is legitimately considering it. He speaks of 'Lilim', and Elisa does not consider herself one of them without even knowing the signifigance of the term. But it might be difficult for Yuliana... She will have to address that. "We can discuss this," she says to Yuliana. "This belief... Trust in me, and we shall find our answer together."
Kaworu speaks of her devotion, and all that could be offense is calmed. He has someone else that he loves. "Yes," she says. "...You seem to understand much. Though it would seem that this, while 'simpler', is less effective than the alternative."
Her cooperation...
"Once, I summoned Rita to this place, with a ward around her to protect her from our Power. Perhaps in this way she could communicate with my Yuliana... But I think that sign language would be a better path. I recognize as well the care Rita holds for her. Her destruction of the hated Major is an important act I will not soon forget."
"But it is of course my Yuliana's decision to make." Not that it doesn't sound to Elisa as if she's already made it.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"They're... real..? They just can't reach me..?" New horror dawns in Yuliana's eyes. Certainly this is not the first time someone has said it; but the characters in the play all insist, fiercely, that they are real and true beings in a real and true world. That is the nature of fiction.
It's different, when it's someone who really exists.
"But... but, if t-that's..." Yes, her voice trembles; her fingers curl, as she presses herself into Elisa's palm. Her distress is clear to see, even without knowing the creeping horror about her heart that she could have been --
If she's been hurting real people all this time --
But Elisa is real. And Yuliana would never hurt her, not on purpose! Even if she loses her temper, even if she isn't always thinking... she's not cruel to Elisa! She's not!
Yuliana's breath hitches, but Elisa knows her torment, and she takes a shuddering, centreing breath. "Yes," she sighs, sinking into her. "Above all else, I trust you, Elya."
Again and again, Elisa interrupts her, subliminates her, redefines her.
"There is no one more admirable than my Elisa," Yuliana says, to Kaworu, and smiles.
But Elisa... isn't the only one who cares for Yuliana. Rita, as well... "I cannot see her," Yuliana says, saddened, to her wife. "They forced her to a state of complete violation... to be nought but psychic will. How could they have driven her to that..? What trespasses did they commit, to bring her such peace about her sorry existence..? Elya, she was my friend... though they had me hate her so!"
Yuliana bemoans all this, and does not connect at all the trespasses which caused her to hate Rita's empathic abilities so, so much.
A blind seer, mad and raving.
But -- but Elisa thinks sign language would be better, after all, and Yuliana calms herself a moment later. (Her care -- her care -- it comes out as anger, as discontent. There is care there, certainly. It has not survived intact.) "... yes," she takes a breath, looking back to Kaworu. "Yes, Ritechka is a sensible girl. Were she to speak through the Gundam she possesses, this could I hear. I'm proficient in both the Britannian and OCU styles, as well as Da Han Zhong's, of course." A pause; a frown flits over her face. "The Chinese style, I should say."
But leaving aside the quiet comments on how one describes that nation: "Yes. Yes, this should suit me, I think."
<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.
This 'belief,' Elisa calls it. Kaworu considers her but does not contest her further.
Perhaps Elisa has her own cage with too-high walls, and seeks to share that cage with her wife.
Instead, he looks to Yuliana, who looks at him with horror. He doesn't reflect that horror back at her, but a new, concerned understanding of her. "Did you think they weren't, all this time?" he wonders. "I see... So that's why."
It's easy to be casually cruel when you think none of it is real anyway. Wasn't Akane much like that, early on, when she considered the Repli-Compoids who lived in her city nothing more than pieces of data for her to edit and erase at will?
Returning to the matter of why he came, he nods slightly to Elisa. "It does seem unfeasible to weaken these walls from within," he concedes, though he notes the way she says our Power. He looks again with sympathy to Yuliana as she expresses her anger and sorrow about Rita--and doesn't remark further on the trespasses on Yuliana herself.
"I don't want to cause Rita to become endangered, either. Hers is a kind soul. It would be good for it to continue to manifest," he says instead. "I'll be sure to study these styles so I may teach them to her." He pauses in consideration; then he suggests, "As long as I'm here, could I ask of you to study and review with me, Yuliana Kafim?" He looks back at Elisa. "Though of course if you need to discuss the other matters with your wife first, I can take my leave instead."
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Yuliana, indeed, has a great deal of trouble with it. Perhaps Elisa does have those walls... But for the moment she says, "Yes. We shall discuss."
"Indeed," Elisa answers for Yuliana, at her question. But she does not elaborate further. Not for now. There are things that must be considered...
"I do not wish to extinguish her," Elisa answers, and it is something like an agreement with Kaworu. Instead, she considers Yuliana, and smiles. "You are so talented, my darling." Such linguistic proficiency!
But Kaworu asks, and, "We can discuss these other matters later. I suspect it will be an involved discussion. For now, by all means. Study, review. My Yuliana is very clever, and will be able to help you to understand these languages if she wishes it."
Which it sounds like it does.
"Yes... 'Reality' shall come later. For now," she says, "It is well." She takes a seat, again, but only after gently picking Yuliana up. Then, she sets her just as carefully before her, at her skirts, so that she can still conceal herself if she wishes. She leaves her hand down below. But she does not keep hold.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Isn't it nice to share?
Yuliana shares everything with Elisa.
The look she shares with Kaworu, in turn -- harrowed and horror-held -- may say all she needs, on the subject of what she thought of humanity. "Y--yes," she agrees, turning her face back to Elisa's palm, hiding the way she shudders against her. They'll discuss it later, just as Elisa said.
It's a calming thought, perhaps. Certainly, Elisa calms her, allows her to be calm. She smiles, as well, as Elisa compliments her, shining and foolishly in love.
Yuliana, of course, trusts Elisa completely; when she picks her up to rearrange herself, Yuliana sinks into her, and lets her move her as she wills. Her legs extend, when Elisa reaches back down, to pad each slipper'd foot to the warm fur on the ground; she turns to hug the side of her hand, and for a moment, considers staying right where she is.
But -- Elisa assures her it is well, and Yuliana smiles, up to her. "Later," she promises her, with gratitude and affection. "Then, for now, I will escort him to the library. I'll not be far, zhenushka."
She turns, and, finally, steps away from her wife.
"Come," she gestures, to him, smiling. "I will show you the way."
And it is only later, reviewing the styles, that she'd admit:
"I do not wish to endanger her, though I was made to be so."
A thing said without meeting his eyes, in a tone which forbids further comment.
<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.
They truly love each other so much. However foolish it might be, that's a good thing, in Kaworu's view.
"Very well. Until we meet again, Elisa Kafim," Kaworu replies, and goes to the library with Yuliana. Whether Elisa's feelings on Rita are the same as his or not, it's enough that she doesn't want to extinguish her. He'll let them discuss reality between themselves; it's enough to him that he was able to prove, however unintentionally, that other people are real to Yuliana. For now, he cups the light of his heart within himself; the giant of light that is his presence sits back down on the floor. The reality of him, however, does not fade.
They go to the library and study therein. Kaworu is himself a quick study, picking up almost immediately on anything Yuliana has to teach him. When Yuliana comments on Rita and on herself, he considers her with gravity.
"I know," he says, and leaves it at that.