2023-02-21: Being Someone's Success
- Cast: Seolla Schweizer, Leina Ashta
- Where: Pacific Ocean - TDD-1
- Date: U.C. 0097 02 21
- Summary: Leina beelines her way to meeting the TDD-1's latest recruit. No amount of tsun can save Seolla from her friendship energy.
<Pose Tracker> Seolla Schweizer has posed.
The insistence on logging her activity to a very immaculate degree has done quite a lot for Seolla Schweizer as she gradually gets to the point of regular sleep and regular tasks aboard the TDD-1. The faces of everyone she meets, a tracker of exactly what she's been eating, a run-down of her activity levels, energy, and emotional state on the hour. It helps that it's a habit she'd already gotten into for a while - maybe she's in the stage of being a little too into it, since it's something new and different to rhythm her life to.
...but then, it's a proven strategy, isn't it? After all, it's the exact same approach the Shuffle Alliance had taken for Latune Subota, subject to...similar, though not exactly the same regimen. (Seolla was definitely given more physical tests whereas Latune was stuck on drugs made as mental stimulants - but there's some shared commonalities.)
Seolla's taking well enough to even doing fairly menial labor aboard the ship - ferrying food and laundry and doing some of the cleaning. She's still mostly resting and reading, but if she's going to be antsy to get up and moving even when she maybe shouldn't, tasks that at least bring her to a bit of a stamina drain are an efficient way to calm her down.
...well, normally. But when she hears that a VIP, "Leina Ashta" is coming aboard the TDD-1, Seolla's admittedly...rather anxious. It's an old pattern of hers - she's supposed to impress anyone who's a higher-up and be on her best behavior, with the baked in promise that any missteps with them would be harshly punished---
That won't happen here, but she still has that framework in her mind - and she notes it down. >13:00 - Someone named Leina wants to board. I'm nervous about it. Is everything clean? Is everything where it should be? I'm trying to think of what I've forgotten. Kalinin wasn't too difficult to get along with thankfully...
...Dr. Goldberry is likely to at least help her through that instinct if she sees that sort of note.
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
Leina is admittedly uncomfortable with her status as a VIP, the Captain's Guest. She feels like everyone wants to salute her when she walks by in her civilian clothing! Then there was Sousuke, he was obviously upset but... he wouldn't talk back to her, wouldn't even raise his voice.
The Mass Produced Double Zeta lands in the hangar rather punctually, aggressively pink and white. Seolla may find it unusual, despite being an MP Gundam, there may perhaps be a struggle to place it, given that only four exist.
The helmet is left behind in the cockpit, as she leaves in her pilot suit, a bag hoisted over her shoulder. Today she's here because this is simply the best way to get to Merida Island undetected.
The Hangar crew thankfully doesn't do the whole line up and salute routine, she comes often aboard often enough now.
If Seolla is made anxious by her arrival, she may be made MORE anxious by the fact that the moment Leina comes across her after boarding... she all but - instantly diverts right towards her, even if she's trying to stay out of sight or busy herself with another task.
Her hair is short and fluffy albeit slightly mussed from the helmet hair, and the smile she wears lights up to an almost impossible sunny degree upon spying her.
"Why hello there. I'm Leina Ashta. And you must be Seolla?"
She says, while offering her a hand to shake in such a casual way, "Sayla told me a lot about you. I'm her Ward, she pretty much raised me."
A beat pause and, "Honestly, you have no idea how happy it makes me to have you here with us."
<Pose Tracker> Seolla Schweizer has posed.
The arrival of an unfamiliar mobile suit, combined with everyone being relatively casual about it (but hasn't so much been casual aboard this thing...?) very much sends Seolla into the ~uncertainty arm-flappy~ zone. Look busy, look busy! Sweeping and sweeping at nowhere in particular, boy does the docking bay get dusty! (it's practically sparkling and has been for hours)
The beeline Leina has for her makes Seolla indeed try to look like she's just passing by, hanging her broom on a rack and then getting out a clipboard like she's off to do some important check - but she can't really divert fast enough.
She's tense, and Leina can clearly see it, shoulders hiked up high, eyes wide and evasive - but then Seolla finally takes a real look at Leina, and things melt...about 50%. Not at all the kind of person she was expecting - yet another key member of the organization basically right around her age. A terse swallow-
And then a flitting glance to Leina's hand, lips pursed a little bit. She does indeed grasp it - her grip a little too tight, just off of instinct. But...she isn't sure what exactly to do here.
And when Seolla's uncertain-
"...D-don't get too happy or anything, hmph-! ...I...I'm mostly here because I can't really go anywhere else-" (kind of a lie!) "-And because I have people important to me that I've gotta save." (that's the truth!) "R-really, all the stuff I've been hearing about Mithril, and the Shuffle Alliance, is way over my head, so before you get any ideas about the cause or the purpose of your order or anything like that, it's not what I'm here for!"
Lips pursed and cheeks puffed slightly, Seolla withdraws her hand, clasping them behind her cheek and taking one wary little step backwards, posture clearly defensive. "...but...if Doctor Mass raised you, I guess I can assume you're alright. I owe her a whole lot, so...take that for what it's worth...!"
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
Seolla's handshake is more than just firm. She'd read intelligence reports about the School even if she hasn't tried to take a peek inside her medical records or deconditioning reports.
Then she turns on the tsun. And Leina just blinks at first, giving her a scrutinizing look, one that might turn the anxiety up more! Because what is she thinking, how is she reacting?
As the handshake ends and she takes a step back, Leina's still giving her that look even as she can assume she's alright. She owes Sayla a whole lot.
Awkward silence might just hanggggggg for a time, then... it just breaks, with an effusive, "Oh my God you're adorable!"
Wait what? Seolla just sees that smile break onto her face again as she raises a hand as if to head off the idea that she's trying to sell her to Mithril or Shuffle right off at the pass, "It's okay! I'm not here to sell you to our cause or some ideology, that's not why I'm happy you're here at all."
Is she actually closing her eyes while she gives her that smile? "Let's just say I'm very invested in people in situations like your own. That's a cause very near and dear to my heart."
Her tone is a touch more serious now, perhaps because of what 'situations like Seolla's own' might mean. "Actually if you can spare the time, I'd love to get to know you, find out how you're adjusting to your transfer to Jindai?"
Oh no she's not being slowed down by the Tsun shields at all!!!!
<Pose Tracker> Seolla Schweizer has posed.
N-n-noooooo, the tsun's supposed to put people at a distance! When Leina goes all smiles, all adorably, Seolla's practically sweating - and at being called adorable - absolutely hot in the cheeks. Looking this way. Looking that way.
"W-what in the world do you mean...something near and dear to your heart? W-we just met, don't be silly-!" Seolla's hands ball up, a little grumbling followed by another evasive little glance - this time to Leina's Gundam.
-well, already here, people she's 'just met' have been way too kind, haven't they?
-and isn't that one of the concerns, because now, her life's full of unfamiliar entities. People she can't quite really say she knows. People who, maybe can understand some of what she's been going through, but not the people who've been through it themselves. Can you even really get along with someone like that?
If Leina can smile like that - just at someone on a whim - is she even someone Seolla can trust-?
...the trepidation practically seeps from Seolla, in a way Leina can assuredly feel. The surface barrier of her blustery resistance is broken, but it's not just that. There's an entire defensive network bubbling from below the surface. Her heart deploying wall after wall after wall, pushing her further away with each one, entirely of her own doing.
"...mn, I...well. The transfer...to Jindai's, been...fine, except for how...the actual schoolwork is...a little above my league, so even though I spend time there, I'm kinda...doing different assignments. ...I was...technically at Tokyo-3 for a bit, but it wasn't really easy there, and it's not really easy here either."
...It's a realization only just now setting in for Seolla, too. That by the credentials of actually being in an education program, her courseload has to shift around what she actually even knows. By many metrics, then, compared to her peers - she's floundering.
"...I mean. I keep hearing it's okay, considering my circumstances, so there's that at least," Seolla murmurs under her breath.
--but of course it's not just 'okay', not given her experiences with what failing entails. The defensiveness turns a little sour. A little acrid. There's a tension at the corner of her lips about it.
You are empty-handed.
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
At first Leina looks delighted by her reaction but then it shifts... Seolla's evasive little look, balled up hands, the smile on Leina's face dims at her words at first. It is a cause near and dear to her heart but...
... she can feel the trepidation certainly, can feel her putting up her own defenses. It's not even difficult for her to feel truly.
Putting up psychic walls is a very real thing to her - so reflexive that it has become a defense mechanism all of her own.
She doesn't respond to that part at first, just listening to her talk about Jindai. She discusses the schoolwork, and indeed she imagines the schoolwork is tough in and of itself...
... but...
She doubts the schoolwork is the entirety of the problem, still she offers a sympathetic look, "Transferring in to a Japanese school is tough. Even if you're fluent in the language, there's so much cultural context missing to how its taught. If you'd like some help with your schoolwork while I'm aboard, my ex-boyfriend is Japanese, so I have a lot of exposure."
A pause and... "Hey Seolla, walk with me? Not far I promise" It's just, asked, and if Seolla doesn't want to, it's fine, but otherwise she takes her behind a stack of strapped down crates containing spare parts for Gernsbacks for a measure of privacy.
It takes her a moment to work up to it, despite her best efforts, but in this privacy eventually she manages, as she just, starts, "The reason I say your situation is near and dear to my heart is because... nine years ago, I was a prisoner of war for Neo-Zeon." She tells her a touch solemnly, "An officer took interest in me and... well, I became something like his pet doll, I suppose, is the best way to put it."
There's a bitterness in her tone, repeating what Full Frontal called her but she quickly moves on from that, "He ran a... Cyber-Newtype lab, which I was... exposed to, a lot, just by being around him."
Her eyes close briefly, not happy memories those, "And I got to know one of the girls within it while I was there who was about my age. We had a... complicated relationship, but in the end we decided to become family together."
A sadness creeps into her smile, "She died before the end of the First Neo-Zeon war, but I see her as kind of a little sister to this day despite that? So I get that you're probably thinking 'we just met how can she say such things?' But... seeing people in similar situations to hers getting out of places like that? Getting a second chance to live their lives as they choose?"
She murmurs, much softer, "That's important to me." Taking a deep breath as if to bury those feelings again back beneath the surface, she forces a smile again, "If I'm being too forward talking to you like this, about this, then it's okay-! I don't mind backing off, giving you space to figure this out. Just, I guess I can't help feeling happy that you're getting that chance that she didn't?"
Then softer, "That's important to me." She perks back up, "So if you need anything going forward, any help at all... I just wanted to make myself available to you, that's all."
<Pose Tracker> Seolla Schweizer has posed.
At the very least, Seolla wouldn't turn away from an easy request like that. Taking a long deep breath, she follows Leina into that little spot of cover, taking a seat atop one crate, arms folded over her front - one arm holding onto her bicep. On the way over, for a time - her worries only escalate, swirling and swirling in lots of different directions.
If anything, going to Jindai has sort of just led her to cling to the few who she shares something with. It's probably already noted that she's been just about inseparable from Tessa and Sousuke...
-But, Leina recounts her story, and Seolla does her best to dial into it. ...things gradually click into place. Not just that situations like hers have happened plenty of other places (something she's still fighting the instinct not to think about) - but that...it's something people have escaped from - and, what's more, something that others can take a personal stake in.
That much is easy to understand. Hollow memories float to Seolla's surface. Of etched-out people smiling at her. Hoping she'd stay in touch with her. She never did. She never was allowed to - and even now, their faces are distant, unrecognizable forms.
---as soon as a memory like that emerges, Seolla hastily pulls her notebook free, and hurriedly begins drawing Leina's face in intense detail. -were she to peek over at this process, it's surprisingly accurate and well-made for the speed Seolla's sketching her in. But it's a work done...maybe out of panic.
An assumption that the things Leina's saying are important - the person Leina is, will one day be important - and that she won't be able to recall her words, or her face, or her name. The picture's followed by short little notes - 'Pushes forward to meet people. Had a connection with a Cyber-Newtype 9 years ago, before they were lost. Helping is personal to her.'
A deep breath of relief - securing the book right back in her side-pack diligently. It's a memory etched in pen and paper now - something Seolla can trust more than her own mind. "...I had no idea that...people like you existed. ...no. ...when people like you did exist, I thought it was a joke at my expense. Nn. I knew a guy who...who'd say stuff all sympathetically. Who'd get a pitiful look on his face about it all. But he just. Never fought about it. Never stepped up. Just...kept feeling sorry for himself as more and more of us-"
Seolla clicks her tongue firmly, eyebrows knitting together, before shaking her head this way and that, braid flicking against her cheek. "...you all are the real deal, it's sounding like. It's a little hard to really...believe. I've been trying not to think about it, but...haven't had the best luck with that."
One eye closed, the other finally looks straight at Leina - without being dodgy or distracted or focusing on just the replicable shapes of it for her drawing. "...kh. I'm hardly going to...figure it out on my own, that's for sure. ...I gotta be careful. Careful that you're not...a dream I'm having. An illusion I'm misunderstanding. I still don't know if the way I feel is the right way to feel. ...I don't even want to think about that. I just..."
Seolla's lips tighten. "...s-stay in touch with me, and I'll make sure to follow your dire-" Clenching up briefly, "...I want to help you do these...these things I wish I'd known were possible. If all I'm good for is figh-" Another pause of self-correction. "...I want to use the things I can do...for this important calling of yours."
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
Leina does not interrupt her story as Seolla pulls out her notebook, as she starts drawing, there's a small cant of her head to the side in curiosity, but even as much as she'd like to see it, she doesn't try to invade her privacy by standing on her tip toes, or leaning to check it out...
"There were some like that in her lab too." Leina confides quietly, a touch disturbed, "The 'nice' ones, who would handwring when she was screaming, but they wouldn't pull her out of the conditioning machines... and they wouldn't save me."
Leina closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, then exhales out of her nostrils, "Honestly my one regret is that I couldn't do more. For years I was just trying to find... other girls like her from that lab. To try and help them, to reunite them. ... But I was a school kid, not a pilot like her."
She fields a smile at that moment, "Now I can do more. And I promise you, this is real, even if I know how easy it is to believe that it's not..."
Leina actually reaches into her bag, and brings out a datapad, and taps it a few times, before turning it around to show her, "This is a news article about the Institute of Continuing Study in the REA, which just had its existence revealed to the public. It is one of those places, like the School."
There's a pause and, "... We did this, and we got the victims out, then had the place razed to the ground. They're currently people we're helping right now. For some, it'll be a long road, but at least now..." Despite how grim the subject is, she smiles, "...at least now they have a chance. If you do want to help us with things like this, you'd be welcome."
A moment passes, two moments, three moments, then, "But I have to take issue with one thing you said. I remember one time that my little sister was upset, angry at me that the officer in charge of us both raised me to be... a lady, while she was raised to be a weapon, how unfair it was."
There's this, just warm smile, "I thought about it a lot, about how him defining who we were just... put up walls between us, distracted us from what was important." She then adds quietly, "You, have so much more value than being able to fight for us, than being what they told you you were, okay? I know that may still be hard for you to believe too, like that too is an illusion... but, I promise you, it's true."
A small pause, and then, "Now that you're out of there, I'm sure one day you'll see it too, without a doubt."
<Pose Tracker> Seolla Schweizer has posed.
Seolla quickly holds onto the datapad, staring at the presentation of stories, eyes wide at the records of the battle over this institute. Of the scientists pushing children to their limits, and the...familiar...sort of look on those kids - the ones who elected to actually be publicly recorded.
...at seeing the people who did this held to account.
--all she really wanted. All that drove Seolla here was somehow finding Arado and Ouka, and pulling them out. Maybe. MAYBE if she were lucky - convincing Chienne, Chien, and Chiot, as hard a prospect as that'd be for someone as weak as herself.
She never wanted to see the people responsible again-
...until right this moment.
It's possible, after all. This very footage shows how possible it is. And a deeper realization hits Seolla. Recollection of vague talk around her. Of military officials reviewing her credentials. Talking about her results favorably.
'they'd do this again if they could'
"...they'd do it again if they could. They...probably will, even if I break Arado and Ouka out. ...i...it's not enough. I can't let it be enough." Finally, the cold and spiny harshness spilling from her like gasoline gets lit on fire. Is that the pattern? Dousing herself in her own ichor so she can use it as fuel?
"I'm not going to let it be enough! I keep...I keep learning how angry I am about all this. I...want it to be an anger at...not being able to work hard enough to change it. I want it to be a pointless anger at the world. ...But I. Leina. I'm. I'm just so angry with them. And...it's dizzying. I feel like I'm perched on top of a cliff and trying to fight the waves and the rocks down below. I can't breathe when I think of it."
The tablet is pushed back to Leina's face fiercely, as Seolla hops down from her perch. "...I can't...I can't think of 'one day' at this point. ...I...I know that's probably not what you want to hear, Leina. But...It's not enough that I'm out of there. Not yet. I can't go thinking about the rest of my life right now. It's not something I'm ready for. I don't think. ...right. The things I'm doing here, just living on this ship for a while. Meeting all of you. They're...temporary until further notice. I have something left unfinished there. Something more important than what I 'want'. ...especially now that I'm starting to feel better, a little more stable, a little less dizzy and tired. I gotta get my head back in it. The only way I'll be able to do this kind of thing is if I get back to how capable I'm supposed to be in a fight. And I won't be able to push that off any longer. So...when things like these come up. ...call me, and I'll get to it, okay?"
Quickly, Seolla gives Leina her phone - and her VERTEX contact. Handle: @ss19238572, a locked account without a profile picture at all. Bio merely says: 'personal contacts only'. Utilitarian, to be sure. She's blazing with determination for this, all the sudden. A far cry from how gloomy she was just a few moments ago.
...but...doesn't it run the risk of being misplaced...?
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
'...they'd do it again if they could. They...probably will,'
There's this small catch in her breath, then, a nod. "They would. Those kind of people..." Pause, "... they would." Right before she faces the flames of those anger.
And she remembers those PSA's when she was a child in Shangri-la, about how if there's a fire, feel the door knob with the back of your hand.
Again, she's a child outside a door, feeling that which is going on within. A separation between the one who is going through it, and the one who is merely witnessing it.
In this moment though, she feels like she wants to burn so much of the Federation too, even in the indirect touch, "... It's okay. It's okay to be angry." She tells her after a moment, feeling that heat through the door, "You should be angry. I know I am. Every single day that places like this exist."
She takes a breath, it feels like its scorches her throat, but as the datapad is jammed back, she takes it, then puts up those walls and allows that pulse of anger to ease back off, "... It's not about what I want to hear, Seolla. It's about how you feel. Okay? I can at least accept your feelings, even if I don't always agree with them. If there's something you have to do, if this has to stay temporary right now - then I'll accept that too."
A momentary pause, then "Ultimately, that's what everyone fought for, that's what I fight for... you to have that right, to choose how you live this your life in the moment, and every moment after that."
Leina IS unsettled by this though, because that is definitely, a marked change. She's worried, is Seolla just going to charge into a Bionet facility tomorrow?
Checking her VERTEX contact, Leina makes certain it's properly listed in the contacts and... "May I message you for more things than just, calling you up for these sort of raids?" She asks after a moment, "Even if it's just to ask how you're doing?"
Even if she can't halt that anger perhaps, she can at least perhaps, come at it sideways in trying to nudge it towards actions that will help her deal with it, rather than be overwhelmed by it.
She can do her best to help her through the healing process just by trying to be there for her.
<Pose Tracker> Seolla Schweizer has posed.
...It takes a lot for Seolla to wind down her heat for just a second - but the moment she does, it all saps down the drain easily, and she's left...rather tired and thrown off from her horse. She needs to reach out and grab the corner of a crate to catch her breath there.
"...ah. You'd want to just...call me for something as simple as that? I...I don't know how exactly that works. Wasn't even me who set up the account...Kurz was the one who really wanted me to give it a shot, but it's pretty unfamiliar." Her phone covering her lips balefully, Seolla fidgets on her toes, before finally-
"Alright. I'll do my best to...respond to you in a timely manner. Won't always have a lot to say, but..." Clapping her own cheeks, eyes squeezed tight, she gununus in gentle frustration, before shaking her hands free, stepping backwards once - and trying to give Leina a short, courteous little smile. It doesn't come out as well if she tries to do it on demand...
"...I'm really glad, that we could meet."
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
Watching her lean against the crate, she can just see how much anger takes it out of her, she can definitely relate to that.
Leina presses her lips together at the idea of KURZ WEBER setting this up for her, "Sergeant Weber helped you with that... did he?"
Leina Ashta may be walking up to him again, and showing him her new Stun Baton, again. Just to ensure the purity of his intentions.
"But yeah, I would. And it's okay if you don't. I promise, there's no rules when it comes to talking with me. Say what you want, reply when you want. It's always okay with me. I just want to hear from you, when you can."
Leina tries her best not to let an internal squeal at how adorable she looks, because 'Oh my God she's adorable' still applies.
Then she mirrors the smile, but just with that same sunny warmth, "Me too. ... I'm so glad."
Then after a moment, "Hey, what say we head to the mess hall and take a load off for a while? Catch a meal together?"
She's not certain Seolla would appreciate her reaching out and supporting her physically right now when she's just so drained beneath the surface, not yet but...
... that's definitely not the only way to support someone.