2023-03-04: .what is written on my bones may instruct yoU
- Log: .what is written on my bones may instruct yoU
- Cast: Banagher Links, Yuliana Kafim
- Where: A video call received in the Silent Castle
- Date: 2023-03-04
- Summary: Banagher calls Yuliana up to ask for advice on the Banshee wailing by his window. Yuliana is surprisingly helpful.
<Pose Tracker> Banagher Links has posed.
He's already made so many bad decisions recently. What's one more?
>Hey, Yuliana.
>It's Banagher.
>Do you have some time to talk?
>I have a strange question.
Perched on the edge of his bed in his quarters of the Ra Mari II, the young pilot has certainly looked better. Dark circles beneath his eyes, tangled brown hair -- he's even wearing his hoodie zipped up for once. Should Yuliana accept the call, Banagher will greet her with a little smile and a wave.
"Hi. Thanks for talking with me, I know you've gotta be busy with other stuff." Banagher takes a moment to scoot toward the wall, leaning his back against it as he holds the phone out. "...You remember the Banshee." It's not a question. "Someone else is piloting it now, and my family did something horrible to them."
Banagher looks haunted even as he talks about it. "There's a lot of messed up stuff, but most importantly, the new pilot has trigger phrases that make her fight, or whatever they want. I know you've, um. Dealt with that. So I wanted to ask... Is there any way to break someone free of that kind of brainwashing in the middle of a fight?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana is very busy -- shitposting with Parminder about the pitfalls of Twin Tiger's software. As it happens, her sockpuppeting hobby can hurt the REA just as much as it helped them.
In the middle of that, her actual phone pops up with a message, and she puts her tablet down to look oer to it. "Huh," she remarks, half to herself. "You ever get the weird feeling that sometimes mice actually really like snakes?"
"You're talking right out of your ass, Captain," Parminder says, as he arranges another carefully-designed meme on his laptop. It's made to look like it was something carelessly thrown together by anyone, as if it's the will of the people.
That's half the fun of it!
"Tch," Yuliana scowls, to him. "Hang on, I have to go dangle this mouse."
Parminder just keeps working. "Yeah, you're definitely not gonna regret that." He's a very sarcastic fellow, but he doesn't stop Yuliana from stepping out into the hall, folding those frills behind her ears as she walks.
And so, a few minutes after Banagher sends his messages:
> Sure. Go ahead.
(It was 'ahaed', but the autocorrect caught it.)
Yuliana leans on the wall, and -- once more -- her snakes aren't in view, because one is holding the phone, and the other's curled about her waist, below where the camera's pointing. She even seems to have lost her ear-fins. She's also gained more hair; it's still shorter than it was before, but it's definitely getting there.
And amongst her jewellery -- she's gotten a lovely violet bracelet on her right wrist! -- there's her necklace, with its three dark green crystals. It's pretty obvious, given the halter tops she's taken to wearing.
"It's fine," she assures him, when he starts. She wasn't with Elisa, and so she was happy to be distracted by a phone call.
(We leave aside here all the calls Yuliana has ignored because she was in her wife's arms.)
She nods, as well, when Banagher brings up the Banshee -- and doesn't look surprised, to hear Lilith's not in it any more. She doesn't interrupt.
But -- what he asks...
Yuliana frowns; looks unsettled, for a moment. "Mm," she hums, through her lips, as she leans back on the stone wall of the hall.
-- with an alarmed little squeak, as she straightens up, and that other snake is visible in the frame for a moment, just as her earfins fan up from behind her ears in shock. "Ah shit that's cold!" She yipes, distracted from her melancholy. A little colour to her cheeks, as she remembers that they are as close to the North Pole as they can be. "Right, right..."
The camera begins bobbing slightly as Yuliana keeps walking down the hall, which, tragically, does not have a fireplace installed. It's a hall. It's for transit, not conversation.
"... anyway, if you're asking for my personal experience, you're asking the wrong person." Yuliana can talk and walk. She doesn't really have to worry about running into anyone. (There is a brief view of someone who must have swerved around her, walking behind her in the camera's view for a moment before they leave the frame. They move with purpose.) "I suppose they had those killswitches in me for years... tcha, but I couldn't have told you. But when they told me -- you know, anyone I recognised as my superior -- it was... easy to listen," and there are plenty of hitches and hesitations in that sentence, as Yuliana evaluates on her feet whether she's even willing to say it to this boy.
Surely it's just because he looks so wretched.
She pushes a door open with her other grasping snake, and pours herself inside, draping herself on the fainting couch there. There is a fireplace, crackling merrily in here. How does the Castle know to always have a fire burning where Yuliana is? That is a secret. "As for my interrogations -- well, I always found trigger phrases inefficient. I never much wanted to deal with them..." Yuliana sighs, looking up to the ceiling. "... though I wonder if 'I' did, in the here and now. Anyway, indoctrination was a much safer bet, particularly given the environment I was operating in. If you can just instill some belief in authority -- well, the authority's all around you. It's a pervasive belief which doesn't depend on something as flimsy as a phrase." A light shrug, "... and that means removing someone from that environment was always a danger. It's not by whim or accident that most of what I had to clean up was outside the Republic. If someone can flee to Africa, they're not reckoning with state media, advertising, culture..."
She fans out her fingers, attention moving from her phone's screen to the ring on her finger, for a moment. (Without pupils, it's difficult to track her gaze, but it doesn't take a genius to guess where she's looking.) "My Elisa would know more about this than I do," she settles on, finally. "It wasn't in a battle, but I was able to resist one of those commands, after all... well, since I was a state secret, I wasn't to speak of my situation or seek outside medical aid. But I did share something with my Elisa, in time, and further on..."
Her eyes blink shut, for a moment, before her hand lowers and she looks back to her screen. "... after all my Elisa's work," she supposes, "I was even able to decide to disclose something to Leyasha." Leina, contextually. "Even acting deliberately... well, I hadn't been re-educated for a while, so I suppose it would be easier for me, but even so."
Framing it as deciding to disclose to Leina, deliberately, may well disagree with Leina's own description of those events.
But Yuliana doesn't... sound like she's lying.
<Pose Tracker> Banagher Links has posed.
"Your hair looks nice." Banagher says, along with that little smile. "I'm surprised how quickly it's growing in. And, um -- did your ear-fins disappear..?"
That doesn't really matter, but it seems odd not to comment on it after making such a fuss last time. Banagher can't see the snake-arms either, but those could just be below the camera.
"Thanks," Banagher manages another little smile -- which fades as Yuliana squeaks, startling the young pilot. "A--h." Trying very hard not to laugh, he covers his mouth with a hand for a moment. Ah, there's the ear-fins and the snake. "Are you alright..?"
Face falling, Banagher closes his eyes. "Of course. You wouldn't know how to remove things that were done to you. Otherwise you'd have just removed them yourself. I'm sorry, this must be -- really hard to talk about."
Golden eyes open again as Banagher hears the sound of the fireplace. It's still a curious, unusual thing to him. A poor spacenoid would never have access to anything like this. Having a fire just sitting in your home seems more than a little strange.
"Indoctrination. I'm afraid I don't know the right words for all this stuff. I had no idea it was even real a year ago, and not something in movies." Banagher thinks for a moment. "So the Banshee's pilot must be kept at the Foundation's Garuda, to keep their brainwashing current. Then if we could just raid it, we could save them!"
Banagher brings a hand to his forehead, brushing aside his bangs. "I'd be grateful for any help E-- your Elisa could offer. I have to save the pilot. Do you remember anything that made it easier for you to break those commands? Was it trust in the people around you, or a sense of urgency?"
"So keeping her away from re-education is key." Banagher murmurs. He's trusting Yuliana. Why would she lie about this? "That's going to be hard. The Banshee is as fast as the Unicorn. It's --" He sighs, looking away. "It's wiped the floor with me the last three times we met. I'm working on getting stronger, but every moment that passes is a moment that pilot is suffering."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"My Elisa gave me something to help with it," Yuliana explains, on her hair, "and, hmm? Did they? Strange that something like that would just disappear... wouldn't it be difficult to hide?" Gaslighting is a free action! Tragically, Yuliana's fun is ruined by being surprised, quickly enough. Not that she's never denied something is happening even as it happens right in front of people's eyes, but... well, she has bigger things to worry about.
"Yes, yes," she agrees, a shade embarrassed, but she doesn't lambast him for trying not to laugh.
And once she's draped on that fainting couch...
She hums vague acknowledgement, with a crease in her brow, when Banagher guesses it would be hard to talk about. One hand lifts, fingers pressing, delicately, to her temple. "Indoctrination isn't entirely dissimilar to brainwashing... separate but related concepts, if you like. See coercive persuasion, thought reform, re-education, propaganda, hypnosis, psychological warfare, classical and operant conditioning, coercive control, traumatic bonding..." They're all the right words, and she can rattle them off so casually.
Hopefully, Banagher brought a pen and paper.
"Anyway," she says, looking back to her phone, "you've no hope if you can't remove her from the situation, yes. Because..." Here she pauses, again, a frown creasing her features.
Banagher will just have to endure silence, for those long moments, as her lips part and her hand crosses her body to grasp her upper arm. For a moment, she looks vaguely ill. It passes. Her discontent doesn't.
"... I always went back there," she settles on, finally, and her speech grows vague. "I even fought to return. Insisted... though I knew it wasn't pleasant. I'd... end my mission, or my dalliances, report back for my appointment... well, even when I wasn't booked in for therapy, there's a certain psychological pressure in... letting that happen.
"I suppose it must sound mild, putting it like that...
"Well, I had a lot of practice, you see.
"But 'that', you know, there were tanks which blocked all light and sound.
"And the air itself could become thin.
"Let's just say it wasn't just useful for brainwashing, when those internal displays lit up.
"And the procedures... well, I felt everything, since they wanted to document my unfiltered responses.
"To the needles they pushed into my spine, I mean.
"Things like that... we'll call them excellent reminders."
Yuliana takes a breath. It shudders. She looks down at her hand, at the bracelet around her wrist. "It was only when my Elisa had them put a stop to their experiments that I could really... it wasn't until that happened I could get some room to breathe. Before that, I didn't even let my Elisa into much of it... but once that stopped, you know, I could spend more time with her. I didn't have to worry about my Medical appointments. And... and it was trust, I suppose, yes. I knew I could trust her, after that... since she saved me."
She's quiet, again, for long moments.
"... but, you know, you're still very naive," Yuliana chastises him, still muted. "You look to this Banshee, and think, 'I must be as fast, I must catch it!'... you have to make peace with your enemies being better than you. You'd have done better in a wanzer, boy -- to know that your foes will, almost to a rule, be larger and heavier than you are."
She frowns, lightly.
"Focus less on where the Banshee exceeds you, and more on your own strengths. Do not linger on where you cannot match it; rather press the strengths which you have. Perhaps you are not as fast or as determined to accelerate... but I would hope you are more clever, Nasya, than a woman under active thrall. Outwit her! Ambush her, or trap her, or sabotage her." Her lips purse together, discontent. "She will go further than you. She will push herself to the death to destroy you. Your transgressions, then, must be lateral, because she will always win on the direct route."
<Pose Tracker> Banagher Links has posed.
"Oh, that makes sense." Elisa is a witch, after all. If she can summon void-portals, why shouldn't she be able to grow hair? It's probably far easier than rending reality apart. Banagher's eyes narrow in confusion as Yuliana attempts to deceive him about her fins and snakes. "...huh." He says, simply. Maybe this is some kind of joke at his expense. Banagher has never been very good at recognizing those.
Once Yuliana begins rattling off names, Banagher looks off to the side of the camera. "Recording! Recording!" A little robotic voice chirps. Haro served as Banagher's note-taker all through his time at Anaheim Electric, and did a very good job!
"Yuliana..? Are you alright? Please don't push yourself too hard." Banagher fills the silence himself, as she begins to look ill. Concern creases his brow. "If you need me to call someone--"
But she continues. Banagher quiets, listening first with gentle worry... and then increasing distress. Each new horrific experience listed feels like it's tearing into his heart. He isn't bonded to Yuliana, he could never be -- but... Banagher was there. He saw the truth of what was done to her, and Wira, and so many others.
By the time Yuliana takes a breath, the young man is in tears. Eyes wide with horror, he breathes in a shuddering sob. Why is this hitting him so hard? He knew -- he knew. He was there. So why does it hurt so much more to hear Yuliana talk about it?
Lowering his head, Banagher swipes at his eyes with the sleeve of his hoodie. "H--Haro. Stop recording."
"Recording stopped! Recording stopped!"
For a long moment, there's nothing but the sound of Banagher's quiet crying. He isn't ashamed, not anymore, after what the Captain said -- but still. The pain of what Yuliana and Wira and the Banshee pilot have experienced. How is this even real? How can this world be so horribly cruel?
How can this be the work of his own family?
"S--sorry. Sorry." Banagher raises his head, once he's gotten himself under control. "I'm so sorry, Yuliana, that we took so long. And -- thank goodness you're safe. No wonder Elisa means the world to you."
Banagher thinks he would bleed out for someone, too, if they saved him from that life.
"Stopping the worst of it was key to saving you..." Banagher murmurs. "Room to breathe, and building trust. Of course."
How would that work when the person you're trying to save is trying to capture you, though... Banagher's eye go faraway as Yuliana is quiet, mind racing.
"Wh--" He blinks back into focus as Yuliana chastises him. "I never meant to be a Gundam pilot! The only thing I'd piloted before this was a petite mobile suit to help fix up my Colony!"
Banagher hunches his shoulders, taking this criticism badly. But isn't this why he called? For advice and help? With a breath, he relaxes, and keeps listening.
"That's... really brilliant, Yuliana." Banagher says, slowly. "Even if they've enhanced the Banshee pilot's aggression, there's no way she knows the NT-D as well as I do. And she's not in harmony with her Gundam, it's always... screaming and shaking, like the Unicorn used to. Something is very wrong."
"Right. I don't have to beat it. I just have to stay alive, and slow it down." Banagher looks brighter already. "I'm not fighting alone like she is."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Why are you crying?" Yuliana wonders, absently, loosely raising her brow.
"It didn't happen to you, did it?"
... as if she's so divorced from empathy that she can't even conceive of why someone might cry for her.
(For her.)
She isn't crying, numb in recitation and expression. "I'd tell you to delete that," she says, her shame all wearied, as he points out his recording by stopping it, "but I suppose it hardly matters, any more.
"Not now everyone knows... no, I suppose I really can't hide that wretched existence, any more."
What happens, when Yuliana stops hiding?
How much is Yuliana hiding, anyway?
Don't worry about it.
"Don't worry about it," she echoes her grim thoughts, as Banagher chokes out his apologies. She doesn't ask if he's all right. He's apologising to her, after all.
"And yes -- yes, now you see." The fins about her ears unfurl, as her hands clasp, near her heart. There's more of a curve there than Banagher would have seen when he saw her in the world. She's not wearing her heavy tactical vest here, in her sanctum, where Elisa will protect her. "Elya... my Elisa saved me. So many times," her voice trembles with emotion, which may at least be nicer than the shallowness she had before. "Without fail. She is everything to me."
Even if it's hard to call it a healthy relationship... without Elisa, would Yuliana even have gotten out of the REA alive?
What would it have taken to rescue her, at that fever pitch of her life? How much trust would she have had to weave from nothing, to take someone's hand? What could have possibly left her open...?
She has so few connections; she savaged most of them to nothing.
But it's all academic, really -- because Yuliana has Elisa. (Elisa has Yuliana.)
"Oh, you and every third Gundam pilot," Yuliana sniffs, dismissively, as he talks about falling into the cockpit. "That is why you are naive. And easily employed... you should be sure to thank your dear Leyasha for looking out for you, you know."
Her lips tug into a smile which isn't entirely a sneer, "... since both she and my Elisa are looking after fools."
It's not the most comfortable joke, but sure -- she'll admit there's some shred of truth to it.
Still, she inclines her head. "There," she says, more encouraging. "You have it. If you try to beat your enemy at their own game, they will always win. You must force them to play your game -- even if they don't think they are." It's something of the entire playbook, all spelled out. Well, she can offer him that much.
That much and this,
"Do try to stay alive, won't you?"
<Pose Tracker> Banagher Links has posed.
"I -- hate thinking of that happening to you. To anyone. Especially knowing my family is doing this to someone because of -- the Box, and me refusing to give up." Banagher says, earnestly, nothing but truth and care in his expression.
Haro rolls into the view of the camera, nestling onto Banagher's lap. "We'll delete it, don't worry. Haro?"
"Last five minutes deleted!" Haro waves his flaps to Yuliana. "Deleted!"
Banagher grimly nods. "Just because people know doesn't mean I want to violate your privacy. Nobody will hear about it from me, I promise."
As he recovers himself, Yuliana unfurls her fins, and Banagher's eyes go wide. Woah... They really are kind of cool. It reminds him, in a way, of the Unicorn splitting her horn when she transforms.
"I'm happy for you." He murmurs. Banagher is still conflicted. This relationship is strange and concerning, but it's just a fact that Elisa is the reason Yuliana is still alive. Even without knowing much about Yuliana, Banagher can feel the truth of it.
Golden eyes blink, then crinkle, and Banagher laughs. "That's... so rude." He says, playfully, at that Gundam-pilot comment. "Don't worry. I know just how lucky I am to have her. Oh, today's her birthday -- you should message her, if you haven't already. I'm sure it'd make her smile."
"Thank you, Yuliana." Banagher says, sincerely. "I actually feel like I can do this. You really helped me out. I can't die. I have a lot left to do still!" Banagher glances down at Haro, blushing softly. "I want to get married too, someday. I have to make it that far, at least."
Yuliana is really a kinder person than anyone -- including herself -- gives her credit for.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"I've caused you grievous insult, by your reckoning," Yuliana frowns, lightly, with distant petulance. "You ought to be pleased by my affliction. Don't you call that 'justice'?" That poisonous logic --
But she blinks, overlong, and breathes out. "... but I suppose if you're wrapped up in your own sorrows, it's only natural my situation would be caught up in it. That's fine enough."
It's not entirely a feint.
A world where people care about someone like her doesn't feel real, either... even with the mounting evidence.
This one's still so unsafe, outside the walls of her Castle.
But... Banagher deletes the recording, anyway. "... thank you," she murmurs, a little at a loss.
Luckily, thoughts of Elisa are always there for her, when she's lost. And --
(And?)
Well, obviously not, but Yuliana still looks a shade surprised to hear it's Leina's birthday. "Is it?" She wonders, blinking those endless green eyes. "Well, if you think so, I'll be sure to message her later." It's awfully convenient how Banagher suggests it to her.
Reflexive action. She is who she is.
"Hmh," she grins, finally. (One too many teeth. There's scarring at her bottom lip, where the fang from above keeps clipping the skin.) "Even though I'm so rude?" It's a joke! She's joking! That's a good sign, right?!
"Well," her expression goes to a smile, "you're still quite young, you know. You shouldn't try to become an adult until you've entered the world of adults properly. Remember to live along the way, or making it that far will make existence a wretched trial."
She gestures, to the screen. "You might start with a nap," she points out, tone growing a shade sardonic. "I swear, is everyone staying at that League of yours plagued by insomnia?"
<Pose Tracker> Banagher Links has posed.
"What?" Banagher looks totally, utterly baffled. "No, of course not! Just because you hurt me once doesn't mean I want to see you hurt! It's so much better for both of us if you're okay, isn't it?"
Banagher hasn't forgotten the horrible things Yuliana is capable of, but they feel so far away after what he saw in the Institute, and watching her bleed out. How could he be unchanged after that? How could he not think of Yuliana as someone to love and protect?
It was just Banagher's birthday too, but that doesn't matter in the face of Leina's special day. "Thank you! We're going to celebrate all together in a few days. It'll be so good to see her... I wish I could've spent the day with her." There's a sweet longing in Banagher's face as he hugs Haro, surely thinking of the girl he loves.
"Ha." A grin. "You can be rude and a great help at the same time. One of my professors was exactly that way." Banagher doesn't say what happened to the man. "I bet you two would've gotten along."
Banagher's cheeks color, and he looks away, clearly embarrassed for some reason. "Y--yeah. I won't rush anymore. It's just... Waiting is hard, when you know you want to be with someone! But I'll live, and experience everything I can. I've got one year left until I'm an adult, after all. I've got to make it a great one."
"Oh, um." Banagher looks back up at the screen. "Every time I try to sleep, I get these nightmares of... whatever is inside the Banshee. It's horrible. Even with sleeping medicine, I can't get away from them, and -- at a certain point, why bother trying to sleep when it's just going to hurt me? I won't get any rest and I'll wake up unable to get those images out of my head." He shrugs. "It's easier to try and stay up."
As though summoned by this thread of conversation, Banagher yawns, taking a hand off Haro to cover his mouth. "...but it has been a while."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Oh," Yuliana blinks; she, too, horrifically, seems baffled. "That's... what you think about it... all right."
It's better for her if she can keep reeling him in, so if he wants to see her well, that serves her purposes just fine, doesn't it?
It's just...
Well, it's fine (frustrating) if he wants to help her. It's fine (frightening). Elisa said it was fine (forbidding), so it's fine (frail).
"What a shame you couldn't spend the day with her," Yuliana sympathises, anyway.
On rudeness, she suggests: "The truth is infrequently pleasant." Just like her??? Perish the thought. Yuliana is ALWAYS pleasant. Elisa will vouch for her, and she's the only one who really matters.
She lifts her fingers, veiling her smile, as she chuckles. "Don't worry, don't worry," she offers him. "You'll find when you get there that there's an entire lifetime of adulthood. There's plenty enough time." This, of course, presumes the future goes unchallenged, but...
Well, even after they make the world better, Yuliana is sure there'll still be room for new lovers.
It's fine!
She tilts her head, though, as Banagher talks about his nightmares. "I see..." She murmurs, more quietly, and trails to silence again as he yawns.
"When I dream," she says, looking aside, "I often fall to communion. It can be frightening... being unmade and remade... intent unlike anything we know." Her eyes blink shut. "I cursed my lot, I asked, 'why me'... but you know, it's easier, when I'm in my Elisa's arms. You might try not sleeping alone..." One eye opens, glancing, sidelong, to her phone. "... hmm, or are you not at that stage, as yet?"
Yuliana shrugs, and concludes: "Well, make the attempt, anyway. You look a mess, Nasya. It would take little effort to scoop you up, as you are. Do take care, all right?"
With that, she hangs up the call.
And, yes -- she'll send Leina some birthday greetings, a little while later. Specifically mentioning that Banagher suggested she do so. Oh, Yuliana!