2023-04-25: Technicolor Dreams
- Log: 2023-04-25 Technicolor Dreams
- Cast: Puru-1, Kaworu Nagisa (ft. the Tenth Angel "Duma")
- Where: Somewhere in Space
- OOC - IC Date: April 25, 0097 (2023)
- Summary: Two--rather, three minds connect to one another in space. Lessons are learned, but perhaps not the right ones.
<Pose Tracker> Puru-1 has posed.
High above the Atlantic Ocean, the aircraft known as the Garuda is set on a high stratospheric course and remains there semi-permanently. Its engines humming against a blue sky above the clouds. It is an idyllic scene for those aboard who have the privilege of enjoying the view.
"Puru-1, enter the tank and begin the test."
Not everyone has that privilege. Within, in the cordoned off testing areas, a sensory deprivation tank exists. Lukewarm water with a great quantity of dissolved magnesium salt.
The metal psycommu headband is cool against her forehead. but already she could feel those emotions again, like ephemeral fingers around every part of her body.
Even if the touch wasn't physical, she felt far too exposed in the one piece swimsuit they had her in. Gently does she lower herself inside, letting gravity take over for a moment, before she floats on the surface of the water, crossing her hands.
The water was pleasant right now, it will soon become unbearably cold. The shivering will start a couple hours from now. She'll be hoping to be asleep long before then.
A simple matter, just let those feelings dig deeper, let herself submit to them in an act of supreme self denial, to become a vessel for them. The dome closes over her, placing her in a lightless, soundless place, where even the vibration of the aircraft's engines were denied to her.
If she moved a limb, she knows she'd at least hear the water, but mostly her breathing just became so very loud.
"Run another diagnostic on the new monitoring equipment before she enters a REM cycle." Dr. Murasame, a balding bespectacled middle aged man in a labcoat ordered to an assistant, "If she contacts that higher plane of existence again, I want everything."
The emotions sink in, filling her more, and more...
...---...
Do Angels sleep? Do angels dream? Perhaps these are the wrong questions, asked from the perspective of a Lilim mind. Angels exist. Hands reach out, making contact with its soul's shield.
So many psychic fingertips against a reinforced pane of glass that is the nigh impenetrable Absolute Terror Field. Negative emotions. A faceless child with orange hair looms just beyond it, a hollow void pit, as it stretches forth. It places itself up against it as if curious.
Fingertips frozen against it, but not so for its empty visage.
fear sorrow anger apprehension
jealousy possessiveness resentment
bitterness
These feelings press against it, but it feels less like a violent demand to get in, and more like a curious evaluation of what it's dealing with.
And then something beyond that, something far beyond that on earth, high above the oceans asks for one thing.
understanding
<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.
The light of one's heart is impermiable, but only so long as one desires it. The consciousness of the Tenth Angel, known colloquially as Duma, stirs, their colors shifting as they float in their half of the Tsutsujidai PLANT, as they sense a consciousness approach.
So many psychic fingertips, pressed against the shimmering barrier that is the light of their heart. Piling on and on and on, pain on pane. A faceless child. A flood of > bitterness < . The Angel stirs, and their attention turns.
The light of their heart does not dim. It changes shape. It mimics those countless hands, shifting and reaching and touching, exploring with their little fingertips as those fingertips explore them, both of them in blue shadow.
Understanding.
That might be too much to ask for. But they are not rejected. Indeed, there is a curious openness there, or maybe an open curiosity, inviting this heart to come closer, to express all that exists within.
<Pose Tracker> Puru-1 has posed.
The negative emotions remain, like this constant pervasive static outside the soul. A cloud, miasmic in how they swirl about. The fingertips do not recede, there is something predatory in this pose, like some part of it wishes to possess Duma, and all that it is like it were some interesting toy.
Duma may not get the sense that those feelings are childlike, or perhaps they might in their experiences touching so many Lilim. Whether it understands the distinction or not they remain so unbridled, uncontrolled, unrestrained. Lacking a filter that might come with age and maturity.
And yet beyond that, there is something else, more Lilim than those childlike feelings, seeking that understanding. The two leashed together, as if by some strange cord of memory, feeling, or perhaps a bond beyond that.
And so it comes closer, but so too does the faceless visage still loom there. Duma will see the hands curling about the other heart, just as posessively. Indeed, this Lilim must be their favorite toy, such that they wish to possess all that they are, all that they have.
The heart speaks.
The language is difficult to understand at first, and it's like the faceless visage is conveying it for them, willingly or not in this strange forced symbiosis.
And then it abandons language fully.
There is a flash of a Gundam, the Unicorn. The pilot within, another Lilim.
Protectiveness
All the swirling hostility that Duma felt is conveyed under the aegis of that singular feeling. A sweeping pictured begins to be painted, lacking words, but only images, feelings. It feels like it is a struggle for this being. Like each feeling it sends is still drenched within the negativity of the other.
For now, it feels like it is struggling to convey why this is without language. The darker feelings possesses a far more simplistic perspective that wars against it.
M I N E
The other is struggling to pass the morass, but each time it does, it recoils, as if contact with the being beyond it is difficult, painful, as if there is something incompatible. Still it tries.
Cruelty
The idea is hard to convey, that it is trying to protect the pilot of the Unicorn from the cruelty of Lilim, by fighting him?
<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.
Truly, Duma does not have a concept of 'young' vs. 'old' Lilim. They are simply Lilim, legion in their numbers, and the distinction comes only in those they have managed to make contact with. The biggest distinction are those that smell of LCL, though it's not truly the smell that Duma senses. But that lack of filter... That wildness...
It's wonderful.
Fingers entangle. Duma becomes aware of a second presence, originally eclipsed by the first, and still largely eclipsed; in moving to protect it, Puru-1 has ironically drawn their notice to it. But they offer no harm. Only curiosity.
Language is useless. Lilim and Angels do not speak the same language. The language of the heart will do far more nicely.
A flash of the Gundam Unicorn; a flash of bright yellow, of recognition, of positivity. The yellow swiftly darkens to storm gray. After all, this presence, this mind, had been fighting it. The Tenth Angel eschews conflict, but that is because they understand it all too well.
A sense of possessiveness. 'Mine.' The concept is so simple that it gets through. The Angel thinks they understand; they had separated the two. But--
c r u e l
Confusion. How can one protect someone by fighting them?
The Angel's hands seek deeper. Grasp further. Onto the dark feelings, into them, past them. Digging into all of them.
Into both of them.
w h y ?
BBSYS: Post 860, 'AAR: False Idol Descends' has been published to NERV by Alouette Pommier.
<Pose Tracker> Puru-1 has posed.
The presence of emotions does not expect its hands to be held. There is a strange sadistic delight, until it realizes it can't pull them away, can't take control. There's this strange wail of disappointment and sadness, like it wants to take Duma away.
But it does not let go.
M I N E
As futile as it might be, it keeps ahold, it does not let go. It hands, they want to grasp, they want to hold. They want to feel. It does not know how to process its strange curiosity.
Behind it, the other presence feels like its soothing her, trying to deal with her childish wildness with the patience of a big sister towards a younger. It is strange though, no matter how much she does, the power dynamic is reversed in a way humans would feel is odd, but Duma almost certainly will not. The feelings of the younger are in control of the elder.
The confusion is felt, it tries again, despite the pain of contact.
The idea of Lilim as stars, countless billions. Some brighter than others. A hollow, pale light. Their light consumes others.
Expendable
They do not become a part of the brighter stars. They are simply devoured. Stars wink out.
Apathy
The brighter stars do not care. They consume, and consume, and consume.
Control Power
Wisps of celestial energy bind other stars like strands of nebulas, they are set to fighting other stars, bound to these strange wispy strands of galactic gas.
Numerous violent confrontations, the smaller stars wink out, the larger ones shine brighter.
The pilot of the Unicorn again, like a star. Two very impossibly bright stars position themselves around him, and he moves on. He sees the danger, and keeps going against all sense. Surely it will be devoured too.
The idea of this Lilim's presence crashes into him, to stop this.
Protectiveness
Again the Lilim recoils, as if in pain from this prolonged contact, even as the child's hands of that in-between dominant presence keep hold, with that grip, keep trying to tug in abject futility.
[OOC] Puru-1 says, "*blu-ray would feel is odd, but Duma almost certainly will not." <Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.
There is that agony, that possessiveness, and Duma does not understand why. But the other continues to twine their fingers and hands, and they do the same in kind, an understated sort of bemused joy to grasping and being grasped. The eclipsed presence brings her own sort of feelings into the mixture, soothing and yet under control. Under control. Under control.
It was like this with the one named Akane Shinjo, and her creation, the one called Bujack. She took control, too. She took control, and there was peace. This one has taken control, but there is chaos, agony, violence.
Ah. So anything can take control. But the one known as Akane Shinjo is a goddess, by their understanding. This one, these ones, are Lilim.
This is what Lilim do to their own. They eclipse, they devour. They tear away peace. They know no peace on their own. Tsutsujidai had once been so quiet, and now it grows louder and louder each day...
This concept feeds back towards their guests, too, for Duma has nothing to hide. At the same time, they take in what their guests are trying to tell them. The Lilim within the Unicorn, they head towards their own destruction. So this one/these ones will...
destroy him first?
d o n ' t u n d e r s t a n d
The Angel recoils back, flinching at the flinching. They reach out again, slowly, more cautiously. They start to whorl their arms and hands and fingers, branching out in infinite directions like countless bolts of lightning, around both presences. Slowly, slowly, they try to snare them within. To take away that pain they possess, that they (she?) inflict on themselves and others.
Anything can take control. She tried/is trying to.
Why can't they?
<Pose Tracker> Puru-1 has posed.
"These results are... Sir, I literally have no idea what we're looking at."
"Don't bother analyzing in real time. We'll make sense of it later. This is, different from before." The Doctor muses, "She's not in that realm again. Which means..."
...---...
Save
It tries to clarify. The imagery shows it trying to push the Unicorn out of the way. For it to simply exist, to remain as one amongst billions.
Acceptance
The tapestry of the sky, of the stars. The boundless eternal heavens.
Immutability Impossibility
This cannot change, it can only be accepted. Lilim must live within it, as best as they can. Or be devoured.
This is all conveyed within the space of a heartbeat, in this existence that does not obey all of the rules of time or space. That warps it as per its needs. The Angel branches out, then slowly reaches back, into that mass of negative emotions.
To take control.
...---...
"What's happening!? Pull the plug! Pull the plug!"
"We already did! Link to the RX-0 Unit 02 isn't closing, it's rejected the command!"
"Vital signs are becoming erratic!"
...---...
The negative emotions of the child wail is anger and sorrow and disappointment and resentment.
N O T L I K E T H I S M I N E
The tables turned on it, it tries to pull away, it tries to duplicate itself to keep up, masses of hands stretching and growing to grasp, to tug, to pull. To force itself away, grappling, vying to try and take this thing back with them.
It's a losing battle though, the Angel starts to eclipse the negative emotions, as if tries to take away pain. As it does however...
The presence behind it shrieks in pain. The two in this strange un-Lilim like symbiosis, that nevertheless must be. Psychically something throbs in monochromatic hues like a heartbeat as it tries to writhe away. And then as it feels like it might submit, might have its pain be taken away after all.
TWO EYES OPEN
There is a vision of an existence on another reality. Something horrible. Something painful. Something that should not be.
It is startling, unsettling. It is just as incompatible with this entire reality as Angels are to people. It is not truly here.
I AM
A VESSEL
It is a momentary distraction, it is how this Lilim conceptualizes its existence being taken control of, it's identity. It uses it as an assertion of identity and self-denial at once in this strange contrarian expression of Lilim existence.
And it uses this moment of assertiveness, paradoxically, to force the child in this losing war of attrition, the feelings of a child that cannot imagine letting go of anything.
To let go of Duma, to recede out of its reach.
Perhaps more terribly, because the existence of that childlike remnant is pain, and because the other cannot imagine their existence without the pain of it.
At least to the two of them, to be Lilim, is to suffer.
<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.
The tapestry of heaven. Yes. The Tenth Angel knows this well. Then--not to destroy--but to keep the Unicorn and her pilot small? To remain a small lifeform?
Is it such a bad thing to become something big?
It is to this one. Stay small. Stay hers? They reach out, reach out, reach out, gently but firmly brushing away tiny hands, folding them down. Yes. Stay small. Stay small, little one. Stay--
A V E S S E L
Duma does startle. They do not fear, but they do not comprehend, either. In the instant that their hands flinch back, that they let go of her (her), she slips away. Ebbs, like the tide. Both of them. The eclipsed becomes the one who eclipses. Their pain is too precious to allow it to fade.
Their pain is too precious.
Duma lets them go, too confused to stop them.
Pain. Is that what it means to be a Lilim?
That's too sad.
If only they could be silent, like the Repli-Compoids had once been. Then they wouldn't need to suffer. Then they wouldn't see pain at the only way to be.
Duma considers this for a time.
Then, softly, carefully, they turn their attention upon the Lilim through the surface of the Earth and the colonies that orbit it...