2023-07-04: ?!why did i expect you to knoW
- Log: ?!why did i expect you to knoW
- Cast: Yuliana Kafim, Rita Bernal
- Where: Science Fortress Laboratory, Japan
- Date: 2023-07-04
- Summary: Yuliana tries to trust Rita, when she expresses concern after Yuliana finally remembers to bring Zoltan some more disgusting snacks. It... doesn't really work out. Rita is horrified by Yuliana's present existence, and keeps insisting her situation is harmful, though Yuliana keeps denying it. In the end, Rita's able to give her some advice for coping with so much Psychoframe in her unit -- but when she confronts Yuliana with the impossibility of escape through an offer to leave, Yuliana escapes from her side, instead. (CW: Eldritch horror)
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana has been... moderately useful, when it comes to keeping this little cluster of criminals afloat. A little useful. Well, she's helped.
But apparently, she must have forgotten Zoltan's desire for -- what the hell are these -- Sarman's Salami Bites (Original, Lemon Zest, and Super Spicy flavours), because it's been a good week since she last came by. Maybe even a little longer! She's... had other things to think about.
Other things to do.
She's here now, though, with a cloak billowing over her green pilot's suit -- she's always dressed for battle when she comes to the Science Fortress Laboratory, it's just a matter of this tower's associations -- as she makes her way to the pantry to stash the Horrible Snacks. Grumble grumble grumble, as she shoves them in the cupboard, "and of course he's sleeping on the job or whatever when I get out here..."
Newtypes. No respect!
<Pose Tracker> Rita Bernal has posed.
As Yuliana enters the hangar, Koji Kabuto's Miracle Projector hums to life. Rita doesn't use it constantly, it takes up a lot of energy. And energy is something they can't use too much of on a supposedly-deserted island like this.
But a visit from her best friend? Rita will burn all the energy in the world for that! Pixels gather above the projector, and slowly, Rita Bernal takes shape. Today, she's chosen a beachy hi-lo dress, the fabric light and thin. A winter-white fabric is printed with dozens of bunches of blue flowers. Lilacs, perhaps -- though those are hardly a summer plant. In the front, the dress hangs just above her knees, while reaching down to her ankles in the back. It suits Rita -- flowing around her form as she moves.
And she does move, immediately, rushing up to where Yuliana is stashing those strange chips in Zoltan's cupboard.
"Yuli!" Rita cries, arms open as she rushes to the other woman's side. "You never call when you're coming. I would've picked some flowers! The island has so many beautiful ones."
Rita wants to hug Yuliana, and certainly this wish will be granted. If it is, the hug will linger extra-long. They have a lot of lost time to make up for. And it's nice that Yuliana will actually hug her back, now -- even when she isn't having some form of terrifying vision.
When Rita does eventually pull back, she smiles up at Yuliana, clasping her hands behind her back. "Zoltan's off wandering around. I can find him if you want me to, but he'll be grumpy. He thinks he's much better at hiding than he really is."
"It might be fun for it to just be us." Rita offers, hopefully. "We've never really had 'just us' time. Oh, but did you come for any specific reason? The Phenex is repaired, if you need me to fight."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Oh. She's here. (Oh, she's here!) Yuliana shoves the last of the bites into the cupboard, and turns to Rita, still looking a little surprised to see her at all. Those dresses... they're not military.
Yuliana supposes she's relieved by that, if one were to press her on it.
"Flowers? Don't be ridiculous." Even so, when Rita dives for her she doesn't step away; she pats Rita on the back, pat-pat-pat, and sighs as some of that tension she's always holding in her body leeches away.
Her own hand settles on her hip, as Rita reports Zoltan's movements. "There's no need for that," she decides. "The ungrateful wretch probably forgot about it entirely... suppose I needn't have bothered." Whether he's the one who brought the salami bites up or whether Yuliana did is a matter she leaves ambiguous. The point is: it's Zoltan's fault.
Obviously.
"I just thought..." Yuliana starts, and pauses, glancing aside. "Well, I've been... busy," she picks the word carefully, "but I had a moment to check in, now. Not that we've any battles on the horizon... though we're working on the little problem of those tanks. I'll let you know." Before they can fix the battlefield, they have to hack in and figure out when they can fix the battlefield. It's a complicated process!
<Pose Tracker> Rita Bernal has posed.
Rita's smile only grows more brilliant at Yuliana's pat-pat-pat hug, something very military in its motions. Rita's hug, by contrast, is all enthusiasm and closeness and squeezing. There's no need to hold back, not with Yuli. They've seen each other at their worsts long, long ago.
"You deserve flowers." Rita says, as if it's an obvious, universal concept. "You're beautiful, and you make so many people happy. You're even buying food for Zoltan."
A little sigh. "No, I shouldn't talk badly about him. He's going to help me save Jona. I just hope Zoltan will be grateful for the effort you're going to! He practically lives on those strange things..."
Rita can hardly remember what it is to taste, after all. Of course such a bombastic flavor would be bizarre to her. Michele and Brick eat much more sensible fare.
"Busy." Rita picks up on the word, and the minor hesitation before it. "Is everything alright, Yuli? Did something happen?"
Beautiful, otherworldly green eyes look over Yuliana with care. Rita can't just read her emotionally as she would every other living creature. Her Newtype abilities are useless with Yuliana, even when they're not shut off entirely.
Really, it should frighten her. It should invoke bad memories of their testing together in the lab. But... All Rita Bernal has ever been is a slave to her abilities. In the safe moments, now, when she can't use her powers to immediately solve her problems? ...there's a fun challenge to it.
Hmm... Yuliana still looks tense. And she's dressed rather heavily for a warm island. It's normal to wear some kind of covering over a pilot suit, but a full cloak? Isn't that hot? Rita tilts her head to one side, then the other.
"I'm glad there are no battles coming up... You deserve the rest. We've both fought enough for a lifetime." Rita murmurs, her gaze finally coming back to Yuliana's eyes. "I'm so grateful for your help with the tanks. I'll do whatever I can, too."
Taking a step toward the door of the hangar, Rita looks back at Yuliana, invitingly. "Would you like to walk together? I can project myself through the base." A soft laugh. "I have a room of my own! Can you believe it?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana is taken aback, when Rita -- of all people -- says she deserves flowers. "Well -- yes," she says, as if to play off her reaction, "of course."
She suspiciously doesn't comment on the strange food Zoltan lives on, and, subsequently, the way Yuliana has been trying to get those foods to him.
There's another lack of initial comment, though, when Rita asks her whether something's wrong more directly; her endless green gaze tracks away, from Rita, as she looks to the side. At length: "Don't worry about it."
... even if she told Rita about Her dissatisfaction, she wouldn't understand.
She smiles, though, when Rita says she deserves the rest; it's kind of her to say, even if she can't rest, yet. "You'd better," she says, but the tone is warm.
Yuliana starts off after Rita, casually. She raises her brow, and says, sceptical: "I can't. If you want me to believe something like that, you're going to have to show me." And surely that's Yuliana being a jerk, and not Yuliana inviting Rita to show off something she's clearly proud of.
Surely.
<Pose Tracker> Rita Bernal has posed.
Rita laughs good-naturedly at Yuliana's reaction -- a friendly sort of sound, rather than anything accusatory or mocking. But her face quickly falls when Yuliana tells her not to worry. Even Rita, with her minimal experience with human beings, knows that's a bad sign.
Hmm.
"Oh--! You don't believe me!" Rita catches onto the game immediately, putting aside her worries for the time being. "Then let me prove it!"
With that, Rita's off, running through the hangar, down nondescript hallways, all the way to the personnel area of the old base. Golden hair tosses behind her as she runs. This isn't a true sprint, her form is completely off. She's playing, hoping Yuliana will chase after her.
Coming to a halt before one door, Rita knits her hands behind her back, bending forward. "Here we are!"
"Rita Bernal" has been carved into the nameplate to the side of the door. The letters are somewhat clumsy in form, crafted by someone inexperienced.
Sliding the door open, Rita steps inside, standing in the middle of the modestly-sized quarters and throwing her arms open wide. "My very own room. I chose it myself."
Rita is, judging by her expression, extremely proud. There are obvious drawbacks to the space -- it's clear the bed hasn't been slept in, for example. The furniture is standard: a bed, a desk, a chair, some cabinets. What use is a room for a ghost, really? But Rita wanted one of her own, and she's practicing wanting things. And so, she's made this space her own.
Endless birds, carved shallowly into the walls of the room, flock and soar together. They resemble canaries. The one closest to the bed has two extra-long tailfeathers. It's a beautiful effect, standing in contrast to the clumsy letters outside the room, each bird is rendered expertly. Upon the desk is a small sandbox with a number of drawing utensils waiting next to it. And within the cabinets...
Rita opens them, reaching inside. There's an empty space where clothes are meant to be stores, something she obviously has no use for. Instead, she's decorated the interior with seashells and bits of metal twisted into interesting shapes. Each one has a cubby of its own.
"I haven't owned anything since I was a child. It's a strange feeling." Rita says, holding up a chunk of brilliant red, floral-like coral. "I'm not sure if I like it. I worry about what's going to happen to all this stuff..."
She trails off. Yuliana will understand.
Putting her coral back in its spot, Rita turns to Yuliana, her eyes serious. "No one is in this part of the base. There are no surveillance systems. The Photon Power people are very kind to not put cameras in the private rooms... But, it means we won't be overheard."
"What's going on, Yuli?" Rita sits on the edge of her bed, the pixels at the edge of her form going a little fuzzy with the complicated movement. "I know you said don't worry, but I love you. Of course I'm going to worry. You can say whatever you need to."
Rita smiles softly. "You don't have to, if you really don't want to. But I'm here. I want to know what's going on."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"And you're running off all -- haaah," Yuliana sighs, as she lopes off after Rita. She doesn't have to push herself terribly hard to keep up, which is, she supposes, the point; she reflects, to herself, just how twisted it is that Rita can play at fleeing from her.
When she really ought to be putting some effort in.
Their merry little chase leads them to RITA'S ROOM, though: and it's clear that this is RITA'S ROOM because it is, in fact, labelled with her name. "Are you sure this is it?" Yuliana asks, with a knifeish grin.
In they go, and it is, indeed, a room -- and the sort of room they wouldn't have gotten, in Medical. "... looks good," Yuliana says, instead of the insult which jumps to her mind first. She steps over to the wall, and her fingers trace the carvings, lightly. "Geez, you're such a bird brain... did you do this, or just make big wibbly eyes at Koji until he came in with a chisel?"
She thinks, briefly, of the carvings in her room in Medical, before she almost died. Then she puts it from her mind; couldn't be.
She looks over Rita's shoulder, as she shows off her shells and metal whatsits. "Don't worry about it," she shrugs a shoulder. "Koji's an utterly straightforward idiot, but he's a decent guy. He's not gonna dump your weird shell collection if something happens."
Yuliana frowns, though, as Rita starts talking about surveillance. It's clear in her eyes -- for all it's a little harder to read them, these days -- that she doesn't entirely trust that she's not being watched, here. But... "You want to know, do you?"
OST: https://www.youtube.com/'watch?v=2-8Vobn5nM0 Icon For Hire - The Grey
She stays standing. It's the natural configuration for someone who's about to leave. Her arms fold, across her chest; her fingers drum, against the muscles there. She is quiet, for long moments. She is thinking.
"I guess... there's something you don't know about me, these days."
The words come slow and cautious; Yuliana shouldn't be entangling herself in this world further. But her meditation has been... tiring. If there's anyone who knows what it's like to exist at size, it's...
No. Walk before you run.
Yuliana's cloak shifts, though her hands aren't touching it, and surely there's no draft in here. Her tentacles unseat themselves from the pockets they rest in, there; they slither out, from either side of the cloak, clad in the same green material as her pilot's suit. They are a little like flowers, and a little like hands, and a little like dragons; their claws snap like jaws, as their crests rise up over something like their faces.
At the same time, little tendrils snake out from behind her ears -- all attached to each other with green webbing, like frills or fins or boneless dragon's wings. They raise, a little, halfway up her ears... and Rita will feel it, perhaps, the way Yuliana's nothingness brushes up against the edge of her projector. Her projector, in the hangar, far away from them.
She's feeling out the effects, too, and shortly those frills fold back beneath her ears. (That aura, too, shrinks back with the gesture, clustered at her sides again.) "I can't show you this, not completely," she says, still not looking directly at Rita's projection. "But, I... am different, Ritechka. She gave me ways to defend myself, when Dr. Devi told me to die. Since then, I..." Well, she's always been seen wearing something to hide those horrible tentacles.
<Pose Tracker> Rita Bernal has posed.
"Ha." Rita says, tonelessly, even as she grins. "I worked hard on that nameplate!" Yuliana's praise is taken to heart, and Rita smiles so widely her eyes squish shut. "I did them myself! It's easy, with the Phenex. I just have to use her strength in a concentrated little beam."
A slight pause, as Rita looks around her many, many birds. "...I didn't actually ask Koji for permission. I hope he won't be upset... This place is abandoned anyway, after all."
But Rita looks comforted as Yuliana reassures her that her collection of items is in no danger. "You're right. Koji is a good person. It's not bad to have things like this, even if it's only for a little while."
"Yes." Rita answers, simply. Seated on the edge of the bed, she wonders if Yuliana would rather leave than tell her the truth.
Yuliana is quiet. Rita is quiet.
And then, Yuliana's cloak shifts. Rita sits up straight, her eyes as round and wide as saucers. Her expression shifts from worry, to horror, and then something close to deep grief.
"Oh, Yuli..." Rita breathes. She stands, walking to stand just before Yuliana, as the tentacles settle themselves, snapping and displaying their crests. As her ear-frills flare out, and that wave of nothingness--
A gasp. Rita's image wavers, just a bit, just enough for her to be certain of what is happening before her. These things... Expand and empower Yuliana's magic.
Stray pixels find their place again as Yuliana retracts her abilities. Rita's hands come up to cover her mouth. Distantly, in the hangar, the Phenex shudders.
"H--how could she -- h--how..." Rita's eyes fill with angry, helpless tears. "Oh Yuli--!"
Even without her visions, Rita knows it's a bad idea to talk badly about Yuliana's wife. She's met the woman, once. They had an amicable discussion over shared interests. But both knew they were looking at their antithesis.
"She did this... She knew what would happen and she pushed you..!" Rita grits out. "You've been haunted your whole life by that awful place, and now it's come into the waking world! It's taken your body!"
No matter how much she wants to scream, Rita keeps herself in control. Her hands lower from her mouth, coming to rest just over her heart, still knit together. Emotions, threatening to overwhelm Rita, are buried under the strength and willpower born of witnessing endless tragedy.
Expression smoothing out, Rita brings her hands down to the front hem of her dress, brushing along the thin fabric. "I'm sorry." It's spoken almost like a question, her voice tilting up at the end of the word. "I didn't fight hard enough. I didn't save you when you needed me most. Dr. Devi..."
Rita closes her eyes. "I'm so sorry. It isn't supposed to be like this, Yuli, it's not right. You shouldn't have been put in a place where this was your only option."
"We're both different." Rita's face settles into that easy, perfect smile. Something beatific. Something that would belong in an ancient painting of a saint, or an angel. "All that matters is that you survived, Yuli. You did what you had to. Do they hurt you? Is it hard to sleep..?"
Deep inside Rita's soul, perfectly-buried emotions strain against her control. Golden brows furrow, slightly, devoting more mental energy than usual to keeping herself in control.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana grasps her upper arms, hugging herself to herself. Maybe it would have been better, if she'd just left. That grief... something about it really makes her feel disgusting. Disgusted? Oh, don't ask her.
Her fingers tighten, though, with every hitch of those tears. Is it really something to cry about?
"Did She know..?" Yuliana wonders, and her voice is shallow. "Perhaps She did... She's always been trying to put me back together. She's never satisfied with my shape... well, maybe She expected Dr. Devi to destroy me, that way. Her wisdom is... vast." And Rita might be talking about Elisa, but it may become clear, with Yuliana's vague reply, that she isn't. Particularly as she corrects her,
"But She took me long ago, Ritechka. Before I even met you... though it's grown easier to heed Her."
She rubs at her arms, and insists: "This is a gift. Of course someone like you wouldn't understand!" She frowns, snapping at her -- and those snakes physically mirror her tone, their claws clicking together like the teeth of their jaws in the air between them. Yuliana glances down to them, and her lips twist, together, before she takes a breath and a deliberate effort to calm herself. "It doesn't hurt. It's quite nice when Elisa pets them, actually."
Another breath, "...", another little elision.
"... but... I'm always dreaming, these days. Well, sometimes it's still what you'd expect, the memories... but I suppose when my mind is still, it's easier for Her to reach me. Mm... I must still be rested, though. Or else my performance would have started suffering a year ago..." Her shoulders fall; her chin ducks in, hiding her neck, all covered by that cloak. "She wouldn't cause me any real harm," she insists, voice thin. "It only hurts because this world's clinging to me so hard, anyway..."
<Pose Tracker> Rita Bernal has posed.
Rita's expression falls as Yuliana hugs herself, looking so devastated at Rita's reaction. This cannot stand. Rita is being selfish, showing her emotions this way -- she's hurting Yuliana.
If she was alive, perhaps she'd take a breath, to try and steady herself. But that habit has long been lost.
"Yuli." Rita says. Her voice is soft, serious. "If you ask me to, I'll save you from this. I'll find a way."
Twice, Rita has made this promise. Will Yuliana's answer match Leina's?
"You don't have to hurt like this. You don't have to be torn apart by someone who is supposed to love you!" Tears are banished. Shoulders are straightened. "I won't leave you to this, Yuli. I won't let you suffer! I made that mistake once, and I regret it more than anything."
Rita shakes her head, sending golden hair falling over one of her shoulders. "I don't want this for you. You deserve to be free, like I am."
Yuliana snaps, then, her snakes 'biting' out toward Rita. She startles, taking a step back. What are those things, really? Hands, snakes, tentacles -- some or all of those things?
"I'm glad it doesn't hurt you." Rita says, in the silence that stretches between them.
Listening, Rita's green eyes shimmer. "We can't let her reach you, then, Yuli. This world should cling to you. It's where you belong! You were here first, long before you were hers."
Who is Yuliana talking about? Surely not Elisa, that doesn't make sense. Rita's eyes land on the frills of the snakes, and then the ones behind Yuliana's ears. What greater power is there? Is it possible for Rita to be unaware of something so massive?
"You're a human being. You have a soul." Rita's hand reaches out, palm up, toward one of the snakes. Vulnerable and open. "Nothing can change that."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Save me?! This is salvation!" Yuliana insists, fierce, volume climbing to say it. The things like snakes or flowers or hands flare their crests at her, claws grasping, and they are not clearly any one thing because they are not a thing of this world at all.
She lets Rita talk, though, by and large -- though her lips twist, again, as Rita insists that love shouldn't tear her apart. It's getting worse, she thinks, all a sudden. It's in her body, even after she comes back from her sacred communion. With every effort they make, she...
She is angry, but she is also
afraid.
"You don't know what you're saying," she insists, at length, when Rita says the world should cling to her. "You don't know anything..."
Is she human? Is she still human, any more? She looks down; she wonders. She can't wonder for long, because she sees Rita reaching for her, sees the snake she's approaching lash out with grasping jaws --
"Don't!" Yuliana hisses, and at once it is clear that they're under her control but aren't entirely of her mind, because it's only when she tells it to stop that it halts in its attack. Inches from Rita's projected flesh, it curls back, towards Yuliana again.
"I don't need your help," Yuliana insists, voice tight. "This isn't something I need help with! I don't even know why I... tch, obviously you can't handle the truth," she shakes her head, and scowls. "I shouldn't have... just, forget about it." But there's a little hitch in her words, a tiny little shudder-step where it oughtn't be, which suggests she's closer to tears than she's letting on herself. She feels so stupid. Why does she feel so... stupid?
She pulls her cloak around her, so that those tentacles can tuck themselves away inside it, again. All hidden; all better. Now her frills are tucked behind her ears, she looks perfectly human, again. Yuliana sways, a little, and her heel shifts as she widens her stance to keep herself from toppling. Just a little dizzy, for a moment. She's fine.
"No... I'm not human any more. Though I'm not purely of the Void, either... tch, I've always come from two worlds." Yuliana's mother is Zaftran; her father is Indonesian. It's not nearly the same as what she's dealing with, now, but perhaps it's no wonder she'd find it familiar. "She must reach me... She must. I'm the only one who can... it must be me who does this. It must be me. It's my responsibility..."
<Pose Tracker> Rita Bernal has posed.
Insisting this is salvation, her tentacles writhing with violent intent, Yuliana raises her voice. Rita, as she has so many times, stands still and reaction-less before her. If those snakes snap at her, she doesn't move. What could they do to a dead girl? What could they to do a hardlight avatar?
"If this is what you want," Rita asks, quietly. She's so still. Perhaps this is something instinctual, a bird freezing before a snake. "Why is your expression the same as it used to be? Back in medical. When they were hurting us. When you insisted the REA was the right path."
Rita's hand stays outstretched. Eyes glimmer, miraculous green, watching those hand-like jaws return to Yuliana. Compared to Yuliana's cloak and pilot seat, Rita looks terribly vulnerable in her dress.
"I know you don't need me. But you don't need this --" Rita's hand twists, palm down, now "--either. If things can be kinder. If things can be easier. It's not wrong to want that. After everything, Yuli. Don't you deserve that much?"
Yuliana hides her extraneous pieces. Rita watches. That smile stays in place, the perfect, understanding expression of a goddess. "You don't have to do that." She murmurs, eyes tracking up from where the snakes vanish to meet Yuliana's gaze.
As Yuliana wobbles, Rita steps forward, wrapping an arm around her back. The hologram is strong enough to support Yuliana for a few seconds, at least -- but there's no real force to it. Rita encourages her toward the bed.
"Yuli." Rita murmurs. Should Yuliana choose to sit with her, Rita will scoot close, wrapping her arms around her friend's neck. Her head falls, hiding her face in Yuliana's shoulder. "It's okay. It's okay."
It isn't okay.
That realization sinks in, slowly. Yuliana is irrevocably changed. Yuliana is dedicated to the path before her. Yuliana, chosen by a force far beyond human understanding, has had her life stolen from her.
Tension builds, turning the air dry, leaving this moment fragile and flammable.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Of course it's--" Yuliana starts to snap, before she falls to stunned silence.
"... it's... the same?" She asks, instead, and her voice is smaller.
She clasps herself to herself, and insists: "My Elisa is always making it easier on me. She's working so hard... she'd do it herself, if she could. But it has to be me. I have to..."
It's just hard light, but it has enough to it to at least suggest Yuliana take a seat. She freezes, for a moment, as if considering bolting. For a moment -- before she steps over to the bed, a little too unsettled, and sinks down heavily onto the side of it. Her eyes well with her own tears, as Rita embraces her; a moment later, she leans against the projection.
"... Ritechka, I..." Yuliana starts, all too fragile.
"I'm scared, Ritechka. I can't trust anyone. They'll hate me... they'll hate me! I really just want to make things easier, but I'm a monster, now! I--" And even if Rita can't feel her flinch, perhaps she can see it. Certainly, she'll hear it: "No, I -- I'm better this way. I'm beautiful."
Her own eyes shut, and she draws in a ragged breath. "It's just, I... I'm always so confused, these days. I don't even know what's real... I don't know anything. I... I think I must have been more certain, before, but I... I don't know what... I must have changed when I escaped," she justifies it, to herself.
"But it's quiet in there, Ritechka. It's so quiet. I thought you... since you were... I don't know what I wanted," she says, blinking at tears. "This was stupid..."
<Pose Tracker> Rita Bernal has posed.
Rita's placid expression flickers for a moment, at the word 'Elisa'. Does the avatar bare her teeth, just the slightest bit? It's such a quick thing, nearly imperceptible.
"What is it you're fighting so hard for?" It's a question Rita has avoided as long as she possibly can. Even now, asking it, her heart twists in anxiety. "Why, why does it have to be you?"
Yuliana, blessedly, sits down. Rita can't feel her lean against her, but she can see it in the way Yuliana's clothing moves, the way the bedspread shifts. Aligning herself to support Yuliana, Rita holds tightly to her.
Tears well up in Rita's eyes as Yuliana expresses her fear. Expressed digitally, her sadness is overwhelming, echoing from her soul's true home within the Phenex. It washes over the hangar -- crashing against Yuliana's wall of silence like the tide against a harbor's barrier.
Conflicted, terrified, Yuliana speaks. Rita listens, clinging to her friend. Make things easier. What does that mean? Why does it fill Rita with despair, even with her abilities suppressed?
"Yuli..." Rita's voice hitches, sounding more like a sound glitch than a sob. "It's hard, recovering from what they did to us. I had to die to get it out of my head. Are you even fully recovered from the Institute? Is it -- do you have to chase this dream now? Can't you rest? Can't you heal first?"
Slight fingers reach up to touch Yuliana's hair, stroking through it's outward expression. Like curls, but sharper. Rita is careful not to disturb the fins hiding behind Yuliana's ears.
"Can't you stay with me?" Rita's voice is heartbreakingly soft. "Can't we figure this out together? What's real, what's needed. I don't know anymore, either. All my life, I followed the path, and it was all for nothing. But I'm still here. I'm with you, and I won't give up." Rita tries to smooth down those sharp points of hair.
So quiet..? Rita's mind jumps to a dozen, dozen experiments Yuliana could be talking about. The tension in the room breaks with Yuliana's tears.
"Where is quiet? Tell me, Yuli." Rita all-but begs. "I'll protect you."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"For peace, and for equality," Yuliana answers, quietly. "No one understands. I'll admit I've hurt people, but I'm not..."
She sighs; she lets the sentence die.
"I'm the finished product."
Yuliana answers her other question, instead.
But Rita has more questions for her, and Yuliana winces, just so. She turns her head, to her, feeling hard light through her hair. The tears jewel at her teal lashes, torn open, and the wounds are in her eyes as much as across them.
"She grows impatient," Yuliana says, her voice a whisper. "I can't leave Elisa to bear the brunt of that dissatisfaction alone. We have to..." She swallows, at the lump in her throat. "I -- they can't make me act any more. Dr. Murasame tried to say the words, but Elisa fixed my head. I -- I guess I still flinched, but I didn't do as he said." Her gaze flicks away, from the projection of Rita. "Not because of that."
She wilts down, as she says: "Everyone gives up on me. Maybe I'm just a bad person." A little shake of her head, and she corrects herself: "No, they just don't understand!"
(That she has done a great many things which are objectively bad can't weigh up against the feeling that Elisa would hate to hear her say such awful things about herself.)
Yuliana finds her hand is trembling, when she reaches out to place it at the crook of Rita's constructed arm, fingers curling in just so. She is quiet, again, for long moments. Tick... tick... tick.
"I never understood why you were all so upset about Psychoframe," Yuliana starts, eventually. "It didn't bother me at all... well, it didn't work on me. Everyone crying and carrying on, I didn't get it..."
Her eyes scrunch shut; she shouldn't say it. She shouldn't say it, and her voice is thin and tremulous, through the lump in her throat. "It's just... we made a type which works for me. She's sixty metres tall... I don't know where I am, when I'm wearing her. If I'm inside, or if I'm out there... I go on forever. The world's made of shadows, and I... I'm alone with myself. I'm alone. I'm so alone. I'm so much of me, I can't --" Her voice hitches, to a sob, and it strangles her sentence.
"I don't know how to handle it," she settles on, instead. It's... safer. "How -- how do you...?"
<Pose Tracker> Rita Bernal has posed.
Rita's brow furrows at Yuliana's answer. As ever, there's so much unsaid. It's a puzzle, one that will only reward Rita with suffering and grief, should she solve it.
Even asking this much makes Yuliana wince. For the first time, Rita wonders if she should leave this alone. To just comfort Yuliana, and not press further. Is that the right path? Reflexively, Rita stretches out to check the future -- only to be greeted with a blank place where Yuliana should be. As always.
"I don't want to hurt you. I just want to understand." Rita leans back enough to look Yuliana in the eyes. "I want to know how I can stop this from hurting you. This... her. She's hurting you, and... Elisa."
Rita's hands twitch at the name 'Murasame'. "He tried to hurt you too. I should've burned him from the inside out. For what he's done. I want him to suffer." Power builds around the Phenex, then eases, as Rita refocuses on Yuliana. "But thank goodness he couldn't hurt you, Yuli."
"I understand." Rita murmurs. "I did... I let bad things happen. It was my fault."
A shake of her head. "I won't give up on you. Not ever. Not in this life, or the next, or the next. When we're reborn, we'll still be friends." Rita promises, trying to work up a more genuine smile. "Even if they don't understand. I will. You and me... We're different. No one else is like us. Even my sisters. Even Zoltan."
Yuliana curls her fingers around Rita's arm, and Rita scoots just a bit closer, making it an easier reach. "You." Green eyes blink. "You found a way to use the Psychoframe? But how?"
"How... and why..." Rita speaks quietly, almost to herself. "Such an enormous machine, made with specialty Psychoframe? You'll lose yourself, Yuli. Your soul isn't made for this."
But Yuliana needs to know how to survive. Rita can feel that she's going to keep getting inside whatever monstrosity Elisa has put together (because, of course it's Elisa. Who else?). In those first moments she became one with the Phenex. Rita closes her eyes.
"When I became the Phenex." She begins. "I lost myself. I didn't know how powerful it would make my emotions. All the anger and hatred I'd never expressed. It came back, and I couldn't control it. The Phenex, and I, went berserk. We destroyed an entire Federation fleet."
Rita brings one arm down, taking Yuliana's free hand in her own. Grabbing hold of Yuliana's pointer finger, she folds it in toward the other woman's palm.
"Holding onto everything was too much at first." Rita explains. "I had to condense my identity down to the purest, truest piece of myself. Making it small, but unbreakable, and unchangeable."
Another finger is folded down. "Once that became effortless, I expanded my definition of myself. Then I practiced holding onto that." Another finger. "Then again." Another. "And again."
Only Yuliana's thumb remains. "Until my soul was as powerful as the Phenex's Psychoframe. And I could communicate with her as an equal. It allowed us to form a partnership."
Rita folds Yuliana's thumb in.
"It took me months. I isolated myself in the Belt so I wouldn't hurt anyone else. Refined who I was, then expanded it." Green eyes look back up at Yuliana, Rita's hand settling atop Yuliana's. "I think. Sixty meters is impossibly huge, Yuli. But I think if you tried this, it would work. Slowly."
"The Phenex's senses became my senses. Even though I could feel and connect with all the life around me, I maintained my sense of self. I knew who, and where I was." Rita looks worried. "I'm scared for you. I'm scared of a Psychoframe that isolates instead of connecting. If... that woman you mentioned. If she comes to you when your mind is calm. What would she do when you're so dispersed?"
Rita looks down, then back up, her voice a whisper. "We can run away. We don't have to do this. There's places so far away, and so beautiful, no one would ever know. We've made so many mistakes, and done so much. We can run away. It's fair."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"I wish people would understand me," Yuliana murmurs. "But you don't... even now, you... you don't understand. She does not mean to hurt me. She adores me! It's just, She... She is not of this existence. She thinks differently..." Yuliana turns her face, and winces, again. "Elya... no, She'd not hurt my Elisa," she finishes the motion of shaking her head. "She wouldn't."
Even though Elisa is so anxious...
Yuliana wonders, briefly, whether they're appeasing Her, and just as soon dismisses the thought for the sacrilege it is.
"He could," she says, quietly, on Murasame. "Just not like that."
She sighs, looking down at her hands. "Yes... when all is reborn..." It's strange; she's always rejected Rita's vision for the future out of hand. What changed? Maybe she's making an effort.
Yuliana shudders, when Rita tells her what will happen. She looks afraid, pale, small. She watches her fingers fold down, pressed in by the light. She'll lose herself... unless she gets even smaller. Is that it?
"... no. It isn't Psychoframe," Yuliana clarifies, finally, dead in her throat. "Weren't you listening? That shit n-never worked on me. It's a--a different type of thing entirely..." A different type of Psychoframe, she said. Is she protesting too much?
Yes, and no.
"But... I get it. I get it," she repeats, once and once again: "I get it. Isolate myself... and grow smaller. I guess it makes sense. It's about who I am..." And her hand pulls back, pulls back, to press to the untouched blankets of the bed.
"You think... I'd run from love and acceptance?" Yuliana laughs; there's no humour behind it. "Sometimes, I... but you can't run from yourself, Ritechka!" She snaps, scowling to her, through her tears. "There's one person who can never escape the silence around me... me! Not through violence nor flight! And are you satisfied, digging up the depths of my disgrace?! My sheer lack of gratitude?! I don't understand why anyone loves me -- least of all Her! I'm a wretched woman!"
Yuliana pushes herself standing, and half-lumbers, half-staggers to the opposite wall, catching herself there and straightening. She scrubs at her face with her cape, brow still knit. "I'm going," she snaps, roughshod.
"I'll tell you when I've made progress with the hydrogen tanks, Rita."
With that enforced distance, Yuliana storms off back to the hangar -- and if Rita thinks to follow, she'll just raise her frills so she doesn't have to deal with her at all.