2023-07-06: The Walls We've Built Must Fall
- Cast: Leina Ashta, Christina MacKenzie
- Where: Villa Mass
- Date: U.C. 0097 07 06
- Summary: Against all odds, Leina is back. Not yet safe--still fighting the poisoned wounds in her mind--but surviving. She's been fastidiously accompanied by her closest circles, but a certain person's hovering has been conspicuously absent. Always on the margins, helping without showing her face. Though Leina still can't trust her own thoughts, perceptions, decisions, she can't leave this alone.
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
BGM Set - UC No 01 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55kp4Lq4Kq0
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It's been almost two weeks since Leina has come home. Since then, she's left her room mostly for personal hygiene, a handful of personal activities, and deprogramming sessions at 3G France, three times a week. She's always smuggled out and then taken there under heavy escort and security.
Otherwise, she rarely leaves her room. The people in her life take shifts being with her, given her singular request that she just never be left alone, Banagher in particular has lost so much sleep trying to fulfill that request. Her sleeping and eating habits are still far from normal, she lost so much weight following the regimen of self-denial they set out for her.
It's so, so rare for her to leave that safe space, as right now she needs it. The constant reminders, the comfort and security, the company of the people in her life to remind her that what's in her head, what's STILL in her head is not her. Instead it's what she was made to believe.
So perhaps it's an unexpected surprise when the soft sounds of slippered feet come down from the wine cellar into the hangar. A young adult in lavender pajamas that seem two sizes too large for her. In her hands she's bearing a pinkish red Haro in her hands gently. "Okay, on three... one, two...-"
The Haro flaps excitedly on cue as it calls out, "Hello Chris! Hello Chris! Hello!" And the girl bearing him allows for a small smile, as she asks her quietly, "Don't suppose you'd mind some company?" It's certainly not a demand, simply an ask.
And yet, there she is, there it is, the offer. "This is Campanella by the way. He can be more excitable than Giovanni." She explains, and seems just faintly amused and chagrined both by that fact. As if the personalities were not EXACTLY fitting of their namesakes, but she's not changing their names at this point!
Usually she lets them follow her around, but right now she's holding onto him, as if she needed that sense of security that can be found in touch.
"I thought- well I've felt you around." She finally arrives at, quietly, as if to indicate why she came looking for her. "It didn't seem right to just, let things continue as they were."
<Pose Tracker> Christina MacKenzie has posed.
Christina MacKenzie, Haro enthusiast, didn't hear the shuffle of those slippers at first, focused as she was on her workbench. She's been down here a few hours--since Banagher got back from his mandatory hygeine break, and reassured her. She still hasn't spent much time alone with her... Despite Sayla's strength, and the outcome of Banagher's battle buoying her spirit, she still...hesitates to put herself where she believes other people should be.
It's XAIRO who rolls against Chris's leg with a soft notification tone.
"What's the matter, K?" Chris pulls her magnifying goggles up in time to be serenaded by two cute creatures--one quite more vibrant than the other. "...Leina." It's a softspoken surprise, a relieved sigh, and an apologetic grin all muddled together. "I made you come find me... Please, let me clear off a seat! You and Campanella are always welcome around me."
As she clears her notebooks off the cot--for mid-project naps, of course--Chris glances up the stairs. Other than the Haros, they were alone. A glance at her phone--no VERTEX alerts. "Sorry I made you come down here...did you need my help? Whip you up something to eat?" Distant. Utilitarian. Coward.
Leina calls her out, though. She's stood by when Banagher fell asleep by Leina's side, but always found an excuse right when the young woman starts to stir. Even without psychic powers, it's obvious she's a little more reserved around the girl. As though her touch could break something. As though her presence was...something as radioactive as the Tristan's misaligned baryons.
"I'm caught..." She sits on one end of the cot, offering Leina the rolling chair she'd been using. "I...don't think it's right, either..." but waiting patiently has never been her strong suit.
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
XAIRO gets a small wave, from which she doesn't let go of Campanella, simply shifting the weight against her forearm.
There's a look of chagrin, as her seagreen eyes give her a look of quiet inspection, "You didn't make me. Betting you just got, stuck in your own head again."
One footstep after another, she moves over towards the proffered chair, pulling up her legs, cross legged, "So I'll just say it. 'Of course I want to see you, Chris'."
Campanella settles in on her lap like an animated volleyball, her chin resting on him as he repeats, "See Chris! See Chris!" "That's what I'm here for."
Her chin rolls atop Campanella, as she tilts her head to look at her, "Don't need anything but you, unless you really wanted to affix a toaster slot in Campanella's mouth to mess with Mom."
That's very new, calling Sayla Mom, calling anyone Mom. Leina had steadfastly always called her, her Guardian. The topic of parents just, completely off limits.
Something must have changed.
"Okay. Well- I won't make you tell me what you're afraid of. My head's in... that place still." She tells her, as her eyes wander off sideways and down, "So I can't really trust what's in it. I can't... trust myself."
Shifting her arms atop Campanella, she lifts her chin, and places it atop them, "It sucks, I hate it." As Campanella's eyes light up, and he flaps again up against Leina's forearms, "Hate it! Hate it!"
Her eyes slide back over to Chris, from that position where it feels like she's sulking a little, "Right now my only option is to trust the people in my life, because right now all of you? Know me better than I know myself."
There's a prolonged sigh, and a thin smile, "You're one of them. And I don't hate that. Furthest thing actually. So, for a little while, I'm placing myself in your care."
As she reaches out, grasps the side of a work bench, and with the flick of a wrist sends the rolling chair in a spin, "So deal with it." It's quite a selfish statement, far different from her usual but...
... for once in her life she's forcing herself to focus on herself.
<Pose Tracker> Christina MacKenzie has posed.
Chris, stuck in her own head? That's less a bet and more a safe investment. And yet... Somehow, the gentle scolding in those green eyes is, perhaps, more soothing to the worried soul than any kind words from Sayla or Banagher or Mineva or Koji could be.
Her self-curation is embraced, blunting the corners off strong emotions the way Sayla taught her. It was to protect Leina back then, too. Even so... She's not so hard to read, lips crooked up at the corner at Leina in her chair.
"You're here just to see me..." Chris can't help but drop her head, shoulders shaking for a moment before she lifts her face again, unable to reserve the chuckling. "I *did* say you could ask anything of me... I forgot that option. I really for-, -forgot that was an option..." Barrier or not, her voice ran a speed bump on that repetition.
"A Haro Toaster, huh? Is that something you want, Little one?" she addresses to the pink Haro. Normally she might lean into it to deflect people to arms' length. Leina, she can't help but want to pull closer.
--tte, wait, ("Mom?") It couldn't be the obvious answer, and yet... ("Heh. Should I say congratulations to her?") It's... strange to think about what *hadn't* changed. Canonizing. Soldering, fixing in place something that had been loose, despite so much else being strained and fractured.
And there, before her, something still so strained, so fractured, mending slowly.
"Oh, Leina..." There were so many ways to make it worse trying to make it better--and wasn't that the very nature of the poison they'd left her believing? "It does suck. I hated seeing you that way; every minute of it." Her emotions are a little less sanded-off now.
"If you can't trust yourself... Then you're right to trust the people that love you. I wish I could hav--" No, there's no reason to indulge those anxieties with the power of words. "-Nevermind. I don't wish anything other than having you here with me right now."
She watches Leina spin, with her one (1) rare selfishness. "I guess it can't be helped. I'll deal with it, then. After all," she shifted closer to the edge of her seat. "You're the..." It's been thought so many times, and yet, it's hard to say aloud. "You're the most important person to me, in all the Earth Sphere. You and Sayla are the family I found. I can't help but want to take care of you, protect you..."
But Chris, why does that include from yourself?
She waits for Leina's spin to slow down before she adds, "And, if you'd like, there's a newborn member of that family who's been looking forward to meeting you..."
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
There's just a nod upon her arms, as she says she's here to see her, "You did- and, I am." Campanella flaps excitedly at her question, "Toaster! Toaster! Burn Red! Burn Red!"
As Leina's hand slowly rubs his head. She's not really worried about Chris modifying Campanella. She understands perhaps implicitly how careful she'd be.
The Burn Red part PROBABLY relates to the way to mess with Sayla, probably.
Leina's still spinning as Chris contemplates the question, it's an oddly childlike gesture, for someone who so rarely acted like a child.
It's only slowing to a stop in it's revolutionary cycles as Chris starts to address her again, as Chris stops on the speculating of what she wishes, "Oh I have a lot of wishes. That I didn't feel this way. That they never got me to make me feel this way. I can't even remember... how they got me though."
For a moment she seems morose, her hand rubbing over Campanella's surface for comfort, then there's a smile, "If they were gonna get me though, and I am going to feel this way though, could do worse."
There's a smile as the chair finally stops at a diagonal angle from her, causing Leina's head to turn before she reaches out and adjusts her angle, "Could do far worse. In fact. Got it really good, better than I could have ever asked."
Chris says she'll deal with it, then starts, and stops, and starts again, and Leina gives her a dumbfounded look for a moment, as if genuinely shocked.
She looks away from Chris and... there's a long moment of thought, and a sigh, "Some part of me even now is- is rejecting that. Just, thoughts in my head 'that can't really be true' 'she deserves better, much better.' It's-"
She inhales sharply, and gives her an embarrassed look, "-I wanna feel /right/ about you telling me something like that." A small pause, "I wanna feel like /myself/. Not- not like this."
For a moment, she puts a palm against her face, overwhelmed, as she sniffs, but then, puts Campanella on the floor, and stands, moving over to Chris on the cot.
Without another word of warning, she puts her arms around her, and sinks down beside her, burying her face against her shoulder. "Thank you. I wanna say- I wanna say something... you deserve something- more to telling someone that."
Her words are jumbled, as if she keeps running into the thoughts she's trying to get past, these thoughts the Vist Foundation made her feel. These feelings they'd made so large as to be overwhelming, when before they were so small.
"Than just- what I'm like, right now." Exhaling again, she says quietly, trembling, "Please- take care of me, protect me, until I can- can respond to your feelings as you deserve."
It's hard for her to ask other people to do this for her, so hard. She was always so fiercely independent. And now? Now she feels like a prisoner in her own head.
It takes her some time, but eventually she tells her, "I- I'd like that. Meeting- meeting them- I know you've been working hard."
<Pose Tracker> Christina MacKenzie has posed.
> ['This toaster glows with an awesome power--its burning grains tells me to feed you!]'
She can't help it, in the midst of things, laughing affectionately at Campagnella's excited cries. Maybe she could rig up a fake Aura Generator hexawing kit for the pink Haro come next HaroCon. But surely she'd have to revisit the design on those toaster ovens before she'd dare put one in anything as precious as a Haro...!
'Could do worse.' With grim worry on her face, Chris halts her thoughts before the spiral too far off course. "Worse, huh... You're not wrong. And I'll second those wishes of yours--But, for as much as it cost...I feel like I've already gotten my wish," she admitted.
Leina turned her gaze and admitted her struggle. Chris's tongue was caught, tangled in the pain on the younger woman's face. Those conflicted words trail off, and when Leina sniffs, Chris reaches out, almost stands, making it halfway before she hits the invisible wall she's erected. She shakes her head and moves to tear the wall down--but Leina erases the distance between them in so few heartbeats.
By the time Leina's sunken onto the cot, here's no hesitance left in the arms that cinch around the convalescent.
"I've got you, I've got you..."
"Leina, you've already said more than I'd need. No matter how much of you rejects it...it's still true. No matter how long it takes to accept, it's still real."
One scarred arm loosens to scratch at its owner's cheek, before resting on that brown hair, brushing it down. "Really, I'm just...an impatient person. I can hardly wait... There's no way to rush healing, obviously, but... That's just because it hurts to see you hurting. You taught me how to hope. The least I can do is take care of you while you learn how to again."
"I didn't want to set you back..." It's quiet, almost silent, but she'd already decided to explain herself.
Those arms tighten for a brief moment, as she recalls who she was in the aftermath of Dakar. Those reminisced feelings, disorientation and aggression, confusion and regret, waft off her.
"When you... I didn't know what to do when you were gone, and I'm bad at being helpless. I've always been--I even drove Sayla away because I kept pushing at her secrets. So once I had to let you go... You and your beaus and even the G3 girls on top of that, when I couldn't even save a single person, I...went a little mad. Couldn't tell which thoughts to listen to. I was so angry."
"If I hadn't busted the Tristan... I--" She can't hold her own tears back, not when she's got a soulsore bundle of waif relying on her, actually asking for help. "--I would have done something I'd surely regret."
"But... I was wrong to stay away...I'm sorry. You're trusting us to make decisions, and I...knew you--/you/ you--wouldn't want me to."
She waits for Leina to calm down a little, before helping her adjust.
"I've kept them asleep a lot since I wanted you two to learn off each other... MAIRO went and woke them up."
Before them is MAIRO's gunmetal sphere, rolling out of the way to reveal a small green and white miniHaro, its pink-trimmed shell traced with the lines of several separate articulating panels, rather than the typical circular flaps.
"I couldn't quite fit some of the usual Haro functions in...a-and I don't know where your watch is...so I couldn't synch it up to your Haro, but...Banagher told me your favorite colors, so I anodized the outer plates to match the Empress watch. They're ready to be yours now--if it's not too early for you to trust yourself with them, in which case, I can still," she backpedals, glancing eagerly. Despite its size... This is probably her proudest creation.
That's why she can't tell Leina what she almost did to it.
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
She could do much worse. She knows. She's had people in her life that didn't care for her. Not really. People who were supposed to be there for her.
Much worse, is much better than it sounds.
Her nodding against Chris who says she's got her, her eyes awash with droplets of water as they gather.
Chris tries to reassure her that she's said enough, and there's this shake of her head that rubs her soft fluffy brown hair up against the fabric of her top. It might take Chris a moment to understand she means she hasn't said enough.
She knows she can't help but reject it. They take those insecurities, those small feelings, that survivor's guilt, and seized it, and made them so overwhelmingly big.
This isn't how she's supposed to feel, and she knows it, and yet she does anyway.
"I-" She sniffs, "I buh-believe you." She comments, on what she says on it still being real. She can't trust herself...
... but she trusts Chris' feelings.
A broken, nasally laugh comes from her mouth, as her eyes continue to press against her, warmth, and wet, "So weird- wuh-weird... hearing- hearing you say such... god it's- touching and it's like-"
She shakes her head again against her, emotions in turmoil. And maybe Chris can guess what she was saying 'It's like I've forgotten how to hope.'
Because that is what they did to her, they went into her head and plucked that out of her, by altering memories, by disrupting emotional regulation, by removing coping skills.
Choking up for a moment, she just utters a dreaded word as she regains coherency, momentum, "Dummy! Se-Set me back!? How could- how could you /ever/?" Chris' arms tighten, and Leina clings to her even worse, "Need you- Need-"
It turns into a sob again, as she explains how she drove Sayla away, how she let her go, how she didn't let go, "-Duh-Dummy! I don't- don't care! I don't care-! About any of that! Duh-doesn't ma-matter!"
It's not that she's not touched by Chris' apology here, it's just that like with Sayla, she understands. All the things she thought that mattered. All the things she let get between them? The barriers that seemed so big, so overwhelming.
They don't matter. Not really.
"Y-You're here now. That-" She sniffs, "-That's what matters."
It takes her a while, to calm down, it's a gradual process. A girl who was so proud, so independent, who would have been mortified to cry in front of chris, and cling to her like this only six months ago.
"Please stay- I don't- I want. I want you to stay."
In this moment at least, when she's unable to truly think rationally, when she knows her thoughts, her feelings are all wrong. She can trust that much at least.
The only things she can anchor herself upon in this moment when she's adrift within her own head, are what allow her to absolve Chris of her perceived failings.
"I want you... here."
Eventually, as she adjusts, her head lifts off her shoulder, tear-stained, and looks at what she presents, "It's- it's here-" And as Chris looks, she might see that even though she's in her pajamas, Leina has it on her left wrist. "It's... right here."
As she holds it up, Campanella crying out happily 'Right here! Right here!', "Didn't take it to the Garuda, ever. Not ever. Left it with... Kobayashis..."
As she tells her, meeting her eyes despite the tears. As she looks upon the the green and white miniharo. "Love- love it. Um." Her eyes move to Chris as she says 'if it's not too early.' "I-"
Her mind snags on that, as she looks to Chris for guidance, "Can I? ... Should I? It's- you worked so hard. I- if you think it's alright..."
In the end, she leaves such a simple thing up to her, even though, right now, it's clear by the look on her face, she very much wants this, but she's having trouble trusting her capacity even for such simple things.
<Pose Tracker> Christina MacKenzie has posed.
"No, I promise, it's true..." she says, first, when Leina shakes her head. "I'll say it over and over. Here, like this." She clears her throat, trying to hide just quite how embarrassed she is to grandstand like this. "Leina Ashta, you rebuilt your life while I was at my lowest...Sayla pulled us both from the reaper, but you fought for it harder, and I couldn't let a kid outdo me."
"And... when I couldn't accept Sri Lanka as a victory, you're the one that took my despair and reminded me that the world can still change."
"You taught me more about Newtypes than anyone else, but you're not remarkable because of any Time Beyondness. You're remarkable because you're so stubbornly caring that even Vist couldn't change that, you fought us to /save/ us. ...Hell, you got some broken ribs to save your girlfriend, I heard." --("Still miffed she didn't call me for that, but I was watching Sayla, so...")--
"Even now, you're my faith for a better future. Banagher and Mineva, Akane and Rikka... I only met them because you're my precious family."
Leina's sobs bubble her words up, and it's hard to keep her voice from going the same way. "I know it's, it's hard...hearing it when you're not ready to." Banagher, insisting with tears in his golden eyes, that Chris needed to save herself, too... "But we'll remind you...and if you can't remember, we'll teach you! Leina...needs to be saved, too."
There's a moment of electromotive potential in the air, the feeling of the rain about to start, and--
"Wh-, I, I just wanted--" Chris, you're not getting a word in. "But what if--!" Chris, even if you could...
That's a minovsky beam, dead-center. There's no defending against it.
"You...need me?"
Leina Ashta... Kitchenmaster of the Mass Villa... Holding down the Foundation's affairs when even Dr. Mass is away. Chris needing Leina seemed natural. The reverse, it seemed...ridiculous. But if this was even a tenth of the disbelief plaguing Leina... then it was Chris's turn to accept the unbelievable.
"Thu-then... I'luh, ii'-," she choked down her misty eyes, her clogged words, started fresh. "...I'll... be here now." A long sigh. A bracing breath. "Here as much... as you need. A-and more. Hom-...My home is...where you and Sayla, are." Leina and Sayla have long been her anchor. If even this wandering nomad can be one to them in return...
Once the humans slowly catch their breath back... XAIRO rolls close to take a look at the watch, reporting "It's here! It's here!" Chris sees it and smiles, tears rolling down her cheeks again.
"It was...oh, Leina, I could always replace it but... but..." To Chris, just knowing it was subject to such concern... she could almost feel a little guilty for doubting herself! --Chris see a goddamn therapist are you really serious right now. Fuck, girl, you have anxiety about your anxiety; it's time to ask Sayla for a referral.
MAIRO rolls circles around the youngest Haro, clearly having gotten attached, as Chris watches Leina's eyes, too swept up in her emotions to feel undeserving. She only feels blessing and resolve. Leina is trusting her. And in a stellar rarity, Chris feels like she trusts herself, too. Though there's still tears, she clears her voice to answer.
"You can. And you should." She pauses, smiling. "I'd like this little one to stick close to MAIRO while it's learning about its hardware...I didn't preload any algorithmic use heuristics because I wasn't sure what you'd be doing, ah," she catches herself drifting into shop talk, refocuses. "So, if you bring it to France, can you let MAIRO tag along? I think it should be with you--I made it /for/ you... and-, and so did everyone else."
Chris signals to MAIRO, who doesn't even stop orbiting the miniHaro to warble instructions. The little Haro then lights up, excitedly wiggles, and reports in Shelby Korts's voice,
> "Stay strong. Still have to thank you for my sister."
"Besides, even if this little one is with you, I'm not going anywhere."
"I'll be here at home."
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
It's a hard thing to listen to in this state, someone talking her up. Especially in such a touching way, her thoughts, feelings, the depression and hopelessness they artificially cultivated within her demand she reject it.
Again and again and again.
And yet, she forces herself to listen, head against her, tearful eyes cracked open just enough to make it clear she is listening. When she's finished, her eyes close the rest of the way. She inhales a single sharp breath.
"I know... you wouldn't lie about this." She says quietly, words still broken up as soon as they leave her mouth, "I know. God. Embarrassing... hearing someone talk about me like... like this. And my brain is just- nnnghhhh...." Her groan breaks up into a nasally sniffle, "But, I guess- I guess I really do need... the reminder... guh..."
A hand swipes across her eyes, even as Chris stammers and flusters over a simple idea, "D-Dummy, I'm supposed to be the one all mess- messed up-! Of course, course I need you." Curling up against her, even as Chris chokes up, Leina tells her quietly but emphatically, "How- how can you not realize something- so simple!"
She's not precisely scolding her, despite the words. It's more that she's trying to drive it home how important this is to her, that it's not some idle whim, not some transient facet of her current state that she only needs her so long as her mind is out of order.
She needs her.
And that's been true for a long time, and will continue to be true. Hiccuping, and choking up, she nods again, and again, and again as Chris saying she'll be here now, as much as she needs. That this is her home.
It's good to hear, in this moment it's /necessary/ to hear it from her. Leina needs this stability, she needs to anchor herself upon the feelings of others against the turmoil of enhanced self-loathing and hopelessness within her head.
Wiping her eyes against the back of her wrist, she allows a small smile at Chris' relief over it being there, Campanella meanwhile toddles around on its rectractable legs as MAIRO rolls about the mini-Haro. "MAIRO! Hard work! Hard work! MAIRO saves!"
(Apparently Leina has socialized her Haros around the concept of Chris' Haros for this day.)
She then listens to Chris as she offers the shop talk, on the technical issues, and- "Absolutely. I'd like that" She agrees quietly, because while she may not understand all of these technical aspects. "It's... noone can go in there with me." Leina says, and there's a touch of a sulk in her tone, childish. Unlike her. She's just so vulnerable.
"So it'd be nice if... they're there, to greet me after."
The message from Shelby takes her off guard, as she blinks her eyes, then allows a small smile. It's hard for her to accept the kind words, but she tries to force herself to, to seize them and bring them into her being.
"Okay... I... Okay..." She rests her head against her for a time, "... home." Then after a long moment of contemplation. "It's... good to be home."