2023-09-07: Side by Side
- Log: 2023-09-07: Side by Side
- Cast: Rena Lancaster, Leina Ashta
- Where: Ra Mari II
- OOC - IC Date: 2023-09-07
- Summary: Rena and Leina meet before the mission into Denver, to talk about both recent events, Psychoframe, and what is to come.
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
Earlier today, Beltorchika Irma told them about Denver Colony. A plan was created. Tomorrow, the Three Ships Alliance launches -- to reconnoiter Denver's environs, then to enter Denver Colony itself.
Rena went to check on Eight afterward -- to make sure she knew what was going on. Then, she went to check on different people; the mechanics, some of the other pilots on the Ra Mari II, and planning with Acting Captain Enba. Now, she enters the hangar.
The Gaia Gear Alpha and the Banshee Norn are often docked near each other. The Psychoframe units have similar maintenance needs; that also means that the repair crews like them being close by, to make it easier to repair.
Rena approaches on a catwalk, as the two stand side-by-side in the docking bays. One black, one white; both powered down, but looking forward.
Rena puts her hands on the catwalk's railing, eyes turned upward, and looking at the two machines. Her expression is thoughtful. She speaks to the Gaia Gear Alpha, her voice quiet.
"You ready to go back?" she asks it. "It's where I found you."
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
It's always a walk through memory lane in these hangars. She's ten again, pushing that cart, delivering meals to the crew and the pilots, picking up laundry. And looming overhead are the mobile suits.
She never said it back then, that even if she twisted his arm to push him into it after so many botched heists...
... she was proud of him.
Things are different now, instead of the Zeta, there's the wrecked Strike Zeta beside the wrecked Double Zeta. Time passes, but things tend to rhyme.
Rena may feel her coming, even before she hears the footsteps upon the metal catwalk. A hand upon the rail, unused to the feel of gravity upon the ships, the threat of falling just looms.
"I don't think anyone is ever ready." Leina says, as if she heard it, perhaps from the acoustics in this cavernous place. "To go back."
To go back where? Well, anywhere, from one's past.
That faint smile is there, worn upon an older version of herself. Right now she's wearing a worn tank top over a sports bra, a pair of coveralls that's only half on.
She's not much of a mechanic, but she does her part in the maintenance, "If Axis were still around, would you be ready?"
Her seagreen eyes, seem to say 'I wouldn't be.' And indeed, she looks at the twin figures of black and white, "Heh." There's a fitting sense of symmetry and asymmetry at once about that.
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
It's hard for Rena to not feel Leina. They don't have the close bond that she has to Eight, but that had years of daily proximity. Still, it seems like she senses her better than she senses most other people. Part and parcel of two Newtypes being friends.
She turns, with a little more ease. She had more time to adjust to the Ra Mari II's artificial gravity.
She smiles at Leina, head tilted. Rena, for her part, is in her uniform coat -- but it's open, and the white T-shirt underneath has some sweat on it. Rena had done a few checks. "No," she admits. "I'd be terrified out of my mind." She hesitates. "I'm a little terrified, if I'm being honest."
She falls quiet, though, and Rena looks up, at the same thing that Leina does.
"They go together, kind of, don't they?" she asks. "Not quite the way the Unicorn and the Banshee do. But..." She glances sideways. "They match. And they don't."
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
There's a quiet smile, even as sympathy flecks within those eyes at her answer, before stepping forward, looking up at them. "They really do." Before she adds wryly, "And not just because of the horn."
Her hand slides along the rail until she's up near Rena, but looking up at mobile suits, "Psychoframe... Nanai Miguel called her intentions for it as an aperture. A window to 'possibility'." Her head tilts, and the smile plays wider, "I wonder if she'd think the same looking at them both? The Gaia Gear... a path not taken, sealed away. Now uncovered again, for a purpose different than it's creation, one you define. The Norn... a suit that wasn't supposed to exist, the forbidden curse that became a prayer."
She must be feeling poetic in this moment, optimistic perhaps. It would be easy for her to fall into cynicism given how the Earth Fed would look at their suits right now.
An existential threat to humanity.
"It belongs more to you than it ever did him now. A reflection of your feelings - so if you're a little terrified, then - I think it must be too."
Her eyes close momentarily, "It's not her but - I think the Norn must be scared too. With so many of her feelings inside. A place like this? Would only hold awful reminders."
Her eyes close after a moment, "For me too." She admits, "But... going back to a place like this, it feels less frightening..." Her eyes open anew, as she turns to face her, "...knowing you'll be there with me, Renalle."
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
"Yeah," Rena says. She looks up, lips pursing. "Not just the horn. Or the Psychoframe."
She looks sideways at Leina for a moment, her own lips curving up into a smile too. "I wondered, too. They've got a lot in common," she says. "They're both... even if they weren't supposed to be -- whether it was something not meant to exist or something sealed away, after it wasn't taken -- they're something that represents what we want to do."
She is quiet for a second. Then, she looks sideways, and peers at Leina -- and turns, to face her too. "I don't blame the Norn. Or the Gaia Gear Alpha. Or you."
She smiles, after a moment. "Me, too. I wonder if I'm really who the Gaia Gear wants," Rena admits. "But... knowing you'll be there with me, I know it's going to be okay. In the end."
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
"Not just." Leina repeats, in echo.
There's a moment where Leina thinks about it, how they represent 'Possibility' wherein the more cynical side of herself might state the Norn represents captivity.
Another cage. Just like the pretty one Glemy put her in, it became the darkness that Murasame and Vist-Carbine put her in.
Now however, it's so much more. From captivity, to agency. To possibility. Will the world change?
Maybe not, but she can change. And she can change the lives of others.
"No?" Leina tilts her head, "Lot of ways a girl could interpret that one. Not blaming me - us... for being scared, sure."
How much of her actions in that place were motivated by them playing on her fears? Her guilt? Either way...
"You said you weren't angry back then but, wouldn't blame you for being a little angry. Absolution? Feels like a lot."
As she says it's going to be okay, knowing she's there, "Alright in the end... yeah." The smile returns, before ebbing away as she considers... what the Gaia Gear wants?
Leina contemplates that for a time, before she looks up at it, "Hmmm. Well - part of me wonders if that's really the right question?"
A hand reaches out, to touch her arm, as she then makes eye contact, asking with a far more serious tone, "What do you want Renalle?"
If there's one thing Leina's learned from these experiences, it's that Newtypes can sometimes get to swept up in the feelings of others that they stop considering their own needs.
And thus, the question to Rena.
"I think that's the question you really need to answer first."
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
"For being scared," Rena clarifies. "Because... I'm scared too. It's hard not to be." She hesitates. "But I don't blame you for anything else, Leina. You or the Norn. And... I'm not just saying that because it's easier to shift the blame to Vist-Carbine or Murasame and pretend it never hurt."
She looks back up at the two Mobile Suits, side by side. "I don't know what it's like," she admits, her voice quiet. "I know my mom probably filled my head with a lot of crap. But... I don't know what it's like to go throw what you did."
Rena shakes her head, after a moment. "But I decided that, even if I've hurt in the past, and I know it wasn't your fault, and I'm torn up about what happened... I'd rather stand here with my best friend. And look to the future, instead of dwell on the past."
She looks at her, then she smiles. Rena hesitates for a moment, though -- because she considers Leina's question for a moment. Her expression softens, becoming more thoughtful.
"I think..." The hesitation is something Leina can feel. There is uncertainty there, because she hasn't completely figured that out. "...I want to know I've helped. Made things better, for others and for myself. And that I did it because I'm me."
She looks back at the Gaia Gear Alpha and exhales, softly. "Not who I was made to be."
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
"It's..." Leina pauses, as she thinks of how to describe it, before settling then upon that word choice, "... in my case what it was like? It was taking a lot of crap that's already there and making it too big, too overwhelming to ignore." A hand raises up as if to gesticulate, a flick of the fingers as she checks it off, "Things like... Survivor's Guilt, Despair over the State of the World, the Feeling like we're just stuck in a loop - on the Mobius strip, forever."
It's not everything she was feeling by half, but she can at least tell Rena that, "All those first war feelings that I never fully dealt with."
There is a smile as Rena calls her her best friend, "Wouldn't have thought I'd still have that title given all your time with the Ra Mari and the Kakapo Squad, but - you're dating both people I'd call competitors for it." A light tease there, "So I accept. Standing here with you - looking to the future, no matter how much the past keeps coming back to haunt us."
As Rena contemplates her answer though, Leina falls silent, listening for a time, and then...
... she thwaps her arm with the back of one hand, just lightly. The contact doesn't even hurt, "Dummy. You've already done that. Everything here in the Three Ships Alliance and stopping the ZAFT War. With Gryps II." Then she emphasizes, "With me."
That hand then comes back up to point at her, "The problem is, all the insecurities in your head are telling you that you haven't. That you're still following your mother's script."
The smile fades a touch, into something more serious, "It's not so easy, not really, pushing back against stuff like that in your own head. But take it from me, who still can't trust everything in her own head?"
Now her hand moves down to grip Rena's, and clasps around it, as her other moves from the rail to enfold around it, "If you can't trust yourself, trust the people in your life to set you straight. And I know, without a doubt, that my life is better for you being in it."
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
"Mm... yeah," Rena says, with a nod of her head. "That makes sense. My mom, I guess--it was more like... the type of manipulation someone can do to their kid. Nudge me to respond a certain way. Make me eager to please people, reward me when I'm obedient. Stuff I still spot myself doing, sometimes."
She quiets down for a moment, though, and nods. "But... I guess I know what that's like. Feelings you never totally dealt with."
Then, there's a smile.
"Well, you are," Rena says, with a smile. "I-I mean, unless someone else is your best friend, and--" Then, she starts to redden in the cheeks. Oh, there's other people from Winter Wonderland, but...
"I-I am kind of dating them, huh," she says. "Okay, super dating them. But... I doubt I'd have been able to be their friend if I hadn't met you."
She looks back up at their two Mobile Suits. She looks, and then--
Thwap.
Rena looks at her, one eyebrow raised. She listens to her accolades, and to Leina breaking it down. She is quiet for a second.
Then, she nods her head. "...I do trust you," she says. "And Annie and Eight. And... I can't say you're wrong about the things I've done."
She looks up. "I'm glad," she says, her voice quiet. "That you think so. I think... I want to start believing it about myself, too."
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
Leina's eyes fleck with sympathy again, "Sucks, when you're a Newtype and already inclined to people please." After all, sensing one's intent? One just becomes predisposed towards responding to it.
"Yeah... you do at that."
Rena stammers, and blushes about the best friend issue, and Leina giggles lightly, "What? Nah. I've got friends of course but - s'different. When it's talking about school stuff versus... someone who was there. So sure you're my best friend. Just wasn't sure I was yours."
She does wink at Rena, "Super dating them?" Another tease, "You're gonna have to clarify that one later, tell me all about the details."
In the end though, she can tell a lot of what's in Rena's quiet, as she listens to her break it down.
"I'm rarely wrong, except when I'm very wrong." She says quietly, "But I know now I can count on all of you to drag me back by my ear when I am."
A light squeeze of her hand, "Well, when you can - I think - no I know - the Gaia Gear will respond to those feelings Renalle."
A tiny smile plays upon her lips again, "I know it's hard to believe, to tell your head that anyone would want the same things as you - but it's true. Answering the right question tends to answer the wrong questions too."
And in a moment whereupon she paraphrases Mineva because 'My girlfriend is neat' she concludes, "Please, believe in the god called 'possibility' that sleeps within you too, Renalle Kan Zeitun - Rena Lancaster."
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
"Yeah," Rena says, with a smile. "It sucks, sometimes. But other parts... I don't think I'd trade it for anything."
Because, she thinks, Yuliana is wrong. It isn't a curse; it isn't a defect. It made times that were so hard have meaning, and it made the good times even better.
Then she laughs, her cheeks reddening. "Best friends then. And... o-okay. Yeah," she says, with a momentary stammer. "I'm overdue to spill. I kind of, by which I mean I did, move in with Anita, so..."
There is plenty to spill.
Rena smiles, then, and she squeezes Leina's hand back. She tilts her head to the side -- thinking for a moment. "I... I think I understand," she says. "I'll trust in the Gaia Gear, then. And..."
The god of possibility that sleeps within her. Another woman with two names. Maybe Mineva -- maybe Audrey -- knows best of all.
"I will," Rena says, her voice quiet. "I'll try to believe. And... you do the same, okay, Leina?"
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
"Long overdue." Leina grins, "You'll have to tell me all about it. That's a leap even I haven't made yet-!"
A beat.
"Unless you consider this whole situation that? On Magallanica?"
As suddenly she rethinks that, given that, she technically IS moved in to her girlfriend's...
... Space... Fortress...?
And as she hears Rena say she'll trust in the Gaia Gear, that she'll try herself to believe, asking her to do the same.
"... Can't believe I'm saying this." There's this amused, and chagrined look in equal measure, "I wasn't much of a 'miracle' girl, except in those Magical Girl shows Mom and I like."
After all, miracles always seem to have a cost in this world, "But the truest miracles in existence are the people in our lives right? All of you taught me that."
A pause... and...
"So... believe in miracles Rena, and they will know your true feelings."