2023-09-10: .i saved theM
- Log: .i saved theM
- Cast: Yuliana Kafim, Elisa Kafim
- Where: The Silent Castle, Kaffeklubben Island
- Date: 2023-09-10
- Summary: Yuliana, half-mad and exhausted, returns to the Silent Castle with the massive outcropping of inert Psychoframe she claimed from Denver Colony. Elisa enforces her narrative on the Narrative which Yuliana helped shape.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana called to her wife, and her wife summoned her back home.
It was a near thing, Emptear not falling backwards into the ocean; one leg bent back, jets firing, she catches herself. She crouches, in the ice-choked coast beside their island, and places the dull red Psychoframe into the shallows. It is the angriest iceberg in residence, standing in stark contrast to the green pillars atop the walls of the Silent Castle.
Emptear remains there, crouched in the shallows, one hand pressed past the ice and water to support herself -- just as Yuliana presses a hand to the Voidframe dancefloor.
Her breathing, laboured, is audible.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Elisa Kafim saw, of course. She sees much, when it comes to her wife.
And now she has come from the castle, in her black cloak and in her fury, but there is no fury for Yuliana today. She sees the dull red Psychoframe, but it is a matter for later. First...
Black lightning trails at her feet as Elisa rises into the air. "My darling," she says, and her voice carries. "Deactivate her. Come to me."
She rises, and rises, and rises until she is outside, and waiting.
This is her priority.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"I'm all threaded through," Yuliana says, a touch high, a touch whining, "rip the stitches and cut... I..."
Haltingly, Emptear rises, as Yuliana does; moves to her default position, as Yuliana finds the activation panel. "Emptear," she beseeches her, "set down," and the Void which pours from the machine recedes from the world as Emptear's movements cease mirroring her own.
Her black, Voidframe heart opens; Yuliana still stands there, clad in the anklets and bracelets of her control scheme, blindfold bound about her eyes. She is drenched in sweat, and she trembles, but there is no sign nor scent of blood leaking from her nose or her ears. Emptear is her armour, even in such dangerous Miracles as these.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
"I will not."
But Emptear rises, and Elisa will return her to the sea soon enough. Soon enough. But not yet.
The Voidframe heart opens, and Elisa is there, hovering outside, and then moving into the chamber. "Shh," she says. "You were magnificent."
She begins to detach the anklets and bracelets first, gently, lovingly, supporting Yuliana's weight with her strength.
"Yes, you have returned..."
Lastly will be the blindfold, gently and carefully.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Of course, Elisa would never harm her.
"Ah..." A delicate smile spreads over Yuliana's face, glass ornament fragile, as Elisa praises her. "All is well? Though She bid me end it? What I began, I..." She's trying to say she didn't do it alone. She's struggling to orient herself to thoughts, now she's pushed herself through.
She at least doesn't have to struggle against Elisa. Her weight sinks into her wife, lifting her arms and her legs for her, dipping her head so she may remove her crown, and freely offering her neck that she might remove one necklace. She does this blind, but trusting Elisa so fully isn't unfamiliar to her.
And when Elisa unwraps the blindfold from her still-damp eyes, she blinks, looking up to her wife. "Elya," she murmurs, reaching up with a hand to cup her wife's cheek. "I... I tore the sky down to put them away, but they would've made a mess of the cupboard... so I cut the wire but thousands were there, but I couldn't fit the squares through the round... it's okay, the lights aren't, any more. I made it dark, and... Ritechka pushed them away..."
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
"She bid you end it, and it is ended. All is well." This, Elisa understands; she is... of mixed emotions, about the way in which it ended, but there is no need to burden Yuliana with those. What is important is...
Well. Elisa unwraps that blindfold and looks to Yuliana, leaning into her hand with intent. "You did," she says. "You did well. Even with the many opposing you, making your work harder than it needed to be, you succeeded."
The lights aren't. It is dark.
She should perhaps have foreseen this possibility. Should have known how fierce the opposition would be. And yet...
"Yes," she says. "Your friend aided you, and our cause. Such is plain. Such is manifest."
...However Elisa might feel about her.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Ah... thank goodness..." Yuliana's relief is tangible, physical, as she sighs and sinks into Elisa. All is well...
She feels Elisa's cool cheek, against her palm, and focuses her existence through it. It is real, she is real, she is here, her wife is here. And her wife is praising her, and it is a gentle salve against her delirious exhaustion, all strung out and strained. Yuliana's smile grows stronger, steadier, drawing on Elisa's steadfastness.
Her hand drops to Elisa's shoulder, so that she might hug herself to her caring witch. (Elisa, at least, cares for her.) "It was hard," she says. "It's the first time I started it... it felt like dancing the sky down, but it wasn't. Everything was in me. So many dozens, dozens of dozens, I knew their names. Yearning to die." Her fingers tighten, as she says: "I denied them. Sleep again."
She looks up to Elisa, head resting on her shoulder. "I should have had more faith in Emptear's protection, but... but it was hard, Elya. I could not open the way so easily, so completely, so widely. I tried... but they were stuck, they weren't here, they weren't there... I guess it made it easier for Ritechka to evict them. I don't know when they went..." Does she mean to say 'where'?
Perhaps she's confused.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Elisa does care for Yuliana. That is true.
She attempts to tease meaning from these mad statements, as she holds Yuliana, cradles her gently. She lets her rest and recuperate herself for now; only then will she remove them from this place, and set Emptear back to the sea.
"Emptear protected you," Elisa says simply. "You are safe. You need not fear." She considers. Not here, not there, and... Yes. Yes, what she says there...
"Perhaps we shall learn," Elisa says. "But you did well. If not for you, it would have been the end, for many. Far too many."
"Yes... Your work was key. Rita could not have attended this task on her own. But together, you did more than she could do alone."
"And the world has seen a fraction of what our Emptear can do..."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Emptear is an effort shared between them; Yuliana could not hide her, the way Elisa does. Could not summon her from the ocean, the way Elisa does. The structure of Emptear, as well, is too maddening for her logical engineering skills to maintain; she is as much magic as science, and this the domain of her wife.
Just like holding her, in the wake of all these efforts. Yuliana managed to get herself home, with Elisa's help -- but now she is safe, her mind is spent to exhaustion. Zoltan accused her of not knowing how to talk right, and right now, it's true. Is Yuliana's madness her default state?
All torn open and tattered, she bathes in Elisa's reassurances, Elisa's truths. She is safe; she is safe, and she nuzzles her face into Elisa's shoulder, cheek rubbing against the black cloth of her cloak. Now freed from her helmet, the frills about her ears fan out, comfortably.
"I saved them," she murmurs, smiling. "I saved them all..."
Rita... couldn't have done it, alone. Yes, Yuliana thinks. If she had left Rita to handle this task herself, she surely would have burned herself to nothing. "I... saved her, too," Yuliana adds, and sounds pleased about what Elisa has told her. "Ritechka..."
(But how much is Yuliana capable of, alone, under Emptear's protection?)
"Yes... the infinitesimal degree. They will know. They will see. These worlds layer each other, and She presses down. Close the jaws and bite."
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Is it her default state? Perhaps, perhaps not. But Elisa pays close attention to Yuliana in this way. She would argue Zoltan's assessment; far from not talking 'right', there is insight dripping from every hallowed word...
But now, Elisa has freed Yuliana from those doubts. She smiles back. "Yes. You did. It was you."
And Yuliana saved Rita, too, and while perhaps Elisa thinks that's inconvenient... Perhaps it's the proper way of things. Perhaps there is more, yet, that Rita can do for them...
Regardless, "Yes. They will. She is closer still. All is well, my darling."
"...Come. Let us bring you into the warmth, and comfort."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
'I pledge, in honesty and with sincerity, to be for you an obedient and insightful wife.'
Pacts and rituals have power; marriage, most of all. Yuliana swore her insight to Elisa, on that day, and ever since she has volunteered all that she has Seen.
Elisa's smile is precious, to Yuliana. Precious as her words. "I did it..." She did it.
"Closer, yet closer," Yuliana murmurs, warmly, though her temperature's dropped another half-degree. "Growing darker, cutting deeper... She is near." Is this how Yuliana normally is -- or is something greater at play?
All is well. Elisa's reassurances warm Yuliana's heart, even if her skin doesn't.
She sighs, sinking into her wife, shifting just so to follow her suggestions. "Anywhere is a comfort, so long as it's with you," she says, soft and loving, a hand pressing to Elisa's arm. "But as you say... let us go, boyevaya podruga." She calls Elisa her combat friend, the one person she can always rely on to fight beside her; it's a romantic term, in Zaftra.
Perhaps it's no wonder Elisa would find Yuliana working with other people on the battlefield inconvenient.