2023-10-17: .let me work the miracle of meeting you with a hand which clutches no bladE
- Log: .let me work the miracle of meeting you with a hand which clutches no bladE
- Cast: Yuliana Kafim, Naoko Suzuki
- Where: Pori, Scandinavia
- Date: 2023-10-17
- Summary: The Silent Calling's Oracle arranges safe passage and protection for some escaping Cyber-Newtypes -- but she's being followed. Yuliana beckons Naoko into an alleyway, and rather than slaying her while they're out of sight, she explains the situation to her, instead. After their tense introductions, Naoko plants a recording device in the Silent Calling's congregation... but it seems that people came here because they want to be here.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana frequents the Kingdom of Scandinavia relatively frequently; it's close enough to her home to be an easy trip, but not so close that she threatens bringing her enemies home. Here, there are frequent meetings of the Silent Calling, and of course she is on her way to another. She could be going nowhere else in her black robes, with her green folded cloak all styled like dragon's wings and her gold headdress with dragon's wings about her ears.
She's stopped by Pori, the Bear City. Before her meeting with the faithful, she has more delicate matters to attend -- the safety of a handful of Cyber-Newtypes they've railroaded away from a laboratory on neutral ground. Dressed in black like the rest of the Calling, they blend in to the congregation which has descended on the regional city today; it's important to their safety that they're not easily picked out.
"It's all right," she assures them, when the first asks what's going on as she sits beside them. "This is nothing more but proof of wrongdoing. I... too, have seen these things." And in low tones she speaks, with them, about their experiences and hers.
"You want to stay together, I am sure," she says, at length. "So we've arranged a place for you... until we're able to arrange new papers, please ask the women with you if you need anything. I... do not wish to see your work undone by something as simple as the authorities." And she seems -- if not feels, black hole of information that she is -- entirely compassionate, in this, clasping one of their hands in her own. "For now, please come to the meeting. Armelle will be able to help you on, from there. We will do all in our power to ensure they do not find you again."
She smiles to them, and stands from the table in the cafe where they were speaking; of course, she's paid for the meal. She leaves, first. It's less suspicious if they don't all leave together, and they know where the meeting hall is.
<Pose Tracker> Naoko Suzuki has posed.
Naturally, there are many others who know where the Silent Calling meeting hall is. They want the Lost to be able to easily find them, after all. But of course, this means those that aren't actually interested in what is being offered are able to locate them easily as well. Even if they perhaps do fit a certain definition of Lost.
Naoko Suzuki has come to Pori for one reason only: to learn more about what she's up against. If she's going to become capable of freeing anybody from this Void Stuff, she should probably become more familiar with it than literally only knowing it as Void Stuff. The horse's mouth seems like as good a place to start as any.
She is, of course, under the impression that there's a lot more going there than is claimed. No way is there just some feel-good sermoning going on there. If she can plant a monitoring device in that meeting hall, she's positive that she'll be able to record some fascinating data on whatever Void powers are being used to mind control people. Which has got to be what's happening, obviously. She simply can't imagine anybody actually buying into this. And has failed to consider that may have something to do with her own frame of reference.
It matters little, in the end, because her plan went out the window the moment she happened to spot Yuliana from a distance. After hiding for long enough to stop the hyperventilating, she couldn't control her curiosity. She had to get closer - though not too close, of course - to discover what measure of Void Stuff was being applied in her interactions. And yet, all she overheard seemed... nice? She's not ready to call it sincere out of hand, but... nothing untoward seemed to be going on. Weird.
Unfortunately, she has failed to account for one thing. Her presence is not as well-masked as she thinks. She isn't much aware of her very nature being like a beacon to some. And while she isn't as strong of one as she is when piloting - there is, in fact, some measure of interference that has caused her to not stand out particularly strongly in the presence of Cyber Newtypes - she is far from invisible on the psychic spectrum. ...Also, while she may be wearing a black hoodie with the hood up, she still doesn't quite fit in because hers is covered in colorful patches.
Once she actively starts following Yuliana, even at a distance, that intent she carries as well as her increased distance from the crowd is going to make it that much more obvious. Stealth was never her strong suit to begin with. She should probably have listened to her friends when they cautioned her about what a bad idea this was. And yet... here she is taking yet another incredibly stupid risk, as is becoming increasingly more frequent.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Why... all are welcome.
Even... EVEN.........!!
Nova, in this world, is a yawning abyss of what should be. Know that her hoodie is almost too indistinct, framed against flesh flensed away in layers and layers and layers; every word and Whisper is nothing.
Nothing at all.
And it tears, jagged, at the world around her; in tatters and shreds reality bleeds at her edges, with all that should be made null and void. When she follows in Yuliana's footsteps, Yuliana's stomach turns, in concert with the way her heel plants and spins.
(She's wearing flats, of course. Even if she's dressing more femininely, these days, she's never mastered heels.)
Her eyes fall on Nova, in the crowd; her endless green eyes lock on her, pupilless and shining, and she lifts her fingers, curls them in. Come to me, she gestures, as she turns and steps into an alleyway, built between two sturdy Nordic townhouses.
Come to me, though this is the most foolish action you could take, here in this sleepy Scandinavian city.
<Pose Tracker> Naoko Suzuki has posed.
Naoko feels seen before she can see the overt signs of it. She should, by all rights, have started running immediately when that happened. Instead, she freezes. Not for a question of fight or flight, since there's no meaningful way she could fight. It's the deer in headlights reaction.
She could have imagined a great many things happening in that moment. None are even remotely like what actually happens. Merely a baleful stare, or so one assumes - eyes like that just have a way of appearing (un)naturally baleful. That, and a clear request to follow.
Again, the logical response would be to make herself scarce while she has the chance. So why is she still standing there? Is she actually considering this? This level of indecision makes her in dire need of assistance. And so...
>"You're not seriously considering this, Nova? She's dangerous! You need to run, right now!"<
It's a risk for her friends to speak in public, where the psychicly sensitive may hear. But this is a dire situation... and, most pressingly at the moment, Yuliana cannot hear. The advice is the logically sound kind, however, there is an argument to be made...
>"Not so fast. Something's different, isn't it? She didn't go berserk as soon as she noticed you, this time."<
>"Uriel, you can't seriously be considering..."<
>"Hey, it's not as if I like any of this! It's just that if she wanted to kill you, you'd be dead already. And she could change her mind if you don't do as she says."<
Naoko lowers her head. She doesn't like any of this, but... she can't argue the point. It may be too late to run now... talking herself out of trouble might be the only chance she has. ...She did come here to learn things. Perhaps there is still a chance to do so.
With her hands in her hoodie's pockets, Naoko warily trudges in the direction Yuliana went. Staying silent, very slow to approach, quite obviously afraid and having trouble getting her legs to move... but she's doing it, all the same. In her pocket, she squeezes her hand shut around her hand-made monitoring device, activating it. Its signal makes her possible to track... in theory. She should have told anybody where she was going for there to be any realistic chance of help arriving. No, this is purely an attempt to use it for its primary purpose: if there's any chance of gathering the data she was after still, she wouldn't want to miss it.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Hmm?" Yuliana asks, when Nova trudges into speaking range. Her hands are visible, clasped at her broad belly; her strange gaze drops to the younger girl's hand, obscured in her pocket. "Are you planning to shoot me..?"
Yuliana has no capacity to transgress into Nova's thoughts; she cannot hear Uriel and Ariel's debate, and neither can she divine just what that bulk in her hoodie pocket is. Perhaps it's telling that the first thing she thinks of is a gun. But she spreads her hands, deliberately calm, bereft of weapon, and tells her: "There's no need for that. I just thought you'd prefer a little privacy... since you sought our meeting."
Well, she followed her, anyway. Does that mean she wanted to meet her...?
Yuliana makes the alleyway into an abyss unto itself; all empathic information falls into her, consumed by her, engulfed. Annihilated. But she minds her manners, almost kindly; so long as Nova stays two metres away from her, out of her grasp, her psychic information won't be consumed.
How nice for her passengers.
"Welcome," Yuliana smiles, and if the expression is a little fixed and screwed to her face -- one can hardly fault her. "I am Yuliana Kafim, the Silent Calling's Oracle. And you are...?"
<Pose Tracker> Naoko Suzuki has posed.
Oh. ...Oh! A lightbulb goes off in Naoko's head regarding what her pocketed hands might look like. She had no idea before Yuliana said something, but... that's good, if it appears that she's armed. And actually capable of shooting somebody in cold blood. And... at all better prepared than she actually is. She very much wants to appear that way. Thankfully she does have copious experience in acting more confidently than she is, even if the sudden shift in her bearing is rather abrupt when the cringing makes way for a straightened back.
"...Not if I don't have to," the bluff leaves her lips with surprising ease. Just go with it. Tap into the energy of 'Nova Stellar'. As long as Yuliana isn't acting aggressively, this should be something she can do. And indeed, Yuliana seems to be acting in good faith. Showing the lack of a weapon. Speaking calmly, meeting her on her own apparent terms - never mind that she was just stumbling her way into this. It's easier still to go with the flow, slowly removing her hands from her pockets and showing them as empty as well, making it look like she's returning the good faith gesture.
A grimace crosses her face, visibly aware of the void she faces. Even though it can't be viewed with one's eyes, at this distance, she can tell how far it reaches. She'll be careful of getting anywhere near it, not that she was planning to take even one step closer if she can help it.
"...Thank you for your courtesy," she thinks to say, which is genuine enough, even if her actual feelings are closer to 'thank you for not attacking me'. She can't quite manage a smile, but she can at least answer in turn. "...Nova Stellar. Miracle Worker." No way is she using her real name here. But she will still insist upon that self-assigned title.
She pauses, knowing the ball has been put in her court to clarify her business. She needs a moment to think of her phrasing, before she speaks again. "I suppose... I just wanted to understand. Who you are. What you're trying to do. ...And why you seem to hate me so much, even though this is the first proper meeting we've had."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana accepts the bluff easily enough; whether she sees it for bluster or not, she proceeds as if it is true, with a little incline of her head. She's too paranoid to discount the idea that one of -- THESE PEOPLE -- would follow her with intent to kill, even if she's so...
... young.
She smiles, all too generous, when Nova thanks her; her hands clasp together, at the name. "A 'Miracle Worker', are you..? Why..." A moment's pause, as she evaluates whether she can bear the weight of the words, "... I've worked a few miracles myself, in my day." Of course it is disgusting to share ground with this creature -- but it will wound her as much as it does Yuliana.
She SHOULD thank Yuliana for not attacking her. It wouldn't be DIFFICULT. Yuliana's faster than a child, and she scarcely needs a weapon, she could just--
But all the evidence of those thoughts are a little twitching of her fingers, clasping more tightly together for a moment. She swallows them back down into her belly, where her hate roils.
She is a jealous woman, and She would possess these creatures. Yuliana must put her at ease.
(And if her reaction to Nova reminds her at all of just being a starker echo of her reaction to Newtypes, even a year ago... oh, don't make her look in a mirror.)
"Hoh? Have we met?" Yuliana asks, tilting her head to the side. "I can't say I'm familiar -- unless..." There's a very short list of people someone so loathesome could be; it doesn't take long to narrow it down. "... are you the girl from the Sukeban, perchance?" Really, it's a VERY short list. Yuliana laughs, and the sound is self-effacing, embarrassed. "My, no wonder you're nervous...!"
As if this were all just... a silly misunderstanding.
Yuliana sighs, reaching up with a hand to brush her bangs back across those golden wings on her tiara. "You'll forgive me, I hope," she invites her, with her glance away, fingers veiling her eyes, "for I am audience to a greater power, and Her will is at times... difficult for the human mind to comprehend. The wisdom I received spoke of you as a thing which this world could not abide -- surely you have seen these things, these ruinous horrors inflicting themselves on society, all their poisons veiled and swallowed. Haman Karn, Rau Le Creuset, Alexis Kerib..." Oh, her neighbour will surely forgive her for throwing him under the bus; he's presently indisposed, after all. "Could I live with myself, if I risked another? Ah, but my understanding was incomplete," and her smile seems so fragile, looking back to Nova. "I'm afraid I misidentified you." And this much, at least, is true.
Her hand presses to her cheek, as she hums, thoughtfully. "And, what I'm trying to do...? At present, I'm facilitating someone's escape from a laboratory... that sort of thing is rather personal to me, you understand. You'll understand as well, I hope, that I cannot share with you details. I know that some people doubt my intent -- you are not the first type of person I've mistakenly assaulted, I fear... but I wish only to bring about a world of peace and equality for all."
Yuliana sighs. "It is to my regret that my own history has left me a harsh woman, quick to anger and to violence. It was not by my will was I made." Another true thing, all buried in the misdirection. The twist of her lips as she says it is no feint, nor the way her gaze darts from Nova's, again. "The Republic required a saboteur. Would you have me apologise for being such a weapon, then? I wished to help the world."
<Pose Tracker> Naoko Suzuki has posed.
Certainly a risk to judge anyone by their age. Who knows how long anyone has been involved in combat for? Only getting into a robot at 17 might make Naoko count as a late bloomer in that regard.
Yuliana's assessment is correct in that the girl doesn't look particularly pleased about the claim that they have something in common with one another. She can't deny it however. She will in fact confirm it. "...So I've seen." Once Yuliana pieces together who she is, there's logical sense to be made of that claim: the Sukeban was there at Denver, to see what Yuliana did with that mass of Psychoframe crystal. Very dubiously a good thing, but she's not going to deny that in her expert opinion, that certainly counted as a miracle.
"Oh... yes, that's me," she confirms herself as the pilot of the violet Arm Slave, a bit of surprise leaking in her voice. Usually she's pretty proactive about announcing who she is to anyone who'll listen, but it stands to reason she had more pressing concerns, in this case. She frowns in confusion when this elicits laughter of all things, readily assuming that she's being made fun of. Instead, it seems it was all about...
"...Her will." This must be the same mysterious 'She' that's responsible for Shari's predicament. The aspect that she doesn't understand very well - and shouldn't, from what she was told. And yet, it's hard to fight something you don't understand. While inwardly debating about whether or not she should pursue that angle, however... she is compared to some rather choice names. One of which, she's personally familiar with.
"Rau Le Creuset? You thought I was anyone like him...?" Her disgust at the comparison is poorly hidden, her hands curling into fists. But this is directed at the man himself, rather than Yuliana. "If that's what you're worried about, don't be. People like that, who just want to see the world burn... they're my greatest enemies. This one, I took care of personally."
She absolutely was a factor in his demise, though obviously not the only one involved. Still, it sounds cooler that way than just saying 'I helped', doesn't it? Besides, she's trying to give Yuliana reason to not change her mind about letting her live, she can't exaggerate her importance enough.
As for what Yuliana says about herself... there's the clear implication of trying to help others that are like herself. Naoko has no problem seeing eye to eye in that respect. After all... she'd be lying if she claimed the main reason she's even standing here wasn't the wish to help someone like herself.
In the end, Naoko takes a deep breath... and finally manages a small smile of her own. "I guess it really was a misunderstanding then. I'm relieved... it was really bothering me. I'm fine with being disliked, but if I'm gonna be, it should be for a reason. So... I'm glad we could clear this up."
I'm still going to have to fight you the next inevitable time you do something I don't agree with, she thinks to herself. But that's fine, as long as she can make logical sense of it. ...And she can do something about that Void. Recording a field of Nothingness may not do most people any good, but... she'll definitely be studying whatever her monitoring device might be able to tell her about the area she knows that field to be in. Every little bit helps.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Being fair, Yuliana only got into the robot when she was twenty, and even then -- she was piloting engineering machines before she ever went to war.
(Like, for instance, the Tendus. Ask her about taking one out to fight the Mycenae Empire!)
But she is thirty, now; she's lived long enough to have so much more experience to lord over Nova, even if Nova started fighting before she ever did.
And yes, Denver was a miracle. Even before Yuliana stole the Psychoframe crystals, she disarmed a field of Helium-3 which would have exploded and destroyed the Earth and all those colonies, and unmoored the field from reality itself -- and who knows what else she would have done, had she not asked the Phenex for help completing the motion. (The Phenex sent it all away in time; it's somewhen else, now.)
If she hadn't stopped the Helium-3 tanks, the Earth would be decimated. Billions dead.
And if she'd left the Phenex to handle that miracle alone... the Phenex might have burned itself out for good.
"You were? Then I am grateful," Yuliana says, and it's not entirely a lie. She hated Rau and his works. "I..." She frowns, biting her lip. "I was... occupied," her voice breaks, just a little, at the word, "at the time, I could not... never mind that."
(If Nova does mind it, later -- or if she was one to read the news at the time -- there were plenty of publications on the raid on the Institute for Continuing Study, in Sri Lanka. Yuliana was mentioned, in those materials... as one of the human experiments from the laboratory, still tragically at large after aiding her captors. ... and then there were the REA's accounts, which claimed that the blacksite was an unauthorised tragedy and Yuliana was a saboteur who had snuck into the military's ranks and needed to be brought to justice for her crimes against the Republic.)
"You seem a pleasant girl," Yuliana makes herself say. "I see no reason to dislike you." This is of course a lie, but it's the lie she has to say, and the Republic trained her well enough for that. "Perhaps we could even be friends, no?" No. "Certainly, I would like to speak with you again." She wouldn't.
But she serves a greater power, and she cannot question Her will.
The recording device, when it's set up, will capture a perfectly normal congregation, involving meditation, a sermon on one's personal power and autonomy, and a long question and answer session which serves to foster community spirit and loyalty. Nothing wrong on its face, though some of it does, certainly, feel a little... cultish. But there are no readings which suggest anything untoward is being broadcast in the meeting; no one is being actively brainwashed, listening to Yuliana speak.
... these people really do love her.