2023-10-30: .these binding rings and blinding truthS
- Log: .these binding rings and blinding truthS
- Cast: Yuliana Kafim, Judau Ashta
- Where: Stockholm City, Kingdom of Scandinavia
- Date: 2023-10-30
- Summary: Yuliana runs into Judau, taking a rare outing to try and secure a suitable tattoo parlour for her wife. Judau was just out ring shopping, but soon he finds himself pulled into a whirlwind of emotions with Yuliana, all centred around their mutual concern for Leina and Yuliana's strange marriage. She ends up breaking down in front of him, and his genius plan to pull her out of it... is to get her to help him with ring shopping. Thankfully, Yuliana is remarkably helpful in a jeweller's, both in the selection process and the payment process.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana is more frequently found in Scandinavia than other places; one might wonder, plausibly, if she lives here. Certainly, the Kingdom hosts the largest population of those devoted to the Silent Calling -- while there are pockets of Callers worldwide, many have gravitated here, because Yuliana most often appears here.
She doesn't live here, of course, but it is close enough as to be convenient. It's nice to not have to ask her wife to teleport her everywhere. (And it's nice not to have to... rely too much on teleportation as a means of travel. It's... well, let's just say Yuliana is very lucky that Elisa is there to catch her, when she's teleported away from her fights.) But Stockholm is really one of her favourite cities, even if it's getting dark, right now -- the sun's just set, now it's gone past four o'clock, and twilight reigns across the sky. The light won't disappear entirely until closer to dinner, but it's certainly a little eerie... and a lot cold.
Right now, Yuliana isn't in her Caller's regalia -- though she does wear a thick, warm black dress, layered down to her ankles and her wrists, with a scarf wrapped about her neck. A cloak minds her shoulders, and a warm hat minds her head. Dark sunglasses still obscure her eyes from the light of the day, the edges sharp and pointed. She pulls her hands, in fingerless gloves, from her fluffy fur muff as she exits the storefront --
-- specifically --
-- the KAIJU CRUSH TATTOO PARLOUR.
Leaning against the window, she types a message...
> Option 4 didnt work out. I'm going to cheque lock 5 and then I'm coming baok today. None of these are suitable. Frustrating! Haven't been followed so far. I'm sate.
... Yuliana's pretty sure her spell check has failed her, dashing off a message so quickly, but she's sure Elisa gets the picture. She slips her phone back into her sleeves, and tucks her hands back into her muff, quietly grateful that she has to pretend to be human out here. If she were to expose her frill to how wretchedly cold it is today...!
... well, it wouldn't mind terribly much, but she'd leech even more heat from its fans.
Yuliana gets all of five (5) steps before she remembers she has something for the chill in her blood, and pulls something else from her sleeves -- a green puffer, which she inhales once, twice, three times. She tucks it away, tucks her hands away, and keeps walking past the karaoke parlour which has set up shop here in downtown Stockholm.
Surely no one's noticed her. She might be a little gothic, but she could be any woman on the street.
<Pose Tracker> Judau Ashta has posed.
There's a lot of things Judau Ashta doesn't know about Earth.
He doesn't know, for example, how the tides work; someone tried to explain to him about the moon's gravitational pull and then he thought the moon was haunted for a solid year.
He doesn't know why earthquakes are a thing. He's read about it. It feels like more reason not to trust the Earth. -Plates-. They're all just living on a bunch of trembly plates! Who thought that was a good idea!
And he -certainly- doesn't know -why- Earth comedy is so obsessed with the Rule of Three. There's a bunch of other numbers out there! Diversify!
But one thing he -does- know is that the Kingdom of Scandinavia is one of the (growing) number of nations not under the schisming Federation's banner. He knows this, because he specifically looked it up returning from Jupiter, when it seemed like spending more time on Earth was an inevitability; he knows every country and every territory in the Earth Sphere that isn't beholden to the Federation and its policies.
When he's motivated, Judau is a very quick learner.
The fact that Scandinavia isn't under the Federation's umbrella, though, is precisely why it's perfect for shopping -- or more specifically, wedding shopping. There's still a lot to do, a lot that will need Roux - and Leina's - to be there to make sure he doesn't pick something wildly inappropriate (hey, even Judau is pretty self-aware sometimes (don't laugh)). But some things, those are on him. A tux, for example.
Or an actual ring for Roux.
It's that which brings Judau to Stockholm today, bundled up in a thick black winter coat, gloves, dark jeans and boots -- the bright red of his knit cap and his scarf providing the necessary signature splash of color to his otherwise monochrome ensemble as he walks the port city's streets. They might still work with the Federation, but he can deal with that much; the important thing is that none of his money is going into Federation pockets directly, which is just about the second best thing he can think of beyond just straight up stealing a ring, and he's -pretty- sure Roux and Leina would -both- annihilate him for that. So! This is the best solution.
Breath congealing into thick winter vapors with every puff of breath, Judau Ashta stares at his phone with consternation as he works his way through the directions on the screen. He stares at the screen insisting that GET TO JEWELING is right -here-. He looks up at the sign reading THIS IS NO KARAOKE!. Back at the screen. Back to the sign. He scratches the back of his head.
"Man," he mumbles, flabbergasted.
"... these are really cool shop names."
...
"... Maybe the jewelry store changed to a karaoke place...?"
To him, it just makes sense. Look at the cool names! And there's an even cooler-named tattoo place just down the street!
And so, completely oblivious to the GET TO JEWELING storefront waiting for him like literally just across the street, Judau Ashta turns, just as a black-clad woman approaches from the tattoo parlor. His grin is awkward but infectious in its casual ease as he rubs the back of his head and begins to ask,
"Hey! Uh, sorry, don't mean to bug or whatever, but I was wonderin' if you know if this place used to be a--"
and then it hits him
A feeling that he's only felt once before, nearly a year ago now, and yet feels like ages. When Leina stumbled into the mass-produced ZZ Gundam -- when he came to her, Mineva and Banagher's rescue against someone they were all familiar with -- when he felt that touch upon a nothing that left a cold, trembling feeling deep in his gut like when touching upon the profound mortal limits most were not meant to contemplate.
"--jewelry... store..."
A Hole in things.
just feeling it terrifies him and yet makes him feel like he needs to reach out and help somehow make that nothing something--
Judau Ashta stares, wide-eyed, at Yuliana Kafim as she operates that puffer with -immediate- surprise and recognition, dashing all hopes of going unnoticed on the rocks. Even bundled up as he is, his resemblance to his younger sister is uncanny, to the thick brown hair peeking out from that wool cap, to those seagreen eyes staring at Yuliana like they were trying to come up with a name--
Which is exactly when he points and declares, in recognition,
"Danger Zone Fingers!"
...
It's -- it's just how his brain works.
At least he didn't say her name out loud??
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Of course, there are Newtypes in the streets. There are Newtypes everywhere; Yuliana has tried, at least slightly, to politely ignore it. She hardly ever picks a random Awakened scrap off the side of the road to torment these days! Hardly ever. Really, she deserves a medal for that. These people who go through the world with all those torn edges where something SHOULD be, all falling through to the nothing that's THERE, and sometimes there's something looking through...
Anyway, one of them is talking at her, and a moment later Yuliana even looks at him. Just in time for her to see his face.
Yuliana is, of course, familiar with Judau; he's the man who killed Haman Karn, even leaving aside that he's Leina's brother. ... mostly, though, he's Leina's brother. She's looked up one or two things about her, in her day. Still, it takes her a moment to place why that hair looks familiar, let alone those eyes.
She turns, to him, and pushes her muff onto one wrist, as her other hand lifts to free her sunglasses from her face. Her own eyes are green, and a touch strange, even leaving aside the scar running down the left side of her face -- because she has no pupils. It's a strange affectation of those Newtypes particularly lost to their connections, but...
... Yuliana abjures connection. Hers is the black hole, yawning and consuming all empathic information. There's no possible way she's...
"Excuse me?" She asks, politely, as she tucks her sunglasses away. "Are you... quite all right?"
A beat; she frowns. She knows just why he's freaking out, of course, but it just takes her a moment to reluctantly realise she has to be nice in this situation. Leina would be difficult, if she didn't offer him consideration. So Yuliana takes a step back, neatly clearing Judau out of that black abyss of information, restoring all his wretched senses to him.
"If you want to talk," she says, tone still quite even, "I daresay the middle of this freezing street is a terrible place to do so. Come, come." She gestures, to him, before she turns -- and walks into THIS IS NO KARAOKE!, the jazziest joint on the block.
She smiles, to the receptionist, and asks: "Can we book out a private booth for a while?"
The receptionist looks around her for a moment, before returning her attention to her. "Uh, sure, you're a bit early... prices are up on the board, card or cash?"
"Card," Yuliana replies, and swipes it through. It is notably more than the listed price. "Please keep the rest," she invites her. "I'm sure that they're not paying you enough to deal with customers all night. Just do me a favour and don't disturb us, all right?"
"Uh-- sure! Thanks!" The receptionist -- who can't be more than seventeen, this is DEFINITELY her first job and this is DEFINITELY the biggest tip she's ever been given -- agrees readily, waving them to a room. "Just down the hall, okay?"
"Wonderful," Yuliana smiles, and goes that way.
And makes sure that Judau hasn't gotten lost on the way before she goes inside.
She's only just met him, but she feels like she has to make sure of things like that.
Luckily, the karaoke booths are big enough that she's able to sit on one end of one couch without disturbing him on the other side; she puts her muff and her hat to one side, and folds her hands on her lap. "There," she says, smiling. "This is much less chilly, isn't it? Now, you seem a little confused. I'm Yuliana," she enunciates the name slowly and carefully. "Yuliana Kafim. A friend of Leina's? We fought, once." She waves her hand, as she explains: "Though I'm sure I didn't seem particularly friendly, then! I'm afraid I had no choice but to fight for the Federation, in those days. Well, I did tell Leina how to close her cockpit, at least. You know the poor girl tried to start fighting with the damn hatch still open?"
Yes, Yuliana. Judau might know one or two things about that.
... just like Leina knows a thing or two about meeting Yuliana for karaoke.
<Pose Tracker> Judau Ashta has posed.
Are you... quite all right?
"I'm GREAT!"
This is probably untrue. Consider the evidence:
1) the fact that Judau Ashta just kind of BARKED those words out with ramping volume as if he could banish the NOT GREATness away by insisting otherwise;
2) he still looks like someone just turned off all the lights in the world and his pupils are dilating to try to see one teeniest, tiniest mote of light;
3) his expression is that kind of Ashta Brand Defiant that they get - don't tell them - when someone tries to insinuate what they are or what they're feeling or what they should do or how they should properly eat their meals or--
a) okay maybe some of those are Judau-only qualities
THE POINT IS: he's probably doing Not Great.
That doesn't mean he can't -double down- on feeling -super great- in stubborn defiance, though. He's excellent at that -- but it's surprisingly difficult, in situations like this. This feeling -- he's felt overwhelming, psychic oppression before. He's felt it too many times to count. He's exuded it more than he'd like to admit. He's used to that. This feeling... this feeling he can't even call cold, because to ascribe a quality to it like temperature or distance would make it feel like giving it substance and texture it -absolutely does not have-...
There's no way he could ever, ever be used to it.
And with just a single step it's gone.
It's like experiencing gravity again -- or something equivalent but less oppressive. -Substance- and texture and -qualities- return to Judau's world, an entire sea of feeling and experience that had just become the white noise of his life until this point. He sucks in a sudden breath, shakes his head -- and it's only then that he looks back at Yuliana, and notices -- those pupil-less eyes.
They're just like Haman's eyes. Given everything that Leina's told him, Judau knows Yuliana would probably hate the comparison -- and as such, he manages to not just blurt it out (a true show in his growth as a person). But it's the only thing he can think of; the color is different. The reasons, probably different as well. But was it really so different?
Haman had spurned all connections until the very, bitter end, because of the times and cruelty of the systems that produced her. And Yuliana...
Judau is lost in a sea of returning thoughts and sensations by the time Yuliana just breezes by, making her suggestion in that even tone. He blinks. Watches her enter THIS IS NO KARAOKE!. Pauses.
"I'll freeze wherever I wanna freeze!" is his first thought on the matter of where he should and should not speak. He can't help it. Some things are just encoded into our soul.
"... Sh-shit it's pretty cold though--"
And so it is, with MANY MISGIVINGS about not hashing it out in the street at risk of freezing just because someone told him not to, that Judau Ashta enters the karaoke joint.
The eldest Ashta is fairly quiet after this, though, at least for a while. He doesn't offer much in the way of interjection or commentary as Yuliana pays for a booth; instead he just kind of stares at her with the consternated furrow of his brows, as if he could see the shape of her if he stared long enough. He can't help but think, not just of everything Leina's told him, but of that glimpse into the distant past. That suspiciously resplendent being.
"..."
A frown settles on his lips, and it's not entirely because he absolutely cannot for the life of him remember that being's name, just like he was sure he wouldn't.
She's generous. It makes him think better of her, in the moment; it can't be helped. He's someone who tried to reach out and see the good in Haman Karn. For a creature of the present like him, acts of kindness mean the world. That sea green gaze drifts from Yuliana to the receptionist, for a brief moment; he offers her a smile and a simple "uh, thanks," before he drifts into the booth.
Not for the first time in his life, Judau Ashta finds himself completely waylaid from his original purpose and whisked away by a relative stranger and wondering just how he got here. He was supposed to be shopping for a ring! A proper ring! And now here he is, flopping back into the couch seat opposite Yuliana, arms folded over his chest and squinting at her with indignant, flaring nostrils.
"I know your name is Yuliana!" says the young man who just called her Danger Zone Fingers. "An' I know you. In the axe murdering Wanzer. Tryin' to hunt down that dumbass and his Gundam." It's strange how 'that dumbass' is ever a combination of words that could sound fond, but there it is; that's the power of Judau.
I'm afraid I had no choice but to fight for the Federation, in those days.
"... And things're different now, huh?"
He knows things are very, very different now. Very different, and very complicated. He considers, for a long time, as Yuliana speaks about Leina. It reminds him of the complicated relationship between this woman and her sister. What Leina said about her -- how much it reminded him of his own struggles with people who should have been enemies in Axis... it's a hard thing to forget. Some memories are like that.
In the end, the siblings are a lot alike, just as much as they're different. Which might be why, as Yuliana asks him about Leina and cockpit hatches, Judau just scratches his cheek in blinking bemusement.
"I mean, isn't that just normal?"
...
"Not like those things are gonna close themselves. As long as it all works out, it's fine!"
..........
Maybe that... explains some things.
A second passes by, afterward, as Judau considers Yuliana from that safe distance, a super nova a few feet away from a black hole. Even still, there's nothing to be sensed from her. It's an odd thing, especially to someone so used to at -least- feeling the emotional equivalent of locked doors all around him.
"... Leina told me, y'know," he says after a long moment. "How you tried to help her. When she was..."
'Puru-1'. He still can't quite bring himself to invoke the name.
Too many memories, too many of them too fresh.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Are you?" Yuliana wonders just how great Judau's doing, but it's a hypothetical question, judging by what she does to help. 'Help'? It's kind of hard to tell, honestly.
"But I'd rather not," is her answer to his next defiance, without missing a beat. Judau can freeze as much as he'd like on his own time.
(And, yes, Yuliana would be terribly offended if she knew that Judau's internal timepiece was clocking her with Haman. Luckily, she can't read his mind. That's the one thing she can never do.)
"Mm," she confirms the differences, leaning back in her seat with a nod, but she doesn't linger on it for the moment. "I was... brainwashed, you see. It was a complicated situation for me." It still is a complicated situation, but anyway.
Really, she seems remarkably put-together and composed, right up until --
"Excuse me?" Yuliana says, with more an incisive tone than before, when Judau asks if it's normal. She leans forward, her fist slamming down, emphatically, on the empty seat beside her. (It makes a dull fabricish noise, as the seams protest the treatment.) "It is not normal! She's lucky I gave half a damn, you -- don't tell me you don't know half the vets out there would just carve her out of her seat if they had the opportunity!" Would she? No more questions, please.
Well, it does explain a few things. That and the way her teeth grit -- one more tooth than is normal, she has a sharp fang alongside her normal right incisor along the top of her teeth -- and she finally folds her arms, settling back into her seat. So the smooth act is an act; she's all choppy waves, beneath it.
(But she didn't show that to the receptionist. She was perfectly pleasant, coming in here. Does that mean she's trying to control herself? Or --)
Yuliana frowns, fingers drumming against the side of her arms, all covered with her long sleeves and that cloak which wraps about her even though she's not holding it in place. "Mm," she hums, again, more disquieted the second time. "Tried. It didn't go the way I wanted. I went so far as to infiltrate the Garuda, and I still wasn't able to retrieve her. Murasame got to me... tch, I guess doing it myself was arrogant," her lips curl over her teeth, visibly grimacing at having to admit something like that.
"Well, we got the research, anyway. I understand it's been helpful to her... there's one more spike we can bury in Murasame's back, then we're wiping the data." Her eyes shut, briefly, before she opens them to glare over to Judau. "It's better if I don't discuss the details. Operational security. You understand." She's calling you an idiot, Judau. Anyone who would use the word 'dumbass' as a term of endearment is someone who definitely shouldn't be trusted with sensitive material.
<Pose Tracker> Judau Ashta has posed.
Brainwashed.
Even for those who -can't- read minds or sense the rich palette of others' feelings and sentiments, Judau's thoughts and feelings are plain to see in his expression as Yuliana explains her situation to him. Teeth grit in frustration that gradually infects his whole expression nakedly.
"They all keep doin' the same damn thing, over and over," he mutters, and even the sound and fluctuating tone of his voice expresses just how vexed the young man feels so cleanly and purely in what otherwise might have been a quiet self-muttering for others.
Judau Ashta, if nothing else, is a startling easy book to read. The cost and consequence of wearing one's heart on one's sleeve.
'Excuse me?
It's a troubled expression that doesn't last particularly long when Yuliana has STRONG FEELINGS about cockpit hatches to share. Her fist slams down with an impact that demands attention, even with its comfy, cushiony impact. Sea green eyes dart back her way.
And now it's -Judau's- turn to just kind of stare blandly at Yuliana in her sudden spike of emphatic disbelief. It's telling, in a way, and familiar, again in a way Yuliana would hate being compared on, how that cool exterior so quickly gives in to anger. Is it because that's just how she is? -- Or is it because of how he is--?
In the moment, though, it doesn't stop Judau from looking at Yuliana like he just told him the sun is cold. He scratches the side of his head, and gives the biggest shrug to ever seize a pair of shoulders.
"I mean, sure, but I couldn't figure out how to operate -my- cockpit hatch for the longest time back when I was tryin' to swipe the Zeta, an' every time that Yazan Gable guy tried to murder me, I figured somethin' out. It's no big deal."
... Is this... really the hero of the First Neo-Zeon War...?
Is this........... a True Newtype...................?
Really, at the end of the day, it's simple. Whatever misgivings he had about Leina piloting a mobile suit to begin with...
"Leina's way too strong to let somethin' like that do her in."
... Judau just has that much confidence in his sister.
Also, he might be an absurd, reckless human being.
Slumping back in his seat, Judau locks his hands behind the back of his head, at - relative - ease now with that distance. Ease is certainly not flippancy, though, even if his just -tragic- posture could easily be construed as such as he listens to Yuliana's explanation of what happened at the Garuda. That bland expression softens towards something more neutral, more thoughtful, as he considers Yuliana -- considers the stray glance of that extra tooth, again reminded of that trip through a history so far away and yet feeling increasingly relevant in the world of today. The elder Ashta sibling chews the inside of his cheek for a few seconds, thoughts lost in implications... at least until Yuliana gets to talking about -research-. He blinks once. And then his eyes narrow as she gets to Operational security.
"I've never understood that phrase in my life!" he declares, belligerent once again, because even if he doesn't quite see the finger details of what she's -suggesting- (he is kind of an idiot, SOMETIMES, you see), he -does- know -exactly- what that kind of tone is trying to get across. "You're lucky I don't want a damn thing from that dick's research! Nothin' good can come from just holdin' on to somethin' like that -- if it were up to me, I'd just delete the whole thing!" He sits upright, frown increasing to Big proportions, hands falling to grip the top of his knees as he regards Yuliana.
"Tryin' to save Leina on your own wasn't an arrogant move, it was an idiot move," he cycles back, suddenly -- and he says it with absolute certainty. He should know -- he tried, so many times, on his own, a long time ago. "Savin' someone lost like... like Leina was, after everything that bastard did -- it's not somethin' any one person can do. It's not about arrogance, or skill, or intellect -- even if that piece of shit Murasame didn't have an ace up his sleeve." He hesitates.
"People who need savin' -- they need all the people they share a connection with. They need to see, from everyone who knows 'em... They're not lost." They just thought they were.
"... Leina knows that, too. Better than anyone."
Gradually, Judau slumps back with a sigh. He shakes his head, eyes shutting. "... I'm not gonna tell you what to do or anything, not after what's been done to you." And it's not his place to, either.
"But -- those details? I don't wanna hear them, anyway. I wanna make that Murasame asshole hurt after everything he did to Leina, to Akane and Rikka too -- to everyone he's ever hurt in the name of his stupid, pointless crusade of shitty self-interest. To you, too!" he insists, and it feels painfully earnest, even though they barely know each other -- even if their chief interaction was entirely antagonistic. "But... stewing over it isn't gonna help me. It isn't gonna help Leina. It isn't gonna help anyone."
Seagreen eyes crack open, looking back at Yuliana. "The vendettas and whatever else... all of that just muddies the water. It's enough for me, if I can just see Leina happy again."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana doesn't much like being one victim amongst hundreds. There are a lot of reasons for that, really -- a lot of reasons why she might not respond to that muttering, why she might grow agitated, why she might grow so sour so quickly.
She doesn't volunteer which one it is.
Or why she snaps so easily.
"Oh, so you did it, it's fine? Tch, and with Yazen Gable -- you're lucky you lived to tell about it. And she's lucky I went easy on her! It has nothing to do with strength, just-- just dumb luck!" He is certainly an absurd human being, and Yuliana is, for some reason, upset about Leina gallivanting around in an open cockpit being dismissed so casually. It's not difficult to imagine she cares.
"You think I want anything from his work?" Yuliana snaps back. "I haven't even read it. It's --" Upsetting? Distressing? Horrifying? Traumatic? A brief hitch of a pause for the wording, "hardly relevant to me! But I just told you that's what we're doing, you blathering fool! Listen when I speak!" She's chastising him for the idea of deleting it all, of course.
If she's embarrassed that it took Sayla asking for her to bring it up to her wife, this is not about that.
Her fingers tighten, around her arms. "You're the idiot," she insists, though her venom is quieter now. "I thought of that, you know. But -- but I went through everyone, with my Elisa. There was no one we could trust with something so delicate. Everyone I thought of, there was always some problem... I couldn't rely on anyone. I had to do it myself!" And what happens when those connections just can't be made?
When they're interrupted.
"I don't really know what changed... I guess after Murasame got to me, it was clear I... was compromised." This, too, she hesitates to bite out; she doesn't like to admit to fault or flaw. She looks away, frowning deeply, claiming a little more distance for herself. Regret enters her voice, as she trails over: "I don't know... if I'd spoken to Dr. Mass beforehand... ah, it's not that I think my wife's assessment was flawed, but I must have misled her, somehow. Since Dr. Mass handled it... well enough."
She shakes her head, and releases her arms, so that she can clasp her hands at her chest instead. She fiddles with something at her finger, until a rose-gold ring peeks out from under her glove. It's set with emeralds and onyx and diamonds, and it looks terribly expensive. A wedding ring. (But not the one Judau's looking for.) "But you're wrong," she insists, her voice dropping quieter still. "One person can do it. I know they can -- I, thought I could -- you know, it's my wife who saved me. My Elisa. No one else even realised I was in that situation... they just saw the damage I did, and no one thought to look any harder." Her fingers play at her ring, as she looks down at it, rather than to Judau. "You know, one evening at a party I was speaking to Dr. Mass, and she enjoyed it as much as she always did, and then -- and then I went back, and -- they locked me in the lab, and they wanted to know about the woman I'd been talking to, I wasn't supposed to, I was a national secret... but I was dating her, you know, I didn't want to say. So -- so they tortured me. And it wasn't like it was particularly strange they did that..."
Yuliana falls quiet, for a moment. She takes a breath, and releases it in a long sigh. "... no one ever came for me, you know. And it's not like I could ask for help, anyway. But, but my Elisa did come for me. She made Dr. Devi promise not to torture me any more, just to, see to my medical treatment... and when they stole me back, later, when, when they did all their operations at once, and they put me in the chair, and, you know... that time people came for me. But it's my Elisa who found me, after I ran away from them. If -- if she hadn't -- I'd be barely alive now. They were going to, cook my brain, keep me alive on life support to harvest me. She made an antidote, so I only changed this much... and she helped me recover, after. Well... I guess Leina did tell her how to break my conditioning without using her magic or anything, and Ujico suggested building things to me, but..." But it's plainly obvious that one person's efforts reign over the rest, in her mind.
There's no other way it could be.
"A--anyway," Yuliana shakes her head. "That doesn't matter. I got off track. The point is -- of course one person can do that. I just... wanted that for her," her hands lace together, clasping, tightly. "I wanted to fix it. It worked for me. And-- and then it didn't, and I couldn't handle it, and I tried to talk to my wife about it but... I don't know." And she looks uncomfortable, with that, because how can she name Elisa's misdirection? Even realising something might be amiss, with all this talk of Leina's connections, nothing can be amiss.
<Pose Tracker> Judau Ashta has posed.
Lucky.
It is ridiculous, dumb luck that Judau has survived to this day -- Leina too, frankly. And yet, after everything else that they've endured...
When Yuliana (very understandably) decries the absurdity of their paralleling situations as dumb luck, Judau, despite all obvious evidence, just shakes his head.
"Nah," he says, simply. "It's more than that."
More than that -- how? He doesn't expand on it. He frustratingly offers no logic to that bald-faced assumption. And yet he says it with such damnable certainty, too. There's just an exasperating lack of rational thought or logic and yet he says it like it's a fact verified a hundred times over.
And maybe it is. An intuition that's simply borne out, time and again.
Regardless -- it doesn't stop the way he cocks his head and regards Yuliana with lifting brows. And the smile that graces his lips is as painfully genuine as every irritated or stubborn sentiment he's thrown out during this strange and serendipitous meeting so far.
"You really care about Leina, huh?" That's what he assumes, at least, just looking at her -- just listening to her lecture him from what seems like a place of concern.
And for him, regardless of anything else -- that means the world.
Which is, of course, why Judau only shouts a thick-headed "I'm listenin' loud and clear to every damn thing!" in the wake of Yuliana's retort on Murasame, nostrils flaring in the wake of his obstinate snort. He doesn't push further than that, though -- he can imagine why the subject might be difficult to broach for Yuliana in particular.
He can imagine all too well just why it might make her angry.
What happens when those connections just can't be made? It's not a world Judau Ashta can actually envision. Even now, even if the strange, fuzzy smear of nothing across the distance from him raises the hairs at the back of his neck on end when he focuses on it too long, he still has a hard time not putting himself in Yuliana's shoes, not exercising that muscle of empathy that has become such an integral part of himself regardless of whether or not he was ever a Newtype. It's why he doesn't object at Yuliana's insistence -- he only listens, as she talks about how she went over everything option with Elisa. That this was the only option. That there was no one she could rely on. No one but herself.
No one but Elisa.
Thick, brown brows knot inward.
It's a gradual process, the way those brows bunch up towards their center. As she excuses her wife for what must have been her own failings. As she toys with that beautiful ring, the hint of its existence glimmering at the edge of that glove. As she says those five simple, yet telling words.
One person can do it.
At a certain point, the deepening furrow has grown to the point it wrinkles at the bridge of Judau's nose. Not out of frustration, and certainly not out of lack of understanding -- if anything, it's the opposite. Like a dawning realization touching him, the more he listens to her. The more she talks about Elisa, who saved her from the hell of her life.
Because he's thinking about it, as she speaks. Trying to envision, past the sympathy, past the pain he feels thinking of the things the REA must have done -- what Yuliana describes, even in this passing moment. Tries to imagine a world like that, where only 'one person could do it.' A world where, maybe, Leina truly was the only person, the only thing at all, that mattered in his life. Where everything else was secondary to her and her needs.
He can see how easily it could have turned out that way too, when all they had was each other...
... and he can see how lonely that life would have been. Without Elle. Without Iino. Without Beecha, or even Mondo. Without the crew of the Argama.
Without Puru, and Puru Two.
... Without Roux.
What sort of world would that be, if he felt that none of them could be relied on, that all others, in the grand scheme of things, never mattered nearly as much as Leina?
... What would it be like if it were Leina who solely relied on him in this world, and -she- lost all those connections? ...
"..."
At a certain point, Judau has leaned forward in his seat. His elbows resting on his knees, his hands are folded against each other, wringing against one another, as Yuliana tells him of Elisa, and how this single woman saved her from all that pain and torture. He can see how things ended up like this for Yuliana. Isolated, terrified, hurting. No one to save her. And then a single, solitary balm comes, promising her a way out.
Despite himself, he briefly thinks of Dian and Cypripedioidea.
He can see the complicated web at work there, but...
"... That's not right, is it?"
He just says it without thinking it. Seagreen eyes blink once. He can see how complicated this is. He can see what Leina is struggling with, with Yuliana. And he knows somewhere, deep inside, trying to define what's going on won't help anything. And yet--
"You just said, right, you had this Ujico person to help you after they took you again. You had Leina, who's -- hell, who cares a hell of a lot about you. You love this Elisa, right?" More than anything. He can tell. She's her world. "... Maybe you need at least one person to notice, that first person to reach out, and that's Elisa for you, but... there's others who have been takin' your hand along the way too, right? There's a whole world around you, Yuliana."
He knows, just Leina and Banagher alone. Everything Banagher tried to do, even in a futile gesture in the past. And Leina...
"... I don't think this Elisa would want you to make her your whole world when there's so much more than that out there for you, right?"
He knows somewhere, deep inside, trying to define what's going on won't help anything. And yet the words just come out, the second he thinks them.
Because for better or worse, it's just how Judau is.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Tch," Yuliana clicks her tongue to her teeth, when Judau subverts her with such casual certainty. Intuition! To a thousand hells with intuition, that magical sense which kept Rita from the rubber bullets when she could never dodge them!
How unfair is it that he can verify these things with no logic whatsoever?!
(When she can't.)
But Judau asks if Yuliana cares about Leina, and Yuliana frowns, glancing away again. "... yes," she says, as if she's embarrassed about it. It's uncomfortable, because it's not even a lie, and she doesn't explain directly.
Except -- she does, really, with the way she insists she wanted to help Leina just the way she'd been helped. She just doesn't make the explanation easy for him.
Is he really listening? Does it matter if he is?
Anyway.
Yuliana presses her hands to her chest, a barrier between the two of them. "More than anything," she says, when Judau asks, and it's not that she knows what he's thinking -- it's just that it's so obvious, even he can guess the answer.
But she shakes her head, her bangs whipping at the side of her head. "No, you -- you don't understand," she insists, her voice thin. "You don't understand at all... I am owed all the world, but of course my wife is the only one who... everyone else just wants to use me. Oh, it's hardly even your fault, I suppose... but there's only so much I can trust other people. Even you -- even though you're her brother -- you're just trying to warp the situation!"
And it would look warped, from her perspective, wouldn't it? Anything which makes her wonder if her wife is wrong.
"All this world has for me," Yuliana insists, voice winding spring-tight, "is pain and torment. It tears at me, you know. It rips me to pieces... and everyone wants to claim me. My powers are unique amongst men... if my Elisa weren't protecting me, I'd be locked up or, or worse. All those people want to use me. 'The next stage of warfare', the Republic called me... their Newtype saboteur." It's a far cry from being a unifying force, as those visions spoke of. What happened, between then and now...? "... I'm sure it's no better now everyone's so suspicious of Psychoframe," Yuliana adds, bitterly. "They'd love to be able to isolate those people. The wretched fools don't understand that sometimes they're that strong on their own merits, and don't need to reach the whole damn world to do it."
At least it's getting further away from Elisa. Move the topic somewhere else. What is he interested in? "Cheh," Yuliana huffs, tongue clicking to her teeth, "though, you know, that's why Leina matters. She did -- keep reaching out, I guess, when she figured out what was going on. I didn't understand it... really, I still don't. I don't know why. But I can talk to her," and it might not sound like base permission, though it also is, "and she's never... really hurt me, I guess. Though I can't say I've never hurt her... even when I don't mean to, it happens anyway. Mm... a lot of things get out of hand when I'm holding them," she tries to explain, shifting uncomfortably again.
"I suppose I'm a wretched woman, because I wish the world wanted to save me, all through those eleven years of torment." She still can't really meet Judau's eyes, and if anything, she's ashamed. "It's... nice to think someone would care... I don't know. I don't really need anything like that, since I'm married," HOLD THE PHONE IS THIS MARRIED LIFE?!, "but it's not like I think it's wrong to be a little selfish."
<Pose Tracker> Judau Ashta has posed.
Is he really listening?
It'd probably be easy to assume Judau Ashta isn't a very good listener, given the way he usually conducts himself. Frequently loud, frequently rude, frequently aggressive, frequently all of the above, with an impatient streak a mile long to match. If there's anyone who'd give the impression that they don't have the focus or care to -truly- listen, it's him.
And yet...
"What? I'm not tryin' to warp a damn thing!" is the first thing Judau has to say, frustration and annoyance seizing him as he spreads his hands, splayed and palms open. "I'm tryin' to understand! I've seen a lotta people used up by people like the REA, made to feel like they're nothin' more than a weapon, or that there's only one thing in the world they can rely on, and it's always just -- tryin' to keep them isolated, and small, and helpless! The smaller someone's world becomes, the less people they have to understand that world through!"
The more the possibilities for them winnow down into a single road.
"But there's always way more to them than that, they just only ever needed people willing to really see 'em!"
No; the more he hears about this, the more he thinks about it, the less he likes it. Even if he can't quite put his finger on why, the agitation that grows inside him becomes painfully visible in the the way his expression grows all the stiffer, from the tension tightening his jaw to the permanent furrow at his brow to the frown etching its pensive path across the corners of his lips. The circumstances are different, but it still reminds him so much of Elpeo, or Puru Two, or even Mashymre -- all of them, exploited in their own ways. All of them, turned into weapons.
Even Puru Two still didn't completely escape even after she found freedom from Glemy. But Yuliana...
Even freed from the REA, Judau isn't sure if she's really saved, and it frustrates him.
"Gah! This still doesn't feel right, dammit!"
It's a frustration that doesn't -quite- build to the fiery fever pitch he can rise to -- yet, at least. Instead he just heaves a sigh, head shaking before she speaks about Leina. Judau blinks; it's further context, at least, as to why Leina is important to Yuliana. He watches her intently, even if she never quite meets that steady, seagreen stare of his. A second passes, after she finishes. And then:
"Wait. Is that what marriage is supposed to be like??"
That doesn't sound right at all! Does Roux think that's how it is??
"Ah, forget it, that's not the point!" Judau tables for now, offering a vexed wave of his hand as he pivots. "It's not wretched to want someone to save you at all -- anyone would want that! But -- your world is bigger than just your wife now, ain't it? If there's people like Leina out there, who care about you, who wanna help you -- then the whole world's not against you anymore. There's not just pain an' torment out there for you."
The Man From Jupiter (Sort Of) leans back in his seat once again, hands at his side and posture open as he speaks. "Leina -- she's always been way better at seein' this kinda thing than I am. If she's goin' to bat for you, it's for good reason."
Judau raises a hand, scratching the back of his cap-clad head. "Y'know, I'm gonna be getting married, too. I don't know if I ever woulda gotten to a point like this if Leina didn't keep pushin' me to be more than what I was. She can be real frustrating like that sometimes. Stubborn as hell! But... I dunno what I woulda done without her." He shrugs, here, as if to recenter himself from his tangent as he says: "... I guess my point is. She's got faith in you. She wants to help you. And believe me -- when Leina puts her mind to something, she doesn't give up."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
OST: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDfTc0nl4v0 Lamb - 'Til The Clouds Clear
"My wife doesn't make me feel that way!" Yuliana snaps, when Judau talks about feeling like a small, helpess weapon. "It's not her fault! It's not her fault I was made this way," she goes on, hand balling up, flex and release, and in that tension is written something all in the bylines:
Elisa may be faultless, but Yuliana still feels that way.
"Who asked you?" She mutters, scowling and full of resentment, when he insists it doesn't feel right. She's bitter, but she wonders: did she ask him? Maybe she did. Even though she tried to make sure he wouldn't get the wrong impression, he still doesn't get it...
She shakes her head, and folds her arms, tightly, across her chest. (Her nails are painted, there exposed as they clench at her arm. Green striped with brighter green, like the warning shades of a venomous snake.) "You don't understand," she insists, when he says it's not just pain and torment out there in this world. "I'm not being figurative, you damn fool. I'd know weren't it so."
When Yuliana says she's torn apart...
That has to be a metaphor, right?
Right?
"... marriage is a promise," she says, at length -- apparently she heard his question. She grows distant, as she teaches him. "Ritual and vow. I swore to be an obedient and insightful wife... she swore to protect and to help me. Our trust in each other is absolute, and the only people we can really trust are each other. Only her motives are pure... in a dangerous world like this, there's nothing more valuable." A gem, shining just for her. "So of course, when you've married, you won't need the care of others. You will have a wife. But my Elisa assures me all things in this world are mine by right," Yuliana smiles, through that distant shore, all locked up far away. "So even if I don't need it, of course I'm still entitled to it. I would hope you would be so permissive, to your own wife, when you marry. And congratulations to you."
This... is certainly one way marriage can be.
Yuliana takes a breath, and closes her eyes, recentering herself. She doesn't know about coping skills, but she knows the value of a moment of silence. "Leina," she starts, after that pause, "still believes I am human. It's... nice, she thinks so. But I wasn't even able to help her when she was being tortured, the other day... so tripped up was I on the way she called it treatment. And I said the wrong thing, and I can't, help anyone, it's so pointless, and now I have to let someone else do it instead again, don't I? Just make you do it! Like I'm just some kind of -- useless -- you know, if my wife wasn't protecting me of course I'd be terminated by now?!" Her hands fly up to clasp at her ears, as she shakes her head violently, and it becomes immediately clear that Leina's belief isn't figurative either --
-- because tendrils unfurl from behind her ears, despite her hands clasping at her head, and her frills fan out angrily.
With it, comes the Silence. As her frills flare out, the other side of the room isn't saving Judau, any more: that isolation tank consumes him, again, and with him the entire city block. Most don't notice, but a woman watching a soap opera in her apartment screams, and so does a child who drops her handheld console. Her parents think she's upset because of that; she isn't. Just like the man in the jewellery store, across the road, who suddenly goes deathly pale while advising a woman on a necklace. He'll lose the sale, but it's not his fault.
It's hard to live inside a bell jar, after all.
<Pose Tracker> Judau Ashta has posed.
He just can't see the way the world Yuliana does.
Try as he might - and he does try - it just frustrates him, trying to understand just what Yuliana says about the world and the people in it. There's something fundamental there, a divide between them. The world wounded Yuliana -- he can see that, and understand that, clear as day. He can understand how that would make her distrustful. He can feel - and relate to - her distrust and hatred for corrupt Federation nations and institutions like the REA who nourish and elevate monsters like Murasame. And yet...
Maybe it's how her words feel like loops around a point, always skirting around the center of something he thinks should be obvious before peeling away right back towards where they started.
Maybe it's those outbursts, so similar to his own and yet different in all the right ways to rub wrong.
... Or maybe it's the way she speaks about her wife... speaks about marriage.
For someone like him, as much as he feels...
"You're damn right I don't understand! I don't get it at all!"
... it's a fundamental mismatch in views.
And maybe also, in nature.
He is contemplating her with a perplexed air at the tail end of her explanation of marriage by the time that congratulates him on his impending nuptials. "Huh?" he begins, slowly, as if stirring out of a dream. "... Oh, yeah. Thanks. It... felt right." A second passes. "But even when we get married, I'm still gonna need others. Leina, Banagher, Sayla -- Elle and Iino and Beecha and even Mondo when he's not tryin' to get me killed" who are these people "-- they're all important parts of my life Roux can't take the place of -- she shouldn't! She's still her own person, with her own people in her life, her own ways of doin' things -- an' no matter the differences we've got, no matter what she wants to do, no matter how much we might argue, that's sure as hell not gonna change how much I love her! It's part of why I love her! I don't want her to think she's entitled to anything -- I want her to reach out an' grab it, with my help. I want her to need all those people in her life!"
Judau frowns, hands slapping down on his knees.
"That's -my- promise to her."
A difference in views.
A pause can be a calming, necessary thing; within the briefest windows of physical silence, Judau Ashta exhales all his building tension -- only for him to blink as Yuliana speaks again. Thick, dark brows lift as Yuliana speaks. Seagreen eyes widen. "Leina was bein' tortured--??"
But the reasons why she claims this become clear as Yuliana speaks. What is helping Leina, Yuliana perceives as a threat. Is that why she's stuck in this mire? No, it's more than that. He realizes that, as he straightens up to begin a protest to her claims. "That's ri--" he begins, only to blink as tendrils unfurl, as frills fan. There's an initial surprise there at the sheer unexpectedness of it; the former junker belts out a brief "Wha--?!"
But it's not that, that gets him. Not really. He's seen aliens and stranger things still during his time on the Argama. No. It's what comes with it, as the domain that encompasses the hole that is Yuliana expands greedily outward, plunging the rest of the world around Judau Ashta into a world with no feeling, no sensation, no empathy or awareness -- just static. He realizes, then. It's more than that.
A difference in nature.
"Hhf--" It's hard to know how much you depend on a sense until it's taken away from you. The same is no different for Newtype awareness. Yuliana was an empty stretch of wall where Judau knew there had to be a door -- a blindspot. And now that blindspot encompasses everything around him, as the texture of emotion and sentiment and warmth and cold and -everything- he feels from the world is reduced down to the pinprick in the cosmos that is Judau Ashta.
Seagreen eyes widen. He feels -- not cold, but -nothing-, right hand instinctively flying to his chest to grip at it, clothes crumpling against his palm. His mouth feels parched as he swallows. He is suddenly, -painfully- aware of every single nerve ending in his body, every single sensation of himself, and only himself, magnified that much more in the absence of others. That cold pit in his stomach returns. For someone who registers like a bursting star on the emotional wavelength, the feeling Yuliana exudes is like oppositional annihilation.
"i can't"
he chokes out, but there's something else in the tremble of his voice. A familiar tenor.
"i can't..."
Defiance.
"... I can't accept that!"
Judau surges up on his feet in sudden, bull-headed belligerence. He knocks over the table in front of him in the process; it hits the ground in a sharp, raucous clatter as he shakes his head, and levels a look directly on Yuliana. Pale as he is right now -- those seagreen eyes are still burning bright as he finally finds his voice again through the morass of insubstantiality.
"Inhuman? Useless? To hell with that!" His voice is hoarse, his head is pounding, but he forces those words out as best as his headstrong heart can. It's too soon, too close, that angry feeling in his pit when he found out what happened to Leina -- how she thought she was a monster-- "You screwed up... with Leina, you think you're some kinda -- nn -- some kinda monster?! I've seen inhuman people before, an' you--"
His vision swims, for a brief second. He stumbles as he loses his train of thought, words falling by the wayside as he snaps his hand back to prop himself up with the back of that sofa. Those words end in a way that could either be accusatory, or supportive, or anything in between. And yet...
And yet, seeing that hole in things engulfing his senses, engulfing him -- why is it that he was staring at Yuliana in... pity? sympathy?
No; it's a look Yuliana might know, by now. It's identical between both siblings.
The look of an Ashta who wants desperately to help you.
How good or bad or horrifying that is, well. That entirely depends on someone's point of view.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"But," Yuliana says, a shade hapless, "there's no one else in Elisa's life."
Oh, being sure: there are other people she has dealings with. She speaks with people other than Yuliana. She manages a good many things in their life, after all. But...
When it comes to the people they rely on...
... it's not Yuliana herself she speaks on, faced up with Judau's conviction.
"She's happy that way..."
(They're happy that way.)
And she thinks, when she cuts him off, that there's only one thing he could have had to say about Yuliana being fit for termination.
'That's right.'
So she brings him to her existence.
She doesn't mean to. It's better if she's seen as human, out here. It's too dangerous for the world to see her as she is. Even so, Judau sees it, and Yuliana would think of Puru Two dropping like a stone if she could think of anything at all. If only she could enjoy this as much.
He knocks over the table, and she yells, pulling her feet up onto the karaoke couch. (And it's well, perhaps, that she paid the clerk extra not to interrupt them, even with the soundproofing of these booths.) From her cloak unweave things like snakes or tentacles or flowers or hands or jaws, and that is what latches about her knees, with her hands occupied. If only the pressure on her head could keep out his words, the way she locks away his heart. "I know! I know I screwed up, all right?! You don't have to rub it in!" She's hearing him, but she's not hearing him.
She's already decided what happened, and she can't see any other way out.
She breathes and finds the sound hitched in her throat, too choked up, and she hates the way that strangled noise summons tears to her eyes. She does not look at Judau as much as she glances, before she turns into her seat, as if to hide herself away. "Don't look at me that way!" She cries, anger all tied up in her anguish, sharp-tongued, tight as a threadbare screw. "You want me to ruin you, too?! That's what I've always done! And I'm good at it, fuck you!"
Maybe if she winds herself a little tighter, she'll be small enough to slip in through those cracks in reality surrounding her, and she can just
disappear.
But she doesn't. And for a moment she cries, wretched and panicked, caught between being unable to trust Judau and being too upset to keep it to herself, turned away from Judau, away from the world. It's only after she has that moment to herself that she realises what he must want -- what she has done.
"oh," she says, miserable. She tries again, and she is firmer: "Oh. Yes, I see."
Yuliana takes another breath, as well as she can, and drops her hands from her head. Deliberately, she makes herself fold her frills away again, tucked in behind her ears and her bangs. When they fold up, out of sight and out of mind, that abyss recedes.
Not totally. Never totally. It is still there, surrounding her, threatening anyone she can grasp and pull in. But it is possible to escape that influence at a conversational distance, now.
"Of course... you're not used to it," she allows him that much, speaking to the couch cushion, still turned inwards and away. Thankfully, her tentacles being wrapped about her knees don't seem to come with any additional presence from the Void... but then, it's impossible for Yuliana to put them away. They're simply too large. Her control of her aura is held, evidently, in her fins. Dour, and trying not to call attention to the sniffle in the middle, "You get used to it... you know."
She did.
<Pose Tracker> Judau Ashta has posed.
Judau is a creature of passion and impulses.
Much like Yuliana, it means he has a temper on him, if for different reasons. It -also- means he has a tendency to react off the cuff to the things he's experiencing. And when he experiences something like this...
Everything comes surging up like a volcano from him until the vertigo-like feeling of the Void smothering his heart takes its exhausting toll and he is left, staring at the aftermath.
Hand at his head, palm to forehead and fingers pushing that wool-knit cap off thick brown hair, Judau's eyes are wide for a number of reasons as he stares at Yuliana in that moment, looking for all the world like she wants to just disappear from this moment. The tears in her eyes, the anger-wrapped-anguish lacing her accusations. Those strange, snake-like appendages are a secondary worry to how they seem to try to brace her, defensively, as she curls up and in on herself against that sofa.
For a long time, he just stares in silence like that, not answering her accusations. And then, pushing past the dizzying throb in his head... Judau Ashta's expression gradually tempers into something softer.
"..."
Yuliana's voice grows firm. She pulls herself together, physically and emotionally, frills and tendrils receding as the hole, too, shrinks like a constricting pupil. Her words, her assumptions, seem to center her.
But that image of her like that is still stuck in Judau's mind, even as the abyss melts away from all around him and returns the vibrancy he has grown so used to.
The junker from Shangri-La releases an uneven breath he hadn't even known he'd been holding, a pant heaved from his chest as his tight grip on the back of the sofa gradually relaxes. Everything feels enriched all that much more for their previous absence. He stays there, standing, as he catches his breath, cold sweat dappled at his forehead.
He understands, at least a little, of the life Yuliana leads.
You get used to it... you know.
"No," he says honestly, voice returning gradually to normalcy, "dunno if I do."
How could he?
Gradually, he recovers. And as he does, he settles back in his seat once again, slumped forward, hands in his lap. Seagreen eyes consider those tentacles. Years ago he would have overreacted, gestured at them, demanded 'what the hell!!'; the impulse is still there. It's not like it goes away.
It's just... there's other things far more important to him, at the moment.
For a long time, silence reigns from him, whether Yuliana chooses to try to fill that void of words between them or not. He looks back up, at Yuliana. He, obligingly, does not mention the sniffle when he finally speaks:
"... Hey," he finally says, as if to call her attention. He scratches the back of his head, clears his throat, and then asks, abruptly:
"You know anything about findin' good wedding rings? Or, uh... engagement rings too, I need some of them."
A second passes by after this sudden non-sequitur, before Judau elaborates:
"I came here lookin' for rings for us, because, well -- our engagement was kind of" we were about to be obliterated by a weapon of mass destruction and the timing felt right no judau don't say that "a spur of the moment kinda thing. An' I wanna do something for her, something on my own, y'know? Something to surprise her and show her how I feel. So... d'you think you could... maybe help me find one?"
It's random, probably. But it has everything to do with what just happened, what he just saw. He's hoping, couched as it is in the need for help on a perfect wedding gift, she'll accept it. He can't really understand her. He'd never be able to get used to that Void.
But he can at least try to offer an olive branch.
"... First, I gotta find out if this place just, like... sells rings on the side on top of karaoke, or what."
... That wasn't Judau trying to manipulate the odds of success by looking like a helpless idiot, to be clear.
that's
that's just him.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana's tentacles tuck away, you know, inside her cloak. She has pockets stitched into the insides specifically for them. That's why they can wrap around her without being held in place.
"Of course... of course you don't," she murmurs, quietly. She knows she shouldn't fill the void between them, of course; she's sure there's no point to reaching out, or to explaining, either. The words just spill out, despite all her sense and logic. "No one does. But I thought Leina might have been able to imagine it... since she spoke of the emptiness in men's hearts. I wished that someone would know... what it's like, to never really leave the tanks. Even when they pulled you out, just like this, and your legs didn't work, and your lungs worked too hard, and the light was blinding, and everyone was too loud..."
She's talking about an isolation tank.
She's curled up in the fetal position.
Hers, apparently, didn't involve floating.
"But of course, it's not possible," she breathes, morose.
"At least... not right now."
A student, Elisa said, with so much still to learn.
She falls to silence, and doesn't explain her miserable mutterings, hugging herself to herself with her arms instead. It's... a little more normal. Or at least, they can pretend so. Pretending to be a little more normal, like...
Yuliana's head jerks, slightly, when Judau calls out. She doesn't turn to look at him, but evidently, she's listening. Her hand reaches over to lay her fingers on her other hand, and the first thing she says, sharp and possessive: "You can't have mine!"
That's not what he meant, Yuliana, let him finish.
"Oh," she says, and takes another breath. She tries to make it unobtrusive, the way she scrubs at her eyes with the hem of her cloak, before she puts a hand to the couch and turns to face Judau again. Unfortunately, she still looks like she was just crying, because a fur scrub does nothing for that. It might even be worse. "You... want my help with such a thing? Really?" And she's sceptical, looking at him, but...
No, he might actually be that hopeless, she thinks.
"You really are an idiot," she says, but her breath is jerky at the end of it this time because she can't help laughing. "Haha... all right, all right. But it's not here. We'll have to go across the street." Judau was foiled... by there being two sides of the road?! Say it ain't so!
"But there are plenty of jewellery shops here in Stockholm," she says, as she straightens up, and straightens out her cloak. (Checking to make sure she passes for normal, more like.) "I quite like this city, you know... it's a rather pleasant place, if you don't mind the cold. Well, I'd ask about your feelings, but you really just need to look until you find something that speaks to you... you'll know what she values, of course. Like how my Elisa brought us rose gold rings to remind me of home... the nice parts, anyway." This would make more sense if Judau knew that the gold-copper alloy she's talking about is also called Russian gold, but never mind that.
"Excuse me," she's nice enough to allow him, as she passes by him on the way to the door.
Unfortunately, she can't really stop that empty aura around her, so he's really just going to have to get used to that awful feeling, even if she'll try to keep a few metres between them while they're shopping. Yuliana helpfully demonstrates to him how to shop for jewellery, of course, by shopping for a lovely new set of earrings for Elisa while she's here. More gold hoops, of course, but perhaps with emeralds dangling from them...
... and she's gracious enough that she'll help him if he gets out into this very expensive jewellery store and can't afford the down-payment on his perfect ring.
(If she has to explain that purchase, later, when Elisa is looking over her card activity... well, she'll just put it down to doing a favour for Leina's brother. He's getting married. Isn't it exciting?)
<Pose Tracker> Judau Ashta has posed.
You really are an idiot.
"Haha, yeah, Leina tries to tell me that all the time, too, but I sure proved her!"
...
"Wrong! Proved her wrong!"
Tugging his knit cap back on over that scruffy head of hair, Judau lifts back up onto his feet. Informed of his eternal nemesis, opposite sides of a street, he just gives a clueless look, mutters a "bwuh?" and then screws his face inward like he just ate the most sour candy.
"Dammit," he proclaims, full of regret, "the directions lied to me!"
So it goes.
As for the rest, well -- if Judau seems genuinely grateful for the help, it's because he is. For all the misgivings he can't quite find the words for about how Yuliana views her marriage he has, it is clearly, dearly important to her. It's advice in an area he needs most (jewelry is not his thing, nor is figuring out what's an appropriate price because frankly his first instinct in most cases is to just steal it), but also, misgivings aside...
It's something he can relate to her with. And that, too, has enormous value to him.
"S'not a bad place," he concedes to her as he gets his coat back on, one arm at a time. "Lot nicer than some of the dumps on Shangri-La. You should see 'em! -And- this place isn't even with the Feds. Big plus." Really, his needs for a good city are pretty simple, even on Earth, notoriously weighed down by gravity though it is.
She leaves first. He follows after, blinking as he goes.
"So like, what, it's a gut feeling kinda thing? Hell yeah! I'm great with goin' with my gut! -- Wait, was your home surrounded by roses, or something--?"
He absolutely does not know that gold-copper alloy is also called Russian gold; they're both fortunate that he doesn't think it's gold harvested from roses (look, Earth is -weird-, okay?).
And with that, Judau leaves with Yuliana. She is polite enough to keep distance between them, even if it's not always enough, even if there are points where that emptiness encroaches on his substance. It will never -not- be an awful feeling, but having been so recently thrown into the deep end...
He acclimates. He works his way through it. And ultimately, it doesn't stop him. He shops with her. He occasionally makes an ass out of himself at fancy jewelry stores in public. He takes notes of Yuliana's jewelry shopping techniques. He asks the occasional dumb question. He gives the occasional, really dumb answer.
In the end, the choice he makes is the choice he feels, more than knows, Roux would like best. Damnable intuition, as ever. It is a pricey. He's not afraid to mooch if offered.
That feeling. Even if he can never be -used- to it...
He can endure it, for things that matter.