2023-12-07: ...my commitment, drawn into questioN
- Log: ...my commitment, drawn into questioN
- Cast: Yuliana Kafim, Zoltan Akkanen
- Where: The Silent Castle / ZAFT Dive House (Video Call)
- Date: 2023-12-07
- Summary: Yuliana calls Zoltan to see if he's still faring well, searching for a little sympathy about /her/ side of the story. She gets an earful about quitting when she'd almost opened the Gate, instead -- and has to conclude he's right. Yuliana thus invites him to help her save the world. This is good for the world, probably. (It is not.)
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana stares at her phone, where she's draped herself over one of the couches of this sitting room. She has to stare at it upside down, mind you; her head tucked on a throw pillow, she lies lengthways across the fainting couch, one leg hooked up over the backrest and the other dangling off the end. Her black robes are all askew, and she has put a scarf on, so she's evidently planning on giving someone a call. (Maybe even someone who isn't Leina.) One tentacle grasps the backrest to steady her in her dramatic flop; the other rests with her hands on her round belly.
"Ugh," she grumbles, to herself. Elisa's off doing... something; Yuliana hopes she isn't brooding, but she suspects that's unlikely. She doesn't really feel like doing anything... but she can't very well nap, either. Elisa was fine with her reaching out, so long as she did it at home, but... planning to call and calling are two separate beasts.
Finally, her idle tentacle lifts and reaches back, behind her head, fumbling about the couchside table until it grasps her phone. It dangles the deadly implement over her head, as she reaches up to scroll through her contacts. Sigh... SIIIIGH...
... no, she really can't ring Leina. Not after... what happened. Then...
After much deliberation, she lands on Zoltan's number, and dials. The image he's treated to is an angled shot of Yuliana, below the camera, waving idly to it with wriggling fingers. She's put her frill away, at least, so that doesn't wriggle -- but perhaps Zoltan oughtn't think too hard about the black thing at the edge of the camera, or how it's being held up if her hands are in view.
"Hey, asshole," she says, head all flopped back against the pillow. "Been a while."
<Pose Tracker> Zoltan Akkanen has posed.
Zoltan has been having a good time. A great time! A wonderful time! A realistically benign time as he spends his time in hiding; Hiding a Gundam like that isn't the easiest thing, but relying on "Hey, fuckers, it's a Gundam" and slumming around in the ZAFT area of space is enough to get by without being dragged into more conflict.
That's what he needs. More conflict. (Yeah, right.)
Zoltan's own screen is a mildly dilapidated apartment backwall, the man himself chugging on an energy drink as he leans back in his temporary abode. He doesn't look any worse for the wear, not with his usual trappings of Sleeve suits. Instead, it's just...a regular T-Shirt. Some punk band from the far reaches of space as a logo on the front, Jupiter motifs throughout.
"...Yo. Been a while, apocalypse girl. How'd the North Pole treat you?" A cocky smirk. "Did you wave hello to the polar bears, or were they too busy with that new hole you were rippin' up there?"
It's a surprise, to be sure. An unpleasent one.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana frowns, in response to that smirk. "I didn't see any polar bears, for your information," she says, with a distinct hint of a pout. "But you've heard of that, I suppose?" It's difficult not to -- the fact that the North Pole is green now is all over the news. Cathedra's handling it, probably.
"Ugh."
No, she's not going to bother trying to explain herself.
Her hand flops back, across her forehead, as if to visually express her exhaustion. "At least you look... well enough. They've not caught you, yet, I take it?" Any number of cops who might be interested in taking him in for his crimes, that is. "Congratulations."
<Pose Tracker> Zoltan Akkanen has posed.
"The North Pole turned green. I've heard some people call it the Negative Second Impact. You know, dumb stuff. Green on the North, Red on the South! So good job, I guess." A shrug. Green, red, hellhole, apocalypse, wasteland. What did it matter? There's another swig of that energy drink: ZAFT ZENERGY! ZIPPIN THROUGH SPACE!
He can only manage a chuckle at the stageplay at hand, distinctively not glancing over at the black thing at the edge. It's obvious, too obvious. That's why he's refusing to acknowledge it! "They've tried. But with the dissolution of the Sleeves and the small coverups here and there, plus what happened over at Denver, they can't really do anything without an incident happening." A glance over, out of frame. "Still wary of the Gundam, but what can you do."
"And you? How're you not in jail after everything? Last I hear, trying to rip open a hole in reality comes with a hefty fine. Minimum."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana's lips curl back, over her teeth. (She has one too many -- a fang, hanging down from the right side of her jaw.) "Don't... call it that," she says, a little pained.
She... committed her own Impact...
She's still figuring out how to live with herself, after that.
"The Gundam, mm...? Well," she focuses on him, first, "good luck not getting caught. I'd offer you help, but I'm sure you wouldn't take it." And she's sure he won't appreciate the gravity of the offer, either, like the ingrate Spacenoid she still kind of classifies him as.
(Even if he's one of the good ones.)
Her hand comes down, to rest at her neck. "As for me... I'm under my wife's protection. She's keeping me in the Castle, where I'm safe... there are plenty of people who would sooner see me dead, for what's happened." Yuliana sighs, lashes veiling her endless green eyes, looking up to her dangling phone. "Shelby's sister amongst them... oh, well."
Her head cants, just so, and there's a strange, wistful regret to her voice.
"I should have known..."
<Pose Tracker> Zoltan Akkanen has posed.
There is the very distinct lack of tact as he glances away from the screen. That damn fang that he saw every so often from Yuliana. It's a bristling feeling, of experimentation and the reminder of the Cyber-Newtype experiments. "...Then, what are you gonna term it? A flower ceremony?" It has to be referred as something.
Leaning back on his chair and taking another swig. Ah, it's nearly empty. The realities of what Yuliana is going through...Barely register in his mind.
"Your help? For hiding a Gundam? You? And your wife?" A scoff. "I'd rather take my chances with the Titans." No, he's not one to take help from such a clear source of red flags.
You know, Arctic Hole aside.
"Truth be told, I wonder why you're not dead after that. Good to know why." Another glance away, towards the same outside source. "Messing with an ecosystem isn't fun and games, green ice aside."
A beat.
"...Known what? That you'd get ire for what you're doing? Or what. Come on, talk to me. Better than looking out the window and moping going 'Woe is me!'. That's a job for Char."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"It was... to be the Opening of the Gate." Yuliana blinks, slowly. "But I am the Gate, as I know the Gate, and I... I couldn't do it."
She growls when Zoltan dismisses her help, though, all her melancholy forgotten for a moment as she snaps: "I am not worse than the person who made me!" The Titans are a touchy subject, apparently.
Dr. Devi always was missing an L.
She doesn't talk, for a grumpy moment, hand balling to a fist in her scarf. Maybe she is Char, but green and far more buxom. (An improvement?!) But she manages to get her temper under control, with a deep breath.
"I should have known," she says, with an irritated little gesture that tugs her black scarf aside, "that I couldn't live peacefully in this world." And as it happens, that scarf was hiding a name, freshly-tattooed at the base of Yuliana's neck:
Elisa.
She's looking to the side, though, and doesn't quite notice the grasp of her hand as it presses into her chest to feel her own beating heart. "You want to know -- why I'm not dead?" She asks, eyes scrunching shut. "It's not because of me. I didn't have faith in my wife... neither my wife here, nor my Wife there. I tried to do it by using the commands she'd kept from me, but when She changed me, shaped my ribs into legs so I could keep on dancing, I grew so afraid... I was dying. Something like that can't live in a reality like this. I guess it was good motivation for bringing about the next reality..."
Sorry, Zoltan. The realities are just gonna keep comin'.
"... but She couldn't reach me. She almost did... but Leina pulled me from Her. She... did something, the machines resonated in some strange way, made it so I couldn't hear Her... well, everyone was yelling at me about how stupid it was. Aside from the people who wanted me dead... I guess, between one and the other, I went with the people who weren't trying to kill me. So... I took Renalle, and we danced the dance to lock the way again."
Yuliana heaves a deep sigh. "I did... try, you know. I did try. But the site of the wound was too much like me... I couldn't fix what happened at the North Pole. But it's fine... it's not like it's going to spread. I mean, I don't... break reality when I'm just walking around... not in any serious way, anyway..."
<Pose Tracker> Zoltan Akkanen has posed.
"...Right, so call it...The Halting of the Gate or something. Are you telling me you know crap about PR? You? I saw those Newtype flyers." Even in the far reaches of space, it's impossible to miss when there's a cult flyer or two around.
"...Uh-huh." He leaves it at that. Like he needs to play counselor to someone who nearly ended the world.
There's an eyebrow raise at the tattoo. Muttering to himself for a few seconds, leaning back on the chair and thinking to himself. To devote to someone to such an extent, idiot that he suspected Yuliana was...
"Ah." It takes a few for him to digest what was said. To bring in the next, to be stopped at the source. "So you didn't think you pushed hard enough, is that it?" Maybe she is Char. Maybe not. There's a similar sort of self-deprecation, of wanting to help humanity against its broader wishes.
And maybe a bit of selfishness, too.
"And you gave up? For what? For being pushed aside?" A spit to the side. "I take back the Char moniker. Doing something halfway and then deciding at the last moment that you couldn't? That's it? Yuliana, what the fuck."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Point of order: they weren't ending the world.
They were changing it.
For the better.
It was for the better.
(Yuliana tells herself that, at least.)
"I don't know," she says, with a hint of despair. "Maybe I didn't push hard enough, maybe I was pushing too hard... I don't know." What explanation sounds right...?
But --
"Tch--!!" Yuliana hisses air through her teeth, looking up at the phone. (The camera image jerks, as whatever's holding it twitches too, but it gets steady again soon enough.) "What do you know, Zoltan?! Do you-- can you IMAGINE how painful it is to have your ribs -- ripped out and repurposed?! I wasn't even human any more! And when She got out of my head, I -- She'd been yelling at me the whole time, you know?!"
The camera image shakes again, as Yuliana reaches up to grasp the back of the couch and hoist herself sitting rightside-up, all the better to shake her fist at him. "Do you know what that's like?! The pressure?! 'Come to me!', 'Open the Gate!', 'Faster!', and it's just, it's in my head, and I KNOW you can't hear it but it's REAL!" The fact that she's telling this to a Newtype is apparently going right over her head right now. "Then it goes away -- then it goes away, and, I..."
She sags, against the back of the couch. "... that's when I realise I'm dying... and the wife I chose doesn't want me to die. So... yeah, I gave up... I wanted to live. I wanted to come back to her..."
oh no is she going to start crying
<Pose Tracker> Zoltan Akkanen has posed.
Too much? Not enough? Both strike as right and wrong at the same time, a small click of the tongue while he watched the outburst. It's hard to describe how he should be navigating this; The frustration at someone pulling back at the last moment, and not just playing it out.
Yuliana, in other words, is an idiot who backed off at the last second.
"'Course not. Of fucking course not." What the hell is he supposed to feel for someone who's been dunking herself in some souped up juice? "You don't think I'd want to know about that? Hell, I have it bad enough with Char's own thought patterns, I don't want someone else in there." Hell, even bonding with Rita is more than he wanted.
"...So. It's simple. Don't die. Do what you want to do. What else do you want me to say to that? You failed. You're still alive. You're still a damn human on this godforsaken Earth that doesn't know crap about peace and tranquillity." A scoff. "As much as you deserve to be punched, any sort of reset is better than this hell we're in right now. You saw the OCU news recently, right? Federation's collapsing. Good opportunities for people without jobs and a robot on their back, if you catch my drift."
"But if you're gonna fucking mope about it, then at least do it after you exhausted everything. You hear me?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
An idiot... huh.
She does often feel that way.
She hates feeling that way, too.
"It's not that I don't want Her there," Yuliana says, with a scowl. "She's my wife. It's just..." It's just that she doesn't, entirely, want Her screaming in her head.
Both those things are true. It's complicated.
But... Zoltan has something surprising to say, about it all. "Oh," she says, softly. "I... I hadn't expected anyone outside the Calling to... that is what we're trying to do, you know," she says, glancing away. "We want to make things better. It's just, no one believes in it, since there are all these growing pains... and... I guess I... keep almost dying making it happen."
She smiles, and shakes her head. "... I didn't expect that kindness out of you. I wonder if that's why you did it... jerk."
Yuliana straightens herself up on the couch, palms to the cushions to right herself. (And that camera wiggles a bit, and then is held straight again. How is the camera being held up.) "I guess you're right, though... I can't just give up. If you have an opportunity, take it, right..?" Is that -- is that a good thing?
<Pose Tracker> Zoltan Akkanen has posed.
"What sort of marriage are you two even on..." It's obvious. Husband and Wife. Wife and Wife. Husband and Husband. Whatever and Whatever. "What sort of ruminations need that much thought?"
Do it. Direct and to the point. The impulsive, action side of Char Aznable's personality distilled and forced into someone in an attempt to make a shell. Too damn bad, this is what has been inflicted on the world.
"Kindness? Che, this world deserving kindness? Sure, some people are...good at it, I guess. Doesn't change the world or anything-" ...There's the stuff at Dakar, the hydrogen bombs near Denver Colony... "-a bit. It changes a bit. But this world still isn't right, you know? I still have my role to play, even if Rita cheated me out of that damn spot."
That damn Jona. He was supposed to be there. A role he could play, and he was cast aside, left to fucking flounder.
"So if you're giving up, you're even worse than most of those idiots over at Zeon." Idiots who pine for what's behind and wants to make it eternal. "I'm just waiting."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"It's very simple," Yuliana sighs. "My wife is a God who dwells in the Void beyond reality. When I looked into Her realm, She fell in love with me, and carved a part of Herself from Herself to send her to the physical world, so as to protect me and bring me to Her. So, you see, Elisa is the manifestation of the Empress at the End of All Things. But in carving Her most human features from Herself, She now does not easily understand my human suffering." Very... simple?
Very simple.
And Yuliana can't agree with kindness not changing the world, but Zoltan has to quibble on it himself, so she supposes that's fine. "This world isn't right," she agrees. "And don't get me wrong! I've not given up on you all. But... my Elisa is right. We must halt our operations until we determine how to bring the change about... safely." Safely for Yuliana, anyway.
"Haha... who knows?" She muses, looking up at the chandelier on the ceiling, past the camera's field of view. "... maybe you could even help me save the world, one day."
And what kind of invitation, precisely, is that?