2023-12-08: .i must distance myself from this betrayaL
- Log: .i must distance myself from this betrayaL
- Cast: Yuliana Kafim, Elisa Kafim, Eight Orlodhari
- Where: Inside Goragon - Magallanica
- Date: During Goragon
- Summary: Yuliana experiences a vision of just what might have happened if she turned away from Elisa, after the events of Second Gate Open -- and just who might help her. But though Eight would help her if she were willing to escape, she's aware enough to realise that Yuliana isn't willing to betray her wife. Yuliana takes a mask from her assessment, and hides herself from the people trapped in Goragon.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
OST: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQjx9ZiVQvY Florence + The Machine - Blinding
It's impossible, and Yuliana staggers back into that maze of golden possibilities, breathing ragged. "We could have... it's not fair!" Yuliana yells, and in the yelling, calls attention to herself. "LET ME OUT!", she screams, whirling, lashing out...
... at a box all marked '背信'...
... Yuliana dances, and people die.
Of course she accepted this; she knew not everyone could survive. But when the world began to change so VIOLENTLY, those roots digging deep to the planet's core, she...
No matter her doubts, she would have kept dancing, if not for everyone's words. Whether they were worried for the world, or just for Rena, they argued and pleaded and demanded.
And it hurt.
So, she... locked the way, again.
Elisa wasn't upset, of course, though she was worried for Yuliana's health. She was so comforting, in the wake of their failure. And yet -- she said -- next time. Always, always there is a next time, and it makes a terrible kind of sense now. Elisa is...
"Please," Yuliana says, calling from Wendy's phone, "I must speak with you. In person." And Leina was of course concerned about seeing her, but, strangely, Yuliana agreed to any terms.
When she comes into Cathedra's custody, she does not bring her phone. Instead she says that Elisa cares only for reuniting with herself, and her hunger has blinded her to Yuliana's changing desires. She asks for...
... help.
"If I say this to her, I'll just be wrong... and of course I'd accept that," she adds, a shade dismal. "It's not... right, is it? I wanted Elya to take charge, but... I don't know. She hasn't done anything wrong, but -- but something's wrong. Something's wrong. I didn't want this..."
It's a difficult process, placing her into witness protection. Yuliana, while cooperative, is still quite ill; at times, she still grows combative. More concerning are her doubts over leaving -- how can she leave her wife, when she is leaving God? She hands over all her jewellery and her black robes readily enough, and dresses in grey slacks and a blue t-shirt, instead. (She does insist on having a scarf, and perhaps the reason is plain, when she's handing over her clothes -- because Elisa's name is tattooed across her collarbone.) She is shocked to learn about the tracking chip inside her beloved bracelet, as purple as Elisa's hair... but she isn't shocked for long.
"Of course she did that. She's always watching."
The decision is made to take her to Magallanica, a nice little apartment with guards by the door and standing inside with her. It's... safer, if she's somewhere comfortably familiar.
It's safer, because Yuliana is right.
<Pose Tracker> Eight Orlodhari has posed.
Always, there is next time. That is the way of things. But here, now...
A green portal opens up outside the apartment, and Elisa Kafim steps through, in her dark robes rather than in a nice dress this time. She is hard-eyed, as she looks to the guards.
"Would you die for her?" she wonders of them. "You are outmatched. You..."
She seems to consider it, even if they try to shoot at her, thinking for long moments. Whatever they choose to do, unless it is flee, she eventually says: "Sleep."
Elisa opens the door.
"My Yuliana..."
The soldiers are there. She repeats her question.
"Would you die for her?"
Elisa is there, looking to Yuliana.
"You are far from home."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"You're not authorised to be here," the guard outside says. "Stop, or we'll shoot." And they do --
-- and they sleep.
And Yuliana hears the noise, of course. "She's here," she hisses, her voice thin, as she stands from the couch she was curled on. (The snakes at her spine, at least, seem glad to hear her. It's been difficult to keep them handled.)
"El..." Yuliana starts, and chokes on the word, unsure of how to say it.
"Enemy contact," one of the guards radios in. "Alpha-2." The other says, "Clear!", and shoots --
And Yuliana is still upset, seeing bullets seeking her wife. But she shakes her head, and clasps her hands, in front of her.
(They TOOK her WEDDING RING.)
"Stop it," she says, and her voice is small. Is she talking to the guards? She is looking at Elisa. "I'm... not coming home, Elisa. You're supposed to be the one with all your humanity, but you just want to go right back to... bringing yourself here. But the closer I get to the Void, the more it's hurt. Not just me, now, but all the Earth... you keep saying it won't hurt, but the things you say, they're not what I'm experiencing. I'm always so turned around, I'm never sure of anything... I figured it out." Her hands tighten, around themselves, as she takes a step back.
"You take me apart when I'm asleep, then you take me apart when I'm awake." She takes a breath, and it trembles, lips pressing firmly together to keep them from trembling. (As if she could hide the quiver beneath her skin, all wound too, too tight.) "It's the same, isn't it? You're messing with my body when I'm with the rest of you, then I wake up and you mess around with my mind... I don't even know what I want any more!" And her voice climbs, as she yells it, throwing out her hands in a frustrated and expansive gesture.
<Pose Tracker> Eight Orlodhari has posed.
"Authorized," Elisa scoffs, before she steps inside.
Enemy contact, they say, and it is irrelevant compared to Yuliana. The guard shoots; Elisa is shot. She doesn't care. She stares at Yuliana, instead.
She lifts her hands, and the guns turn to dust.
"...No, you do not mean them," she realizes, and her eyes are still on Yuliana. Her eyes, and her Eyes.
"You do not believe me, then."
"Sleep," she finally insists to the guards when they do not give up. And then she waits. She considers.
"This is what you believe, instead..."
She sets her jaw. She could demand it. She could require it. It would be all too easy. And yet...
"They have turned you around so..." She shakes her head. "Very well. I can see that you have thought of this. And you know that I will not deny you."
"When you decide what it is that you want, my Yuliana..."
"I will be there."
She steps back, into another green portal, and is gone.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
So, so many Eyes. They are with her, when she closes her eyes too long, when she spends too much time around Leina and catches the wrong glimpse through the tears about her. She -- the other Elisa -- demands. That's why Yuliana's still up, this late at night. She knows that if she goes to bed...
In this world, Yuliana sees the way Elisa's jaw sets, and swallows, heavily. She stiffens. She knows --
She almost tells her, almost yells at her, almost demands to know why she's saying they've confused her when she just said Elisa had. But she's thought through this thing which hurts Elisa so -- and Elisa still just wants to make her happy --
"Nnn," Yuliana moans, grasping at the sides of her head. She peeks out through her fingertips, at the sleeping guards. "Everyone's..."
More arrive, at that moment. Their fellow did radio for help, after all. "Yuliana," they address her, because they've been directed not to call her Mrs. Kafim. "Are you well?"
"I didn't do it!" She snaps, and her snakes snap, too, as she folds her arms and turns away. "A--anyway, they're just sleeping..."
"Confirmed," one guard says, as she crouches down to check the sleeping men. "Just like the ones outside."
"We have to move you," her superior insists, as he turns to Yuliana. "You're not safe here, ma'am."
"I'm the only one who is safe," Yuliana grumbles, but, reluctantly, she turns back to them. "Is... anyone awake, at this hour? Really, anyone at all...?"
But it's almost two in the morning.
The only sort of person who would be awake at a time like this...
<Pose Tracker> Eight Orlodhari has posed.
Eight Orlodhari is awake at an hour like this--the timing is good, actually. But even if it hadn't been... She would try to make time for this.
Right? Is that why she's here? Because they asked her to look in on Yuliana? Of course it is.
Eight is there, when they bring Yuliana. It's not her own apartment, of course. That would be too much of a risk. But it is an apartment, with a face there that Yuliana knows.
"Yuliana," Eight greets her. She is dressed in ordinary clothes, not a uniform, a button-up blouse and trousers, with comfortable shoes. She is not exactly the image of a Captain, to look at her clothes.
But in her eyes, in her face, that presence is there. She is not here as just another person.
"Come in," she invites. "This is where you'll be staying for now. ...I'm not afraid. Just have a seat."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana is still guarded, stepping into the apartment with Eight. Even receiving her hospitality, here in Magallanica...
She hears the commands, of course. But she is trying to be cooperative, so she doesn't fight. She nods, and steps in, taking a seat at the dining table. Her hands folds on top of the table; underneath, her leg bounces nervously.
"Do you -- have some coffee or, anything?" Yuliana ventures, after a few moments of tense silence, and doesn't look at Eight as she asks. "I don't want to... go to sleep." And in the wound tension of her question, she is afraid.
You'd think she'd be exhausted, having done what she's done, today.
<Pose Tracker> Eight Orlodhari has posed.
"Yes," Eight says, and rises to her feet. She's not pregnant anymore. Just normal tired. She notices the leg bounce, though. "I can make coffee or tea, or we've got a couple energy drinks lying around. My husband drinks them; I brought some, in case."
She notices the fear, anyway. "I don't recommend too much caffeine in your state, but... it's your decision."
Those tense moments see Eight wait, to see what Yuliana prefers.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"I -- I know I'm not supposed to, all right?" Yuliana scowls, grasping tightly to her wrist. "The drugs, whatever... it doesn't matter! I just don't want to go to sleep yet, okay?!" Her volume rises, but she doesn't; she pulls her hands in, and grasps herself around herself, tightly.
"... coffee's fine," she adds, quietly, a moment later.
And she's silent and sullen in the moments which stretch out, curled in on herself. She is not quick to volunteer information, even though she asked for help. It's... difficult, for her.
But she manages, in time. "The Empress," she says, at length, "She's -- she's -- Elisa. You've heard, I'm sure." Even if Eight wasn't there for the revelation, people talk. "She... comes to me, at night. Or I go to H--go to her. I don't know. But -- but she, she's, um..."
Yuliana's fins unfurl, with a nervous curl. It's an uncomfortable experience, as the Silence spreads. Perhaps she just isn't thinking about it. "She hurts me," she admits, sotto voce. "Terribly. Takes my body apart and puts it together in all these different ways... it started last year, but it happened more and more, and now... whenever I sleep, She, she, I'm there. I guess she's, trying to figure out some form for me that would keep me safe or something, I don't know... She, she's not doing it because she hates me, or anything. It's all very... loving."
She frowns, looking aside. "Maybe she doesn't even understand... that it's so hard. Maybe she's been something else for, for too long. Or maybe... she's just making me hers. I don't know. I don't know," Yuliana repeats, heel scuffing at the floor. "Maybe that's the shape I need to live there. Maybe it's what she went through, when she went there. I don't know. I -- ugh, you know I've never been very understanding."
<Pose Tracker> Eight Orlodhari has posed.
"That's not why," Eight says. "You're already tense." A pause. "But coffee's fine. I've got cream and sugar, if you want it." She moves to put on the coffeepot, filling the reservoir with water, using a pre-fabricated filter with coffee in. She turns, listening to Yuliana. It's definitely uncomfortable, the Silence--but Eight assumes anything with Yuliana for now is going to be a little uncomfortable, considering.
"I've heard," Eight says. Has she heard? Or is it just convenient that way? ...No, she has.
"Right." Loving. Then... Eight shakes her head. "You say you're bad at being understanding, and to be honest, I'd usually agree with you. But then you talk about what you assume her perspective is. Try to understand her."
"...It's you you need to understand, now."
She reflects. "...Like the fact that this is a Possibility you won't accept, Yuliana."
Eight keeps making coffee.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"... okay," Yuliana says, of cream and sugar. She's not focused on that, though. She's trying to... share. And...
Eight focuses, even through the Silence. (Or is it easier to focus, in silence...?)
"I'm not assuming," she says, sullen. "I-- feel it. I guess it's just like you wretched people. I just can't be sure, I... it's not like she's human, any more."
But Eight reflects, and Yuliana frowns, looking up to her. "What -- what do you mean?! If you're saying I should just go back, maybe I will! If I forget this whole thing before the day's out, she might not be too upset, she'll forgive me, I... what am I even doing, dragging her name through the mud this way? I'll really betray anyone, won't I?"
She doesn't quite see what Eight sees -- though perhaps Eight, at least, remembers it.
The twin kanji on the cube they both touched: haishin, betrayal. In the DHZ, it describes reneging on one's faith... and here, it has the tone of infidelity.
<Pose Tracker> Eight Orlodhari has posed.
In some ways, it is easier to focus. In others, harder. But Eight is grounded in ways the very Awakened often aren't. Grounded, in this world; in the physical realm.
"Hmm... All right," Eight says. "Then that's even more the case. You understand. You aren't as bad at it as you think."
Eight shakes her head, as she comes with the coffee, pouring Yuliana a cup and bringing it over with both cream and sugar.
"No," Eight says. "I'd like you to be free. I'd like you to stop feeling that awful feeling, to stop being torn apart as you put it."
"It's you who won't. And I won't be a part of forcing you to be someone you're not, even if I'd prefer you to be that person."
Eight moves to sit down, near her.
"I'm not even 'here'," Eight says after a moment. "...But here's your chance. Here's a vision of the world where you turn away from the path you're on. You know it in your heart; Elisa would let you, if you really wanted it. What she would do after that, I don't know..."
"But I can 'reach' you, here."
"...It's a hard dream. This was the hardest part for me, too. The 'after'."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana snatches the cup, and holds it close to her. If her fingers curl too tightly around the hot mug, well...
She unravels herself to put in the cream and sugar, at least. Stir... stir... stir.
"I..."
Here, in this twilight, Yuliana's fins wilt, and her leg stills. Her heart has always been closed to Possibility; no wonder, here, she struggles to realise where she's positioned.
"She was my 'after'," Yuliana says, downcast. "Now... everyone talks as if I'm still trapped, like I never escaped. But... maybe it's my fault," she says, and sips delicately at the hot liquid.
"When she was getting to know me, I... I wasn't well," she settles on, and puts the cup back down on the table, hands still curled around it. "The experiments were hard on me, and... I don't know, maybe she..." A long beat of silence, "... drugged me. It took me a long time to let her give me anything. As soon as I accepted it, I became very strange... I saw Her. I mean -- her, I mean -- it was Elisa, but we didn't know it was Elisa. But it was strange for me to See, back then. When they put me in the tanks, or when I was around you people too long, that was when it happened back then..."
Yuliana shakes her head. "It was -- weird. But I could agree with what she was saying, and I went on about consuming everything, you know... you know, consumption, it was my -- it was one of the words they used. In the REA. The wolf one. I had to get rid of that senator, but I was unruly, so they must have... well, I guess I was still feeling vicious, after the fact. Talking about spreading my sphere of influence like that... I mean, it made sense to me, she said she was going to change the world, transform it into something glorious... she said I was going to help her. Because this reality was a lie, a prison dimension... so, of course I... of course I said that."
And if she sounds a little wan, a little faint, surely it's the pressure of the situation.
"I didn't... think the world was real," she says, haltingly. "I couldn't believe the people around me were real. If -- if it was all real -- what I was going back to -- it was easier if I was just reading a story. But Kaworu, you know, he barged into my brain, and he was, he was a person, and... I was just lying to myself, back then. It's not a story. But maybe Elisa never... she's very exact. I said what I'd do, and maybe she's always just been fulfilling that, even after I said I didn't want it... she gets so upset when I don't want to. I guess it looks like I'm lying... maybe I am lying. I am a liar... I'm not like her."
She looks so downcast, saying that.
<Pose Tracker> Eight Orlodhari has posed.
Eight understands, now. But Yuliana clearly doesn't. ...So she won't force it, yet. However long she's here... Maybe it will make a difference.
She listens, and listens, and listens. How it happened back then.. how it changed, over time.
Eight doesn't think Elisa drugged Yuliana, though.
"...it's not your fault that you weren't well." Eight can say that much. "No, the things you're saying, they make sense. I can see why you'd think that way."
"...I can't account for her. I can't account for what she wants, why she did what she did, why she does as she does. But you can account for yourself."
"I don't think you're lying, here. But I think you should consider--what you want. What you think. Instead of just what she wants, what she thinks."
"Like I said... I won't be party to forcing you to be other than who you are, whether I'd like that or not. So: think about it. What do you want, with this? What do you feel?"
"...Maybe you're lying to yourself. But you don't have to."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana has always been akin to Cassandra, in these things. She can tell Eight about the pills Elisa gave her, and still it seems unlikely...
What a shame.
"I want..." Yuliana says, and says it slowly.
"I don't want to be abandoned," she changes the meaning, gaze veiling as she looks down at her coffee. "Dragged behind the shed and shot because I'm not fit for purpose. And... you know... if you people get what you want, that Newtype paradise where you all get to ascend to another dimension, you know how that feels? To me? I can't! No matter what nonsense anyone does with any amount of Psychoframe, I'll never reach that place! Even if you dragged every Oldtype with you, I'd just..."
Tears well in her eyes, "... be left... all alone. ... like I always was. I'm sure you'd all think it was a kindness to put a bullet in me, then... saying 'what a shame'... god damnit!" She lifts a hand, and pounds her fist on the table. A little liquid sloshes from the cup to her fingertips; they twitch, but she doesn't pull them away.
"Elisa gave me a place where I can belong! A way I can save the world, just like the Gundam Fight was meant to!" It didn't, of course, but Yuliana is a communist -- so of course she just holds that the Gundam Fight they got only demonstrated the wrong way for one person to save the world. One person truly saving the world has not yet been performed, and so no one can say it doesn't work. "I want to make a place where no one has to worry about whether they'll be left behind! And if my place is so vicious, isn't that fine?! I'm an awful person!"
She draws a ragged breath, and swallows, and takes another drink of coffee. It's not exactly calming, but it's what she's got.
"... but... when we were bringing the world in... the Earth all but screamed," Yuliana says, tone levelling back out, putting her cup back down. "I don't know... I don't know if it's right to destroy this reality. I don't know... I have a lot of doubts. Even before we deployed, I was writing in my journal, I was unsure. Maybe it would be fine if I just had my place there... if Elisa was there with me, I could adjust to the strange anatomy. I wouldn't mind changing... I just want to be with her. I wanted to have a family with her... go somewhere quiet, live more simply. I'd be happy if I had that..."
<Pose Tracker> Eight Orlodhari has posed.
Put another way... Eight suspects Elisa didn't just drug Yuliana. Even if she might've done that, too.
"I'm not interested in such a world either," Eight admits to Yuliana. "I don't want some grand changed world where everything is perfect; I want this imperfect, flawed world that we can work to improve together."
"...It's natural, to not want to be abandoned. It's normal. No one wants that. And no, I don't think it would be a kindness to you to just kill you."
Elisa gave her... She can save the world. Herself. That's the difference, Eight reflects. "...No," Eight says. "It's not fine."
"But..."
"It's normal to doubt, too. personally, I think you should be unsure. I don't think it's a good approach. But is it what you think?"
"...Those are all good things to want, or at least, mostly. ...But it's not how you think of it, is it? Wanting these things... You consider it 'betrayal'. 'Infidelity.'"
"Is it, though?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
What else could Elisa have done?
Yuliana's told Eight all that she remembers.
"You can say that now," Yuliana scowls, when Eight says she's not interested in that kind of world, "but it's the first cogent philosophy you people ever put to me. Maybe that's because Ritechka was the first one I... made... friends with," even in this twilight, it's difficult to admit something like that. "I don't know." She doesn't know an awful lot.
But initial experiences can have big, lasting impacts. Like the feeling of being battered by flood waters, and watching all the death that follows. Or watching one's mother be thrown under the bus... and listening to her lessons, when she has more free time to teach them.
She takes a breath, and looks up, at the ceiling light. (So like the interview lights, in the REA. Four of them... or five? She can't recall.)
"Of course it is," she says, at length.
"Because... I left her. I swore to be an obedient and insightful wife, but I lost my nerve and ran away... and now I'm telling you all these private things. I'm talking as if our sacred mission is wrong, even though I know it's about reuniting Elisa with Herself now, too... I told Elisa I didn't believe her. I didn't believe in her, even though she swore to protect me. I didn't even give her a chance to explain before I left... I thought she'd just unmake my concerns." Much as Elisa unmakes her body, in dreams.
"But I need her," Yuliana insists. "I need to be with her. She's the only one who looked out for me, back then... for a long time. Whether it was at a distance, or when she sent herself to save me... you don't know how lucky I am. I -- I am the bride of God, and she broke herself to pieces just to save me. Even if it's difficult, sometimes, she loves me... she loves me so much, she'd let me go to do this nonsense. She could have made me go back with her... I would've listened. It would have been easy..." And Yuliana isn't thinking of just how easy it is, because Elisa has a great many tricks for ensuring her wife's compliance. She knows what she knows.
"Something like this... I can't do it. Even if my heart is heavy, I can't abandon her. She's in the darkness with me... she's always been in the darkness with me. Even when I was all curled up, and there were no sounds, and no light, and it was hard to breathe... when there was nothing, she was still there for me. She saved me..."
<Pose Tracker> Eight Orlodhari has posed.
'You people'. Eight grimaces, because she's trying, but painting them all as the same... But, "Rita is Rita. Not the rest of us."
But... Finally, though. Finally, Yuliana seems to understand what she's thinking. What she's saying for herself. She's talking that way, she's saying these things...
"...That's what I thought," Eight says. "Maybe she'd do those things. Maybe she wouldn't. But you believe as you do. You can do what you can."
"...Maybe this possibility would be better for everyone. Everyone except her. It would certainly be better for me. But... it's just a possibility."
"Like I said. It's not one you'll accept, and we both know that. And I won't be party to 'using' someone else for how I'd like things to be."
"Not even you, Yuliana."
"...But I hope you'll remember this. And remember what could've been."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"What's wrong with using people?" Yuliana mutters, all stuck in her ways, unstuck from what could be. "If it would be better..."
She shakes her head. "... but if it's worse for Elisa, it's worse for me. She's my boyevaya podruga, at my side through all conflict... I'd never accept a world that made her mourn."
When Yuliana stands, and puts her hand to her chest, there's her ring again, all rose-gold and jewelled. "Just as she wouldn't accept it. She would tear the sky from its moorings, for my sake." Elisa has done everything... for her.
"This world, that normal one... they're all trying to get between us!" In an eyeblink she takes that cup of coffee, and FLINGS it into the opposite wall, where it shatters with a sharp noise --
-- and when the attention turns from that noise back to Yuliana, she's clad in a red Masquerade mask, with a strange electronic edge to her words.
(Just like the Masquerion.)
"I don't need to share such things with you," she says, and turns on a heel.
"I hope you won't remember."
Yuliana Kafim has disconnected.
<Pose Tracker> Eight Orlodhari has posed.
"Everything," Eight says of what's wrong with using people.
"Yes," Eight says. "I thought so." She stands, and she understands. That world... the normal world--and there's her ring. There's the opportunity gone.
Not that Eight would've touched such a thing.
Eight doesn't turn, but what Eight sees is a mystery, because the world turns towards that noise. Eight is still staring when Yuliana rises.
"You don't," Eight says.
"...But I will."
Yuliana is gone, and Eight sighs. She looks up to the ceiling. "...Yuliana..."
Eight looks forward, again. "Is this why I came here?"
Eight Orlodhari has disconnected.