2023-12-10: Yuliana Falters
- Log: Yuliana Falters
- Cast: Yuliana Kafim, Leina Ashta
- Where: The Silent Castle / outside a University Admissions office (video call)
- Date: 2023-12-10
- Summary: Yuliana reaches out to Leina, after the events of Goragon and the Gate -- and while she recognises that the Empress isn't doing right by her, she struggles far more with the concept that Elisa might be doing something wrong. She manages to let Leina know that Shari needs help -- but when it comes to asking for it herself, tears in her eyes, she has to ask her wife. It's a difficult conversation for Leina, trying to balance reaching out to Yuliana with keeping a foot in the reality which happened -- a reality where Yuliana scarred Alma and the world.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
It's not as if Yuliana hasn't thought of ringing Leina, before now. She thought of it -- precisely seven times. Each time, she dismissed the thought.
She doesn't want to --
Oh, it doesn't matter.
But with Dr. Hell now defeated, and Yuliana safely home again, she finds herself staring at the phone for the eighth time. (Oh, damn the Eighth.) She picks it up, hefting it like the weapon it is. All too light, in her hand...
She remembers the number, and dials. She'll even tolerate the dial tone, if it takes Leina a moment to decide to pick up.
And finally: there she is, face in frame with a light, nervous frown. Her frills lift and lower, subtly, to either side of her face. "Hello?" She ventures, uncertain, before she puts her phone in its dock on the couchside table.
She is dressed in black robes, and she looks... well enough; stress had darkened her eyes, but there are no obvious signs of horror written on her. Certainly her chest is not split into horrific legs, though she still had those snakes, resting at her back. What there is, instead, is a tattoo of Elisa's name at the base of her neck, clear indication of her possession. She forgot to cover it, comfortable enough with Leina to implicitly class her as a family friend. "I... I'm..."
But she doesn't have anything to apologise for. Elisa doesn't think so, either.
Yuliana looks away from the camera, humming through her lips. "Mm... no, at least listen long enough to let me thank you," she settles on, instead. It's still difficult, but it's not quite as painful. "And -- let me know if you're well, after what happened. Then -- then you can go," a gracious allowance. "I just had to say something... but I'm sure you don't want to speak to me after what I,"
Yuliana takes a ragged breath,
"after what happened. Though --"
Is she being unreasonable? It comes so naturally, to her. "Though I guess you've never hung up on me before," Yuliana adds, in a hurry. "I just -- I mean -- is it all right? Is it all right if I speak with you? Elisa said it was fine, so long as I stayed here, but -- is it fine?" It's not just Elisa's approval Yuliana needs, apparently -- Leina's a factor, too.
Well, it's an attempt.
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
"Your employer has sent us a request for special accommodations. We have reviewed it. Admittedly we have concerns at this time about your ability to meet our rigorous academic schedule while you are employed. Our records show you have been held back as recently as last year. And your absences for this academic year have been... substantial."
"I believe I submitted a thorough addendum as an explanation." Leina Ashta, dressed in a nice professional tan pantsuit, her makeup impeccable, spoke to the Admissions Officer. "Including letters vouching for my explanations from the Gutsy Global Guard, and Cathedra's legal team."
"Ah yes, your addendum. We located the court case referenced. At this time however, there's been no resolution to the... troubling allegations."
"Excuse me Sir, but am I to understand that you're requiring a verdict?"
"Well, it's just - these allegations are quite serious. And with all due respect Miss Ashta, you appear quite healthy for a girl making... these accusations."
Leina's gaze steeled, as she opened her mouth and-
BUZZZZZZZZZZ
Instead of recriminations falling out from her lips blinked, and slowly reached into her purse to take out her phone.
"Miss Ashta, do you have your PHONE on?"
As she looks upon it, face stony, she says decisively after a moment, "I have to take this, so you can move on in your busy schedule of being absolutely disgusting to your prospective admissions." Grasping her purse, she left the office without another word, to the aghast middle aged man.
Not long after, her forehead thumped against the wall, as she pinched her nose, rubbing upwards at both eyes to dab the tears before it caused her mascara to run. One breath, then another, the phone buzzed again, she took a moment to pull herself together, then she answers her phone.
For a while, she says nothing, just looking at Yuliana in her black robes, with the correct amount of legs, and a tattoo of Elisa's name. She lets her speak. Silence for a while, expression unreadable.
More silence, then a prolonged breath.
"I'm alright, just finished a College Admissions meeting." Leina says neutrally, "Mom is worried about me. And my superiors congratulated me for my handling of the incident - even though they wonder if I'm too soft."
That's all true, truthful.
"You don't look well." Leina comments, just as truthfully, "Though, better than when I last saw you."
A beat.
"Do you really have to ask Elisa permission just to talk to me?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"What? Is that why you look so --" Yuliana starts, as she puts together Leina's expression, as captured by the camera, and the meeting she's describing. "Just what are they saying!" She demands, leaning forward to grasp the phone, as if she could shake Leina through it. "Go back in there and put me on to them! I'll have a word with those people, so help me, God!"
Leina probably doesn't want Yuliana's God's help, but at least she sounds concerned about her instead of being mad at her.
She scowls, with a huff, as she flumphs back down onto the couch. "At least Cathedra gave you no trouble..." She grouses, folding her arms and her tentacles both. Of course Sayla is worried about her! If Yuliana is worried about her, she thinks, Sayla should be at least as worried, or she's failing in her duties as a mother.
Not that Yuliana is keeping score, or anything.
(Yuliana is keeping score in everything.)
"... of course not," she adds, a moment later, responding to Leina's misconceptions about her wife before anything regarding herself. "Elisa brought it up of her own volition -- to say it was fine to reach out so long as I stayed here. It's because she didn't want me to leave the Castle!" Yuliana huffs, with a rough shrug. She can tell Leina disapproves of their relationship, and she doesn't like it. Phrasing it like that...!
Another moment passes, and the truth is, it's so she can collect her thoughts on how well she is. "But..." She starts, frill flicking out to the sides of her face. "I guess... I could be better. I've been under a lot of stress, Leyasha... the Empress isn't pleased. Not only with my apostasy -- but I disappeared from Her view, when Goragon took me... ah, but never mind that," she adds, glancing away. "I'm sure those things don't concern you."
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
"If you hadn't called I'd be yelling at him but..." There's a wave of her hand, "...there's no point. It's a foregone conclusion."
And indeed, she doesn't say what they're saying, or at what university she's at. She doesn't want to give Yuliana information to act upon.
"And what would you say?" Leina asks as she turns just slightly, and walks towards the window to look outside at the blue sky, imagining it to be green, "Would the world you'd have made even need universities? Do you know?"
Strangely, there's no anger in the question. She just sounds tired, but it actually sounds like a sincere question.
'Does she know?'
She doesn't comment on Cathedra, or Sayla any longer, but her eyes are away from the screen, listening to how Elisa brought it up of her own volition.
"I just don't get why's it important for you to say it to me? If it was a health thing, I wouldn't predicate it with my Doctor said I'm healthy enough for me to call?"
She doesn't sound like she's being difficult, defiant, but perhaps she does sound like she's trying to make a point anyway.
"No I can imagine you're stressed. After all it doesn't sound like... Elisa, agrees with her other self?"
Leina leans against the windowsill as she holds her phone, "That kinda puts you in an impossible position, since you can't really meet the demands of two beings with competing interests?"
A beat.
"And you know, the constant torture from one of them." Yuliana might protest, but Leina immediately says, "Elisa's words."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"How can you just give up on yourself like that?!" Yuliana snaps. "If you want it, you have to reach out and take it, Leyasha--!" But... her anger deflates, a little, when Leina asks whether the Void has university. "I don't know... if the people still wanted them, I suppose they'd certainly exist."
She could have stopped at 'I don't know'.
Yuliana frowns, though, when Leina says she oughn't have said it to her. (That's not entirely what she said.) "... you're right," she cedes, after a moment's huffy silence. "It was unnecessary for me to stipulate such a thing. I just... was anxious over whether you could accept my offer of conversation. So it came to mind... that's all."
She leans against the backrest of the couch, as if in mirror to Leina's windowsill, fingers rap-tap-tapping against her arm. "Yes," she says, at length. "Did I not just say the Empress was not pleased? I did not only mean She was dissatisfied with my works." Yuliana's teeth press in against her bottom lip, and the camera is detailed enough to catch the fang on her right side, pressing into the skin. (It's not detailed enough to catch the scarring on her bottom lip with much detail, but that's there, too.) "We are... both failing to meet Her expectations, at present. It troubles me."
Her lashes veil over her eyes, as she admits: "And... it does hurt, yes."
Which isn't a denial of the constant torture.
"It's difficult for me... but it's not easy for Elisa, either. She just wants to keep me safe... she worked so hard to shape my body back into a form which this world could suffer. She's been so frustrated..." Yuliana sighs, looking past the camera, into the crackling fireplace. "I don't... know how you people live like this. Feeling... people. I guess it's not so different to my connection with Her, but... it's so much."
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
"I'm not giving up on myself. Just this place." Leina answers after a moment, "Wasn't even my first choice."
It was second.
"Well... it's something I've wanted my whole life." Leina says after a time, "And something Judau and Mom have both wanted for me."
Why does she say it? Simply to perhaps make the point that 'I don't know' does a lot of heavy lifting for the dreams a lot of people.
Yuliana however expresses her anxiety, and it's perhaps, unamusing to Leina that whenever Yuliana is anxious - the first thing she cites is Elisa's approval.
Her fingertips tap on the windowsill...
... but she doesn't keep it to herself this time. "I see. ... You get anxious about her approval, a lot."
They're perhaps past the time of keeping such comments to herself. A soft touch has obviously failed, and the world has paid the price for her attempt at subtlety.
To save a life.
"You did." Leina agrees, "But it's a new thing to parse them as two sides of the same being. For me - and for you." She notes, "The contradictions are something I think about, and the conflict of interest."
And then she says it bluntly...
"You almost killed yourself, trying to meet her expectations - and because you think it'll help your wife. Even when Elisa explicitly doesn't want that."
A beat.
"Again."
As if it was all on repeat, as if she hadn't watched it once before. "If Rena hadn't - if I hadn't interrupted the process, would you still be here now?" Leina asks, frankly, for her evaluation of that.
But there is that final comment and...
"Well for half my life, I didn't." Leina notes, but her gaze stares out the window, "It's not a torturous experience though. There's times when I feel overloaded? Overstimulated? But mostly it's wonderful. I... wouldn't trade away seeing the world, and people as I do."
A beat.
"Specific people like Murasame, or Devi - are the ones that find ways to torture people through it."
And of course, the reason she cites Devi is obvious.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Hmph... what's your first choice, then?" Yuliana asks, scowling. "If you permit them to cast you aside -- you'll never forgive yourself! Do what you have to do to get where you want to be."
What Yuliana would do might not quite line up with what Leina would do... but maybe her advice isn't totally rotten.
If Leina's wanted it for this long, isn't it worth fighting for?
Perhaps it's being willing to make comments like that which make Yuliana suffer comments like the one Leina makes on her anxiety. "Of course I do," she says, scowling. "What woman doesn't wish to make her wife happy?" And if there's something that bothers her about it...
Yuliana reaches up to brush her bangs from her face. Her fingers linger, by her cheek. "Elya..." She starts, softly, before she looks back to the camera again. "My Elisa's made it very clear -- that she will go with me or not at all. She doesn't wish to be reunited with Herself if it means my death. And I know it is so, for the Empress has gifted her with the means to relay herself through Herself, and so I know her, as I know Her. It's just..."
Her lashes drop down, as her eyes shut, hand dropping to clasp at her heart. "Sometimes, I think... it's inevitable. I am the Gate... and the Gate must open... and every time we've gotten close, it's been, hard on me. Maybe... I have to die." Her voice is soft, as she relates it. "And I don't know what to think of that... my Elisa's made her position clear, but... even if we never opened the Gate again, the Empress would still be here beside me. In the corners, and the cracks, when I close my eyes... waiting."
Her brow knits, eyes scrunching, where they've shut.
"I can't bear it..."
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
"I mean, and do what? Have my Mom call tomorrow? Let her offer to donate a new wing so they'll give my application a second look?"
Leina asks in a tone that's quite frank, "Even if admissions is corrupt, I want to get in on merit, not because I'm Sayla Mass' daughter, or have connections I can call upon. The fact I'm here already rather than some Colonial Community College is evidence enough of how fortunate I am."
And indeed, she notes to her, "If I'm being given this much grief in admissions, imagine the first time I ask for an exemption from finals because there's a world emergency. These things are systemic, I can't just assume this is 'one admissions guy' on a power trip."
On anxiety however, and making her wife happy, "Don't be disingenuous. This is the same kind of anxiety when you brought up your concerns regarding Emptear, isn't it?" As she adds, "You're genuinely terrified about displeasing her."
Yet she listens to the conversation about Elisa. Leina paces back, away from the window, phone in hand, one arm laced across her abdomen, as she taps her purse at her side.
"I don't like it. Elisa's made her position clear, but if you're feeling like that - then it's obvious the 'Empress' and her still aren't agreeing? The two of them have a different set of priorities, but work towards the same goal."
Leina however certainly says, "It's obvious there's an element of compulsion to it. I've seen moments when you aren't yourself - nearly killed yourself. You engage in the same kind of behavior you condemn Rita for when you do."
And so bluntly, she says, "Possession, compulsion, channeling the divine. Whatever you want to call it, if she's trying to force you to ignore your self-preservation for her best interests - they're all just polite words for brainwashing."
And in that moment, Leina pushes so much further than she has before, "You need help. Even if Elisa made her position clear, her greater self is brainwashing you to die for her goals. Her attempts at harm mitigation don't work - you've already proven that."
Her eyes fall upon Yuliana, sharp, "You - She - will override Elisa."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"If that's what it takes!" Yuliana fires back, immediately, when Leina asks if she ought to try a little corruption. "You deserve it! You know it, I know it! The only reason they're not taking you is because they don't appreciate what you're offering them!"
She makes a dissatisfied noise when Leina brings up the systemic rot in the system, though, and stops fighting on the topic. She's clearly irate about it, though.
(Maybe she ought to go blow a university up...)
Yuliana frowns, when Leina brings up her terror. "I... just don't want to upset her," she says, a shade uncomfortable. "Though... mm." She can't deny she's thinking about it all, but they're thoughts she sits with in silence, for the moment.
"The Empress just... doesn't understand how fragile I am," she says, when Leina talks about their priorities. But...
But then Leina reframes her channelling to brainwashing, and Yuliana pales. Her gaze shifts from the phone, nervously, before she comes to meet Leina's eyes again. (And her eyes are so, so... green. It's all the more obvious, now there's no pupils to get in the way.)
"My Elisa did wonder... if She could have gathered my spirit into Her realm. If She were satisfied with that... mm... She might be willing to let me go that far," Yuliana admits, with clear discomfort. "I'm sure it's not what She wants, but... She was so angry that I did not finish what I started. If I had opened the Gate... it would not have mattered that I was soon to die in this world. Because this world would obey Her logic, then..."
Yuliana curls a leg up onto the couch, and wraps her arms around it, clutching it to her chest. "My Elisa said She was too impatient... Her recklessness almost killed me. But I did feel... compelled to dance, Leyasha. I..." Her frills wilt, behind her ears.
"I don't know..."
And it's hard to say the despair in those words isn't genuine.
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
"Then they're not worth my time." Is Leina's honest answer, "If they're breaking the law, then I'll handle it through proper channels. If they're not, then whatever? I'll find a university that appreciates what I have to offer them."
Indeed given how Universities make money, Leina is amused they're not jumping to court her based on predicted Alumni donations, but apparently scandal and controversy concerns rein.
Yuliana says that she doesn't want to upset her, and Leina just lets Yuliana sit with that thought, not remarking for a time.
"And if she doesn't understand for you. What about for all other humans? Children?"
Another question for which she expects a 'I don't know' perhaps, or a reflexive denial.
Yuliana pales under the reframing to brainwashing, and Leina watches her, her expression stern but, not without sympathy...
"Then... you'd be like Rita? A being of spirit rather than flesh?"
Again, Leina pokes at the hypocrisy there. It's a necessary thing to do. To call attention to it.
"Is that really fine? To sacrifice your life like Rita for that kind of goal?"
Indeed... Leina presses... just gently...
"Even Elisa was surprised when you took the limiters off. It's easy enough right? An act of devotion to your wife."
... and suggests...
"Do you really know if it wasn't the Empress, having you do it, in her impatience?"
In the end, she concludes, urgently...
"You can't dance anymore. You mustn't. Anything that says you should - they're not acting in your best interests, even if it's coming from inside your own head."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Tch..." Yuliana grumbles, on the concept of Leina's admission. "If that will satisfy you, I suppose it's fine." She'll remain grumpy, though.
When Leina invokes the children, though, Yuliana's frown deepens. "It's not like they have to open the Gate," she snaps, tightening. "It is my sacred task -- so the children need not bear that burden!" The burden of the world changing she leaves unaddressed.
It will be beautiful, after all.
"Of course not!" Yuliana denies the connection between herself and Rita -- reflexively. "It's different, because... because... it's different!" Does she really have an answer?
The lines between herself and Rita have always been distressingly thin, at points.
Yuliana curls her other leg up, tucking the both of them in against her chest. Her tentacles coil about her ankles, as her arms curl about her knees. ... precisely the stance she took in the dark, though she didn't have the extra limbs, back then. "But... I investigated Emptear's secrets myself," she protests, her voice thin. "I tricked Sharochka into telling me, I poked around myself while we were training... I'm the one who found out about those limiters. My Elisa never mentioned them..."
The implication is stark, and she doesn't quite draw it out: if the Empress is compelling her to go further and further in service of Opening, She isn't just demanding things of her while she dances.
Rather, her whole life...
She blinks, and blinks, and blinks again. "But... I love to dance, Leyasha," she says, a shade miserable. "Ever since I was a child... and you're saying I can't...? It's sad..."
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
"You've really never thought of what happens next?" Leina asks, when Yuliana says Children won't bear the burden. "Your Empress doesn't understand human fragility, and expresses their love through torture." She says, pitilessly, "How then will she express her indifference? Or her hate? What suggests she will love other humans at all, when you place her above us all?"
Step, step, step - Leina is just pacing, Yuliana might see the camera turning every now and then, "What about the powers she grants? Elisa sometimes uses human lives as power sources, right?" Step, step, step, "Don't you think that might be a problem if more people like Dr. Devi obtain them? What guarantees the Empress will grant it to people who will utilize them wisely?"
It is a relentless number of questions, in the end, meant to force this introspection of what happens next.
"How is it different? Because it's not Rita? Because it's not through some Newtype method? Because the differences are certainly sounding semantic."
Yuliana curls upon herself, and Leina stops pacing for a moment to regard her, waiting - watching. There's a ping on her phone for a security check in, she hits the button on the alert for a moment with her fingerprint. Leina lets Yuliana make the conclusion herself.
"I am worried about you. I do not think this can go anywhere good for you, for anyone. And no I do not say that because I'm a Newtype."
Leina tells her in this moment, "I think anyone who had the information I have right now could see it. In your prior line of work you saw people in this kind of position all the time in religions, cults, but because it's Elisa - because it's the Empress, rather than... people... you convince yourself it's different."
After a moment, she adds, "Just like you said it was with Rita. But in the end, it's taking your life in some kind of ritual, but persisting as some kind of spiritual being?"
To her final point, Leina tells her again, "Again. Don't be disingenuous. I'm not talking about doing some traditional Indonesian Dances or the Waltz Yuliana - I'm talking about specifically, the kind which results in your life ending. That kind. The dance where you are no longer alive when you complete it. Period."
As she tries her hardest to say it in no uncertain terms. "The kind I think you're being compelled to do, by the Empress, no matter the danger to you. The kind even Elisa doesn't want you to do, if it means the end of your life!" There is a sorta staccato urgency to how she conveys this, "You can't do this anymore! The consequences to you-! You're going to die! And you don't know what'll happen to everyone else! Yuliana please, listen to me."
Leina looks her in the eyes, "You fought in the Mycenean Wars, if you had someone talking to me about dancing to bring their God in the world? If they were in the same position you are now, and you were in my position listening to them. What would you think? You're talking about an Empress that wants you to dance yourself to death and tortures you out of love for you!"
There's a sort of desperation in her green eyes as she asks, "How can this be a good thing?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Because -- it's the difference between our worlds that causes that strife!" Yuliana tries to explain, under pressure. "And, and once Elisa rejoins Herself again, she'll be able to show Her what she's learned here! She'll make sure it's better! She'll ensure our beautiful world, with her own hands! And -- and -- I don't know, okay?! It's not like Dr. Devi's powers worked on me, anyway..." This, she says with a pout.
"... maybe," she mutters, when Leina says the differences are semantic.
Maybe there's a part of her... which wants Leina to worry about her. It's... nice that someone does.
"Not just that," Yuliana says, quietly, when Leina says she used to see it all the time. "That's... the loyalty to the Party, too. That's how the Republic is able to use its wave tactics... because... it's for the good of the whole. That's what you tell yourself... that you can keep fighting. You can keep going forward... as long as you're ordered to."
She looks aside, and notes: "Maybe that thinking's poisoned me... I pushed it on my Elisa, too. In Goragon, the worlds where I was free from that kind of thinking... they were different." But she took her authoritarianism with her. Maybe... that's to blame.
She pulls herself in a little tighter. "It's not like it's clear," she mutters, when Leina accuses her of being disingenuous. "It's not like the Empress gave me -- something obvious to focus my power through. Just something I enjoy..."
Yuliana peeks out, her cheek resting on her knee, at her phone on the table. She blinks, and finds her eyes damp.
"I'm trying," she says, her voice thin. "I'm trying to listen to you, Leyasha. But I'm frightened. The Empress won't like it! Am -- am I just to never sleep again? To never leave this place again, lest I happen upon one of you and sight Her through the cracks? To never dwell too long upon -- how am I to escape Her will, when She is always with me?!"
But... she's not the only one under Her will, is she?
Yuliana swallows, and her breath hitches, as she lifts a hand to scrub at her eyes. "L...listen," she says, a pathetic whining edge to her voice. "I don't know what to do... I don't know how I could escape it. B-but... Sharochka, she's trying. She left a little while after the Gate failed to open..." She takes a moment to sniff, her shoulders trembling. She's a little defensive, as she insists: "You know, I -- I didn't even tell my Elisa, since she didn't want to be seen leaving. But then she asked me, directly... well, when she learned what happened, she was content to leave Sharochka be. Of course I encouraged her to let her find herself... but it means she's alone out there, now. I..."
She sighs, and sinks into herself. "I can't help her, any more... but won't you see she doesn't come to harm? Can you do that, Leyasha? I worry for her. I fear the Empress will not forgive such a betrayal... when She is already so much harder on Sharochka."
And maybe that informs -- why it's so hard for Yuliana to think of causing Her stress.
The Empress has already lost one person.
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
"I- she can't even talk to her other self to convince her to stop torturing you now." Leina rubs her face, distressed, "How can you be so sure? What happens if she's still too inhuman to- get it? Even after Elisa does that?"
In the end she pinches her nose, "You don't have any concrete answers - you're just - just sure!? How can you entrust everyone's future to that? How can you make that decision for everyone else?"
It's so depressing to her, the thought that this can be someone's logic on the matter, to roll the dice so hard on humanity's future and think they're going to come up with a perfect roll.
Still, she listens to the loyalty to the party, as her hand shifts down to her mouth, and her eyes look upward. As she just tries - tries to think of something, anything that might get through to her.
Yet - as she starts crying, Leina drops her hand and closes her eyes, thinking of Shari leaving. She suspects giving her phone a try won't work.
"I don't want you to suffer, Yuliana. I don't - but increasingly, more and more - it sounds like how it'll be better for everyone else? That you're not really thinking about that... you tell yourself that, but - it's because you want it to stop."
She speaks in a soothing tone, at the screen, "And I get it. I don't want you to suffer either, but you're being sold a bill of goods that may not deliver - that this is the way - that perhaps it's the only way."
Quieter, and quieter...
"Yuli. There are people who want to help you. We can't though - if you're just gonna keep going, keep deciding humanity's future for your own sake."
She takes a quick, sharp breath and tells her gently, "You have to stop though, you have to seek help. Right now, if you're worried that if you left that you'd only be tortured worse?"
There's a lengthy pause and then...
"How is that any different from what you were worried about when you were considering defecting from the REA? What they'd do to you?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"But she did talk to Her!" Yuliana insists, sharply. "When -- when She tried to take the rest of my warmth away -- my Elisa told Her it would kill me! She told Her, and She stopped! She..." And here she hesitates, biting her lip again, her frills sweeping over her ears. "... She changed my Elisa, instead. She gave her that relay... so I could know her, through the Void, as I know Her. It must have hurt... but Elisa didn't say anything..."
She doesn't have any answers. She's remarked on it herself -- the way she doesn't know so much, now. She can only show a dismal expression, to Leina's frustration.
Indeed, Shari's phone likely wouldn't work.
"It w-will be better," Yuliana insists, but the way she sniffles in the middle really undercuts her message. She looks at the screen, though, as Leina tries to get her own message through. Is it really just for her own sake...?
Her eyes blink shut, for a long moment, as Leina compares her situation then to her situation now. She turns her cheek back in towards her knee, hiding her face, and she's silent for moments longer.
"Let's say... I did that," she says, quiet and muffled. "Let's say I needed to ask for... that. What would it even look like?" Quickly, she adds: "I'm not leaving my Elisa. I already saw the world where we betrayed each other -- I won't do that to her. If that's what you're getting at, you can just choke!" Her voice raises, as she lifts her head to yell, before she hugs herself to her knees again.
"But I can at least let you say what you mean... I guess," she mutters, voice lowering, again. "Since I don't even see how you could help..."
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
It is hard to push past her HORROR at the idea of taking away her heat, but she does, to ask a simple question, "And then what happened next?" Before she presses again, "What happened the other day? When Elisa told you to stop, and she pushed you to keep going!"
Leina speaks, upset, frustration, "Will it? It doesn't even sound like it will be better for you. We're talking about letting a being that tortures you CLOSER to you! You were a COP-! How can you think that's a good idea? You had to enforce restraining orders, put people like this away!"
The frustration keeps leaking into her voice, "But it's fine because it's a GOD? And she just doesn't GET IT? Even an REA court wouldn't take ignorance as an excuse!"
Leina drapes her arms across her chest, "And - how is that safe for us? Yuliana - Elisa made Alma your slave! I still - I still haven't even HEARD from her since she got out! I don't know what state she's even in!"
Her fingertips touch her forehead, "Elisa isn't going to accept you stopping. You know this. If she thinks we're making you stop, what's to stop her from controlling us, controlling you!"
Leina just looks at the phone, "Look, I get it, you love your wife. And she is trying to protect you - but what happens if you stop working towards her goals? Is she just gonna yell at you again like with Emptear? Withdraw affection? What? What happens?"
And in that moment she notes, "If she's already controlled you - you wouldn't even necessarily realize right? She has memory magic, she's said it herself."
She takes a breath, and-
"... I'm not going to pretend I can give you some guarantee on the outcome. I'm not a scientist. I don't know what research groups have already looked into on this matter. Assuredly some, now." Leina taps her fingers on the wall, "I can tell you that people will be there helping you, supporting you. That I can make a deal with 3G to look at this problem using their courage, to help you - to prevent extradition by other blocs and agencies."
In the end, she won't bullshit her and promise there can't be scientists and Doctors. There has to be. Simply the most ethical and humane ones possible.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"My Elisa was happy she could express her love, and be more like me.. and the Empress praised us, and then... then the Communion grew too hard on me, and I had to rest. Usually, I just offer myself to her scrying orb... I don't use it to call the Void." Which raises its own thorny questions, even as Yuliana answers her next question: "Then -- back then, I -- it's my fault I didn't listen to my wife!"
(She was listening to her wife. Just... not the right one.)
"Restraining orders...?" Yuliana echoes, curling into herself. "I... I mean... She doesn't mean to torture me, Leyasha. It's just... how it ends up, when She changes me the way She does. Because this world clings to me... and I'm still so mortal. The Empress is trying to improve me, to protect me... to make it easier for me. She doesn't set out to hurt me, j--just for the sake of hurting me, or anything..." And perhaps she would have heard this sort of logic when enforcing restraining orders, too.
A wife making excuses.
"It's not like I've heard anything," Yuliana scowls, thinking of Alma. "And it's not like I don't dislike how it all ended up... it just got out of hand. I didn't know how to stop it..."
But she shakes her head, when Leina talks about Elisa stopping it. "She wouldn't control you," she says, and says too much, "because I like you."
Yuliana tightens around herself further, when Leina says such awful things about her wife. "Elisa isn't a monster," she insists, and perhaps she's the only person who would. "And you're mistaken, anyway! My Elisa assured me -- it's not the same with me! She said there's no one like me! Why would she say something like that if she could control me as easily as anyone else?!" And certainly, that's one way to take Elisa's assurances.
Exceptionalism goes to extremes, after all, and one extreme is immunity.
She buries herself into herself, and she's silent, for long, stubborn moments. Until:
"I..." Yuliana starts, delicately, and stops again.
She swallows.
"I... admit, it is... sometimes overwhelming, to imagine a world made entirely of the stuff of my dreams. A world where I could never escape Her... of course, She is always with me, but it is easier to turn my gaze from Her when I involve myself in this world. Once we save everyone... I guess I won't have any more time for myself. She'll always be there..."
She's talking around the point, but she does have one.
"If I could find some way to... h-help Elisa, and me... maybe there's something wrong with how She treats us. But... I won't abandon my wife, Leyasha. It's not fair... that people would be there to help and support me... but my Elisa's only considered as someone who would hurt me. How could I accept something like 'courage'... when that courageousness is too cowardly to consider my wife?"
It's something... like progress, but...
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
Again, she rubs her face, agitated as she listens to Yuliana take the blame because it's on herself. Yet, when she makes excuses? "No. No. That's not an excuse. There's no excuse."
Leina drops her hand, frowning, "You're making the same kind of excuses a wife would make after their husband put them in the hospital! It's not better because it's some God! Because they love you!"
Her eyes glint for a moment when the best she can give is not having heard anything about Alma. "It more than just got out of hand!" Leina puts a hand across her eyes, rubbing it, "God really? What's that really say when that's the only thing protecting me?"
Leina sighs, and her back thumps against the wall, "I never said she didn't love you, but Yuliana, I want you to think about it - really think about it. If she loves you, then wouldn't she have even MORE reason to want to control you? Not LESS! Okay - alright -"
Leina raises a palm, "-I want you to consider that we've already determined that from time to time, the Empress compels you to do things. That's brainwashing. Right? You don't have a choice. Often you're someone else."
Where is she going with this?
"Elisa was originally part of her. That means that intrinsically, Elisa has it in her to do the same. Even before she learns anything else about humanity."
Alright... but...
"... What's more human than a spouse controlling another spouse? That was ALREADY in her, even before she learned anything about humans. You know that these relationships are often about control." Leina points out, "You talked to me about how husbands and wives act in Zaftra all the time!"
Yuliana does talk around the point, but eventually does get to what she's saying, "Yuliana, look me in the eyes. You're saying you know your wife so well, so tell me the truth. Look me in the eyes and tell me that if you wanted to stop tomorrow to seek help elsewhere, she'd let you."
She's not finished, "And she wouldn't yell at you, or call you cruel for your lack of faith in her, she wouldn't try to guilt you or manipulate you."
A pause, then softly she continues, "If you want help - I'll get you help - but I cannot get Elisa help unless she wants help. That's the way with helping people, they have to want it. Can you tell me that Elisa would want help, really tell me that?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"I..." Yuliana starts, when Leina compares her to a battered wife. "... I..." She keeps trying, when she turns to the way she battered Alma, with Elisa's apt assistance. "... I don't know," she chokes out, finally, when she asks what her level of protection really says.
Leina asks whether Elisa wouldn't have more reason to want to control her on account of her love, and Yuliana -- doesn't look like she even thinks that's a bad thing. Perhaps that's why Leina knows to raise her palm, to stop her from arguing the point, so she has to listen instead. And, give her some credit: she does, humming vague affirmation when Leina compares being moved by Her spirit with brainwashing. (It's... uncomfortably close to being the same thing, anyway. Similar enough.)
But Yuliana just tightens further around herself, when Leina draws the point from A to B -- from the Empress's powers to Elisa's. "That doesn't mean she's controlling me like that," she protests, but her voice is small. "She can't control me like that. She wouldn't." Those are two separate statements, but she can hold both of them, in her mind.
Both that Elisa can't control her mind -- and that she would never do something which hurt her so much.
"Anyway... she's only that controlling because I asked her to..." And if there's something about that story which doesn't add up -- Yuliana simply declines to do the maths, in her head, about the way they met and their early relationship. She never saw how Elisa discussed her with people when she wasn't in the room. She thinks...
She thinks she put Elisa in this position of possessiveness.
And it's a struggle to look Leina in the eyes -- but she does manage to peek back at the camera, after a few moments. "My Elisa wants the best for me," she says, looking to Leina's image. "If -- if that's what I wanted -- she wouldn't stop me. She didn't even stop me in the Betrayal cube, when I ran off with you and Eight... she just told me she'd be there, when I decided what it was I wanted. It's not her fault if I feel guilty, anyway!"
She frowns, glancing down. "I'd have to ask her..." Yuliana says, her voice small. "I can just tell you... she's very frustrated, Leyasha. She's angry with Herself... I don't know if she'd accept help from other people, but my Elisa's not happy, either." Both of them are under the Empress's pressure; Yuliana sees that, now, more than ever.
"And, I... I'm frightened," she adds, hugging her knees. "I think... I think maybe, I... I don't want to die," she finishes her sentence, lamely. "Though it feels like I'm being selfish... though I should say nothing's wrong... I think, I might need..."
She swallows, and goes silent.
"But I won't abandon my wife," she says, instead. "Before I say anything, can I... ask her? Is that okay? I can't go behind her back..."
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
Again, a sigh, but Leina continues listening, it's clear that Yuliana doesn't think a controlling spouse is a bad thing. However-
"So the Empress can control you, but a fragment of her can't?" Is her question, when Yuliana protests, "I want you to really think about that one, Yuliana. Really think. And I'm not saying she controls you in all things. One doesn't need to - just in small ones. Matters where you conflict with her interests and normal control won't suffice."
Leina dearly hopes it's only in small matters. She does, but that's bad enough.
"And how easy would it be to push you into a state where you want to hand her control?" Leina asks after a moment, "She handled your deprogramming, with the protocols I gave you. You were vulnerable after, because you'd tried to kill her. It'd be easy."
Her eyes keep their focus on Yuliana, even as she keeps contact with her. The Betrayal Cube. Her and Eight.
Damnit.
"Yuliana. The possibilities in Goragon don't always show accurate versions of ourselves, or the people we love. They show possible versions. You can't act as if what Elisa did in a cube - is what she'd do now. Who knows what possibilities that cube had to get her there?"
Leina rubs her face, sighing as she decides to relate some things, "In many versions I saw myself being born to Sayla. Or others - in one or two, I saw myself being born to you - and growing up in an REA that you never joined. I was often younger than I am now. Possibility could literally change anything."
So instead she asks, "Instead of considering 'Possibility' think instead, you're saying she wouldn't stop you on such a big thing, but she'd yell you into submission on a much smaller one like... you expressing concerns about Emptear?"
It's hard watching her, watching her curl upon herself miserably, about Elisa being angry with herself, about how she's frightened. About how she won't abandon her.
"... I really don't think it's a good idea to ask her." Leina says softly, "More than anything she doesn't want you to leave. So I think it would go badly, for you and for me both. But... I can't stop you, and I can't tell you what to do. I can only tell you what I think and make the offer."
There's something like a defeated sigh, at that, "If you want help, it will always be available to you. Same as Elisa - but I don't think Elisa will." And indeed her seagreen eyes look sadly at Yuliana, "I think if she ever accepted help, it would be merely to try and make a point to you."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"No, I... it started before that..." Yuliana starts to protest, only to find that her ironclad evidence ends with, "... after she stopped Dr. Devi the first time... that's when I started trusting things to her."
... she was plenty vulnerable then, too.
"Of course it's not accurate!" Yuliana protests. "That Elisa betrayed me by pushing for next time, without thinking about how much it hurt me! It's just..." It's just, that's the only example she has of leaving.
It's too bad, she thinks, that she never saw such pleasant Possibilities.
And Yuliana frowns, when Leina brings Emptear up again. "She wasn't trying to do that," she insists, but her voice sounds thin and reedy even to her ears. "She was just upset... she was just upset when I hurt her, that's all... because I went to someone else for help, instead of her, and I talked about something private."
Which might explain why she twists herself into knots about asking her wife, now.
"Mm..." Yuliana hums, curling into herself. "I don't think it would go badly for you... you really helped us out, you know?" She doesn't explain how, though. She's too wrapped up in: "I can't go behind her back... every time I do, I end up hurting her. Just look at Emptear's limiters..."
Yuliana's frills pin, low, against the side of her head. "Why does getting help mean... leaving my wife...? I can't leave my wife... even if I know it's not right... so what am I supposed to do?"
Tears well in her eyes, again, as she insists: "I don't know. I don't know. I need -- her help. I need her help..." And they track down her cheeks, as she says, voice thin: "Now -- now she'll know something's wrong -- I can't lie to her. I think... I had better go, before she gets here. I had better go, Leyasha."
Yuliana reaches forward, to pick up her phone again. "I, um..." She starts, holding the phone in her hand, and closer to her face it's uncomfortably clear how much she's been crying. "I regret that our calls always end up so... um, t-thanks for answering. See you..."
And -- click -- she hangs up.
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
Yes she brought up Emptear again, that argument is important. Because - went to someone else for help, instead of her. Talked about something private.
"Don't you think she'll get upset now then?"
Is her answer, letting her dwell on that, "Like I said - I'm not telling you what to do. I'm just worried, for you. And I admit - I'm worried for me. If she got upset with me, the things she could do to me - but I'm not going to withdraw my offer for help because of that."
Leina is still leaning against the wall, but slowly she slumps down to sitting on the hall of that college hallway floor, with her knees curled up.
"Yuliana please..." She whispers quietly, even as Yuliana cries to her, "... you know why. You tried to break the world. You did that. It could have been worse than Second Impact. It could have been much worse than that for humanity. I can't - I refuse to believe you're so blind - that you don't realize how far you've gone."
Leina hears her speak of her regrets, thanks her, and she's about to say more, "Yuli-"
Click.
For a prolonged time, she sits there staring at the screen, then moves over to her texts.
>admissions meeting went over sry
>guy was a real dick didnt understand i cant just shut off my phone
>be just a few minutes more
"Just a few minutes." She whispers, as she puts her forehead to her knees and surrounds them with her arms.