2023-12-13: .i hunger for your help and theirS
- Log: .i hunger for your help and theirS
- Cast: Yuliana Kafim, Elisa Kafim
- Where: The Silent Castle, Kaffeklubben Island
- Date: 2023-12-13 (ICly 2023-12-10)
- Summary: Elisa finds Yuliana a sobbing mess, after Leina's phone call. She assures Yuliana that she isn't brainwashing her -- present tense -- and hears her fears about their divine Calling, as Yuliana finally manages to tell Elisa what she fears: the Gate will Open with nothing less than her lifeblood. Elisa assures her it won't happen, and she won't let it happen, and resolves to find the Power to make sure it doesn't... but Yuliana wishes for Leina's help, and of course Elisa won't deny her wife what she wants. They resolve to equalise their relationship a little more, but Yuliana is still putting her wife first -- just as Elisa puts Yuliana first, before even Herself. (CW: Self-injury, coercive control, eldritch horror)
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
LOOK LOOK Crystal stalactites extend down with the sound of every heaving sob which echoes through the emptiness. The green formations grow with erratic design. LOOK LOOK Five hands harvest the spires. Snap, they're drawn from the ceiling. Cradled in the crook of eight elbows, they form a sick bouquet. LOOK LOOK Grunts of pain crack through them. Each hitching breath spiders at those crystals, and shards drop from it to the yawning below. Things like fronds or tongues collect the debris. LOOK LOOK Written on the emptiness. an oath a bond a i don't want to LOOK Blood leaks down what isn't a wall. LOOK i want Drip, drip, down to freshly-budding orchids. you're scaring me LOOK i'm frightened! LOOK As they grow up a lattice which isn't. h l LOOK e p LOOK me. A thousand eyes open. And two. LOOK LOOK
...---...
Yuliana is in a South Wing sitting room, and Elisa has so many ways to determine that, now. Not only her network of servants, all happy to tell her where they saw Yuliana last -- or that fine purple bracelet, with its tracking chip which Yuliana now at least suspects is hidden there -- or her dark magics; now Yuliana's presence screams out, and she knows.
... though, it may still behove her to check with a servant for details.
Yuliana is wound up into herself, all coiled tighter than a snake about to strike -- and there, she strikes. Her hand lifts from where it is clutched, where her knees meet her forehead, to hit her own skull.
(At least, that's how the motion would complete.)
Her phone has fallen from the cushions beside her, stuck in the thick bear-fur rug beneath the lounge, still displaying the data from a hung-up call. ... with Leina, for a decent duration.
She sobs, into her black robes, all tangled in her legs. Her tentacles curl tightly about her shins, clutching herself fetal against the couch. She lists to the side of it, away from the armrest, in the direction of her striking hand. She is, evidently and loudly, quite upset.
This does happen. Yuliana is... sensitive, and easily overwhelmed. Her emotional lability is difficult for her to cope with, sometimes.
And all her coping mechanisms are...
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
As it happens, Elisa does check with a servant for details. The strange experience of of their new bond is always something; Elisa has to puzzle out the details, consider the meaning of each. She has grown good at doing so, thanks to her experience translating Yuliana's ravings...
The eyes are open.
A call with Leina, of course. Elisa's eyes track the phone, snakelike, take in the details of the scene as she walks into the doorway. Then she steps clsoer in.
"Yuliana," she says, and walks closer, closer, until she reaches close enough to sit down beside her, to interpose her hand between the hitting surfaces.
"You are wounded," she says, and she does not mean physically. "Come. Tell me what is wrong."
Her own black robes are voiluminous, sweep with her motions. And the frills on her ears remain...
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana's curled hand impacts Elisa's palm, instead. She gasps, all ragged, as it jerks feebly for a moment and stills.
(She is not feeble. Elisa is just that much stronger.)
She slumps the rest of the way sideways, into Elisa's side, still curled up into that compressed little ball. (Her voluminous robes hide her, too.) Her breath hitches, one hand hiding her eyes, the other clasped firmly within Elisa's fingers.
But she can't hide her agony from the frill about her wife's ears, even tucked away against her, as she is.
"El--" She starts, high and choked and whining. No, "Elya, Elya," she can't claim that distance, even as she hides her face, "are you -- brainwashing me?"
Tears choke her, again, loud and oestentatious. "I know -- I know it's crazy -- there's no proof of anything of the sort! And you said I was different, I know, I remember! B-but -- but the Empress compels me, and -- but there's no way you are, right?! Oh, God! Why am I -- why would I even --"
Her whole body rocks, as she shakes her head against Elisa. "Answer the question!" She demands, and all her ragged edges are sharp.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Elisa is very strong. In many ways. And she holds Yuliana, as she listens. She feels that 'agony', through the distortion, through metaphor and vision.
'El', she begins, and it was not Elya. Elisa's eyes widen in alarm--and then, that question--
"What?"
The next words blur slightly; Yuliana speaks of why it is impossible, though it is not, strictly, impossible. At all. Elisa frowns, sharply--
But she is demanded of, and she does not deny Yuliana.
"I am not," she says truthfully, specifically.
Elisa is long known to answer questions quite particularly.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Oh," Yuliana sobs, ragged, and she does not hear how specific the answer. Her relief is tied into the denial, that Elisa can say she isn't controlling her that way, and her hand lifts from her face to clutch at Elisa's opposite shoulder, and finally her tearlogged eyes lift to witness her wife.
"Ohh," she moans, an expression of her pain and misery, now. She whimpers through her lips as she buries her face into her neck, breath hitching over that fresh tattoo.
"Elya... Elya...!"
She sobs, clutching tightly, to her wife; seeking comfort from her wife, though she was just so upset on account of that same woman. "I-I'm s-s-sorry," she chokes out, trembling. "I was just... s-so scared..."
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Isn't! That is key. But... It will take more than that, Elisa thinks, to properly reassure her wife. Elisa herself is calm, though disturbed. She looks into her wife's eyes...
"I can see why you would worry," she says. "Why you would fear. The Empress can and does shape you..."
She holds Yuliana, hugging her close. "But instead I seek your will, your wishes. Sometimes it is frustrating, your willfulness as regards your own safety..."
"But I know that you have your desires. That you have your wishes."
"Do not fear, my darling."
Then, pointed, "What put this in your mind?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Elisa confirms her fears -- that the Empress works on her, this way -- but she holds Yuliana, in her arms, and insists she seeks her will. "Oh, Elya," Yuliana murmurs, with infinite gratitude. Her snakes uncoil from her ankles and instead hook about her legs, draping them over Elisa's lap before they coil in about her just the same.
"Elya..." Yuliana sighs, her arms curling around her to clutch herself in, just the same.
But she is pointed, and vulnerable as Yuliana is, it is not difficult to skewer her. "Leyasha," she volunteers at once, "s-said that, that the Empress was making me do it. That, Her divine compulsion, it was, it was just more brainwashing... I tried to tell her you said I was different to everyone else, but she kept asking why you couldn't do it if She could! She said you, you had memory magic, so I wouldn't even know... if you'd made me give everything over to you..." It is Yuliana who asked Elisa to be the head of their household, isn't it?
"I was really upset, Elya," Yuliana justifies herself, as if she isn't still deeply upset.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Elisa makes no movement for the snakes. She holds Yuliana, instead, even as she pins her in place in a more metaphorical sense.
"I see..." But what she said makes Elisa think. She had not considered the angle of what the Empress does in terms of her own powers; Yuliana may even pick up through their bond how thoughtful it makes her. Her own emotions are... more muted, than Yuliana's. But they exist at times.
"That, I did not do," Elisa confirms. "I enjoy your independence, though it is sometimes troubling to me. I love you in part for your boldness. Though indeed it worries me at other times."
She considers. "You have been more timid for some time. Perhaps that is because you have asked me to do all."
"Would you like more self-reliance?" A beat, "I am sorry that she upset you so. Did she say why she was thinking along such lines?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Elisa's emotions always exist, to hear Yuliana tell it. She's held that Elisa feels more than the world give her credit for since...
Well, it's been a long time.
"Mm," Yuliana focuses on Elisa's first question, first, and her own culpability. "You're right..." Is she more scared because of what she put on Elisa...?
It lines up well enough with her own thoughts; it must be so.
"A--actually, yes, I mean... I realised, when I was t-talking to Leyasha... it's the Republic's thinking, isn't it? Centralising power. I was thinking how, i-in the worlds where I rejected them, things were... better... oh, I've been terribly unkind to you, haven't I? Forcing you to take on all the responsibility...!"
Is that really how it happened?
Even so, she tucks herself in against Elisa, and she's not relying on herself. "Leyasha... she says I must stop dancing, Elya," Yuliana sniffs, entirely a mess. "She says I'll die! Mm..." She buries herself in tighter against her wife, as she adds: "... I'm not sure she's wrong. I think... I think maybe the Gate won't open unless I... am sacrificed to the Opening, Elya. When we've gotten closest, it's always when I've grown closest to death..."
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Elisa could have put it another way, of course. But she didn't.
"Hmm..." Elisa nods, thoughtfully. "I suppose it is," she says. "No, no. You were unkind to yourself. I do not mind taking extra responsibility, if it is for you. But it seems as if it would be better if I... let go, somewhat. It is difficult, sometimes--I do so wish to keep you safe. But... we can discuss this. We can make things more like some of those good possibilities."
It might as well be.
But Leina... "She is right for now," Elisa says. "I do not believe that the Gate will not open unless you are sacrificed. But I do not yet know how to gather enough power to bring Her forth without harm to you. Thus... we must stop for now."
"I will continue to research. I will continue to work. But you must not dance that dance until all is in readiness."
"Sometimes, your instincts... are what is necessary to follow."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"I don't want to put you in a troubling position," Yuliana insists, shaking her head against Elisa's shoulder. "I never wanted to make things difficult for you, Elya... oh, I've been a selfish woman." In placing Elisa at the head of their household, or in making it so difficult for Elisa to keep her safe...?
Her feelings are her feelings, either way.
"But... why don't you believe that, Elya?" Yuliana asks, all vulnerability, as she turns her head to look up to her wife. "Why do you think I'll be okay...? I just -- I'm scared... I don't see a way forward that doesn't need me to..."
Tears well in her eyes, again, all that salt and liquid marring her face. "I don't want to die," she says... though her feelings already reached Elisa, in the form of that blood dripping down. "But the Empress is demanding, Elya. She wants... She wants, and I cannot deny Her. Every night... it's every night now, Elya..."
(And if not for Elisa's interventions, her Green Fold and her machinations, Yuliana would never be so open to the Void.)
Yuliana swallows, glancing aside for a moment, as if she could claim any space for herself when they're so tangled up like this. She can't, of course, and that's why her eyes are helpless but to find Elisa's again.
"Leyasha's... offered us help, with the Empress's demands," she ventures, at length. "But she doesn't think you'll accept help. She was talking like... if I wanted help, I'd have to... leave," and Yuliana winces, saying something so awful, physically pained to even raise the spectre. "I was s-so upset... but... it's nice Leyasha would help me, isn't it? Before you came, no one ever helped me..."
It's a pleasant fantasy -- pretending now that she's someone the world would want to save, even though she knows they'd leave her for dead.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
"It is fine," Elisa says. But Yuliana asks, and...
"Because I will make it so," Elisa answers as to her belief. "Whatever the cost, I will keep you alive, Yuliana. This I promise to you. Our first priority is that."
But she doesn't want to die, and, "...Mm."
It's true; Elisa realizes this, of course, that she helped to open Yuliana more to the Void in the first place... But--
She does not let go.
Help... Elisa frowns, at first--until Yuliana says that she does not think she will accept help. This makes her reconsider the matter--because of course, her inclination was to refuse such aid. But...
"...Hm," Elisa says, thoughtful. "I see."
"Well," she says, "My power is unlikely to be able to quiet Her demands. That is true."
But Yuliana needs this... her existence's very directives war, for a few moments.
"It is nice," she says. "But you need not leave to receive aid. Depending on the sort of aid she wants to give..."
"It galls me," she admits. "To think that there is something I cannot do for you. But if it is so, then we shall look elsewhere."
"...She will likely not wait gladly. But... wait She must."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Leyasha was shocked... to hear I had no concrete answers to give her, about how this world needs our salvation. Shocked to hear I was just, sure... she asked how I could make that decision for everyone, when I didn't know. All I could tell her was that it would be better..."
Yuliana trails off, with a long blink. "... but is it really all right, Elya? Just to say we'll make it so? It's not that I don't think you've the power to protect me. It's just..."
Her fingers curl, in Elisa's robes, as she glances away.
"... what if She moves through me, and overrides you?"
And that's something Leina said, too, though Yuliana doesn't attribute it.
Her fingers tremble, as she clutches, tightly, to her wife. "She won't forgive me," Yuliana's fear pours from her, "but it never ends, Elya. She doesn't understand what it's like for me... what Her demands do to me! I just -- I just --"
If saving the world hurts her this much...
No -- she doesn't say it, shaking her head vehemently. "I don't know... I'm frightened."
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Concrete answers. What the world needs...
"So you wish to reconsider?" Elisa wonders. This discomfits her, of course. But, with her Power...
"Hm." Elisa considers Yuliana's question. "Then I need more Power," she decides. "Power to ensure that my will is done."
If She overrides her, "It is a good reason to be cautious, at least." Yuliana fears. And it never ends... It hurts her.
Elisa, of course, may not be so willing to abandon their work. ...But perhaps, for now...
"Then do not fear. That is what we shall find, next. If She cannot hold back from harming you, then we must take measures. In time, I will be able to make the difference... but until then, we must either secure you in this world, or harden you against such harm. ...I do not wish to see you hardened, my darling. So it seems that our option is to embrace this world for at least a time."
She considers. Broods, really.
"I will hear out Leina's 'help'. If it is what you wish."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"No, it's not that!" Yuliana insists, sharply, to Elisa's discomfit. "I just -- I just meant -- shouldn't we have better answers?!" Doesn't she deserve better answers?
"Of course I'll give you Power," she murmurs, all raw edges. "Whatever you need, Elya. I'm with you..."
What... was Yuliana fighting for?
She lost her conviction, somewhere along the way...
Elisa sees the logic in embracing this world, so lost to the other, and perhaps she will feel the way Yuliana shivers when she proposes hardening her. (Is that why she doesn't wish to see it?) But Elisa is brooding, and...
"What if... Leyasha really can help?" Yuliana asks, small against her. "I thought she couldn't, for a long time... but what if I was just ignoring any help that didn't come from you?" And Elisa may well recognise, there, Sayla's words coming out of her mouth.
How terrible to know that Yuliana can echo other people.
"I just... like the idea they'd help me, I guess," she says, quietly. "If it's okay... then, maybe...?"
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Yuliana's insistence helps. But, "Answers... Yes. We must have stronger answers, then." Yuliana needs them. That is enough for Elisa. ...Elisa has never especially needed them.
"No, no," she says. "You give me enough. But I must seek... additional means. Beyond our--Her--power. Something that She does not hold."
Elisa does brood about it, though. She has a lot to brood about, in the moment. And Yuliana is so small, but...
Hm. Sayla's words.
"...Perhaps it is so," Elisa says. "You deserve all. If that means outside assistance... So be it."
She reaches out to cup Yuliana's cheek. "Of course you enjoy that they would help you. It is good, to be loved. And I will not deny you the affection of friends."
"We will hear her out. I will not accept methods that take you from me... but there may be things she can do. Or can help us to find."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana is an engineer; she is new, to faith. No wonder she struggles to claim faith as her answer, now.
"Elya... isn't that dangerous?" She asks, and she is worried, and she is worried for Elisa. "If She takes offence..." Yuliana bites her lip, frowning up to her wife. She may well know better than everyone...
... that all gifts come with a price.
But Elisa is satisfied with offering Yuliana everything, and Yuliana mumbles fondly, as her eyes drift trustingly closed and she nuzzles her cheek into Elisa's hand. "Oh, Elya," she murmurs, sounds now shaped into words, "you're so kind to me..." ... because of course, it is kindness not to deny her wife what she desires.
"Without your love," she sighs, all consumed by her affection, "all theirs would be meaningless."
Elisa's still on top, even if she wants other people to love her. And isn't that natural? Of course her wife comes first. It's a very normal feeling.
"I could never accept... being taken from you. Zhenushka, you are my everything," her eyes crack open, to gaze up at her wife, "and I am yours."
As she is hers.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
"Life is danger," Elisa responds, serene. "When I return to Her, I will bring with me all the new power I have accumulated. It will be good for our complete Self. And until then, that's why I acquire such Power--so that I need not concern myself with My displeasure."
"Our alternative is to abandon other desires, and work as She wills entirely. But that is not an option we are pursuing. Thus, we must pursue others."
Elisa smiles, at Yuliana. "I will protect you," she assures her. And she is satisfied, when Yuliana places her above others.
"And you, mine. More important than my own Self."
"I love you, my darling."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Elya... you'd dare, for my sake? Oh..." Her transgression is written in her very speech, and at once Yuliana is undone. Of course she realises it would be safer to devote themselves wholeheartedly to their Calling, but as Elisa says -- that's not the option they're pursuing.
"I know," she responds, softly. "I'm safe, here, with you." Here in her Castle, held safe from the ravenous mob outside who would sooner draw and quarter her...
(because of what she did, for Elisa.)
She carefully looks away from the end of that thought, into Elisa's eyes.
"Sputnica zhizni... I love you, too," she breathes, as she tilts her face up, past her eternal companion's fingertips, to press her lips to Elisa's. It carries with it all her devotion -- all her affection -- all the trust which Elisa has proven herself worthy of, time and time again.
She always knows exactly what to say, doesn't she...?