2024-01-03: .in all these ways am i different to my familY
- Cutscene: .in all these ways am i different to my familY
- Cast: Yuliana Kafim and her family
- Where: The Silent Castle, Kaffeklubben Island
- Date: 2024-01-03
- Summary: Yuliana helps her family move in, and tells her father about the experiments which made her so strong, in the process. But that's not the only change she's undergone -- she has to explain to Makar and Maksim how she's different, too.
Tri Darma Dian is an Indonesian man in his late sixties, dark-skinned and grey-haired; he wears a neat suit, under the fur cloak provided to him, and he carries a box which is too heavy for him down the hall of the Silent Castle.
"Nngh," he grunts.
But as he dips, something from the other side of the box catches it, and lifts it from his hands. "Ayah," Yuliana's voice comes from behind it, greeting her father -- and then her eyes, as she grasps the box so much more easily than he was. "I told you, the servants can handle this! They have better tools for moving these things!"
"I don't like sitting idle," Tri Darma scowls. "... are you all right, with that?"
"It's no bother," she assures him, and it isn't -- she's untouched by the heavy weight of books which was crushing him.
"Putriku," he lapses into Indonesian as he addresses his daughter, "I see that it isn't... but you carry it too easily." It's a criticism, but he's concerned, and she knows that.
"It's... the experiments, ayah," Yuliana explains, and her words are as delicate as her movements aren't. She takes up space as she moves, with strong steps, and even carrying a box it's quite clear she owns the place. "They did many things to my body... to make me into a better soldier. I may not have the forewarning to dodge a bullet, but I've the speed and the strength which would have let me do so. Something like this is no challenge to me, when I lift three hundred kilograms in my daily exercise."
"You keep it practiced?" Tri Darma frowns, as they approach the Dians' bedroom, in the restful comfort of the East Wing. (It is not close to the master bedroom, but that's a matter of how much space they have, in a castle.)
"It is part of me, now," Yuliana sighs, as she steps inside -- "Where shall I put this?" -- and places the box beside the bookcase, as her father indicates. "What would I achieve by letting it languish? I still need that strength... I'm still in a hostile situation, here."
"On Earth," Tri Darma sighs.
"Mm," Yuliana frowns, rubbing one scarred arm with her opposite hand. "Now... there's something I must tell the children. Ayah, will you come with me...?"
"Don't pout," he says, patting her shoulder with a hand. (She's taller than he is, now she's an adult -- but it's no wonder, really. Sashenka, his wife, is taller than him too.) "Come, let's go find them."
The Morozov's room is, of course, is right by the Dian's -- they'll get separate bedrooms when they get a little older, but right now, at four and six, it's better to house them together. And together, they're in their room...
... climbing over a very tolerant green tiger. "Anak!" Tri Darma barks out, naming them children sharply. "I keep telling you, get off that thing! It will bite you!"
"No he won't, Gruncle," Maksim, the elder boy, says, looking up to his great-uncle from where he's hugging Sokrova's neckruff. "He's a friendly tiger."
"He is friendly," Yuliana assures her father, as she sweeps over to go and sit on Maksim's bed, beside the two of them. "Boys, can I distract you from Sokrova for a moment? There's something I have to show you."
"'Kay," Makar says, as he scrambles up from where he was lying against Sokrova's belly, right where the claws are. Maksim straightens up, too, to hop up onto the bed on Yuliana's other side.
"Do you remember... Auntie Elyushka's ears?" Yuliana starts, cautiously.
"They were frilly," Maksim says, after a moment's thought.
"That's right," Yuliana nods. "But you have a Zentradi boy in your classes, don't you? Do you remember what his ears look like?"
"... they're not frilly," Maksim says, after a moment. "Isn't it because Auntie's a girl?"
"No," Yuliana corrects him, gently. "Most Meltrandi and Zentradi just have pointy ears, without a frill. But we've had some changes happen to us. And it's normal for people's bodies to change, as they get older, but we've had some more special changes happen to us. Like this," she says, as she unfurls her frill from behind her ears, the webbed tendrils curling in the air.
Makar gapes quietly, while Maksim says: "Whoa! You're like a dragon lady! Can I touch them?!" And Yuliana patiently lowers her head, to let the boys grasp at her black frill. Tri Darma notes that she mostly keeps her wincing off her face, as they grab at them.
"Ah -- gentle," she reminds them, after a moment. "You wouldn't like your ears to be pulled, would you?"
"Sorry, Auntie," Maksim says, releasing the frill and giving it a little pat. When Makar releases her, too, she straightens back up and smiles to them.
"Do you want to see something else cool?" She asks, gently.
"Yeah!" Makar pipes up, waving his hands in excitement.
Yuliana pulls back her own cloak -- and wriggles her tentacles free of it, as she does. The snakelike appendages sway in the air, crests raised in interest. "These are part of me, too," she explains, and turns to Makar when he flinches back, reaching out to him with her normal hands. "It's all right, dear, it's all right. I won't bite. Come, come, look," she reaches for one of his hands, and places it upon the orchid-crest. "They're just more dragons, aren't they, dear?"
"More dragons..." Maksim says, with saucer-big eyes, as he pets the hand-claw on his side. After a cautious moment, Makar joins in. The younger boy notes, instead: "It's cold."
"It is," Yuliana agrees. "Just like the frills, right? It's okay, Makar. I'm a pretty hot-blooded woman, so these help to keep me cool!" It's not... that much of a lie.
"Does it hurt?" Makar asks, tugging at a crest.
"It doesn't hurt now," and this, too, is a type of truth. "They're a part of me, like your hands are part of you. I even use them to pilot my machines!"
"Now that's got to be nonsense," Tri Darma speaks up, from where he's leaning on the doorframe.
"Ah... ayah, it's true," Yuliana disproves him with some measure of tact and grace, smiling. "Perhaps I'll show you Da Xukong 0, later. Do you want to see your Auntie's machine?" She asks, grasping Makar and holding him aloft above her head.
"Haha... yeah!!" He laughs, squirming, all his worries about the tentacles forgotten in an instant of proprioception.
And her father seems to understand a little more about her, too.