2024-02-21: .my regulation is a testament to my work for yoU
- Log: .my regulation is a testament to my work for yoU
- Cast: Yuliana Kafim, Elisa Kafim
- Where: The Silent Castle, Kaffeklubben Island
- Date: 2024-02-21 (ICly August 0098)
- Summary: Yuliana continues enjoying her time at home, working on a wanzer prototype with her wife. But when she drops one of the necessary parts and ruins it, her first thought is to deal with that overwhelming frustration through self-harm -- an urge which she delays and copes with through the techniques she's learned at the Photon Power League. She discusses that progress with Elisa, and teaches Elisa a trick to keep herself grounded, too. Elisa, impressed by her wife's strength and mollified by the reassurance that her help is still first in Yuliana's mind, embraces the idea that Yuliana could take some responsibilities from her shoulders...
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
It's August, now, and Yuliana is spending some time at home before she returns to the PPL for more treatment. They surely can't protest -- they need time to collect and interpret their data to refine their approach, so she'd really just be sitting around. ... and getting regular therapy, but Elisa is still the person who should take care of most of that.
No: coming back here is important, too. Yuliana gets antsy, if she has to spend too much time away from her wife at a stretch. And now she's here, Yuliana has, naturally, been completely attached to her wife. Where Elisa has rituals to see to, Yuliana is the queen at the threshold; where the children want to show her their new tricks on the monkey-bars she installed for them (they have a whole indoor playground), Yuliana brings her wife to behold their accomplishments, too. But, really, wouldn't Elisa want to see the children taking such an interest in gymnastics?
And, of course, when Yuliana gets the itch to work on a machine after pulling Elisa into her gunpla cave to show her how she constructs a 1000-piece model wanzer, she drags Elisa out to the stables, too. She's working on something new, out there, after all -- now that she and her wife have figured out how to do so in a way which satisfies Elisa's urge for safety, of course.
(Not that the prohibition was ever punitive.)
And Yuliana is up on a catwalk, working on the outer hydraulic systems of one of many legs. She is, naturally, d-clipped to the railing to make sure she doesn't fall off, particularly when she climbs onto the half-constructed hull to try to work a piece in. "Rrrrhhhh..." Yuliana growls, in frustrated concentration, as she turns her wrench.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
August... Time continues to march onward, and Elisa continues to search her mind, the Void, and other places for new sources of power. For answers to the troubles that she and Yuliana are having now.
But not now. Now, she is with her wife. She should have interest in the children learning gymnastics, and when Yuliana reminds her she does. She is simply... preoccupied. Always preoccupied. Surely she will not later regret this, when they are no longer children.
But it's a delight to see the pieces of the new. It's a delight to see Yuliana impassioned...
Elisa watches Yuliana work. One could do this from the ground, but instead, she is up on the catwalk as well. She can hand Yuliana tools this way! It's much better.
"Is it being difficult?" Elisa wonders.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana does try to remind her wife to live in the moment, of course. She worries, seeing her so singularly preoccupied, even if it's for her sake.
"So difficult!" Yuliana huffs, as she reaches out a hand for -- "C-Hook?" -- one of those tools Elisa naturally has on hand. (Of course Elisa knows all the tools; Yuliana once spent an entire afternoon showing her them all.) "If we want other people to be able to pilot these things, the legs need to be able to distribute and manage their weight even when they're not being used -- this design is way more grounded than the usual bipedal configuration, but people just can't keep track of all these legs manually. That's why I've been coding up the connections the way I have, so you can control them all in batches instead of individually. But to do that, the structure needs to support it, and -- this stupid -- bolt -- won't -- argh!"
She finally manages to get the part in place, puffing her cheeks up, huffily. "Geez!" Yuliana grouses, as if it's the machine which was giving her a hard time.
(She is, in fact, having a great time. She's even taken her mittens off so that she can manipulate things better out here. It's fine, they're inside, right?)
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Elisa does her best, sometimes. But time stretches on, and Elisa has need of progress as Yuliana continues her therapies...
"C-Hook," Elisa acknowledges, handing it to Yuliana and taking the wrench in turn. She listens; it is much easier to listen and focus when it is Yuliana speaking. "Yes... and we do wish others to be able to pilot them. That would be most useful."
Most people can't track multiple things in this way. Elisa does not have this problem; she is not anchored to her body in the same way that most people are. But she knows that most people do.
"There we are," Elisa says. "You are so strong and intelligent." She smiles. She can tell she's having a great time. That's good!
"So this design... It does seem quite intimidating."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
But Yuliana wants Elisa with her more than she wants Elisa's progress, and what Yuliana wants, Yuliana gets.
"Even someone like me would have trouble with a configuration like this, if I didn't include any shortcuts," Yuliana admits, quite gracefully, by her standards. "There's just too much to manage at once. Conventional wisdom would be to expand the cockpit and put in a dedicated helm, but you want to keep it small enough to be able to work its way through internal tunnels. When you build out instead of up like this, you open up a lot more design opportunities for urban warfare."
(Conveniently, Yuliana loves hearing herself talk, so Elisa never wants for something to listen to.)
"Ahh, Elyula!" Yuliana chirps, saccharine, clasping her c-hook spanner to her cheek as she positively sparkles. She beams, as she looks down at the half-constructed machine below her. "Isn't it just darling? Da Xukong is based on the scorpion, but there are so many fearsome little creatures out there... like the centipede! They're all venomous, too, did you know? People are quite terrified of them." So she made a machine echoing them...?
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Quite.
It is very graceful! Elisa nods along. "Yes, I see... And in urban warfare its fine qualities are much more pronounced, with all the things to climb upon." She nods along, thoughtfully. She likes to engage Yuliana, so that she'll talk more!
But that chirp makes her smile back. Then, "Yes," Elisa agrees, "Quite darling. I do enjoy centipedes. And when you scale them up like this their marvelous qualities are all the more easy to see. Such deft movement on so many legs! Such powerful venom! Such sleek, sinuous movement..."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Yes, precisely! They can climb up buildings, and they can infiltrate into buildings -- well, I'm not making any promises that they wouldn't wreck anything they burrowed into, but that's the whole point, isn't it?" Yuliana taps at the legs of the machine, which are, still, about four metres up from the ground. "Not residential buildings, mind you -- but something of that size can just as easily be blown up."
Just because it's relatively low to the ground doesn't mean it isn't BIG, though. It's just long instead of tall.
"Isn't he so sleek?" Yuliana bubbles, still quite sparkly. "And I haven't forgotten your enthusiasm in that conversation with Leyasha, my darling -- I'll show you the plans I've drafted up for something decapodious later, how about that?" Crabs! Yuliana remembered how much Elisa loves crab.
"Now I just have to fit the control module for this leg," she says, looking over it. "Can you pass it over?" It's a delicate little metal box with places for a bunch of fittings; Yuliana's already pointed them out to her wife, of course.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
"Indeed," Elisa agrees, that the wrecking is rather the point. "Much more useful there than in an open field, or in wide space in general. Though its low-to-the-ground design can help in other ways..." A smile. Explosions!
But, Yuliana is sparkly, and, "Oh, that's very considerate," she says. "I appreciate that. The crab in many ways is the ideal life-form. Why, I'm surprised more kaiju aren't crabs."
They're also delicious.
Elisa picks up the control module and passes it over, gently and carefully. "Excellent."
She begins to consider commenting outside the topic... but she doesn't wnat to distract Yuliana. So instead, she'll wait a few more moments, until she's finished with the module.
"Our new big friend..."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"It's not a design most people are used to fighting," Yuliana adds, smiling brightly. "Someone who's been trained to handle bipedal combat won't know what to do when this crawls up to them! Of course, he is vulnerable to being squished..." But Yuliana gestures up to the beginnings of the central components. "... and that's why he's got so much armour plating up top. Ideally, if a Gundam steps on this thing, it will be able to crawl out from under it and send it toppling over."
She chirps: "More kaiju should certainly be crabs," because of course she supports her wife's passions, too. Including her passion for crab. They should eat crab again...
(Yuliana does worry about how much Elisa eats, when she's not around.)
But this centipede is also their friend, and Yuliana grows quiet as she starts connecting up the module, frowning and growling in concentration again. All that is normal, of course, until -- Yuliana realises her fingers are numb, just in time for the module to fall out of place, a wire snapping, and the whole thing slipping out of her fingers.
"Shit!" She barks, as it tumbles down, hits the outer edge of one of those centipede legs, and lands heavily on the ground.
It is quite dented, obvious even from up here.
"Ugh, what am I -- god damnit!" Yuliana snarls, as she curls her frosty hand to an angry fist. Elisa might well expect what she's about to do; the fact that her arm is curling inwards instead of out means that she's going for herself, not the machine. Except --
Except Yuliana takes a deep, begrudging breath, and then another, and then another, and by the fourth one she actually manages to breathe out longer than she breathes in.
"No, it's -- it's fine, it's fine," she insists, tightly. Breathe in, breathe out. "It's fine. It's fine."
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
"Yes, I see. To step on such a thing as this should be dangerous..." Elisa nods, thoughtfully. And kaiju, "Yes. Many... I should make more of that nature. That would be excellent."
Elisa doesn't eat much when Yuliana isn't around. It's not unreasonable to worry about that.
But Yuliana is quiet, concentrating, in time for her to--
Elisa watches Yuliana have her difficulties. She watches, as she barks out that curse, as she finds her fingers numb, and the dented leg--
The dent, they can fix. But Yuliana snarls, and Elisa starts to reach out towards her, though she cannot reach her. "Yuliana--"
Except... She breathes. She--
"..."
Elisa tilts her head. "...This is what you learned, there?" she wonders. Perhaps for the first time she properly appreciates what they're doing, with Yuliana.
"...because yes. Yes, it is fine. We can repair these things."
"...yes, it is... fine..." But it's a little disturbing, too.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"You're such an artist," Yuliana praises her wife, easily, "you would make such wonderful decapods!" Of course she's still encouraging her wife to make kaiju. Why wouldn't she? Elisa encourages her efforts to create, too!
But there are some things Yuliana wreaks which Elisa doesn't encourage -- and when she manages to interrupt herself before Elisa has to see it happen, she actually looks a little surprised. "Ah -- yes," she says, uncurling her hand. "They've been trying to convince me to stop and think about it... oh, and connect with the moment, remember?" Yuliana has tried to remind Elisa it's a good idea, here and there.
She hops off of the machine, though, onto the catwalk again, unclasping that d-clamp harness so that she can properly approach her wife without getting tangled up in the safeties. "Elya," she murmurs, placing one of those cold hands to her wife's cheek as her tentacles coil around her, "I'm okay. I'm okay. It's okay, see? It's okay..."
She can tell her wife is disturbed, and of course she'd respond to her.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Elisa is pleased at this answer. An artist! Yes, it is her way... To make such things. How will she use them? That isn't important right now.
Elisa is certainly surprised. Yuliana explains. To stop and think, she says. "Yes," she says. "'Connect with the moment', I recall. And it would seem that it has helped..."
Yuliana hops off, unclasps, and Elisa reaches out to her hands; well, to one hand, to hold it while the other is at her cheek. "So I see..."
"Well, all right. It is good that we are..." She considers, "Seeing benefits. From this 'help.'"
"I... appreciate, that you are less inclined to harm yourself."
"...I suppose I could stand to 'consider the moment' more," she reflects. "But you are sure you are all right?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Aren't you happy?" Yuliana asks, anxiously, hearing the way Elisa says help. "I -- I'm trying really hard, Elya... it's really not easy!" Using the help she's been given, or being given help by those people?
She lifts herself up onto her toes, her other hand steadying herself at Elisa's shoulder, to press her forehead against her wife's. "Really -- really, I'm all right," she assures her, pressing her body to her, as if she could physically push the knowledge into the other woman. "I just got upset... it all comes up at once and overwhelms me. But I managed to control myself, so it's okay."
Yuliana frowns, as she thinks, and then pulls back to look at her wife and ask: "Hey, hey. Elya, can you tell me about five things you can see, right now?" Oh no. It's another of those coping strategies.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
That anxious reply--Elisa hears it, of course. It's not easy, of course it isn't. "I am happy," Elisa says. "It is... strange, is all. To see that they are doing something that I could not..."
But Yuliana says she's all right. "Yes," she says, steadying, "I understand. I have seen these feelings overwhelm you before. And yet you controlled it..."
"That is good," she says. "It is important, to be able to control oneself... It is necessary."
Yuliana thinks about it, and--"Mn?" she asks, and it is something of trouble, but, "...I see you," she says. "I suppose... the catwalk. The mecha below. The toolkit..."
"My hands..." Are they hers?
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"That doesn't mean you didn't do wonderful things," Yuliana focuses on Elisa's wounded pride, instead, shaking her head. "Many wonderful things! When Leyasha tried to use my control phrases while she was brainwashed, it was because you too so much care to help me that it just made me angry instead of dooming me entirely!"
But she isn't a particularly steady woman herself, so of course she appreciates when Elisa recognises her efforts. "Yeah," she smiles, relieved.
She has her own evil plot, though. She's aware that it troubles Elisa, but it was a trouble for her to learn it all, too. "Your hands," she repeats, rubbing her cheek against Elisa's hand against hers, on her cheek. (Isn't that just a cheekrub with extra steps?)
"What about four things you can touch?" She goes on, looking to her wife.
... if all those things are Yuliana, well, that's fine, just so long as she takes the time to think about it four times.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
"I suppose that is true. So I am not unable to help you." But she does acknowledge, appreciate Yuliana's efforts. It is a stronger Yuliana who faces her, now. Does that mean that something must change?
Can she trust this strength?
"...Yes," she says. And then, "Yes..."
Four things she can touch. "Nn." A troublesome question. "Your hand," she says. "...Your tentacle, about my waist. My shoe, against the catwalk..."
She reaches out, "The railing..."
"Yes, you have become quite strong. I have wished for this."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"You are most able to help me," Yuliana assures her. "That hasn't changed, just because other people are helping me, now. I couldn't forget that it was you who first recognised my pain -- who moved to help me before any other."
Well, discounting Herself, anyway. But Elisa is part of the Empress, so it's hardly fair to count that against her. No -- those details don't matter, when her wife is so anxious.
"Good," Yuliana smiles, warmly. "You're doing so good. I'm glad, Elya. But we're not done, okay? Now I want you to tell me about three things you hear..."
She draws closer. "Two things you can smell..."
And tilts her head up, to Elisa, again. "... and one thing you can taste," she finally adds, and helpfully kisses her just to make sure she is tasting something.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Elisa is somewhat more mollified by this. She will not forget that it was Elisa, first... Yes. Don't worry about the distinction right now. Instead--
"I hear... the buzzing of the lights. Your heartbeat." She hears that all the time. "And... breathing."
A pause. "You, and grease..."
She leans against Yuliana, kissing back. When she pulls away, "You."
A smile.
"Yes," she says. "We discussed some changes... That you wished to take on more of our responsibilities as well. If you have become this strong, I believe that we can do this."
She does seem more grounded. More... present.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Elya, you did so good!" Yuliana sparkles, smiling up to her wife, evidently proud of her achievements. (And, of course, she's pleased about being kissed. Why wouldn't she? Absolute bombshell woman.) "When it's getting hard to recognise the world around you, I want you to practice this, okay?"
And she smiles, arms laced loosely about her wife's neck. "I'm glad," she says, and her voice is warm, even if she's feeling chilly. "You shouldn't have to bear all this alone, Elya. If I'm getting better, it's for you, too."
Elisa shouldn't have to be the only strong woman around here.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
"...Thank you." Elisa is pleased at that, though it is strange to do these... exercises. "Hmmm... All right," Elisa says. "I will remember this, for you." It is a specific request, after all. And sometimes it's important to be present in the world... Supposedly.
But, "I see... Yes. For both of us."
Pause. "Oh. Let us warm your hands. I have your mittens..."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Great," Yuliana grins, enthusiastic, when Elisa assures her she'll remember. If it's for Yuliana, that's fine. What's wrong with being motivated by your wife?
Clearly, Yuliana is motivated by hers.
She blinks, though, as Elisa brings up her hands -- "Oh!" Yuliana pulls her hands back, looking at them. "Oh, yeah, they were getting kind of numb... thanks, Elya," Yuliana smiles. And as she slips her hands back into her mittens again, she chirps: "Let's get these kittens back in their mittens!"
Which is, in fact, ENTIRELY a joke for Elisa.
Yuliana has specifically been upping her terrible joke game just for her wife.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Elisa is very motivated by her wife, Yuliana! Who is her wife.
Elisa smiles back, when she is able to Do for Yuliana in turn, and as she chirps that joke--
"Ahahahah," Elisa laughs, and steps back a moment. "How lovely! Kittens in their mittens!"
It's going to be a minute.