2024-04-24: 12th on My List: Exchanging Contact Info
- Log: 12th on My List: Exchanging Contact Info
- Cast: Miorine Rembran, Suletta Mercury, Elan Ceres
- Where: Asticassia - Greenhouse
- Date: 2024-04-24
- Summary: Suletta brings Miorine some fertiliser and a headache. Elan exchanges contact information with Suletta, and Suletta learns more about the differences between Elan's kindnesses and Miorine's cruelty. Miorine is left to fend for herself as Suletta is seduced by the Duelling Committee set to ruin her life, but Suletta tries to keep on defending her, anyway. Elan learns a little more about Suletta in the process. (Content warning: abuse)
<Pose Tracker> Miorine Rembran has posed.
Greenhouse - Witch from Mercury OST - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXVsqt3gYeQ
Look at the false sky with it's patterned triangles upon the backdrop of blue, jagged mountains and wispy clouds. Everyone knows its a fake, though perhaps to some, it's the only sky they've ever known.
Under that sky is an oddity, twin grey metallic spheres elevated and conjoined, each sphere made up of quadrilateral patterns, translucent enough to see the flower pots hanging where each of them converges.
A world within a world, patterned subtly differently.
Knee high lightposts are fashioned along the trail through a wooded area to reach it, but are currently unlit, still - they offer guidance to where to reach Miorine's world within a world.
A clearing, with an unused bunker like facility built into a grassy hill in a semi-circle around one edge of it
Each day here, she gains one.
Not that she'd ever acknowledge it, the girl is knelt down in the joining spoke between the two spheres hands on her knees and leaning forward slightly, inspecting unripened green tomatoes on a bush.
For the moment at least her face is lit by a private smile, which only ever seems to exist in this space, "All done."
Noone - is allowed to step foot inside this place, which means that noone is allowed to see this moment from her.
This includes of course - a certain classmate, who is out on an errand for her, for fertilizer. Right now, she's shamelessly using her in a sense.
So that she doesn't have to leave this place for such trivial reasons as necessary supplies.
<Pose Tracker> Suletta Mercury has posed.
Oh, it isn't fake; it's aspirational. They longed to see the sky, and they built it, endless blue. Criss-cross, criss-cross, the dome lattices the clouds.
Like tomatos, supported to grow.
All of them need support to grow.
And right now, the Princess needs support to support her tomatos. Suletta Mercury thinks nothing of the weight of fertiliser, carrying two bags carefully to avoid tearing them. She isn't shaken by any thoughts of disgust over the content; she knows well how precious life-sustaining materials are, and she thinks nothing of placing their safety over her comfort.
Besides -- these bags have handles. She's handled far greater burdens.
Her footsteps echo, as she steps up onto the threshold of that strange world, and soon they are joined by the sound of her knees as she sinks down to them. (It's not because the bags are too heavy.) "I'll leave the fertiliser here," she says, politely. One set to the left, and one set to the right, she lays them carefully down flat upon each other. "I know I mustn't come in."
She doesn't resent that.
<Pose Tracker> Miorine Rembran has posed.
It's fake.
For the girl who wishes to go to Earth, it is no longer enough. Or perhaps in her own mind it was never enough.
However the aspirations of other people have never much mattered to Miorine - which is why she can not see it as aspirational.
As she hears her coming up the path, and then the stairs, the Princess head turns slightly, grey eyes looking to the side.
She is used to intruders... but she recognizes right away this one is not the typical intruder.
Still, she doesn't watch her lay them down so much, more than beginning to put a hand to the wall, reaching between tomato vines, and pulling herself up.
From the stairs it's easy for Suletta to glimpse into Miorine's world. There are red and pink angel wing begonias within the angular flowerpots. There are also white and fuschsia impatiens - primroses and petunias within more of those pots, greenery framing it from beneaths.
"It took you long enough." Miorine grouses over Suletta taking too long at the task, but she doesn't raise her volume, just sounds annoyed.
"Bring it to me." Miorine commands, in contradiction to Suletta's repetition of the rule not to come in, while facing away, hand clinching in a fist patting her long platinum hair over the small of her back.
It is an exception she's never made for anyone else, but in her mind it is simply an acknowledgement that their fates are entwined together.
Suletta is her Groom, she is her Bride - these are simple statements of fact. In order for her to guarantee her freedom, this must continue to be true.
The way Miorine starts to stroll further back into the Greenhouse, it's like she did nothing noteworthy at all.
Perhaps in her own mind, this is even true.
<Pose Tracker> Suletta Mercury has posed.
Of course it's fake. It was always fake; there could never have been beauty in this.
In this fake sky.
It would be easy for Suletta to invade Miorine's privacy and look into the Princess's tower. She does not. She keeps her gaze down, focused on her task, focused on the fertiliser. It's only when Miorine asks -- demands, really -- that she lifts her gaze. Her voice lifts, too, though she can't quite help it. It's that anxious little edge to her as she asks, "You don't... mind if I come in...?"
And it's telling, perhaps, the delay before she realises Miorine means it, a place for reassurance to fit. It's only after that pause that a smile spreads wide across her cheeks, with an audible gasp. Even then, her hope is informed by seeking confirmation, as her arms hug her legs and she looks aside, blush across her cheeks. "Does this mean," she starts, before she looks to Miorine where she's perched at the threshold, "we're best friends?!"
(Best friends. She still can't quite comprehend the modernity of urban space, where a woman can be a groom and have a bride. She is a girl, Miorine is a girl -- surely two girls are best friends with each other. Even if... even if they get MARRIED... it's all just to save Miorine, anyway, so it's not for real!)
<Pose Tracker> Miorine Rembran has posed.
Suletta's anxious posture goes unseen at first, after all Miorine is facing away, but the anxiety rings so clearly. Miorine doesn't quite understand it.
The insecurity and anxiety of someone who is the Holder and an obviously gifted Pilot. At a school where everyone engages in some form of braggadocio as routine about their talents...
Suletta is just, strange.
Then again she doesn't try to understand it either. Just as she doesn't try to understand the feelings of most people. There's even less need for her to understand the feelings of her tool.
For that is what her Groom is to her. A tool, to obtain her freedom.
"Go ahead." She just replies as casually, like it was nothing major at all. As she starts to give her plants a onceover in the back, but then... Miorine can hear that gasp, those sounds but... the coming question still takes her off guard by the sheer absurdity of it.
"HuUHHH?" The monosyllabic expression of disbelief is stretched out by her volume increasing from just the ire, as she turns her head, glaring daggers at her for the implication they might be best friends.
It's such an naive designation in this place that she doesn't even bother to explain its foolishness.
She certainly expects her to freak, to shrink, to apologize by now - for however much she challenged Guel that day, Suletta has never really weathered her anger all that well.
... But however she decides to show her submission, that alone seems to cool her down just enough to address her again.
"Well whatever we are. You can't lose that duel. If you do, then it's over for us."
Miorine doesn't say anything for several long moments, before she eyes her again - then annoyed, calls out in another turbulent shift, "I told you to come in didn't I! What are you doing loitering about outside?!"
<Pose Tracker> Suletta Mercury has posed.
She's always been a little strange.
(And, a little...)
But Miorine isn't happy, and she doesn't have to yell to get it across. That disbelief in her rising tone carries it as well as any insult, and at once Suletta flinches, her own voice raising in panic. "I'M SORRY!" And her lips twist tightly shut, and her eyes squeeze tightly shut, and her shoulders curl and her fingers grasp --
A screw, wound too tightly, shears its threads against its bonds and fails.
It's a relief, at least, when Miorine scolds her again; when she speaks with her again. Suletta sags against her knees, her sad eyes opening, gazing to the floor. Of course it's not a matter of friendship; of course she needs her to win. That's reasonable. She said she would. "I'm sorry," Suletta says, again, but quietly.
(She messed up.)
And she dwells in those mistakes in silence, crouched there, quietly; she feels it in her hamstrings, but more as a distant reminder of the position. If she is small and unobtrusive, she won't get in the way; she'll be forgiven for existing, then. Except -- except Miorine barks out another order, and Suletta yelps, realising she's even messed up not messing up: "I'm sorry!"
She scrambles up, and -- tellingly -- is still eminently careful, as she picks up those bags again.
Stumbling jerkily forward into the forbidden greenhouse, she holds them out, arms ramrod-straight, as if to offer them at the greatest distance she can -- all to avoid irritating Miorine further. "Here, I -- I got the -- with mulch! Is it okay? Or, or I can go get more!"
<Pose Tracker> Miorine Rembran has posed.
An apology comes...
Of course Miorine's used to apologies, but usually they come from sycophants, and power climbers, and insincere adults trying to get on her good side.
More often however, those are dealt with by the duels, when it's a true slight, and one has little power of redress otherwise.
Certainly Suletta's comes in part from a place of anxiety, which isn't too unlike some she's had before, but she's not used to it being so pronounced.
Or different. Suletta remains different. Probably because she's a 'Bumpkin' from the Sticks (Mercury).
Miorine really has no use for apologies, but that difference in where it comes from at least typically deescalates her some.
It's even weirder in a sense to her when scolding her becomes a pressure release valve, but she can't really understand that.
This time when Suletta comes in, Miorine is inspecting an almost trowel like tool, except the head is too flat and too narrow. It appears to have a gauge, probably for her to check soil pH or the like.
As Suletta holds the fertilizer out from near the entrance ramrod straight, Miorine looks at her and in a fit of pique calls out, "Who needs it over there!?"
Swiveling around, she lifts a foot, and stamps it down upon a hatch, which gives a loud hollow metallic echo, with a slight rattle. "Put them down over here. ... And be careful!" She calls out, with sudden extra emphasis, a little more heat, showing that coming into the greenhouse is in fact, just as perilous as Suletta imagines - even if she's invited within, "If you trip into any of my tomatoes bumbling around in here I won't forgive you."
Suletta is... really strong for a girl her age isn't she? Miorine just notices. Miorine herself would have to cart it back here on a wagon.
But Suletta isn't even winded carrying it all this way. It is simply something that she notices as a manager - her ability to carry heavy objects, thus making her good as a Pack Haro.
Crouching down by her plants, she notes, while carefully inserting that gauge, "Of course I wanted the ones with mulch. What good would it be without that?"
It is all the more reason to utilize her just precisely for what she's good for right now - dueling and carrying things.
That's just basic management strategy.
<Pose Tracker> Suletta Mercury has posed.
Suletta is used to upsetting people; it was her fault, really, for being a disruptive child. Mercury just isn't a place where people raise their families. It's an industrial settlement, and the miners and refiners there had little love for the youth disrupting their work.
It's okay. It just means she has to work even harder to prove herself.
And if she can offer Miorine something she needs, shouldn't she be happy? It's all about helping people. If she gets the sense that Miorine is venting -- she doesn't blame her in the slightest.
She'd like to be cheerful, and cheer Miorine up, it's just --
"I'M SORRY!" Suletta yelps, again, her staccato voice filling the Princess's tower right up to its locked-up ceilings. Her head ducks down, between her arms -- which still don't drop that fertiliser. (It's more important to Miorine.) She tilts her head, still bent, to see where Miorine is indicating with that terrifying stomp -- starts moving -- and halts, at once, when Miorine adds that heated warning. "Y-y-yes!" She yelps, and looks to the floor again -- this time to mind her clumsy feet. "I'm sorry, I'll -- I'll be careful!"
She positively creeps towards the hatch, henceforth, with downright exaggerated care, her lips spreading to expose her teeth in a shaken grimace. One hardly needs to be psychic to imagine her repeating, 'Careful, careful, careful,' over and over in her mind.
Suletta does make a good pack-Haro, evidently, because she safely manages to deliver that fertiliser to the hatch where it lives, laying each bag down in the same style as the others. She crouches, as well; she's used to it. "Oh, of, of course," Suletta says, forcing out some nervous laughter. "Eheh... I don't really know, I don't know at all," how could she claim to have even looked at a plant, when Miorine cares so much for them?, "so... but they're beautiful, they're really beautiful!" And there her enthusiasm returns, as bright and cheerful as ever.
<Pose Tracker> Elan Ceres has posed.
There is a soft footfall.
The greenhouse is forbidden from general entry; but the ground around it are not. Anyone can approach if they like. One such person does.
Though a member of the Dueling Committee and head of Peil House, one of the three major houses of Asticassia, Elan Ceres doesn't seem to have the same ambition that Guel or Shaddiq do. His green-and-black school uniform is well-kempt, with several white silk scarf loops in front and black shoes pulled over matching knee-high socks.
His short, lime blond hair is stylishly trimmed in back while his side-bangs dangles next to his soft tassel earrings. His yellow-green eyes seem to focus on everywhere and nowhere at once.
He has such a pretty face.
A pity he's never known to smile. To those who call him the Ice Prince, though, that's a feature, not a bug.
He comes to a stop about a foot away from the steps that lead up into the greenhouse. He briefly regards the KEEP OUT sign; then he looks up towards Suletta and Miorine just inside, Miorine heated, Suletta anxious and then bright. The specifics of their conversation are not his concern.
"Suletta Mercury," he calls with his usual soft deadpan. Apparently just to get his classmate's attention, because he leaves it at that for the moment.
<Pose Tracker> Miorine Rembran has posed.
You sweet summer child, making Miorine happy is nearly an impossible bar to meet.
Miorine doesn't feel the slightest bit bad for freaking Suletta out enough to apologize again. She merely feels awkward, in that sort of - second hand embarrassment kind of way.
"It's painful even watching you." She mutters darkly, as Suletta moves so deliberately that one can almost hear her thoughts.
She doesn't say anything as she sets them down, certainly not a thank you. But then Suletta enthuses over the tomatoes.
Yet, Suletta's comment does provoke a moment's thought, as Miorine does consider even these unripened green tomatoes beautiful.
Quite beautiful, but-
"Oh?" Her eye wanders back towards that girl, tone flat, "And what do you think is beautiful about them?"
She holds eye contact with her, with those judgmental grey eyes for far too long to be comfortable, as if challenging Suletta to see if it was just empty flattery or not.
Fortunately for Suletta, Elan's footfalls break the silence, as Miorine looks towards the front of the Greenhouse with a dour expression.
Immediately a palm thrusts out as a universal gesture of FORBIDDANCE because since Suletta is in the back of the greenhouse it feels all the more likely he won't abide by the rules, "Don't even think about coming in here!" Her head swivels to Suletta as she commands, "He's here for you isn't he? Well - Deal with him!"
Honestly, she shouldn't even have to say it right? Suletta is her Groom, that is in fact her role - to be the muscle here.
Shoving the Fertilizer bags off the hatch with her foot, one shove after another, she swings up the hatch by the handle, beginning to step down the ladder.
"I don't want someone like him nosing around."
Someone like him? What's that supposed to even mean?
Miorine starts to reach up and slide the fertilizer down, putting them in stacks in the storage area below, but she's certainly keeping an eye on this.
<Pose Tracker> Suletta Mercury has posed.
If Suletta weren't almost grown up, she might have cried, hearing how much pain she's putting Miorine through just by existing.
Of course she still kind of wants to -- but she doesn't. She couldn't do that to her.
It would be too demanding.
And with Miorine's flat tone, Suletta's eyes widen again. (So blue, against such a warm backdrop. She's of two worlds.) "They, they," she starts, nervous again, "they're alive, um, they could feed..." And she doesn't even have time to pick up the thought she trails off of, to explain how they could feed everyone when they're ripened. Surely Miorine must think she's a fool.
Not that she isn't definitely mad at her for other reasons, too. Like --
There's a boy.
And his footsteps sound different to Suletta's, the distance between an ermine and an elephant. Any fears that Guel may have returned to the greenhouse are put to rest instantly, as she looks past Miorine to that gorgeous boy. "Mr. Elan... right...?" She asks, blinking those big blue eyes.
Miorine zeroes in on her, though, and Suletta waves her hands wildly. "Aahh-- yes!!" She yelps, hopping up, only to freeze as she realises she's rushing and panicking around Miorine's precious tomatos.
She v e r y c a r e f u l l y picks her way out of the greenhouse, overanxious and overdelicate and overflowing.
And when she hops down off of the steps, she clasps her hands together, bowing her head. "I-I-I'm sorry," she stammers, as if it's her fault, "b-but you're not allowed in, but, but, um, I -- you -- t-t-thank you for --" And it is her fault, isn't it? He went out of his way to show her kindness when she was all locked up and afraid, and, and he didn't get mad even when she really did cry, and she can't even thank him properly --
<Pose Tracker> Elan Ceres has posed.
Elan eyes Miorine as she shouts at him not to enter. He continues to not budge from his spot near the steps. When the Bride of Asticassia demands her Groom deal with him, he focuses back on Suletta herself. He seems content to not pay Miorine any further mind.
Most people would probably be at least a little offended to be talked about the way she just talked about him, but Elan is Elan. He doesn't mind (care).
'Mr. Elan,' Suletta calls him accordingly, though with a final note of uncertainly. Elan neither confirms nor denies.
"It's all right. I don't want to go in. I came here to talk to you." A beat. She might not be able to apologize properly, but that doesn't seem to bother him either. "As you're currently the Holder, you may be called to duel at any time. I needed to let you know that, but I didn't know how to reach you."
He tucks a gloved hand into a pocket and retrieves a smart phone, which he holds up for her to see. "May we exchange contacts?"
The part that Elan is leaving out is that, as a member of the Dueling Committee, he might need to manage a given duel between Suletta and whomever, but that's only part of why he's asking anyway.
<Pose Tracker> Miorine Rembran has posed.
Miorine makes an exasperated sound at Suletta's painful answer - but doesn't actually say more given the appearance of a Boy.
Yes there certainly is a boy. And on this Miorine keeps one eye on Elan because of Suletta's stated LIST of going out on dates.
Being the Sex-Crazed teenager that Suletta is, Miorine has no intention of allowing her tool to be seduced away. After all, she has to keep Suletta's eyes on the prize.
She knows next to nothing about Elan Ceres save his reputation as the Ice Prince and heir apparent of Peil - as well as a member of the Dueling Committee, but she knows that makes him one of the most dangerous people on campus.
But the biggest danger right now is that he's so damned handsome in such an irritating way to Miorine, because that might be enough for Suletta to be drawn in.
Suletta stammers, and apologizes, and thanks him for...
Miorine raises a singular eyebrow, as if to wonder what she has to thank Elan for. What move did he make... Suletta was after all in a Holding Cell until not too long ago.
And so after stacking her fertilizer away, she mostly just watches, noting the request to exchange contacts. She certainly understands intrinsically that this is his business.
But she isn't NOT thinking that he might just be a smooth operator trying to get a girl's number this way.
"This guy is a member of the Dueling Committee."
Miorine calls out, as if to explain - but it's also a half warning to Suletta, 'Don't trust him.' 'He's just like Guel.' 'Just like Him.'
Don't trust him.
However, she doesn't make that clear, but she definitely watches closely.
<Pose Tracker> Suletta Mercury has posed.
Suletta's eyes, presently, are on Elan Ceres. Aren't they?
Well. Sometimes they're on his shoes, being fair, but it's hard to bow one's head while looking up.
She knows him as the boy who came to give her food when he didn't have to, and that's...
And that's...!
He came here to talk to her...!
When Miorine calls warning, though -- tellingly -- Suletta's head swivels to her immediately. "The Committee..." She echoes, a shade uncomprehending, as she looks back to him with a new sense of overawe. Those Duels are a strange part of her life, now, but... Elan isn't a bad person, she thinks. No...
"Y-you wanted me... to know. Y-you're s-s-still being kind to me," she stammers out to Elan, as she sorts through his explanation and Miorine's context, "a-aren't you?" It might explain something to Miorine -- or too much.
(Only someone as strange as Suletta would look at Elan's cool persona and see someone so warm, right?)
She blinks, owlishly, when Elan asks to exchange contacts with her -- and then pulls out a smart phone much like his. The exchange is all wireless, with a chime, and she holds up her phone with a warm smile when it's done. "Number 12 on my list... came true..." She says, with hushed joy, and explains after a warm moment of silence: "... I wanted to exchange contact details with someone. It was something I wanted to try, when I got to school..."
<Pose Tracker> Elan Ceres has posed.
'This guy is a member of the Dueling Committee,' Miorine calls, and that's true. Elan doesn't remark on it. He doesn't remark on any assumptions Miorine might be making about him right now, either, and the sharp eye she's keeping on him and Suletta implies that she's probably making plenty. They don't matter.
('Don't trust him,' though... There might be something to that. But that doesn't matter either.)
What does matter is Suletta. Though she hears Miorine's warning, she doesn't seem to take it in. At least, she continues to see his behavior as kind. ...maybe. Elan's lack of expression doesn't budge either way, nor does he confirm or deny.
Regardless of anything else, she did need to be informed. (But Elan did decide to be the one to inform her, just like he decided to come bring her food when he didn't have to.)
Phones exchange information--a blink and it's there, 'Suletta Mercury' on his phone, 'Elan Ceres' on hers. He tucks his away without further ado, but Suletta smiles tenderly at hers--so tenderly he has to pause to take her in.
"List?" he wonders. She explains--and most people at Peil House, were they in a similar position with Elan right now, would not get a follow-up question. An 'I see' at best, more likely a 'hm' or outright silence.
With Suletta Mercury, though...
"What else is on your list?" he wonders.
Is he being smooth? (Is taking a baseline level of interest in another human being 'smooth'? It might be for the Ice Prince; after all, when it starts to melt a little, ice gets awfully slick.) Maybe there's something to Miorine's suspicions after all.
<Pose Tracker> Miorine Rembran has posed.
Miorine is finished down below. The reason she did it herself is not solely due to Elan's appearance.
She has a system.
She can't trust anyone to know her system. Everything in her Greenhouse must be exactly as she wants it.
She climbs back up as she watches, listens, and closes the hatch almost soundlessly. Despite being in heels, she moves across the greenhouse like some strange nature spirit, grabbing a tiny clean trowel on the way.
It's not like she actually cares if she's overheard, she just figures that Suletta is too swept up in the Ice Prince's eyes to actually hear her approach.
Suletta brings up the list, because of course she would just hand their enemy a tool like that, a vulnerability. Casually leaning against the threshold of the Greenhouse, one leg back against it.
Miorine waits, as Elan asks about the list, and of course Suletta just gives him what he asks for! Why does she have to be such a people pleaser! Miorine doesn't get it!
It's only after she counts off two entries that Miorine interjects, "Going on dates."
The trowel is flapped back and forth, almost like she's FANNING herself from the courtship nonsense going on in front of her, attempting to embarrass Suletta blatantly, right in front of the interested party.
"It's basically all my Boy-Crazy Groom ever talks about."
Suletta never did talk about BOYS per se, just dates, but the reaction at the Duel to the idea of two girls being married, her reaction here?
Miorine feels pretty certain Suletta must be straight.
<Pose Tracker> Suletta Mercury has posed.
There's kindness in choosing to act.
Even standing here, Suletta can see that.
And she smiles, when Elan shows that interest, and her words come easier as she counts off on her fingers. "Making friends," she starts, "calling them by nicknames..."
It would be very sweet -- if not for how she hasn't accounted for the other entries she's told people. Miorine interjects, and Suletta looks to her, three fingers raised, a blush across her alarmed face. "MS. MIORINE!" She yelps, as if struck.
Miorine calls her boy-crazy... is that true? Suletta didn't even know girls could marry girls until she came to the Orbital Ring and fell into such a modern arranged marriage, so... well, it's true that she just wanted to go on a date, but it's also true she assumed it would be a date with a boy. Elan is, in fact, a boy. And she can't get married until she has a date, and it would be strange to date a girl, so...
All that complexity just makes her feel more nervous. What's with life here?!
But even though it all feels so embarrassing, and she desperately wants to protest, all she manages to bark out is Miorine's name. Her teeth clench, lips stretched down more in fear than anger, wanting to argue yet unsure what her argument should even be.
<Pose Tracker> Elan Ceres has posed.
Elan listens as Suletta replies. She does seem less nervous now, which shows in her smile, in how her stutter subsides.
But then Miorine cuts into Suletta's list--claiming that her groom is 'boy crazy' and dating is all she ever talks about. Elan looks at her, then back at said groom.
"Is that true?" he asks.
...Suletta getting flustered doesn't make it not true, after all. But neither does Miorine simply saying so. It could be a joke. Elan can't really tell the difference.
He told Shaddiq once that he'd never fall in love. Ever. Is Suletta Mercury really so interested in romance that it makes such a priority on her list?
<Pose Tracker> Miorine Rembran has posed.
Suletta reacts as expected of course, and Miorine acts like she didn't even hear it, utterly unaffected, flapping her trowel like some Earth Lady on a hot summer day.
Naturally she doesn't know anything about Earth Ladies or what a hot summer day feels like since she's lived up here her entire life but believe you me!
She's watched a lot of media, which is certainly what she's emulating. She certainly doesn't care about Suletta's internal struggle at all.
Why would she need to go on dates? Her eye should be on the prize! Being ready for a duel, not some Ice Prince's - irritatingly handsome face.
Yet Elan asks the question, whether it's true, and Miorine this time, rather than keeping up appearances of not actually caring about the outcome, breaks her silence again.
"Hooo?" A single eye turns towards Elan, and she asks him - perhaps stirring the pot some, "You're really that interested?"
As if she were intending to put him on the spot some, too.
<Pose Tracker> Suletta Mercury has posed.
Suletta told Miorine that at a very fragile moment! She pulled her out of prison, and, and it was really scary, okay?! They kept asking awful questions about Aerial, and they called her a witch, and--!!
And her mother never raised a witch. She would have remembered if she did. She told Suletta so.
Whoever heard of a Witch from Mercury, anyway?
Her lips twist up as Miorine takes something as important to her as her List -- and makes it into a big joke -- and Elan believes it. She's never been more embarrassed in her life, and that's including the time she had to ask Ergo Peluda to approve her mother's docking orders when she unexpectedly got time off work, even though he never stopped hating them, even after she saved his life!
She always tried to be a good girl and not hold resentment in her heart, but she could tell she was a burden on their lives in Mercury. She didn't like to ask things of people like Peluda, because they always made a whole procession out of it. And now -- and now -- and now there's a procession in school, and --
Suletta bows her head, unable to look at either of them.
"I did want to go on dates," she says, her voice smaller. "And I wanted to study in the library, and have lunch on the roof, and..." There are more things on her List. But if she tells them to Miorine, she'll just make fun of them, too, won't she?
Miorine probably knows she'd never be able to tell a joke that made everyone laugh, anyway.
"Since there aren't any schools... on Mercury... I wanted to get to do the things girls do in the anime which Aerial showed me. This is the first time I was ever... in a place like this, with people my age."
And if those pauses between her words are starting to sound a little like hitches, don't worry about it.
She's a strong girl, so she won't cry here.
<Pose Tracker> Elan Ceres has posed.
He's really that interested?
It's understandable that Miorine would be on guard. Her hatred of the duels, and specifically being dueled over, is so well-known that it would be impossible even for him not to know about it. As she implied earlier, he's part of one of the three branches; it would be natural for her to regard him as an enemy, even if he has no actual interest in her.
But there's something about her tone that twigs him to the idea that it goes beyond that. Something that sounds a bit familiar to him, even.
"Shaddiq Zenelli asked something like that too," he informs Miorine.
"You two are alike."
Then, without actually answering the question, Elan returns his attention to Suletta. He listens. He sees that she's embarrassed--that she's withdrawn again, gone further away from that moment of warmth and joy from a moment ago. He hears that, contrary to what Miorine would have him believe, dating isn't that much of a focus for her; that it's more one part of many of a normal girl's experience that Suletta wants to have for herself.
Because of Aerial... that machine of hers said to be a GUND-ARM.
"..."
Eyes lightless, he murmurs, "I hope... you can fulfill many items on your list."
<Pose Tracker> Miorine Rembran has posed.
Miorine is definitely on guard - after all, as she sees it, Elan is one of the top candidates to possess her.
To decide her life for her, to take her freedom away.
And that is certainly what she thinks this is, to seduce Suletta into losing a duel - to the future of the Benerit Group belonging to Peil.
But what he says next, Miorine's face becomes stormy, invoking Shaddiq in front of her, "The two of us are nothing alike!" She says with a brief burst of heat, before she looks away, almost like she's... well if someone could have an angry sulk, it's probably Miorine?
"He probably set you up to say that too." She mutters, it hardly makes sense and she knows it, but- it's the only real dig she can get in that Elan was somehow Shaddiq's dupe here.
She doesn't know enough about him - or care to know enough about him otherwise.
It does feel unlikely that there would ever be a Witch from Mercury. After all, what do the people on Mercury even have to fight for?
Survival certainly, but Gundams are weapons of war, and the logistics of even waging a war on Mercury are absurd.
But Witches have always been individuals that hid in the shadows away from polite society. Why should the sun's glare not hide them equally well?
Suletta speaks of her desires, to go on dates, to study in the library, to have lunch on the roof- but...
Miorine to be honest is barely listening. It's just so many distractions. Especially the idea of watching Anime...!
Miorine's looked at the media market before and concluded that Anime is for shiftless and lazy Otaku.
The idea that Aerial actually showed her an anime is just too absurd for her to even think about it. Apparently she just has an imaginary friend too.
Elan's statement of hope that Suletta will fulfill many items on her list well, in the end Miorine doesn't even reply to it - or understand the significance.
She's too caught up still, on herself - on Elan's comparison of herself to Shaddiq. Then... wordlessly, she turns and runs away as she always has...
... by reentering her greenhouse. Her ritual of 'I'm home' forgotten in the moment in part because they're in earshot, but moreso because today? She never really stopped.
<Pose Tracker> Suletta Mercury has posed.
Elan says that Miorine is like Shaddiq -- and Miorine can't stand that. Suletta can hear that, even upset as she is, and immediately leaps to her defence in a nervous echo: "I--I'm sure M-Ms. Miorine is n-n-nothing like him! S-she has every right t-to be critical of my List! It must sound s-so stupid if you lived here so long..."
But even though she tries to make it right, Miorine still disappears. Suletta swallows, and murmurs, "... I'm sorry." Looking back at that closed greenhouse with such a doleful expression, her eyebrows close to eyespots for how thick they've grown...
It feels like the sort of place where someone would reassure her.
This is the kind of place where her mother would reassure her.
Is it any wonder, then, that she looks back to Elan's lightless eyes and projects comfort onto his quiet?
"Really? You... you hope that... I'm glad, Mr. Elan." And she smiles again, though she was so upset a moment later.
Though the reason she's upset -- is still right there.
"I had better go," she says, glancing back to the greenhouse. "I already -- brought what Ms. Miorine needed. But... I feel better knowing you'll look out for the Duel, Mr. Elan." Is it really better if someone kind to her is part of it?
Suletta turns and starts jogging away before she can interrogate that.
<Pose Tracker> Elan Ceres has posed.
It's clear that Elan's remark strikes home when Miorine shouts her angry, wounded denial. Some would gloat at getting one up on her. Some would even have done it on purpose. Elan did and does neither, and when Miorine mutters sour grapes implying he's only Shaddiq's cat's-paw here, he does nothing but side-eye her.
She'll believe whatever she wants to believe. It has nothing to do with him.
(As for anime, Elan doesn't know what that is. That might be an exciting experience for someone to share with him someday.)
But in response to Miorine's anger, Suletta disparages her list that's clearly so important to her. To make friends... to give them nicknames... to go on dates... to study in the library, and have lunch on the roof, and... So many very normal experiences. So many experiences Elan himself has not had. Or perhaps he has had them. He doesn't know. And if he doesn't know, it's the same as if he never had.
Maybe it is stupid if you've lived here a long time. He doesn't know that either.
So he doesn't weigh in. His only reassurance is his well-wishing. But Suletta Mercury takes it in the spirit it's intended and lets him take on a small fragment of her hurt. He doesn't reflect it back at her, but seeing her smile again is strangely a little comforting. (Even if that prick in his soul is also a little irritating. But it's fine. It's nothing. He's endured (he endures) worse.)
"I'm glad too," he replies softly. "Untill we meet again, Suletta Mercury."
He watches her chase after Miorine for a moment. Then he he retrieves and holds up his phone, where Suletta Mercury's name is still displayed. He turns and walks off too, but as he does, he pulls up a notes app and starts making a record on what Suletta has told him while the conversation is still fresh.
He'll need it for his report, and he can't do it from memory.