2024-05-02: Tell Me More About You
- Log: Tell Me More About You
- Cast: Miorine Rembran, Suletta Mercury
- Where: Asticassia
- Date: 2024-05-02
- Summary: Suletta admits that she doesn't have a place to sleep, and Miorine suffers through hosting her. But Suletta's anxieties are set off, and she's studying late into the night; when Miorine asks why, she doesn't like the answer. It doesn't make Suletta feel good, either.
<Pose Tracker> Miorine Rembran has posed.
The sky changes abruptly, like all the triangular tiles are simply turning around in sequence to reveal the dusky twilight. It's an illusion of course, the tiles aren't actually turning, and the shift is all at once rather than the gradual passing of time that happens on Earth.
Miorine has never seen Earth's sky, she knows academically how it's supposed to work, but she's never seen it. Never known a dusk that can happen in any other way. The false sky are the bars of her cage, keeping her from the real one.
The Earth that her mother loved.
For now however, the girl's grey eyes, with just the faintest traces of pink trail up to look at it, then with one last glance in the cylindrical housing, she lowers the harvested tomatoes back into the floor. It is a simple shift, before she grasps her bag, shouldering it.
And then casts a glance at Suletta as if remembering she was there.
"If I need you, I'll contact you through the handbook." There's this not so much hardness, but firmness in her tone, "Don't put off looking if you get a notification. If I'm messaging you then it's important, for both our futures."
Miorine's fingers glide through her pale hair once, as she turns around, and starts walking down the stairs, over towards one of the Haro scooter bikes that dot the campus, this one is hidden behind a bush, so that people won't mess with it.
The last thing she needs is a rapid escape cut off. After all, even at this hour, there still are two bored looking men in suits milling about who seem grateful that Miorine is calling it a day.
It means they can move to the building with the Chairman's office, which is much more comfortable an arrangement to guard.
Bringing the bike up, she brings herself up on it with a practiced ease, as the Haro's eyes light up.
MISTRESS MIORINE! MISTRESS MIORINE!
It sounds out excitedly, but just as she's about to take off, she hesitates with annoyance suddenly on her face, the bike balanced just sideways with one foot on the grass as she looks at Suletta.
"What's that look for? You've had plenty of time to figure out the map function. We're going in different directions, so I'm not going out of my way to give you a ride back."
Miorine lives by herself after all, so that's just common sense to her that Suletta would be going elsewhere.
<Pose Tracker> Suletta Mercury has posed.
The different ways people mimic the sky are so...
... well, obviously they're bad.
(Mining colonies didn't always bother making it so fancy...)
Suletta is still out here, helping Miorine -- well, mostly just carry things; she's shaped up to be an excellent pack mule. She doesn't mind, though. Those tomatos are evidently very important, and delicate, and she can't just go touching them, even if she watches Miorine intently while she does.
And now the day is done -- "A-absolutely!" Suletta stammers, as she manages to hurry behind Miorine without actually overtaking her. It takes more skill than it looks. "I'll reply right away, night or day!"
Her smile remains on her face, even as, internally, she thinks: that was the stupidest thing anyone in the history of humanity has ever said. Miorine must think I'm making fun of her. I've got to apologise for saying something so stupid. I completely ruined replying to that and it was such a simple request how do I mess everything up --
Luckily, Haro interrupts her. Unluckily, she was looking at Miorine the whole time. Even more unfortunately, Miorine reminds her what they were doing.
"Oh," she says, raising up her hands, "oh, it's okay! I don't -- I'm not really going back anywhere, so I don't need a ride or anything! Not at all! Please have a good night, Ms. Miorine! I'll see you tomorrow, okay?!"
Sleeping in the classroom didn't work out for her, yesterday, when someone with an official-looking badge insisted she'd been studying too long and she needed to go home. She was too upset to point out how this was her home and no one had told her where to go.
It's okay. Maybe she can find somewhere else.
<Pose Tracker> Miorine Rembran has posed.
"You'd better."
She doesn't remind Suletta again of what's on the line, she's done so enough, all the while treating Suletta as if she were simply an 'elevated' pack mule by the mere fact that she's allowed in the greenhouse.
Noone else was after all, but it was in her mind simply for her own personal protection. Suletta was eager to help and her groom to be. She'd protect her without thinking, and by keeping her close - it was a measure that protected Miorine as well.
It gave fewer people opportunities to veer her off course.
That naive sincerity was useful, but it also was a headache to manage knowing how many sharks were in the pool that Suletta might mistake for friendly dolphins.
Then- Suletta responds, and Miorine's annoyed look remains, but there's this subtle change like just in the way her eyes peer at Suletta, peer through her, "What kind of a response is that?" Before there's some heat in her tone, "You're not sleeping in my greenhouse, right?" And ever increasing anger, "You'd better not be!"
The bike suddenly topples as she shoves it sideways harshly, the Haro letting out an alarmed whine.
IMPACT! SIDEWAYS! ALERT! ALERT!
She advances on Suletta, pointing a finger at her as she pokes it into her collarbone. "Just because I gave you permission to be in there with me doesn't mean I ever said you can sleep in there!"
PLEASE RETURN UPRIGHT! The Haro complains, distressed. PLEASE RETURN UPRIGHT!
The two men in suits aren't even paying attention, and Suletta knows - they didn't even intervene when Guel struck Miorine. They'd hardly intervene for her sake.
<Pose Tracker> Suletta Mercury has posed.
Huh? Aren't sharks a type of dolphin?
Oh... dolphins must be a type of shark... right, that's so stupid. That would be such a stupid mistake to make.
Luckily, Suletta doesn't have to feel bad about not knowing her sea creatures. She gets to feel bad about her sleeping arrangements, instead, as she waves her arms in front of her with even more vivacity. "No, no, no, no I'm not, I wouldn't, I --"
Miorine might technically be shorter than Suletta, but Suletta's the one who flinches back, when she's poked so directly. "I'm sorry!" She yelps, bowing her head. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!!" If she'd just explained things better, Miorine wouldn't be so upset, how could Suletta do this to her?
Of course the bodyguards aren't coming to help her. They shouldn't; it's her fault.
<Pose Tracker> Miorine Rembran has posed.
Suletta waves her arms as if to defend herself, but Miorine seems inexorable, despite her diminutive size, she's just fearless about getting up in Suletta's business.
As she confirms it's not, then apologizes again and again, and Miorine's ire doesn't quite deescalate, it just changes form as if her apology was merely an admission of guilt, not anxiety.
"Why are you apologizing then?" She asks, lowering her finger, and crossing her arms instead, as annoyance still smolders in those eyes, "If that's not it, then what did you mean by an answer like that?"
It's definitely an overwhelming amount of pressure that she's putting on Suletta when she's in this state, but she seems to have no real sense of that.
"It's not like there's anywhere else out here to sleep, so spit it out already and stop wasting my time!"
<Pose Tracker> Suletta Mercury has posed.
I messed up -- I made you mad -- I wasn't good enough -- I failed you -- "I'm sorry," Suletta says, instead of any of those things in her head which might explain a little more. Because all that really matters is making it right, and that means, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
She knows she's apologising too much, but what can she do but apologise? You can't put the water back in the dam once it cracks.
But she's wasting Miorine's time, so she tries her best to swallow down her cascade of apologies. Is something stuck in her throat? It's not important.
"... they never told me where to go," she says, at length. "So -- so I just slept in class, but then someone said I was studying too late and I had to go home and -- I didn't want to bother him..." She puts on a smile, and insists: "But it's okay! I'll just go sleep with Aerial! Like when we were kids!"
See? Problem solved, Suletta has a room. Or... a cockpit. A cockpit which she's just assuming she can access after hours. Basically a foolproof plan.
<Pose Tracker> Miorine Rembran has posed.
The apologies keep coming, and Suletta can perhaps feel Miorine's ire coming again, it's so obvious - Miorine is just so expressive, that even the subtle shifts of body language show the growing anger in even how she tenses up.
Like she's just ready to unleash far worse on her. Then Suletta actually explains, and Miorine's grey eyes give her this incredulous look, before she exhales, and that anger seems to mostly go deescalate into just annoyance as if she simply breathed it out.
"What do you mean you don't know where to go? Didn't you read the handbook?"
Her arms uncross, and she puts her fingertips to her own forehead, supposing that with all the excitement that Suletta might not have had time.
After all, that first day she never got a proper orientation. However, she doesn't give her that grace out loud.
It's still Suletta's fault for not reading the handbook, in the end. "That won't do. You think I'm going to entrust my future to someone who's exhausted from long nights in a cramped cockpit?"
With an exasperated sigh, she moves over to her Haro Scooter Bike and sets it upright roughly, a hand on it to keep it up.
THANK YOU! THANK YOU!
"I suppose it can't be helped." She notes, before she looks over her shoulder at Suletta with one grey eye. "Well? What are you waiting for? You're pedaling!"
She hasn't even explained where they're going! But then she tells the Haro.
"Haro. Set destination to my room."
MISTRESS MIORINE! MISTRESS MIORINE! NAVIGATING! NAVIGATING!
Why's she making Suletta do it? Well obviously Miorine is the one making the intense sacrifice of allowing Suletta to stay with her.
So it's only fair that Suletta do one of the things she's good at in return - the physical labor.
But it's also just simpler that way, if everyone's going to see them riding on a bike together, then it's better for Suletta to be in the expected position as her groom to be.
<Pose Tracker> Suletta Mercury has posed.
"The... the handbook?" Suletta asks, a deer in the headlights.
OH GOD THERE WAS A MANUAL AND SHE DIDN'T READ THE MANUAL
But there's something which inspires Suletta to get out of her own failings, and it's: "Hey! Aerial's cockpit is very comfortable!" She can't have someone going around saying her family is cramped. She just kind of stands there awkwardly, though, until --
Miorine --
Invites her onto her scooter???
"?" Suletta vocalises perfectly, pointing at herself, her rounded eyebrows raised in surprise. But Miorine needs someone to pedal, so -- "Oh! Yes!" Suletta scrambles forward to get on the Haro Scooter, seating her feet on the pedals.
"I'll get you home in a jiffy, Ms. Miorine!" She assures her, all her upset forgotten in the face of a Task, as she starts pedal-powering that Haro.
She may not have realised that Miorine is also inviting her.
<Pose Tracker> Miorine Rembran has posed.
Miorine darts a look that feels like it could pierce Suletta's soul. Potentially this happened, potentially Suletta took 1d4 psychic damage.
"It's in your notebook!" Yet she sighs again, and- holds out a hand, "Hand it here."
Miorine turns it up to show Suletta once she has it, as she hits an icon on the datapad... demonstrating.
"There. Now you don't have to ask anymore stupid questions."
A single white eyebrow raises, "What are you even talking about? The cockpit couldn't even fit the two of us comfortably." Apparently Miorine is used to sleeping in a spacious enough bed, given that comment.
Aerial does not qualify.
After Suletta gets on the scooter, Miorine sits down backwards on the back, arms crossed and legs crossed.
"... You'd better. We've lingered here long enough dealing with your nonsense."
Miorine waits for Suletta to get into the rhythm of driving, holding position, with that severe look, legs bouncing impatiently in rhythm behind the back wheel.
It isn't long before she's taken out her phone, and is tapping away at it, apparently bored of waiting?
Obviously it must be some important business given her furious tapping! It would be near impossible to see though, given how she holds it so close to her while turned away as she...
... maneuvers a little VF icon into blowing up lines of Zentradi invaders. The sound is off of course.
Suletta obviously wasted so much of her time.
The Haro every now and then gives Suletta instructions.
TURN RIGHT! IN ONE HUNDRED METERS, TURN RIGHT!
But it's navigation may be a LITTLE confusing at times given the cadence of it's speech.
Eventually (sooner or later depending on Suletta's mastery of the Haro) they show up at the Administrative and Faculty Office, a flat structure which would look almost like some steel brutalist structure like other than the telltale glass - built obviously more for function than form.
ARRIVING! ARRIVING! ADMINISTRATIVE AND FACULTY OFFICE! ARRIVING!
Once they roll to a stop, Miorine slips off, adjusting her bag, and clicks her phone into sleep decisively as she puts it away, "Grab your things."
She's... heading inside?
Is she going to chew out the faculty this time of night or something? Can Miorine do that? Is she truly so powerful?
Or maybe she just IS faculty!?
With a casual slide of a card into a slot, a side door opens, as she asks, "You coming?"
<Pose Tracker> Suletta Mercury has posed.
"Oh-- okay," Suletta hurries to hand her datapad over, only for Miorine to reveal--!
"Oh... I'm sorry. I didn't, um... I was careless." No one told her that this was part of her notebook's functionality, so she didn't know, but that's no excuse.
She's sulky, though, as she replies to Miorine's comments on Aerial: "She's comfortable to me." Miorine doesn't appreciate her family... even though Aerial worked so hard to save her, too!
She pedals off, and...
... if only she could hear the sounds of Miorine's important business, she might realise they have something in common.
But, of course, she just thinks that Miorine has important business things to do. And Suletta has important driving to do!
Like -- turning right, only to swerve back onto the path when Haro clarifies that she's a hundred metres too early. "Harooo!" She wails, after the third time that happens.
She's fine.
Luckily, they do get to the office without crashing into anything, at least. "Here you are!" She declares, as she puts the Haro Scooter in a careful stop and dismounts. (She keeps holding it steady until she's sure the safeties are all in place, to avoid sending Miorine toppling.) Except --
She has to grab her things...?
She blinks, shouldering her pack, and manages to hurry after Miorine after her second reminder. "Yes!" She yelps, as she very almost but doesn't quite trip on the entryway in her haste.
Maybe Miorine really is going to sort this out for her, even though it's this late at night? Was she summoning people back into the office with that furious tapping...?
<Pose Tracker> Miorine Rembran has posed.
It's true, Miorine really doesn't appreciate anything about Suletta, other than what she can do for her, does she?
Even back then - when Suletta tried to save her floating in space, it was the only reasonable thing to think.
And when Suletta did win the duel for her, she never said thank you even once.
Perhaps in some ways, she even still resents the necessity of her presence - after all, Suletta fought her own battle for her.
Something Miorine never asked for.
When Suletta takes a wrong turn MULTIPLE times Miorine is too wrapped up in her 'important business' to do more than grumble, "How was that not clear to you?"
Eventually however, Suletta does follow, and Miorine has released the door, even as Suletta comes near - instead walking as if she's in her own world.
There's a casual stylishness almost to the way she walks ahead of Suletta in the dimmed sterile hallways that look like they could be a part of a battleship, one foot after another, as if she's some cool, disaffected Princess rather than the hair-trigger fury Suletta knows her to be.
Eventually she turns to a door and-
Miorine simply touches her hand to a pad on the door, and her fingertips glow, before it slides open.
"Come in."
Pain in the Neck - WfM OST - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZzHOgk05_k
Inside, it's wall to wall greenery, dotted with hanging pots, while the room itself is full of large basins that are now hydroponics stations, the seedlings half-submerged in water.
There's machinery running from the ventilation, as if ducts and wires and hoses as if she's converted this place next to an indoor garden.
There is only one sign that there is more to this place than garden, and that is the stairway up to a railed in living area - like a loft apartment...
"You can stay here for a while." Miorine tells her, finally giving Suletta a hint as to her intent - but she already thought that was obvious.
She bends down by one of the hydroponics stations, adjusting the container of one of her seedlings as if she was fussing over the perfect angle.
"If you get caught sleeping in a classroom then, it'll only give them an excuse to kick you out before the duel."
She cants her head towards the stairwell - "You can put your stuff down up there."
It is a wondrous place, this indoor garden, until Suletta goes up that flight of stairs.
And then the spell is likely broken because... the desk, the workstation? Is absolutely covered in garbage.
Garbage, garbage, and more garbage. There's a plastic bag tipped over with the remains of instant ramen cups, various drink containers that have been sitting there for so long.
Bags upon bags of refuse that she hasn't bothered to take out.
There is also an immaculate looking chair, and a desktop pad which must be for her personal use.
A Queen Sized Bed that has the covers sloppily turned to the side, and a pile of laundry strewn at it's foot, almost all school uniforms, bras, undergarments and the like.
In contrast to her immaculately presented gardens, the living space of the Princess of Management Strategy...
... reveals that she is a total slob.
Oh! There's also a long couch, long enough to sleep on across from the workstation, that's almost certainly meant for Suletta.
She'll have to move about a dozen bags of garbage to clear it enough to be a sleeping area though.
<Pose Tracker> Suletta Mercury has posed.
It's fine if Miorine doesn't thank Suletta.
She just thinks Aerial deserves better.
Her mother loves Aerial so much...
But of course, when Miorine bids her to follow, she follows. She looks about at all the plants, quite captivated, and asks: "Ms. Miorine, you live in the office? Don't you have a House...?" She thought that every big family had one. Isn't Miorine's the biggest?
Up the stairs, and...
Suletta's eyes widen, and her nose wrinkles, and she very carefully says nothing at all. Instead, she moves over to try and clear off the couch without disturbing the bags too much. "Do -- do you want me to take these out for you, Ms. Miorine?" She tries to ask tactfully.
Sometimes she did see squalorous conditions, when going to help people on Mars -- though the people who collapsed in their homes tended to have more bottles strewn about them. Of course she'd want to help, and if Miorine takes her up on it, she'll find that she's a quick worker. Either way, though, she does manage to clear enough space to kneel down at the table, whether that's by moving the bags aside or moving them out.
"Handbook, handbook..." She murmurs, as she reads it. Until she finds the Code of Conduct, insisting that students present themselves in a way which doesn't discredit Asticassia, and hands it over with wide eyes. "Ms. Miorine," she says, with trepidation, "do you think they're already going to kick me out? Isn't that what it says?"
Suletta, having read the Rules, hasn't quite absorbed that they're not always applied evenly.
<Pose Tracker> Miorine Rembran has posed.
Miorine of course heard Suletta consider Aerial family, but it makes so little sense to her, like having an imaginary friend.
That's kid stuff, and Suletta is in High School now.
So of course she doesn't give it the time of day, and she doesn't think about how her words might hurt.
"I don't." She answers Suletta, her tone becoming a little more frigid as she remembers Guel trying to strongarm her into staying in Jeturk House.
"The only houses worth joining are run by the Three Branches, and they're all our enemies. If I joined one of them it'd be seen as me favoring the head of House to be my Groom."
Miorine finishes her adjustments of the little container the seedling is, finally thinking she's gotten the roots properly positioned below.
Then ascends the stairs herself.
"Don't even bother. That'd inconvenience me letting you in and out long enough to make a dent."
Miorine does however consider the benefit of having Suletta doing that task for her and... after a moment's thought, "You can take out a few each morning on the way to class, to show your gratitude for me letting you stay here."
It is what every girl dreams of certainly, worthy of the list, garbage duty each morning on the way to class.
Miorine's already over by a mechanical wardrobe into her sleepwear. It's a loose, flowy thing, vaguely reminiscent of a Haori, but open into a spaghetti strapped green nightgown, and a pair of loose sleep shorts.
Suletta's comment comes right as she's kicking her uniform of the day into the pile, and she leans back out to look at her.
"You've made enough of a fuss that Jeturk would lose face if you got kicked out for that. Everyone would think it's cowardice. But- that only goes so far, if you kept giving them reasons."
With a wave of her hand, "If you're really that worried then just be a good little girl and work hard at being a model student."
Miorine's tone is certainly sarcastic there, and even moreso when she adds, "But I wouldn't bother."
Miorine's never had to work hard to get the grades, in a lot of ways, she's never had to work hard at anything other than getting the tomatoes in her garden just right.
To something she thinks her Mother would be proud of her for.
The idea of working hard for a class here? She can't really fathom it. This is her cage, her prison.
"I'm turning in. The bathroom's over there if you need it."
With a clap of her hands, the lights go off, other than the hydroponics pools below, which remain lit up with an azure glow, that reflects off the walls in occasional ripples of light.
Miorine is beneath the covers almost instantly, turned on her side and... asleep.
What a strange girl. You'd think that with her many troubles she'd be tossing and turning but... she's asleep almost instantly.
Perhaps that too, is privilege.
<Pose Tracker> Suletta Mercury has posed.
"Oh," Suletta says, when Miorine informs them who their enemies are. (And Guel she can believe, but Elan...)
And, in that same acceptant tone, "okay," when Miorine insists she shouldn't bother. But then she reconsiders, and Suletta smiles to her, sunny as the hot side of Mercury. "Sure thing!"
Suletta's anxiety doesn't seem worth Miorine's consideration, though -- she already knows everything about how things work around here. "Okay," she nods, and... steps out of the room, to give Miorine space to sleep.
She's not going to sleep just yet, after all, though she does change into her own nightgown and loose her wild hair from its bindings.
No -- hours later, there's still a glow of light, coming from outside. Suletta sits on the stairs, ignoring the fact that the local time readout at the corner of her datapad now reads 'AM' instead of 'PM', carefully combing over...
... what Miorine would consider very basic material, really.
But she has to work harder.
<Pose Tracker> Miorine Rembran has posed.
Miorine sleeps soundly, Suletta doesn't even hear her breathing, the room is calm - peaceful. Despite her slovenly ways, this room perhaps is the only other evidence that Miorine can be at peace.
Suletta's seen her in both places that allow that of her. In a way, that has a magic all of its own.
It is perhaps 2 AM, when a REM Cycle completes and Miorine is left in that haze of light sleep that is near waking.
It is the tap of a finger on a datapad that causes her eyes to open. For a time she lays there as if she didn't hear it, but she heard it again.
Her eyes trail to the couch, and then slowly she pulls aside the covers. One footstep after another she heads towards the stairway, a hand touching the rail.
"Aren't you going to sleep?" She asks, in a lot of ways she sounds annoyed even when she's calm, but - she's not.
Strangely for once, she's curious about the girl that's she's stuck with. That's intruded into her world and affairs so thoroughly that she had no choice but to invite her in, and she's not certain why.
Miorine waits for her answer, then lowers herself down, lacing her arms around her knees, her eyes glance over what she's working on.
"Tell me something..."
Tell Me More About You - WfM OST - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQPQaD_UE2c&
In a lot of ways it's the first time Miorine has ever asked Suletta about herself, that she's showed the slightest speck of curiosity about who she is.
She knows she's a hard worker, and a gifted pilot certainly.
But...
"... why are you working so hard on that? I didn't really think you'd bother after everything that happened."
At the very least she can acknowledge it's been rough on Suletta, she went to a cell. They were potentially going to execute her as a witch.
"I know you have a list of things you want to do. Why not focus on that instead of some busy work?"
<Pose Tracker> Suletta Mercury has posed.
Pad, pad, pad... Suletta woke Miorine up. She breathes in, and turns, looking up over her shoulder. "I -- I'm sorry," she apologises, haltingly. "I'm just behind on my studies... I know you said not to bother, but it's hard for me to get some of this stuff..." It's not that she doesn't understand piloting details -- but she doesn't understand schoolwork. The presentation and expectations are all alien, to her, and so she feels she knows nothing at all.
But Miorine sits down, and asks...
... and she was nice enough to invite Suletta to her home, so she must be trying her best, she reasons. Maybe it's just hard for Miorine... she has a lot to manage, just like her mother. Suletta doesn't understand all this business stuff, after all.
Besides, she asked. She asked, so Suletta should tell her. It's important to answer someone when they ask you a question.
"It's because... I have a dream," she says, slowly, looking back to her datapad. (Most of the multiple choice questions on the screen are showing up red for WRONG.) "I want to found a school at Mercury." She pauses, as if afraid to go on --
But she does keep explaining, eventually. "... there used to be schools there," she says, "but there are so few people, now..." And perhaps Miorine will know -- that there are far safer mining opportunities for most things closer to Earth, these days. "That's why I thought of the school," she says, and her smile has to be audible instead of visible, because she doesn't look away from her tablet. "To get young people to... come back to Mercury. The people at Mercury were so happy with my idea... they said they were counting on me, and waiting."
Finally, she shows her bright smile to Miorine, as she turns to look over her shoulder again. "They even gave me good luck charms and messages!" She says, happily, heart warmed even to think of how those people -- some of whom never quite accepted her -- were happy with her initiative.
<Pose Tracker> Miorine Rembran has posed.
It's a strange time, this queer hour - a liminal space where magic radiates in the light across the walls of this enchanted hidden garden.
Miorine rests herself easily in this position, watching Suletta, and for once listening as she says she has a dream... and as she reveals it... Miorine answers with yet more questions.
"Why a school? Doesn't Mercury have any?" Miorine never really had much interest in learning about Mercury, and in a lot of ways she still doesn't - this mining Colony so close to the sun, so far to be of any strategic value for anything more than mining Permet.
It is as distant and mysterious as Jupiter - and Miorine's always had her eyes on that pale blue sphere that's so close and yet out of reach of her.
Perhaps that's why she asks, perhaps that's why she prompts - that right now Mercury seems easier for her to reach than Earth.
It prompts Suletta to go on however, safely - past the anxiety she's been trained to feel more and more around Miorine, understandably so.
And Miorine does indeed bring it up when she mentions how few people dwell there.
"Right. These days we can mine Permet more safely on the Moon. There's not much point expanding operations on Mercury, as opposed to Jupiter."
Helium-3 after all will never not be needed, so the Jupiter Energy Fleet's Monopoly is complete, as opposed to Permet mining.
However, Miorine's curiosity dims away on Suletta's explanation. The expectations placed upon her by the people of Jupiter.
They remind her so much of growing up - all the people telling her that the future of the Benerit Group is on her shoulders.
Again.
And again.
And again.
So many times that it became pointless, empty words from sycophants she despised.
Didn't any of them care that her Mother was dead?
Didn't he care?
She can't muster the slightest iota of care for their expectations. Why should she take on their hopes and dreams? Why does she have to carry that burden? Their world took her away from her.
Miorine's grey eyes look forward, away from Suletta, as she utters softly but sharply.
"What a drag!" It's easy to articulate why she hates it. "Why should you have to taken on that burden? You ought to live for yourself."
At least - if it were the list - Miorine would understand, those are things Suletta wants for herself.
Even as she spoke ill of it, it was something she could at least respect.
But this...
It's like uncomfortably looking into a mirror of someone who is bound by something she wants - no needs to escape. Someone she must rely on.
And she hates that.
<Pose Tracker> Suletta Mercury has posed.
"Huh...?" Suletta's smile fades, her head lifting as if she could see Miorine's point of view better that way. All she beholds is... Miorine telling her to be selfish, even though her mother didn't raise a selfish girl. Her mouth hangs open, for a moment, before she closes it and turns back to her tablet.
She's not smiling any more.
"But, this is what I want to do," she says softly, affirming her path just as her mother would want. Knowing that she's doing the right thing helps her to smile, again, though she keeps looking at her wrong answers.
Her mother is proud of her. Aerial is proud of her. The people of Mercury are proud of her. What she wants -- is the right thing to want. She won't speak against Miorine, who doesn't seem to be saying these bad things for a bad reason, but... she feels good about herself.
She's doing the right thing.
<Pose Tracker> Miorine Rembran has posed.
"Hmm." Miorine hums as Suletta says that's what she wants to do. And there's the subdued sound of her rising.
"How admirable of you."
It's a subdued sort of sarcasm, because Miorine suddenly doesn't feel it. Even the effort to be truly cruel, truly angry at Suletta right now.
It's too much.
Suddenly she's just not interested anymore.
Her footsteps take her away without any verbal warning that she's disengaging, leaving the other girl to study in the soft cerulean glow of this indoor garden.
It takes her longer this time to fall asleep. This too she blames on Suletta...
...because it's much easier than blaming herself.
<Pose Tracker> Suletta Mercury has posed.
"Not at all," Suletta starts -- she didn't register the sarcasm in Miorine's quiet reply at all. "I..." It means she gets to trail off, with an understated little gasp of surprise, when she turns to see Miorine walking away.
She praised her, but she walked away... something about it doesn't feel right, but she shouldn't bother Miorine by asking. Instead, a little stunned, she just offers: "Good night."
She returns back to her homework, but her heart is disquiet. Miorine... rejected her dream, didn't she? She thinks it's a drag... but all Suletta can do is take on those burdens.
Maybe... she was just being polite. Maybe Miorine doesn't really want to know what's going on with Suletta... sometimes she's bad at figuring that out. But she doesn't like it. She's unhappy. She didn't want to talk to her any more.
Quietly, Suletta resolves to try and be a better conversationalist for Miorine.