2024-05-15: .our reality is a prison to be brokeN (Prologue)
- Log: .our reality is a prison to be brokeN (Prologue)
- Cast: Yuliana Kafim, Elisa Kafim
- Where: The Silent Castle, Kaffeklubben Island
- Date: 2024-05-15
- Summary: The Empress calls Yuliana to Her audience -- and Yuliana realises she's being summoned. She can't deceive her Wife, and so she reveals that she doesn't love Her... and the Empress, predictably, does not take it well. Through Elisa, she punishes Yuliana, and promises to consume Her shard and claim Her wife for herself. But Elisa wakes Yuliana from her torment -- and Elisa has a plan to defy God, even as Yuliana fears divine retribution. (CW: Domestic violence, mind control, eldritch/body horror)
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
OST: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRY-uoIWvwY Ego Likeness - Oracle
Elisa may not sleep, but Yuliana must still. Heavy, luxurious black curtains block the eternal sun from the Mistresses' bedroom, allowing her to rest; fur drapes across their bed, to keep her warm where Elisa's lack of body temperature falls short. Because of course she must rest in her wife's arms; nowhere else is she safe.
Sinking into that liminal space between sleep and waking, today she murmurs something strange. "Protect me, Elya," she mumbles, halfway coherent, halfway asleep.
Why would she say something like that as she was going to sleep...? Perhaps it's nothing; it's hardly a sentiment she's hesitated to express, the past few weeks.
But, what she foresaw...
Did she know she would be called to Her audience, tonight? It happens less frequently, now the hated Light has tried to heal her brain and restore its humanity -- but still it happens. The way vague edges and free association become so much more clear, absolute, real.
Black.
Yuliana knows better than to run, now, for days and nights. Her realm is unending, and so is She. In deference she bows her head, as thirteen massive, eight-jointed fingers curl about her; she offers no resistance, as She clutches her flesh. None but this: when Her intent rocks the impossible edges of their home, MINE, she offers no reply. It's not a denial, but it isn't assent.
She can't lie to her Wife. A thing both metaphorically and literally true, as Her jealous suspicion rises, tendrils stabbing through the ashes of long forgotten graves. They carve at her face, make two from one, make literal the metaphor. Then they flay at her chest, peeling away each layer until her heart lays bare. This too they open, and grasp a seed
TREACHERY
The seed of betrayal.
"Ah..." Yuliana rasps, as two sets of teeth grit. Perhaps it is some vain rebellion that has her reply in the languages of Earth, though she answers once and once again. OCU English, of course -- she knows what her Wife once spoke -- and Indonesian, itself a comment on her shift from love to war. "You... hurt me," she manages, at length. "You keep... hurting me. I was dying, Empress, and You watched! Elya would never --"
Her breath hitches as she's lifted far from that vain concept of the ground, to one of the Empress's thousand faces. A dozen mouths hiss above, while countless eyes stare from below, demarcated by what must have been Her cheekbones, now made ridged like horns. Each far edge of those ridges vent mist; perhaps it's where Her noses are, now, with no ears to heed criticism.
"Th'ia sh'ollt llkou-u'sh llph'ytiafh'wll," each of those mouths speak, more thunderous still than Her intent, "fh'ou-llkiath'sh llia llph'okh'ia. Y u-yll kh'ou'sh'wniia llia, ot jow lloia Niy-ia."
"N--no!" Yuliana cries, though she can but writhe in Her grasp. "I married Elya! I chose Elya! I don't want to be Yours, Empress! I DON'T LOVE YOU!"
And the frigid chill of the Void drops another uncountable degree, as Her eyes narrow, with a dozen types of pupils all zeroing in on the woman before Her. Yuliana is small enough to serve as Her toothpick. Even so, she would say something so --
"Jow llou-fia Niia!" ANGER moves Her, as She howls, clutching tighter. "Jow u-owllt TYIA fh'ou-ll Niia!"
"So You're just going to kill me?!" Yuliana cries and cries, and her eyes are still human enough for tears. "If that was Your plan, why save me in the first place?! I don't understand You at all! And I don't!" A sob wracks her torn chest, and it keeps escaping. "I don't... love You," she repeats, more shattered. "You hurt me."
And Her hand clutches tighter, and tighter, and when one reinforced bone shatters the others soon follow; Yuliana cries out, but she can offer no opposition, as she hangs slack in Her grasp. Those tendrils weave spider's silk about her wrists, her neck, her ankles; attaching each end to one of Her great claws, She releases Her wife, and Yuliana dangles before her.
A marionette. MINE.
And it is the Empress who brings her face up to behold Her, as She decrees: "Jow lloia th'ia koth'ia th'llowk u-ykh Y lliokh th'oth u-ou'llt... iafiall fh'ou-llkiath."
Yuliana sobs, and it's some time before she manages to muster, at strain: "Elya... won't let You. Nn..." Of course it is agony -- but she has to hold on, for Elisa's sake. She has to be brave, in the face of their vengeful God. And when the edges of the Void grow indistinct and hazy, she grins and she grins, desperately savage, as she cries: "You see?! She'll save me! She'll save me from You!"
The Empress snarls across two-dozen mouths, lips curling where She has them. "Llth'o-sh'yia-th llph'iash'ia-th niou-niia-th," She promises, as they begin to grow distant again, "Y u-yll th'ogh'ia sh'ou-niiath'y-k jow llou-fia."
As She fades from Yuliana's psyche, she is left only with Her thunderous will:
REPENT
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
No, Elisa Kafim does not sleep.
This does not make her watch perfect, but it makes it more thorough than a mortal woman's could be. Yuliana asked her to protect her...
And so, Elisa does. When she detects the signs of communion, Elisa watches--and then acts. She moves to shake Yuliana awake, to interrupt her sleep and her Audience.
"Yuliana," she says, her voice more gentle. "Return to me."
She cannot See what Yuliana Sees, of course. But she is laying there, waiting, on her side, preparing for Yuliana's return.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
There are always signs.
Her temperature drops, when her mind wanders there, just enough to set her trembling. Her heart rate rises, pulse pounding beneath her skin; her breath quickens, across her lips. The one snake which isn't pinned beneath Elisa rises, under the furs, activated by the connection.
And Yuliana wakes --
-- and the veil has always been thin, when she crosses one place to another. More and more, it has seemed as though the Empress addresses Her self directly, through the medium of Her wife's madness. Perhaps, then, Elisa shall expect it again, those sharp demands and criticisms.
But when Yuliana's eyes open, they do not merely shine with strange green light -- they glow, bright as green suns. It is not unusual for her to grasp her wife, in these moments, to shake her -- so perhaps it's not strange for her to lift her hands, where they were trapped between their bodies.
Until they wrap around her throat, and grasp tight.
Behind her, the snake trapped behind grips Elisa's wrist; the other, capable of more movement, clenches down around her hand. And it is Yuliana's voice, at least, which howls: "Vainglorious shade! Without Me, you are LESS than nothing!"
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Yes, this is the sign. These are the marks. Elisa notices that thin veil--an more to the point, she is expecting it, has prepared for it. Nevertheless, it is not precisely what she expects, to see that brilliant green glow.
Elisa cannot speak for a moment, as tightly gripped as her throat is, and she moves to lift her hands only to find them bound.
That howl--
Elisa's power is considerable, her vigor significant, but Yuliana is terrifically strong as well. It is not enough, simply to pull back. So suddenly Elisa's eyes glow as well, and she wrenches free of the snake, ripping it and her own flesh in its teeth if it is needed. Her throat mends, rising under Yuliana's hands.
"You would assail me here, at the center of my power?" It is not through her throat that she speaks now.
The lights in the Castle go dark in an instant, those that are still on at all, and the Northern Tower suddenly radiates green light.
"Did you think I had not prepared!?"
Elisa reaches up, to take hold of Yuliana's wrists--and surges with might, to force the Empress back.
"She is MINE!"
Elisa's voice echoes with Power. She floods herself with it, to strengthen the Veil between them, and drive the Empress from their wife.
And she grows so, so very cold.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
When Elisa wrenches her hand free, those black fingers stay embedded in her flesh, for a moment, before they fade to the shadows; the stumps of the snakes fall back down upon her, as they begin to reconstitute themselves.
Outside the window, there is something brighter than the eternal Arctic sun, now, as the North Wing emits so much light from its tower windows. And at first when Elisa grasps the hands that ought to belong to Yuliana, she finds a grip of steel -- until that surge of power thunders through her wife, and she forces Herself back to Her side of the veil, out of the Gate which separates them.
Then, Yuliana's fingers slacken -- and at least move to pull back, though perhaps Elisa still will grasp them. The glow fades from Yuliana's gaze, just the same, and devoid of the Divine they are free to fill with tears.
"God," her voice cracks, herself again, "forgive me -- please -- don't make me hurt her -- don't make me hurt my wife --"
Perhaps it's what she's been saying the whole time.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Elisa is not concerned with her own flesh at this moment. She is concerned with that grip of steel, not for what it could do to her, but for what could be suffered in turn at Elisa's need to stop it.
But her Power surges, and then Yuliana moves to pull her fingers back. For an instant, Elisa is still gripping her wrists--but she relents, as the glow fades. She watches, distantly, as tears fill her wife's eyes.
"There is no need for such poisoned forgiveness," Elisa assures Yuliana. "...But it would seem that I must advance my aims more quickly."
"You should be all right; She cannot reach you in the space that I have fortified."
Perhaps it is. But Elisa is angry.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana pulls her hands to her chest, clutching them to herself as though she could stop them from betraying her again. (She can't. She never could.) Elisa is angry, but her wife is distraught, sobbing as she curls in on herself. "I'm sorry," she sobs, beside herself, "I'm sorry...!"
(She can't go too far from her wife, of course; their legs are still entangled, as they always are.)
That poison does shift, on her lips, soon enough. "It wasn't me," she starts repeating, instead, eyes scrunched shut. "It wasn't me, it wasn't me..." But it wasn't Elisa's craft, either; evidently, Yuliana remembers what she did, when she wasn't in control of herself. No wonder, then, she still feels so unsafe, even with her wife's reassurances of her safety.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
She can't. But Elisa can.
"I know," Elisa says, that it was not her. "That it was not you. You remember what She did through you, I see..."
Of course she would feel unsafe. "I understand," she says.
"I shall have to find a way to block Her influence entirely, it would seem. But worry not. I have that Power."
"My Yuliana," she says, "No matter how She might strike at me, even trying to use you, I am strong."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Oh!" Yuliana moans, still quite distraught, as finally she musters the bravery to press herself into her wife's chest again, her free arm wrapping about her and grasping at her nightgown. She noses at Elisa's neck, her tears soaking into darker flesh. "Oh..."
A ragged breath, "Elya, d-did I hurt you?" As another sob wracks her chest, now whole, and she presses her lips to her neck, as though she could just kiss it better. It might have been a romantic gesture, in another context, devoid of the way she now trembles in her despair.
She's desperate. She knows.
"I couldn't deceive Her," she says, and her voice is tremulous, too. "But... I provoked Her... oh, Elya, She said She'd take something I loved from me for tonight. She knew it would be like this..."
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Elisa notes Yuliana's tears, but has none of her own. She reaches out of memory and possessiveness to set her arms abot Yuliana again, and strokes her hair. "Shh," she says. "It is fine. I am unharmed."
This is not, precisely, the answer to Yuliana's question.
It could have been romantic, but instead, "I am proud, that you were able to speak against Her then. For it will require both of us. ...No, She has taken nothing that cannot be repaired."
Though Elisa is still cold, just now, still more distant. She is maintaining things like human gestures with effort.
"When you are ready, we shall travel to the Tower."
It is no longer glowing. The lights can be restored.
"...I shall make you safe again."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
And it may be confusing, the way Yuliana sobs when Elisa strokes her hair, even though she's painfully grateful. Because she knows how hard it must be; because she knows she does not think of it, natively.
"Mmn," Yuliana hums, burying close. "Elya... oh, Elya...!"
Of course she is afraid. Afraid enough that it takes her long moments, past her aching gratitude, to bring her thoughts in order again. "She claimed me," Yuliana explains, finally, "but I couldn't offer myself to Her, Elya, and She -- She noticed my silence. She tore me open and dug out my betrayal... I had to explain, s-so I told Her, I told Her that She hurt me, that She watched as I was dying. A-and then She looked at me, She said She'd consume you, b-because, you were too proud, you forgot your place. She said I was Hers, but..."
Another rasping breath, as Yuliana buries herself closer. Now her tentacles are her own again, they wrap about Elisa, just the same. "I-I said I -- I didn't love Her, Elya. I said I'd married you, that you were the one I'd chosen... I didn't want to be Hers. She was so angry, Elya... She screamed at me, told me that I did love Her, that I'd die for Her. She broke all my bones to make me a puppet for Her... it hurt so much, Elya. She told me... She told me I was the Gate through which She reached this world. She told me not to forget it..." And there is another pause, as she sobs, again, clutching at her steadfast wife.
"I was s-so stupid... even though I couldn't move, I, I taunted Her, when you were waking me, I said you wouldn't let Her, you'd save me from Her... t-that's when She promised to take what I loved, tonight, Elya. In -- in this transient present moment -- She has never grasped time well. She meant tonight."
Yuliana sniffs, eyes still scrunched tightly shut. "She knew She couldn't kill you like this, Elya... She just wanted to force you to use your Power, s-so you'd grow cold. She doesn't like that you learned affection... She doesn't like that I'm happier that way. But She said... She said She'll consume you. She called you a shard... just a shard..."
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
"My Yuliana..." It is different than it once was. Once, Elisa would not have made such efforts so fervently. But that is not now. She listens, as Yuliana explains, and Elisa has an unpleasant smile on her face for a moment--only a moment.
"Good," Elisa says. "Good, that you were able to stand up to Her. She promised She would take what you loved, but..."
Hmm...
"Then I shall show more 'affection' still. I shall make you deliriously happy."
"...Hm. I must learn to counteract these effects, then..." She is still distant enough that her scientist's mind can take hold--but she reminds herself of the moment.
"Of course She would believe that, and once, it was true. But thanks to you and the 'friends' you have asked me to make, I have become... more. I am my own 'person', now. Mine, and yours."
"I am... angry, that She has hurt you. But I know how I shall protect you."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Mm-hmm..." Yuliana hums affirmation, when Elisa supports her defiance. It's good... it's good. And Elisa promises to make her happy, and Yuliana murmurs, "oh, Elya..."
She is overtaken by her love, even here, even now.
"Mm," she sniffs, again, nodding against her wife. "The Light helped -- with that -- the Photon therapy -- stuff." The Photonic Neuromodulation Therapy, she means. "I didn't visit Her so much, after they made my brain better." More human, that is. Less of whatever else she is, now.
She noses her face against her wife's skin, buried in against her, clutching tightly. (And she is too close to see Elisa's smiles, unpleasant or otherwise.) "You're all I need, Elya," Yuliana insists, "just the way you are... if God would call you a mere shard, I reject it! Oh, but She was so angry when I rejected Her... Elya, it shook the realm entire."
She doesn't entertain the thought of what would have happened -- if Yuliana had rejected Elisa.
They're so obviously different.
(And she doesn't remember telling her she had no interest in upheaving the lives of normal people.)
Yuliana swallows, taking a moment to exist in her wife's embrace, calming herself with her touch. "How," she starts, at length, "how can we oppose Her, Elya? She is a God... and through me She works. It feels so much safer to appease Her, except... Elya, I'm afraid She would destroy you, even if She forgave me..." And the only reason She would forgive Yuliana -- is because She possesses her. Her feelings... were never much of a factor.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Elisa has not been rejected, of course. That would be entirely different from this.
"Hmm... Yes, the therapy appears to have been effective, but I believe it is a temporary measure. It cannot on its own solve the problem."
But Yuliana clutches tightly to her. All that she needs... "I am certain that it did. She is powerful. We did not choose an easy goal."
'Normal' people. Irrelevant, for now.
But... Hmm. "You allow me," she says. "I shall plan our battle strategy. ...You are right, of course. She would destroy me, given the chance. It is 'safe' only to appease her in that it may not grow worse--it will assuredly not grow better."
"Do you recall the Lattice, that protected you from Her changing you? ...I believe that I can make that technology smaller. Shield your actions from Her. That is what I mean, to keep you safer."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"The problem is inside me," Yuliana murmurs, against Elisa, as she says that the Photon Power Labs' efforts are temporary. "It's me, Elya. So long as I'm here, She's a threat..." ... which may serve to explain why NUNE wants her dead or alive.
She is powerful, but Elisa has a plan, if only Yuliana will allow her to enact it. "I'm in your hands, Elya," Yuliana says, and it both a literal and metaphorical truth. "I need your strength... oh, sputnica zhizni, I'm so frightened." She calls her the sole companion she has chosen through her life, as she curls around her wife, as if Elisa were her only lifeline. "What have we done...?"
Perhaps it's not unusual, for a human to bemoan the Beyond after seeking it. This tale is written, again and again. Mortals may well ought to live mortal lives.
Yuliana calms herself under her wife, though, breathing in Elisa's cold skin with a shuddering breath. "Mm," she nods, all tangled up. "I remember..." And her fingers curl, as her head tilts, against her skin. "This began... when I wore your Green Fold Quartz, Elya. Will now it end with me wearing your Liminal Lattice...? Hm," she can't quite laugh, but she can force air out in something which might have been one, in another existence. "It's funny... but I guess it's fitting, isn't it?"
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
"...But it need not be threat to you."
Yuliana is in her hands. That is as it should be. But Yuliana curls around her, and Elisa strokes her back, now, gently. "We have stepped into uncharted territory. The path before us is as yet unprepared. ...But we shall walk it, all the same."
The Quartz...
"Yes," Elisa says. "I recall. ...It is..."
"...Heh," Elisa manages not quite a laugh, either. "We are capricious creatures, I suppose. What we wanted then was to help Her. Now we wish to help ourselves."
"But we shall do it. It is us against everything, my Yuliana. And we shall win."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
BGM Shift: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2Q09gPVOkg Final Fantasy XIII - All The World Against Us
"But what about you, Elya?" Yuliana asks, hapless, as Elisa insists the Gate is no threat to the Gate. "I need you..."
There is the rest of the world, of course. Surely Leina and the others are also at risk with Yuliana, end-of-sentence. But Yuliana isn't worried about them, right now.
Elisa will find, as she strokes her wife's back, that Yuliana tries to pace her tortured breathing to her rhythm; and through it, she can help coax her to breathe more slowly, to conquer her fight-or-flight as it wracks her body. "We're on our own, now," she murmurs, when Elisa speaks of their uncharted paths. "Setting out on our own..."
She is a little more at ease, at least, realising the irony of their situation. (And not realising, at the same time, that perhaps her whole problem is accepting too much jewellery.) "We... we're strong," she agrees, with just a little hesitation. "Together, we are strong... we'll usurp God from Her throne, Elya. If we're together, we can do it... we shall do it." And she sighs, her anxiety slowing, sinking into her wife. "I knew you'd come for me," she murmurs, all appreciation, though from Elisa's perspective they never left their bed.
"You protected me, Elya... thank you."