2024-06-01: Next On My List--!?
- Log: Next On My List--!?
- Cast: Miorine Rembran, Suletta Mercury
- Where: Asticassia Academy - Classes
- Date: 2024-06-01
- Summary: Suletta chases Miorine out of class after the whispers get too much for her, and Miorine shares why Elan upset her so much. It upsets Suletta to pick sides... but she picks Miorine, anyway. Miorine needs her.
<Pose Tracker> Miorine Rembran has posed.
Day in, day out - it's a similar routine. Miorine goes to class, sometimes those classes line up with Suletta's. After all, the three programs intersect in curriculum.
After each class, she spends the rest of her days in her Greenhouse, until it's time for light's out, when she returns to the Chairman's office.
Today, during the lecture of one of those classes, Miorine takes on a bored posture, an elbow on the table, resting her chin on her palm. Suletta will notice that just like always, she's not even taking notes.
It would feel like bad behavior, delinquency, if Miorine weren't always able to effortlessly answer any question Suletta might have on the material.
Today however... mid-lecture, there's glances, and whispers...
"She's so full of herself. I can't wait to see how Elan ends up setting her straight."
Her eyes flick towards one of the girls in Peil house, her jaw tensing as she listened to boy respond.
"It almost seems unfair, that he'd have to deal with taming a shrew like her."
"What's with that ancient reference?"
The giggling picked up from the girl listening to him, until abruptly...
A loud SLAM- SCRAPE as effective as any nails in the chalkboard. Miorine's bookbag had been slammed on her desk, at the same time that she'd stood up from her chair. Grasping it, she began to flounce off at a rapid enough pace.
"Miss Rembran, you aren't excused-"
"TOILET!"
She pronounces loudly cutting the teacher is off, and being a man, he looked somewhat flustered by the idea of what a young woman might abruptly need to go to the toilet for.
Clearing his throat, the shocked students broke into scattered giggles, as the girl from Peil asked just grinned as if taking credit for it, "She's so thin skinned."
Outside the class though, Miorine was already storming away rapidly towards - you guessed it, the women's restroom, shoving in roughly through the door.
<Pose Tracker> Suletta Mercury has posed.
"I can't believe she'd turn down a guy like Elan," the girl behind Suletta sighs. "Doesn't she get it? The whole fantasy is -- her pursuing him. You'd have to be the most arrogant girl alive to expect him to defrost her."
"She's not frosty," her friend replies, "she's frigid."
Which is the point Suletta turns in her seat, and whispers, harshly: "Don't say Ms. Miorine is that cold!" The details have sailed merrily over her head, but she caught enough. "You're being very rude --"
SLAM! SCRAPE! STORMING OFF!
"-- ah -- Ms. Miorine!" Suletta exclaims, as she turns to see her storming off.
"Miss Mercury, please refrain from yelling in class," the teacher sighs, hands to his temple.
"I-I-- I'm sorry --" Suletta sinks into her seat, cowed by the chastisement of Authority. And he surely thinks that's the end of that, as he goes on with his lecture, even as Suletta sneaks another look or three to the door.
Until, a moment later, her hand shoots up. There's a protocol to interrupting, but Suletta skips over it entirely.
This means her hand is ignored for another minute, even as she waves it around with increasing veracity.
Eventually, Nika follows protocol to alert the teacher to a question in the audience. He looks to her, and asks: "What is it, Miss Nanaura?"
"She has a question..." Nika points out, looking to Suletta, who is, by now, all but bouncing out of her seat to wave her hand with the required amount of force. It's definitely not a regulation-appropriate hand raising.
"I see," he sighs. "What is it, Miss Mercury?"
"C-c-c-c-c-c-c-can I go t-t-t-to the t-toilet t-t-t-too?"
He sighs. "You're excused," and he doesn't add that her test scores surely wouldn't improve if she stayed here, anyway.
"T-thank you! Sorry for the trouble!!" Suletta yelps, as she stands, bows, and hurries out.
Hurry, hurry, hurry, she jogs to the restroom door, and -- stops, her hand lifted to knock.
WHAT IF MIORINE REALLY JUST WANTED TO GO TO THE BATHROOM?!
"U-um--" Suletta starts, stammering. "M--Ms. Miorine? A-a-are you--" Don't make her finish the sentence as to what Miorine might logically be doing in there. This was a terrible idea. Why did she even think this was a good idea. Why does she think anything.
<Pose Tracker> Miorine Rembran has posed.
Miorine definitely heard Suletta's start to defending her, but she doesn't so much as yell at her 'Don't bother.'
She's already out the door, and storming straight armed down that hall. Naturally she doesn't see the difficulty that Suletta has speaking up.
The truth is, in this moment, Suletta isn't a factor at all. She's not even under consideration.
Miorine Rembran is only thinking of herself, and her own problems.
By the time Suletta's in the hall, the bathroom door is closing, and there's only a glimpse of white hair.
As Suletta asks though, she starts to hear something.
"Die die die die die die die DIE!"
It's a little muffled by the door, and somewhat distant enough that, Suletta is unlikely to think it's directed at her.
Because in a stall, Miorine has her bag on the ground, and her legs curled up as she sits on the lid, destroying space aliens in a shooter game on her phone.
"It's always like this! And it's all thanks to that lousy GOOD FOR NOTHING FATHER OF MINE! DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE!"
She got louder at some point, but it'd be hard for even anxiety beset Suletta to believe... Miorine is talking to her.
She's just in there. Alone.
Venting. Alone.
That's just how Miorine's life is, isn't it? But even when she indicated she preferred to be alone, she still fed Suletta a tomato.
Even in her special place to be alone, she still invited her in.
Right now... it's like she's too absorbed in her anger to even hear Suletta at the door.
<Pose Tracker> Suletta Mercury has posed.
DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE, Miorine keeps chanting, and Suletta knocks, again. "Ms. Miorine?" She tries, a little louder. "Ms. Mio...rine?" And a little weaker. She can't hear her... or does she not want to hear her? Is she bothering her?
But...
Miorine can't escape to somewhere private to ring her father for help. She doesn't even like him. So... who would she ring?
She's angry... but isn't it because she's upset?
Suletta swallows, and grasps her hands to a fist. "Okay," she says, and mostly to herself, as she tries to gird herself for what she's about to do. Raising her voice, she says: "Ms. Miorine! I-I'm opening t-t-the door!"
The locks can be overridden, just in case someone collapses in there.
And lo, does she open that door, to reveal--!!
(Oh, thank God.)
"... Ms. Miorine?" Suletta tries again, now she can actually look at her. "I -- um -- did something happen..?"
<Pose Tracker> Miorine Rembran has posed.
Suletta tries to speak to her, but Miorine doesn't even hear her. She's at the door and, Miorine has retreated into her anger.
Gain 1.
There is the problem of the door, and Suletta could just leave, and like Miorine here, she would Gain 1.
But...
Instead she says she's opening the door.
Gain 2.
"Hu-haaa!?" Miorine makes a surprised noise as Suletta enters into the bathroom, the stall. "Didn't you see that I'm in here-!? Suletta!"
She snaps at her, as she rocks forward, putting her legs down, but Suletta asks if something happened.
Miorine for a time just balances her weight forward, and Miorine is just tapping away at her phone screen, as if mentally she were just saying it over and over.
'Die die die die die die die die die'
Of course, Suletta is no Newtype, so she doesn't actually hear that. "What's it to you if something happened?"
She asks, as if suspicious - now, even though it's Suletta.
"Anything I say just becomes ammunition for someone else at this school!"
<Pose Tracker> Suletta Mercury has posed.
"I'm sorry --" Suletta takes a step back, raising her hands up, and it might have been easy for her to just run away, except --
"It's not... I don't want to fight," she says, as she sags down, and eventually sinks down, sitting beside the open stall. (At an angle, so she can still see Miorine if she looks over.) "And I don't like it when they say bad things about you. It isn't nice."
She sighs, pulling her knees up to her chest and examining them. "I don't know what happened," she says. "And I don't know why Mr. Elan would say things to upset you, either. But... I said I'd fight for you. I thought... maybe stuff like this counted too. Maybe I'm wrong about that... sorry."
<Pose Tracker> Miorine Rembran has posed.
Miorine doesn't say anything to her apologizing at first, before saying she doesn't want to fight. Miorine's grey eyes flick to her as she says she doesn't want to fight, before returning to her game.
There's tension running throughout her like electricity, Miorine is so angry - all the time.
But while Suletta is getting involved in her business - she's involved. It isn't something she can claim is none of her business. It's when she says she would fight for her - that this counted?
"I guess it's different back on Mercury." Miorine tells her eventually, not quite relaxing, but the tension goes out of her just subtly, "Here whining to people they aren't being nice won't stop them."
Miorine clicks off her game, to instead stretching out to put both arms on either side of the toilet seat, and her legs to the ground.
She's so small that stretching her legs straight, the heels on her boots barely scrape the ground.
"Everything here is settled differently. Let me worry about what they're saying, I can fight my own battles." Can she? Can she really? After all... she just ran away, didn't she? "The only thing you should be worrying about is the upcoming duel."
Still, what Elan said? It takes her some time to get to addressing that Miorine's gaze sharpens, but it's not on Suletta, it's on the wall of her stall.
"It's because he's part of the Three Branches, which means he's the enemy. Whoever marries me decides the future of the group."
She finally slides down off the toilet, and crouches down, as if they were back in the greenhouse, to look her in the eyes.
"Don't underestimate what any of them will do to become my groom, Suletta. All of them are plotting to take my freedom away, to decide my future for me."
A beat.
"Every single one."
<Pose Tracker> Suletta Mercury has posed.
Suletta is technically taller than Miorine, which makes it even funnier how terrified she can get of her, like a rabbit spooking a moose.
"But --" Suletta starts, before Miorine insists she ought to only worry about their duel. "... okay," she sighs, looking down at her cool-coloured uniform.
So long as it isn't white, Miorine is in trouble.
She frowns, hugging her knees to her chest a little tighter. "But," she starts, again, and with less life to it, "but Mr. Elan was nice to me." She pauses, before she asks, delicately: "Did he... say something bad to you, Ms. Miorine? W-when I wasn't there? Is that -- why you're worried?"
She can't... imagine what problem Miorine would have with him, from what she's seen of him.
But Miorine does have a problem with him, so is there something she didn't see?
Like how some of the elders spoke about her -- when they thought she couldn't hear.
<Pose Tracker> Miorine Rembran has posed.
Miorine is still weirded out by the idea that anyone would fight for her. The only one who ever has is...
...gone.
Suletta is the first since then, it's surreal to her that someone would want to fight for her over just some 'mean words' because 'mean words' are the background noise of Miorine's life.
It's just, she can't tune it out either. She can't shrug it off. Miorine Rembran has never been able to hide her feelings.
She hates it. She hates what her life is right now. She hates what other people have made her life.
Small wonder, she usually prefers to be alone.
"I can handle it." She tells Suletta again, and it's looking out for herself in more ways than one...
This girl. She's always tying herself up in knots over everything. If she took on this too, she definitely couldn't focus on the upcoming duel.
Suletta insists that Mister Elan is nice to her, and Miorine's eyes narrow subtly, "Hey, what'd I just say?" She sounds irritated, "He's the enemy. Noone around here is nice without an ulterior motive."
Except...
... except you?
"Even me. I'm just using you because you're fighting for me." Wait, does Miorine think she's BEING NICE!? "Though I guess - you get something out of it too. If you don't win, they're going to kick you out - or worse."
Miorine doesn't say 'and then you can't make your dream come true'. It's wrong anyway, for them to burden her with all their hopes.
A breath huffs, and it's a light sigh, as her head dips. Her tone isn't quite so irritated now, it's more, baffled.
"What's it matter what specific thing he even said? You don't need to know that to know he's after me."
For once it's like, she's asking because she's confused. Suletta doesn't think like she does - her mindset is one she can't even begin to understand.
She just knows it's different from everyone else here.
<Pose Tracker> Suletta Mercury has posed.
"But..." Suletta tries to say, again, when Miorine insists she's using her, too. She looks to her, brow knit.
She frowns, turning back forwards, hugging her knees to her chest. "I'm not doing it for me," she insists, downcast. "I didn't do anything wrong. The rules say you can fight someone if you don't agree with them. I beat him, too." Is she -- perhaps -- a little sulky about that?!
It's not her fault they decided that Aerial was a Gundam and her win didn't count. They were wrong, anyway. Her mother said so!
"It's the right thing to do," she says, again. "I'm doing it because it's the right thing to do. If..."
Her expression gentles out to something more mild, as her grip loosens, around her knees. "If you have to use me to accept that," she says, "that's okay. It's okay. I..." ... it's not that she's used to it, though, so she can't finish her sentence.
"... I thought it mattered," she says, instead, "since it made you upset. I didn't know what he could say to make you upset, so... I thought I should ask." She thinks a lot of wrong things.
<Pose Tracker> Miorine Rembran has posed.
"You want to stay here don't you?" Miorine asks, with a slight tilt of her head, and a skeptical look, like she's having difficulty believing she's so selfless. "You have your list."
That at least, she can get on board with being a reason - those are things Suletta wants for herself.
"But - it's not like I don't agree. You followed the rules, it's not right for them to change them on a whim." She mutters, irritated again, but not at her, "That's why I busted in there to give that good for nothing father of mine a piece of my mind."
Granted, that was more for HER than Suletta. After all, he had decided to suspend the Holder duels and decide her husband imminently.
She doesn't actually clarify that though, to her it's more about just being upset at the change in rules.
The right thing to do?
Miorine again looks skeptical, like 'Is this girl for real?' but... it's not like she's never heard that from someone.
To do the right thing.
"Good." She utters instead, when Suletta tells her that it's okay to use her, "As long as you understand that much... then I'll use you."
Her grey eyes peer at Suletta, long and hard, but there's something serious in there, "Win. That's what I need you to do. That's all I need for you to do. Win and keep winning long enough for me to get out of here and escape to Earth."
There's something serious in her eyes, but there's something desperate too. Like even beyond the anger, is the desperation.
The need, to get out of here, to live her life as she desires.
Suletta insists that it matters... and Miorine lets out a small sigh, it continues to be a strange experience, that someone cares about her feelings enough to ask.
"We were forced on a group project together to close out a special seminar." Miorine explains, "He wasn't doing anything, so in order to get out of there and be rid of him, I decided to do it on my own. The TA came over and asked him how he was contributing."
Her eyes move sideways, as if recalling, "And he said that any good CEO knows how to delegate." Miorine utters the word as if she's mad enough about it that she might spit, but of course she doesn't, "As if I were his subordinate."
Her eyes subtly shift, and there's something ablaze in them, a pink refraction of the light in the grey. She looks at Suletta and tells Suletta flat out, "He hasn't won me yet though. And I'll do everything in my power to see that he doesn't."
Including... using you. She might as well have said.
<Pose Tracker> Suletta Mercury has posed.
"Of course I do!" Suletta protests. "But, the rules..." It might be a little whiny, the way she insists that she didn't do anything wrong, but --
Well, Suletta is always apologising for everything. She must need a pretty good excuse to say something isn't her fault.
She blinks, though, looking back to Miorine when she insists she busted in to yell at her own father. "Wow," she says, eyes wide. She can't imagine being so brave.
(Or so foolish, but she'd never say that, because Miorine's father isn't nice to her, so it's wrong to think it's silly to fight him. It's just -- her first reaction? The one she can't control so much? ... well, she'll just say that Miorine is very brave.)
She looks to Miorine, though, and -- if Miorine is that serious about the pain in her eyes, then -- she must really need to do it. She really needs to do it. "I promise," she affirms, again, loosening her grip on her knees so she can clap a fist to her chest instead. "If it's for your sake, I'll never lose a duel, Ms. Miorine. I'll win every single time."
Can she do it? Of course she can; Miorine asked it of her.
Miorine shares what Elan said, though, and Suletta deflates as she listens. She doesn't voice her doubts that perhaps Mr. Elan would say something like that to get out of bothering Ms. Miorine when she wanted to do it alone, because even if she does wonder, it was hard for Miorine to tell her something like this. She had to ask more than once, and that means it's really personal or difficult. (Her mother explained this unspoken social rule to her, one day, so she knows all about it.) "Oh," she says, instead, while she tries to get her thoughts together.
What Miorine thinks about it... matters. Miorine doesn't feel safe, so...
"But, you're the daughter of a CEO, too... so you should be delegating, right? So... so it's not nice to hear... that Mr. Elan was doing that. I guess it was really dismissive... right?" She sighs, glancing away from that fierce, blazing look. "He didn't say he just wasn't helping... I guess he didn't want to get in trouble. It doesn't seem like the Mr. Elan I know, but... but, um..." She clasps her hands together, by her knees. She likes Elan, and she likes Miorine, and she doesn't like having to pick sides. But it's not about her, is it? "... I believe you," she settles on, after a moment.
Does that mean she doesn't believe Elan?
Why does she feel so bad?
<Pose Tracker> Miorine Rembran has posed.
Suletta is fixated on the rules, and Miorine understands in a sense. Their rules is sometimes the only power she has, calling them to account on them.
"It's because lousy adults can change them as they please. Because 'they said so.'"
Miorine reports to Suletta, and certainly Suletta's never had a situation in the past where something was just because someone said so.
Certainly she doesn't catch that Suletta thinks it's foolish to stand up to her father, or that it's wrong - her turning in knots over the idea until she decides it's not wrong.
That it's brave.
But is Miorine, actually brave? Perhaps... that was her bravest moment. And Suletta cannot understand that she inspired it in her.
That Miorine was in fact, leaving - and leaving her. Until she decided...
To Gain Two.
It wasn't for Suletta, it was for herself. To gain experience, and pride. And yet, it was due to what Suletta taught her that day.
"Good." Miorine actually looks, relieved? Like Suletta's words are actually bringing her relief, if only because it's the one real burden - the one fight she lets Suletta take from her. "Don't let your mind wander off of that. You being my Groom - is what gives me a chance to get out of here, to Earth."
Even though Suletta isn't TECHNICALLY her groom right now? But perhaps - in Miorine's eyes, she is, because it was invalid to switch the rules up, to void the duel.
Suletta won, so Suletta is her groom.
Simple as that.
Suletta though, sounds - looks small, when she tries to work through what she said, tries to work through the context of Elan saying that.
Suletta believes her.
Why is that idea important? It's... that as difficult as it is to believe, Suletta is on her side.
"It's because I want nothing to do with that lousy father of mine." Miorine tells her, with a hint of irritation, and the heat returns, "After what he did - I'd rather die than take over for him."
There's a flash of anger in her eyes, not at Suletta, but at the memory of a coffin. The memory of her being the only one there, as he walked away.
"I will never forgive him!" She lets out and it's like the words are being angrily ground through her teeth, "That's why they can get away with that. ... Because, I'm not my father's daughter." She explains, and there's a deescalation of tension in her as she slowly straightens up, hands smoothing over her tights before she reaches out grasping her bag, "I'm not meant to inherit the group. Whoever marries me - is. You understand right?"
Her bag is casually swung over her shoulder, as it flaps down to cover one part of her white hair, "I'm expected to submit to my groom."
And in this moment, Miorine reaches her other hand down, "But I have no intention of submitting to anyone or anything, least of all - his expectations for me."
The outstretched hand towards her Groom, Suletta is so much taller ordinarily, but in this moment, she rises higher, and indeed perhaps this too is her defying expectations.
By placing her hopes on a Groom that instead submits even to someone who outright tells her, she's using her.
And yet, still - despite this girl treating her like this, in this moment, she's offering her a hand up, isn't she?
Because Suletta didn't need to come here, and didn't need to care about her feelings.
And yet, she did.
<Pose Tracker> Suletta Mercury has posed.
"I guess I never saw anything like that... mom was always really fair." Does that mean her expectations never suddenly changed?
Or does it mean that if Prospera changed her mind, that was fair enough?
She keeps those contradictions on the inside -- right alongside her secret feelings about defying parents. There are some things she just doesn't need to worry about. The important thing is that Miorine is relieved, talking to Suletta. The important thing is that Suletta helped.
(And she's still Miorine's groom, even though her uniform is this drab. Even though her uniform is this drab! Because she won, and because she promised...)
"That's awful!" Suletta protests, when Miorine lays it all out. "It's not fair!" She cares very much about things being fair.
But Miorine reaches her hand down, and Suletta looks at it, for a moment, looking up to her --
Her eyes widen, as, perhaps, she gets it. She gets why it's so important for Miorine to be the boss -- and boss her around. Even if she says mean things, sometimes... it's because Suletta is her Groom. When Guel was her Groom, he was the one saying awful things to Miorine. They must expect -- they must expect her to treat her the same way. So that's why... she's not always nice.
It's because she has to defy her father. Because it isn't fair.
Miorine isn't a mean person; she has a really good reason to treat Suletta this way.
So...
"Don't worry!" Suletta smiles, brightly, as she takes Miorine's hand and her help in rising up. "I'll win every match for you, so you won't have to deal with that awful deal! Count on me, Ms. Miorine!"
And once she's up, she looks back, towards class. Part of being able to count on her, of course -- means not getting expelled for other reasons. So, sheepishly, she looks back and proposes: "... um... should we go back to class?"
And if they gossip about them both running off at once, well, Suletta will try not to snap at them for it.
Since Miorine told her to focus on winning.
<Pose Tracker> Miorine Rembran has posed.
Miorine turns as if she's going to head back to class once she's pushed out of the restroom. However... her footsteps stop.
And there's a glance Suletta's way.
"Never mind that." She means on whether we 'should'. "...Is cutting class on that list of yours?"
She'd be a little surprised if it is, after all, Suletta does the right thing.
But, she asks anyway.
Perhaps it's on her list of school fantasies all the same.