2024-06-03: !pay attention to mE
- Log: !pay attention to mE
- Cast: Yuliana Kafim, Eight Orlodhari
- Where: The Photon Power Labs / Magallanica (Video Call)
- Date: 2024-06-03
- Summary: Yuliana's therapy is cancelled, so she rings up Eight with an excuse to get her attention. Unfortunately, that excuse is exposing Nova Stellar as a Whispered. But Yuliana gets her attention, and isn't that what's really important here?
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Shockingly, despite Yuliana's full recovery schedule, she does have times when she's not doing much of anything. Like this afternoon, for instance -- Dr. Kimura had to leave to do something else, as if anything else were more important than her, so she's been left to her own devices.
And they kicked her out of the gym because she was making them look bad. Or she'd been "in there too long", whatever. She could have kept going!
Of course the first thing she does is ring her wife and whine to her about how she's being IGNORED (like five people have looked in to check on her) for NO REASON (it was some personal junk, whatever) and it's an OUTRAGE. She gets good and mad about that for a good half-hour before she cuts off any hopes for going on a murdering spree by being halfway reasonable about the whole thing and supposing it must have been unplanned or he would have told her already. And then she gets to feel bad about giving him credit, for absolutely no reason, and...
Anyway, eventually Yuliana lets her wife go to keep working on her very important work, and that means she's abandoned in one of these empty meeting-rooms again. She hugs Plyushokrova, pouting openly. "Hmph," she huffs, feelings still quite hurt.
What does a woman have to do to get a little attention around here?!
She considers, briefly, tossing the pot-plant through a window. That would get everyone's attention. But then Sayaka would yell at her, and Leina would put on her stupid I'm-not-mad-I'm-just-disappointed face, which is entirely unfair because she's like, TWENTY, she's not supposed to be able to PULL that face on Yuliana --
"Hmph!" Yuliana huffs, again, as she pulls out her phone and dials up a number.
"You had better not be busy!"
Her petulant tone is all it takes for Eight Orlodhari to know this is going to be a whole Event.
<Pose Tracker> Eight Orlodhari has posed.
For Yuliana, it's the afternoon. That's all well and good. For Eight, it is not even evening it is outright nighttime. The twins are down for the night (unless one wakes up) and Eight is in bed. She could simply ignore the phone when it rings. But it might be something important. So of course, she blinks a few time, reaches to the nightstand, and--
It's Yuliana.
"no," Eight deadpans, "not busy at all." The lack of capitalization is important. It denotes that Eight has just been awakened from slumber.
Lavnadim used to sleep like a rock but now he cracks an eye open, but Yuliana can't see that. She can, however, hear--
"Hello, Yuliana." says Eight.
"Nnnnnnn," comes a masculine voice from a bit away.
To be fair to Yuliana, it isn't that late in Magallanica. It's just that Eight went to bed early.
"...So what's on your mind?"
She hasn't turned on video yet.
The audio sounds a little distant though. As if she might be on speaker for a moment!! The horror.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
There are a million timezones and that's just real timezones not even getting into space timezones, Yuliana cannot be expected to keep track of what time it is everywhere in the universe.
"Better not be," Yuliana says, and her pout is audible, even without the video. "And you're not broadcasting me to everyone, are you?! You won't want to!" Okay, threat laid, now what is she actually holding over her head --
Oh, yeah, that'll do.
"This is about the safety of your people, after all," she sniffs, haughtily, as she leans back on her chair and folds one leg over the other. She does click her video on, now, holding her phone up with a tentacle so she can look up to see her.
Technically, she doesn't know she's their people, but that girl did flock with the Kakapos, so it's close enough for terrorist work.
(She doesn't work for the government any more.)
<Pose Tracker> Eight Orlodhari has posed.
Pouting. Of course. Eight can deal with this. She turns on the light briefly and mouths something to Lavnadim. "There's not an 'everyone'," Eight sighs. But then--the safety of her people. She lifts an eyebrow. Her husband shrugs. Eight says, "Just a moment."
The video feed is DARKNESS at first but after a moment Eight arrives in a place with light. The scene travels with her as she walks to the living room, her upper body visible. She is wearing what is probably one of her husband's shirts.
This is definitely terrorist work.
"All right," Eight says, and looks into the phone. "So what is this about the safety of my people?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"That girl of yours," Yuliana points, at the screen. "Nova Stellar -- she is one of yours, isn't she? She's always deploying with your people." It's a win-win situation; either Eight tells her that she's not associated with her, and she knows to search for her elsewhere, or she gets to be sure she's one of Eight's little friends.
(Yuliana may be exaggerating that 'always', a little, for the sake of her gambit. But it's often enough.)
"I'm just saying," Yuliana sniffs, "you really ought to keep an eye on her. She's not just a Newtype, you know. I'm sure you've heard the news --" she gestures, in a loose spiral, "though I'm not so sure she'll have fessed up to its relevance."
Yuliana grins. It's not a pleasant expression. "Of course, she didn't need to tell me. And while she was a very rude girl -- you know I reached out to her and she screamed and ran? -- I would feel simply rotten if I knew she was in peril and did nothing at all. I would never do something like that!" Except, of course, for the time she did it to Leina.
But Leina hurt her feelings. (While she was under mind control.) And Yuliana eventually saved her anyway, so why would she even be mad?
She's doing the right thing, entirely altruistically and with no selfish motivation at all.
<Pose Tracker> Eight Orlodhari has posed.
Eight looks flatly back at Yuliana as she points at her (rude). The expression could be classed as a grimace. But, "I'm aware of such a person," she confirms, because her face did that much already. She doesn't actually say she's one of hers but she doesn't deny it either, so score one for Yuliana.
But, Yuliana is grinning. "Ah. The news that was leaked out of a video game forum," Eight says. Then she sighs. Yes, Yuliana knows about Naoko, and yes, that means Eight is going to have to warn hr that Yuliana knows about her.
Eight thinks, 'I can't imagine why she wouldn't like you', but doesn't actually say it. Instead, "So you wanted me to warn her?" she confirms. "Well. That's very... nice of you."
Something like that, anyway.
"Do you know of a specific threat, or is this just about the rumors?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"I'd warn her myself," Yuliana sighs, that awful grin finally fleeing her face so that she can press her fingers to her temple instead, "only I doubt she'd hear me out for a second, you know? This is the only way I could think of to make sure people were keeping an eye on her." She looks terribly troubled about the whole thing!
"But do tell her I was worried, won't you?" She asks, a touch plaintive, tilting her head. "We got off on the wrong foot, but I didn't want to scare her off. I'll forgive her for setting me back so much! She's young, so she can't be expected to handle such frightening things perfectly."
Which means... Yuliana is invested in Naoko knowing she was worried enough to warn Eight.
Which means...
"I don't know about any plots in specific," Yuliana lies, as easily as she breathes. "But I can't rule out that other people couldn't identify Whispered like I could. Not that I had a name for it, before now..." Maybe she shouldn't tell Eight that she could tell who they were, but she's already decided she wants attention, so obviously she's going to use what she's got. She runs a finger through her hair, thoughtfully. "Still, you have to imagine she'd be a high priority for capture. And as I demonstrated myself, Magallanica is hardly impervious to foreign agents with unmarked vans." Is she still sore about that kidnapping attempt? That was ages ago!
(It being ages ago doesn't count as disqualifying when Yuliana is mad about it, though.)
<Pose Tracker> Eight Orlodhari has posed.
"I can't imagine why," Eight answers first, because she just woke up and that is laying it on pretty thick. Eight listens to the rest. The 'wrong foot', Yuliana calls it. Eight thinks of many things to say to that. Some of them could be funny. All would be antagonistic, and...
"I'm sure she'll be glad to hear you care."
"It does sound like a rare talent, being able to identify them just by being near them," Eight says, "But I suppose you're right. Someone else could have it."
Pause. "True," she says of the kidnapping attempt. "I remain pleased that we could foil that one and help you." That's about as pass-agg as Eight can get, though; it's not her style. She just fails to mention that Nova is more likely to be on the ship than on the colony.
"Well," she decides, "Thank you for the warning. Was there anything else?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana lays it on only as thick as it needs to be. She's great at this. Yes she is. Shut up.
"Oh, good," she smiles, when Eight assures her she'll be glad. She does look relieved! Maybe she really does want to do a nice thing?
Well, maybe she also wants to do a nice thing.
It's possible.
She smiles along with Eight's passive-aggression; apparently, she's conciliatory enough that she's willing to let her have it, though not so conciliatory that she won't let her know with her expression that she's letting her get away with it. Because she's just that generous!
She pouts, though, when Eight asks if there's anything else. "Is there anything else! You're talking like you want to dismiss me as soon as I've helped you! That's so rude." Yuliana, you woke her up -- "Come, now, I've not seen you since you last visited! How's Lahvi? Did Rena get home safe after her little sojourn? No delayed side-effects? Those problems don't tend to express until you go to sleep, you know, I've been so worried. And what about you? How's the Admiral life even treating you?"
Oh no, she's chatty.
<Pose Tracker> Eight Orlodhari has posed.
Many things are possible.
It is at least rewarding to see Yuliana's expression in the moment; Eight is awake enough to enjoy that. But Yuliana pouts, and Eight understands that there is no socially easy way to get out of this conversation just yet.
...Well, there's an unsocially easy way. But Eight does know Yuliana seems to want the chance to talk to people other than her wife...
Well, it's fine.
"Wouldn't dream of it," Eight deadpans. Then, with a little more feeling, "He's good. He says hello, by the way. I came out here instead because you wanted privacy."
A pause. Rena... "Yes, she's safe," Eight is willing to confirm. "And well." No side-effects! ...Or at least, if there were any, not that she's going to talk about.
"But me? I've been well enough. You know how desk work is," she says, because she can talk about paperwork without talking about the details of it. "It's different from being in the field... But it's not bad."
"Lavhi's busy enough lately that it's been me and the twins and my assistant a lot of the time, but not today. I was happy about that."
"The twins are mostly sleeping through the night these days, though there are..." Pause. "Exceptions."
It doesn't hurt anything to share a little.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Of course, Yuliana talked to her wife first. But her wife has a lot to take care of, back home, and Yuliana assured her she'd be fine.
She could talk to other people in the PPL, certainly, but she's still miffed that Dr. Kimura had something come up.
And that leaves...
Well, it's not that Yuliana doesn't have plenty of people who'd want to talk to her, it's just that she decided to talk to Eight today because she's making an effort and everyone should appreciate that.
"Oh, good," Yuliana smiles. "Do say hello for me! You'll excuse my caution, but I couldn't very well see where you were. For all I knew, you were broadcasting me to the entire mess hall!" The acoustics were all wrong for that, but anyway. "And it's so good to know Rena's well, too." If only because Rena not being well might be bad for her.
She tilts her head, sympathetically, at the mention of paperwork. And -- "Oh, you have an assistant, now? Who's that? Is it --" she almost says 'Anita', but narrowly avoids raising the cattiness levels dangerously high by instead looking up and humming, "ahh, what was it... I can't quite remember the name?"
(This would be a terrible save if Eight knew her better; Yuliana has an excellent memory for names, even if she doesn't always choose to use them. Conveniently, Eight is one of her arch-nemeses, so she might not know that. ... maybe.)
"Still," she smiles, looking back to the camera again, "it's a good choice to get help with all that paperwork. I never could stand it, myself." If Eight ever got a chance to look at Yuliana's reports, when they were in Londo Bell and the REA respectively, she would have noticed two things:
1) Her reports really looked like they were written by a handful of different people at different times, and
2) One of those people was prone to careless spelling errors and filing mistakes.
"Particularly equipment requisitions... it's not like we had oversight, black ops and all, but we still had to justify things to that wretched Major. But I suppose you don't much have that problem, do you, big boss as you are? I imagine your problem is far more in sourcing the equipment to begin with." She sighs, curling her bangs around a finger. "It's hard when you're on the outs with NUNE," she bemoans, as if she knows just as well how hard it is. (Does she?) "They control so much, and leave the rest with so little."
She shakes her head, smiling again. "But it is lovely to hear the twins are sleeping," she adds, and actually does sound happy about it. "That must be such a relief for you, after all this time!"
<Pose Tracker> Eight Orlodhari has posed.
Of course! That's definitely what it is.
"I will," Eight answers. Hopefully he's still awake. It's not very nice to hope that, but she does at the moment. "It's fine," Eight says of caution. "You didn't know. And I didn't want to leave you broadcasting that long anyway." Since the twins are in the other room.
"You haven't met her," Eight says simply, because she doesn't know Yuliana well enough to recognize the bad save but she does know enough to avoid giving this woman details on her routine. But it is a 'her'. "She's new."
But, "It's important to delegate," Eight agrees, because she's being charitable, but also, "Though I don't mind most of it. It's more what I don't get to do than what I'm actually doing."
A pause. Equipment... hmmm. "The MDF does have to account to the local government about large expenditures," Eight says, and says nothing of Terminal. Eight is not as animated as she could be, but her eyes are sharper than they were at the start of the conversation. "NUNE's idea is to control as much as they can," Eight says with a shrug.
She smiles back, though. That part is nice. "It is," she agrees, a relief. "When they don't sleep, it's usually both of them--one crying sets off the other. But they can keep each other calm, too, and avoid being lonely that way when I have to work."
"...You must get a lot of chance to see your nephews when you're home," she says, related to the subject. "I admit... I've been tempted to just focus on my family, too. But not just yet."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"It's hardly a public conversation," Yuliana agrees, which means that Eight probably dodged her getting mad over Eight assuming she'd wake her children up.
(She might have. But she'd probably feel bad about it! Probably.)
She tilts her head, though, when Eight shares -- "A new girl? Where did you pick this one up?" Eight picks up such a wide variety of crewmembers, after all. She even once had someone from the Institute with her.
Would Yuliana be mad if she knew about the Ra Mari II's ghost? Luckily, she's the one woman who can never be haunted. Not like that, anyway.
"Precisely," she adds, with a pout. "Sometimes I'd be so busy with paperwork, I'd have to sent Lettu and Letda out to do the fun stuff!" The murders and the torture. She's talking about the murders and the torture. "Lettu always lectured me about how it was my job because I was the boss and it's just, like, if I'm the boss, why can't I make you do it?"
She frequently made Wendy do it.
"But you're the one who explains why they're large," she points out, with a sly grin, when Eight talks about the MDF's accountability.
Luckily, she's distracted from playing house with intrigue by -- her house! Eight foils Yuliana with the one thing she loves more than anything else: herself. (Her family counts under that umbrella.) "I do!" She says, brightening, when Eight mentions her nephews. "Of course I call them every day -- but with the time-zone difference, I can't be that much of a presence, I'm afraid." Her wife may not care about details like 'when', but Makar and Maksim have to sleep on a regular schedule.
She doesn't seem to notice the implicit weight on 'focusing on her family too', which might mean she actually values it.
"They're still quite young, of course, but they're of an age to begin exploring the world -- particularly Maksim, you know? He's eight, now. My wife got him a snake just recently! It's his very first pet!" Familiar, technically, but Eight doesn't have to hear her say it like that. "He named her 'Swordtooth', isn't that just precious? Of course we have distance education -- I suppose you'll use a similar arrangement, eventually, unless you've enough children aboard to support a class -- but the children do benefit from personal tutelage, just the same. Makar is quite invested in heavy machinery, as you can imagine... it's been an excellent opportunity to improve his mathematics, since he wants to know more about petit mobile suits. Perhaps he'll make a fine engineer, one day!"
<Pose Tracker> Eight Orlodhari has posed.
"She's from Orb," Eight answers, because she does have a wide variety. Of course, a lot of people come from Orb, so that's not a ton of information. Isn't Yuliana's wife from Orb?
The fun stuff. Eight imagines what Yuliana considers the fun stuff. It is not a great imagining. "I'm sure it was a lively set of conversations," she says, rather than weigh in on either side. Instead--
She is the one who explains it. That's true. However, Eight does discuss Yuliana's family, which is probably for the best.
"That makes sense," Eight says of being a presence every day. "Maybe that'll change soon enough. I'd hate to see you miss out on too much."
Eight figures that's what Yuliana is effectively doing, since she doesn't seem to be out doing horrible things these days.
"Oh, eight! Yes, I'm sure he's very inquisitive." A snake! "Pets... I've been considering pets." Swordtooth. That's...
"That's a very eight-year-old name," Eight says, but she says it with a smile and a pleased tone. "...We might," Eight says. "But if I'm doing desk work anyway, I might lean into that. There are schools establishing on the Colony, after all."
There would probably be enough children on the ship to support a small class, but--
"Is he, though? Heavy machinery... I wonder if either of them will be, given their father's interests?"
"It's hard to say. I was talking to someone about whether they'd be interested in sports, earlier..."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana's wife is, in one sense, from Orb. It's complicated, but she does have roots there. They did magic about it!
It was, in fact, a very lively set of conversations. The Nega Force liked their jobs. They're not very nice people.
(Perhaps exempting the 'they', but Yuliana doesn't know anything about Concentric in the present day, even if they might have been in contact with Eight since they changed their name from Cascade. It's surely best to keep it that way.)
"They say I'll need therapy for a while," Yuliana sighs, when Eight suggests it might change. "Once, I asked Dr. Kimura just how long a while meant, and he said it might even be ten years. Ten years! How am I supposed to keep this up for ten years?! I don't even know if I'll be here that long!" It would be easier for her, evidently, if she didn't have to put in effort for so long. (And while her exclamation would normally be quite alarming, in this case, she probably means that they've planned an exit to the Void.) "But," she sighs, "it's just one day a time, I suppose."
While she doesn't have an excuse, anyway.
She does snicker, though, when Eight exclaims that Maksim is eight. It is kind of funny! "He was so proud of himself," she brags, because she's proud of him too. "You know he named my snakes, too? I told him that they were just like his hands, but he insists they ought to be called Fey and Dream, so I suppose they have names now!" She laughs, cheered by his enthusiasm, a hand resting at her cheek. "He's enjoying reading fairy tales now he's a more robust reader, so he's embracing that kind of topic, I suppose."
Still smiling, she says: "It would be a little unorthodox -- you know, even my boys, they're at very different stages of their life, five and eight. But if you could find a teacher who could engage them all, it could work. And it would be good for the children to be together! They do need to socialise, you know. Even the remote children get together in outings for this purpose." Does that mean that children come to visit the Castle when the Morozov boys host their classes? What a horrifying thought.
She tilts her head, and adds, comfortably: "Parents shape their childrens' interests, though not always in the ways they expect. If you're too pushy, they might turn away from your lessons to prove they're their own people... but you know, my boys have taken much more interest in improving their foreign languages since they've come into my care, just because I bring it into their lives more. If your twins see your Lahvi's interest in the mechanical, you may well find that they take a shine to it!"
What that says about Maksim enjoying fairy tales is left as an exercise for the reader.
(He has two aunts.)
<Pose Tracker> Eight Orlodhari has posed.
Definitely best.
Ten years. "Therapy takes a long time," Eight answers. "For me, it took a while too. Sometimes it gets a little easier as you go. It was definitely like that for me; the first couple years were... rough."
Yuliana might be gone by then, though. Would that be better for the world?
"Right. Good luck."
"Did he?" she asks, and she should be more weirded out about the snakes but at the moment she can at least accept those. "Well, stories are good for the imagination."
Though... with Yuliana's wife, the sorts of stories feeding his imagination might be...
"Hmmm..." Eight nods along. "Have they?" she asks. "That's good. I'm trying to expose mine to a variety of languages, too." A pause. "Hmm. Maybe. I plan to show them a lot of things, give them the chance to choose for themselves."
But, "...It's good that Makar and Maksim are getting to socialize, too!" She was... concerned, with them being up there.
"I'm not the only one in my orbit with small children at least, so Zaress and Aarmi can too."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Yeah..." Yuliana sighs, glancing away. "It's rough." And that, at least, sounds entirely honest; it's hard for them, with Yuliana coming here. Hard for her wife, too. And when her wife is bothered, Yuliana is bothered...
But she doesn't get into all that, because it's personal.
She smiles, at least, when Eight wishes her luck.
"They are," she agrees, on stories.
And she nods, when Eight says she's exposing them to languages. "Good!" She laughs, fingers veiling her lips. "Just be sure to give them some time to rest between all those new experiences, all right? I had some friends as a girl whose fathers insisted they be in some class or club every minute after school, and they were a mess." She pauses. "Well, at the time. Perhaps they'd have turned out fine, if they hadn't drowned." Is it strange to hear Yuliana refer to a shared past which is at once entirely normal and normally tragic? Not even she sprung from the Void fully-formed.
"And it's so important for children to socialise," Yuliana agrees. "Of course, I'm thinking of it, too... but it's wonderful news that there are other children for yours to meet, as well. Have you started introducing them, yet? It's important even when they're that young, I'm told."
<Pose Tracker> Eight Orlodhari has posed.
Eight moves on. She continues through, "Of course," to rest, but then Yuliana explains the story, and ends it quite abruptly. Eight makes a sliding sort of face, a glance to the side. "I'm sorry," she says. Then, she looks back to Yuliana again. "But point taken."
"Yes," Eight answers easily. "It's especially important at this age, I think. Even if they don't remember everything, it's worth doing."
Eight pauses, then. She doesn't invite Yuliana and her family to Magallanica, like she might a more normal 'friend'. Instead, "I'm going to look in on them a moment, when we finish here."
"It's lucky, having family. Isn't it?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"It's all right," Yuliana sighs, softly. "It was a long time ago." Earth is full of tragedies; that floods ruined her life not once but twice is tragically normal, compared to everything else. Earth might have a very young population, but the way the legal age keeps creeping ever-downwards to cope with the lack of adults obscures the fact that plenty of children are too fragile to survive war and disaster, too.
She was one of the lucky ones.
Perhaps they've built an entire civilisation from 'lucky ones'.
She smiles, shaking her head. "Part of them remembers," she says. "Even if they won't recall it consciously, when they grow up. The things which happen to a child stay with them, because children are designed to learn and adapt. It would just be bad design if they forgot their early lessons... that's what Dr. Kimura told me, anyway." And was he talking about Yuliana, or Yuliana's nephews? Perhaps he was considering them both.
It's hard to call Eight a friend, even if Yuliana is making an effort to be considerate and reach out here; in that, they're of one mind. "Oh," she smiles, "is that what you were going to do?" As if Yuliana hadn't woken her up. But at least she assures Eight: "If that's what your plan was, I couldn't bear to keep you! For you're right about this, at least -- it's very lucky. You're a very lucky woman. I do hope they're doing well."
<Pose Tracker> Eight Orlodhari has posed.
Eight nods, to that siigh. But then--
Part of them remembers. Maybe that's true. For Eight, it is unfamiliar; she does not have that piece of her childhood for herself. She has to forge a new idea of it, from what she can lernn and what she can try.
Bad design, though... An interesting phrasing. "I think that makes sense," she says. "I don't aim to act like they'll just forget, anyway."
"All right then," Eight says. "I am," Eight agrees on luck. It sounds like an insult from Yuliana, but it's something Eight believes in anyway. "Thank you. I'll pass on your hellos to Lavhi, too."
Eight starts to rise from her seat. "Goodnight, Yuliana."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Well, Noburu was talking to an engineer when he explained it that way. "It's best to assume they'll remember," she agrees, even if it's very inconvenient when bad things happen to the children.
"Good," Yuliana smiles, when Eight assures her she'll pass on her regards. She tilts her head, when Eight says goodnight, and -- "Oh? Goodnight, then," as if she didn't know it was the middle of the night.
At least she ends the call, so Eight is finally free. She sighs, leaning back on her chair.
"I guess I feel a little better..."
And doesn't stop to think at all that she's exposed Naoko to her superiors in order to get that opportunity.