2024-07-02: Leina's Frustration
- Log: Leina's Frustration
- Cast: Yuliana Kafim, Leina Ashta
- Where: The Silent Castle, Kaffeklubben Island / Hotel, Von Braun (video call)
- Date: 2024-07-02
- Summary: Yuliana finally rings Leina, but Leina is angry to learn that Yuliana is working with Neo-Zeon -- though Yuliana says she hasn't allied with Neo-Zeon as much as Neo-Zeon being one faction of many to align to a greater force. When Yuliana lets slip more details of Elisa's stalking, though, Leina grows distressed, trying desperately to convince Yuliana to leave Elisa for the sake of herself and the world -- because Elisa is made so much more powerful with access to Yuliana. Unfortunately, Elisa is one step ahead of her, and Yuliana flees the conversation deep in her own distress. (CW: Coercive control)
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Ugh," Yuliana groans, canting forward against the desk of her recording studio. Her winged tiara rolls off of her head, one dragon's wing stopping it at the side of the desk. "Why is it so hard to hit the right notes on this?!"
"It's not like you're convincing people in front of you, Captain," Wendy points out, behind her camera. "Performing for a camera is a different skill-set, right?"
"They're not even supposed to notice the camera," Yuliana grouses.
"So that's even harder!" Wendy chirps, as she puts it to one side. "Why don't we take a break? It's gonna be way more difficult if you put a hole in the set again."
"Sure, sure," Yuliana grouses, planting her face on the desk. "Ugh..."
"Ciao," Wendy waves, as she steps outside -- off to go find Guanyu. Surely she can take a break, too.
And Yuliana lists, one cheek against the desk. The room does look a lot like a study, since it was one, originally; it's just that half the room is occupied with recording equipment, now. The veracity of the furniture does nothing to protect against Yuliana putting holes in it, though. Wendy's worked with her Captain for years now, and she knows how to manage her.
She's left in her nice, comfy office chair, fireplace crackling off to the side, and for long moments she's motionless against the cool mahogany of the desk. She murmurs something incoherent, frustrated and defeated and full of nothing but bad feelings because Wendy saw that recording their messages was hard. Well, it's better than someone unrelated seeing it, but...
"Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh," Yuliana groans.
Helping the people is SO HARD.
Maybe she should...
She gets the thought, and straightens up, pulling her phone out of her pocket. If she's expending so much effort on the world, why shouldn't she get a little sympathy? Besides, Leina has a lot to answer for.
> Can I talk t_
She pouts, backspaces, and starts again.
> I want to talk to you. Make it heppan.
That's better, she thinks, as she sets her phone on its stand on the desk, that gold-winged crown half in its field of view as she sits behind it in her ceremonial black robes.
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
Delilah - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ50rvySDCk
The Von Braun hotel boasted wake up calls with a view of the sun. At the proper time, the panels shifted to show a protected vision of the sun's rays over Mare Tranquillitatis...
... mind you, the sun rises and sets differently here, on month cycles, so it's not actually seeing the sun rise. It's mostly a gimmick.
The colony Girl's eyes squint up however, at the shaded view of that bright dot, over the grey surface and the craters.
The next moment, she looked at the position of her hand in the bed.
There's no indention that belongs to a person. It's just an empty space where a person ought to be. Her body so trained that even if she forced herself to fall asleep in one way... she ends up in this way.
Her eyes close, and there's a sigh, before she forces herself up, grasping a little pill case, and palming them, then taking a sip from a hotel's water cup.
Her night gown shifted as she got up, moving towards the bathroom and rubbing her eyes, grasping her phone on the way.
Her eyes look at her new messages and...
"Really?" Right after the strange message about the mobile dolls. "Just... give me a bit first, get my head on straight."
The hiss of a showerhead coming on soon followed...
... it's only a couple of hours later after she's had two cups of coffee in her, and breakfast that she finally sets up in the hotel room, putting out a DND sign and setting the bolt, the bar lock. Then adding a hydraulic security bar that sets into place under the knob and latches into the crack of the frame.
Putting on her musical playlist on a datapad, she puts on her noise cancelling microphone and headphones, heading into the bathroom and closes the door.
Leina for her part is wearing just a simple pink jumper visibly, the hotel is cold... and then she rings up.
Putting on her best 'I'm both disappointed and a little mad.' face, which is frankly really easy in this case.
Yep. That face is going to be the first thing Yuliana sees.
"Well? Go ahead."
And then puts the onus on her to talk first.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Wendy opens the door, after forty minutes pass, only for her strange red-ringed eyes to widen in surprise. "Captain?" She asks, a hand on the side of the door. "Didn't you go take a break? Uh, or do you want to --"
"Shoo," Yuliana waves a hand at her, as the other props up her cheek, not even bothering to look up. "I'm waiting on a call."
"O...okay..." Wendy fixes her with a quizzical look, as she steps back out and closes the door again.
(Hopefully, Elisa doesn't ask her where her wife is.)
...---...
Yuliana drums her fingers on the desk.
Yuliana's tentacles drum their claws on the desk, too.
Drum, drum, drum.
Her leg bounces, folded over the other under the desk; she's buried her cheek in the heel of a hand, again. She heaves a deep, weary sigh.
"It's not that hard," she grouses, at empty air. "Hurry up."
...---...
Finally, Leina's face flashes onto the screen. "Took you long enough!" Yuliana exclaims, her frill flaring up behind her ears as she straightens up from where she was slumped over her desk. (The same desk, Leina might notice, where she records her messages for the Silent Calling. The angle's a little different, though. Her phone's on the desk itself, after all.)
She scowls, and pouts, and huffs: "Don't give me that look! What do you want me to say?! That I should have delayed them forever? You know that's unreasonable!" It also handily implies that she was delaying her new friends at all, which is a much nicer story, right now. "I didn't even want you to get involved! In fact --" she's glad Leina wasn't there for the release for those automatons, "never mind," Yuliana spits out, instead, soured on the idea of even trying to tell her.
"I just had the ridiculous idea you'd want to know I was okay," she pouts, wounded. "But of course I knew you'd just want to lecture me... I don't know what possessed me to actually try and call you, this time, since I'd already figured that out. Tch, and look at you, doing it without even saying anything, I bet you're happy with yourself!"
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
Leina doesn't say anything at first at the 'Took you long enough!' but a single eyebrow raises up as if to say 'You sure that's how you wanna start?' before allowing her to just talk.
And talk. The look doesn't change as Yuliana pouts at her. And say that she had this ridiculous idea that she just wanted to know that she was okay.
She lets her finish off...
... that's when she begins, and there' no small amount of heat, "So first off I have a life - Yuliana. I have a job. I have classes. I'm seeing someone and juggling my involvement twenty different people's social lives on any given day. So no - you don't get to imply that it 'took me long enough', when it takes time to even set up chatting because if people find out it could compromise God knows how much!"
She holds up a second finger now, as if to imply the first was always there, "Second, you just wanted to let me know you were okay? After you couldn't even be bothered to tell me that you were going back home to - I dunno, FOUND A NEW TERRORIST GROUP? THAT WORKS WITH NEO-ZEON REMNANTS?"
Oh right that might be a little bit of a sore point for Miss Ashta?
"After and I'd like to stress this - AFTER I expressed to you significant concerns about you going back home. So yes - I'm glad that you're okay. No - I'm not thrilled you decided to slip out back from the thing I risked a lot trying to get you help from - to go do what you did!"
Leina rubs her face, "Did you ever stop to think that maybe my feelings about all this might extend beyond just 'I'm glad you're currently safe' when you decided to get into bed with Neo-Zeon too? 'I dunno Leina I'm not sure why you're upset, what's a threesome with a Spacenoid Supremacy movement between consenting adults?'"
She eyes Yuliana, before raising her volume just subtly, "WELL?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana frowns, at the first point. Her eye twitches, at the second. Her lips twist, at the third. She is patient enough to let Leina finish digging her grave, and she thinks she deserves a medal, for that.
Once she raises her voice, though, Yuliana grasps the edge of her desk with her hands and the jaws of her tentacles, leaning over it to yell in turn: "I didn't found anything!" Her frill flares, and she, at least, doesn't have to be subtle about her volume. "The -- the one who did just asked us both, all right?! Do you think I'm HAPPY to be working with that man?! BECAUSE I'M NOT, LEYASHA!" Her hand balls to a fist, slamming down on the desk. Luckily, it's made of hardwood, so it manages to withstand the blow. "The only one of his goddamn troupe of clowns worth half a damn is that girl who only cares about killing her enemies, and only then because I get it!"
No one tell her about Emilia's family. That's just not going to go well for anyone.
"SECOND," she snaps, "I didn't tell you because I knew you'd hate it but you know what we'd BOTH hate MORE?! BioNet! Because no one else will suffer us, Leyasha! Name me one organisation that would take a couple of NUNE's Most Wanted Reality Criminals on to fix the world's woes! That's right," she huffs, sinking back into her chair, folding her arms and then folding her tentacles over her arms just to underline the point, "you can't. And I really didn't want to have to go to those people after what they did. Besides..." Yuliana scowls, drumming her fingers on her arm as she glances aside. "... Elya likes the Dawn of Fold. She wants to make a good impression... so."
Her frown deepens, but her tone at least drops back down, too. "That's why I had to slip out back... as you put it. I thought I'd be supporting her... but she didn't want to scare them off, so we decided I'd go, instead."
Her fingers keep drumming, but she falls silent.
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
As Yuliana yells back and slams on the hardword desk, Leina withstands it without flinching, well familiar with the back and forth of arguments... even when it takes on that violent cadence.
Yuliana is in no position to harm her from here, "What man!? And also - you KIND OF DID! Given that you were there for their inaugural event! Angelo even gave a BIG SPEECH! Didn't you hear him call you out?"
The second part though, "Yeah? Of course I hate it! You think I'm gonna be happy about this whole 'Woe is me Leyasha' our prospects were BioNET and Neo-Zeon remnants? Actions have consequences Yuliana!" Before she rolls her eyes, "And I'm NOT gonna name one because I'm not - enabling you joining criminals and terrorists! I'm not gonna do that! What about me screams-"
She gesticulates with a hand, waving it like it's framing her face, "-that I would be okay with it! I didn't even want Judau doing petty crimes when we were struggling to afford food on Shangri-La! The whole point of this was to try to help you get better because I wanted you to reintegrate with society, not to just - go back to terrorism!"
Then...
"I can't - is THAT why you joined Neo-Zeon!? Because Elisa likes them?" Leina looks aghast, "What next? If Elisa decided 'Hey Yuliana, maybe Doctor Murasame would be a big help to our terrorist activities'? Would you just answer 'Hmm - I don't like the guy but sure Babe, whatever you say."
There's just, this shake of her head, "I... I can't even. This is beyond parody Yuliana! I told you I had some concerns about what your marriage what your wife makes you do and you go home and court Neo-Zeon for her! Even saying you hate them! You're still doing it!"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"You just said what man! That Angelo! I don't like working with him!" Yuliana huffs, and adds: "And of course he upstaged the rest of us -- but it's not like we'd never met before that, Leyasha!"
Don't count yourself safe just yet, Leina. Yuliana's anger waves might just reach you from across the seas.
She growls, reaching up to tug on her frills, pulling them down in an anguished motion. (They curl around her fingers, more like tentacles than wings.) "Uuuuughhhh. This is the worst. Anyway, you're acting like we're all Neo-Zeon when they're just one faction of the group! If anything, Angelo's stragglers joined us! So many of those people were beaten and broken -- we should be the ones still recognised as strong." Is that really what's most important here?!
Her hands keep sliding down, to thud against the desk. "Anyway," she frowns, "it's not like I wasn't trying. It's just -- I had to come back, okay? I -- Elya was stressed, and -- after we found the tracking chip, she didn't even answer my texts, you know? She was occupying herself with the children. She had to keep herself busy, because I was acting strange, I guess. And then -- the thing with that woman, that Lucine woman -- after that, I couldn't ask her for any more time. I couldn't," Yuliana insists, her voice lowering again.
"But I guess you just think I'm a big joke, a, a parody," she says, frill wilting of its own accord. "Fine... fine, then. You just laugh, why don't you!"
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
"I don't think you understand how far reaching 'That Man' goes when you understand who's backing him! Or did you think he got that nightmare of a mobile suit from saving up all the gift cards he got from Sleeves Moon Pizza Parties thrown in his honor?"
Don't count yourself safe either Yuliana, because even if you can't feel her Newtype Pressure, Leina's big Mom is Disappointed in you energy is impossible to escape.
"Yuliana despite Angelo loudly pronouncing that you're not Neo-Zeon - I really somehow fail to believe Dawn of Fold isn't just another Neo-Zeon rebrand? Like I wasn't born yesterday! Or did you not see all the Geara Dogas he had for support with that Prototype? And that new Zaku design iteration!"
She stares daggers her way, "If you genuinely believe that, do you really really think that they wouldn't try to con you that way? Come on! How many times have you not watched another group do basically the same thing when you did intelligence work! Neo-Zeon movements are always big and well-funded!"
There's a long moment of silence and horror and, "Wait she actually DID use a tracking chip? Oh my God!"
Leina actually has to step away from the phone for a minute, "You-! I'm not going to laugh at you this is... horrific! I'm just - WHY would you think this is okay?! If I found out a partner was tracking my movements I'd-"
She rubs her face, still mostly out of view, "-God."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"We don't always get to know who's backing us, Leyasha!" Yuliana snaps back, and perhaps she says too much, in her anger.
HER MOTHER ISN'T DISAPPOINTED IN HER ANYMORE ANYWAY, SHE CAME HOME AND MAINTAINED THE FAMILY PEACE!
"Rrrgh -- believe it or don't, it's the truth! This is bigger than Angelo! Besides, his people aren't the only ones contributing might to the Dawn of Fold. Just wait until you see a Salamis Kyo-class get into action!" Her voice rises, again, as she snaps: "I am not being conned! You're just blinded by your own anger! And I get it, I hate them too, but we can't always choose who we work with!"
But when Leina steps away from her phone, Yuliana lifts a hand, turning her face away as if she could shield herself from her reaction. "I didn't..." She starts, but lamely, and the sentence doesn't finish.
"I felt awful," she says, quietly, in stark contrast to her previous volume. "Even though I knew why she did it... she was worried about me, after the Institute took me that last time. They said it was monitoring my temperature and my heart rate... and there was some kind of energy in it. Probably... a spell to report my location. But... when I told her about it... she offered to neutralise the chip and the magic as soon as I asked her to, you know." She doesn't quite get to specifying that those were two different conversations. Isn't it obvious?
She takes a breath, and admits, still quietly: "Things have just been a little intense... sometimes. You're mad at me, I guess... but she even went visiting other people, trying to understand why I'd neglect her that way. She really doesn't want much at all, so... I won't apologise for trying to make her happy for once." Yuliana scowls, and adds: "You really don't understand how much a favour I'm doing you all, keeping that peace."
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
"Oh? So you're saying neither you nor Elisa did your basic homework before you joined a terrorist group?" Leina stops pacing away to stare at the screen, "Seriously!?"
However Yuliana insists it's the truth, and Leina just rubs her face and sighs, "I think I'm really not being blinded by my anger, given that I know how Neo-Zeon operates, Yuliana." She turns back to the screen, dropping her hand as she utters, "Even if you're right that it's just a small part of your faction - they did not make that mobile suit appear out of thin air! I know who backs them! He's not someone who will ever give up on trying to make Neo-Zeon happen!"
But then... Yuliana notes she felt awful, and for a time Leina just listens, but in the middle of it, needs to pace away again with a murmured 'Oh my God.'
"It's not - about the favors you're doing us..." Leina eventually says, "... we were trying to help you. But Elisa isn't ever going to..."
She rubs her face, "Yuliana, Elisa is committed to making your mental health... worse. She doesn't want you to get better, to reintegrate with society. She just wants you to lash out and hurt people! You said it yourself! It was either this or BioNET!"
Leina finally picks up her phone again, and asks, "Why do you think that is? Why do you really think that is? Why does it have to be some 'criminal' group you join? Why do you have to do something like this at all?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Not even our information-gathering is -- oh, never mind!" Yuliana just gets frustrated about that whole topic, because, unfortunately, Leina might have a small sliver of a ghost of a point.
Shut up.
Yuliana grasps her arms, hugging herself to herself as she listens to Leina insult her wife. She scowls, and looks away, her frill wilted down behind her ears. Her lips press together, tightly.
"She does," she says, at length.
"She does want me to hurt people. Do you remember... I said I'd ask? Why she fell in love with me..." Yuliana looks down, at her folded arms. "... we were seeing each other casually, for a while. I knew she had ulterior motives... but she was stunning, and quite charming, so I didn't really mind taking some bribes. Telling her a few things... normal officer behaviour, really. But then... one day, she told me a story. Told me about her vision... and it was so compelling, Leyasha. Despite myself, I found that I told her about my vision of equality, too... and we decided to move forward together."
She closes her eyes. "But I was a jealous woman," she says, "and a suspicious one, at that. I didn't know if I could trust her. I was afraid to trust her, I suppose. So I threatened her. I told her I'd kill her if she left me. I didn't know that I couldn't, back then... but that's when she fell in love with me, she said. When she came to understand love. When she came to taste it. She said it was more than beautiful... she was very pleased, Leyasha. Pleased that I'd fight for what I desired with such fervency. She's been chasing that taste ever since... she said. So, if I hadn't been so..."
She made her bed. She really should lie in it.
"So she does like it... when I don't hold myself back. She does like it when I'm able to fight without limits. Though... that's not the whole reason, I'm sure. Since we won't be able to find peace with NUNE... I have to fight. Even if I can find peace with a few people, there's too many that want me dead... even mama said that. That I had to make peace with my marriage, because I needed a strong wife, after what I'd done." Looks like Leina's not the first one to give Yuliana the Disappointed Mom Face. Horrifying!
"But you really don't get it," she says. "You really don't. You said I could," and she looks aside to the door, a certain strain entering her gaze. "You know, something about starting, options -- you know?" She doesn't want to finish the sentence; she doesn't even want to say the word. "But I can't. I really can't. It's better this way -- for everyone. Really, for everyone. Get it?" She asks, again, and a desperate edge has crept into her voice.
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
Unfortunately for Yuliana! Leina just pounces on that acknowledgement - bulling through that 'nevermind', "So then you don't even know what your end goal really is! What you're really working towards! God-!"
But then...
Yuliana scowls and hugs herself and-
"What." It's so small at first, the word, as she listens - horrified... all the way to the end.
"... Yuliana - please - listen. Listen to me. You can't stay with her. You can't be with someone like that! Someone who loves you because of your capacity to hurt people! Someone who - who loves you because of that capacity for violence!"
Leina grips her phone with both hands, white knuckled, "She's going to keep pushing you to do worse - and worse - and worse! She's going to want you to hurt people you ordinarily never would! As much as she wants you to believe you can't start over - you can!"
There's a long moment, "There are things you can never take back-! But anyone can start over. You get it right? But first first you have to get out of there! You have to stay out of there! This isn't better for anyone!"
And then, she pronounces her dire conclusion.
"Except Elisa. Please! If you let her dictate that she loves you for your violence, then she's only going to demand you get worse! That the things you do get worse! She's going to make that your happiness! Your validation! That can't be what you really want!"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Has Yuliana ever really known what their end goal really is?
Leina pleads with her, and the camera in her phone is unfortunately expensive enough to pick up the tears, springing to her eyes. "I -- she says I can hold mercy in one hand, and destruction in the other. She won't stop me from doing that. And -- and you know -- it's not all I am, but I don't wish to be caged, either. Retribution is satisfying. And I'm good at it!" Is it a justification, or is it how she feels? All tangled up like a twisted tree, there's no telling where her feelings begin and where they end, any more.
She looks to the door, again -- quieting, for a moment. Listening . Trying to tell if she's being watched. When she looks back to her phone, she leans in, and lowers her voice and her frill. "She wants me, Leyasha," Yuliana insists, quietly. "I'm what matters to her. This world -- this world doesn't. She's only stewarding it because I want to save it... because it's what I want. So long as I give myself to her, she'll make my dreams come true... that's what she said. But -- Leyasha -- if I break my oath -- the world doesn't matter to her, but it matters to me. Do you understand? The Empress won't forgive Elya for taking me, but Elya is part of the Empress, too. If this world took me from her..."
She takes a breath, her hands curling in, clutching her arms tightly. "Maybe I'm still too suspicious," she says. "She never said -- she doesn't threaten me, she's not a brute like I am. I just -- I'm just inferring a few things. I think this is best for everyone, Leyasha. It's best for everyone. The world will be safer if I'm faithful, and -- and things have really been good here, you know. They've been very good. Ever since I got back, Elya's been so affectionate. So considerate. It's been wonderful! I don't want to jeopardise our happiness... I've caused her so much stress already. So please, just..." But her voice chokes up, as she tries to say it.
"It's dangerous to be around me," she settles on, instead. "It always was. ... I always was."
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
Leina lets go of the phone to emphatically gesture, "That's because she pretends to value your independence! But she never is going to like it when you make the other choice! She's always going to nudge you to the worst outcome! Because she doesn't care about anyone other than you!"
She looks with some intensity at Yuliana, "Yuliana she outright threatened everyone on the street that day! Their lives mean nothing to her! You can't - can't really believe human lives are worth nothing? The girl who lost her home in Indonesia, who knows what it's like to live as a refugee? Right!?"
And indeed part of her keeps emphatically gesturing, "So what!? Yuliana you know this kind of obsession isn't healthy! You've seen it all the time, in STALKERS! She had a tracking chip on you for the love of God-!"
Leina just stares at her with a certain intensity, "Don't even try to deny it, some part of you knew! Your head was comparing her to them when you found out! Those men who do this! Those women! And then she has you so twisted around that you excused it! You told yourself it's not like that! Your wife is acting like some kinda messed up stalker! And you're just going to say it's fine because she wants you?"
It's hard, listening to her say this, "No! No - if the world matters to you then you need to go! Don't you see it? She's going to have you shred this world to pieces for her amusement! You can't justify staying with her based on what she'll do without you! If you do - then it'll never end! She already tried to break this world for Pete's Sake! And you were right there with her saying why it was right!"
And as Yuliana continues to make excuses, she takes a breath and-
"She doesn't need to be a brute to control you. She's already proving it! It's not better for anyone except her! That you're in this state where you think this is your ONLY option!"
A beat.
"Prove her wrong. Leave. Choose mercy right now. Show her - and everyone you're not the person she wants you to be."
There's something whisperthin, desperate in each word she speaks now, "For all of her powers, the truth is, you've always been her greatest instrument towards violence against the world, right? So many of her plans - they go up in smoke without you. So, I'm begging you - you can choose mercy - by leaving, right now - and never going back."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Is it so bad... that Elisa only cares about Yuliana?
Doesn't that make her special?
It's not that she wants to let go of mercy, but...
"Of course I don't believe that," she insists on the worth of human life, strangle-quiet. But strangled as she is, she doesn't manage to choke anything else out, as she listens to Leina's pleas.
Stalking, she thinks, as her gaze averts from the camera.
Her wife does... want to know where she goes. What she does. What she thinks about what happens, out there...
Leina insists she has to leave, and her eyes shut, tightly, lips pulling back in a flinch. She shakes her head, as if she could shake the thoughts from her brow.
And then Leina calls her Elisa's instrument, and her hands reach up, to clap over her ears, shaking her head all the more violently. Grasping it, clutching at her frills, her hair. "It's not like that!" She cries, her voice raising again. "I'm not just a screwdriver any more! She saved me! She saved me! She saved me, and all she wants is such a small thing -- just one thing! I won't break my vows, I won't! I promised! For once in my life, just let me keep one promise!"
When she sobs, her eyes widen, and she claps her hands over her mouth. She draws quick breath through her fingers, for a few moments, as she reminds herself to be quiet. "... don't make me choose between the world and my wife," she pleads, quietly, when her hands drop to clasp at her chin. "I love her. I don't want to hurt her... please. You're... scaring me." It's not Leina who's frightening, but Leina's the one saying the words -- and so the blame lands at her feet.
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
"Yet she used you, again and again - to do horrible things, she couldn't do before, right? Remember the time you danced and bled all over."
Leina is quiet again, soft. "Just because you're a valuable instrument, doesn't mean you're not. Because of you - she can do so many things she couldn't do before."
The plea to keep just one promise.
"And what will it cost you to keep it?" Leina asks, gently, even as Yuliana begins to sob...
"... Then I won't ask you to make that choice." Leina says and Yuliana might be relieved, "You said you don't believe that. So I'm not asking you to choose the world or your wife."
There's a prolonged pause and...
"I'm asking you to choose yourself or your wife. Because you're already a version of yourself that you don't recognize, when you look in the mirror, aren't you?"
She utters it so softly...
"Just like I became, when I was in 'that man's' care."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"I don't know," Yuliana says, numbly, having listened to Leina's requests without moving an inch.
"I don't like mirrors. Never have."
She scrubs at her eyes; her face feels hot. (With shame, she supposes, surely.) She swallows, only to find herself hiccoughing, despite her efforts to get a grasp on herself again.
"I offer myself... to her crystal ball. I guess it must take something... and she can use that power. She's gotten stronger since then. And... and I am the source of it all. The wound in the world... the Gate." Yuliana looks down, her lashes a veil. "That power is with me... but Elya's always been the one to hone it. To craft it... and unleash it. We need each other, that way. I couldn't do these things alone.... maybe you're right. Maybe she can do so much because she's with me... though she still had Power, even when it began." She pauses, and adds, a shade apologetically: "I don't know why."
She curls a hand, over her lips. "But if I don't recognise myself... I must not have really been myself, before. I've always been... what I had to be. But Elya sees me -- who I'm meant to be. And she really is considerate... of how I feel about the world. She even made friends of her own, just because she was moved by my compassion... she does make an effort, Leyasha. She's not unreasonable. Whenever I ask her to change something -- she always does. She just wants to help me... and all she wants in return is me. To be favoured with witnessing my glorious brutality, now and then... to know I'll always return to her side." She adds, a touch defensive: "It's not even such a bad thing, you know. I'm so flattered when she calls me hers. It's a wonderful feeling, knowing someone so dangerous wishes to keep you safe... to catch the eye of a Goddess. She makes me feel so special, so important, so precious... I don't want to lose her." Lose, she says -- not leave. As if it would be Yuliana, harmed by the separation.
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
Leina inhales sharply, as she listens to what Yuliana is saying...
... and ...
"I don't think that's true. In the same way you used to think the people around you were fake." Leina rejects her words quietly, "I think you were yourself before the REA did what they did to you - and I think you've convinced yourself what they did to you - this connection and everything that surrounds it is what makes up who you are."
Leina puts a hand to her chest, "Do you know why I acted like I did towards Angelo in that fight? It's because I got drawn in. Into him - into that connection. Into those shared feelings and experiences. It's a risk for Newtypes."
It's perhaps horrifying, for what Leina says next, "It's a risk for you, you've drawn yourself too far into this connection, that you've convinced yourself it's who you are, but it isn't. You're more than this - connection Yuliana. This bond you have with the Empress, and through her, with Elisa."
...
...
...
"You think I don't understand? I fall too far into my connections, too easily, it's easy enough to think that they're all that I am."
Leina holds up a single finger, "It doesn't help in your case that after what they did to you - you just have the one - and through the one..."
Another finger comes up, "...two. And that's the whole problem Yuliana. You can't - actually lose her, or those feelings."
A beat.
"I can't either. But I can realize when it isn't good for me - when it isn't good for the people around me. And I can do the right thing for myself, for others."
There's a prolonged pause and...
"Do the right thing. You can't help this connection, and these feelings - but you can still choose not to be defined by them."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana winces, because she remembers the way Leina carried on, in that fight. But --
"Nnh," she grunts, through grit teeth.
The same as... any other Newtype?
Leina may remember the days when Yuliana would have ripped her apart for even making the insinuation -- but years have passed, since then. Not even she can deny the similarities, any more, as much as it pains her. (And judging by that grimace, it clearly does pain her.) "You --" She starts, anyway --
But Leina says she understands, and talks about how she has only the one connection. (Two, now.) "There, you see?" She asks, as if it's self-evident why she can't leave, when she says she can't lose her.
Except that she keeps talking, and Yuliana scowls, folding her arms. "The right thing?" She asks, scornful. "What do you know about what's right for me? I made Elya turn her back on her very Self -- and you're telling me that now the right thing is to betray her, too?"
She pales, going quiet, for a moment.
"I'm already... an oathbreaker," she says, quietly. "Wouldn't it scare her, knowing that? Wouldn't she be... afraid I'd abandon her too?" It's hard for her to put herself in someone else's shoes, but once she's extended that grace to her wife...
... Yuliana sighs, as she puts two and two together. (Finally.) "You're upset because of Banagher, I suppose," she says, and uses his proper name, in saying it. "That -- bond of yours. Tch... I guess you're not totally wrong. I would have my own version of that, with the Empress... with Elya, too. But don't you see? Even if my bracelet is a bracelet, now..."
One hand lifts, to press over her purple bracelet. "Elya promised always to seek me, too," she says, quietly. "I suppose that's how she can. Ever since the Empress made that bridge of her body, to let her sense me through the Void... isn't that what you do, after all? Sense when they're in danger?" She doesn't know for sure, but it's her best guess.
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
"I do see. I'm telling you that if you prioritize someone who only loves you for your capacity to do violence - then you're doing the wrong thing."
Leina affirms before saying in that firm tone, "I'm not going to acknowledge that sacrifice as 'deserving' of you choosing a life where you hurt other people to win her validation."
...
...
...
"Scared? I don't think she's scared of you leaving her - because I'm pretty sure she thinks you're not capable of doing it. You said it yourself right? You can't even imagine the thought of not telling her everything."
Which is why she then repeats it again, "Which is why I'm asking you to prove her wrong."
Her expression changes when Yuliana talks about Banagher to just...
"Sure. If he was in danger right now I'd feel compelled to run to him." She confirms with a sigh, "Because I can't change the part of me that loves him."
And rubbing the side of her cheek, "But that bond isn't an excuse. It's an explanation for my feelings. You can't change the way you feel - but you can control your behavior."
After a moment she stares at the screen, "So yes, the right thing. That's what I'm asking you to do. You're making every excuse to say that staying with a woman who wants you to hurt people - indiscriminately - mind you - because she doesn't care about anyone but you, is the right thing. And so long as that's true, there's no world where I can ever be on board with that."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
She's not.
She's just not capable of hurting her wife that much.
Even if she left the Empress... she needed Elisa's help, to do it.
She needed help to do it.
And Leina is --
Yuliana's eyes widen, as she realises the danger she's in. Her breath catches in her throat; her blood runs cold. "You want to take me away from her!" She cries, pulling away from her phone. "You want me to think I'll just be evil if I don't break her heart! You want it to be my fault! You -- you're messing with my head -- get out of my head!"
She shakes her head, clutching it with her hands again. "The right thing is loving my wife! It's being faithful to my wife! I'm not doing anything wrong by loving her! You think I'm doing something wrong just because I'm married! Just because of that! You -- you're jealous! You're jealous, because Banagher betrayed you! Well, I won't let you make me betray Elya just to balance the scales of your heart, Leyasha!"
Teary again, she yells, "I don't want to talk to you any more right now! I'm mad at you! You -- you can apologise later! I-I can't believe I thought this was a good idea, I'm so stupid...!" She reaches out to grab her phone, and it takes her a moment, fumbling through her tears, but she eventually manages to hang up on her.
She tosses her phone down, and runs from the room, leaving her poor tiara to list hopelessly on the desk.
She needs her wife.
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
"What!? Yuliana I'm dating someone else! I really like her! I'm not jealous of Elisa! Why would I ever want someone who treats me like I'm their-"
As she tries to respond to the rapid fire accusations, she gets behind.
"I'm not going to apologize for telling you what-!"
The connection breaks, the image fades, and there's a just - long tone...
"-Damnit!"
Pinching her nose, she tries her hardest not to look at the bathroom mirror in front of her.
"I tried. I... tried." She keeps repeating to herself. "I can't... do it. I can't... tell her what she wants to hear anymore."
And as she sinks down on the side of the bath tub, she sniffs, "It's just going... to get more people killed."
Just like in Sri Lanka.