2024-07-20: .how infuriating it is to realise you are righT
- Log: .how infuriating it is to realise you are righT
- Cast: Yuliana Kafim, Li Yao
- Where: The Silent Castle, Kaffeklubben Island
- Date: 2024-07-20
- Summary: Yao insists on spotting for Yuliana, even though she's grumpy at being watched so closely. They finally get to talking... and then to fighting, since that's the best way Yao has to help her.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
There have been more faces in the Silent Castle, since Yuliana sent out her invitation throughout the Silent Calling -- including another Cyber-Newtype who arrived just this morning. She's settling in, alongside the families and rescuees and orphans they've taken under their wing.
After dinner, though, Yuliana slips out -- to the gym. The Silent Castle has a full gymnasium, of course, alongside its cat gymnasium (which takes up an entire hall, because Sokrova is a big kitty). It's stocked with all manner of gadgets to help people keep active despite not being able to take a brisk walk outside without losing a few toes... as well as plenty of gymnastics equipment, on top of it all.
Yuliana's not on the balance beam, though. She's hitting the weights. Obviously.
Three hundred kilograms of weight, that is. Only the greatest athletes could hope to lift so much, amongst Natural women, but Yuliana's reinforced and conditioned body handles it much easier. It's still an effort to sustain over time, but that's why it's exercise.
Dressed in a tank-top and shorts, her tentacles and the frill behind her ears are plain to see -- though now they've opened their home to more people, she's tied a scarf around her neck to keep that from view. (It would be terrible if strangers saw her tattoo.) Also plain to see is the fact that she hasn't bothered dragging a spotter in today, but that's fine; her tentacles can spot for her, if she really exhausts herself.
They are things like flowers or snakes or hands or jaws, and they're really quite strong.
<Pose Tracker> Li Yao has posed.
Li Yao, the old monk who lived in a shack and now lives in a castle, has only recently made himself a spot here. It is a bit to much for him but he found a nice corner of the location that is more stone and concrete then comfort, which is how the old man likes it. Besides the brisk cold air is suppose to be good for the heart.
It could be said that since the old man has moved in that Yuliana has had to suffer a level of unrequested spotting, more and more Yao has been popping up either in corners of the room or standing outside doors of rooms Yuliana is in. All under the guise of getting use to Yuliana's behaviors to better protect her.
So here he is today following behind Yuliana and calling into question on when spotting becomes stalking. Still it could be argued that he is doing something in the gym at least as he himself makes use of the balance beam, turning himself upside down on it as he begins to get his breathing under control. When he settles in upside down he opens one eye towards Yuliana, "Don't go hurting yourself, make sure to stop before I need to step in."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Ugh," Yuliana groans, and it's not just the effort of pushing all that weight up over her chest. "I don't need you to always be nagging me about it, Yao! I can handle pushing weights, I'm not a child!" Whether she's childish is another question entirely; Yao has certainly seen her throw more than one tantrum, even in the short time since he's arrived.
... if anything, she's even more emotionally labile than she was, under the REA.
"What is your story, anyway?" She asks, showing interest for the first time. "You disappeared for ages, then one day Elya brings you in, and now -- what, you're stalking me? Is that what's happening here?" Huff, she pushes the weight back up. "I would've thought following me around would be the last thing you'd wanna do..."
<Pose Tracker> Li Yao has posed.
"I am simply saying child, that if you hurt yourself, I can not promise I will be able to save you until injury has set in." Yao says as he slowly works to bring up one hand off the balance beam. It is a slow and delicate process but if Yao knows one thing from old age, it is patience.
"My story you ask?" Yao asks confused and then catches on that his mission was simply not shared with the Ice Queen, given the volatility of the queen, he can understand why. " After losing so many comrades I went to find myself or find death. Elisa simply found me first, and well the rest of it is more your wife's story to tell than mine. All I can say is that I am trying something new."
Yao hesitates for a moment before he remembers that he is actually interacting with a person and now his shadow, " What about you? It has been two years, what is your story?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"I just said I'm not a child! I'm almost thirty-two years old, for God's sake! Enough people never get that far!" Fewer still get to Yao's age, but never mind that.
"She did tell me she found you," Yuliana grumbles, almost defensively. "She said you'd agreed to protect us... and she was pleased to be able to give you a better home than some cave in the woods. So of course you're welcome, but -- but you do realise I don't need protecting from my daily schedule, don't you? I do this all --" she grunts, as she shoves the weights up, again, "-- the -- time!"
She's also up to her two-hundredth repetition or so, which might explain why she's getting tired. Now she has something to prove, though, so obviously she's not going to stop yet.
"Tchah," she huffs, pausing for a moment before she pushes the weights up again. "Two years ago... that's when the REA betrayed me. Haah, I suppose I defied them, first... but they deserved it, with what I learned! How they talked about me... like a scrap of meat to the dogs. An experiment." Her lips curl, and her arms extend. "G-Hound captured me when I went to help our friends with some little problem or another, and since Elya was distracted, the REA managed to cut a deal to get me back... but they'd had enough of me, I suppose. They were going to -- ch -- boil my brain and keep my body on life-support to harvest my cells, to make versions which were more loyal."
She brings the weights down, and pushes them up, again.
"A bunch of people came to save me -- not that I was all that grateful -- brainwashing, you know. They'd been doing it to me -- the whole time," her explanation interrupted by a brief huff, as she goes through another repetition. "But Elya found me, even after they stole me away from the heroes... she killed them all, and did something worse to Dr. Devi. The woman who made me like this," she adds, with another thrust upwards of those massive weights. "She's suffering in some crystal, now... maybe we'll kill her proper, one day. Maybe not." She doesn't look terribly bothered by the idea of locking her tormentor in eternal torment. She feels no guilt about it at all.
"Ch... ever since then... I started the Silent Calling to, try and do something better, and we did do some good, you know. And Elya and I were trying to reach the Void... haa, right, you haven't heard... the Empress at the End of All Things? The God in the Void? She's -- Elisa is a part of Her -- so I'm married to Her, as well, I suppose. But She was -- torturing me, more or less -- so we've since defied Her. Not before making enemies of... the whole damn world, but..."
Yuliana pauses to catch her breath. She's fine. She's probably fine.
<Pose Tracker> Li Yao has posed.
"There comes a certain point where the amount of years you have lived tends to have little to do whether you are a child or not." Yao quips back as he tucks his left arm behind his back as he closes his eyes, his concentration becoming stretched and needs to reduce the sensory input.
Yao quiets down though as he listens to her history, until she gets to the end of the tale, "So the Silent Calling is trying to do something good, and I have come to help protect you as part of the calling to do something good. " Yao trails off as he begins to tilt one direction and he has to take a moment to right himself before he topples over.
As he regains his balance he adds, "Simply put I am here to protect you, whether that is from outside threats, those who you invite in who may harbor secret desires, or simply from yourself. So here I am trying to advise caution that the adult you can choose to listen to, or can ignore the warning and instead get upset that someone wishes you to be careful."
The old man can feel his right arm burning as he tries to distract himself now by keeping the conversation going, because he is totally not going to let Yuliana win by being able to keep going. "So you have enemies from ex-REA and G-Hound, gods and goddesses, anyone else?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Shut up!" Is Yuliana's eloquent rebuttal to Yao's point about childishness.
Flawless victory.
"I don't need protecting from myself," Yuliana lies through her grit teeth, grumbling. "Damn it, old man... careful, careful, careful, everyone always says to be careful, careful sucks!" She'd never say that to her wife, of course, but she can redirect her frustrations onto Yao much more easily. Perhaps this, too... is a form of protection?
She keeps pushing those weights up, determined not to lose. "Tch... who isn't? NUNE hates me -- Cathedra -- they call me a witch, you know? My wife is the witch! Leyasha's all right -- Leina -- she's good, she's been helping me on the down-low, but she's just one cog in the system, I can't trust she could save me if they got their hands on me. Plus she's mad at me right now, because she completely misread the situation -- tch. But that whole coalition -- they've got a bounty out on us -- dead or alive. It's such a pain. Keep having to... get new fake IDs."
She keeps pushing. "And there's plenty of other people -- who think I'm trying to end the world -- stupid," she hisses out, through her teeth. "I like the world. I want to save it. They can't see beyond their own goddamn noses."
Huff, huff. "Plus -- half of BioNet -- wants to cut me open and have a look at me. Tch -- except -- Julia's fine, she's cool, we used to play cards all the time. The rest of them -- don't trust them to -- see me as anything but an experiment. Elya's keeping an eye on them, though, so -- that's fine."
She pauses in her repetitions, for a moment. Huff... huff.
<Pose Tracker> Li Yao has posed.
LI Yao smiles as he hears the frustration and he starts to get under Yuliana's skin. So different from the old Yuliana, maybe that was the drugs. Still he concedes on one part, he can't keep the exercise up and has to allow himself to topple forward and hit the ground dismounting semi-gracefully from the balance beam. Taking a moment he rubs his arm and thinks back to the past when such things were easier.
The old man walks towards Yuliana, putting himself within her bubble, and then moves closer till he is in shin kicking range. Taking a moment he tilts his head at her as if examining something before he speaks back up, "Perhaps people wish you to be careful for they would be upset if something happened to you. Still with so many people after you , you can only imagine the concern others may have about someone who is looking to prove themselves. To prove they are not a evil bitch , er witch, and whenever someone has something to prove it is best to warn them. To. Be. Careful." The sly grin on his face might be giving away his intent but only time will tell.
"So many people wanting your head too, so many people not seeing all the good you are doing or just don't care. So many would rather you floating in an jar, better to have a lot of mindless clones of you before you end the world. Such a heavy weight that must all be, bearing down on you, no wonder you can take those weights. Always have to carry that weight after all. " The last line has Yao making sure to meet Yuliana's eyes as he waits for her response.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
One thing Yao will notice -- when Yuliana's frill is out, he's always in her bubble.
Well, throughout most of the Castle, anyway. Her reach is much larger, when she's properly eldritch. It shrinks back down, when she folds her frill up behind her ears, but...
Why would she do that at home?
She is more sensitive these days, though. (Both emotionally, and towards the Void.) She can't swallow a handful of pills whenever she starts to feel herself getting off-kilter; Elisa says it's bad for her to take too many.
Up, and down, and then she processes what he's saying, and -- "Did you just call my WIFE a BITCH?!" Yuliana yells, her pupilless green eyes widening under his gaze. She does, in fact, kick at his shins -- which coincidentally breaks her concentration with her weights, sending them down across her chest. (It's a hard weight to carry.) "Gh," she grunts, pinned breathless for a moment, before her tentacles reach up to grab the bar and hoist with her hands to lift it off of her so she can slide out.
"You son of a... you just... wait," she huffs, laying flat on the mat, exhausted. "Better... have a good explanation... before I get up. Or I'm gonna... grab those weights and put them through your skull."
She's completely missed that he wasn't talking about Elisa.
<Pose Tracker> Li Yao has posed.
Yao looks at her, the shin kick scraping at his shin but he doesn't back up from it. There would be a bruise and it could have been worse if things had played out differently. Still he simply stands there and watches her before he reveals a horrible secret to Yuliana. He produces a cigarette from his sleeve and a lighter from a hidden pocket.
As Yao fiddles with the cigarette in his hand he takes a moment to "The point I was making, child, is that when you are carrying such weight you have to be careful. You lose focus for one moment and the world collapses around you. That world contains more then just you now, it contains Elisa, it contains your cat, your kids, your friends, and even me."
Still fiddling with the cigarette its like he is debating lighting it or not, " My job is to protect you, and I am old so it took me a little bit to figure out how best to protect Yuliana. The best way to protect Yuliana is to teach her how to wipe her own ass. Tsk, she is a grown ass woman after all."
Finally he lights the cigarette and gets it lit before blowing some smoke away from the two before he says, "That was lesson one, you don't have those damn pills anymore, you have to learn how to control your own damn emotions or that weight you have on your shoulders will crush you." He stands there for a moment looking at her this time with eyes of judgement as a teacher that is evaluating the quality of the pupil infront of him.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana's eyes narrow, and her teeth grit, and for a moment she's still evaluating whether or not she ought to...
"Ugh," she groans, head flopping back against the mat. "Stop being right, I hate that." She won't be caving in Yao's skull today, apparently. Wisdom wins again!
"But it was only crushing me for a second," she whines, petulant, before her arm comes up to flop over her face. "No, shut up, I know, one weak link breaks a dynasty, and so on, and so on... ugh. You know they were trying to get me to -- what's that they said -- regulate my emotions for like a year when I was getting treatment at the PPL?" Pause, "... oh, yeah, that happened too. But it's over, now. They found me out, and Yaka's bound to catch too much heat if I go back again. Sayaka," she explains the nickname, in afterthought, wagging her fingers.
"I just... I've got so many emotions. All of them! At full volume! All the time! If you want control, you should talk to Elya... she's amazing. I don't know how she does it..."
<Pose Tracker> Li Yao has posed.
"I wasn't going to mention weak link or dynasty only remind you how often your life has changed in a second." Yao responds as he steps back, no longer needing to be in the personal space bubble of Yulianna. "A second can be an eternity. "
The cigarette burns in Yao's hand as he shakes his head, "Sounds to me like you need to take care of all those emotions. I am no psychologist, or therapist, or even a good listener, however I can offer you one thing. Violence. Violence is very good for emotions."
Yao flicks ash of the cigarette at the direction of Yuliana, "Get up and let's see how emotional you can be."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Uuuuuughhhhhh," Yuliana groans, which roughly translates to 'yes, old master Yao, you are correct, I've seen that happen countless times'.
Probably. It might also translate to a lot of very colourful swear words.
She pushes herself until she's sitting up, one arm slung over a knee as she gives Yao a long, assessing look. "You look like you were in your prime while I was still a kid," she says, sceptically, "and surely you didn't miss how much weight I was lifting. Are you quite sure you want to fight me? I've never been that good at holding myself back, you know."
She's also exhausted from lifting those weights, though, which might well be a point in Yao's favour. Yuliana wouldn't know if he's factored that in, though. She just doesn't think that far ahead; planning and forethought is really more her wife's business.
She swats the hot ash off of the muscles on her arm -- a little obscured by the weight she's carrying on her body, but not nearly obscured enough. (Her skin is scarred enough that a few little spot burns won't make a big difference.) "Tch," she grunts, as she pushes herself up the rest of the way, bouncing on her ankles. "If you're sure, then go ahead and come at me, why don't you?"
Yao will find she wasn't just bragging, but the glaring weakness she has is her speed. Most Cyber-Newtypes have excellent reflexes, tuned enough to threats to dodge bullets before they even fire... but Yuliana just absorbs the blows which come for her, with a terribly diminished capability to predict what Yao is going to do next the minute he does anything less than obvious. Just as she showed, she's extremely strong, and she is tough enough to take a beating -- that fat and those muscles work together to make her difficult to knock down or shatter -- but she's all brute force.
There's certainly something to work with, there.