2024-09-04: Where We Reign
- Log: Where We Reign
- Cast: Yuliana Kafim, Elisa Kafim
- Where: The Silent Castle, Kaffeklubben Island
- Date: 2024-09-04
- Summary: Yuliana shares her interpersonal struggles with her wife -- both in breaking awful news to Guanyu, what she did to Boris, and, finally, what her mother told her. Elisa takes her discomfort over her mother's participation in the Republic's crimes, and shapes it into an affirmation of the destiny they've chosen, instead, with all their noblesse oblige. (CW: Coercive control)
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana doesn't bother knocking, when she slides on back into Elisa's office; that's how Elisa knows it's Yuliana. "Haa, she didn't take it well," Yuliana pouts, and Elisa knows who she is -- Guanyu, whose sister Guanting they just heard died in the wake of Break the World. (Elisa, in fact, may have been the first one to hear the news, even if Yuliana's the one who broke it to them.) "I was so thoughtful and sympathetic, and she was just mad at us! Well, I lost my patience when she insulted you, but I can't be blamed for that," with a big ol' huff, as she swings over and lands herself in Elisa's lap. (What, was she working on something? No she wasn't.)
"Tchah... at least she apologised," Yuliana keeps on ranting, as she settles herself side-saddle over her wife. Her legs hook in under her chair as she embraces her, tentacles wrapping about Elisa's legs. "But it's so frustrating when you're trying to help and she insists on crying about it!"
Elisa wouldn't know anything about that, surely.
Yuliana sighs, straightening up enough to gaze into her wife's eyes. "Though... I do feel a little bad, Elya," she says, her frill lowering just so. (As her mood drops, so, too, does her influence.) "I knew her sister was looking for her... she sent a message through to our letters address, you know, the Friday readings." Of course they do it every week; they have to maintain their connection to their people. "But she was so harsh, Elya! I just knew she'd take her away from us! And she wouldn't want that, would she? She fell in love with Lettu, after all!" Yuliana huffs, pouting again. "She's the one who asked Lettu to go get coffee first, you know," she adds, sullenly. "She wanted this."
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Elisa knew, of course. There is much that she knows. But she also did not imagine that Guanyu would take it well...
"It is known that grief makes humans act strangely," Elisa says with a dismissive wave of her hand. "To lose a member of one's family... it is understandable. Though indeed I will not blame you for defending me, my darling. I'm sure you were the paragon of sympathy."
Elisa wasn't working on anything more important than her wife!
"Yes. The frailties of the weak," she says, implicitly placing Guanyu as one of them, of course. "Perhaps she will grow stronger. Perhaps she will not."
She feels bad? A wave of Elisa's hand. "It is not your responsibility," she says, "To aid those who would take from us. Guanyu has made her choice. And choices cannot be unmade."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
And Elisa has been working on Yuliana for such a long time. Perhaps that's why she can look at someone in her own position... with so much scorn for her complaints. "I did tell her the broken parts of her would grow back stronger," Yuliana sighs, head canting to the side. "Though I don't know that she'll listen... she was so emotional, Elya."
Choices... can't be unmade, can they?
"It would be unfaithful," Yuliana agrees, eyelashes lowering to veil her endless gaze, as if confronting that truth is a little more unsettling than she'd like.
('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!')
But does she really remember what Leina said -- when she shakes it out of her ears a moment later?
"At least Boris isn't blaming me as much as she is, right now," she changes the subject. Abruptly? She might think it seems that way. "I must have told you about it," she didn't, "but I guess I punched him, after I got out of my wanzer... well, he started calling me 'Captain', just like Lettu, and I guess I lost my cool. Yelled something about how he should've died instead, or something like that... I bid him excuse me for being in a place of such high emotion, and he understood well enough, so that's fine." Another deep sigh -- "Though I suppose I'm the bad guy for that, too," because Leina isn't entirely out of her head just yet.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
"They will," Elisa agrees. "...Emotion is natural, I suppose. I am learning to 'appreciate' it more."
It would be unfaithful, and Yuliana will remember. That's good enough for now. But not good of course is such thoughts as those--and the subject changes...
"That is well," Elisa says of blame. "I told him as he left that he had served us well. ...It is your right, to vent your frustrations. To let off steam. You are hardly 'bad' for doing such a thing as is your right."
A wave of her hand, as she strokes Yuliana's tentacle with the other idly. "Do not trouble yourself so. They understand that the passions of the mighty are great."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"And you're doing so well," Yuliana encourages her wife, naturally.
But Elisa assures her that she has the right to express herself, and Yuliana smiles, eased under the feeling of her fingertips. She breathes out, settling herself in against Elisa's shoulder. "You're right... I'm just expressing myself, that's all. They knew I was a passionate woman..."
Her eyes drift half-shut, relaxing against her wife, letting the complaints of their people roll off her back like water off the geese.
But there's one conversation she still hasn't addressed... even though she left a tumultuous entry in her diary about it.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Encouragement! Elisa smiles.
"They did. They do. No one faults the flame for its warmth." She waves a hand. "It is well."
She considers, then. Elisa allows Yuliana to relax for a time, before she finally speaks up again, deciding...
"So tell me what troubles you, my darling. You have told me of the others. But what is on your heart?"
She knows, of course. But it's best if Yuliana is the one to speak it first.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"I'm the one who warms them," Yuliana complains, but mildly; she's not that bothered.
How could she be? She's here, sitting in her wife's lap, all tangled up with her. She rests against Elisa, her breath evening out, the tension leeching from her body. (Where does it go, when it all bleeds out? Perhaps this, too, is a sacrifice.)
Elisa asks what's written on her heart, though, and Yuliana stirs from her repose to nose at her neck. "Mm," she hums, and sighs against the feathering at Elisa's ear, straightening up so she can look to her again. She's wearing a light frown, now, though she wasn't before.
"I... spoke to mamulya," she invokes their mother on Yuliana's side, slowly. "About what you said... the Coordinators. And she told me why she couldn't stand them... but..."
Yuliana looks down, her hand balling up, in Elisa's robes. "She said her people -- the Peace Mediation Organisation, you know -- they organised everything so the Second Huffman Conflict could test the Republic's B-Type Devices. Those... awful things... where they use a human brain instead of programming AI. Like -- like the opposite of what they meant to do with me -- only keeping the brain, instead of keeping the body after brain-death."
She falls quiet, for a moment. "Mama... is scared of people who are different. People who were made to be better than her... she doesn't think normal people can trust them. She says we have hate in our hearts... I couldn't tell her she was wrong." Yuliana shuts her eyes, as if she could deny it, anyway. "She said she wasn't looking down on me, though... well, she said she'd always love me, since I was her only daughter. But it just made me think, you know... she used to encourage me by assuring me I was a good lesbian, not like the spinsters in the community. Since I'd marry a wife, and find a sperm donor, and raise children... just like normal. I was glad she didn't turn me away, but..." ... she was one of the good ones, too.
"It's just like that," she ends her sentence, instead, looking away from the model she learned.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
"Indeed," Elisa agrees. "Can they complain, when the fire is hot?"
She stays with Yuliana, remains seated. She will accept the tension fading with grace. But she does notice the frown... And Elisa waits. She listens. The Coordinators, and...
Ah, yes. Elisa knew she was troubled, but she sees it herself now, feels it. She considers the B-Type Devices. An abomination, she has decided before now. "Yes. Terrible things," she agrees.
But their mother...
"Hatred is the privilege of the strong," Elisa says firmly, when Yuliana finishes. "The weak may only fear, instead. They claim to it, but without the 'power' to enforce it, they have no true claim."
"...The ordinary have reasons to fear us," Elisa agrees then. "They have reason to worry if we shall decide they are found wanting. Our mother included. She has not the 'power' that you and I have. And so it is natural for her to be concerned..."
"Our mother is frightened," she agrees. "But she rises about this fear to understand your greatness, even if it is foreign to her. She loves you. She is family, despite those things."
"...You are not wrong to think in this way, I think. To be reminded. It is your choice, what to do about those feelings."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
The privilege of the strong...
Like her, then?
Yuliana frowns, when Elisa suggests they could find their mother wanting, though she knows Elisa is right. (Sashenka is, after all, a Natural. Of course her concern is natural.) She smiles -- though uneasily -- when Elisa assures her of her mother's love, despite her fear.
"It... shocked me," Yuliana says, after a moment's pause. "I felt betrayed... that she looked at people the way the scientists looked at me. She said she wouldn't've done it if she knew it'd happen to me... but... I thought she was the one who didn't like the military's habits. She told me not to enlist, and everything--!!" Yuliana shakes her head, vigorously. "... but she was overseeing something like this, too... and I just... I hate that I think, Elya... it's because of people like my very own parents that I was created."
As if she was forged in the crucible of the labratory -- instead of birthed like any other woman.
(She's not a Natural, any more.)
Her frills wilt, as she looks up to her wife, again. "But... mama was right, Elya," Yuliana says, her voice smaller. "Even though I didn't listen to her... she really had a good reason to be so afraid. I should have minded her more... instead of being such a rebellious girl."
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
It shocked her, she says. Elisa hears that. And of course she would. "...Yes," Elisa says. "The sins of the mother... Do they pass to the daughter? Humans have debated this for some time. ...But is it so?" she asks. "That because of people like your own parents, you were made to be what you are?"
"We know that the beauty that comes of your nature was not intended by those people who worked to try to 'make' you what they wish."
"...You need not hate your thoughts," Elisa says. "Ponder them. Consider."
"...But it seems that she has shown you many things that are true. Her fear..."
She considers. "Perhaps for that reason, only people like 'us' can deal with these people who were created. Perhaps it even means it is our place to do so."
"For those with power to oppose power."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"I wonder if it's my legacy," Yuliana says, quietly, when Elisa wonders about the sins of her mother. "No, the legacy of us all... raised under the Republic's flag. They didn't mean to make me, but... if the Republic wasn't the way it was... would I be here as I am?"
Dutifully, in this way, she considers her own thoughts.
And her mother sees clearly, after all.
Yuliana reaches up a hand to stroke Elisa's cheek, frowning thoughtfully. "Is that our duty, Elya...? To take action... since we've the power to do so? Is it a matter of stewardship, fighting the strong...?"
Of course it's a fight.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
The legacy of all raised under the Republic's flag. "Perhaps," Elisa says. "Perhaps a greater purpose is served. ...But I do not believe that 'destiny' need restrain us. You are as you are now... it is our choice what to do with this legacy. Our doing, what shall come of it."
Elisa looks down to Yuliana, and inclines her head. "Yes. It is our duty to choose. Our duty to decide. ...And, I think... You have decided what that duty looks like."
"To fight."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana is under Elisa's flag, now.
"We're not bound any more," she agrees, softly, no matter which one of them remains unrestrained. "And we've made our choice... right?"
(A choice which cannot be unmade.)
She smooths her fingertips across her wife's perfect cheek-bones, looking up to her with rapt adoration. It's so relieving, when Elisa explains things so succinctly. Her mind can get so clouded, but Elisa can always break her -- confusion -- down into something clearer.
"I have," she says, and surely she has. It's something she'd say, isn't it? It's something she said, isn't it? "If they can't protect themselves... we must protect them, Elya. Those scared normal people... who have no power of their own."
She tilts her head, frills fanning to either side of her head.
"They're not like us..."
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
They have made their choice. Yuliana made it; Elisa told her so. And now, Elisa will act accordingly.
Her cheekbones are so perfect, and she has the correct number of teeth when she smiles. Elisa looks at Yuliana, and inclines her head. "We must," she agrees.
Another choice of Yuliana's, isn't it?
"We shall do as we are able. It is our place, to decide such things." Their fates.
"Because we are apart."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
It's their place... to decide.
And it's such a comfortable place, hearing Elisa affirm her decisions this way. Yuliana smiles, gazing rapt to her wife, all her attention on her. She has no need to cast a spell to render Yuliana spellbound, because Yuliana is relieved to leave the explanations to her wife.
With nothing but her words, she's woven them tightly together.
Which is why Yuliana slips her other hand to Elisa's shoulder, to steady her as she leans forward to kiss her wife, yielding joyfully to her logic. Because, as she murmurs, breath warm against her lips:
"We stand apart from them, together."
They alone can never be apart.