2024-09-13: .let me share this impact with yoU
- Log: .let me share this impact with yoU
- Cast: Yuliana Kafim, Elisa Kafim
- Where: Makassar Cemetary, Indonesia
- Date: 2024-09-13
- Summary: Yuliana mourns Second Impact, as always -- but this time, she brings her wife along with her. Elisa gets to learn more about Yuliana's childhood, and Yuliana, in turn, learns more about Elisa's continuing dissociation from her own. They affirm their strength in the present, though Yuliana lost so much when she was young.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
OST: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJqMXjTzW_k Regina Spektor - Apres Moi
"It's that anniversary," Yuliana says, as she brushes her teal hair. "You know... Second Impact." And she looks into the mirror of their fine dresser, to find her wife's gaze in the reflection, as her hand pauses at one of her bangs.
"Elya... will you come with me?"
She has always kept her mourning to herself; has always insisted on space, when she cries for the dead. This is the first time, on the eve of one of these events, that she's invited her wife along.
... the effects of Junius Seven run deep.
Da Xukong 0 isn't really built for a passenger, but with a quick adjustment of the roll cage, Elisa can sit in Yuliana's lap for once. Travelling down in the crushing depths of the sea is a difficult process -- she can make her wanzer handle it, thanks in large part to her skill as a pilot, but Elisa can surely feel the way her heart pounds through the old-fashioned clothes she's wearing. (They're not going out to pick a fight, so she isn't in her pilot suit, strapped in here.) It's hard for her to be down here, in the depths.
(Of course, from time to time she looks aside to see her wife, and her cheeks colour, and her heart flutters for another reason entirely. Even on a day like this, she's still madly in love with her wife.)
"Listen to the radio chatter," she says, as Chinese filters through it. "Captain Chen's dirty -- we figured it out when we landed some bribes on him -- and this is a prime route for smugglers. So..."
"We've got activity on the Northmost bearing," one of those voices crackles out, as if on cue. "Check it out."
"That means," Yuliana translates, keeping her own radio firmly one-way, "they're looking in the other direction. Good for the smugglers -- and it's good for us, too."
Because while that boat sails over the water ahead of them, Da Xukong creeps along the sea floor. It takes a long route around, to an abandoned coastline; the sun has already set, in Indonesia, when she finds a shadowy cove to hide her wanzer in. She opens up her machine, and lets Elisa out; she'll take a hand, if Elisa offers it, though she doesn't need one to scale down her machine herself.
She carries with her a basket of flowers -- purple saxifrage and Arctic poppies, the natives of their island. She wears a hijab, blouse and sarong, all the better to blend into Makassar; it's the same thing she's always worn, coming out here.
"It's a long walk," she tells her wife, "but I don't wish to start trouble." A light pause, "... not today."
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
That anniversary. Elisa Kafim knows this one; she is familiar with Yuliana taking time to herself for it, and of course, it had great impact on the world... Perhaps surprisingly, she remembers it. But she looks into Yuliana's eyes through the mirror, when she makes that request.
"Yes," Elisa answers, though she is uncertain she is the best company for mourning.
She is the best company for Yuliana, and that will do.
Elisa sits and waits. She is calm and patient, though Elisa feels the heart pounding through Yuliana. She does not find it easy here indeed. Elisa makes herself a steadying presence.
...Well, not just steadying, of course.
"I see," Elisa answers of Captain Chen. The voices crackle out. "Smugglers... They have their own ways of being, I suppose. Useful for us today."
Elisa steps out and offers Yuliana a hand. As they step out, she looks over the island. Elisa is dressed in normal attire rather than her cultic robes, but she does not wear a hijab. It is not her way.
"...No trouble then," Elisa answers, and that has a few meanings.
"We shall abide by peace, for now." She looks to Yuliana, gauging her mood and state, and then nods. "Let us go."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
So long as they're useful to them...
Yuliana slips her other arm in through Elisa's, staying close to her as she walks. Not everyone, this evening, will assume they're married; some may well presume they're in-laws, finding strength in numbers as they walk back from whatever village they've come from. But they both fit in -- even if they're clearly from different parts of the island. (Religion may not have a strong foothold on Earth any more, but there have always been Hindi and Christian presences in Indonesia, even if most of the women were hijabi... and each left in their wake their own practices.)
In particular, Yuliana is dressed in white -- and the mourning-colour is echoed amongst many of the people who haven't yet returned home, on these simple streets. It's an easy indication as to why no one ought to bother them, even if they're not married.
(Which isn't to say Yuliana's hiding her ring, either. People just see what they choose to see...)
By the time they make their way to Makassar, it's completely dark, and there's no one left in the cemetary.
"We bury our dead," Yuliana tells her wife, quietly, as they enter. "So they can rest. I know a lot of places burn their bodies, these days... but it just isn't done, here. So we make these vast homes for the dead... haa, one day they'll outnumber the living," she sighs, and Elisa can surely feel her frill wilting under her scarves, even if it's more difficult to see.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
People can see as they wish; Elisa is not here to assert her dominance. She is here to support her wife. And thus, whatever truths they believe in... are fine, for now. Let them assume Elisa is Christian or Hindi. Let them assume that they are mourning together.
So long as they see that Elisa and Yuliana are together, one way or another.
...Not that people are likely to bother Elisa anyway; her eyes forward, the way she walks, she is on an important mission... one not to be interrupted. And this is even true.
It is dark, but Elisa can see in the dark. Yuliana explains... "To rest in the earth... yes, it is a tradition I can understand. The all-encompassing embrace of the planet, the dark... It is well."
Elisa reaches out, to clasp Yuliana's hand. She lingers for a few moments. She can tell it distresses her. "And yet life endures," she says of numbers.
She does not voice that the dead have always outnumbered the living.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana squeezes her wife's hand, tightly; it's dark, but she can surely see how tight her expression is, beneath her scars, just the same. "Y--yes," she says, as she turns to the graves. "Some... some people were okay. Ayah put us on a transport, and we went back to mama's old country... we were okay."
She sniffs, and when she turns to those graves, she rubs at her eyes. "But even the people who got through the flood -- Elya -- it was awful." With trembling fingers, she begins laying flowers on gravestones and markers; she knows precisely where each one is. She visits each year. "Adi could barely even ask for help... but Bulan might have made it, if they'd taken proper care of her. Zakaria was -- he was okay, but then -- the water -- dysentery was everywhere, before the government finally came and fixed the water supplies. And even some of us -- we were really okay, but -- Indah, she threw herself into the sea before she even turned eighteen! We kept in touch through letters, even after I left, but-- but then her mama sent me one -- to explain..."
She puts a poppy on Indah's grave, and then lifts her hands, to shed tears into them. So many people... who meant so much, when she was young.
And now they are in Elisa, too.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Elisa can see Yuliana. The darkness does not impede her vision, anymore. Some people were okay, Yuliana says. They went on a transport...
Elisa listens, watching Yuliana at first, and then watching the gravestones. Yuliana lays her flowers down, and Elisa waits. One might expect such a ritual to be beneath her; caring for the dead, after all. Those without the strength to live on.
...And yet, it is not so. Elisa listens, and gains an understanding of the humanity of Yuliana. To hear the weaknesses and frailties of humans important to her... And their good and bad luck.
"You endured much. You lost much," Elisa says.
Into the sea, she says. One who could not go on.
They are in Elisa now, too. She will remember.
"...May they rest with peace," Elisa says. "Adi... Bulan. Zakaria. Indah." And more. She speaks each name that Yuliana gives her, engraving them onto her heart.
She reaches to put an arm about Yuliana's shoulders. "To 'mourn'..."
A kinder Elisa might think, this is what comes to those left behind by the ones she destroys. But that is not this Elisa. Instead...
"It is the due of the fallen to whom we are close. Take your time."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana wants to remember, after all. She would not do this so religiously if she did not.
Her now-empty basket sags at her elbow, as she leans back against her wife, looking over the innumerable gravestones. (Certainly they feel innumerable to her, though Elisa could surely count them.) "Oh," she whimpers, finally, as she turns to find Elisa's arms, to bury herself in them.
Her white cloth shifts, as much a symbol of China's influence as any, stark compared to her usual dark raiments. Her tentacles uncoil, from under her expansive hijab, to curl around Elisa too.
"Elya, it's not fair," she says, all choked up. "Tirta and Adi, they were in love! Love of middle-schoolers it may be, but they insisted they'd marry -- and -- and Tirta died in the flood. I always think... Adi must have tried to hold on to her... that's why he was so ruined, in the medical tents. And she was -- she was -- she didn't even look human, Elya," Yuliana says.
Her wife isn't squeamish about dead bodies, but perhaps Elisa can appreciate why a fourteen-year-old Yuliana might have balked at seeing her drowned classmates.
"At least we found her," she adds, dismally. "The plaques -- Maimunah, too... there was no body."
Yuliana takes a breath, leaning into her wife. "When Mawar got sick, after, I wanted to apologise... I never told her why I was so touchy, even though she wanted me to fit in. It's just -- the One Year War only happened a few years before this did -- I should've had time to calm down. Oh, but something even worse happened, instead..."
She sniffs. "They were -- rationing supplies. Adi, Bulan, Zakaria, Mawar... they got sick, they were hurt, and they didn't save them. Even though they survived... they didn't save them. I was so angry, Elya... I blamed ayah, back then. I thought, he's a Major, he should be able to fix it! Haa, it's only later I realised what the military was really focusing on... I guess it's a wonder he was able to even do that much." Yuliana swallows, against her grief. "I didn't see him for months and months... even after he managed to send us inland... he was busy working here. It was just me and mama..."
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Elisa hugs Yuliana, holding her close. Elisa can count them. She has counted them. She does not share the result of that count.
It is not fair, Yuliana says, and Elisa at first is simply a font of support; she is quiet, steady, calm. But she does listen. The cares of youth...
It is so distant from Elisa, now. She barely remembers how it felt, back then.
"I see..."
"Yes."
"So you were all left to yourselves."
She does not... understand, apology as much. But she understands the nature of compounding tragedies.
"You were right to be angry, even if you chose the wrong target at the time. But now you have the power to do more than be angry."
Elisa looks about the graveyard. "...I cannot bring them back. I cannot undo what has been done to them. But I will stand with you, through this."
"...The lives of the people are difficult," Elisa says. "It is no wonder that so many wish to change this world."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Mm," Yuliana nods, against her wife. "Mama had to find a way for me to shower... it was too hard for me to just get in the tub with... all the water. Honestly, it's still kind of..." She sighs, "... it's good you're able to be with me."
When it's harder to cope with being submerged, she can always be reassured by her wife's presence, beside her.
She nods against her wife's chest, when Elisa reminds her of her power, and the limitations of her own. "I know," she says, softly. "They're gone. It's okay. I'm just sad, zhenushka." She accepted these deaths... long ago.
"The world has to change," she says, quietly. "It... must have been hard for you, too, wasn't it? Back on Orb? I know they have, mechanisms, but... the sea itself rose to eat us."
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
"I see... Yes." Elisa nods, stroking Yuliana's back. "I am with you."
Yuliana knows. "...Sadness, yes. I understand. You have accepted these losses, but they trouble you still."
The world has to change. "So it shall," Elisa says. "We shall change it." A pause. For her...?
"It is..." She considers. "The memories are distant," she admits. "But we were wealthy, and lived in the capital. We did not see the devastation as closely as many. It was on the news, though... There were many more people who came to Olofat after that. Fleeing the outlying regions..."
She considers. "There were... relief efforts, I think."
A shake of her head. "It is hard to recall."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Thank God," Yuliana sighs, relaxing into her touch, and is that really just thanking Elisa? She nods, when Elisa understands her loss.
"We will," she affirms, softly. "We have that strength." To change the world, that is.
She looks up to her wife, reaching a scarred hand to cup her unsullied cheek; her skin bears a thousand marks of the world upon it, a woman through the woodchipper of war, and it doesn't escape Yuliana that Elisa bears none. Even so, her past must mark her... mustn't it?
She strokes her cheek, all focus on her wife, now. "Your life... is partitioned between 'before' and 'after,' isn't it, sputnica zhizni?" Yuliana underlines that she's her companion for life, as she asks her. "Elya... were Her demands to sacrifice those connections to your youth, before She set you to your work?"
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
It could be. But they do have the strength. Yuliana affirms it, but Elisa knows it.
And then Yuliana cups her cheek, and Elisa leans very slightly into that palm. She has no such marks, no, but she has memorized Yuliana's. And that question...
"Yes," she says. "'Before' is... distant. Far off. The younger I was, the farther it is."
A pause. "...I do not know that She demanded it, as such. It was not a choice offered me. It is merely the case that as time goes on, I remember the past less."
"...Hmm." A shake of her head. "Worry not for me. Not now. This is about those you have lost. But..."
"I will think on this. You may be onto something..."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"To a point, that's normal," Yuliana says, illustrating the human condition to her wife, as she always has. "The passions of youth fade with long years. But... these tragedies, we keep in our hearts, zhenushka. If they flee from yours... there must be some reason."
Her brow creases, and of course she will worry, for her wife. "I just don't wish for you to lose that part of yourself," she says, gently. "All of you is precious to me, Elya. Knowing you were protected by your wealth... I understand you a little better. I can't bear the thought of losing that, one day... or of you losing yourself."
Both equally bad, clearly.
She sighs, leaning into her wife, head to her shoulder. "But you are right, zhenushka... what is here was lost long ago. Haa, maybe that's why I can't bear to lose anything more..." Yuliana's tentacles tighten, around her wife. "... not one thing more..."
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
"Hmm." Normal. And yet, some reason. "Perhaps it is so. I will meditate upon it," Elisa assures Yuliana. "...I, also, wish to ensure we lose no more. ..This part of me is yours, Yuliana. As is my all. I am pleased, if you understand me more."
A pause. "Perhaps it is so, that that is why." Elisa squeezes Yuliana gently. "But we shall have all that we deserve. We shall not suffer lack."
"Remember that."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Mine!" Yuliana echoes her wife, squeezing her tightly. "As I am completely yours. It was harder, this year... those awful waves, after Junius Seven..." Her shoulders sink, recalling it. "... your apprentice did well, Elya," she adds, and of course attributes Ingvar's triumphs to her wife. "But even though we were safe, I... remembered."
She noses her face in against her wife's neck, murmuring against her. "It was hard for me... to bear it alone. So, I wanted you here... to help me grasp it. I'm glad you're with me, Elya..."
Elisa might not have been sure if she was the best company for mourning, but Yuliana would evidently have no one else.
"And we won't suffer for lack of anything," she agrees, with relief. "You've always provided well for us, Elya... and I'll take anything we need." Her fingers flex, buried in Elisa's dress. "When I was young, I thought that if only I was driving one of those great mechs which responded to these things, I'd surely be invincible... I was powerless, back then, but I knew how I'd become strong. It cost too much... but I did it... in the end. Now, the depths cannot drown me..."
She was nervous, down in the depths of the ocean, but the ocean parted for her.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
"Yes," Elisa agrees with this possessive moment. She listens, then, to how it was harder. "They did," she agrees of her apprentice. "They are talented in the ways of the Void. I knew that I could rely upon them." But the waves... yes. "To remember.. Yes, I understand."
"Anything you wish to grasp, I shall be there with you," Elisa says. "...Grief, as well. I am pleased that you would rely upon me in this way."
She will provide, and Yuliana too will take. When she was young...
"I... never concerned myself much with most of them," she says. "Though I wished to pilot one like my mother's, to try it."
And she did.
"You did it, though. This world shall not drown you, depths and otherwise."
"You are strong, now, my love."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"I've always been able to rely on you," Yuliana sighs, leaning on her wife. "You're the only one who's always been there for me..."
She looks up to Elisa, as she shares her own youthful view on machines. "Just to try it...? Ha, perhaps that's why we fight as we do now... I am so much more attached to my mechs than you are, boyevaya podruga," she notes, to her ally in all battles. "I sought strength, but your approach was curiosity... it is well, zhenushka," she assures her darling wife.
"Now I am strong... and you shall know all you seek to understand."
Including her.