2023-03-16: To Watch Over You

• Cast: Christina MacKenzie, Leina Ashta
• Where: Mass Villa, Spain
• Date: U.C. 0097 03 16
• Summary: After Kowloon, Akane bit the bullet and revealed what she knew about Sayla. The commons room had finally quieted down, but restless thoughts hung heavy in the Villa's air. Two women share their sleeplessness, their thoughts, and a bite to eat. Leina helps Chris understand a little off what it's like to be a Newtype, and Chris reveals the gift she'd been handcrafting to protect Leina, even when she's not nearby.

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<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.

It was late night after the meeting, and Leina was exhausted. Emotionally. Physically. In every single way. It permeated down to her bones two ideas in tandem.

She lied to me.

She didn’t trust me.

In the end, it didn’t matter how exhausted she was. She needed an outlet. As someone who very much preferred to use her words as an outlet, that gave her only a few options. Screaming at the Void? Writing a letter to Sayla or her future self?

No, both unsatisfying, and right now she has no idea what she’d say.

And so strange as it is to someone who hasn’t lived with Leina Ashta for so long, maybe it won’t be to Chris that her the sounds of water breaking in an even rhythm permeate the Villa. It’s a very subtle sound if one doesn’t have their balcony door or window cracked, nearly inaudible, but its going down.

She’s exhausted, but she needs to work this out. She needs an outlet. She needs to let this anger thrum out of her fingers and toes as she stabs at the water in a Freestyle stroke, before reaching the end of the pool, going under in a spin, and kicking off the wall, before starting again.

The pool is heated, and lit up, aquamarine ripples of light running across Leina as she races back and forth like some catalan sea spirit. Sayla always did call her an aloja for how she took to the water after coming down to earth from space. It was hydrotherapy where she fell in love with it.

She’s wearing a simple navy blue one piece swimsuit. She never wears bikinis or any type of two piece.

Chris knows why.

<Pose Tracker> Christina MacKenzie has posed.

The same papers. The same contracts. The same blueprints. The same rustling, words blurring into rorschach smears as she kept flipping through them, too tired to research the data Koji had sent over, but too restless by far to sleep.

No longer just a tragic anniversary's visit, Chris had returned from the Oberge with her messenger bag and her toolkit. That's all she needed, anyway. Everything else, clothes that fit her, her preference of salt scrub, late night snacks... Sayla made sure Chris could always come and stay. Maybe that was a hope that she would come stay more often? It was hard to tell, with how much she kept to herself. Chris, who faced everything but herself with head-on abandon. Sayla, who faced everything but herself with grace and poise.

She set down the papers, trading them for a small white box.
"Maybe there's still improvements I could make. Maybe I shouldn't even call it Iteration One yet..."

The toolbox by her feet called to her. More shiny than it had been in months, she wouldn't dare track dust and grease and grime into a guest room. Usually she'd just use...see, even a toolkit of her own was here, but, no, for parts this sensitive...the tools she'd worn down, the balance imperceptibly shifted by a couple grams abraded from the handles...there was no substitute.

"No, I'd rather she have anything. Especially now. Even if it's just my protection, not yours. Sayla... You have to come back. You have to. You have to."

Doubt sprang up from the edges of her mind, and she knew she'd never be able to sleep tonight--not without visitations from the dead. The missing. The victims. Her own ineptitude. The room was hot, cloying, suffocating, filled with smoke and embers. She stood, quickly and shakily, pushing her way to the balcony, to breathe the open air.

As the shadows receded from her vision, as her body exhaled her hauntings, the rhythm outside connected with her, steady, regular, stabilizing. Familiar. From another time, once upon a time, when she was here as much as she wasn't.

Ah. The lights are on.

Chris watched Leina from the balcony for a bit, her own scars forgotten, a melancholy in her heart watching her charge through the water. This wasn't the relief of weightlessness, by the looks of it.

Ever since Leina had thoroughly recovered, even Chris had been unable to race the girl and win, but some things are faster still. Chris cut through her room and grabbed the white box from the table. She knew the way down. They'd face this together.

<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.

Leina has often wondered about the phrase souls unbound by gravity. When reading the works in Sayla’s collection, it was clear to her at least by tracing it back that it originated from Zeon Zum Deikun.

It was meant to be a poetic idea of Ereism, meant for all of humanity. It was never meant to divide. It was to be inspiration, encouragement, to allow the Earth to heal as humanity left the cradle to dwell amongst the stars.
And then the Zabis corrupted it, it became divisive propaganda, which was then taken by the Earth Federation to fearmonger about the idea of a Spacenoid elite.

Still, she wonders about the Earthnoids who have never lived in microgravity or even experienced it. Is floating within the water the closest they will ever come to it? It’s not exactly like that, you can’t wave your arms in space and hope to move towards a destination.

A lesson she learned the hard way when Glemy held her by the scruff as a hostage.

It's close enough. It’s close enough for this young woman as she violently charges back and forth on the surface, then below it.

And then abruptly, she stops, pivoting sharply in the water to look straight up at the balcony where Chris is. If she’s upset, she isn’t upset for her observing her late-night swim. Treading water, she lets herself breathe, arms gently waving on the surface, legs bicycling at a constant rhythm, her short hair sopping and clinging to her head.

“Sure, you don’t want to join me?” She asks Chris, from afar, the aquamarine rippling across her face, “You don’t have to keep your distance.” Leina tells her, “Never you.”

Leina does then change her tone to a touch teasing, “Though it does run the risk of me asking what you went a few rounds against right before you arrived.” Despite the tone, it's clear.

She’s worried about her. Perhaps that’s a constant about her. She’s always worrying about the people in her life.

She couldn’t even let herself just be mad at Sayla, or melancholy for too long on its own, let it weigh her down. She let others coax her out of that pit, before she dragged herself out fully… and made arrangements to save her, to see she’s taken care of after this.

She always does carry these things on her own, if people let her get away with it.

<Pose Tracker> Christina MacKenzie has posed.

Hearing the invitation through her reverie, Chris calls back that she'll be down, and disappears from the balcony. Some time passes before she exits on the patio level. She's got her tan jacket covering her from shoulders to hips, legs bare. She waves to Leina, perching at the edge of the pool.

"I'm glad I still had a surf suit here... The other swimsuits were a bit..." She laughs a little, kicking her feet in the comfortable, temperate water. The doubt was washed away by the rippling reflections. It was a bizarre kind of magic, to feel so relieved, just from hearing one voice, from seeing one nostalgic scene. No, it wasn't quite magic. It was the strength of being together.

The jacket is carefully draped over the foot of a pool chair, revealing a black shorts-cut swimsuit, bright flowers accenting her sides from her waist to her shoulders. It's a much more practical and sporty look than...well, than the ones Sayla'd bought for her.

Chris catches the direction of Leina's observant gaze--her hands are still tinted with purple and yellow bruises, and there's a welt on the back of her right hand. The rest of the damage is harder to see, but Leina's been around her enough to see the differences in her motions and face. If she were trying to hide, though, she wouldn't have come within a mile of the villa, or sat by the one person who has always seen straight through her. Maybe a part of her was hoping for this kind of worry...the kind Chris so rarely spared for herself.

"...You remember Rita? Sri Lanka? Earnest, prophetic, twenty meters tall? I met her again, she's really fast... I tried to race her at Full Burn... and spun out with the stabilizer on manual. Rita saved my life, but the ship that picked up my SOS, its executive made a choice I disagreed with." She indicated her hands, as though that said everything. "I still had to consult with ...a colleague, and pass through HaroCon to finalize a contract, right before I came here." Leina already knew who her colleagues were, though in this case it truly had nothing to do with that circle's occupations.

That was far from the end of the (oversimplified) story, and Chris writhed under the girl's worry. Now wasn't the time to conceal things, thanks to their mutual companion's debt in that department. Even so, she'd rather be gentle with the girl when she's rarely so gentle with herself.

"...Leina, there's more, but I don't want to upset you." But she would, at the young woman's own behest.

<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.

As Chris accepts the invitation, Leina goes back to swimming laps for a while. Physically exhausted as she is, she isn’t going to beat her record times, but it puts her in that state where it feels like she’s pushing that exhaustion enough that she’s not thinking about her anger over this situation full time.

At some point it becomes swimming. At some point it becomes not about this situation, even if it’s only for a few seconds at a time before her brain remembers, and her body works it back out.

It’s not until Chris returns, and comes to the side of the pool, that Leina’s trajectory changes to the side of the pool, just beside where she’s dipping in her toes. She hoists herself up on her elbows, propping them on the edge of the pool, taking some of the work off of her feet while giving her arms a rest.

Her chin takes its place across her hands, before it shifts to a cheek. Her eyes assess the damage up close, from this sideways perspective. It’s clear she’s still worried but, “Honestly? It’s a perfect look for you.” Leina says with that sideways smile, and faintly abstracted look in her green eyes.

Then they jerk back up towards Chris in surprise as she invokes Rita. “Remember her?” Her feet kick idly, “Me and her are actually really good friends.” The smile becomes a touch more genuine, “I’ll have to thank her next time she visits for looking out for you.”

It’s a curious comment, to say she’s really good friends with Rita, but in the moment Leina doesn’t clarify it further, the door is simply left open. “… I’m just glad you’re still in one piece Chris. That’s what’s important to me.” As she offers implicit forgiveness for arriving late. Some things are just far more important.

She offers to tell her more, but she doesn’t want to upset her. In that moment, her eyes are distant again for a few very long moments, Leina doesn’t speak, but… the silence is broken after a time, “She showed up, didn’t she?” A pause and, “Puru-1.” Then, more softly after a moment, “Elpeo.” She says again, trying to hide the sudden despondent look on her youthful expression.

<Pose Tracker> Christina MacKenzie has posed.

Chris smiles, a little bashfully, at Leina's compliment as she comes close. "If it's you saying it, it must be true..." Not only due to the girl's aesthetic aptitude, but because even when Leina hides more serious things, she can always be trusted to tell the truths that matter to her.

"Eh? You know her that well?" Emerald eyes widen. "Then... Tell her I'm sorry I couldn't do more for her, and I owe her one." What an obnoxiously Chris thing to say, given the facts of that incident. "She made sure I could come back here," she added, reaching out to touch Leina's elbow, apologizing, reassuring, and accepting her forgiveness in the same moment.

But there was that pain, that history. Of course Leina knew, without more than a word. It's Leina. Even what little Sayla had shared about her ward's captivity was enough to break Chris's heart. Even if it had never been ripped back open, that kind of wound doesn't knit without an ugly scar.

"Yes, she did."

Chris slipped into the pool, one forearm anchoring her to the wall, the other hand reaching out to touch Leina's shoulder, unsure if the young woman needed space or contact more, but at least determined to make her own support obvious.

"It started with Luio & Co posting a high-profile open posting for help tracking the Phenex... A small fortune, really. There were so many people, but I don't think anyone really thought anything would come of it. I don't think many people really knew what was going on. A few knew her, but once I realized what was happening, I just wanted to fly with her."

Her fingers tensed. "It was my own recklessness, and after I spun out and taxied to the Luio ship, I was in no condition to help her in turn."

"I had just woken back up. Some kind of battle had burst out over capturing the Phenex. Breaking her. Like some unruly livestock. But... But that Luio executive... she..."

Chris's voice broke, and for a moment her hand, meant to support Leina, felt more like a pained grasp seeking solidity. She caught herself and softened her hand again, apologetically.

"She activated Puru-1 and the Banshee screamed. She used the Banshee--used its pilot--just to cage Rita. So I tried to break down the door."

<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.

Ambient BGM - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOaJpxe7lm8

Leina allows a small grin, “Of course its true. Not that you didn’t look good in the other swimsuits but…” The grin smooths out, “You never looked quite… comfortable.” Leina tells her with the genuine sincerity of someone who grapples with the same thing at times.

Or rather any time, she holds up a dress she wants to wear over herself in a mirror, and has to grapple with the feelings like she’s his again.

“Honestly? Better than anyone.” It’s an answer that’s shocking on its face perhaps, that Leina knows Rita THAT well. “I started investigating the Phenex to learn the connection to Banagher’s Unicorn, and between what Michele gave me and what my investigation turned up about her origins…” A tiny pause, as she thinks about it, “… I was able to see her as she truly was. There’s a lot of things I can’t talk about when it comes to her, but…” There’s an amused twinkle in her eyes, “… I do know about your mutual ‘extracurricular’ activities.”

She still looks like she’s going to give her an earful at SOME point in the future, just not tonight… not tonight.

A thin smile returns as Chris touches her elbow, and explains her feelings on the matter, “I’ll tell her, but I bet she doesn’t see it that way. I’m still grateful that she made sure you came back to me.”

The topic it shifts to does not require Newtype abilities to understand her sorrow, it’s written all over her face, in such low spirits over it. “I shouldn’t be surprised Michele would go so far, she’s a Luio through and through. Shameless hypocrisy and all.”

She’s more than just grumpy about it, but right now it's like there are too many things for her to be angry about to add another to the pile for the depth of anger it deserves. “Still it’s a nice image, thinking of you there trying to break down the door, trying to give her an earful. I’d have done the same.” Though for a different reason perhaps, Michele was a victim of Augusta and now she’s using another science crime experiment?

Yet there’s a pause, and it’s like she sags as if that news was weighing upon her further. Every night, the nightmares, every day, the fear, the desperation as it pursues Banagher and Mineva. Now Rita too…

“Don’t feel bad about not being able to help.” Leina’s eyes slip up to Chris, and there’s a certain emphasis to how she tries to carry that, like it’s not just empty consolation, “I mean it. Like I said, I can’t say everything, but Rita wants to be pursued.”

Her head lifts from her hands just enough to put a fingertip to her lips, “Shhh. Don’t tell anyone as this cat can’t be let out of the bag but you didn’t do wrong by her. Even if you’d attacked her, that’s exactly what she wants.”

That’s a whole lot of implications in a single revelation, but she doesn’t elaborate further at the moment. Instead she takes a breath, and her eyes close, aquamarine rippling and lines of light dancing across the back of her head as its like something just, leaves her in the moment, or maybe those were the final fumes, the last gasps of her emotional energy and now she has nothing left, “What did they even do…? Puru-1… it can’t really be her… but…”

She says that with such certainty, but then doubt, despair cracks away at that thin shell of it, as her breath hitches into a barely contained sob, “…why can’t they just let her rest?”

It’s a moment like she might wax philosophical in some soliloquy about nothing being sacred or inviolable, not even the dead to Vist, to Luio and co.

And yet, not tonight.

She’s too drained to swim against the current.

<Pose Tracker> Christina MacKenzie has posed.

Chris's bashful expression relaxed into a warm smile under Leinas appraisal. She knew how Leina felt about her, because she quite felt the same watching Leina navigate her own pain. Sayla had pulled Chris out of the darkness of her guilt hangar, but no one can take the darkness of another away from them, nor ought anyone should, no matter how much one might want to.

Shocking is a word for it, though Chris's expression rebalances to a wry pout--Leina's all over the entire Sphere, and there's no question that the Phenex's light is sibling to the Unicorn and Banshee... Perhaps she should have expected it, but she hadn't. It's no small relief, though... To know that she already understands more than Chris even knows. There's worry, of course, creasing the woman's brows, given the pain Leina and Sayla have already borne on their shoulders from keeping secrets, but Leina's shown herself at least somewhat able to entrust others to support her, like her partners, and like Chris. Even up to now, Sayla is still playing open misère...

When it comes back to Rita, though, "She and I will have to disagree...But I guess if I owe her, I won't pry and we'll be even." Chris asserts with a bit of playful defiance.

"Ahaha... I can see you doing it, too." If it's a nice image, Leina can have some details, accompanied by a self-deprecating laugh. "I yelled myself hoarse through the door and they sent me home with the IV pole I broke."

Her expression then softens, goes a bit distant, goes beyond this moment in time. "I... Right before I pulled the trigger and spun out, I saw...golden fields, all around. She encouraged me, beckoned me, reassured me... It was like time had stopped, enough to almost Is that... Is that what it's like for you? When you..." When you what? Go beyond the time? Sense voracious emptiness? ...Come running to the door before Chris can even push it open? Admittedly, she favors that last one. But still... saying it out loud, it feels like a world not meant for her, but one she was welcomed into anyway, as Rita's guest.

Her eyes snap back into focus immediately as Leina's breathing changes.

"Leina..."

She's no more able to soothe the grief from this wounded heart than she was able to break down a steel door with her fists. Than she would be able to run and save Sayla all on her own. Than she could break that awful machine and lay it to rest... But maybe she can stem the bleeding. She kicks herself an arm's length closer, wrapping it around Leina's shoulders. "Girlie, let's get you dried off and fed...You can come back and do more laps, but I want to make sure you refuel first. And, I have something for you...It's not done, but I thought you should have it, until I can finish it. A-and it's not one of those toasters I messed with! I'm not even allowed to bring those to Spain."

She's filibustering.

"If it's her, we'll do what we can. All of us, together. If it's not her...we'll do what we must. Either way, if they won't let her rest..." The threat lingered in the air. In the end, the aid worker couldn't think of any way to solve such cruelty other than violence. Maybe she was more suited to VEDA's mission than she cared to admit. It didn't matter. She had an exhausted young woman to take care of.

<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.

It's difficult to know what Leina's thinking about in the moment necessarily, in a frustrating way. The Phenex is a mystery to many of the people who would call her friend, and there's a good reason for that. To claim special knowledge but then go 'But I can't talk about it.' feels like such a teenager move on the one hand when they hold a secret or simply want to impress someone. Yet that's not really what she's going for. When Chris tells her 'She and I will have to agree to disagree.' Leina's expression becomes a sort of rueful sadness, "Yeah. Agreeing to disagree is how we have to handle the majority of our conversations right now."

The rhythm of her legs treading is growing slower and slower, more just this lazy movement, as most of her weight is balanced upon her arms, she finds herself trying to smile again, but not quite getting there when Chris speaks of the IV pole they sent her home with. "Did they hand you the bill too, or are you still waiting for it in the mail?" Leina asks quietly, and it's clear perhaps she's making a small joke as if to deflect from a deeper conversation that comes with... Michele Luio, an Augusta survivor, making use of Puru-1. She doesn't think Michele really is quite that petty to someone who disagrees with her in this operation, but, it's easier to make her a caricature than look at the reality.

Chris describes her experiences, before eventually trailing off into thinking of the myriad impressions she has of being a Newtype is like. Indeed, she knows quite a lot about it from being around the two of them, and Leina mulls it over for a while before, "Not exactly. Think of it as a touch of theater, her setting the stage to make it more comfortable to the people whom she brings there. You'd have to go behind all that stage dressing to see it for what it truly is." She eyes Chris for a time, "And I'm not sure what would happen if you tried. Maybe it would be fine, maybe not. It can be intense." She warns, "In ways I can't even really put into words."

In the end though, it's just her and her grief. Though today Chris is here too, trying to coax her into caring for herself. For a time, there's no response, and it's unclear if she heard her. Grief might be one of those things beyond time too, for Newtypes. Drawing them into other spaces, forcing them to face the shades of their past and knowing that they're still out there, but also so far away. It takes a time through hitching breath to calm herself down. She always did hate people seeing her cry, so she's always been good at preventing the waterworks, or drawing back from them so masterfully that it gaslights people into thinking it happened at all.

Then just...

"The AEU Assembly probably had a special session over your toasters." Leina says quietly, then there's this motion of the backs of her fingers against her eyes before she even lifts up her head, "S-Shame really, I like your toasters. They're better than some fancy new expensive model." She always did hate throwing things away herself, spending money on something new. She's a poor kid through and through. She can't even fathom the idea of spending money on something she doesn't really need, or isn't at the top of her list when it comes to 'want'.

Then with a simple up and down bob, Leina breaks the water, and levers herself up onto the side of the pool's stonework. Pivoting as she settles on the side, the water still pooling off of her and draining down. Then picking herself up, she pads over to grab a towel off one of the nearby tables, and runs it across her face, "Yeah I... I know." It's a simple solution, it always is perhaps. Most of climbing into a mobile suit is making the bad things stop. "It's obvious I guess just..."

It's rare that it makes good things happen though.

"... it's harder some days than others, being made to look at it over and over."

And creatures like Martha Vist Carbine? They force her to confront it more often. That rot within the world that creates this grief.

<Pose Tracker> Christina MacKenzie has posed.

If it were another teenager, maybe that would be on the table, but to know that Leina is acknowledging her burdens, sharing just enough to let her in...it gives Chris more comfort to hear about it, and lets her resolve to keep an ear out for when the time comes to call on her.

"I was ready to reimburse them, but...I was just beneath their notice." It's almost admirable, Luio's singleminded focus. Almost, but at an unacceptable cost. And that man, in the Gundam that snared the Phenex, why was he fighting like that, so desperately? It seemed like Luio had hurt him... To Chris, it seems bewildering. And yet, here Sayla is, having hurt all of them to shield herself, and Chris would still throw herself against the Red Comet and nihilistic space magic to bring her back. Self awareness isn't always her strongest suit.

Theatre... maybe like an end-user interface? "Like when the OS looks so much different from the code-facing perspective... Simplified, so that the average person can interact with it..."
Chris's feelings are a bit complex, tangling themselves up like wires. On one hand, she's acutely aware of the trauma and persecution and exploitation of the awakened, and she's seen the way the Banshee turns connection into debility... Chris's insensitivity becomes its own form of strength, to be their shield. But she's a bit disappointed, somewhere in there, too, hoping that she could finally understand her closest people a little bit more.

Chris lets Leina take her time. There's not... there's nowhere to be more important than where she is.

She chuckles. "If they did, it was something about 'unfair business practices', I'm sure. What's unfair about keeping things from breaking? Well, there was that one with a fussy voltage step-down, but that was early in the versioning..."

Chris makes her way to the ladder, taking the gentler route out of the water. She wrings her hair out, then pats it dry over her shoulder.

She lingers on her feet for a moment longer.

"I know. It's nauseating to look at. I wish... I wish I could climb into a machine meant to help people, not... not designed to kill. But I know I'm not the only one. Leina, I saw a smartphone feed from the Garancieres. That... What he did, your Banagher... that suit stopped being a weapon. It became something else. Something entirely new..."

"This place... this world, there's already too many people that are just like this triple zero thing... who see other people's happiness, their possibility, as a threat..."

She retrieves a small white box from her tan coat. A pink ribbon is cinched around it.

"That's why I want you to have this, Leina."

Hopefully she isn't too frugal to accept it…

<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.

There's this low key outrage that shows on her face when Chris says she's beneath their notice, "Doesn't surprise me." This flicker of anger, from a girl who went through all she did to a privileged life, seeing someone go through similar hardship to privilege and end up rotten. "Just means for all the wealth she has now she understands the value of nothing."

The general vibe of Chris trying to parse what she says and liken it to her experiences. Leina's never been particularly technical minded in that sense. So it takes a moment of her trying to follow them before she realizes what she's trying to do. It almost makes her smile. Almost. In the moment, she isn't ready to answer those feelings, but its like she's filing it away to try and figure out how to answer them best rather than ignoring them.

Her talk about the toaster though gets this glint of amusement in her green irises. However, in the end its... the talk about how she wishes she could climb into a machine not meant to kill people, "Yeah..." She agrees, "... me too." The talk comes of Banagher and the Unicorn, and her eyes close, a soft sigh, and...

But Chris continues, and Leina doesn't crawl out of that despondency immediately, as she speaks of other people's happiness, their possibility being a threat. Idly she towels off more of her body.

Leina just gives her a tired look after some time, "I was entranced by it too. Miracles like that always have a cost though, even if we can't see it. Last time that light showed up?" There's a prolonged pause, then she speaks, even more muted, "... The cost was Sayla's happiness." Note, she doesn't say her happiness in that, even though that happiness was something Leina and her built together, and lost together.

Two men fought and fought and fought. It feels like neither of them gave even an erg of consideration for her. It's not fair that a man who didn't even care enough to check if she was off the Earth be given such control over her heart. It's not fair that another man who probably gave whatever project he was working on more consideration than Sayla, who dated progressively younger women to get his 'groove' back. Who hadn't even called her in years, be given that much power.

And yet, here we are.

When the gift is offered, there's a look of curiosity that wars a little with absurdity in the moment, with how much awful is going on in their lives. Celebrating happiness, possibility... amidst so many people who see it as a threat just makes her wonder. Eventually curiosity wins out. She knows that Chris always has the best of intentions, and she's not going to reject well-meaning kindness.

"You really didn't have to." She says quietly and with her it really doesn't feel perfunctory. Gifts are just about the only way to get Leina to have nice things. Otherwise she usually just says it's not within the budget on her household spreadsheets. Always spending on other people, and never much on herself.

Putting the towel aside, she gingerly slides the pink ribbon off, without undoing it. This, she loops over her wrist in a gesture that only feels half conscious, as she lifts the lid and peers inside.

<Pose Tracker> Christina MacKenzie has posed.

"...Axis Shock."

Miracles always have a cost... She remembers Axis, too. She had just become embroiled in relief work for the last cataclysm, the razing of Lhasa, when Axis began to move. XAIRO was still in its infancy, and the meteoric barrage had depleted resources and fatigued her colleagues. There was too much need for her on the ground, so... she wasn't able to see Sayla for much later... By then, the woman had slammed her walls into place--not just the psychic ones.

"...What do you think the cost to Banagher might be?" There were plenty of possibilities Chris could think of, not least of all his family's attention. Plus the Banshee, the orange juice aces, nihilistic space magic... the Federation and Neo Zeon factions...

Those out there who were not saved by miracles. Those that lost something to them. Maybe not to Banagher’s own, but...Leina's right. The costs come from all corners.

Chris's gift is in hopes that Leina is never counted among those costs.

Inside is...a watch.

When Leina picks it up, it's a bit warm to the touch, or at least less cool than you might expect metal to be. It's a bit heavier than most watches its size, too. The watchface is rather feminine, balancing the commanding presence of its frame. Chris glances between it and Leina, wondering if it ended up too fancy for daily wear...

"A colleague, um, recommended this model as a an option, since I'm not very updated on fashion. It seemed like something you'd like, but that you could still wear at Foundation events..."

As Leina holds it in her hands, she can feel it begin to whirr, subtly.

"It's not done yet, there's still parts I need from SUN for it and its companion miniHaro, but... you don't hate it, do you?"

Parts?

<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.

There's a certain solemnity when Axis is invoked, the second worst day of Leina's life. She doesn't say anything at first, though it's clear she certainly doesn't judge Chris for throwing herself into her relief work. She'd validate that decision for people to choose that, every single time.

A question is asked though, and Leina's eyes tip skyward, as if searching for the answer. "The expectation of making more." Leina replies to her after a time, "Bearing the weight of those expectations. The Beast of Possibility isn't always a kind one. Banagher wanted very badly to be needed... and he got his wish." At such a grave cost. "Learning about a world that needs miracles, living in a world that needs miracles. Understanding that the very fact miracles exist will often convince the masses that only miracles and the 'great men and women' that make them can create change. Knowing these people will cede their agency to him thus making the hard work to create real change almost impossible to inspire.”

She thinks about this a lot, or rather, she has ever since Axis Shock. In which a miracle saved the world, but it shattered the person closest to her. It's a more than fair price to pay, and yet she resents it. However, it's also clear that she thinks about what it will actually take to create change.

Her attention is turned to the box, the ribbon looped over her wrist, the lid lifted, and for a time she looks at its contents. Before she gingerly picks it up, examining it, the weight, the temperature. For a time her eyes are just upon it, as Chris starts to speak about where it came from. During this time it rests in her hand, and Leina's expression gives no sign of her thoughts on it. Whether it's too much, whether she likes it or not.

Which may seem to justify Chris' anxiety in the moment of whether she likes it or not, in and of itself. She puts the watch back in the box in a worrisome moment, as she places it back down on the table. Then abruptly, almost seemingly out of nowhere, she turns and her arms surround Chris in a hug. "Like it? I love it!" Leina says quietly to the older woman, after a moment, a touch more happiness in her voice than has been this whole conversation.

"It came from you."

A squeeze that's a touch more tight than before, before she releases her, putting her hands on either shoulder of the surf suit briefly. "I'm going to go change and put it on right now."

-=-=-

A."

There's a pause and then Leina clears her throat, and then she adds...

"...You mentioned parts from SUN and a Mini-Haro?"

She sounds a little ashamed almost, to even follow up asking on that, but curiosity has won out.

<Pose Tracker> Christina MacKenzie has posed.

The worry on her face grows as Leina points out the burden on the young man. Chris wonders if there's anything she can do, but before she can stop it, an impulse bubbles out.

"The masses don't want real change, miracles or none," comes out of her mouth, quickly, quietly, bitterly, then she seems a bit taken aback, obviously ashamed of her own unfiltered cynicism.

"...Most people that want change are the ones without any power," she corrects herself after a moment. "It's the ones content just not making things worse for themselves that let Titans and Institutes happen." There's still a little growl in there, but it's moderated, contained.

Chris waits, patiently, impatiently, running equations in her head on what might have been better, possible missteps, adjusting miscalculation until they're all abruptly interrupted by a loving embrace.

"I'm so glad..."

She's not tearing up, obviously, her face is just wet from her hair.

-=-=-


She's a bit quiet on the way back inside to change, but once she's gotten cozy socks on, haro-patterned sweat pants, and a delicate, lace-trimmed cami that very obviously was purchased by Sayla or Leina for her, she's just beaming. Her hair is swept up into a bun, though she's using a much cheaper hair band than the golden circlet Liu Mei recently tethered the same style with.

"Please, you treat me to Cuisine Ashtà at every opportunity. I can at least make you some comfort food. I'll even keep it to something I can actually make these days."

Chris rummages around in the TARDIS-esque pantry, the magical mystery of Villa Mass, fussing over what would be good. Maybe, just maybe, in the safety of the pantry, she frantically searches for a good recipe on her phone. Didn't she used to be a good cook in her younger days?

Either way, she gets out the pantry with an armful of sealed containers. Pumpkin seeds, oats, and some protein powder... luckily, she's even found some cherries. Bless the staff, it's not even like there's a grocery store nearby. What do they do, VTOL perishables in??

Leina speaks up, and Chris turns her full attention to the metaphysics of this world. She assents to the request, silently sketching the framing, the trees, the sapling she planted, her own satchel. The gravemarker scrap. Aside from Alfred... Leina is the only one to share this place with her. She tries to imagine sharing it, to push that painting from her mind outwards, even towards someone who's seen it, but... there's really just nothing but a general notion. Swinging the bat when there's no ball, not even a pitcher.

Not that she expected it to work, but she still gave it an earnest try.

She slowly opens her eyes as Leina struggles to find the words for the psychic experience. She tries her best to not interrupt, knife clacking quietly, chopping up the cherries and seeds each into small pieces. Chris reaches into the fridge, and spoons out two bowls of Mediterranean yogurt, mixing in the cherries and just a bit of the powder, given Leina's exhaustive workout. She slides the bowl onto the counter, with a ramekin of the oats and seeds and some granola to add by taste. Personally, she spoons a good half the chop into hers. She'll still need help to get to sleep, and it's always easier on a full stomach.

"Entwine...too well...by instinct..." Chris is trying to follow along, and it mostly makes sense, just... "Like a shorted circuit...er, a shortcut, like bypassing the normal routes, but sometimes you need to take that longer path for things to make sense...?"

A mouthful of parfait, a brain full of mysteries. Digesting.

"I see...that's what you meant by 'theatre' and 'backstage'... She uses her memories to kind of... make a mezzanine between that special place and over here. Somewhere like a half step from either floor, in between... So Newtypes can both bump into memories over here, and over there, it's more like, a short circuit, it just flows straight through without turning off, and Rita...Rita can pull people like me halfway over, but she has to protect us from the short circuit using her memories? Is that right?"

It's an important part of Leina and Sayla--and, for that matter, of Banagher and Audrey, of the returned Char and Amuro, of Captain York and even...the Purus. To Chris, that's reason enough to try to understand.

Especially if she's going to be working on a photonic psychoframe for Leina.

She's got a spoon in her mouth when Leina asks about her gift, and her eyes light up. She's been fussing over this for a while now, and now that it's coming to fruition, she has so much to say and suggest and confirm and improve. She puts the spoon down into her parfait and gestures for Leina to bring the watch closer.

"Right now it just has my own prototype parts in it... but I'm going to upgrade those soon. So, it doesn't have the waterproofing lacquer on yet. SUN just released some top of the line components, and I'll be working at HaroCon in exchange for discounts from retail price. The watch itself..." She taps one of the actions and a holographic display forms above the stained glass face. "Is supposed to link up to your phone, these days that's pretty common, but... this has a multivalent signal transducer so it should work close-range even in high-Minovsky disruption... Ah, I can help you set it up so you can tap this..." Across from the eye-catching actions, there's three recessed buttons that on first inspection, weren't anything more than part of the design. "To ring your phone after a delay, so it looks like you have to go take the call. I haven't programmed the other two yet, so it's just this one. I hope that's enough for now."

She lapses silent for a moment, before explaining the intention behind it. "See, I'm no good at those Galas, but I thought, if I could make them easier for you... Even if I'm not there." A sheepish grin. She can't help that she's been feeling guilty since that disappearing PLANT took Sayla far away. And with Sayla kidnapped, all that will be on Leina's shoulders again...

"I won't bother you with the details, but... The mini Haro I'm going to build with the Gen4 parts, I really wanted to pack a lot in there... The idea is that the synched Haro can help you get somewhere safe and play, like, a prerecorded from Banagher and Audrey or something... And I'm trying to cram an entire mili-grade EWAC in it, it should be able to bypass weak jamming, and counterjam stronger systems--" She's lapsing into technospeak again-- "Uh, and it'll scan nearby comm activity for things like Manhunter and PMC...is the plan, anyway, there's this forum, they gave me the idea for it, I'm meeting them at the Con to work more on it..."

With this part, it becomes a bit more clear why Chris sees this as part of protecting others' happiness. This entire gift is meant to protect Leina and her lovers.

Maybe that's presumptuous or intrusive, but... Chris has one hope for the future. A reckless young woman with uncompromising ideals. Sayla is an anchor, someone that keeps Chris grounded, but--and it's been made more obvious earlier tonight--Sayla struggles too much with the past to really live in the future. Sayla is Chris's strength. Leina is Chris's hope.

<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.

Part of her wants to correct Chris. Chris almost certainly could have expected debates from a firebrand of a twelve, thirteen, fourteen-year-old, but part of her just doesn’t have the energy for it right now.

The despair is always personal, but some nights, it’s just more so.

Chris isn’t tearing up, obviously, so when Leina’s towel makes gentle contact with her face, it’s just the pool water she’s wiping away, isn’t it?

-=-=-

“Anddddd?” Leina grins at her, perhaps a little more cheer restored status post shower and a change. “It’s only fair, you do so much repair work around here. I can barely figure out what to fiddle with in a fuse box.”

A habit picked up from division of labor back when she was a child. Judau was the one who was the junker trying to earn them enough to eat, and she kept house with the cooking and cleaning. But he had to handle fixing anything that went awry in their tenement home.

She’d just never had a head for such things.

She watches her for a time, smiling, but also eyeing the pantry to see if Judau and Knight had cleaned them out a little too much again. Mercifully, it doesn’t seem like it.

“You’re spending a lot of time in there~” She teases lightly, perhaps suspecting she is looking up a recipe, “Need help finding anything?”

Leina please, you’re dead on your feet and you know it why are you trying to take over making dinner? … Because it’s her of course.

Still, she lets Chris have at it, as she shifts her butt on a high stool near the counter, keeping a hand propped against her chin, as if post workout and shower she might just pass out if she lets gravity take over control of her head for even a second. She spoons some of the little add ons from the ramekin into the yogurt as she chews at the bite of the improvised parfait, her spoon is still in her mouth when she goes a little cross-eyed at Chris’ explanation, then pops it back out.

“Um, sorta?” Leina tries to follow along with short circuit, “I think. It sounds right.” Before nodding about Rita making a mezzanine of sorts. Then the short circuit gets described more and, “Yeah, that sounds right. In that space, when she draws me there, I have just about as much control as she does. I can show her places from my memories. More than just places, I can replay whole memories for her if I want. Someone who’s not a Newtype though… it feels more like it’d be using that familiar and comfortable imagery as like, insulation?”

She spoons more into her mouth, chewing for a time, and swallowing, “Usually when I get drawn in in my dreams, I don’t have any control. It’s because someone is visiting. When its… Banagher and me, I have some? There it’s more like, there’s a sea inside each of us, and when we go to that place, those seas meet. The waters mingle and merge. Sometimes its on purpose what you show the other person, sometimes its on accident. For some things you have to… invite them in. Either way… once we leave that place, the tide sort of recedes, but a part of you stays behind. It’s not like a piece of you is missing or something just… it belongs to someone else too?”

She struggles again to articulate it, it’s such a spiritual experience that she can’t really get to perfectly describing it. Her eyes tip up, “It sounds kinda embarrassing putting it that way.” She says as she scratches her cheek, smiling a touch, “But it’s the best way I can describe it.”

Despite the place Chris has in her life, she is NOT gonna tell her how Banagher reacted after this happens. Nope. Nope. Nope. She is BURYING that failed proposal that was born out of the misconception of what just happened deep, DEEP, down.

As Chris bids, she brings the watch on closer, extending her left arm out, and then Leina nods along. Nod. Nod. Nodddd. She maybe goes a bit bug eyed when she hears all the effort she’s going to do this, “You really didn’t need to go to all that trouble…” She says, perhaps marveling at Chris going so far as to use her efforts at Harocon just to get discounts on parts for a gift to her. Yet she’s not rejecting it either. “… Oh, could you? God! That’d be incredible.” Even if she’s not one for lying, dealing with events like that, sometimes she just has to step away and take a breath…
… or an anxiolytic.

“Thank you. I’m going… to have to make some public appearances from now on after the New Year’s Gala so…” It couldn’t have come at a better time.

Then she mentions the Mini-Haro, “God a Gen 4!? Chris-!” Leina sounds scandalized at first, her own Haro, Giovanni is only a Gen 2, just with various modules loaded onto it. “A military grade-!” Leina boggles for a moment, before she laughs, “God, I…” Pause, she keeps wanting to say it’s too much, but instead, “…I won’t say no. I kind of need that with Banagher and Audrey around.”

She giggles to herself, “Believe it or not, Banagher actually tricks people into thinking his Haro is a bomb all the time to get out of bad situations. It works too! Just a prerecorded countdown!”

And then the mood shifts, as she moves around the counter, and puts her arms around her again, even going so far as to lean the side of her head down upon her shoulder, “Thanks Chris.” She says quietly, “This is…” There’s so many things she might have said in this moment, on it being too much, too grand, but tonight, she just says, a whispered, tired…

“… Thank you.”

<Pose Tracker> Christina MacKenzie has posed.

"Hey, you still helped me replace the doorbell, so I count that as a success." Chris considers her options while she hastily picks a recipe that looks reasonable and quick, and scans around for ingredien--uh oh, stubborn jousting. "Sit still, I'm fine, uh, things have just moved, and, wow, I didn't know Comet Crunch was still around!"

She did know. She was the one who ordered it.

"Alright, how about this? Please let me feed you. And then I'll owe you: one favor, blank cheque, no questions. Specialty parts, bury a body, force me to rest and feed me a big breakfast, a contraband toaster..."

Chris smiles watching Leina process electrical circuit metaphors--because she knows that she's making the same expression whenever it's Leina's side of the discussion.
"So even when she draws you in, the, the mezzanine, it's not...her space, so to say... it's just a space, but one that's normal for her like 'this side' is normal for me?

Seas meet, waters mingle and merge, part and linger... parts of the self you show, parts you protect, and parts you can't help but reveal... to Chris it sounded like living together with someone for a long time, compressed into the barest moment. The ability to convey things without the clumsiness of words--and without their safety, their distance. Not all that can be conveyed is made of kindness and love. No wonder it was such a treacherous balance to strike.

Leina explaining what it feels like to communicate without words... Somewhere between irony and poetry, Chris doesn't have any of her own words to express her appreciation, just parfait, and the craft of her own hands.

Still, she tries. "...it's a big part of you, a big part of your history and your heart... Anything that intimate is embarrassing," she reassures.

"I did," she establishes, voice the same volume, but absent of any compromise. "I did have to. This is something from me to you."

She didnt mean that she saw it as an obligation, but that to her, this was simply the most natural course of action. Neither the coffers of Sayla Mass nor Liu Mei Wang would place an unearned dime into this. It has to be from Chris. Nor would she divert a penny from her relief work's funding. Even were Chris willing (and she wasn't), for Leina to accept it, that's incontrovertible.

That she was accepting it... was all Chris could ask for.

"Great! We can set it up tomorrow, if you're not busy. We can set it up another button to ping me, if you want. Whether it's a battlefield, a gala, or a fusebox, I'll come."

–'I won't say no,'

"That's a relief. You three each have your share of dangers, but your combined strengths… Well, one of your strengths is you have a Chris," she chuckles. Banagher, Audrey, and Leina... when those three have military grade enemies hunting them... they need military grade solutions. It just makes sense!


Her eyes widen. "What, Banagher and his Haro acting like he's holding a bomb? I've got to see this."

The threat of power is often stronger than power itself. Is that why Vist is chasing Banagher and the Unicorn, chasing that power of miracles but without any thought of the burdens thereof? Is that why Audrey, her identity revealed tonight, why her life is always in danger, why Neo Zeon and the Federation and the Manhunters all deny her her own free life?

Is that why triple zero wants to end humanity and all its potential? Why Char's–Casval's–modus operandi is wiping out the footprint of humans on the earth?

If the threat of humanity is the power of humanity, its ignominy and beauty both, then these two women, who have both suffered humanity's ignominy and still found beauty to fight for...

She wrapped her arms gently around Leina, accepting her weight beyond what '9.8 meters per second per second' could express. She held her as long as the girl stayed close, tipping her own head against Leina's.

Only when their respective exhaustions finally caught up to them did she pull away.

"Ready to give sleep another shot?"

<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.

"Setting the lowest bar. I barely did more than pass your tools." She's downplaying a little, she's not TOTALLY hopeless, just she never had much interest in home repair. In some ways she's got her head stuck in the past, the roles she had as a child just firmly stick, and repair was firmly Judau's territory.

"Liar." She calls her out, while sticking out her tongue, "But if there's anything you're looking to find that /actually/ can't be tracked down anymore, Tsutsujidai is an embarrassment of riches that way. They have a brand of apple gummies that you haven't been able to buy for almost four years up there." She grins, "I. Stocked up." She does raise an eyebrow, giving her an amused look, "Okay okay. I'll let you feed me then... one contraband toaster please. I know Sayla wouldn't even blink at dropping three hundred gilla into some fancy rich person toaster but /I/ have my pride."

It's hard for her to keep a flippant tone right now with Sayla in his hands. It's hard. She has to act like she's coming back though, she has to. The alternative would be too awful for her mind to even allow to register openly. Let those fears take over only when she's alone and under the cover of darkness.

She couldn't break down twice in front of Chris in one night. Once was already too much.

Chris tries to break down what going Beyond Time is like when Rita and her are in the same place, and Leina looks pensive for a few moments, before nodding. "Yeah. Sort of like that. It's like she's utilizing a higher... existence, as free real estate, I guess? But you don't... wander there either. At least I don't. It feels like if you tried to go beyond yourself, or whom you're there with, you wouldn't come back?"

She doesn't know how she knows this, she just, knows.

In the end, she expresses what cannot be by jabbing her spoon back into her parfait, and sprinkling more of the fixings on it, before grabbing another bite in her mouth. Soon enough the conversation turns to Haros, and her eyes light up, "I have a flight like, mid afternoon, so there's time." She has to get to space. She has to find her. "Military grade solutions." She repeats, and there's this wry tone of voice. Had it been just a few months back, she might have complained. But things had changed since this last December, she'd changed.

The fact that she's piloting at all is evidence of that. Before... it was the last thing she ever wanted.

"For /their/ sake then. The two of them have never had to deal with a Manhunter." The word Manhunter is said grumpily, even as she notes, "'One of your strengths is you have a Chris'." She echoes, in a teasing tone, "As if you were a Haro yourself, Chris. Next you'll be inventing 'CAIRO' to make a trio." It continues in amusement, "Yep, once used it to trick a pair of Blue Cosmos into hesitating just long enough. They were committing genocide up in the PLANT G-Hound took over, stuffed a bunch of people who couldn't work in crates to starve to death. And him and me rescued them."

Whoa that's a dark story, and yet, it's still a situation where a Haro 'bomb' saved people, "Gave me enough time to knock both of them out, and we got those people out of there."

In the end, it's the threat of human potential, possibility isn't it? To the stagnant status quo, to the universal truth.

For example, the human potential a hug can generate. A warmth that is shared between two. Meaningless to the cruel insignificance that Oath over Omega assigns to the feats of intelligent life.

Does that mean this warmth is useless?

Indeed, as she leans her shoulder against Chris' for many long moments. There is a soft murmur, like the susurrus of an ocean wave within Chris' head.

I don't deserve you.

It doesn't even feel voluntary. Like in this moment, it was the instinctual response of her soul to the situation. It's not even clear if Leina understands it happened at all. "No. But I need to try." She tells her mutely, "I won't be any use in the hunt unless I snag some."

<Pose Tracker> Christina MacKenzie has posed.

"...Snacks that shouldn't still be made, from that disappearing PLANT? Are they...safe?" Maybe right now, with the Agents Of Orange bringing dead people back, kaiju gummies shouldn't be high on the list of Supernatural Concerns, but...alright, her interest is piqued.

"Actually, do you think they have other things? ...Older things?" It's been a long time since she was a kid, growing up during the Zentraedi War. Things she didn't even know she remembered were carried back to mind on a strange breeze.

"I guess I should snoop around, next time I'm in space. Tsutsujidai, that's...You and Sayla took in some residents after the incident, was it?" Chris doesn't especially understand Kaiju Incidents but... "Maybe someone could help me look around, sometime."

"She really would! Sayla would probably buy something with a polished, modern look--hey, actually..." Chris's eyes gain a conspiratorial glint. "Keep the favor, I don't know where else to offload the toasters. Just give me some time to disguise it in a frame that won't upset any of Sayla's friends in the Chamber of Commerce..."

The wonders of beyond, and the dangers. A world Chris has never seen, but the world that Leina and Sayla visit, that Amuro and Char saw, that Flanagan and Devi cut into children to control.
"I can see how even you could get lost in a place like that... but I think if it's you, half the Sphere would call out, and help you find a way home. That's just who you are, Leina. Even this evening, so many different people…"

"Wow, always so busy! But it should be quick to setup. We can get it done in time, whether we get it done with sleep or with coffee."
She laughs when she's compared to a Haro herself, but files the idea away in her folder, of Haros that reminisce of people.

"Haha! A Haro of myself? I mean, now that you say it... I always lament that I can't be in two places at once! You might regret giving me that idea, Girlie."

Unbidden, she wonders if there are already Haros with jobs like that. A Haro's own identity is an important thing, just as is a parted human's memory, but maybe for those who have lost loved ones in disaster... such memento machina could bridge a survivor from losing to living.

"For their sake, then--and yours through them, if need be. I wish I could say they'd never have to encounter them, but it only looks like people are getting more divided, and more bold. You’ve sacrificed enough. No more."

Add in the mention of Blue Cosmos, and G-Hound, organizations risen from the Federation she once fought for, a familiar weight attempts to drag her shoulders down, but, she smiles in spite of those feelings.
"I'm glad you were there. The innocent deserve salvation and hope." And those Blues? Well, now's not the time to think about what they deserve.

When the psychic whisper brushes against her mind, she pulls Leina closer. Chris's hair must still be a little wet (it's not), because some is dipping into her eye (it isn't). She just holds her, unable to voice her own feeling of the same.

"We have other people working on the search, too, Leina. Please, Girlie, give yourself time to rest. I think you're brilliant, and you're at your best when you've let yourself recover. I am glad you like your gift, though. And Leina? If you can't sleep... I'm only a hallway away."

<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.

"Believe it or not, had someone put it through a spectrometer and, yep, perfectly safe. Can't guarantee how long it'll last?" Her question though is one Leina demurs on for a moment, looking thoughtful over the subject. "Some things? It's a weird circumstance. It was created from the viewpoint of a child where there have been no conflicts since the One Year War. That includes food... media..."

Leina rubs the back of her head with a smile, "Uh, yeah, Akane in fact is pretty much an expert on the place, though I might suggest Ramo at the Yumi branch office up there? Akane's history with the place is complicated, whereas Ramo would be delighted to meet you I think."

It turns into musical laughter when it comes to upsetting them at the chamber of commerce, and she winks at her, "Alright alright, just be careful, if I have to bail you out of jail for contraband coasters you know I'm going to look incomprehensibly smug about it after."

Her eyes trail down to her hands, as Chris speaks about how half the sphere would call out to her, "That's who I am huh?" She repeats softly, as if in contemplation of that point, "Well, thankfully my sense of direction is pretty good." She says with an impish smile, "So I don't think I'll have to put anyone out."

More laughter, "You know it! I just can't sit still I guess, waiting." There's a shake of her head, "I'm going to work some leads, and all those leads are in space." A beat, "And I'd NEVER regret that one. The AEU customs agents though?"

A Haro, used as a weapon, for salvation and hope, "Same. They got it thankfully, last I heard the PLANT is being resettled, though there's still fallout from GENESIS causing delays." Leina still is angry at Rau for that, she helped him. They worked to do something good for his people, and in the end he didn't CARE at all for any of them, or anyone. She could understand his despair, but...

... despair doesn't give anyone the right to harm anyone else.

Clinging to Chris, for a while she just lets her speak, then... "You're right, I... need the sleep. I don't like to use my anxiolytic to sleep, but maybe I should make an exception, tonight." Leina murmurs softly, but then looks up, 'only a hallway away.' She looks at Chris, seagreen eyes surprised, but gradually softening.

Chris might remember the nightmares. Where even not as a Newtype she just had the instinct to wake up at times. Because of that sense of pervasive wrongness. A powerful Newtype, unable yet to form the mental exercises to prevent it just suffered them after the First War.

And her suffering was something she was shared with others, whether she wanted to or not. At that age she was proud, she didn't like others knowing she was having nightmares. Sometimes it was just enough to wait for her to go back to sleep on her own without disturbing her. Other times like it or not, she needed comfort and Sayla would stay with her and hold her until she went back to sleep.

"... Okay. I'll remember that."

Maybe with Sayla gone, even she realizes right now, that as strong as she wants to be, sometimes a person needs to be weak.

Unlacing her arms around Chris, she says quietly, "Good night Chris and... thanks."

<Pose Tracker> Christina MacKenzie has posed.

"I guess stocking up on gummies will show how long they last... A world without the scars of war..." Leina's inflection said enough for Chris to understand, it was a topic of delicate touch with that girl. "Thanks for the heads up," she murmured, nodding.

Chris's laughter rises and falters. "J-jail and smugness?! I thought it would just be steep fines and a scolding..." Well, maybe it won't be strictly against the prohibiting statute if she just puts her existing custom parts in a new-looking toaster body...it's technically not the same toaster, right? Right?

GENESIS... It's amazing how few people are required to threaten so many innocents. "I'm glad they're still on the road to recovery."

"If any night, tonight seems a good time for it," an encouraging whisper.

Chris remembers them, yes, most commonly as a dread seeping quietly into half-remembered dreams, mostly lost upon waking, upon waking alert and ready to fight against nothing that could be fought. It took a few times before she even understood what was going on.
Other nights she was haunted by her own demons or struck with her own fae inspirations, burning the midnight oil with graphite on paper--archaic and analogue, but undeniably her own. On those nights, she felt the nightmares second, Sayla's footsteps in the hallway first, ever more attuned to the motions of the physical world.

As much as she wanted to aid both of them the way they aided her...well, with those two, it was better to let them come to you, Chris thought. Now, with all this, it wouldn't hurt to be a bit more assertive.

But even without the nightmares, without Newtypes and the Beyond, without the dread revenant of her guardian's brother, Leina was simply someone important to Chris. That alone was enough to bring all she has to bear.

"Good night, Leina," giving one more squeeze before she quietly tidies the kitchen from their midnight raid. She lets the gratitude hang in the air for a moment, deciding her words before meeting Leina's eyes again, heart eased by seeing resolution there.

"Always."