2022-08-03: Acceptance
- Cast: Doctor Salamedes, Puru Ten
- Where: Civilian Transport, Karlsruhe, AEU Germany
- Date: U.C. 0096 08 04
- Summary: After her encounter with Leina Ashta in the city, Puru Ten runs back home.
<Pose Tracker> Doctor Salamedes has posed.
"My, my." the Doctor says as they spot Puru Ten collapsed on the floor of the transport and begins to make their way towards her. "My my my my my my my my my." Salamedes stops next to the crying girl with the broken smile, muttering to herself. The cyborg holds out a mechanical hand that looks like it can barely hold a glass, let alone a child. "What ever is the matter? Where is your minder?"
The Puru is obviously distraught. Did something happen in town? Salamedes stops concealing their presence, reaching out like a single-celled organism with psychic flagellum, stirring up the medium of the Earth itself in search of anything... 'Untoward'.
<Pose Tracker> Puru Ten has posed.
Sniffing and rubbing at her eyes with the back of her arm to clear her still blurry vision, the Doctor's presence washing over her like a black sun that radiates only darkness is a familiarity that helps to calm Ten down, or at least to help her focus on the here and now.
"I... In town... I--" Wait, what's she saying? She can't admit what she did. What an awful person she is, that she would treat Leina like that! Ten bites down on her lower lip to shut herself up, and shakingly reaches out her hand to accept the offered hand from the Doctor.
She feels even more guilty almost immediately, remembering that when Leina offered her a hand, all she could do was slap it away. She sinks deeper into herself, the sensation of falling starting to swell up again in correspondence with her despair and self-loathing.
She at least won't reveal Leina. If she told the Doctor how she acted, the Doctor would probably be unable to love her too.
Odd that she never before even wanted the Doctor to love her, never considered it a possibility, never even thought they were >capable< of such a thing. But now, having decided she can't face her sisters anymore, that she's unlovable because she's a monster, it's the twisted, mashed-together doctor who brought her back that she wants that validation from.
"S-someone..." she starts but hiccups from all of her crying and has to start over. "Someone said I could be part of a new family with them."
<Pose Tracker> Doctor Salamedes has posed.
Salamedes retracts their tendrils, reducing the intensity of their pressure to the basic level it uses around people who know them. The air will feel tainted, the very space where the cyborg stands will be 'polluted' with aliens thoughts and feelings that appear and disappear from the senses of those who pass through it, but it won't reach outside of this transport either. Instead, the Doctor focuses on the girl who takes their hand. Salamedes helps Ten to her feet, hefting her upwards despite the spindly appendage.
"Oh, we see, we see. My my my. And how did you feel about that?"
<Pose Tracker> Puru Ten has posed.
Ten is back on her feet, lifted as easily as a little doll. "H-how did...?" she starts to repeat the question. Then she looks stricken as she thinks about everything going through her mind at the time. How she wanted to accept. How she wanted to reject. How she was so scared of losing her sisters. How she was so mad at those who had formed new families with her own flesh and blood. The bond they shared, sublimated into some generic, forged bond. A counterfeit family. How that made her hate Leina so much despite her also knowing it wasn't the fault of any of them. Of course they moved on. Of course they found love and acceptance where they could. Of course. Who could ever blame them for that? Who could blame those who provided a place to call home?
But even so...
Her shame growing even more, she looks away as she answers, "Th-they might have been trying to--*hiccup*--kidnap me. So... I came back here." Insinuating Leina wanted to abduct her. How much more can she tarnish that woman with her own foul nature? The 'pollution' the Doctor produces feels familiar by now, and barely even fazes her. The fear, the voices in her head, the nightmarish visions, they all swirl around and through her.
The love and light and warmth and compassion she felt from Leina was a poison she couldn't stand to be near.
But this poisonous fog feels like home.
<Pose Tracker> Doctor Salamedes has posed.
Placing one hand on Ten's shoulder, Salamedes attempts to extract their other hand from the clone's grasp, wiggling and pulling, even if it might be granting comfort. "I see." The roiling darkness intensifies a bit more, but stays close. "So you felt a threat. Something that confused you, that your mind and body rejected. And you followed your instincts, leaving the kidnapper behind and came to get help."
Doctor Salamedes leans down so that its glowing red mono-eye is inches from Ten's face, darting back and forth along its cross-shaped visual track, like a Dom's.
"Though they claimed to want to be your family, to show you the love you crave, that your sisters once gave you, you rejected it... Oh... But little girl... Puru Ten... Don't you see?"
<Pose Tracker> Puru Ten has posed.
Ten's hand tightens around the hand that tries to escape her grip but eventually relaxes and lets the contact go. There's a hand on her shoulder, providing comfort from a different source. It feels like Salamedes is calling her out. Like they know she's lying, that she's >so ashamed< of what she did, and then the lie she told to compound it. 'I really am the worst sort of monster.' she thinks to herself, anticipating the Doctor rejecting her for her sins.
But then she looks up, the shift in pressure pushing against her like a strong wind, forcing her to brace herself. She is confused, her expression a mix of despair and hope. What is the Doctor saying? Did they realize what actually happened? Are they going to point out the truth she tried to hide? To tell her she should go back to Leina and tell her she's sorry? That she'll accept the offer?
Somehow... Ten feels like... If the Doctor said it. If the Doctor admonished her for what she did and told her, 'Now go back and tell her you're sorry.' she could begin to forgive herself. That she might be able to allow that 'new family' dynamic to become part of her life.
She waits breathlessly, waiting to hear the words, but also afraid to hear them. Because it was mean confirmation that her decision was wrong, that she is just as bad as she thinks she is.
<Pose Tracker> Doctor Salamedes has posed.
Salamedes' hand on Ten's shoulder tightens its spider-leg fingers for a moment, before letting go completely. Both hands are thrown wide and upwards, as the cyborg announces in a synthesized voice that drowns out its perpetual hissing mechanical respirator, "Don't you see? That's >wonderful<!"
Salamedes begins stalking up and down in front of Ten, talking quickly to itself. "You sensed a threat, did not blindly accept the words of another as gospel truth, trusted in your instincts, and made a decision all on your own! You didn't need direction from anyone else, you didn't need your minder to protect you, you just >felt< how you should act and then you >acted<!"
Salamedes suddenly halts in front of Ten again, turning to her and placing both hands on her shoulders, very lightly shaking her as its sensor eye is once again right up in the other Newtype's face. "You are developing into an independent person who can make her own decisions and has her own opinions! You are breaking the Cyber Newtype mold that was made for you, by exploring new possibilities and not being chained down by the expectations of others! Your Newtype abilities are truly awakening now!"
Fluidly, Salamedes does something they have never done for Ten before. The cyborg lets go, stands up straight, and pats Ten on the head gently but firmly. "You are going to be an amazing person one day."
<Pose Tracker> Puru Ten has posed.
Ten is... Stunned.
She is just absolutely in shock, unable to really process what's happening.
It feels unreal. Like a dream, despite the shadows she can see moving out of the corner of her eye, the little gnawing mouths that spawn on the floor in the Doctor's wake, or the smell of her own burning flesh that should make this a nightmare instead. What do any of those matter? The Doctor is saying... What?
When they stop before her again, shaking her, she starts to process it somewhat. Everything she said, all her self-doubts, her self-hatred, her lies, her cowardice... None of that matters. Because Doctor Salamedes is only concerned with the academic value of her choosing to do those things without needing permission first.
The hand pats her floofy orange hair, and she looks down at the floor, shell-shocked.
She's being praised for what she did. She's not being condemned or admonished. She's just... Being...
"...accepted..." Ten whispers to herself.
Her independence. Her feelings. Her opinions. Her thoughts. Her choices as a person. Even if they don't align with what others think or feel... Even if she's out of synch even with her own sisters...
That's okay.
She's allowed.
No, more than that. She doesn't >need< permission. She can be whoever she wants to be, and she isn't accountable to anyone else for that. Not even the Doctor.
The empty numbness that has overcome all her conflicting emotions, the negativity and the hope of reuniting with Leina and her sisters, all of it is blanked out by the burning cold. The dark warmth that is self-actualization, and the praise she receives for pursuing it.
Sniffling, Ten wipes her eyes again, still tired from her long, long day.
Then she smiles, and it's still a broken thing. But it's also genuine. She's happy. If her sisters can make their own families, and leave her behind...
'Then why can't I?'
Ten laughs a little. "Heh heh... Heheheheh..."
So she wasn't wrong after all. Who cares what others think? She should be focused on discovering who she is other than just 'Puru Ten', and if other people don't like that... Well, that's too bad for them.
<Pose Tracker> Doctor Salamedes has posed.
Salamedes' sensor eye glows brighter as it watches Ten go through a turbulent rollercoaster of emotions, then numbness, then realization, then joy. Of course they can feel Ten's emotional state. Her guilt, her self-recrimination, her hope, her desire to be judged...
And none of that mattered.
Appeasing strangers isn't what matters to Salamedes.
But a child engineered to be a slave-soldier consciously defying her programming, even the template-soul instilled in her via the EXAM system to make her more like Elpeo Puru unable to overcome the power of individual choice?
Now >that< is a splendid thing. One worth celebrating.
"Come, Ten. Let us throw a party for you on this momentous occasion. You are on the path to enlightenment."
It's a path that Salamedes is very familiar with.
It's the road of one broken mind at a time.
<Pose Tracker> Puru Ten has posed.
Cheerfully, the broken dead girl moves to walk with Salamedes so that they can have this party. Not because she was told to, but because she wants to. Maybe she'll invite Leina, Two, and Twelve to it. Maybe she won't. She hasn't decided yet.
But what she does do is, as she walks deeper into the transport, reach out and pinch the hem of Salamedes' cloak between two fingers, like the child she is.
She may be becoming a person, but she's still quite attached to her family.