2022-10-26: "This is something we can do"
- Log: "This is something we can do."
- Cast: Leina Ashta, Ennil El
- Where: Dublin, Ireland
- OOC - IC Date: UC 0096 10 26
- Summary: Ennil and Leina cross paths in Dublin and discuss finding life in the wreckage.
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
A girl in a wheelchair threads the outskirts of what was once a bustling city, until Haman Karn decided to commit an act of terror against a Federation that had already capitulated to her demands.
It's been eight years and the Federation still can't be bothered to give the people adequate funding to rebuild. It's the day of her follow up appointment with Dr. Bidan at his clinic in Dublin, where he's going to take new X-Rays and see how she's healing.
Currently she's wearing just a simple grey jumper, a pair of jeans, and some old worn sneakers. She sports a shooting star barrette on the left side of her fluffy and curly brown hair. There are no visible controls on this wheelchair, and she's not actually propelling it manually, it appears like it's moving on its own.
The people here are... making do, the best they can. Tent setups are not rare. Leina Ashta stops at a street vendor and grabs herself a banger dog and some mash.
She's early, but she doesn't want to wait inside the clinic, so she takes her place at a sitting area near a canal, facing the center of the city. She could look out at the sea, but she's facing towards the center, where scrap from the Colony is still visible at ground zero.
Sometimes she wonders if the difference between her and Dublin is she chooses to bear her scars, while Dublin is forced to.
<Pose Tracker> Ennil El has posed.
Looking for the wounded seems to always mean digging around in the scars of the Earth. Dublin is pretty far along the line of Ennil's collection of refuges and hold-outs, but...
Honestly, she doesn't know why she's here. But it's hard not to think about Neo Zeon right now, when so many things from those years seem to be cropping up again. Staring out into the colony wreckage herself, uncharacteristically bundled up in cool Atlantic air, Ennil ends up finding someone she didn't expect.
Technically, the blonde in the distance could be considered Ennil's adversary. She's not a combatant, but she was at Torrington, and the Unicorn is of interest to the Sleeves. Even if she's not part of the war, if she's startled by a ghost of Zeon, if she reports Ennil here, it could force her to flee, put the lost Loni Garvey at risk.
But once, a long time ago, she'd known that girl. Both of them had been part of the schemes of a lost young man who'd tried to make something of Zeon's legacy, gotten caught up in his attempt at a civil war, and been separated in the chaos. Leina, of course, had been nothing but trouble - which, the redhead admitted, was probably why she was worth trusting.
"Makes you uneasy to look at it, doesn't it. Sometimes it makes me feel like... we screwed up. But hey, you're still here, right Leina?"
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
Leina's in the middle of the bite of her banger dog when she feels someone... approach.
She's wary at first, it was only the other day the Vist Foundation detained her at her high school, when she had to tell a woman that she had twelve daughters she didn't know existed - and that ten of them are dead.
At first it's not much of a sensation, but then the closer she gets she feels this faint thread of connection. There's this slow blink of her eyes as she wonders - who?
And then she speaks...
... and Leina encounters a ghost of Zeon face to face. A familiar one. The girl doesn't say anything at first, like she's just mulling over this turn of events, the sea breeze slowly sifts through her brown bangs as she looks out over the canal.
"Against all odds. I was reported dead for a reason you know. Haman wasn't known for failing to kill someone she was aiming at." There's a slow blink of her eyes as she looks over the canal and into the scar at the center of the city, "Sometimes I try to find the exact spot here where my little sister died."
She looks at Ennil out of the corner of her eyes, "Elpeo that is. We'd decided to become family together. Thought maybe - we'd be able to make happier memories together after it was all over."
Her eyes are abstracted, sorrowful, she doesn't say anything for a good fifteen seconds at least, before she adds, muted, "Thought wrong."
<Pose Tracker> Ennil El has posed.
Ennil nods, slowly. Her shoulders are hunched, hands tugging at her coat - a life spent in refuges across Africa and the OCU doesn't acclimate someone for this sort of crisp winter day. That's all. "Yeah. Could never... figure out the difference." She bites her lip, softly, looking down at Leina. "Why some of us stick around. Though, I always figured you would, for some reason. Glad I was right, and... ugh. That was you in the white suit, wasn't it?" She sighs, softly. "Maybe that's the problem. Couldn't figure out what dragged me out here, but you're the second ghost I've seen since Torrington."
She squeezes a gloved hand around a railing, letting her weight sag a bit. "There's a Ms. Cruz on the ship I'm staying with. One I think your friend in the white suit knows. When I saw her I had to stop myself from staring. Felt like being 13 again. I miss her... miss them, too. I kept thinking it shouldn't - that I shouldn't - and then I had to find a reason I was still here. You know?"
Her fingers drum the cool metal, bangs sliding into her eyes, giving her some welcome shade. "Trying to make a difference this time. Help someone while they can still be helped. It's not like I don't want things to be okay. I just don't know how they can be."
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
'Why some of us stick around'
Mostly she just ruminates on her words during this time, on her grief. "Yeah that was me." And then she just tells her, "We're dating."
It's no secret to the Sleeves. Not Full Frontal, nor Zinnerman. A soft exhalation of breath, "Marida..." There's something abstracted about her as she says that, then...
The wheelchair turns fractionally and... she holds up her little paper box of mash, as if offering for her to take one.
"... I know the feeling. More and more often I'm eleven again. Maybe I'm just the type who can never really move on."
However, there's a faint smile on her lips, "I'm glad. That you're still here that is."
...
...
"I don't know either. I just want to believe they can be. That we have the potential to get there." A beat, "Have to try. Couldn't live with myself if I didn't. Not when I got a second chance that, so many others didn't. Maybe it's just... my own way of taking revenge... trying to kill the systems that hurt the people I care about."
There's faint mirth at the irony in those green eyes. A strange contrast of amusement, mischief, and grief, "With kindness."
Leina gives her a long look, one far more serious - and...
"'Help someone while they can still be helped.'" She echoes... then adds, "Loni?"
<Pose Tracker> Ennil El has posed.
Ennil smiles, locking blue eyes with Leina's green as she takes the offered snack. "Dating, huh? Does he know how much trouble he's in?" She huffs out another little cloud of mist into the cold winter air, taking in Leina's feelings in her own way, without the benefit of any expanded consciousness. There's a little twitch when Leina tells her she's glad she's still around. It's not a feeling Ennil's managed to have about herself in a while.
"Yeah. Spent the last few years... not convinced it was a good thing."
Still, as the blonde goes on, there's an relief in her. A reminder of those teen years and the chaos that came on Leina's wake. Years where anything seemed possible, even in the midst of loss and exhaustion. "Loni, yeah. Leina, it's..." She chokes on the words for a minute. She hasn't even let herself hear them. But who else could? "I wish you'd gotten away. I was at Axis, and... Everything everyone said about how beautiful it was, all I could think about was Elpeo and... The other girls. All I could think is that... that it couldn't possibly be fair. What everyone else called a miracle just felt like picking who had to die to save the rest of us from ourselves, again. I got scared. I didn't like myself. Didn't like what any of it meant. I'm still scared, Leina, it feels like... like we're just gonna keep making the same choices. Who's gonna save us this time?"
Those blue eyes are swimming, and without thinking, a hand rests on the arm of Leina's wheelchair. Ennil needs steadiness, now. "Someone's got to help her, Leina. I think I can. I'm tired of how wrong it all feels. I don't want that monster from Torrington to be right."
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
Leina's eyes keep that air of mischief, "It's beginning to sink in. Somehow, he's still here."
The smile fades off of her expression to become something worried as Ennil says it's not convinced it was a good thing. She pours her heart out, about Axis - about the other girls, how it's not fair. And... slowly she puts her food aside. As Ennil leans against her wheelchair, there's a faint wince on her expression as Leina forces herself to lean forward, like her back hurts from the mere effort of bending forward, but she gives her a loose hug.
"Not everyone saw rainbows that day Ennil. I didn't. Second worst day of my life."
It takes her a moment to collect her thoughts, talk of Axis always mixes her up so badly.
"I hate miracles. Hate them." Leina's green eyes look up into Ennil's swimming blue. "They convince everyone that nothing can change without them, that noone can be saved. If there's not some 'heroic sacrifice' inspiring them - they don't even bother to try. In the end it can't be a miracle that saves us. It has to be enough people saying - enough. And deciding we have to save ourselves."
There's some silence, a hand moves away from her back, and to the side of her face, to right cheek, as a thumb passes beneath that right eye - as if to catch something the moment it falls.
"It's not going to be easy. I felt something in that psycommu. A dark, malicious hatred. How long has she spent in that desert, festering over those feelings from the First War?" Leina puts back on that smile, "But I think if anyone stands a chance of understanding her, convincing her she doesn't have to be bound by that kind of curse... it's you."
And then because she knows spite very well, because she knows how much he hurt Sayla, destroyed her happiness so thoroughly... "Let's prove him wrong."
<Pose Tracker> Ennil El has posed.
It's strange... when has Ennil felt like this last? She sinks into Leina's attempt at a hug, a blink of concern over her face as the other girl strains herself. There's a shiver, a hitch, but Ennil still can't allow herself to properly sob. But as usual, Leina knows what to do a little ahead of time. It takes a couple long, slow breaths, but -
"I wish I knew how you do that." There's a low, shaky chuckle. "I kinda hate it. From anyone else it'd feel scary." She softly squeezes the hand close to her face, her breath steadying, her body unwinding. "Yeah. No more sacrifices."
Slowly, she guides Leina back, letting the two of them part. Giving her a smile and an assurance - I'll be okay, now. Thanks to you. "Yeah. She deserves better than that. We've sold so much of our lives to..." Ennil gestures out, broadly, to the wreckage. "She should get the chance to stick around, with the rest of us." There's a little chuckle, Leina's mischief wearing off on her. "Thanks. I'm starting to feel like maybe you were right. Maybe making it out wasn't just inertia, you know? Maybe this is something we can do." She runs a hand through her messy red hair. "Though now I feel bad about causing you so much trouble. And that poor guy I yelled at..."
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
The corners of her lips turn up, "A lot of practice. Maybe too much." Is her answer, and it's quite clear why she might have that much practice. There's this distant sadness in her eyes when she says how much she hates it, how from anyone else it'd be scary.
"Oh Ennil..."
And for a moment, she just looks a bit overwhelmed, like she doesn't know what to say. How many years has she been dealing with this?
Leina tries not to grimace so much when she's guided back. She has four vertebral fractures though, so despite her best efforts there's a small one.
"She should. I just think she has trouble thinking of having anything different for herself, anything better." There's sympathy in her eyes, and it's not just for Loni in this moment, "It's a common problem, isn't it?"
As impossible as it might seem, her mind compares Ennil, Loni, and Sayla in this moment. Three people, each from vastly different places. All bereft of happiness. Living through the motions.
She hopes, one day it can be different for all of them. However in this moment at least...
... she starts to smile sunnily at her, "I think that's a great start."
To at least want to believe she's not living by inertia, that there are things that can be done.
However, then there's a pause as her mind sorts through the battle. It was a chaotic psychic maelstrom but...
"Wait that was you?" Leina actually puts a hand over her mouth, and she tries her hardest not to laugh, part of her is shaking. After a moment, she lowers her hand as she decides to share the joke, to let her know she's laughing at the coincidence, rather than at her, "Believe it or not - that guy you were yelling at - I'm actually here to see him today." A single green eye winks at her, "He's my primary care physician."
<Pose Tracker> Ennil El has posed.
The wince as Leina straightens sends another pang through Ennil's heart, but it's hard to focus on in the face of Leina's gentleness, and then -
"Oh god," Ennil says, a blush touching her cheeks nearly as crimson as her hair. "He's a doctor? He's - " She can't help but join in the laughter at this point. The sheer absurdity of - "Leina, how the hell did I end up shooting at your doctor? Why are our lives like this?"
Then something clicks for her. "Oh, yeah. When do you need to get out of here? I kinda interrupted your lunch and... this is the first time I've felt like a person in a while. If you've got the time, I'd love to find someplace a little warmer and talk about anything but the past. Waiting for some folks to get in touch, anyhow." She gives a soft smile. "Not sure I have it in me to risk looking your doctor in the eye just yet though."
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
<poem>
Leina actually grins at the absurdity of it too, "You'd be surprised at what else he is. What all he's been through. Story for another day. For now would you believe it that I first... 'met' him before Glemy took me prisoner? Way back on Shangri-la."
He really wasn't in any state for the two to really get to know each other though.
Leina pauses and...
Suddenly fishes out her phone. Tap tap. Tap tap.
If Ennil looks at her screen she'll just see the following... >kamille do u have an appointment slot later in the day? >something came up
She waits for a ping and...
"Sure. Let's find someplace warmer. Just switched my appointment until the end of the day, so we have some time before I have to be there."
She decides to just follow her for now, relaxed in her posture.
Anything but the past huh?
"What kind of music are you listening to these days? I'm a big Sheryl fan myself."