2023-06-02: ?...you're asking mE
- Log: ?...you're asking mE
- Cast: Parminder Chaudhri, Yuliana Kafim, Sayla Mass
- Where: Quetta hotel, Zilkhstan
- Date: 2023-06-02
- Summary: Sayla gets in touch with Yuliana. Unprompted, Yuliana brings Murasame's data with her to the meeting -- but declines to go with her team to apprehend him personally. It's painful to say it, but she'd only slow them down; she tells Sayla how damaging Murasame was, anyway. Teeth clenched, she wishes for Leina's safe return -- and Sayla is willing to promise that to anyone, including Yuliana. Sayla learns more about Yuliana's circumstances, Alexis's misdeeds... and Elisa Kafim. Yuliana doesn't notice that Sayla's respect for her wife is anything other than genuine, because she's blinded by her love.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
OST: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uoey4W_3bos Taylor Swift - Vigilante Shit
"Bingo," Parminder says, with a savage grin, as the uplink goes dead. "Nice work shredding everything, fellas. Too bad for you, huh?" He leans over, to check a second screen. "Last backup... three minutes ago? Nailed it." He gives the good news to the Captain, of course, and --
"You wanna scrub the Voidframe data and clip down that recording? Sure. What about all this 'cognitive science'? ... oh yeah, like, I'm not gonna complain if you don't care, your Witchiness, that's literally just less work for me."
Two sets of files, then, and only one for public consumption.
...---...
It isn't the easiest thing, contacting Yuliana Kafim. Certainly, one can reach her through the Silent Calling -- after the message passes through so many other hands. Celestial Being have their own methods of contacting her, but they're secretive, by nature. And while she has an extensive social media presence, none of it is under her name, or using her details. Yes, the Kafims have shell companies; their accountants report to Elisa, first. Same story for their lawyers. (They pay for the best.)
Even so -- she does have a number. Koji knows it. Leina does, too. Given that, it's trivial enough to send a message out, to have that message received.
The meeting is arranged for Quetta, a city in Zilkhstan; even Yuliana, in her time as a wetworker, preferred to operate in the borders of that country as little as possible. When an entire nation of people are devoted only to fighting a lot, there's rather a lot they can do, in a fight. If their details are compromised, she's banking on Vist flinching before they'll send a force there.
She dresses unobtrustively for the region, a purple dupatta draped over her shoulders, coiled about her neck, obscuring her back. The loose trousers of her shalwar kameez are covered by her green, gold-studded tunic. The bag across her shoulder echoes those same colours, fabric with golden clasps. Her fashion is sharp, but it's echoed in a dozen-dozen women she passes, in the street.
And joining that handbag... is a bag of fruit. Yuliana's been out shopping. Quetta is known as Zilkhstan's fruit garden; it's the natural thing to buy, out here, before heading back to her hotel. It's a large enough establishment that people can't be expected to know their patron's faces.
Which is useful for her, given she's returning to someone else's hotel room, though she certainly seems like she's routing back to hers.
She arranged for the door to be unlocked at this specific time. It's less suspicious, that way, the gestures she makes as if she's opening it up. (Fake cards. Never leave home without them.) "I'm back," she calls out, before she turns the handle.
Yuliana is not nearly as careless about bullets as her wife is, and she doesn't know whether Sayla might be jumpy, right now.
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
The hotel is a fancy one, the sort of place where you don't have to tip the staff in order to make sure they don't ask questions. The room itself is on the upper floors, but is a room rather than a suite. The blinds are drawn, just in case of camera drones. In addition, it has been thoroughly swept for bugs and a white noise machine is set in place just in case.
It was also booked under the name Tris Sergeyev. Sayla hoped her old companion wouldn't mind.
Sayla's been waiting for an hour, seated in a chair with a carafe of fresh water to make sure she was in place. After organizing this meeting, after the risk she was taking... she wasn't going to risk missing it.
She was wearing a designer black abaya with red highlights, with a headscarf that matches the red. At least being in fashion here also meant she could pass herself off as 'rich lady looking to hire bodyguards' instead of 'Sayla Mass, head of a worldwide charity'.
Or 'Sayla Mass, daughter of Zeon, sister of Char Aznable'.
She is definitely jumpy though. Security is close by, as always, but if things went bad, well... how much help would they be against someone like Yuliana?
She still has her pistol, hidden in a sewn in holster under a false layer. She never goes without it these days.
She looks up at Yuliana's call- and doesn't exactly ease when she knows who it is, but it's not an intruder.
"Welcome back," Sayla says, in a gentle tone. Certainly, it's forced under the cricumstances but... Yuliana had been one of the most agreeable people in the REA when it came to the charity. She has to hope that means something.
It doesn't change that under everything, she's deeply nervous. She just has to hope she can hide it- especially once she is in Yuliana's range of effect. "...Thank you for coming."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana watches Sayla, for a moment, and then turns to shut the door. Just in case, you understand. One can never be sure about turning their back on Zeonists.
(She's heard the news. Gossip is so vicious, isn't it?)
With a light sigh, she turns back, and reaches into the paper bag over her arm. "Here -- catch." She gently tosses over...
... a fresh pear! And she grabs another, from the bag, before she goes over to sit a polite distance away. Sayla could even move out of her aura, if she wanted. It's very polite. As if to demonstrate they're not poisoned, she takes a bite. Munch, munch, swallow, "This city's had fantastic fruit groves for centuries. You'd be a fool not to buy some, if you come to visit."
Beat: "So it doesn't seem anyone's suspicious." Ah. The fruit is a cover.
(Not just a cover, though. They're good pears. Was finding such nice ones why it took her this long--?!)
"I was surprised to hear from you, these days," now she's not in a position to smooth over some orphanage work with a few key bribes, that is. Yuliana takes another bite of pear. Cronch. She has one singular fang, off to her right side, all clustered in beside her regular canine.
... and her eyes have become much more like Lalah's, since they last crossed paths.
It makes it harder to see just where she's looking, but her attention is firmly on Sayla now, at least. "What is it I can do for you, mm?" She asks, as her dupatta curls around her. (It's been custom-fitted for her; it's unclear why it's rustling. Perhaps there's a draft, in here? ... even though it's such a lavish room.)
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
Sayla catches the pear, reasonably deftly, even if she's a little surprised by the offer. Her paranoia tells her to set it to one side. That maybe it's touched by that same power that's tearing Alma Stirner apart.
That's still something that makes this discussion fraught. Can she parlay with someone who did that to a friend to save Leina?
She can. She must.
Sayla takes a bite from the pear. It really is delicious. "I'll have to keep this in mind the next time there's an event in the area." She says, after swallowing. "Try and find some good local caterers, too." She pauses, taking another bite as she takes in Yuliana's form. How she had changed. The look in her eyes.
"...I'd like to ask for your help, Mrs Kafim." She already knows how weak her negotiating posture is here. There's no point in trying to play coy or take a hard position. "I'd like to ask for your help to rescue Leina. Please."
Saying it out loud, it's hard. But at this point... to not ask would destroy her. She can't pass up this chance, fraught as it is.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
It's nice that she remembers her proper title. Yuliana is married. Her ring is exorbitant, onyx and diamond and emerald all set on rose gold bands.
The smile she has hearing that fades when Sayla asks her question, though. "Tch," her tongue clicks to her teeth; she looks away, and takes another bite. CRONCH, the sound mixes with that white noise.
She's silent, for a long, tense moment.
"You're late, Doctor." Yuliana lands the words like a weight, finally. "My help's come and gone. And it was worse than pointless." She takes another bite out of the pear, and somehow makes the act of eating violent, though she's not moved from her chair.
"Dr. Murasame will have gone to ground, by now... I'm sure he slipped a retrieval command in there, too, so it hardly matters they left in different directions. That was Dr. Devi's trick, as well, you see... the two of them were grand friends. And you don't want me with you, apprehending him." Just why she's a bad choice was a highly-televised matter; the raid on the Institute for Continuing Study was prominent in the news cycle, for a while.
Crunch. Chomp, chomp. Swallow. "The minute he started talking, it didn't matter that I had a knife to his throat. I'm." Sentence ends. "Compromised," Yuliana completes the thought, a full breath later. "Don't get me wrong, I've been deprogrammed -- not that it didn't stop him from trying it. With the wrong command, stupid man. But he was inside my head the moment he hailed me with my number."
She reaches into her handbag, and puts a bag on the side-table. (A square has been hollowed out, near the middle, close to the spine. There's a data stick hidden, there.) "Well, the pertinent details ought to all be here," she says. "The data I found, anyway. I don't need any dirty tricks to anticipate your desires, as it happens."
It isn't all there, she'll find, when she examines it. All her stories about Murasame aren't in the visual logs recorded by a visor camera -- that footage begins when she pulls out some physical files and flicks through them, and ends when she closes the last file in a hurry. And with sufficiently thorough forensics, there are signs that some files have been expunged from the network data, though what precisely has been deleted is impossible to tell -- whoever cleaned this up was good at it.
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
Sayla feels her breath catch in her throat when Yuliana says she's late. That silence feels crushing. 'It was worse than pointless.' Was it too late completely? Was Leina really lost?
But instead, when Yuliana says Murasame had gone to ground... her eyes narrow, but she doesn't falter. If anything, she feels stronger. "...If Murasame's gone to ground, it means he doesn't have Leina." She doesn't smile, but there's a strength in those words. "And someone's on his tail that even Murasame can't lose."
Sayla makes a small show of investigating the bag, opening it, and looking pleased with it. Just in case. She can feel where the datastick is supposed to be.
"Thank you, Mrs Kafim. This will be helpful when we... get her back home." She has to tell herself it's when. She has to believe it. She has to think like a Brave, at the moment.
She pauses for a moment. What else is there to say? She had everything she asked for, just by asking for it. She could just leave it here, and have everything she wanted out of this exchange. "...Would you like me to keep you informed?" She can't let Yuliana have Murasame, but she might gain some small satisfaction knowing he's paid.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana doesn't look... particularly encouraged. "He said that he has no intention of allowing a confrontation, you know. And men like that, they know how to call you back to the next rathole they've prepared."
There's something haunted, to her strange eyes. "Even if you're going to your deathbed."
Anyway.
"I still don't trust you." As if it were a habitual thing she were reaffirming, though she's never spoken of this with Sayla before today. "My Elisa was right to point out how... unreliable your ilk can be. But she's asked me not to seek him out again, and I can't disagree... there's no point to being humiliated like that again." She shivers, though it's quite warm, and tosses the core of the pear across the room. It lands squarely in the trash can, anyway.
"So there's nothing more I can do... well, if by some miracle you manage to do anything worth anything, feel free to say so." It's impossible to say just how Yuliana is feeling, all surrounded by emptiness as she is, but she -- sounds rather despondent. Is it possible she's actually a little broken up about all this..?
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
"Men like him aren't invincible. There's a reason he spent so long in prison before Vist broke him out." Sayla's voice is firm. "I don't doubt that he's laying a trap. That's why you have people who can kick in the door and keep going." She looks at the pear. "Or people who cannot be deterred, no matter what. Even if you yourself can't."
The statement that Yuiliana doesn't trust her... isn't a surprise exactly, buit it's also unexpected. But what is her ilk? Newtypes? Spacenoids?
Zeon, maybe?
"Trust is a limited resource, Mrs Kafim." Is it an attempt at understanding, or... "I don't expect you to spend it on someone like me unless I prove myself worth it. But you've given me plenty of reason to trust you today."
Sayla's quiet, as Yuliana shares her own plan. "...That seems wise." She says of Elisa's request. It's to Sayla's advantage, too. Knowing that Yuliana won't make a sudden appearance on the field. She can plan without that disruption.
Sayla has never been able to judge Yuliana's emotions. She shifts forward, slowly and carefully. Putting herself *in* to Yuliana's zone with no sudden movements. It hurts. Her head starts throbbing easily. She can't stay here long. Is this even the right thing to do? She doesn't know. But she extends a hand to Yuliana- her left and not her right. "I'll inform you when Murasame is in a place where he'll never see light again. And when Leina's safe... she'll probably inform you herself. Thank you again, Mrs Kafim."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
He's not invincible, is he? She needs people who can kick in the door, does she? People who won't be deterred? "... you're mocking me," Yuliana mutters, to herself, scowling at the window with its curtains drawn.
And, just as dark and dour: "As if it matters." Sayla's trust, apparently. Whether she means earning her trust doesn't matter, or whether she's given her reason to trust her --
Well, Yuliana doesn't expect her goodwill to last any longer than the first time Leina brings her up, if they get her back alive.
Her head jerks -- a little too sharply -- when she sees Sayla entering her space, from the corner of her eye. For a long, withering moment, she just glares at her; this close up, it's clear her dreamy eyes are a little more filmy than they strictly have to be.
She has so much hate, and so little sympathy, and --
Leina insisted she wasn't her mother, but she's the closest thing she's got.
So after that tense moment, Yuliana closes the inches of that gap to squeeze her hand, briefly. (There's a purple bracelet, on her right wrist; it's not just her elaborate wedding band.) "I... regret that I acted with too much haste. I regret that circumstances caused me to lash out, and I lost control of the situation. I regret that I could not return her to the life she had before. I would be happier, Dr. Mass, if you were not placed in a position where you felt it necessary to ask my help."
Yuliana releases her hand, so that she can escape from beside her if she pleases. She's generous, like that. Elisa always says so.
"... but you've not insulted my wife, and that seems a dwindling skill, amongst the people of this world. I'll remember that courtesy." You can just say 'thank you', Yuliana. Except -- that's a strange thing to choose to thank her for, isn't it?
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
"I apologize." Does it do her any good to try and convince Yuliana that mocking her wasn't her intent? No. That's just inviting an argument. So is pushing on whether or not it matters. If matters to Sayla. If it doesn't matter to Yuliana, then so be it.
One short, agonizing moment is not enough for two people see eye to eye, no matter what her father theorized about perfect communication.
"So would I, Mrs Kafim. I would much rather a world where Leina was home, and safe. Where the most stressful thing she was dealing with were exams, or practicing her lines." When Yuliana releases her hand, Sayla steps back. As allowed. She's sure much longer would go beyond the headache. Beyond that moment of isolation that she hopes Leina didn't feel, for her sake. That crushing isolation that is comparatively nothing compared to the shredding when Her eye was upon them.
But it certainly is reminiscent of the shredding.
"But I'll do whatever I can to give that life back to her, "I won't fail her again. Never again."
Leina might not be Sayla's daughter. But she's the closest Sayla will ever have.
As she sits again, the comment gives her pause. "There are people insulting your wife, Mrs Kafim?" It's an odd thing to bring up, unprompted. Sayla can think of any number of reasons why but... one is rarely given a chance to ask such a thing. The opportunity should not be passed up.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Mm," Yuliana hums vague acknowledgement, with a little nod, as Sayla apologises.
And she doesn't explain.
... Elisa told her what would happen.
"I..." She's a shade more anxious, looking over to Sayla, a frown still on her face. Why Sayla's regrets make her look that way -- "I thought I could save her, and it wasn't possible. I was not enough." It's a markedly self-absorbed way to empathise, but Yuliana is the centre of her own universe. She does appear to be making some effort, as she goes on: "I shouldn't think of it as a failure, but I... can appreciate your position." Tragically, it is an effort. ... and she does appear to be going to one, in some small way. Even if it's hard for her to say these things -- well, she did think to bring all that data here, just on hearing Sayla contact her. It's hard to call that entirely thoughtless.
She can't quite hand the glory off to Sayla with a clear heart, but she can at least push one thing out of her lungs: "Good luck." She doesn't want Leina to die, even if it's someone else who has to save her.
(That much was even evident when Leina and Mineva attacked Yuliana, that day when the Nega Force raided a Khanka base to try and get to Banagher. On seeing Leina crawl into a cockpit for the first time, Yuliana had to tell her how to close the hatch. It would have been trivial to squash her, instead. But, for some reason... well, she does have some standards.)
Yuliana frowns, but not to Sayla, for once, lips pursing together as she lifts her ring to gaze at it. "Yes. It's terribly cruel! People like Dr. Yumi make the most unkind assumptions. I hope you'll not buy into that nonsense. They just don't understand. Leina understands, you know. She's always been lovely to us. And you..."
Yuliana looks past her ring, to Sayla. "No, perhaps you are positioned to clarify matters," she decides, as realisation dawns on her. "Koji's a normal person, so he didn't realise back then, at all. The Chinese gala, do you remember? Celebration of civic engineering? I may have been a touch strange. Well, you see, they'd sent me out there to experiment with how I'd handle being around so many sensitive souls, particularly -- that contemptuous wretch. The girl, that... Gayatri D'Cruze. She is... unlike you." Yuliana has no word for 'Whispered'; still, she knows something of the delineation. She didn't treat the Daughter of Bridges so badly, in public, but...
"Well, it was a little too much, for me, I suppose. When I went outside for some air, Alexis stumbled over me -- entirely by accident, I suspect, he's not one to pop in on me unannounced. I suppose he wanted to attend the party -- he said he was hoping to catch up with you, in fact, but I was polite enough to let him know you'd be unlike to be receptive after our little chat. Ah, particularly given how you all gather." Back then, Sayla was providing too much assistance to his wards; it seems Yuliana got in the middle of Alexis's plans to counteract that, back then. With all of Sayla's friends banding together in the wake of her violence, he must not have had an opportunity, as far as she knows.
"... he had a few choice things to say, about fiction and my place within it. At the time, I... well, let's say I clung to my own veracity, in a world which felt terribly unreal. I didn't take the reading material well. Neither the implication I was just a tool, I suppose. That would have been when I went from being a little off to being medically noteworthy." Yuliana sighs, and explains: "Medical got suspicious."
But that's... not... really an explanation, is it.
The fingers of her other hand trace her ring, in an idle self-soothing gesture. "To be clear, they tortured me, and that wasn't even anything particularly out of the ordinary. But it was worse, that time, because they found Elisa's jewellery. I wasn't... permitted to see outside doctors. I was a state secret. You know. But I didn't want to give her up to them, so... the interrogration lasted a long time."
Yuliana did go quiet, after the gala. She made no trouble for over a week.
"No one came for me." And by the tone she uses, no one ever did. Why would anyone worry about the whereabouts of Yuliana, when they could just be happy she wasn't harassing them? Yuliana loved her job. She never talked about her appointments in Medical.
"... not until Elisa infiltrated the building, and gave Dr. Devi an ultimatum, and made sure they wouldn't do anything that bad any more." Yuliana's fingers curl around her own hand, as she closes her eyes. "That's when I first started to realise... how fierce her devotion was. She took me away, helped me heal... she didn't even make me forsake my country, though they'd brainwashed me to such mindless levels of apologia. I'd told her I wanted to keep working, so she made sure I'd be able to work without... disappearing, for a weekend, here and there." Just what cruelties they tended to do -- well, it's a matter of public record, and Yuliana's not like to repeat it here. "The Republic punished me just for getting closer to her... they blamed her for my behaviour, I suppose. But she saved me, when no one else would." Again, quieter: "... she saved me."
Yuliana doesn't bother hiding how emotional she's getting, now, though she was fighting back her tears before. They dot teal lashes, now, as she clasps her hands to her chest. "Oh, I wish I had her patience. Her wisdom! She spent over a year, getting closer to me, offering me -- an alternative, with no demand I abandon what I knew. She was there for me. She protected me... even when I grew afraid of getting close to anyone, even when I pulled away or lashed out, she never gave up on me. She wore down all the defences I'd put up. It's because of her diligence I was able to... start resisting the Republic's indoctrination. I-I thought I could..." Yuliana shakes her head, swallowing down a lump in her throat.
She thought she could offer that, to Leina.
... but she rushed into it all. Her fear made her hasty.
(She has endless charity, for her own actions.)
"Regardless, you -- you see how much she has done, for my sake," Yuliana wipes at her eyes with a strickingly delicate motion, and looks to Sayla with a smile all woven from glass. "Surely you see that there is no reason to insult my Elisa. I've never met a finer woman."
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
Sayla falls silent for a while as Yuliana retells what happened. But to not think of it as a failure... Sayla's fingers tap on her thigh. It doesn't sit right. She taps her fingers on her thigh. Instead, when luck is offered, Sayla simply nods. "Thank you."
Sayaka and Koji... Interesting. "...Koji and Sayaka, huh?" That explains some. "Those two are prone to seeing the world in a... very particular light." A simpler one, perhaps but... not incorrect.
As harsh a light as it is to be under sometimes. "I remember." She had just shoved her foot in her mouth with Sheryl Nome's manager, and proceeded to have a very bad night. Still... "I see." So Yuliana was allowed at the party as an experiment. "How very like them."
Sayla does however, simply listen. Listen, to the story she's being told. "I owe you my thanks again, for keeping him occupied that night." She can imagine *why* Alexis would want to bother her that night. She had just started to really get to know Akane and Knight, then.
"...I see. Elisa was the only one to come to your aid. She must care for you more than any other." Sayla's voice is controlled, as she hopes the lie goes unperceived.
But the idea of offering the same to Leina... that drives a spike of terror through Sayla nonetheless. So she takes one more bite of her pear, hiding her expression with the gift, chewing as she ponders. "...I'm glad that you have her wisdom to support you. Would that we all had someone who would upend the world for our sakes." She wipes her lips, as she works out the next thing to say. "I agree with her saying you should not be exposed to someone such as Murasame again."
She looks forward at Yuliana, pitching it all on a carefully angled half-truth. "I'm not a fraction the woman she seems to be, but I hope that I can take your wife as inspiration when it comes time to save Leina." She gives a small, sad, calculated smile. "I won't let what you have given me go to waste, Mrs Kafim."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Doesn't it?
It's what Elisa would tell her.
Yuliana doesn't fail. The world fails Yuliana.
And what Elisa says must be so... one way or another.
"I'm sure they think they are helping," Yuliana scowls, to think of Koji and Sayaka. "I... Dr. Yumi did offer me some assistance of merit, once. But she got entirely the wrong idea!" And Yuliana, at least, seems to think it's the wrong idea.
She frowns, and admits: "I wish I hadn't distracted Alexis, myself. I might have avoided a lot of pain. But what's done is done," she sighs, "and perhaps it had to happen, that way. Before that happened, I was so reticient about taking my Elisa's hand..." ... she wasn't always this singularly devoted.
But Elisa took every opportunity, and what woman of the Republic wouldn't admire that?
Yuliana smiles, though, all woven from gossamer glass as her hands clutch to her heart. "She does," she says, and for all the tones she's taken with Sayla, this level of soft affection isn't one she typically employs. She's very much in love, evidently. "There is no one who loves me more than my Elisa. She is with me, always."
Blinded by her affection, she does not hear the way Sayla's words edge around the truth. She was always so good at spotting lies in one's face or voice. But now...
Yuliana tilts her head, once she's finished listening to Sayla. "I wish I weren't in a position where I had to leave him be... but my Elisa's right. She always is," Yuliana adds, softly, and her voice at least is warm. "If I met him again... I'd just be a weak link. And then she'd have to address the situation..." She sighs, glancing aside, to those curtains. "I'm sorry," which is to say, she feels bad, "but I asked her not to kill him, though he'd hurt me so. I just thought... it's better to keep him alive, just until Leina's well. In case there are things he didn't write down. And I feared they'd retaliate against her if he died, too. Well, I'd planned to weigh his life against him to extract a bargain, but..."
Yuliana shakes her head. "... anyway, obviously her restraint has some limits. She'd not be able to bear his transgressions a second time. Perhaps that's worth knowing, too... I'm glad you recognise her foresight. And, I..." It takes her a moment longer, to muster the strength to say this part.
"I hope... it helps you. To help her."
She was so angry, at the thought that Leina would want to be saved by them, and not her. She can't help but feel that same rejection, now, all stemming from her own incapability. She wanted to save Leina, with all the possessiveness it implies.
Yuliana's fingers tighten, about her wrist. "I... have never much played well with others," she admits, slowly. "I am not a being given to open cooperation. And I am not easily understood. But I want -- I want her free of them. Out of that tank. And I don't expect Dr. Murasame to respect my... the leniency I asked of him for long. I don't even know if he won't punish Leina for my error. Like they did to Rita... he said he wouldn't, but he also thought I was an idiot." She scowls. She's not stupid. Just because she went through an apprenticeship, and not university --
Anyway.
"No -- what I'm trying to say is -- you'd better save her. No, that's..." Yuliana closes her eyes, and takes a breath, and looks to Sayla again, and she's less aggressive when next she speaks. "I'm helping you because I want her to come back. All right?" And there's this little edge of fragility, on that last question, as if she's really not sure.
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
The lie holds, and Sayla's expression doesn't change. "But it's impossible for them to offer real help if they don't understand, yes?" Frame it as a question. Let Yuliana decide if she's right, and if so how.
"...Indeed. What's done is done." All of this is useful. Was Yuliana's devotion truly love, or born of the same cruelties they had inflicted on Alma? Either way, all she could do was play along. It was beyond her to do anything more.
But still... if no one loved Yuliana as much as Elisa... what was that thing that wanted to destroy them for not being Her?
"I agree with your assessment. While he has Leina's future prisoner, he still needs to be able to talk." Sayla's own anger edges out here, quiet and seething. "And he needs to believe that his words can still save him."
Of course Murasame would punish her. The painting of the man that Yuliana and her brother have painted indicated a monster that even someone like Yuliana fears.
And then she listens again. "...Then that is his mistake, to underestimate you. And his arrogance will be his undoing."
Finally, then as Yuliana asks that last question, Sayla can't help but reach for reassurance. For Yuliana. For herself.
"I promise you, she will come back. No matter how much help she needs or how long it takes. I refuse to accept a world where that she doesn't."
There's a determination there, a brief moment of hope.
It used to be that Sayla Mass doesn't make promises she can't keep.
Right now? She'll keep every promise she makes. No matter who it's to.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Precisely!" Yuliana agrees, a shade petulant. "They don't understand at all!"
And when alliances are born -- well.
Yuliana doesn't remember anything untoward about how her relationship began.
"Tch," Yuliana grunts, darkly, thinking of Murasame's fate. "I wish they wouldn't. His words saved him frorm me... but he... frightens me to death." Beat. "Bastard."
She might never forgive him for taking her apart so easily, so clinically, and without even wanting the parts.
She still doesn't know how much interest he had in them.
... Elisa told her it would hurt her, to read his research.
But there -- that reassurance --
Yuliana takes a steadying breath, and nods, hearing that promise. "I believe you. Then, it's... up to you," though she's under strain to say it. Under strain to offer what more help she can, as well, considering how badly it reflects on her. She pauses a moment longer, before she manages that.
"He does make mistakes. Underestimating people, I mean. He looked at me... bowing my head," she tries to pick the least shameful way to describe how she was cowering in front of an old man, though there are few good options, "and presumed he'd beaten me. That's how I was able to get those network files. I gave him a dirty stick when I handed him back his burned data, and he didn't notice when he handed them off to a tech to check integrity. Put a worm in his research files." A beat: "It's been excised from the data."
Sayla might want to run it by data security anyway, though.
"You'll... excuse me for the secondhand accounts," she adds, a moment later. "It's not that I think you'd turn me over to the authorities, but I did have to take some harsh measures to get into the Garuda alone. It's better if that footage isn't disseminated." Which says two things, really:
1) Yuliana absolutely killed a man getting in there,
and 2), Elisa probably had an opinion on sharing it.
"Now," she says, looking back to Sayla, "is there any more help I can offer you?"
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
Sayla simply nods along in agreement. "He will be made to answer for what he's done." She doesn't specify if just to Leina, or to Yuliana as well but... well, Sayla's happy for Yuliana to fill the gap how she likes.
She can see the strain it takes for Yuliana to just admit this much. To give up control. To at least some degree, Sayla can understand the emotion. She will still be having Diamond-2's people clear that data chip though.
"Well played," Sayla acknowledges. "That's one you have over on him- and he will feel those consequences sharply." Her words are cautious, as she nods. "...I understand. This data will be used carefully for Leina's sake. I have no intention on letting the Federation, BioNet or anyone else use Murasame's latest cruelties to do more harm. This data's purpose is for saving those he's harmed. Nothing else. It won't go any further than it needs to, and I have no need to disclose where it came from, if that's what you wish."
She really seems to mean it.
Still, when Yuliana asks, Sayla shakes her head. "Thank you, but no. It's as you said, it's up to me now." She gives a small smile. "Please, give my best regards to your wife, Mrs Kafim."
Again, it sure seems like she means it.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Good." And is Yuliana's idea of an answer the same as Sayla's idea? Almost certainly not. You don't get really good at a job without favouring it, as far as she's concerned... and her job involved quite a lot of murder, really. But let's pretend they feel the same way.
... it is legitimately hard, giving up any measure of control. To someone other than Elisa, anyway. Is it weird she feels kind of guilty about it?
Anyway.
She nods. "All right." Give her some credit -- she asked. (And how much credit has she set herself to claim, in this conversation, exactly...? Well, said the scorpion to the frog,) "Good hunting."
The strangest thing is how gently she can smile. "I certainly will. Thank you, Dr. Mass. You are... fairer than I anticipated." She stands -- though she doesn't pick up one of her bags -- and gestures again, to the hollowed book on the table, just to make sure Sayla doesn't miss it. "I'll leave the pears with you, I think. They're quite nice. ... you've my details, if you need to speak with me again."
Her dupatta curls around her, a little. Perhaps there's a breeze. (There isn't.)
"Good day, Doctor," she says, and it's when she steps out that she calls: "Don't worry, I've got a shopping list!"
That much is for the benefit of anyone listening in, as she closes the door.
She does not have a shopping list, though she does route through the district, and lingers at a few stalls.
She really needs to get back to her wife.
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
Sayla takes the book in her hand, as though she's about to start reading once Yuliana leaves. "Good day, Mrs Kafim." She looks down at the pears.
Yeah, she can find a use for these. Maybe a dessert.
And for the next two minutes, she 'reads'. Two minutes later, a Zaftran woman in a black coat enters the room, once everything's clear.
"What do you think of Yuliana Kafim?"
"She's a woman who is clearly still under someone else's control. But today she was helpful," Sayla replies.
The second questions comes. "Who do you belong to?"
"Myself. No one else."
And one more. "What do you think of Elisa Kafim?"
"She's a cruel and manipulative woman who needs to be stopped."
The woman nods, satisfied. "What next, Dr Mass?"
Sayla looks up to her. "Please contact Diamond-2, Miss Tachibana. I have data that she and Mithril need to see. After that I need to get in touch with Chief Shishioh and Dr Sai." She slips the data-chip from the book, secreting in a hidden pocket in her abaya. A different one from the gun. "They'll need this too- and the rest of NERV can't be allowed to know it exists."
Thirty minutes later, 'Tris Sergeyev' and her bodyguard leave the hotel. It's up to her now.