2023-09-09: .we'll end it our waY
- Cutscene: .we'll end it our waY
- Cast: Yuliana Kafim
- Where: The Silent Castle, Kaffeklubben Island
- Date: 2023-09-08 (ICly 0097-09-09)
- Summary: Yuliana sleeps, occupied as she does by the task to save the world which lies ahead of her. When sleep comes to her, all her justifications mean nothing in the face of the Empress's demands. (CW: Eldritch horror, body horror)
It is time to rest, and Yuliana lays in the safe embrace of Elisa's strong arms, warmed by furs and the fireplace crackling by the wall. (And not, notably, by her wife.) Heartbeat slowed to calm, she sinks into the world between sleep and waking; she is struck, in the sudden way thoughts come up here, by the way she could open her eyes only to find another pair gazing at her. When Yuliana first realised Elisa never actually slept much, she was unnerved by the way that witch watched her as she slept. Those days are long since past. Now it is a comfort -- and flattering, really; a thought carried in the way her cheeks colour and a smile moves them, nuzzling sleepily in.
It would be nice, she thinks, to stay like this forever.
It would be nice, because...
Ah. Yes. The world will end, and so today Elisa has good reason not to sleep; she must rouse her, after all, when Denver stirs. (Still, her wife is thoughtful, sure to make sure Yuliana is well and rested for the fight ahead.) Now they will save the world their way, now a Newtype's approach has failed them. Yuliana isn't anxious about fielding Emptear for another battle. Elisa's tireless work let her operate her armour without sacrificing her sanity, after all. (Or at least, without... sacrificing it entirely. But her manic mood hardly counts, does it? Hardly.) Neither does she worry that the ghosts of Denver Colony will overwhelm Emptear, for within the Threshold Queen, no mere psychic echo could challenge her.
So, why...
Leina, Yuliana thinks, at length; yes, it's Leina, troubling her. Leina, and her dogged devotion to that Renalle, who got herself captured like a base idiot from her fool desire to befriend those ghosts. (It's foolish.) She wonders: can she save her? Certainly she doesn't want to; though she'll admit in the sanctity of her own thoughts that her hatred of the woman may be slightly irrational, there's still little she doesn't loathe about the pilot who calls herself Rena Lancaster. ... and if some parts of that person resemble Yuliana, that's just a reason to hate them all the more. Though -- she adds, mindfully, that part of her constantly examining her own thought processes -- she's nothing like her. But Leina... is attached to her. Has a history with her.
So she at least... entertains the thought. Renalle is a physical being; even if Yuliana eats Denver Colony whole, she ought still remain. It might even improve her! Who can say, really, what happens to a Newtype exposed to Emptear's full power? But... stupid woman, no doubt she's opened her damned heart to those damned souls, even as they hold her in thrall. Trying to save them, even as they tear her to pieces. (Again: she's nothing like Yuliana.) Can she open her heart to ghosts enough that their erasure would stop hers from beating? Yuliana never wanted to entertain the question, but thanks to Leina, here she is. The things she does for that girl.
Her tension leeches away, though, sinking into Elisa. She realises the obvious truth. She cannot let the world die for the sake of one woman. Yes, she assures herself, assured by the security of her wife's embrace -- yes, Leina will see. Leina will understand. Renalle made her choice, and the consequences are her own! There is only so much they can do. Yes... she must at least have focus enough for this. No one can blame Yuliana for doing
what must
be done
TO SAVE YOU
The shift is never sudden, never violent. The mad Oracle drifts to slumber, and finds her consciousness stirring at the seat of God, finds herself stepping into a flowerbed of orchids. Each is a fingerbone, stretching from the black soil. Their petals are keratin, and perhaps they were nails, once. She feels her heart quicken in her chest, as she curls her own fingers about a flower. Of course she feels trepidation, as her reverence moves her; benediction carries with it a nervous energy, to know unknowable Power.
MINE
"Jow-llsh," flowing from the cemetery air past her lips into her throat and down her lungs. The word ribbons at her neck and her chest; where her flesh tatters, it curls to tendrils, tasting the air. The word is obeisance, complete and welcomed. She will not be denied.
And Her fingers come from a strange angle to find those holes at her chest, Her claws prying and plying with otherworldly grace. She finds her heart, exposes it, and surgically reshapes it to open spigot at its base; with each beating pump, she feels her heat and her compassion bleeding away, down to feed Her wicked garden.
It's all right. She holds her up, with Her fingers which bend and bend and bend again, as the pain of her heartache becomes background noise to this place.
CALM
God's emotions are only faintly recognisable by a human heart; surely if it weren't hers, she would have no hope at all. Still she feels Her crushing assurance, and she murmurs something and means that she will be, she will, she will. She just gets a little heated, sometimes...
(Is that why she feels a chill, settling in where her blood should be?)
YOU MUST END IT
Something like a smile might have played over the Oracle's lips; perhaps the curving of so many little tentacles, all carved out from the hollows of her cheeks, are much the same expression. She feels the anguish which begins Her hearts' demands, after all; Her frustration that she must be placed in harm's way, given her proclivities towards it. "Sh:, sh:," speaking into her, all falling out from the holes which have been made of her lungs. "Y oni llph'ou-th'iakth'iat..." And what beautiful agony the words are, a thousand knives tumbling in and through her.
SURVIVE
If tears prick at her eyes, surely it is contrition, though the pain is also true. She lifts her head, and does something unlike smiling again, a rising gesture of reassurance. Her self is emptying, and She embraces what remains. A blessing.
COME TO ME
Here, in this place where she belongs...
The Void will offer them salvation.