2023-09-19: .this portrait of our miracleS
- Log: .this portrait of our miracleS
- Cast: Yuliana Kafim, Elisa Kafim
- Where: The Silent Castle, Kaffeklubben Island
- Date: 2023-09-19
- Summary: Yuliana and Elisa have their /portrait/ painted, with all the affection of marriage. But Yuliana is glad that the painter didn't capture the trouble in her eyes -- and she tells Elisa all about her worries about miracles, and her connection to Newtypes. Elisa has an explanation for her, and encouragement for her to speak with Leina, too. Above all else, they must be patient and devoted in seeing the Empress's works through.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana requires... distractions.
They are many and they are varied; her movies, of course, and a room quickly filling with model machines. Her engineering work, carefully supervised, and her various outings -- at times equally so. (Yuliana is accustomed to Elisa watching her at times, anyway.) Her dancing, and her physical routines. Her sabotage. Her... friendships. Tiger therapy!
Now, she is entertained by a painter laying the foundations for a portrait of the Castle's Mistresses. Wearing her characteristic golden winged tiara and similarly draconic cape, her Silent robes laden with gold and jewels, Yuliana reaches her right hand across their laps to grasp Elisa's left. (Her wrist tilted, just so, to turn her own palm to the sky.) The fingers of her other hand rest on her wife's arm, in subtle indication of the support she draws from her. Patiently she looks to the painter, wearing the same glowing, beatific smile she's worn for almost twenty minutes. Unlike her wife, she is a creature of motion; it's really quite impressive that she's kept still this long.
But it's no surprise she can maintain such magnanimous affection. Yuliana is happiest beside her wife, drawing untold joy from Elisa's cool fingers.
"There," the painter says, finally, as he turns the canvas around. "It's just a sketch, of course..." A sketch, on canvas, looks a little different to sketches on paper -- the precursor to this oil painting are harsh acrylic blacks, blocking out light and shadow and the sort of emotional detail which the photography he took can't quite capture.
"It's delightful!" Yuliana chirps, finally turning to Elisa and gesturing to it with the hand not tangled up in Elisa's. "Look how he's celebrated your face, my darling!" Regally, with harsh lines to emphasise her cheekbones; she is all angles, a sharp counterpoint to the curved and gentle shapes he's used to portray Yuliana. They are emperor and empress, commanding and nurturing, complementary to each other.
Yuliana seems happy with it.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Elisa does not. She does not require such things as distractions, as a rule.
But there is something to be said for records, and perhaps there are reasons Elisa has arranged this portrait. Her own robes are dark, as ever, jeweled as Yuliana's. And she does not wear a glowing smile. Her smile, as a rule, does not 'glow'. But it is pleasant, all the same, almost warm.
No... Not almost. There is something happy here.
And Elisa can hold still indefinitely.
But the painter finishes his sketch, and Elisa regards it with a critical eye. She does not answer her preference until Yuliana does, however, and smiles once she has. "Yes," the witch says. "It will be a fine portrait. Your skill is plain to see."
Yuliana seems very happy with it...
"That will do for now. I look forward to its completion." Pause. "Go in peace."
Then she looks back to Yuliana. "He captures well your vibrancy..."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Elisa has always been more focused than Yuliana, yes.
Even so, she drags her wife into these dalliances; and records are worth keeping, their love enscribed onto the canvas for all time. Yuliana does not perform affection, for the painter. Her love is full-throated and flush across her cheeks, skin still warm enough to show it.
"It will be wonderful," Yuliana agrees, at least -- in the painter's vague direction. She doesn't much pay attention to him after that, though, lifting her hand to Elisa's cheek.
"... all because my heart sings for you," she smiles, and she is glowing, as she tilts her head to kiss her wife. Her lips and her tongue are cooler than they were, a surefire clue that it's her internal temperature that's dropped, not just the weather outside. But she's not yet cold, as Elisa is; embers still burn, in her heart, lending her some measure of warmth.
(For how long?)
By the time Yuliana pulls back to breathe properly, he's gone. She sighs with her affection, laying her head against Elisa's shoulder. (She lost her headdress, somewhere along the way; her fins wriggle and fan out, behind her ears.) "I'm relieved," she admits, voice all laden with affection. "I admit, part of me worried the fellow would see trouble in my eyes, and commit it to canvas... I'm pleased I didn't need to issue some correction, there."
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Still warm enough, but for how long? Elisa, having already dismissed the painter, notices that cooler nature. It does not bother her, but it is notable. She considers commenting on it...
She decides against it, for now, and smiles when Yuliana pulls back, resting a hand over Yuliana's shoulderblade. "Oh?" she asks to relief, and then--considers. The trouble...
"And what trouble is that, my darling?" Elisa wonders. She thinks the painter is wiser than that, rather than un-perceptive. But for now...
"Tell me."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
The painter made his escape without comment. He is very much wiser than that; Elisa wouldn't employ a fool.
Yuliana smiles, feeling Elisa's hand laying claim to her. She is relaxed, she is comfortable; Elisa is the only person who could bid her to tell her these things who she'd still listen to, here and now.
Her hand curls, resting at the crook of Elisa's neck; she rubs a strand of purple hair through her fingertips, absently. "I've just been troubled," she sighs, "about what I wrought, with Denver Colony. It frightens me... how Newtypes could continue my works. No, with Ra Shalom, as well... my powers, and theirs..."
A frown creases her soft features, glancing aside to those strands of hair through her thumb and fingertips. "... and... if that was a Miracle, as they know them... then, when I danced... when I danced with my own body... oh, Elya, what's the difference?"
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
And of course Yuliana listens to Elisa. She has only her best interests at heart.
"Mm?" She makes the noise intentionally, remembering to act with such frailties. But it frightens her...
Elisa looks sympathetic, in the moment. "It is natural to wonder," she says. "When lightning destroys a tree, however, it is just as destroyed as if a woodsman chopped it down. Yet, we do not call these two things the same. Yes?"
"Your powers have effects on the world. Their powers have effects on the world. It is only natural that they could build on each other, despite their vast differences, because 'the world' is a shared state, a thing malleable by forces myriad."
"Their definition of a Miracle is overly broad, and it seeks to claim and subvert all true 'miracles' by claiming that they all relate to their cursed powers. Mine certainly do not, despite causing effects which are certainly outside the conventional laws of physics."
"No... You were able to act on the world, and then Rita acted on the world after you. It is not that your power is the same; it is that the world is the same. Lightning and sawblades, both act. Do you see?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Elisa knows what's best for her.
Yuliana is soothed by these little frailties, by Elisa's sympathetic gaze, by the logic she imposes on the world. "Yes," she agrees, naturally, when she's prompted. Two different sources of destruction...
(Though, she wasn't destroying anything. ... never mind that.)
"Different means achieving the same end... yes," Yuliana nods, against Elisa's shoulder. "Yes, I see. Haha..." She laughs, a little self-effacing, tilting her cheek against her. "I was rather silly, I suppose, thinking that Leyasha could help me make any sense of it." As for what she's written in her journal -- well. It's certainly accessible to Elisa. Yuliana's long since told her all her passcodes, because of course she tells her wife everything -- so even with the Silent Castle's intranet covered in security patches, various parts isolated from the network, she's hardly blind.
"My mind can't make sense of it," Yuliana frowns, "but... is that not the way of things, Elya? So often are Her gifts and revelations unspeakable. This world... just isn't suited to them, is it?"
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Yes, nevermind that.
"Oh, no," Elisa says. "That's not a bad instinct, though not for that reason--she would have no insight into the miracles of the Void, as such, but she is an intelligent young woman. Perhaps speaking to her would do you some good. After all, one day she may initiate into the Mysteries... unlike many, like Dr. Yumi, whose heart is closed to us."
Yes, Elisa saw the journals. Of course she did.
But Yuliana frowns, and, "The mind will expand in time, to understand. We must be patient as Her plan unfolds. In time, all will be known. But for now... Indeed, this world conspires at every turn to make us doubt."
"We must not allow it."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Ah...?" Yuliana wonders, looking up to her wife with those endless green eyes of hers. Sayaka won't understand, of course, but... "You think she has promise, zhenushka?" She orients on Leina, instead, and smiles. "I admit, I've grown fond of her... despite her condition, she manages to be impressive. And she does so work to reassure me! Oh, I would like to see her grow well."
How Leina feels about this mentorship...
... well, who would deny Yuliana's kindness?
Yuliana listens, eternally trusting, as Elisa promises her understanding. "It's so cruel," she frowns, deeply troubled by the world conspiring against them. "I wish I weren't so easily tricked... oh, Elya, I doubt too easily."
She shakes her head, though, and smiles again. "But She has never forsaken me," she assures Elisa, all love and devotion. "She calls me to Her side, ever changeable... to shield me from the hatred of those hungry ghosts, She opened my heart and drained my hot blood from me. Now it waters the garden..."
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Endless, endless green... Yes, of course there are similarities. But there is no need to focus on those. What Elisa says she believes; there are mechanisms that need not be explored, in 'how'.
"I would, as well," Elisa says. "I am not certain, of course, that she will grow in that way that we wish... But it is worth seeing, I think. And if she gives you comfort, then that is important."
But it is cruel. "It is because you feel so deeply," Elisa says. "And I would not change it of you, even so. It is that depth of feeling that makes your passion shine through."
She smiles, back. "Yes..."
Her hot blood, drained... Elisa does not frown. But she wonders, at that one.
"In time, we shall see the fruits."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana smiles. "I'm so glad you approve of her, zhenushka. You're such a good judge of character... I do worry that I trust too easily, you know." Why Yuliana would worry about that...
Well, surely it's a worry she holds, her own self-evaluation.
Her smile only grows warmer, hearing Elisa's praise. "I'm glad," she says, again. "How lucky I am, to have a wife who loves my fathomless depths so fiercely!"
But perhaps they are fathomless, in part, because they are unworldly; her connection to their sacred Void may well explain her recent chill, given what she's said. Yuliana is mutiliated and reshaped night by night -- but Her changes are not only a thing of dreams, as the tentacle which wraps about Elisa's knee attests.
Even these subtle little changes, bleeding through...
What do they herald?
"Yes," Yuliana agrees, as she always does. "I will strive to match your patience, Elya... to see Her works done."