2023-11-12: The Impression That I Get
- Cast: Luanova Luckwright, Shinji Ikari
- Where: Streets of Magallanica
- Date: U.C. 0097 11 12
- Summary: A chance meeting, following the attack on Orb, between the dispossessed Shinji Ikari and the woman who saved him from being crushed. Kebab and commisseration.
<Pose Tracker> Shinji Ikari has posed.
Magallanica was once a massive space battleship. Now, it's on its way to being converted into a colony. The interior is host to many sleek buildings ranging from 'reasonably tall' to 'very tall'; the canopy is lit up with a hologram displaying a partially cloudy blue sky. Businesses are starting to open up, and people are starting to move in, but it's not where it could be just yet. It's still fairly empty.
Similarly, while the Three Ships Alliance that inhabits Magallanica and the Federation are in peace negotiations, it's complicated by the fact that the Federation is currently crumbling, so the 3SA needs to also negotiate with other blocs. At the moment, though, it's clear that the 3SA is not going to be hunted down or anything like that.
At the moment.
The evacuations of Orb went smoothly, more or less. A rapid response, and the fact that Elisa's Spinatia was ultimately turned away, meant that loss of life wasn't as bad as it could be, given what all was done with that scythe.
This is cold comfort to Shinji Ikari, who hates to see anyone die, who nearly died himself on the ground. Who only didn't because a stranger decided that he ought to live instead.
He's back in Magallanica now--would be on the Ra Mari II itself but his Haro nudged him into a walk that took him quite a ways from his dorm. (After parting ways with Luanova, he met back up with several Ra Mari II crewmates, and they saw him safely home. Whatever 'home' means.) And now he's here, on another bench, not far from the local administration buildings, or whatever passes for them here. Shinji doesn't know about that. He doesn't want to know about politics. Doesn't want to know about the black flower that's still blooming in the streets of Orb.
Blankly, he stares at the artificial sky, his Haro clutched on his lap. He's dressed much as he was the other day--T-shirt, jeans, sneakers, baseball cap, and black-and-white moon-themed hoodie, which is now his normal look. He's almost sixteen and a half now--was a high schooler before he dropped out--and few would guess it to look at him. He hasn't grown much if at all in the two years since he first became an Evangelion pilot. An Osanshoo-san phone/music player tops the 'head' of his Haro, and that provides the earbuds to replace the ones he used to wear to block out the world.
He threw his father's old SDAT out. But the other things he's inherited from that man seem to have lingered.
<Pose Tracker> Luanova Luckwright has posed.
Arrangements have to be made for accommodations, and that includes reporting for paperwork identification. That'd make the next waypoint the nearest administration building of sufficient stature after disembarking. There's some story buried on page 5 of the news about the latest round of diplomatic visits that mentions Luanova Luckwright.
Lua's in a deep red button-up coat with a thin blue scarf and white gloves, carrying a briefcase with her today. She has more than enough outfits to carry several looks even on a trip, which is good when you spend most of your life on one trip or another that someone else has scheduled for you.
In the state he's been in, Shinji might not even notice her and her bodyguards pass in front of him and go inside.
She is inside for some good time, and takes a detour after she's done. By the time she is back out the front door of the administration building, she's carrying a pair of kebab sticks she must have gotten from breaking off to the nearest vendor she could find. She casts her shadow over Shinji, and then patiently waits for him to notice and look up before she holds one out to him. "Hungry?"
<Pose Tracker> Shinji Ikari has posed.
Shinji does not indeed take in Luanova or her bodyguards when she passes by the first time. The eyelights of the Haro on his lap, however, flash white and green for a few seconds before settling on white.
Eventually, Luanova returns with a pair of kebabs and stands in his light. Shinji is unresponsive for a full ten seconds--an agonizingly long time when you're waiting for someone to notice you--before his Haro flaps their winglets, disturbing his hands.
"Shinji! Someone's here! Shinji! Someone's here!" Bud chirps.
"Waugh," Shinji utters, startled back into his head, hands flinching off the blue Haro. He stares down at them, then up at her. That uncomprehending look is at least not because he doesn't recognize her, because a second or two later, he says, "Oh, it's you."
He looks down at the kebab she's offering him. Once again, she's trying to do him a kindness. No, not 'she'; someone who barely knows him, who has no reason to care about him. Why is she like this?
Why is she like this, when his own father threw him out twice?
He's about to say he isn't hungry when the delicious scent hits his nose, and his stomach raises a loud and emphatic protest. Shinji reddens.
"Yes. Thank you," he concedes, carefully accepting the kebab. He looks back up at her, glancing around to check to see if her bodyguards are with her, then scoots over to give her room to sit too if she wants. He stares at the kebab for a moment before taking a small, cautious bite. It's seasoned well, but a little dry. The vendor has a ways to go.
"...What brings you here, Miss Luckwright?" he wonders, peeking over at Luanova.
<Pose Tracker> Luanova Luckwright has posed.
Ten seconds is fine. This is ten seconds Lua gets to spend doing something she feels like doing, not moving like an ant between tasks. She has time.
The bodyguards are here, but if Shinji absently moves over anyway, Lua accepts the invitation and leans back on the bench, while her bodyguards just take up positions behind her, consequentially looming over the boy as well. The woman takes a bite of her own kebab, giving thought to the taste. It needs more grease. What is street food without grease?
"Work," she says, briefly lifting up the briefcase, before resting it on her lap. "Trade negotiations, tariff haggling, foreign aid reassessments. Things I don't actually get to make decisions about. I had to clock in because for technical reasons I don't have a diplomatic visa. Then I get to go home." She doesn't sound like going home is something she's happy about either. "I saw you, thought it was funny we'd run into each other just the day later, and figured I'd get you something. Nobody was selling ice cream, though." Maybe things will get better here. Her mother's trade negotiations probably won't help much with that.
<Pose Tracker> Shinji Ikari has posed.
Shinji eyeballs those bodyguards, but doesn't say anything about them. When they shift position to behind the bench, he tries to ignore them. It's hard to ignore the itch on the back of his neck, though. He takes another, bigger, more bitter bite of his kebab in response.
It really does need more grease. Maybe the vendor opted against it to keep it from dripping all over people's hands and such. That's Shinji's first guess, anyway.
He glances over and down at Lua's briefcase. "Ah. Of course," he says. Work is all adults care about, he thinks but keeps to himself. Not only is it rude, it's also unfair.
He doesn't care about that very much, but he does care enough to keep his mouth shut.
He also cares enough to take note of how Luanova is here for work, but on doing things she can't actually affect. That gets his attention, if his small frown and the hard light in his eye are any indication. "Sounds tough," he hedges. "Well... thanks for the food. I'm not sure there's any ice cream vendors around yet. The city's still growing."
Another bite. He takes his time to chew and swallow. As he does, he peeks over his shoulder at the bodyguards. He tries to keep it subtle, but they probably spot the hairy eyeball he's giving them anyway. He swallows and looks back at Luanova. "So... what do you actually do?"
He means if she's a pilot or a diplomat or something else entirely. The vagueness is not intended; it's just a result of not fully connecting his thoughts to what he says.
<Pose Tracker> Luanova Luckwright has posed.
Lua sees that hairy eyeball. It doesn't bother her, nor does it seem to perturb the security much, though under their dark glasses, one of them glances down to meet Shinji's look. He's used to it. You don't go into security looking to make friends and influence people.
"They know," Lua says. "You can talk in front of them." She takes another bite from the kebab, stripping the meat neatly from the stick with a clean mouth. "I'm a go-fer for my mother," she says, with a sarcastic smile. "My job is to smile in front of important and wealthy people, thank them very sincerely for their consideration, and lay out the realities at stake so that we can get to brass tacks and reach a consensus." This isn't an endorsement. Her tone is, on the surface, self-effacing and lightly ironic. Beneath, there is an acidic undertone she can't completely suppress, and the irony burns to the touch. "I'm only supposed to be doing the robot thing until they can find a replacement. It's on the down-low, so I guess you overheard me the other day, but call it our little secret."
<Pose Tracker> Shinji Ikari has posed.
Shinji flinches when one of the bodyguards meets his side-eye, frown spreading into a grimace. To cover it up, he busies himself with eating and listening to Lua.
A go-fer for her mother. It doesn't sound very... good. Shinji's not sure of it, but there's something about the way Lua phrases it that makes it sound like a job she doesn't like doing, even if superficially all seems fine.
Shinji isn't especially good at picking up on other people's true feelings, but this is a topic he knows too well to not pick up on that subtle acidity.
"Sure. I won't tell anyone," he replies. If she's just a temporary pilot... that at least seems to explain why she didn't deploy the other day. Lucky her. Lucky her? They did both almost get crushed to death. Shinji stares down at his kebab. Would getting crushed to death really be a worse fate than some of the things he's experienced in Unit-01?
"I hope you get out of it soon," he murmurs. He lowers the kebab, appetite dwindling by the second, but--
Don't you dare waste that life! He can almost hear Asuka yelling at him.
Shinji's throat closes up. His eyes sting. He takes an unhappy bite of his kebab.
It's the absolute least he could do.
<Pose Tracker> Luanova Luckwright has posed.
Mmh. Lua's initial response to Shinji's well wishes isn't a word, just a sound. She tilts her head back on the bench, which leaves her head looking up towards one of her bodyguards. She considers trying to shoo them away. It won't work, she thinks.
"You want to know something crazy?" she says, tilting her head to the side towards Shinji, still leaning back.
"Given the choice, I'd rather just do the robot."
<Pose Tracker> Shinji Ikari has posed.
At first, Shinji thinks Lua's lack of enthusiasm towards his well-wishes is a matter of the 'soon.' He blinks in wide-eyed surprise when she makes it clear that the problem is actually the 'get out of it' part--or at least, that's how he interprets what she says.
"That is crazy," Shinji says before his brain can catch up with his mouth. Even when it does catch up, he finds it doesn't actually object. He finishes chewing and swallowing, then adds, "I guess you're one of those people who actually likes fighting, huh."
<Pose Tracker> Luanova Luckwright has posed.
Lua smirks. She takes no offense at Shinji's instinctive response. It is crazy. "Maybe," she tells him. "It probably should be terrifying. But it gets the adrenaline pumping, and the things I can do in the unit..."
She trails off.
"But I can do things in the unit. Maybe it really is just about flying around. It's transformative the same way it changes you just to hold a gun in your hand. Maybe I'm just a daredevil telling lies to make myself feel like it's something nobler. But when the chips are down and I'm in the field, I'm not sitting there waiting for instructions. I get to act. I call shots. Those shots might get me killed for all I know. But look at what I'm doing out here. Pushing paper, helping make empty promises, pulling an expensive salary that can buy things I don't care about. Is this living? Is it worth it?"
<Pose Tracker> Shinji Ikari has posed.
I guess you're one of those people who actually likes fighting, Shinji said, but he didn't expect how true that apparently is. At the very least, it seems to unstopper something in Luanova. He stares at her as she waxes on about the thrill of battle, about getting to take action, about risking her life instead of wasting it on pretty smiles.
He really doesn't know how to feel about all of that. He looks away and rubs his wrist with the back of his hand. The Eleventh Angel didn't actually skewer his arms--he only felt Unit-01's pain psychosomatically--but it was excruciating all the same.
"I don't know," he says quietly. "If you wanted to pilot so badly, though, why did you stay on the ground?"
<Pose Tracker> Luanova Luckwright has posed.
"It's not my robot," Lua answers. "Building it took my mother's company almost as much time as I've been alive. Storage hangars, maintenance and repairs. I'm just part of the infrastructure. Any deployments go through the company, and that means mother. And if you could hear the shouting matches I've had with mother..."
She shakes her head. "I know I've got no place to complain. There are people with worse family problems than me, who deserve more than they're getting. I do what mother says and I get a comfortable life when there are a lot of people out there on the streets who don't know where their next meal is going to come from. I know that and I'm not complaining about what I get. I'm lucky."
But it's suffocating, she doesn't say.
<Pose Tracker> Shinji Ikari has posed.
"...Oh, I see." Shinji did hear that part, that Lua was seeking--permission? from her mother to deploy, but by the time it came back that she wasn't going to get it, he'd been too far away to hear. He was lucky to hear anything at all with the racket that'd been going on at the time.
"You seem really... aware, of your position," he offers. "It must be nice to feel comfortable enough with your mother to be able to argue with her about it all."
A very Japanese perspective. Not every culture thinks that fighting with someone means you're close to them. Even as he says it, though, Shinji feels like there's something amiss. That the pieces of information he's got aren't quite fitting together right.
But then, it's not actually any of his business, is it? Luanova's probably only telling him all this because she doesn't have anyone else to talk to about it. It's supposed to be a secret, after all. Shinji... never was very good at keeping that secret, at least among his peers.
"...yeah. There are a lot of people out there who're a lot less fortunate," than us, he doesn't say. He turns his stare out to the fledgling city and thinks about Rei and Asuka. "There are a lot of pilots who're a lot less fortunate."
He pauses for a time. Then he pulls Bud closer to his chest. "...I used to think I was the most unfortunate person in the world. But over time, I met people, and I got to know them, and I learned how much worse they had it than me." His eyes lid. "In the end... I couldn't keep it up."
Another pause.
"Piloting, I mean."
<Pose Tracker> Luanova Luckwright has posed.
A confused look may confirm Shinji's suspicion that he is not assessing the situation right. 'Comfortable enough to be able to argue with her?' "After enough of it I learned not to bother," she says. "She doesn't listen and usually doesn't pretend to listen. We only argue now when I hit my limit."
"Piloting," Lua repeats, chewing on the word. Her surprise is genuine. "You were a pilot? A child soldier?" Not unheard of in these years - hell, Lua has been training since before she got out of high school - but she was never sent into a live fire scenario at that age.
<Pose Tracker> Shinji Ikari has posed.
Again: "...Oh." But this time, that's where it ends. Shinji bows his head; the brim of his cap shades his eyes. She doesn't listen and doesn't even pretend to listen, and they only argue when Lua hits her limit huh... "...I'm sorry."
For misreading it that badly.
For having a relationship with her mom that sounds nearly as bad as his with his dad.
...It really is depressing, hearing other people's stories.
As Lua chews on the word piloting, Shinji chews on the last of his kebab. It was merely okay and after a while he was only forcing himself to eat, but he finished it. Asuka would be proud, if she weren't disgusted. If she weren't d--
"Yeah," he mumbles. There isn't a trash can around, so he keeps his garbage with him. "But I quit."
Technically he was fired, but he would've quit no matter what. That much he still keeps a mental hold on--that, and the anger that still simmers in his chest. At his father. At that woman Elisa. At Luanova's mother.
Why are there so many awful people in power?
<Pose Tracker> Luanova Luckwright has posed.
"I'm surprised they let you quit," Lua says. Perhaps she saw Shinji briefly consider what to do with the kebab stick, because she holds out a hand to take it and stow it in one of her coat pockets. It suddenly makes a whole lot more sense running into Shinji sitting wasting time on a bench in the open two days in a row. "I don't mean to pry, but... if you don't have somewhere to stay, I could find something. No judgment."
She sighs, straightening her posture up on the bench. "I didn't mean to suggest that it was some kind of misfortune contest, either. I know battle is traumatic." She knows her response to it isn't normal. "Somebody else getting hit worse isn't a reason to close yourself off to dealing with your own pain. It doesn't make it less important."
<Pose Tracker> Shinji Ikari has posed.
Shinji doesn't respond to 'let you quit.' It's not a topic he's allowed to discuss, and Misato warned him that Section 2 would probably keep monitoring him after he left. He frowns over at her when she offers her hand, not understanding her intention; it'll be simple for Lua to simply take the wooden skewer and stow it away. Otherwise, it'll stay where it is.
That frown softens at her offer, though. "No need. I'm staying on the Ra Mari II. The captain is a..." A friend? Shinji gets along well with Eight, but that feels like an overcommitment. An overstep. "A friend of a friend," he decides on. At the very least, that's true. "So she gave me a job on the ship."
He pauses when she sighs, though. "No, it's..." Fine? Okay? It's none of those things. "I wasn't trying to say that either," he settles on. He falls silent, though, at what she says next.
"...You really are a nice person," he eventually murmurs. He pulls his arms tighter around Bud. "Everyone I've met lately has been so nice."
<Pose Tracker> Luanova Luckwright has posed.
Lua's not gonna force it, but she does clarify by pointing her finger at the wooden skewer. If he wants to keep it and deal with it himself, that's fine too. It's just a stick.
"Well, that's good, then." Better than some kid having to tough it out on the streets. She watches Shinji clutch his Haro tight, and then gives him a gentle smile and a firm pat on the shoulder. "You're a thoughtful kid, too. You deserve a better Earth Sphere than this."
But they both know the people in power won't be moving to change that sphere anytime soon.
"If you need contacts to fall back on, I could give you my personal number. But I probably have to go. Check-in at another hotel and then once-over my notes before another meeting." Garbage job that doesn't do anything. She rises from the bench, but keeps her eyes on Shinji, waiting to see if he has anything else he wants to say before she goes. She can stay for that. He's worth the time.
<Pose Tracker> Shinji Ikari has posed.
The finger-point does make it clear. Once he understands, Shinji hands the stick over without thinking about it. It is just a stick.
He flinches reflexively when she pats his shoulder; slowly, he relaxes. It's better than getting smacked in the face with a purse. "Everybody does," he replies.
But they do both know. And it's not as though Shinji is so wide-hearted as to really think about the well-being of the entire world, anyway. It's just that this is the world the people he loves have to live in.
Luanova offers to give him her number as a contact, and Shinji straightens. "Oh, um," he dithers. It's not a surprise at this point that she'd make this offer, but at the same time, he wasn't expecting it. She rises to her feet, and for a moment, he's tongue-tied.
But then she just stands there, waiting for him. It gives him time to collect himself. He doesn't know if this is a good idea or not--maybe it would be better to let her leave and then keep to his quarters on the Ra Mari II for a while to avoid running into her again.
But...
"...okay." He opens up a mini-keyboard from within his Haro; a holo-screen pops up from the Osanshoo-san atop. He'll take down Luanova's number, and give his own in return. After that, he'll let her leave--and get up to head back to his dorm room too.
Lua's right. It does feel better when you take action for yourself.