2023-12-01: To understand without misunderstanding
- Cast: Leina Ashta, Luanova Luckwright
- Where: Castle Museum, York, Britannian Union
- Date: U.C. 0097 11 24
- Summary: Leina Ashta's personal concern for the pilot being used by the Myrmex Format project brings her to trace Senator Luckwright's footprint to a charity function, where her instincts bring her to recognize the pilot in person. They empathize and exchange contact information and horror stories.
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
The Yumi Foundation is well known around the Federation as a charity for war orphans founded by Sayla Mass, after her controversial stint as the Federation High Commission for Refugees in '85.
Despite championing 'hopeless' causes such as rebuilding within Britannia for areas destroyed by war, it's still relatively popular amidst the movers and shakers for it's high class galas and events meant to attract wealthy donors.
After all the 'underdog' is fashionable to give to, for hefty tax write offs and VIP status at its events. Today is one of those events. An invitation only Soiree in York.
Specifically at the Castle Museum, displaying the history of Pre-Britannian rule. Well-catered, with a lavish selection made when one RSVPs, there is wine, and music from the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
The atmosphere is an open courtyard with stone - yes actual stone castle walls, but one wouldn't notice the outdoor chill from the lit fire, and the discreetly hidden heaters that make the breeze pleasant.
Doctor Mass isn't here tonight, though there are still the occasional people speaking of the scandal of her coming out as Artesia Som Deikun. Less commonly known as 'Zeon's daughter' and more commonly spoken of as 'Char Aznable's Sister.' Instead it's Val, the Yumi Foundation's Meltrandi director of events, and Sayla's Daughter - Leina, has made an increasingly less rare appearance, in a red jumpsuit, with tie waist and V-Neck, a ribbon set on the left side of her hair, and a shawl artfully draped over her bare shoulders.
Many diplomats and politicians are here conducting impromptu business, over held champagne glasses or at the dinner table.
For now Leina is mostly doing the rounds, something which... well, it would be difficult to see that her enthusiasm is forced. She's to give a speech later...
... on the spirit of good will this season.
As she finishes greeting an OAC politician from Zimbabwe, finishing talk upon the split, as he walks away - there's suddenly nothing that needs her attention.
It's just her, holding a champagne glass as she walks along one of the elevated castle walls... easily ambushed, or simply 'ran into'. Or... her position just allows her a wider view of the party, as she knows all the names on the guest list.
<Pose Tracker> Luanova Luckwright has posed.
Senator Luckwright from the Neo-Colonies has been a longtime staple among Yumi Foundation donors, but she has attended precious few actual functions for years now. Her daughter Luanova makes the appearances for which Senator Luckwright is too busy. A fixture at these events, a pretty face in fashionable evening gowns, with just enough willful controversial opinions to be charmingly interesting but not pushy enough to be disruptive. Tonight she has been politely stonewalling gossip about Artesia Som Deikun and arguing that Doctor Mass has very well established who she is for herself, by her own actions.
Politely and acceptably disagreeing with these horrible people is a tiring job. So now it is that Leina Ashta is not the one in the greatest position to be 'ambushed.' Her walk down the walls at the perimeter of the function brings her upon where Senator Luckwright's daughter is standing apart from the party with her second flute of champagne, leaning against the parapets and humming an old, bittersweet seasonal tune. Her detail turns and greets the approaching Leina - neither of them familiar from the unfortunate attempt at Foresight HQ. "Miss Ashta," one of them says, with professional courtesy. The senator's daughter doesn't notice.
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
Senator Ada Luckwright. Certainly, Leina saw her RSVP. Perhaps that is why she chose to come last minute.
She does only attend these parties for a good cause, preferring to focus her efforts on helping the recipients of charity directly.
Her eyes, had looked upon her every now and then, but had kept apart- discreetly, she was being monitored by the staff.
She didn't expect to gain much, but sometimes even the smallest thing can build upon itself. Her walk down the walls is interrupted, by a sudden...
... feeling...
Her footsteps slow, then stop, as she looks at Lua from afar. "Hm." Her mind filters through the guest list, the Senator's plus one was...
... Ah.
For a time, Leina's gaze moves off the castle walls, vaguely North, towards Scotland, ruminating upon this fact, this impression.
Then, she turned back forward, and lifted her flute to her lips.
It was a bracing sip of champagne, reminding herself to nurse it. One. Just one. With the half a milligram of the medication she took beforehand, she had to keep it to that.
Forward she stepped, before nodding, "Good evening, Sir." She smiles, "Hypervigilance on the clock can be exhausting at events like this, don't you think?" She says, with a certain empathy, perhaps for the security guard's position.
Her own detail has problems with it, during events such as these.
A gesture with the flute, as if to indicate she wanted to approach their charge, just to say 'Greet' her, making the rounds as it were.
Soon enough, a young woman, younger than Luanova steps up if she were allowed, "Mind some company?" Leina asks, as she looks out over the parapets herself as she offers her own candid opinion, "I always did think the view out there was more interesting than the one inside."
It's an opinion she's had, since she was a child, staring out of the windows of the Endra - the Sandra - the Palace at Dakar.
She doesn't - say more, immediately, perhaps waiting to see how Luanova reacts, whether someone taking up space beside her is a transgression or not.
<Pose Tracker> Luanova Luckwright has posed.
The security guard allows himself a little smile at getting to talk as someone who isn't just an extension of someone else. "It's the job," he plays it off, "and the job pays for my family." There's not a lot of other opportunities in the Neo-Colonies for someone like him to get paid this much, and there are worse charges to work for than Luanova Luckwright. He gives a nod to Leina's gesture, and Lua's detail parts, giving Leina room to walk up beside her.
Luanova doesn't say anything in response to Leina's first few words, though she trails off in her humming. Lua allows herself a sigh before beginning to compose herself. Another person to greet means she has to straighten up again. "I've come to think they're really all the same view. The question is how the camera stages the shot. Are you getting a little bit of air too?" Air to breathe that doesn't come from a bunch of fat cats' moneyed lungs.
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
"I get it." Leina says sympathetically, as she definitely understands the plight of the working man, "When I was a kid we had to make ends meet from my brother doing freelance salvage work."
Indeed, that says a lot about her on its own, her brother working - not her parents. "Hopefully pays better than that. Neo-America rent is murder I hear."
She doesn't obviously pry towards how well the Senator treats them, because she suspects she treats them well enough. No need to cast aspersions on her in that regard.
But indeed, she moves on from Lua, quickly enough once she's given leave to step up to her. "'A little'." Leina answers her, before thinking upon her remark for a time, with a small rhythmic motion of her glass.
"It's a viewpoint I used to have." She confesses, after a time, "But the gilded cage was quite small, then." She says, softer, ruminating upon her past life with Neo-Zeon.
Then...
"Honestly, I despise events like this. The usual people who attend... they're always so hollow. The smiles, the laughter, the rousing applause-"
A small motion of her champagne flute towards her face, "-just masks they wear, to disguise the apathy."
<Pose Tracker> Luanova Luckwright has posed.
The security guard does notice that comment about her brother. He has a question, but he holds it back, instead simply replying about the rent. "People used to ask me if I was scared to be in harm's way. I told them the rent'd kill me a whole lot sooner than this job ever would." So he's comfortable, at least, saying things like that in front of the younger Luckwright.
Luanova can't afford to drop the mask in the middle of a high society party too much. So she says, "People get too comfortable with self-congratulation," rather than, They're a bunch of tendentious two-faced bastards. "But I'm in little position to judge. There are people on the ground making a much bigger difference than I am networking with people here and getting written up in gossip columns."
She absent-mindedly tilts her champagne flute almost a little too far, turning to face Leina. She sounds familiar. "We've met before, haven't we?" Eyes too well practiced in an act to hide how tired they are. "I'm really sorry, honestly. There are so many faces to keep track of. I'm Luanova Luckwright, from Neo-America."
Perhaps they have met at one of these functions, too, before her mother had any special psychodriver project to be concerned with, just another face to gladhand. This isn't the first time she's been here.
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
The security guard gets a faint grin at that, tempting further conversation - she always preferred talking to the waitstaff and security - they're real people, more real at least.
But - in the end, that's not her aim.
As Lua replies, Leina chuckles quietly, "That they do." In agreement that feels more than just superficial, perhaps.
"Hm." Leina hums softly, at her low opinion of herself. "You say that as if you have a choice, where you stand."
Indeed, she now leans over the parapets, an easy feat, given that she's quite short for a woman on this side of the pond.
"But often it's hardly that simple."
Lua remarks that they've met before, and Leina smiles, eyes lidding, as she speaks softly, "Heh. Guilty as charged, I think. Though - we didn't run across each other at an event like this."
Leina tells her quietly, "Sayla- Mom." She changes the word, as if she were unused to saying it, "She never made me attend, so I didn't. This is only my second event - of my own choice."
Indeed, her phone buzzes at that moment, and the Security Guards might see Leina reaching for it - slowly mind you, to pull it out of her pocket, and to show it.
Before she then puts it back in front of her, tapping upon it, as if replying to a text.
"The first - she was just indisposed, so I considered it an act of gratitude."
Indeed, she steps closer to Lua at that moment, and angles her phone towards her, obscured almost entirely by Leina's body, save at this angle.
>we met in kamchatka zaftra
>and again in olofat orb
She doesn't say anything else of the message in the phone, just allowing her to see it. "Tonight - I'm here to do someone else a favor." She offers coyly, but certainly remaining cryptic with others around them.
<Pose Tracker> Luanova Luckwright has posed.
Often it's hardly that simple. "That's true, too," Lua says with a small, tempered smirk. "I honestly don't get a whole lot of input in where the money's going, but I do try to direct it when I can."
Security guards are trained, not consciously but by implication, not generally to regard guests of honor as people who might be drawing weapons. Perhaps she has overthought the amount of security centered on Luanova Luckwright, because they don't make any effort to try to observe the phone.
Luanova's brow tilts just barely within the limits of perception, and she remains quiet for a couple beats. Thinking. Thinking...
She honestly doesn't have a whole lot of patience for this today. Maybe it's just the champagne. "Erich, Fill," she says, addressing the security guard who spoke to Leina and the other in turn. "I went to the ladies' room for the next half-hour and you stood outside guarding the entrance. That happened, right? You didn't take five and hit the buffet?" The security guards look at each other, and Fill begins to say a word before Erich puts a hand on his shoulder. "I'm pretty sure Miss Luckwright remembers correctly. Pleasure meeting you, Miss Ashta."
A few minutes after her guards have departed to go guard the entrance to the ladies' room, Lua relaxes her posture and leans backwards against the parapet. "You know, some unspecified people have non-disclosure agreements about certain subjects. If somebody like that were to have to talk about something they signed an NDA about, they'd get really mad if someone found out about the violation and they got hit with legal censure. I figured we should get that out of the way first, right?"
She doesn't give off an energy of being bothered by Leina, at least. Just at having to do this dance around the matter in the first place.
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
Leina could certainly tell stories about the illusion of free will. After all, if she could only escape, she'd be free, certainly.
Hardly so simple.
In the same way that leaving is hardly so simple. Still, she doesn't remark further on it. Instead, just waiting, watching Luanova's reaction to the phone and...
... a ghost of a smile...
"Pleasure meeting you both."
She says to them, as they walk away, the phone is kept in hand, but she doesn't write anything more in the moment, simply hitting the lock screen.
Her eyes trail over to Luanova as she speaks about the NDA, and there's a chuckle, "Please, I don't give a damn about proprietary rights and corporate secrets."
Propping herself up on her elbows, she turns around to place her back to the parapet, to look sideways at her, "What I do care about, is you." Leina says, as she tips her hand.
"Maybe you've never heard of them, but Axis Zeon had a Cyber Newtype Corps, controlled by a man named Glemy Toto. Homegrown children, that he trained to be weapons."
She takes a breath, as her eyes trailed up to the starless sky above, "Even less likely you heard about his pet doll. A girl from the slums he groomed to be a Lady of Neo-Zeon to show off his benevolence, his power - his worthiness to rule."
She doesn't need to say who that girl is, certainly not, "It's... a long story, but just because I don't think your Mother is Glemy Toto, or that her company is just a gussied up Cyber Newtype Lab, or that you're some labgrown designer child doesn't mean I don't have 'concerns'."
With her glass, she gestures over the parapets, "Especially when the first view I have of you after sensing you is seeing you gaze out there like you think escape..."
Indeed, she emphasizes the word, before continuing, "... would be fleeting and futile. As that's a feeling I know all too well."
<Pose Tracker> Luanova Luckwright has posed.
Luanova Luckwright breathes a sigh of relief once she's gotten the topic of the NDA. A little bit of actual life comes into her eyes...
And gradually drains, as the occasion is used to drill upon her the atrocities of the Universal Century. No less authentic, but eyes that don't follow where Leina is going, like the eyes of a student taking notes about things that they may not think are unimportant, but that are far away from their daily lives.
"That's... a lot," she says, hesitating to find where to go from there. Heavy stuff to drop in such a short amount of time. "And I thought we were going to talk about the experience of combat and deployment. Listen, I, uh..."
She looks down at the champagne flute briefly, and then turns back to Leina, while dumping the remainder of her champagne in one flick off the side of the castle wall. Drinking any more of that isn't going to do her any good this evening.
"I'm not sure what you think is going on. You are right: my mother isn't Glemy Toto, and her company isn't a Cyber Newtype Lab, and I'm not a labgrown designer child. And I know all of that is something that has happened, and is still happening. And that a lot of Newtype research is built on the shoulders of demons. I'm in a pretty peculiar scenario, but the kind of stuff I said earlier really is true: I don't have it the best, but I don't have it the worst. I'm not a war orphan or a child soldier. The kind of money I get to move isn't anything compared to my mother's, but it still makes a difference for people who have far less than that. It is what it is."
"So I'm sorry, but I guess what I mean to say is I'm not really sure what favor you've come to do me because I pilot the robot. I'm not forced to pilot it. To be honest..."
She hesitates. Vulnerability briefly surfaces in her eyes. "Well. To be honest, I would have been more appreciative if you had come to sympathize with me about everything else but the robot."
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
Indeed, Leina expects the awkwardness at first, she's accustomed to it. From the young women at school who want to get closer to her and bite off more than they can chew.
From friends, and other people she speaks about this side of herself - her past too.
She just listens to her talk, while leaning, eyes upon the sky. It's heavy, perhaps too heavy to burden someone with that she just met.
Yet, she does, because there are things she needs to know - to understand - to assess quickly.
And sometimes blunt honesty does it more than the long game of back and forth.
Leina's head cants faintly, to look at her, seagreen eyes blinking every so often, waiting for her to finish, "You misunderstand, I think. Look - I know these situations aren't always so simple."
She has this sympathetic smile on her face, "I wasn't originally a pilot. Like I said - I was his pet doll. My life... wasn't my own. But I was raised to be a Lady - not a Weapon."
She emphasizes that perhaps as something else that can be sympathized with on its own. "And even if I thought the other girls were worse off, that doesn't mean I didn't have my own struggles."
Setting down her champagne flute on the parapet she comments, "If you enjoy piloting - then I'm not going to tell you that you shouldn't. Or pity you for it. The favor I'm offering you is simple."
Leina turns from her position to look at her head on, "I don't know your situation - I just - humans, we're creatures of pattern recognition, you know? I just see enough similarities that I wanted to check up on you, wanted to talk to you."
Taking a step forward, it's a simple offer, "I know it's hard to talk to someone about these things when you're still in the middle of it - so I wanted to offer you my contact information, if you ever needed someone to talk to - to understand."
In that moment, she shifts to emphasizing, "Noone else finds out. I'm not here to steal your Mom's secrets or anything - just - to lend you an ear, as you sure look like you need one."
A beat.
"I know I did."
<Pose Tracker> Luanova Luckwright has posed.
There is an invisible veil around Luanova Luckwright. For a moment, just a few beats, perhaps Leina Ashta can feel it around herself as well. A sheath of possibility that casts a radial awareness of quantum foam, difficult to describe except in terms of colors, sounds, instincts. Through a veil of extrasensory vision, Leina sees Lua's face: aqua-green eyes, stray bangs fallen across her face, and a warm, human smile, nothing like the practiced and guarded expressions she has shown up to this point.
She's said something that Lua has heard within her heart.
The moment passes. "Alright," Luanova says, a little bit of mischief coloring her smile. "Now, if you're offering to hear me bitch about mother and groan about how tired I am of these society shitheads, that I can understand." A little humor to instinctively guard her vulnerability, but Leina can likely feel the genuine gratitude and connection underneath. The exposition about the Cyber Newtype Corps was not something Lua understood in her life. The talk about living a life as a Lady, as a doll, is something Lua understands intimately.
"I have a second phone," Lua says, shifting to pull it out of her pocketbook. "It's not actually very secret, but the trick with corporate opsec is that it barely exists. I can send you my info on here."
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
It's a fascinating thing to feel, with a flutter of her eyelashes, the strange area of possibility. It contrasts the warm ocean of stars that seems to make up her being.
An expanse, not closed off, but ever-present. But perhaps it is difficult to sense with that wall of possibility.
There is simply the genuine desire, perhaps to cross it, into that awareness, that goes beyond the Newtype instinctual desire to connect to others.
To understand without misunderstanding.
"That's absolutely what I'm offering." Leina confirms, to make certain she's clear.
Because indeed, while Leina spoke of things that seem strange like Cyber Newtype Corps - she's known the struggles of both sides.
She was raised to be a Lady when she was ten, without any choice in the matter. And only just recently she was forced to be a weapon, by the Vist Foundation, by the Murasame Institute.
"Nice. That works just fine by me Tell you what - we'll keep it to your terms then just to maintain that. You call me. If you call and I can't answer because something came up, I'll text you back to say when I can talk."
Leina considers for a moment, then, "I'll get a burner too, call myself let's say - Fraw Bruder - when I'm texting, just in case you need to explain it to someone, can just say I'm some socialite from Neo-Germany you met one night or something or another."
<Pose Tracker> Luanova Luckwright has posed.
"Yeah, I guess that will keep the second phone secure when Mother is around," Lua assents.
A few touches on her phone is enough to send the contact information for 'Centy Chaudhary:' a feminine derivation of Centus Chaudhary, the protagonist of classic action thriller Die Five Times, infamous among fans both for arguments over whether it counts as a holiday movie and for the fact that Centus Chaudhary actually only dies four times (three of which involve Arm Slaves, a different one each time).
"And I mean, friendship is a two-way street - we just met, so you don't have to share anything that's still too personal, but let me know how things are going with you, too. Even though you're probably not as in need of shoulders to lean on as I am. Or maybe you are, I don't know. No judgment."
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
Leina receives the contact information and looks at the handle in amusement, she certainly knows the film. ... Look Judau and her watched it when they were kids.
When she makes that offer, to keep it both ways, Leina chuckles softly, "Sure, I don't mind venting about my stuff too. Just warning you - my recent stuff can be pretty heavy."
Leaning against the parapet casually, Leina's tone takes on a touch of wry humor to it, "Would you believe it if I told you that I tried to tell your Mom that part of the Federation apparatus kidnapped me off the streets ... mmm... ten months ago and turned me into a brainwashed weapon to pilot their most advanced Newtype Mobile Suit? ... Then after I broke free, tried to kill me - and everyone I care about with a WMD to erase the evidence of their conspiracy?"
It's meant to shock, perhaps just by the sheer weight of it, but the humor is coming in what she feels is almost certainly one of the solidarity of shared experience.
"And she cut me off because of my tone?"
Perhaps in her eyes, it is better to laugh than to cry... she's still attending three deprogramming hypnotherapy sessions a week, and has been for the past five months.
<Pose Tracker> Luanova Luckwright has posed.
"Ten months ago," Luanova repeats, shaking her head. There's not really a whole lot else she can say about that, so she just has to trust that Leina already understands that.
The punchline doesn't even take Lua off guard enough to laugh more than a sad snicker. "I don't believe that's the tone of someone who is interested in a discussion, so regrettably, I suppose we're done here," Luanova sniffs, in a flawless impersonation of Senator Luckwright. "Yeah, that woman doesn't listen to anybody -- and she knows how to put it forward so the Neo-Colonial media will go along with it in case it's on camera, too. Sometimes you can tell her to screw off and she'll find a way to accept your apology. It's always all about her and the sacrifices she's made."
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
There's a soft chuckle, as Luanova echoes 'ten months ago', and a rueful look, "Yeah. Still working on it! Just wouldn't know it, because-" As she lifts up a hand, and waggles it, "-I'm here - and not in some intensive psychiatric care ward."
As it just gets a snicker, Leina listens to her impression, the side of her lips tugging with faint mirth, "God. Can only imagine how many times you've heard that one."
There's still sympathy in her eyes there. And in her mind, she thinks silently, 'Glemy cut me off differently' with whatever goal he had for her for the day - and the timeline, to imply she had no time to talk.
Even as she hears how she manipulates other people, how it's all about her, all about her sacrifices, "Yet I'm gonna bet she pretends it's all about you... God."
There's a sigh at that, "That's a lot. Especially since you're what? Twenty five-ish?" Leina estimates with a glance, "I know that doesn't always change things, but still. Lot of people pin their hopes in that kinda situation on 'getting out' when they come of age, but - it's not so easy when your Mother has the power yours has."
<Pose Tracker> Luanova Luckwright has posed.
"Oh, yeah. Talking about the risks she's taken this and all the favors she's pulled that to make sure I have a career path ready for me and how proud she is of me and the bright future I have ahead of me, but every time I would start talking about what I want to do she would explain why that's not a good idea and this is so much better for me." Luanova glances away in an expression that can only be mastered by rolling your eyes at something so often that you have to learn to abbreviate it. "Then a couple conversations later she would guilt trip me over something by talking about how I wanted this career path so much and yet I'm messing it up. We don't talk much anymore outside of the itinerary. If she's just going to make up something else to believe I said then why even bother having the argument."
She turns and leans with elbows over the parapet. "My dad was good. I miss him."
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
Leina actually puts two fingers up to nose, and pinches the bridge of it, hearing Ada's methods of controlling her daughter in private.
There's nothing about what she's doing that is illegal in a sense, it's simply awful. The emotional manipulation, the sense of self-aggrandizement.
"She's the one who doesn't get it, at all - acting like that." Leina, says softly, "Children should be more than just - fingers upon a hand. Yet how dare you not act like a proper digit... rather than a daughter."
It comes with the thought of more sympathy certainly, she's going to say more, but there's... the idea of her Father...
"... Got that impression even from her. She let me take a tour, see his lab." Her eyes float upward, "Sorry. Wish he was still here for you. You deserve to have supportive parents in your life."
Leina doesn't talk about her own biological parents who want nothing to do with her, how she was in blind denial that Sayla was her mother for so long, because of that... going by 'Guardian' and 'Ward'... even up until recently.
It's a lot to go into, and she can do so later, right now Luanova needs sympathy, for her grief.
Even if she doesn't understand what it's like, to grieve a parent.
<Pose Tracker> Luanova Luckwright has posed.
Luanova turns her head, and lets out an actual laugh at seeing Leina pinch the bridge of her nose. "That about says it all, huh," she says. Who needs words when that gesture sums it all up.
She cranes her neck, looking to see where the partygoers have gone. Scoping the perimeter. "Well, I needed to get away for a bit of authenticity, and that helped a lot. Thanks... I mean, can I call you Leina? Thanks, Leina." After a beat, she holds her arms out to either side with a sparkling smile. "Hugs?"
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
The 'authenticity' comment, gets a smile out of her. She certainly knows what it's like being at these events, everyone being fake...
... she awakened as a Newtype, to that understanding...
"Of course you can." She tells her, and as she asks for hugs, while holding out her arms, she steps forward, and puts her arms around her, hugging her tightly for a long moment.
"Stay in touch alright?" She murmurs to her, "And when we're deployed on the same missions, I'll try to watch your back out there."
She understands that her mother is deploying her simply to show the effectiveness of a product but - she doesn't care, her performance is certainly secondary to her life.
And she understands, as Luanova has been deployed, there are gonna be few people out there who see her as a 'teammate' so to speak, and look out for her.
<Pose Tracker> Luanova Luckwright has posed.
"I hope things get easier for you," Lua says, holding Leina back.
She responds afterward to staying in touch by gesturing affirmatively with the second phone, and then stows it. "I'll try to do the same, and you can transmit my way if you've got other allies on the field you want me to coordinate with... and to help me remember which robot was you." A sheepish smile. She wasn't really committing units to memory out there.
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
"Thanks. You too of course."
When they release each other from the hug and she starts gesturing Leina is about to tell her she will, but then...
... there's an audible nasally snerk at her gesture. A grin. And she takes out her phone and-
"This is the one. Cathedra's a bunch of Beguir-Pente's right now, mine's just a modified one with this paint job." She shows her a photo, which is white and pink versus the violet and red...
"I have another but don't have photos of it - uh - if I'm deploying in that, things are... bad? Real bad."
It's like her mind locked up on how bad things are but then she adds the far more scandalous descriptor.
"Shit's fucked."
<Pose Tracker> Luanova Luckwright has posed.
Luanova looks flatly at Leina. "Has shit ever not been fucked?"
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
"More than usual." Leina replies without missing a beat.
<Pose Tracker> Luanova Luckwright has posed.
"When shit's fuckeder," Luanova concludes.
<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.
"Precisely."