2023-12-18: Yuliana Falls
- Log: Yuliana Falls
- Cast: Yuliana Kafim, Judau Ashta, Parminder Chaudhri, Wendy Yuan
- Where: The Silent Castle, Kaffeklubben Island
- Date: 2023-12-18
- Summary: Judau comes to visit Yuliana at the seat of the Kafim's power, the Silent Castle. There, he meets Parminder and Wendy -- and the Kafim's pampered pet tiger, Sokrova -- and gets some terrible insight into how Yuliana lives, in the process. He's come to tell her she can't go on this way, but it's a conversation Leina unwittingly started, and Yuliana shares with Judau her fears over accepting the assistance she offered. But Judau reaches out to her, despite her oppressive aura, and Yuliana finally asks for their help. ... she has her wife's blessing, after all. (Content warning: body horror)
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
On the island closest to Heaven, the Silent Castle stands in eternal night. Much like the North Pole was, it's dark this time of year, and that makes the lights from those stonehewn windows something like beacons. The castle seems carved from stone, though close inspection will reveal it's not just stone -- certainly not as easy to destroy.
(Particularly by the looks of the green palings which stretch up from the ramparts. They were active when Judau might have passed this way to leave the North Pole, warding away any unwanted guests... but they're inactive, now.)
The approach to the island is frequently choked by ice -- the Salamis Kai cruiser berthed at the dock has a prominent icebreaker on its prow. But it is traversable, given either proper equipment or an abundance of persistence. One notes that there is a central clearing, in the courtyard, and even what appears to be a lake in there... but it's separated from the sky outside by a warding lattice of defensive steel, presumably opened from inside. One could try to barge through it, anyway, but perhaps it would be more polite to park outside. Not that there's that much space on the island which hasn't been consumed by the Castle's towering stone walls. The island has even been extended artificially, in places, to spite the rising sea level with level ground to build on. The clearest space to land is by the front gates, and one imagines this is how their machines exit the fortification.
The gate is mech-scaled -- but there is a human-sized gate, down there. It even has an intercom button. It might be a lottle frosty, but it still works.
One may note, approaching the gate, that feeling of precipice -- teetering on the edge of oblivion. But Yuliana isn't visible, on the other side... so where's that nothingness coming from?
<Pose Tracker> Judau Ashta has posed.
The longer you stay on Earth after a very long time not living on any sort of planetary body to speak of, you realize:
The whole thing is -bullshit nonsense-.
Take poles! They're tilted! What's up with that?! It's dark -all the time- on one end of the planet for one part of the year and then light all the time for the other and the whole thing does a switcheroo if you go to the other end! It makes no sense!
So that's one reason why Judua Ashta is a bit annoyed by the time he arrives at the Silent Castle. The other is the sight of those green, inactive palings as he approaches the ice-clogged islands by air. He's been this way before, he's seen those palings before.
The sight of them, even inactive, just reminds him of the current state of the North Pole, and everything that happened there.
As if being in perpetual darkness isn't enough!
The G-Fortress cuts through the cold, dark, northern skies as Judau focuses on the sight of the Silent Castle in the distance. Like most times he has decided to tear off without explanation and or notice to try to gain access to an ostentatious palatial estate, he comes today without invitation and without much if any forewarning beyond the Double Zeta's rapid approach in its G-Fortress configuration.
It's not exactly, objectively speaking, the smartest tactic in the world. But it's just how Judau is. He's a creature of impulse. When he has an itch, he has to scratch. And when he has a concern...
He has to address it.
Eventually, the G-Fortress touches down near the front gates. There might be other ways to sneak (brute force) in, but this isn't one of those meetings; the hatch of his core block hissing open, Judau lifts up out of his seat to peer at the entrance. Sea green eyes squinting at the battering winds, cold biting sharp even despite the thick red winter wear and insulated pants and boots -AND THOROUGHLY FLUFFY WARM MITTENS- he wears, he considers for a moment.
The impulse is strong to just stay in his Gundam, transform it, and then -yell a lot- until Yuliana comes out. It's worked for him a lot, before!
He considers. He considers the odds of it becoming a fight if he does that.
He considers whether that'd be such a bad thing because man this whole Earth's poles thing has got him - wait for it - tilted.
Ultimately--
"Whatever!"
--ultimately, Judau hops from the G-Fortress' descent cable and wades towards those dual-sized gates, approaches the intercom button--
--and completely failing to notice it, bangs on the door with his dark, super-fluffy mittens.
"HEY! YULIANA! I WANNA TALK!"
He swallows down that teetering feeling of balancing on the tight-rope over the abyss by focusing instead on PROJECTING HIS VOICE VERY LOUDLY.
"--IT'S JUDAU! JUDAU ASHTA! YOUR GATE IS WEIRD!"
Shouting belligerently in a Gundam, versus shouting belligerently on foot.
What a world of difference.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Luckily for Judau, the elite guard is currently... occupied. And since the G-Fortress isn't approaching with weapons hot, the non-elite guards don't think to intercept him.
They're not exactly good at human problem solving.
(Apparently, Judau's not so hot at it, either.)
BANG BANG BANG, goes the gate. BANG BANG BANG. And for long moments, he's alone, out there in the cold, teetering on oblivion.
Until...
"What on Earth," a haughty, male voice comes OUT OF NOWHERE, wait no it's the intercom. "Who the Devil are --" and that's when Judau shouts his name again.
"There's a doorbell," the man sniffs, before... there's an unlocking noise, and the gate sweeps open. "Oh, just--!!"
The gate leads into the central courtyard, where Judau is met by a wiry looking man, with blue eyes and dark skin, dressed in warm furs. The steward sniffs, looking at the travesty before him. "All this hullabaloo," he says, with scorn. "I regret that the Mistresses of the Castle do not accept uninvited solicitors," and there's no shred of regret in his voice, "particularly those of such dubious character."
And behind him, a tall, lanky Indian man with an absolute mane of orange hair emerges, to lean on the doorway. Of course he leaves the door open and lets the cold air in; he is, you see, an asshole. His warm fur jacket has an interesting addition, over the top...
... a grey wifebeater with 'CULT ROBES' printed on the front in Impact lettering.
His eyes are light brown, and they glitter with mirth as he grins, arms folding loosely across his chest. "Just FYI," he says, enunciating each letter, "the Captain's gonna kill you if you turf an Ashta." This is Parminder Chaudhri, and it's his job to know who's who in the fashion world.
"And what on Earth," the steward demands, "is an Ashta? I understand this ruffian was yelling it like his life depended on it, but --"
"Man, you ain't heard of Judau Ashta? Your loss, Durai. The important part is they're the Captain's favourite Newtype Friends," Parminder explains, fearlessly. "You know, the ones which prove she can't possibly be racist these days? Duh."
"I do not meddle in the affairs of --"
"Bored now," Parminder dismisses him, pushing off of the doorway and waving to Judau. "Hey, squeaky toy! If you really wanna talk to her, come with me. I have authority," he adds, to the steward, who is looking apoplectic with rage right about now. "I'll take him in."
"If he causes trouble, you're responsible!" The steward yells, as he storms inside.
"Yeah, yeah," Parminder waves him off, burying his hands in the pockets of his fur trousers. (There's a lot of fur clothing, here. It's probably not a statement of disregard for animal life -- rather, when you get this far North, woollen clothes just don't cut it any more.) "Soooo, Judau, huh? Not even your little sister's dumb enough to come here personally. Congrats!" He pauses, for a beat. "Oh, by the way -- intercoms. You push a button. I get that's gonna be hard for you, when you didn't even figure out closing your Gundam's hatch for ages, so I can draw you a diagram or somethin'." How does he know that?! ... why is he so mean?!
The inside of the Castle is opulent; beautiful silk hangings decorate the walls, and the entrance hall hosts a massive oil painting of the Mistresses seated together, in full Calling regalia. It must have cost a mint. A bunch of things in here would sell for a mint, too, from the chandeliers above to the sculptures decorating the hall. It's a pleasant distraction from the feeling of Yuliana's aura, choking out the Castle, preventing any empathic calls for help.
"She'll be in the West Wing gym, right about nyaow," Parminder just kind of meows while saying 'now,' for mysterious Parminder reasons. "Up through this way." And while the halls get chilly, Judau might note that every occupied room is heated quite well, with fireplaces installed everywhere. (And every one with grating to stop someone from being able to reach into the flames. Safety first!)
He may also note that the servants who pass them have light to their eyes, and acknowledge them as they pass.
And sure enough, the gymnasium is in use. It's luxuriously stocked, with everything from balance beams to rowing machines. But currently, Yuliana and another woman with porcelain-white skin and poofy pink hair...
... are jumping rope, all dressed in gym clothes which feel outrageous this far North, black tanktops and shorts. (It's warm enough that they won't freeze, of course -- if a little cooler in here, to make exercising more comfortable.)
That is to say: Wendy Yuan is jumping rope. Yuliana grasps the ends of her own rope in her tentacles, and with her hands free, she's hoisting a pair of kettlebells at the same time. "Parmindeeeer!" Wendy whines, when he comes in. "The Captain's showing ooooff!"
"I am no--" Yuliana starts to say, before she sees who's with Parminder, and promptly gets immediately tangled in jump rope. "--gh!" She yelps, as she lands on the mat, the kettlebells making loud THUDS as they land a short ways away. (Each is labelled: 100kg.)
Parminder, of course, immediately bursts out laughing. "WORTH IT!"
"Captain, did you run into a wall?" Wendy asks, with a little more concern as she stops skipping too, but she can't help giggling either. "Ahaha... sorry, but you've got jump rope tangled in your frill..."
Yuliana, who is indeed entirely tangled up in her jump rope like the naughtiest kitten, snaps: "Oh, fuck off!" And it's clear, as she lifts her head to yell at them, that she has a tattoo -- Elisa's name, tattooed artfully into the base of her neck.
Neither Parminder nor Wendy go so far as to move to help Yuliana immediately.
<Pose Tracker> Judau Ashta has posed.
Judau Ashta has grown a lot, in a lot of ways.
He is, however, still Judau Ashta.
BANG BANG BANG
"HEY! I KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE, I CAN FEEL YOUR... NOT FEEL YOUR... FEEL THE NOT-FEELING OF... WHATEVER! YOU KNOW WHAT I'M SAYIN'!"
and he still has his way of doing things, god help us all
And eventually, it pays off for him! Sort of! A voice rings out over the intercom: What on Earth.
"Yeah, that's what I'm wonderin'!!" Judau answers without a second's delay, which means he completely misses (ignores) the part about the doorbell and everything. Tragic!
The gate opens up before him. And there he stands, arms crossed over his chest, just -staring- at the man - the butler? - before him when he finally makes his way into the courtyard. He regards the blue-eyed man with a frown and narrowed eyes. Narrowed eyes that winnow further towards a squint the very second the man says 'hullabaloo' and just becomes narrower and narrower with each passing eloquent syllable. A second passes.
"Yeah whatever, I'm not listenin' to some weirdo makin' up nonsense words like hullabaloo an' dubious" what "an' uninvited."
Okay maybe Judau's just mouthing off.
But would anyone truly be surprised if Judau really didn't know what 'uninvited' meant--?
"So either you go get your ~Mistress of the Castle~" one doesn't have to imagine the tildes because helpfully Judau's swimming his fingers through the air in the most disrespectful way anyone has ever fluttered fingers "or I'll go do your job for you an' get her myself--!"
And he's about to do -just that- and march past poor Durai and damn the consequence (who ever, -ever- really considers consequences until they happen? they might as not even be real until then!) when suddenly, there's -another- man. A lanky man. With orange hair. Who looks like the exact polar opposite of the stuffy steward, as if one could not exist without the other to balance their extremes. If Judau were a more eloquent man he might compare them to the two poles of this very Earth, trading light for dark with every passing year, but then he'd be reminded of the poles again and WHY DO THEY EVEN TILT, WHY CAN'T THE EARTH JUST BE VERTICAL
SO INSTEAD, Judau's just been squinting at Parminder Chaudhri's CULT ROBES wifebeater worn over his jacket with an inscrutable furrow of his brows and purse of his lips.
... do they also... wear clothing layers differently on this side of the planet, or what...?!
--the Captain's gonna kill you if you turf an Ashta is ultimately what jars him out of this reverie. He tears his gaze away from CULT ROBES and back towards the pair, offering in reply an indignant snort. He sizes Durai up for a second.
"Yeah I'd like to see 'em try. There's not a domestic worker alive I can't outsmart!"
He says this, one hundred percent, as a point of pride, and he's got the receipts to back it up. Again, god help us all, etc.
For the most part, though, he's not -especially- paying attention to the back and forth. He gets the intent behind it; surprisingly, the claim that he and Leina are part of Yuliana's Token Newtype Squad just kind of washes off the typically boisterous Newtype's back. Maybe it doesn't bother him much. Or maybe it -does-, but, well, doesn't surprise him.
He's met Yuliana, after all.
At the end of the day, though, chaos triumphs over order, as it always, inevitably, shall. Called 'squeaky toy,' Judau just blinks -- and then with the steward getting completely overridden, his eyes slant into amused slits, his grin a cheshire thing as he just saunters on past.
"Heh heh. See, what'd I tell you?"
He lifts his hands up as he passes.
Because of the concealment of the mittens, you'll just have to hope that he isn't giving the steward the Double Deuce, but accept the inevitability that he absolutely is.
So anyway there Judau is, following along after Parminder. He looks around him as the lanky man speaks, absorbing the beauty of the Castle with a mix of thought and mild discomfort, like someone wearing an ill-fitting garment (like, perhaps, CULT ROBES over a coat); honestly, he's never had the easiest time with estates as big and ostentatious as all of this. The sheer richness of it all -- the commissioned paintings of nobility looking to immortalize themselves against the erosion of time -- the sheer -money- obviously spilt across every floor and wall and column and ceiling and mass of fur clothing...
... he's never been able to really accept it. Even Sayla's estate still makes him uncomfortable and stir-crazy to some degree, and this -- this is on a whole other level.
But it's something to distract him from the emptiness he feels surrounding him, cutting out the feeling of -everything- around him. Bereft of it like this is like going blind in one sense. But, well - Judau pushes past it, as he does most dangerous things when he makes a risky (stupid) decision. Because he's here for a reason.
Parminder, on the other hand, is very cheery, and knows way too much, and his flippant words cut to the quick! Judau blinks, looks at the other man for a second as he offers a myriad of insults wrapped up in a congrats.
"Hey, thanks!" he says, focusing -entirely on the congratulations- instead of literally -anything else- including -the distressing amount of intel-.
"So, you're kinda a dick, huh?"
He follows up with. In case Parminder was worried he wasn't paying attention. Surprisingly, there's not a lot of anger behind it. Maybe Parminder just hits different compared to a guy who starts off conversations with words like hullabaloo. Maybe he's just in a good mood because he got in, just as planned (was it planned, though). More importantly...
No, he doesn't even remotely address the intercom thing. It's boundless to happen again.
(Who knows about his early episode hijinks?! Is this some cult thing??)
And so it is that they make their way through the vast estate until they get to the west wing (this thing is so big it has WINGS; what needs wings that isn't a boring museum or something?!). He's still watching, still taking in everything -- still taking in the people -- when they arrive. His brows are furrowed in thought, by the time they reach the archway, about a lot of the things he's seen. But most immediately--
"--Wait, nyaow--?" he belatedly finds objection with, -just in time- for them for Wendy Yuan's whining words to drown out his Concerns.
And so it is that like the flapping of a butterfly's wings they're impromptu entrance allows Judau to bear witness to Yuliana Kafim, existential scourge of the North Pole, near annihilator of a free existence he loves, just kinda
weeble wobble tangle tumbles right to the ground
end statement.
For a long time, Judau just kind of. Stares. Blinking. Wide-eyed. How heavy are those kettlebells?! Are tentacles the new form of multitasking evolution!? Is this pratfall comedy moment some sort of sinister ploy?! Would HAMAN have done something so insidious too, to get him to drop his guard!? What VILE SCHEME IS YULIANA CONCOCTING--
Absolutely none of that enters his mind as he approaches, the intensity of that void-wrought epicenter making him visibly wince within the hole of it all, smothered and suffocated --
--and still moving in to crouch down and help disentangle Yuliana, first and foremost.
"Yo, so, hey, Yuliana, I was talkin' to your cat guy here," what "Did you know he's kinda an asshole? And why is your castle so fancy but your cult robes so shitty?"
...
so we begin in earnest.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
They tilt specifically to piss Judau off. Everyone pack it up, he figured out the secret to the poles.
"LOL," Parminder grins, and he says the letters instead of actually laughing, "just don't try that with Guanyu. Captain'd get real nettled if you tried getting one over her favourite maid." Yuliana has a favourite maid?! There are enough maids in here for her to have a favourite?!
Apparently so. This is, like, a whole CASTLE. It takes SO MANY PEOPLE to keep it running?
Unfortunately, Durai is one of those people, and it's a good thing he can't see Judau flipping him off as they go inside. (He quickly excuses himself. Probably to go make up more fake words, like incorrigible and outrageous.)
"Sure am," he says, cheerfully, when Judau calls him a dick. "Me and the whole murder squad, tbh. Y'know. It's the murders." Parminder just outright says it.
No one tell Judau about the Castle Museum, which assuredly exists just to taunt him, specifically.
If Yuliana set all this up to taunt him, though, she's bound to be very good, because it seems to all the world like she got caught entirely off-guard. And unlike her friends in her -- how'd Parminder put it -- murder squad, Judau actually steps forward to help her. She blinks, as he soldiers on forward to untangle her from her jump rope, and she must be stunned, because she'll even accept his hand to help her up. "Um..."
Once she's upright again, she finally latches onto something: "... t--those are not our robes! Letda just thinks he's funny!"
"Bitch, I'm hilarious," Parminder grins, which really just solidifies how much of a prick he really is.
"Tch..." Yuliana frowns, before she looks back to Judau -- and catches him wincing. She blinks, and realises she's crowding him out. "Ah -- excuse me," she says, taking a step back and folding her frills bonelessly into a flesh-pocket behind her ears. Finally, he can take a breath, because that overwhelming aura shrinks until it's lashed beside her again. (She thought to give him space, so she's not affecting him at close range, either.) "I don't really think of containing myself at home," she explains it all, glancing down. "My Elisa doesn't employ your type of person, so..."
She might have explained more, except she catches sight of her shorts. "Oh!" She exclaims, and hurries to the bench to throw on her black robes over the top of her workout gear. "Letda, you should have warned me an outsider was visiting! I'm in no fit state of dress--!"
"Women, huh?" Parminder asides to Judau, with a savage grin. "They'll kill a man with their bare hands, then get all sniffy about modesty!"
"I'm MARRIED!" Yuliana yells back to him, all ahuff, buried in black robes. Once she manages to free her head again, she points out, with a sour pout, to Judau: "This is what he's supposed to wear."
"Laaaame," Parminder chimes in.
"Shut up!" Yuliana volleys back to him. "Ugh. These assholes are my good-for-nothing team," Yuliana grumbles, jerking a thumb towards Wendy and Parminder. "Lettu and Letda -- uh -- Wendy Yuan and Parminder Chaudhri."
"You should probably tell him you're referring to us by rank too, Captain!" Wendy reminds her, cheerfully. "He doesn't look like the kinda guy who speaks Indonesian..."
"Yeah, yeah, First and Second Lieutenant," Yuliana waves it off. "We kept the titles when we left. Felt weird not to. Now, do you two mind clearing the fuck out? I gotta see what this guy wants."
"Absolutely devo," Parminder moans, a hand to his head. "BRB, crying."
"You're not," Yuliana tells him, dryly.
"Yeah, guess that's more your thing," he grins, as he turns away.
"And get rid of that shirt!" Yuliana yells after him, evidently not for the first time: "For the last time, it's not funny!"
"Can't hear you! Too cold!" Parminder yells back, and Wendy laughs as she follows him out.
Yuliana scowls, and turns to Judau, the corner of her lip jerked back in disdain. The expression softens, at least, when she focuses on him. "But... why have you come?" She asks, her voice quieting. "Surely your kinsmen would not approve. Don't get me wrong, you're in no danger as our guest, but... they don't see it that way, do they?" Who 'they' are, she leaves ambiguous.
As if she can't quite believe it: "Did you really just... wish to visit?" And there's no harm in showing him how she lives, if that's true, right...?
<Pose Tracker> Judau Ashta has posed.
"-Favorite- maid," Judau Ashta repeats, frowning. "What, they got rankings, or something? Does -she- get a big-ass painting?"
An entire house staff. Judau's not -surprised- by that really. This castle is -big-. How many servants were there in the estates of Neo Zeon, or the people in power in the Federation?
But it is strange, and in some level annoying, to think about. How many people work here, support all of this castle, just for... what small handful of people in comparison? It bugs him.
He's not even going to begin to comment on the LOL in place of laughter. It's by far the oddest thing he's encountered yet and he's in a giant ominous castle owned by at least one individual who is a manifest aspect of some kind of Dark God That Dwells Beyond The Veil, or... whatever. He just can't address it when this whole place is trying to plunge his psyche into the conceptual equivalent of fuzzy static!
But...
Me and the whole murder squad, tbh. Y'know. It's the murders.
"... Yeah. I just bet."
... maybe he's just not meant to understand. It wouldn't be the first time, even with his Newtype powers not being so muzzled in the dark.
It's not a sensation he'll ever get used to, that dark. But he can at least push -through- it. Haman's oppressive aura was fundamentally different, and yet the result was the same -- always something to be worked through, never something to be adjusted to and accepting of. Maybe that's for the best, not letting himself get used to it. Not letting himself accept it. At least... compared to the alternative.
But it's something much harder to just -push- through when his focus is on the source of it and there's nothing more that can actively -distract- him from it. His fingers tremble a little, an involuntary reflex as his hand grips Yuliana's. But he grips all the same, past the spasm, helping her up onto her feet --
-- only to bear bewildered witness to the exchange that unfurls between Parminder and Yuliana and also Wendy throwing her cheerful hat into the ring. Seagreen eyes just watch the exchange, wide and bemused, darting from Parminder, to Yuliana, to Parminder, to Yuliana frantically embarrassed about her shorts (Judau, who feels it is his right to walk around his home in his boxers if he so chooses, does not understand this sentiment, but also doesn't get the comparison between -murder- and -modesty- except they both begin with the letter m), to mumbling a distracted, "I dunno about that, I had a friend once who never wanted anyone to see him with a bow tie and he's probably killed someone at this point--"
Back to Yuliana, "Wait, what's marriage got to do with anything?? I'm - uh, practically - married!" -Practically- as in -if it were up to him they would be and he had no idea wedding planning was so daunting and involved don't they have casinos chapels for this kinda thing-.
But it's all, all, said with some sort of faraway tone. Because what he's witnessing is just... bizarre. Not because of how Parminder talks back, but of how naturally they speak to one another without pretense or facade of authority or... or... anything.
Familiar. It's familiar. And that's what makes it odd. Because he has to juxtapose it to the horror he's seen Elisa and Yuliana commit.
Because he can't look at all of them, and -not- see what might have been, without all the tragedy and misery and - well, murder - that wreathes them all. Even -without- those expanded sens--
"... Huh?"
-es.
He's stirred from his reverie the moment those frills retract and sensation beyond sense returns to him like the prickly feeling of sense returning to nerves after a limb's gone asleep. He exhales a sudden breath he didn't know he was keeping, shakes out a shudder he didn't know he was suppressing -- he feels -everything- again besides -one- thing and it rebounds onto him for a brief moment of disorientation. The first thing he thinks to say is,
"--I think I like his more?"
which is mostly just the first cogent thought he has on the first conversation topic he's registering and he is just -throwing fuel onto the fire of this eternal war of cult robes-.
A second passes. Wendy, helpfully, realizes that Judau absolutely does not know Indonesian, and he blithely responds, "Yup!" because like -- of course he doesn't, he didn't even pass his English classes before he left to go ~~steal the Zeta~~ save the world. "First and Second Lieutenant, huh... so you all were a, whatever, unit?"
Judau really doesn't do military hierarchy. But still... it explains a lot. He wants to ask - why they're here, now - at this place, after everything that's happened - but before he can (and he absolutely would have, good manners be damned) both Wendy and the forever fabulous Parminder retreat.
A second passes.
"You sure you were all in the military?"
Because -- they seem distressingly similar to his gang. Are... are gangs like the military...?!
(no)
"Pretty sure that Parminder dude would've been great for keepin' Mondo humble..."
But he can't help but think.
In the aftermath, Judau is left lingering, his senses burgeoning as he watches the space that both Wendy and Parminder left through. He can't help it. His first thought, before anything else about why he's come, is:
"You really get along with them, don't you?"
It's abrupt -- and he doesn't follow it up with anything, as Yuliana's questions register. He blinks, and then just waves one mittened hand dismissively. "What? Who doesn't see it that way? Leina's worried sick about you, she'd probably be right here with me if I told her! And Roux would understand!" One second. "Probably! Or at least she'd get over it! Whatever! There's no they! An' even if there were... this is what I felt like doin', an' that's that. After everything you tried to do, I just--"
He stalls for a second. His brows furrow, a frown briefly flitting across his lips.
"-- I couldn't just leave it at that."
Did he really just want to visit? He considers, for a moment.
"Kinda," he decides. "I wanted to check on you. An' I wanted to talk. ... Seemed like the best way to do it."
As opposed to, what? The comfort of a phonecall?
Well... some things have to be face to face, regardless of how uncomfortable a face to face meeting might be.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Nah," Parminder shrugs. "I mean, guess she could if she wanted? Since that really just translates to a more senior position, so she pulls in the big bucks." Apparently, one can make the big bucks as a domestic servant. Who knew!
(Penalty rates and hazard payments at the Silent Castle are all very competitive.)
... and it's all, of course, for Yuliana's sake.
Yuliana, who is, by all standards, a bit odd. "Precisely!" Yuliana snaps, when Judau points out he's engaged, too. "It's not proper! What would your fiancee say?!" Probably something like 'why are you in the snake pit, Judau, which is full of snakes, oh my God, get out of there'.
And: "Ugh," Yuliana grumbles, when Judau says he likes Parminder's idea of cult robes better. "You would. You've no taste at all." As opposed to, what?! The taste for BLOOD?!
Wendy piped in when Judau asks about their unit, to cheerfully clarify: "The Nega Force! The REA's finest black ops saboteurs!" It's a... it's a very... it's not a very heroic sounding name. Apparently, she's a helpful kind of gal.
She can't help Judau now, though, because she's exited stage right.
"Yeah," Yuliana says, instead. "And... yeah. I guess... they're basically my best friends," she says, grasping her opposite arm with her hand nervously as she says it. It's still not easy to describe anyone, that way. "Not that Letda wouldn't sell me to Satan for a single corn chip, you understand, but that's just the kind of guy he is."
She frowns, her fingers tightening, as she dwells on why he's here. "I know," she says, quietly, when he brings up Leina. As for Roux -- well -- she just shakes her head.
"I... I'm okay," she settles on, after a moment, looking back up to Judau. "The Empress isn't pleased with us, but... when I'm awake, it's not a problem." Her snakes coil around her, nervously; of course there's an opening for them, in the back of her robes. "It's just that my Elisa and I agreed that it's safer if I don't go outside for a while... well, I made arrangements to go and stop Dr. Hell, but I suppose it's too risky to do something like that overmuch."
She shakes her head, though, and smiles, spreading her hands to indicate the gym. "But that's all right," she explains, with more cheer. "We've a fully-furnished gymnasium, you see, precisely because it's not always safe to leave." Yuliana gestures across to the various weights and machines. "And in a place like this, going for a run outside simply isn't practical." She brightens up a little more, and adds: "Why, the cat even has his own separate gym! Would you like to see?" Yuliana is clearly enthusiastic about her pet cat, and one can only imagine the deluxe cat towers she's brought to entertain him.
It's nice to see her cheerful, anyway.
<Pose Tracker> Judau Ashta has posed.
It's not proper! What would your fiancee say?!
Judau Ashta scratches his cheek. He thinks, -long and hard-.
"Probably," will he say the thing??
"'This place is way too cold for shorts, Judau, oh my God, let's get out of here!'"
Well. Close enough.
Between that, and the reveal of the name NEGA FORCE, Judau Ashta's feelings are just -all over the place-!
"That sounds like some kinda mega evil cartoon villain!!" he calls after Wendy, but it's in vain -- they're already gone. And really, when he takes a second to think about it,
Oh.
Thankfully, this time he manages to internalize it. A rare moment in Judau History.
And then, it's just a junker and his opposite-psychic-number. He rubs the back of his head as he looks back at Yuliana; despite himself, a little grin tugs at his lips when she calls the two her best friends. Despite everything, he can't help it -- it's heartening to hear, even -knowing- they're black ops. Maybe, in its own way, especially.
And that grin just blooms all the further until his eyes are squint shut with mirth at around this part,
Not that Letda wouldn't sell me to Satan for a single corn chip, you understand, but that's just the kind of guy he is.
"Ha ha ha!"
Because, well.
<INSERT A MONTAGE OF BEECHA ANDOR MONDO SCREWING JUDAU OVER FOR PERSONAL GAIN>
<THE LAST MOMENT IS DATED NOVEMBER 31ST UC 0097>
"Hell yeah I do! My friends tried to blow me up once!"
Yeah.
"But, y'know, it worked out really well for me, so joke's on them!"
Yeah.
The mad world that is the Ashta circle intersects with the horrifying world that is the Kafim circle in sometimes distressing ways.
Slowly, though...
Slowly, the mirth bleeds away. Slowly, he's left looking at Yuliana with a briefly inscrutable stare that seems both concerned and pointed when she talks about the displeasure of her 'Empress.' One can see the similar DNA in that look and the ones Leina often adopts. One leads to a lecture, the other leads to yelling; they both more or less amount to the same thing.
But for right now? There's no yelling. All Judau says is,
"She's got no right to be angry. She can keep fumin' if it means you got to live another day!"
When she's awake, it's not a problem.
His frown returns, as he sees the shape of everything that implies in the nervousness of her body language. She talks about how she should stay in, and he can't disagree. After what happened... after everything she tried to do, thinking she was doing something good...
But here?
He's silent on that, for the moment. Even as she enthuses about the gym, he turns her way and starts to talk.
"Yeah, you'd freeze your ass off and probably run off into the ocean because of how dark it is all the damn time, why'd you even build a place here," he begins because he -can't- contain his thoughts on -how impractical this place is- (and that's saying something, coming from JUDAU BOMBS-ON-MY-GUNDAM ASHTA), but he presses on. "But I wanted to talk to you about--"
Why, the cat even has his own separate gym!
"--cat gyms. Wait, what the hell?"
There is silence for three seconds.
"Your cat has its own gym?! A WHOLE gym??"
He thinks of Buer, or Foras, and how adorable a cute little gym would be for them. Just -adorable-. Those little cats, getting their cute little zoomies and darting all around their cute little gym equipment??
"Hell yeah I wanna see it!"
Maybe they -should- get one. Maybe he can make one as a gift for Sayla for all she's done. Maybe he can -get some ideas from Yuliana's-?
He can talk to her at the adorable cat gym; Judau wants her to be happy, really, and this seems to make her happy. Maybe what he has to say will go better if she's more relaxed, but also... maybe someone like her just needs a sense of (absurd) normalcy like this.
But also -- a cute cat gym sounds -great-. Foras and Buer should get one. Maybe he can make one as a gift for Sayla for all she's done. Maybe he can -get some ideas from Yuliana's-?
Yes, he's just got good vibes about this, all around.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"You won't last long working out in the clothes you need to wear here," Yuliana points out, surprisingly logically.
"Officially," she explains, on the subject of the Nega Force, "we were named for our capacity to exert negating force on hostile elements. Unofficially -- well, what did you expect from me? They let me name my very own squad!" OH NO, IT WAS YULIANA'S IDEA.
She just kind of looks at Judau, for a moment, when he tells her that his friends tried to blow him up...
... and then she bursts out laughing. "Heheh... hahahaha!"
Oh no. She gets it.
Further oh no settles in, when the mood shifts, and Judau declares that the Empress can fume. Because Yuliana hears that, and she says: "Perhaps not in those words, but... my Elisa and I would agree, Judyan." Which says two things:
1) The people who tore a hole in the sky agree with him vis-a-vis their dark God, and
2) Judau has a nickname now. (And it's one which befits his hooligan nature.)
Judau has thoughts about the practicality of their home, of course, but Yuliana is busy being generous and inviting him, so she just barrels forward anyway. And when he grows flabbergasted, she grins. (She has one too many teeth; a sharp fang, hanging down from her right side.) "Yes!" She all but bubbles, as she gestures Judau on. "This way! All these activities are in the West Wing, so we'll not go far." She does grab her black fur cloak, though, on the way out. The halls get chilly!
"We had to live here," she explains, as she walks, "because the world won't accept us." And it's hard to get much more remote than Kaffeklubben Island... whether or not Judau, Terminal Spaceman, is able to appreciate just how isolated they are. "Besides, I prefer the cold..."
Luckily, she wasn't lying: it's just a short jaunt to the cat's playroom. And what Judau may notice, first off, stepping in...
... is how big the room is. It must have been a hall, originally -- but now there are shelves and ledges built into the walls, and enormous treelike structures and broad platforms in the middle of the room. There's even a pool, and --
-- SPLASH! --
-- the water which reaches far enough to splash onto them is heated.
Yuliana's cat having a heated pool, though, is suddenly only the second weirdest thing about this situation: because a green tiger jumps out of the pool, shakes himself off, and bounds over to meet them.
"Sokrova!" Yuliana chirps, in delight, leaning down (but not far) to rub his ears vigorously. "Meet Judau! It's all right, he's a friend. Aren't you?" She asks, looking up to Judau, and if she's putting him on the spot asking if they're friends while right beside a tiger --
Surely it's an accident.
Sokrova chuffs, and it's a remarkably friendly sound, as far as tigers go. He shoves his face up against Judau's hand, and Yuliana explains, cheerfully: "He likes you!"
Sokrova proceeds to bound away, over to a giant cardboard box which was no doubt just set up for him here. He shoves his head into it, and it lifts from the ground, before he paws it back down, and dives bodily in.
Yuliana giggles merrily, seeing those antics. "Isn't he just adorable?!" He may be a full grown tiger, but evidently, Yuliana wasn't being misleading to call him her cat.
She puts her hands back against one of the many platforms set up here, and hops herself back onto it; aside from being a platforming level for a tiger, it also makes a fine impromptu bench, apparently. "... all right," she decides, watching Sokrova merrily roll about in his box. She's a little delicate about it; she knows she's about to hear something distressing. Even so, she's gracious enough to say: "What... did you wish to speak with me about? ... since you came all the way here, at least I'll listen."
<Pose Tracker> Judau Ashta has posed.
... what did you expect from me? They let me name my very own squad!'
"Ohhhhhhhhhhh."
Sometimes things just can't be internalized when they reach a breaking point.
Especially if the person responsible for internalizing them is Judau Ashta.
Still, Judau and the leader and creator of NEGA FORCE at least share common ground in some ways, for all the other ways Judau just can't understand her -- and those, those are important. Even if said bonding is laughing together over slightly (understatement) homicidal friends.
"Hahahaha! They strapped 'em all over the Double Zeta and everything!"
Really, Judau has so so many reasons to want to kick Beecha and Mondo's asses. So many. And he might have hunted them down and slugged both of them when he came back.
But at least he can laugh about it! Time really heals all (most (some)) wounds.
Things, at least, seem to be going well, after potential Ashta-on-butler violence was narrowly averted. He's got a nickname now! He doesn't know what the significance is, but it's a good sign! (and let's be honest he'd approve even if he knew because judau knows not the meaning of alien concepts like 'shame')
And, more importantly...
my Elisa and I would agree
These two things might realistically be 'oh no!'s.
But in this moment, Judau Ashta sees them as absolute wins.
So he lets himself be whisked away, in part to help foster a sense of ease and happiness for Yuliana, as it -does- seem to make her happy -- and also because he's just really curious about what a cat gym would look like. His mind is swimming as he walks down the hall, mittened hands stuffing into the pockets of his well-insulated coat, distracting himself from the cold by picturing teeny-tiny cat-sized dumbbells and cat rowing machines that help train lazy cat stretches and, he doesn't know, some kind of machine to help cats evade getting picked up by going completely boneless?? Oh, oh, and--
"'Had to live here'..." he murmurs, brows furrowing through his wild imaginings. Something about it feels strange to him, or at least, the excuse. Had to live -here-. "Why, because it was so close to the pole--"
He begins, and probably would have finished into a full, complete, pressing inquiry, except--
Judau Ashta beholds the true immensity of a cat gym, and his seagreen eyes widen as if he was beholding an event too vast for him to grant.
"--whoa."
He stares, at the enormous structures, the huge platforms. The pool! Cats hate water! Even he knows that! He stares at the sheer majesty of it. And his first thought is:
"There's no way in hell I could build somethin' this big for Sayla's cats! Dammit!"
--
"Well, maybe if I use one of the bigger rooms, like the, uh, what's it, the foyer? But where's the weightset for the--"
SPLASH
"CATLION!"
Heated water -- HEATED WATER THIS IS GOING WAY BEYOND THE AMOUNT OF EFFORT HE WAS EXPECTING -- splashes onto his pants legs. Judau jumps in alertness -- when a huge, GREEN cat emerges from the pool and bounds like the spring of an excitable cat, only, you know, Apex Predator Sized.
Judau's eyes widen again, but for different reasons. He looks for a handy pipe--
"Yeah we're friends! What the hell's with the size of that cat!"
It's big! And it's green!
"It's like -- lion-sized!!"
(yes, he has confused lions and tigers)
Would Judau attack a tiger with a pipe? The world may never know, because before he can find one (he just assumes he can find one laying around anywhere at anytime, really), and before he can even register that -maybe- there's something up with Yuliana asking about friendship while cradling the BIGGEST DAMN CAT HE'S EVER SEEN (which is also, frankly, a very Puru thing to do), Sokrova is already upon him!!
... Chuffing the friendliest chuff and nudging his snout up against Judau's hand in the most cat-like way conceivable?
"Uhhhhh."
A second passes by.
And then Judau just kind of shrugs and gives Sokrova scritches before he bounds off towards the most cat-like cat-toy there could ever be: cardboard, in box form.
He is left staring, puzzled. He scratches the back of his head.
But he still manages to find the time to answer: "Huh? Oh yeah of course I'm a goddamn cat delight." as he puzzles. It -is- adorable. And -huge-. And -green-. And clearly a lion!
... is this... an Earth thing, or an evil Nega Force Thing...?
He's partly assuming the answer is just 'both' by the time that Yuliana speaks next.
"..."
His hand falls from the back of his head. He doesn't have to be able to sense emotions to hear her tone as she addresses him, as she brings up the inevitable. He draws in a breath. But ultimately...
"You can't keep doin' this, Yuliana."
... he decides to keep it simple, gesturing in the direction of what he assumes is north. For once, he's actually right; that's how serious this is.
"You know that. Right?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Isn't it marvellous?" Yuliana asks, at Judau's dismay over never being able to achieve such a cat gym for Sayla. "My Elisa made sure he has everything! And aside from the pool, it's all modular, so we can change the room whenever he gets bored!" She does not answer where the cat-sized weights, are, because Judau gets distracted by a weighty cat instead.
And Yuliana laughs. "Hahaha... don't you know what a tiger is?! Judyan, you idiot!" She manages to compose herself just in time to add: "... and don't you hit my cat with a pipe! He's our treasured family pet! He is not to be exposed to violence!"
She switches to baby-talk, as she says, "Though you're a very good model, aren't you boy? Aren't you? Aren't yooou? Yes, you're the most patient model in the world!" What kind of tiger treats Elisa had to give Sokrova to get him to model for the Protivisny is a question for another day. The fact that Yuliana is babying an apex predator is... that's pretty weird, right?
Right.
But there are a lot of weird things about Yuliana's life -- and some are less delightful than a green tiger who is, as we speak, stumbling around with a box on his head. (Sokrova's having a great time.) One of her snakes comes to rest in her lap once she sits on one of those modular platforms, and she pets its crest, frowning down at it. "Mm..."
A servant passes by the door -- and pauses, very briefly, as his eyes find Yuliana. And Judau may know, though Yuliana certainly doesn't, that his intent is searching; he, and the other servants who pass them, are making sure to keep an eye on Yuliana. Making sure to keep track of her.
It's not difficult, give Yuliana some credit, to overlook him; he pauses only for a breath of a moment, and then he moves on. This is, after all, just another part of his job... always knowing where Yuliana is, in case something goes wrong.
"... I know," Yuliana settles on, downcast, before she rapidly shakes her head. "That -- that doesn't mean I've given up, all right?! I'm going to save the world! But -- but what always happens is..."
She hesitates, before she pulls her phone from the pocket of her robes, and flicks through some images until she finds what she's looking for. She holds it up for Judau to see -- a capture of the internal feed of Emptear, that day.
Yuliana is blindfolded, when she pilots Emptear, an emerald cloth across her eyes. Fold Quartz jewellery adorns her wrists, ankles, neck and tentacles. But her pilot's suit is bloodied, and more drips from her mouth --
-- because Yuliana isn't, entirely, standing. Her legs, given out, are supported by a bloody mess emerging from her chest. It may not be immediately obvious, until one looks at the state of her chest and what's exposed there, that the six white spindly legs which have torn from her flesh to skitter across the ground... were her ribs.
It's inhuman. Add an E, if you like.
"... when the Gate opens... it takes me, first," Yuliana explains, quietly. "For I am the Gate, as I know the Gate. The last time I tried -- my flesh began to unravel. Leyasha tried to stop me then, too... but my Elisa had to abort the attempt and take me away, because I felt I must Open. This time... I had to keep dancing... so the Empress made sure I wouldn't fall. Leyasha said it's... because the Empress is... controlling me. If we keep doing things the same way... I'll probably die, Judyan. I guess I have to die, for the Gate to Open..."
Elisa's working on it, of course, but Judau doesn't have to know that.
She tucks her phone back into her pocket, and hugs her snake to her chest. "My Elisa repairs me, when I'm injured by the Opening... but she's very frustrated. She won't welcome the Void unless I'm alive beside her. Even if the Empress is willing to risk claiming my spirit after death, Elisa isn't. Since they don't agree... it's rather stressful." She spoke about it being easier, when she was awake. But, when she sleeps...
Yuliana sighs, all curling up into herself. "I... Leyasha said she'd help me," she volunteers, with a hitch of a pause to her breath. "But I've been... scared to talk with her, Judyan. Because she said the only reason my Elisa would accept such an offer is to teach me a lesson... she even said I'd have to leave my wife to get help. I won't do such an awful thing!" She shakes her head, vigorously. "But -- but I asked Elisa -- she's fine with me getting, outside help, you know. The Empress is so pushy... and it's not like my Elisa's magic is made to abjure her. So it's okay, but..."
She trails off, with a miserable little noise.
<Pose Tracker> Judau Ashta has posed.
That's pretty weird, right?
-Emphatically right-.
"H-hey! I know what a tiger is!" Judau, who does not know what a tiger is, declares stubbornly. He grumbles after, scratching the back of his head.
"Not my fault everything on Earth just has to be bigger an' crazier..."
The 'crazier' part, is really up for debate.
and he really has no room to talk
He may -also- be getting entirely the wrong impression of tigers now that Sokrova is the first one he's ever seen but that is -also- a problem for another day. At the very least, the former junker has recognized that this is not a Pipe Situation, if his belligerent declaration of, "I know when things need a pipe or not!" and the fact that he is no longer scrambling for a convenient pipe are any indications.
Still. That doesn't mean there's nothing in this Castle to be wary of; there's a -lot- to be wary of. The warmth and familiarity of exchanges between Yuliana and her Nega Force and pet contrast with the oppressive feeling this place gives off to a Newtype well-acquainted with oppressive feelings. It's hard to put into words, and it distracts him as Yuliana talks about Sokrova modeling (which is for the best because he'd get -entirely- the wrong idea of what kind of model Yuliana is talking about, there); sea green eyes wander for a brief, wary moment.
His eyes fall on the servant, just as he pauses and passes, and one piece of that oppressive feeling falls into place.
He can feel it as much as see it. He's watching. Not Judau... he's watching Yuliana.
The smothering feeling of surveillance.
Judau being Judau, addresses this in a very Judau way:
"Hey! Staring is rude!"
But by then, the servant is gone, and Judau is just left with that vague feeling of annoyance he feels -whenever- he feels like things aren't entirely on the level.
And all this -- all this is completely not on the level in so, so many ways.
His attention turns back to Yuliana, and the snake she pays pensive care to, as she answers him. Seagreen eyes narrow; mittened hands brace on his hips.
"You're not savin' it that way, dammit! That's all--" wrong. stripping choice away. creating uncrossable boundaries and smothering understanding in uniformity.
"--way too green! The ice never asked for that!"
That sums it up pretty well, though!!
He'd go into an -entire- tear on the -actual- reasons, but, well -- on top of everything else, he soon finds himself distracted before the tirade can begin by the phone Yuliana draws out; he blinks, and leans forward as she presents it with a "huh?" He peers...
... and his squint soon becomes wide eyes and paling features as he absorbs the horrifying contents of what he's seeing.
Like the hand of God had taken the human form and returned it to clay, to play a toddler's game with the pieces to turn their cruel imagination to life.
"hhk--!" he sucks in a sudden, choking breath, less because of how horrifying the sight -is- and more because he can perfectly feel and understand how horrifying it must have -felt-. There's a void between them -- but that doesn't mean he can't digest and know what he's seeing in front of his very eyes. It's senseless. It's cruel. It's treating a human life like it was a piece of a puzzle, or a part of a structure, distorting and warping it until it creates the piece best suited for the design, no matter how it twists the person.
He's seen people use other people, too many times. He's seen people born to be used, too many times. But this...
One mittened hand flies to his mouth as Judau straightens and takes a single step back. He is hearing what she has to say, and that's part of the problem; his free hand sweeps to the side in a broad gesture as he finds he can't hold back, anger and horror intermixing in a moment.
"That-- that's just cruel! Somethin' like that -- she's playin' with your life like all that matters is the way it can help hers! Your life's worth more than that -- anyone's is! An' no one would willingly give it up in such a heartless way if they had a choice!"
Judau, perhaps unsurprisingly, falls on Leina's side here.
She talks about how Elisa repairs her after. How frustrated she is. But Judau can't help but think of what they were told, at the Arctic. That Elisa is a piece of this Empress, whatever she is. That the heinousness that could craft flesh and bone and blood like this splintered off a piece of itself. Regardless of any misgivings he has about Elisa in -general-, regardless of anything else, even if the Empress and Elisa are at odds...
What if the greater part decides to stop humoring that piece of herself entirely?
But I've been... scared to talk with her, Judyan. Because she said the only reason my Elisa would accept such an offer is to teach me a lesson... she even said I'd have to leave my wife to get help.
'Because your wife is a dick.' This is what Judau wants to say. This is what Judau wants to shout! It's his knee jerk reflex -- and he would, too, even in the heart of this castle so far away from anything else all on his own without regret--
But he's said as much already, and he's seen what happens when he just bluntly pushes towards the root of the problem in his mind. What happens with -both- of them. Anger, denial. Nothing gets through.
So for once -- Judau exercises profound impulse control, for him, and does -not- say the very first, very obvious thing on his mind. For once -- he takes in a deep, slow breath, lets it out, and...
"... Leina's right, Yuliana," he says instead, slowly. "If your wife is fine with it" and he finds that SUPER SUSPICIOUS but he pushes past it "then what's holdin' you back? Nothin' she said is wrong." It's very hard for him to not emphasize the 'nothing' part of that statement. "You gotta get help. An' Leina can help. A lot of people can. You're not alone. An' if this Empress is the problem" than Elisa is too why can't you see that--
"... then... don't you think you oughta get outside help to figure it out? People don't -- when they're too close to a thing, Yuli, they can't -- see the whole picture. Not like someone else might. It's your best bet. Because if you keep this up, you're gonna lose everything here. Your best friends, your pet, your home -- everything. Your life... it's not somethin' you can just get back once you give it away. Do you want that?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana looks up when Judau yells at the doorway where a servant used to be, and assures him, vaguely: "It's fine. Everyone keeps an eye on me, here." Sometimes she... falls ill, and Elisa demands to know where she is, after all.
He looks as if he's going to be sick, and she wonders, bitterly, what the point of showing him was if he was just going to be sickened by her. (She's a very self-centric person.) But she likes him enough to reassure him, at least, when he cries out.
"It's normal." Her voice comes out faint. "For me."
(It's cruel.)
But... Judau doesn't say the obvious thing, and that means Yuliana doesn't have to yell at him. She's left to frown, holding her tentacle to her chest like some stuffed animal, and she does not class Elisa as the same problem as the Empress in her own mind.
Only one of them demands death-effort, from her.
"I didn't have to see the footage," she says, and finds her voice still small. "But I wanted to. To see what happened. Why it hurt... so much." And she doesn't explain, so plainly, that she's talking about why she has that photo on her phone. The whole picture... it's...
"I don't want to die. I don't want to die!" Tears spring to her eyes, as she shakes her head, emphatically. "But I can't just ask for something like that! I wasn't allowed! I was a state secret! Now -- now Elya says it's okay, but -- but everyone's our enemy, now, and -- and I guess we did things to make them mad, so -- I'm scared! I'm scared! I'm scared!" Her fists slam down on the platform beside her, as she kicks into the air. It's a good thing these things are rated for a tiger, or else she might have destroyed her seat in her frustration.
Luckily, she manages to get a hold of herself before she finds something she can throw, and she pulls a leg up onto the platform, curling her arms around it. "... I'm tired... Judyan. My Elisa watches me when I sleep, so she can wake me when it gets too much, but... always does She demand, now. She knows... about my negative feelings. Every night, She tries to remake me into a woman at peace. But She just doesn't understand... it hurts. We're so closely connected, but there's little humanity left to Her... I guess She carved it all away, to send Elisa to me."
Her eyes squeeze shut. "I feel so unfaithful... so ungrateful. But I can't even be sure I'll be in control of myself... She doesn't hesitate to shape me. I... I just want some space... isn't that fine? My head isn't even my head any more, now I know Elisa, too... who am I? With Her eyes on me constantly, I don't even know... where I start. I..." Yuliana pauses, drawing in shuddering breaths, before she looks up to Judau with those endlessly green eyes of hers.
"I need... help," she says, and her throat feels dry and choked, all curled into herself like a spring twisted too tight. "C--can you-- help me?"
<Pose Tracker> Judau Ashta has posed.
She tries to reassure him. That it's normal.
"It's only normal if you accept it that way, and you shouldn't! No one should!"
Reassurance, however, is utterly impossible in a situation like this, with the problem too obvious to ignore.
Honestly, it's a wonder to him that Yuliana actually -survived- all of that -- and he is rapidly learning that it's far from the first; perhaps it's just the most egregious. Maybe the fact that she's still alive it's a sign of that Empress' power, or Elisa's, or the way the people who inflicted their scientific cruelties on Yuliana made her... but to Judau, it should be, more than anything, something that opens her eyes to the insanity of all of this. That she only seems to partially open her eyes to it all, seems to ignore the parts that are inconvenient -- it frustrates him, and it shows, despite himself, in the balling of his mittened hands into fists and the tight clench of his jaws -- in the fire that ignites his voice like it was directly proportional to the smallness of Yuliana's own.
"To hell with what you were allowed! That's not you anymore! It never shoulda been! You gotta find out what makes you happy, what you wanna live for, an' -that-" he gestures, emphatically, towards her phone. Towards everything that happened in the Arctic. "can't be it! There's no life for you with that!"
She rails. Her fists crash against the platform, her feet kick out. It reminds him of the tantrums he and Leina would both throw as children -- but the reasons why for this are so much crueler, so much more twisted. Thick brows knot together until they form a deep furrow at their epicenter. His fingers loosen from their balled fists.
"... I get it. It's -- it's scary. I know. An' I can't say it's not gonna be scary to try to help fix it, but... it's the only way. Peace isn't -- it isn't somethin' you get -molded- for. It's somethin' you gotta -find-, for yourself. It's somethin' you gotta always look for. That, what she's doin' -- that's not peaceful. That's forceful."
Judau can't tell her how to find it. It'd defeat the point. Besides...
... how can he, when he's still looking for peace himself?
She still separates Elisa and the Empress -- talks about how the Empress must have carved her humanity away when she made Elisa. Judau isn't sure about that - about any of that - but it's not a topic he can even begin to tackle, right now. So instead, he focuses on what he can: what she's admitting she wants -- what she needs. What she can't figure out how to have.
"... It's okay," he says, his voice a murmur for these few moments. "It's okay to want space. It's okay to... not want that. You shouldn't let yourself ever think different."
And then...
I need... help.
C--can you-- help me?
And there is a space after that question where Judau, wide-eyed, just looks at Yuliana, curled up on herself like a pretzel. He sees in her Mashymre, and Chara, and Elpeo... every cruel experiment he ever failed to help save. ... he sees Haman, who he never managed to reach, no matter how far he stretched out his hand. In the end, all he managed to do was make her feel regret before she ended everything on her own terms.
Is he looking at another failure?
...
Maybe, but...
He reaches out a hand. Maybe failure is inevitable, but...
"... Yeah. ... I can... yeah, I can help you, Yuliana. You don't have to die just for someone else's self-interests. You don't have to be anything anyone wants to mold you to be. We can figure a way. Me an' Leina, we'll do everything we can. Okay?"
... he's got to try, doesn't he?
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Whether Yuliana 'should' accept it or not is immaterial, and perhaps he can see that, with the haunted expression she gives him on his denial.
It's God's will that she fight, and by God's will does she change, and she sees all that God would give her.
And no more.
Elisa once told her she deserved everything that Elisa wished to give to her.
And the way he denies her very destiny -- well, of course she gets angry. Of course she smashes her fist into the platform. When the emotions overwhelm her, there's nowhere to go but out.
"Peace isn't for me," she grumbles, bitter and scorned. "Not for someone like me." And her words might have been harsher, if not for the tears leaking from her.
Peace isn't for someone like Yuliana -- who was delighted to name her squad something like the Nega Force, even years ago. She lived in that shadow for some time. Now...
But as torn-to-parts as her heart might be, all wrenched by so many horrors, she is still -- so -- HUNGRY, starved for years by a world which never looked past her teeth. Judau says it's okay for her to want, and all her spite, all left behind, would drown in it.
That he wants to help her.
Finally!, said the desert to the rain, as it reached up and stole it from the sky.
Is it selfish to reach out, then, and grasp his hand -- knowing what she is? Yuliana unfolds from the platform as she hops down, stepping in towards the connection. "... okay," she says, and her fingers tremble, as she squeezes his hand. "Okay. I... I can trust you, and Leyasha. I want... your help. I know I'm a difficult woman... but... I'm asking you to help me." And even after so much deconditioning, her heart still pounds in her chest, trying to find some way to string the words together.
"Um... I know that... the ritual was violent to this world," she adds, glancing away, with a frown creasing her brow. "And everyone is angry... it's not simple to be seen with me, right now. So -- so -- you'll need to make arrangements, I suppose. I'll stay here until you're ready... all right? Just... tell me what to do."
(When she was a child, she took orders from her parents. When she was a soldier, she took orders from her superiors. When she was an experiment, she took orders from her scientists. When she was married, she took orders from her wife. Yuliana's boorishness is a hat trick; behind the veil, she looks for direction. She may have recognised it for the Republic's poison, but it's not so simple to drain it from her veins.)
<Pose Tracker> Judau Ashta has posed.
There is - and probably, will always be - a fundamental part of Yuliana that Judau can't understand.
The same is probably true in reverse, as Judau denies what she feels entitled to, and believes - earnestly believes - it is a good thing that he does.
As he relies on intuition and gut feelings for almost everything in his life in defiance of anything logical, as he insists, despite everything, "It -is-," with such conviction when she insists peace is not something for her.
And that's why, even if there is something completely at odds in both of them - perhaps BECAUSE of that - Judau reaches out to help, literally and physically. He knows what the gesture means. He knows what her taking his hand means. He knows it very well.
But he still offers his hand, even as she reaches out with hers, and the void encroaches and isolates the bright, burning light in his soul.
Because, even without those inexplicable Newtype powers...
This is still who he'd be.
So, even with that harrowing feeling besetting him as she crosses the boundary of personal space, he still pushes past it and smiles that bright smile of his as she says, I'm asking you to help me.
"Then you got it! I'm gonna help, even if it pisses you off! Because I can be twice as difficult as anyone, even you!"
Maybe... maybe that's not encouraging.
And yet -how does he say it with such ridiculous amounts of optimism-.
She squeezes his hand. It feels like the void squeezes around him at the same time.
He squeezes back all the same, with more certain fingers.
"Huh, yeah, I guess we'll have to be careful about this," Judau says, scratching his cheek with his free hand. Ultimately he shrugs, and - like the free spirit he ultimately is - blithely dismisses any semblence of orders at all in favor of, "Ah, hell, whatever! We'll all figure somethin' out together!"
... it might be good that Leina is involved in this.
"... I better tell Roux so she doesn't have a heart attack or anything or try to kill me with a fork... hmm..."
He honestly doesn't know how this is going to go. His confidence and optimism might be bottomless, but both of them are tempered by the realism that history has beaten into him.
Can he help her? ... He isn't sure.
But he wants to.