2024-03-29: .my existence is itself poetrY
- Log: .my existence is itself poetrY
- Cast: Yuliana Kafim, Sayaka Yumi
- Where: Photon Power Labs
- Date: 2024-03-29 (Jan 0099)
- Summary: Yuliana shares her feelings about Emptear with Sayaka.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana spent much of December at the Photon Power Labs, after Leina retrieved her back following a test of Emptear's new safety measures; she went back for Christmas, but she's back here, again, now January is underway. Her latest round of Photonic Neuromodulation Therapy is almost done; no doubt she'll return back to Elisa, again, when it's finished. (At least Elisa won't have to come get her, this time. She sneaked in with her stealth shuttle, as normal.) After Sachie Seki leads her through some trauma-informed yoga, she's free for the afternoon -- not that she leaves the inner reaches of the facility. She can't precisely go for a walk downtown when she's hidden, here. It just so happens that the scientists employed at the Photon Power Labs... are not narcs.
Instead, she's curled up in a break room again, in a green fuzzy cardigan over jeans, a purple scarf tucked around her neck, tapping away at something on her tablet. She seems to be focusing quite intently on it, leaning against Plyushokrova where it's arranged on the lounge beside her. (It's fully tiger-sized, so it takes up quite a lot of room. She just kind of... carries it with her. It's fine.)
<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Yumi has posed.
For much of the time Yuliana's been in the Photon Power Labs this December, the Director made a shocking decision to take some time off from work. It's something Sayaka would normally be way too stubborn to actually do... but she trusts Yuliana's care team, and she trusts Yuliana herself to at least try her best to be receptive.
Sayaka was never quite able to keep her nose out of her own business - and she received several troubling reports over the month... one of which being the recent activation of Emptear, the Threshold Queen.
After checking in with Koji on the progress of Mazinger Z's repairs following its brutal clash with Genesic GaiGar, Sayaka decides it's finally time to break the subject with Yuliana. She lets her know she'd like to visit ahead of time, and waits to make sure she's not cutting ahead of her therapy.
"Yuliana? It's Sayaka," she says, waiting for a response. "I'm coming in." After which Yuliana is greeting with a slightly dressed-down Sayaka Yumi, forgoing the lab coat for right now. It would be more accurate to say that the first thing Sayaka notices in the break room is Plyushokrova when she comes in, though. She looks kind of impressed.
"Happy New Year," she greets as she would anyone - it honestly feels awkward and unhelpful to come right out with it and say 'I heard you started up Emptear again'. "...How was your therapy today? Feeling okay?" She asks, perhaps a more indirect version of the previous question.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana is, of course, happy to speak with Sayaka when she asks. She's been remarkably not pushy about Sayaka's time over the past couple of months, for her part, and it's entirely because she's trying to give Sayaka and Koji time to arrange their marriage and life path properly.
Call her a romantic.
"Yaka," she greets her, lowering her tablet and smiling. There are, of course, plenty of couches which aren't taken up by Plyushokrova. "I trust your holidays were pleasant? I understand Christmas is quite romantic, around here..."
She tilts her head, and a moment later, grasps her tablet in one of those awful little tentacles and holds it out for Sayaka. "It's going fine," she says, as she offers it. "I was just doing some exercises... and Alectros gave me something to do in the evenings. They say I'm better at words than I think I am, given -- you know, I don't like reading much --" she's dyslexic, not that the REA was ever much to acknowledge that, "but Dr. Kimura worked out a different presentation which works better, so Alectros wanted me to try, um, writing something."
Yuliana was concentrating terribly hard... on writing a poem.
I am the storm
I churn the waves
One minute calm
And then deranged
Without reason
Unreasonable
I don't understand the sound
I scream like thunder breaks
I can't explain it
The storm rages around me
Unfathomable
I observe it
Helpless to resist
Breaking short, long, short
The waves churn, the men drown
I realise my power to destroy
And in forbidden decadence
I grow drunk on it
The storm is unconquerable
Yet it horrifies me
A storm made by man
I am not human
I am destruction
And God help us
I know it is beautiful
Still, I drown
"... what do you think?" She asks, about that poetry invoking her experiences in Emptear, with light fidgeting in her seat.
<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Yumi has posed.
Sayaka demonstrably appreciates the space Yuliana's given her in the past few months. While she wouldn't consider Yuliana her sole responsibility though, she did agree to take her in, and she certainly feels invested in how she's doing. Knowing that Yuliana is probably invested in how her love life is going... is probably reassuring?
Sayaka smiles right back though, seeing Yuliana in a good mood, taking a seat at a couch adjacent to her (even if Plyushokrobva definitely deserves one to himself). "We had a good time this Christmas, for once." Sayaka confirms. "During the battle on the Moon I was worried... but Koji made it out okay." She explains. "All things considered, I hope you enjoyed your Christmas, as well."
Unfazed by the tentacles by now, Sayaka accepts the tablet, but keeps her focus on Yuliana as she speaks. "Glad it's all going well," She nods, and then a curious tilt of the head as she mentions she isn't one for reading. "It doesn't really surprise me that you'd be good with words?" She considers. "I mean, you're always picking up languages really fast. I bet your vocabulary's better than most people's."
She takes that time, then, to look over the tablet and see what Yuliana's put down. To be entrapped within a storm, to become it, and yet to feel like she's drowning in it at the same time... this doesn't just feel like the way she describes the Void by itself. It's more reminiscent of the time she took control of Emptear in the Arctic.
"..I think you conveyed your feelings clearly. I can imagine it might be easier this way." Sayaka answers. "So that's how it feels when you're in that machine? In... the Threshold Queen?" She asks, in turn. "When I found out what happened, I was pretty upset, I admit. But... I just couldn't blame you for it. Not when it forces you to lose control like that." If anything, it only reinforced her decision to help however she can.
<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Yumi has posed.
Sayaka demonstrably appreciates the space Yuliana's given her in the past few months. While she wouldn't consider Yuliana her sole responsibility though, she did agree to take her in, and she certainly feels invested in how she's doing. Knowing that Yuliana is probably invested in how her love life is going... is probably reassuring?
Sayaka smiles right back though, seeing Yuliana in a good mood, taking a seat at a couch adjacent to her (even if Plyushokrobva definitely deserves one to himself). "We had a good time this Christmas, for once." Sayaka confirms. "During the battle on the Moon I was worried... but Koji made it out okay." She explains. "All things considered, I hope you enjoyed your Christmas, as well."
Unfazed by the tentacles by now, Sayaka accepts the tablet, but keeps her focus on Yuliana as she speaks. "Glad it's all going well," She nods, and then a curious tilt of the head as she mentions she isn't one for reading. "It doesn't really surprise me that you'd be good with words?" She considers. "I mean, you're always picking up languages really fast. I bet your vocabulary's better than most people's."
She takes that time, then, to look over the tablet and see what Yuliana's put down. To be entrapped within a storm, to become it, and yet to feel like she's drowning in it at the same time... this doesn't just feel like the way she describes the Void by itself. It's more reminiscent of the time she took control of Emptear in the Arctic.
"..I think you conveyed your feelings clearly. I can imagine it might be easier this way." Sayaka answers. "So that's how it feels when you're in that machine? In... the Threshold Queen?" She asks, in turn. "When I found out what happened, I was pretty upset, I admit. But... I just couldn't blame you for it. Not when it forces you to lose control like that." If anything, it only reinforced her decision to help however she can.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
It's totally reassuring.
"Wonderful," Yuliana smiles, when Sayaka relates her good holiday times. "That affair with the Moon did worry me... but they said I shouldn't be so quick to pilot again, after what happened to me. I'm glad he wasn't badly hurt." And she does seem pleased to hear that Sayaka has no complaints about his injuries. She's invested in the both of them! It's a mutual investment fund. (That's what a mutual investment fund is, right? Yuliana's never really understood the nuances of capitalism. Elisa handles their finances.) "As for us, we had a big family celebration! My Elisa's brought her parents to live in the Castle, too, so it was the first time everyone was together. We had some lovely roast duck... of course, the children were more excited about their presents. We assured them they're Santa's very first stop, so naturally they wanted to get to them much earlier..."
Nothing about that sounds terribly evil at all!
She laughs, a shade nervously, when Sayaka mentions her skill with languages. "Oh -- yes, that's quite true, I've always had the knack for them. You know, we spoke many in my household, even when I was quite young... so I suppose my brain's wired for it, now. But..." She sighs, gesturing haplessly. "... writing it down has always been harder for me. I get quite anxious... I always used to make my subordinates write my reports. It's embarrassing making all those mistakes... though of course my tablet is programmed to fix them." Which might explain why everything's correct, in the poem she shows Sayaka. It also explains the font. "Dr. Kimura says it's a... a thing where my brain isn't as good at reading. Dis-something. But the anxiety is, it's not part of it, so..." So she's doing exposure therapy.
Some things she's exposed to aren't as lovely.
(By some perspectives.)
"Yeah... in Emptear." Yuliana doesn't capitalise the robot in speech, at least. She frowns, glancing away. "Elisa needed to test... the Liminal Lattice. It binds me to this world, you see, so that the Empress can't change me when I'm at the Threshold. She tore, but She could not reach me... it was a success." So why does she sound so miserable about it? "... I didn't..."
She starts, and then stops, shaking her head. "Of course, I wouldn't put my Elisa through that again," she insists, instead. "The last time I threw a fit and refused to get inside, she was so upset... especially when she realised it was because I'd gotten all manner of unreasonable ideas from talking to someone else! It's just -- I was afraid," she says, a safer proposition. "I should have more faith in my wife, but... even with all Elisa's done, the Voidframe is hard on me."
She pauses, her hand coming to veil her lips, curled about her jaw. "But I really shouldn't be talking about it," she says, quietly. "I'm not supposed to talk about it." It's particularly striking, given the way she's been covering how both the REA and the Empress kept her silent so she wouldn't go asking for help.
<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Yumi has posed.
"I think you made the right choice there," Sayaka nods, about her avoiding piloting. "Honestly, I was ready to rush in there myself. But considering my own condition, I don't think it would've done much good. Did you know Shiro keeps a counter for every time one of us pulls off some reckless stunt?" She sighs. "But Koji survived, and even Guy's still alive... so I see no reason to be sad."
Is Sayaka surprised that Christmas at Elisa's didn't involve at least one blood ritual? Maybe. Does she show that in her expression? Hopefully not! "Sounds like you had a fun evening, then... we always associated Christmas with romance, but family is a pretty big part of it, too." The Silent Castle being Santa's first stop is cute, Sayaka has to admit.
"That's true. People act like they're the same, but speaking and writing are quite different skills." Sayaka nods, when Yuliana points out her difficulties are with writing. "Oh, I've heard of that. Dyslexia?" Though it sounds like the learning disorder isn't the full story. "Anxiety, huh... I guess people might try to make it seem like you're stupid or incapable for it. Really, that only makes them sound stupid." She says, rather blunt. It's good that Yuliana's building some confidence with it, though.
Emptear, though... Sayaka's expression twists to a frown. "Did Elisa tell you... it was to protect you from the Empress?" Sayaka asks, keeping any vitrol from her tone. "And do you feel safe?" She follows up, feeling it's important to hear Yuliana's thoughts on it before making any assumptions. "Is that really so unreasonable? You might be the only one who can handle the Voidframe, but that doesn't make it easy on you. I don't think any amount of faith in the world could make it so." She doesn't mean to imply that the solution is to be unfaithful... but 'no' should always be an option in love and horror super robots.
Yuliana says they probably shouldn't be talking about it. "Okay," Sayaka answers. "I'm not going to, well, press you to talk about it if you're not up to it. You just got out of therapy after all." She breathes out, hand on her stomach. "However... I don't want you to feel like you can't talk about it if it's what you really need. That denying your feelings will make things better. Okay?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"I'm really not surprised," Yuliana says, of Shiro's Dumbass Counter. (She just presumes it's called the Dumbass Counter.) "I understand I owe him some gratitude, myself, for helping Leina reach me last month... well, that's all well and good."
Of course, they keep the blood rituals out of sight of the children. That would just be unseemly. "It is quite a family affair, for us," Yuliana says, and even allows that Sayaka's experience is different, because she's trying. "Though, that's not to say... hahaha," she laughs, veiling her lips with her fingers. "Well, never mind that."
Christmas can still be a little romantic, evidently.
"That's it!" Yuliana exclaims, snapping her fingers, when Sayaka volunteers 'dyslexia'. "That's the word. My superiors always said I was just careless with my paperwork, or too lazy to read everything... you know, I even took work home so I wouldn't be judged too harshly. "Some of them even wondered if I could read at all... and in front of everyone! There's nothing I hated more than paperwork." She even told people she hated it. They likely thought she hated it for the same reasons everyone does... a type of assumption which helped her escape quite a lot of scrutiny, over the years.
She frowns, though, hugging Plyushokrova to her when Sayaka asks about Emptear. She nods, to her first question; she lingers too long, on the second. "Of course I feel safe," she says, quietly. "Of course I feel safe. It's just... I still... hear Her. In that space... I sense Her so clearly... especially now the sensors are improved. I had to test that, too..."
And she hugs her green stuffed tiger to herself more tightly, shaking her head into his big plush head. "It's not that," she says, tightly. "It's not that -- denying, or -- being up to it, um -- I'm just not supposed to talk about how she works. Elisa asked me not to... she didn't say not to talk about it at all or anything, but, the details... the technical details. It's a secret." Squeeeze, and it's a good thing Plyushokrova is an accurate copy of a tiger, because it means it's tough enough to withstand her anxious grip. "But last time I... talked about Emptear with Rita, she... she was very upset. She was very upset. I don't want to upset my wife... she's been working so hard for me. She's been doing many hard things, in her own life, too... if I'm worried, I should just talk to my Elisa. Other people put ridiculous thoughts in my head, like, like how some scientist might get an idea to make a robot Emptear's size out of regular Psychoframe if he sees Emptear fighting... I'm already worried about that, and it's going to burden my wife!"
<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Yumi has posed.
If it's not called the Dumbass Counter, it really should be. "Yeah... if it wasn't for him, I think you and Leina would've both ended up in a lot of trouble. I'm glad he still really cares." Sayaka nods.
"Christmas can be a lot of things, evidently. In Britannia, it's almost entirely about the consumerism, can you believe that?" Well, probably. Yuliana hints that there was something more to her Christmas with Elisa, and well... that probably shouldn't surprise Sayaka. "There's quite a lot you can fit into one night, yes." She says.
"God, that's... has the REA ever heard of 'accommodations'?" Sayaka shakes her head. "I hope they're working on that now that they're the so-called improved NUNE."
Sayaka gently nods, hearing Yuliana's response. "I'm glad that you feel safe. When you're here, at the very least." She says, genuinely. "But it can't be easy, having to hear the Empress so clearly, can it?"
Yuliana clarifies that not talking about Emptear isn't related to her feelings related to it, but rather the technical specifications behind it. "I wouldn't ask for that much," Sayaka frowns - it's not like she can think of anything that could be done with them that would actually help the situation. "As far as I'm concerned, the less people who know about the technical specifications, the better. That's actually a pretty good call on your wife's part." Sayaka shrugs. Rita... that's a name Sayaka hasn't heard for quite a while. Sayaka nods, though. "There's no denying that Emptear is a dangerous weapon, no matter what the intentions for it are. As long as it exists, it's just a fact that there will be people threatened by it or who covet its power. When you say your wife is handling it I really do believe you, but, well..." Sayaka looks down. "You're here to recover, after all. I know you don't want to upset her... but I'll never stop telling you that your thoughts about this are important, too. You're the one actually sitting in the Super Robot pilot seat, after all."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"I doubt the REA has worked on anything but their blacksite opsec," Yuliana mutters, darkly, "and that much, only because they're beside Cathedra."
And she shakes her head, when Sayaka asks whether it isn't so easy hearing the Empress's voice.
(Her demands. Her commands --)
"Mm," she hums, curling into her tiger, shifting to put her legs up on the couch so that she can better coil about it. "I'm the only one who can use Emptear," she says. "Leina says someone could remake her, if they really tried, but... as it is, that would be impossible. I have to do it... because... we have to reach the Void. Even if we don't take the Earth with us... we're still getting out. I..."
She pauses, looking down at Plyushokrova's fluffy ears.
"... I..."
Once, twice, and three times: "I... still believe in the Void. It's our home... it's the place for us." Elisa was clear about her maintaining her faith. Once, twice, three times, and she still couldn't make herself question that. "My Elisa knows I'm struggling... with how it is now, and not how it will be. I'm sure that's why she told me the test would end when my fear was eased by Truth... when I could show myself I could do it. Truth will ease my fears... I'm just easily confused." By whom?
(Everyone else.)
"But... you know, Emptear... she's just my armour, Sayaka. Armour to protect me from my power... so if the world just sees her as a dangerous weapon, what must they think of me? So long as I exist... will people be threatened by me, Yaka? Will they always covet my power?"
<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Yumi has posed.
"True enough," Sayaka concedes, as regards the REA. Surely they're no longer under martial law anymore... but has much really changed? Sayaka's not really in a hurry to visit.
"I don't... doubt what Leina says, considering what she's been through." Sayaka has to admit. "Though it certainly wouldn't go without considerable scrutiny, especially from your wife."
But there's a reason why Yuliana still pilots Emptear, despite the pain it causes her... "You're really.. still set on that? Leaving the Earth behind and bringing the Void elsewhere?" Last time it came up, Sayaka had questioned if that would really make Yuliana happy. "I probably wouldn't try to stop you, if that's the case. Because... that's not what I'm here to do." It's a shelter, and not a prison, after all. "But I wonder, what is this 'Truth' you speak of?" Sayaka frowns.
If Emptear is just Yuliana's armour, then what does that make her? "That's... not really such an easy question." Sayaka hesitates, at the wording of 'as long as I exist'. "I can't say there aren't people who don't already fear or covet your power." The REA certainly did, but Sayaka avoids the comparison that such organizations value Newtypes just as much as the Psychoframe machines they can wield. "But I'd say that's up to whether you let yourself be defined by such a thing." She hadn't forgotten, when Yuliana almost became one with her Armour in the North Pole. "I really don't want to see you drown in that storm, Yuliana."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"I can't ask my wife to be half of Herself forever," Yuliana says, which is, in its way, an answer. "She said we don't have to involve people who don't wish to come, but..." but if she changed her mind once, "... but of course I want to be with my wife," she settles on.
"The truth is... the Truth is..."
Yuliana's gaze grows distant, as she tries to fathom it.
"... Elisa will help me see," and it's more telling than she thinks it is.
She sighs, burying herself in Plyushokrova. "You know, I'm worried... BioNet will be the only place to welcome my wife and I, now Celestial Being has fallen. I worry a lot... those people would love to size me up. They wouldn't respect me... I'd just be something to use up again. Elisa... Elisa will protect me, but... I'm special. I'm special, so even if NUNE caught me, they wouldn't just have me executed... though I'm sure they'd say I was."
She shuts her eyes. "It's just... you know... having to forge on, even though I'm scared... having to do it... I know my Elisa would never hurt me, but it feels like... when I was at the lab. Um..."
There's a little undignified squeak, and she's definitely crying.
"No, I can't -- I won't say another word! I won't!"
In the end, the only thing that pries her out from where she's buried herself in her stuffed tiger...
... is gossip about Sayaka's own love life.
That cheers her up enough to forget saying such awful things.