2024-04-12: Spreading Darkness
- Log: Spreading Darkness
- Cast: Yuliana Kafim, Elisa Kafim
- Where: The Silent Castle, Kaffeklubben Island
- Date: 2024-04-12 (ICly March 0099)
- Summary: The Empress has spoken: the Abyss Engine shall be mass-produced. Yuliana and Elisa work to these ends, and find enthusiasm for the task. The Dawn of Fold will receive new weapons -- and not at an unreasonable cost to their souls.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
OST: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSaOnwl4sFQ CHVRCHES - Night Sky
A price must be paid; the Empress's wife declines to pay it. As they spread across this world, She will grasp their lights. (She will plunge them to darkness.) It is not enough to hear Her, any more.
Yuliana forced Her hands.
Their work is not yet done, and once Elisa managed to untangle the message, the both of them set to it.
The Abyss Engine...
... must be mass-produced.
Yuliana was sad to tear into her Muse Malu, after it took so many iterations to get it working; they decided, together, that it would be acceptable to send the prototypes and their blueprints to the Photon Power Labs, so that they'd be able to use the urban rescue wanzer it turned into. (They will find them relatively easy to produce; at many points in the Muse Malu's development, she chose to use more available parts just so that she'd be able to build them in the stables out here in the middle of nowhere.) It made Yuliana happy to think that it might help people, but more importantly, if the Muse Malu 3 were used in such a beneficial way...
... it would lend the Muse Malu 4 legitimacy.
And the one prototype unit she kept at the Castle is now suffering under her ministrations, half disassembled, as she tries to replace the solar engine at its heart with something darker. (Its light snuffed out.) It hasn't gone particularly well, because even though Yuliana is a skilled and experienced engineer, the engine she's trying to adapt... isn't designed with any kind of logic she can follow. It's decades ahead of anything she's seen, at least, and the concepts it's built on are related in strange ways. Da Xukong 0's heart stands exposed to the world, so that Yuliana can get at the original engine to study it, and it's a testament to the fact she can be careful that she hasn't ruined her machine in the process.
"She couldn't have left a manual," Yuliana grumbles, often, when she's arms-deep in a black pitch generator.
One key aspect of the Abyss Engine, though, is its connection to the Void -- which means that Elisa's work isn't done when she deciphers the Empress's will. No, her magical aid has been vital in trying to adapt the Abyss Engine. Today, for instance, where a vial of consecrated sacrificial blood will -- theoretically -- fill the same role as a mysterious liquid with the same properties as plasma and the colour and character of oil. Yuliana can't fathom how Shari developed it, and unfortunately, it's not as easy as asking her. ... if she asked her, after all, she'd know.
Yuliana is currently screwing something into her Second-Generation engine, scowling deeply, oil on her cheeks as well as up her hands and her tentacles, let alone her pale green overalls.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
A price must be paid... And the darkness must rise.
This is their mission, now. Elisa has been unraveling the secrets of the Empress's will, and this at least she has no reason to delay. The more power of the Void that exists in this world, the easier Yuliana's tasks will be. It is clear.
The machine will be transformed.
Shari's absence is... inconvenient. But Elisa no longer requires her. She can make up the difference. And so she will; the vial will do. But Elisa is here, too, prepared not only to keep Yuliana company, but to infuse the Engine with Power at key points.
Once given, Power can sustain itself.
"You are brilliant," Elisa says to Yuliana. "You will succeed. We will succeed."
She considers.
"...We do not require her, any longer. She will live her own life, as you desired it. We shall live ours. We shall master this technology."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
This is their mission, and Elisa has already impressed the importance of acting without delay on Yuliana, this time. She was easy to convince when she reflected on how wounded the Empress was, left out in the cold. Of course she had to enact Her works... when She was feeling so abandoned.
She has always been occupied with her wifes' feelings.
"Ah..." Yuliana sighs, looking up to her wife and smiling, when she praises her brilliance. If she sound weary, in her affection, it's just a mark of how hard she's been working. Because Shari left them --
But they don't need her, after all, and it was Yuliana's decision she be allowed to go. (Yuliana made the call.) "You're right, zhenushka," she agrees with her wife, warmly. "And this is our life... we must understand it. Here, give me..." She reaches out, and surely Elisa knows to hand over one of those vials, properly enchanted for the task.
Green threads run up and down the vial, keeping the blood mixed, stopping the red cells from settling to the bottom.
And she seats it in the engine, dipping a long, thin filament brush into the liquid. Her stomach does not turn, to see the blood swirl. But she does murmur, distantly, "... I wonder if they were afraid." As she screws the device into place, and the liquid begins perfusing the engine, she sighs, "Yaka would surely yell at me, if she knew..."
But green runes flash on the black of the engine, Kh'ou'sh'iakh'lloth'you OK, as the consecration is accepted into it. It's working.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
It is so important, to manage feelings.
Elisa listens, when Yuliana agrees with her. "Understanding is key," she says. "We must seek it, must have it, before we can do anything else." Elisa is thinking ahead, of course; wheels within wheels, at all times. But in this, she and the Empress are united, if not one.
No, they are so rarely 'one' anymore.
"Here you are," Elisa says, handing over the vial. The engine works. But Yuliana wonders, and--
"Of course," Elisa says, of the fear. "The emotion empowers the mixture." She considers, for a moment, and offers as consolation, "But they are not trapped within. I do not need their full essence, as I did Devi's." Wherever the dead go...
"Sayaka does not understand. She cannot understand. It is not in her nature. She is of the Light... Though, as we have seen, Light and Dark can create beautiful shadow, at least."
The engine accepts. It is working.
"Fear not your friend. Our power grows."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Even they say... it's important to understand why I'm doing what I do." Who is 'they'? The Photon Power Labs, probably, but it could as easily be anyone who isn't part of their inner circle.
She is not united with the world around her. How can she be, when she's doing something like this? When she's holding the proof of someone's death in her hands.
"Of course," she murmurs, acquiescent, as she works on the engine. But... "... at least no one's trapped in here," she says, and she is relieved. "I wouldn't want that..." She's different to Devi, after all, who trapped those souls in the Ypotryll Gundam.
How different she is, using people's dying breaths instead of their undying screams, is a question for scholars to ask.
But Sayaka is of the Light, and they are Darker creatures. "Beside you, I fear nothing," Yuliana smiles, glancing to her wife for a long, adoring moment, before she returns her attention to the engine. "I suppose I've gotten much more sensitive over the years, haven't I...? But with power like this... perhaps we can settle Her heart. Ah --"
She reaches over, to take Elisa's hand, and place it over something like a radiator. "This part isn't taking in the Power like the others," she says. "I must not have prepared it enough... can you...?" The Engine she's working on is as much a thing of magic as it is engineering, apparently.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
"Yes," Elisa says. "In this, 'they' are right. Understanding transforms. Knowledge surpasses."
No, though. She is not united with the world around her. Nor should she be.
"Yes," Elisa says. "Such things... they are not necessary. The emotional resonance of death and pain open the boundaries between worlds; the spirit would only falter at the gate. Only you can open the way."
Elisa would call it different. She could quantify the difference, measure it. But then, many would call that far worse.
"Good," Elisa tells Yuliana, and smiles back at her, reaching out to place a hand on her shoulder. "Very good."
But she has gotten more sensitive. That's true. "Your heart is gentle. You care much. ...But if we can settle Her heart, it will be best."
Elisa's fingers curl about the radiator. She considers. "Perhaps," she says. "Or perhaps it is stubborn. I can do this." She channels raw Power into the Engine, a flash of darkness at the palm of her hand, a flash of green at her eyes.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"It's better to know... you're right, of course," Yuliana smiles, to her wife. "Why, even when it's painful... I would not have turned against my tormentors if I'd not found the truth at Denver Colony." She also might not have brutalised Alma, but this is not about that.
Denver Colony did do them some justice. Perhaps that's why their Psychoframe crystals still dwell in the icebergs outside the Castle, red and inert.
"Pain opens the boundaries... perhaps that's why," Yuliana wonders, vaguely, as she ascribes meaning to her own suffering. (She has always thought of herself, first.) "Still... death as an event... yes, I've seen this. Death even spurs humans to greater action..."
She's lost in her thoughts, but when Elisa's praise finds her, her cheeks warm with affection. Is it right to call her smile glowing, when they abjure the light? Her love overflows with her wife's support, flooding away her doubts and her uncertainties, though her heart is so gentle. (Though she is human, and all her human horrors cannot measure up to the way Elisa can measure the weight of human life.)
"For Her, I care most of all," she assures her, smiling. "And for you, my love." They are her monsters, her wives, no matter the blood they demand or they shed.
Part of her mourns to call Elisa's hand away, to the engine -- but the work must be done. Yuliana watches as Elisa's eyes flash a deeper green, her palm flashes deeper darkness, and her will overwhelms the workings of the machine. It is the way of the Void, and in this way, the radiator integrates with the rest of the workings. "Elya!" Yuliana chirps, brightly, as she smiles. "You're amazing!" Is it amazing, that horrifying display of Power?
According to her...
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
"Indeed. Knowledge casts darkness upon untruth. Upon that which we must abjure."
When was anything ever about Alma, really?
Yuliana ascribes much meaning. Elisa does not stop this. Instead, "It does. You have seen it. And Seen it."
Death is potent.
But Elisa will not call it other than glowing, not at the moment, as she smiles, when Yuliana seems to overflow with it. Yes... Human horrors are so dear to Elisa.
"Of course," Elisa says. "That is our promise. For ourselves..."
Then, she does the work. Her will overcomes.
"Thank you," Elisa says. "Together, we can make what only could have been into what shall be, my darling."
"Only together."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"We must know," Yuliana agrees, easily.
And Elisa does not stop her as she finds meaning in her own pain, the pain she goes through to open the way. If it has meaning, she reasons, to herself -- if it has meaning, surely it's worth it. And more than pain, death is... "I have," Yuliana says, still quite acquiescent. "Death is a catalyst amongst both men and Gods. I don't fear blood, Elya... I've spilled enough of it."
Assassinations aren't the same thing as human sacrifice, but they're how Yuliana works, so surely they're dear.
"It's the one oath I could never break," the oathbreaker assures her wife.
Without them, it only could have been. Together, it shall be. Together...
"Oh, Elya," Yuliana sighs, embracing her wife. (If she gets her inky paws all over her, well -- black stains surely don't matter much on black robes.) "With you, I might even manage it in one iteration... and, you know, I was thinking," she says, rubbing her cheek against her wife, her untrapped frill fanning out behind her ear. "Won't our new friends need some transport...? All those shattered cells are scattered throughout Earth..." Or further out, but god forbid she mention Angelo.
A moment's quiet, as Yuliana lavishes affection onto her wife, before she says: "... you know, what if we adapted the Shandor? And I was thinking, you know -- if it takes well to it -- NUNE is shedding their Salamis Kais as they upgrade their shipyards. It wouldn't be so hard to get our hands on some more... and it's easier to change something which exists, don't you think?"
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Elisa nods then, to Yuliana. Of course it's worth it. And Elisa says, "You have. ...I know that you don't. You are not troubled by trifles."
Assassinations are a mark of Yuliana's power, obviously.
But Elisa smiles, at this oath reinforced. The one she could never break. Yes, Elisa loves her scorpion so.
She does not shy away from such an embrace; she wraps arms around Yuliana in turn, so much more attentive and reciprocative than she once was. She strokes Yuliana's back. "Hmmm...?" Their friends.
Yes, their new friends.
"Hmmm. Yes, that's a fine idea. I had considered ships for some time... They have their limitations, compared to mobile weaponry, but they can carry such things as well."
Easier to change that which exists...
"Yes. A wise notion, my love. We shall do so. With your machinery and my sorcery, we shall reforge the Shandor and her sisters."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"I'd be in the wrong profession if I was!" Yuliana laughs, at the concept of being bothered by such a trifling thing as spilling blood. And how nice that she can laugh at it!
Was she ever bothered by the idea of human sacrifice? Clearly not; they're one of a kind, together, this witch and her scorpion.
Yuliana's gaze lids as her lips curve up, catlike, bathing in the feeling of Elisa's fingertips. She couldn't be more pleased, except, of course, when her wife praises her ingenuity. "They are limited," she agrees, "but those limitations can be surpassed... take the size of a ship, for instance. It's not for nothing they talk about hitting the broad side of an Alexandria, but if a ship were attuned to the Void -- why, it could warp space around it to simply never be hit at all!"
Her endless eyes shine, looking up to her wife, one boot lifting from the walkway as she hangs off of her. "And of course, most ships are quite helpless if you close the space and assault them directly -- if they can't ram into you, they're really quite lost. All they can do is hope their machine guns can dissuade passengers. But what if we gave them tentacles, Elya? Then no mobile suit could land safely on their surface! There would be no place they were safe! And that's not to say they ought to feel better at range, of course -- if I were to adapt the beam turrets, I'm sure I could easily make them fire Void energy. No one could withstand that!"
Bubbling with enthusiasm, she keeps on ranting: "And there's the problem of crew! You know Letda's always whining about getting enough servants to launch the Shandor? We could distribute those tasks to the Void! If we integrated enough systems, we could practically create self-flying machines! They'd only need the barest amount of crew if we automated all the lower-level tasks!"
She's getting awfully fired up about these crimes against humanity.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
"Quite true." And Yuliana does have a profession beyond 'wife', after all. Though it's sometimes troublesome to accomodate...
"Hmm... Yes. This is true. My old Spinatia could do this. We could easily scale up the effect, with this Abyss Engine."
Tentacles, meanwhile. "Perhaps we integrate a kaiju into each of them. That would also serve to animate the ship's intelligence--would cut down on the need for crew, as you say. And we already have the technology for Void energy firing, we need merely scale it. Yes... Especially with the integrated kaiju..."
Letda whines. Of course he does. "I like this idea. And what crew there are..."
She smiles.
"The Void provides for those that give to it. Yes... I believe I see how this will work..."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
That's not to say her main profession isn't 'wife', these days. She's Elisa's greatest prize! But if being a wife was all she could do, she'd hardly be making this engine, would she?
"Your Spinatia is wonderful," Yuliana says, reaching up to cup her wife's cheek. (There, she leaves a black smudge. It's fine.) "I should have a look at it, while I'm working, shouldn't I? I know you don't grace the battlefield personally very much, but you deserve the very best when you do!"
Her grin widens, when Elisa suggests integrating her kaiju. "Oh, yes! Brilliant! Your kaiju are so clever, Elya! With your lovely little dragons taking residence in the ships, they'll be much, much stronger!" And hungrier. Don't worry about it.
She tilts her head, when Elisa mentions the Void's provisions. "Oh...? You know, it wouldn't be difficult to formalise it, Elya. Just like Emptear's initialisation -- if we just integrated a Green Fold panel into the systems, we'd be able to give them a route to offer themselves up. There's Power in choosing to offer yourself, too..."
(She'd know.)
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
It's true. Elisa does enjoy their time 'working' together like this, and Yuliana so values her independence...
A smile back. She does not concern herself with the smudge. But she pauses, thinking. "It is, but it also makes me think of young Shari. What if you looked at my Queadlunn-Inanna? It is a fine old thing as well. And it will allow me to operate at larger scale, at times."
Then, her kaiju! Yes. "Yes. And the dragons will be cozy in their ships..."
Formalization. "Hmm... Yes," she says. "That's a perfect thought. There is more power in the willing. And it will not take too much. No... Just enough. We do not want to harm our friends, after all..."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
She's rather stubbornly independent, isn't she?
"Oh...?" Yuliana wonders, sympathetically, petting Elisa's cheek. "Of course, it would be a difficult reminder... but I remember your Queadlunn-Inanna! You must be so attached to it, keeping it all this time -- why, I remember you using it all the way back in '96! It must have such a story attached..."
And Yuliana giggles, enchanted, thinking of their dragons being so cozy. "Heheheh... delightful!" She does so appreciate coziness, after all. Sometimes to a fault...
But if the coziness is part of their transgressions, isn't that all well and good?
"Of course we don't," Yuliana agrees, smiling. "And they wouldn't use them for long if they hurt them, after all. That's what She wanted, wasn't it? Greater influence... spreading across the world. So it can't take too much... but if it takes a little from enough people, then..."
Her gaze grows distant, as she thinks about what happens then.
Yuliana doesn't think ahead, the way her wife always does. It's better if she doesn't think about it.