2023-09-21: .breaking poinT
- Log: .breaking poinT
- Cast: Yuliana Kafim, Elisa Kafim
- Where: The Silent Castle, Kaffeklubben Island
- Date: 2023-09-21
- Summary: Yuliana is consumed by rage, imagining what Elisa's negotiations with the Federation must sound like. Elisa joins her in destroying their gym to express that anger, and salves it with a brilliant scheme: it's time for the Kafims to show these people their place. They plot their violence with love for each other... and they, at least, are happy. All will be well.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Elisa has been trapped in negotiations all morning, AGAIN, and Yuliana is in a Mood.
Yuliana has a lot of Moods, of course. Labile and changeable as their Empress beyond, she's as likely to weep openly in the stone hall as she is to try and open the windows to jump out. (It's why the windows of the Silent Castle don't open, at least without some preventative measure or another in place.) She's not laughing raucously now, though, flighty of thought and fancy; neither is she accusing the servants of maleficence. This isn't even the type of Mood where she simply cannot be roused from their bed for any promise of love or novelty.
No: she's just breaking things.
It generally comes down to breaking things.
She began exercising in the gym, evidently, give her some credit. But somewhere along the way she got too angry, and started throwing weights, and she has in fact ripped the rowing machine into several pieces. The step machine has been stomped right through. A cycling machine's front wheel has been kicked off into the distance, and its pedals still wobble mournfully. As we come to her, she's picked up an entire treadmill and is SMASHING it against the stone wall, with a furious bellow. It's larger than she is, but that's not much stopping her.
Really, the only things here which HAVEN'T been damaged are the balancing beams; even Yuliana's limbs are scraped up, from where she's thrown herself into destruction without any thought or intuition to save her own skin. She at least seems more interested in breaking other things than herself, today, but judging by her fullthroated bellow... she's terribly wrapped up in breaking things.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Elisa Kafim, as it happens, is not much happier to be dealing with these people. She is aware it is necessary, aware it is important, but if she actually expressed more emotion they might realize how little she cares for any of them. She doesn't, though, so they are merely left to guess that the horror witch doesn't like them.
But eventually, she finishes for the day, talking of Psychoframe and regulation and many other things...
And now she has left her office in search of her wife. The noise is the first clue; the fearful run of servants is the second. And so she makes her way into the gymnasium...
Elisa leans on the wall idly, considering in the doorframe. Yuliana has scraped herself up, but not destroyed herself as yet. Elisa could go so far as to restrain her... But is it necessary?
No, not yet.
Instead, Elisa walks up to Yuliana, feet padding along the ground with quiet steps, and then picks up the remnants of the rowing machine in all her terrible strength.
She smashes it against the wall, next to Yuliana's treadmill.
"Yes, my darling. I agree."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
The servants are terribly frightened by it all. Luckily, Yuliana didn't throw anything at them. Well, not deliberately. If they take it personally, that's a 'them' problem, as far as she's concerned.
Not that she's terribly concerned with how anyone else feels right now.
"Rrrraaarrrghhhh!!" Her tongue rolls as she smashes the treadmill against the wall, loosing the tread. She has no psychic senses to warn her that Elisa is coming, and she is deep enough in her rage that even the familiar quiet click-click of her wife's heels don't register in the forefront of her mind. But she does hear them, behind her anger, and so --
Yuliana doesn't jump, when someone even stronger than her dashes a machine to so many pieces on the wall beside her. "It's so-- it's SO--!!" She cries, instead, scarcely able to piece a sentence together through her anger.
Instead she thrusts the treadmill towards Elisa, in rough offering; a gift, rather than an assault, given the way she snaps, "Here!" It's rather damaged, its metal twisted and the treads hanging loose from it, but it's still more or less one whole piece of equipment.
She expects Elisa will see to that.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Elisa will give them a bonus later. It's inconvenient, but not really a problem. Enough money will soothe most emotions.
Elisa makes no grunts of exertion or shrieks of rage in the moment--she is cold in her anger. But when Elisa hears Yuliana's cry, she feels a togetherness with her wife, in shared frustration. This, truly, is the power of 'feeling'.
Elisa takes the treadmill in both hands, spins it around, and smashes it into the floor away from Yuliana, ripping free its bar and starting to bend it in her hands. "Yes," she agrees.
"Yes, it is infuriating."
CLANG. What remains of the bar is tossed lightly away. Only her balance beams will remain untouched.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"How dare they! How DARE they!" And so it goes, Yuliana's rage all repeated twice over as she throws things and kicks things and slams things into the ground; weights are bent at their bars, bands snapped in half, a kettlebell leaving an IMPRESSIVE dent in the far stone wall.
With Elisa she wreaks her wrath on the poor innocent gym equipment, which she really likes and values when she's thinking clearly; right now, though, there's only enough thought in her mind to remember the look on Elisa's face when she's practicing her gymnastics. (That's why she doesn't break those balance beams.) And when there is nothing left to smash, she turns to Elisa and falls into her wife, sobbing against her chest, all raw and screaming emotion.
"Elya!" She moans, hands clasping at her shoulders, tentacles lashed about her midsection. "Oh...! H, how do you bear it?! Even thinking about it, I...!" Of course she's been ruminating on the worst-case scenarios, in her mind. Why else would she be so upset? Elisa hasn't told her how the military men from the REA regard her, now.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
The stone wall will need fixing, maybe. It's fine.
Indeed, though--Elisa hasn't shared what they've been saying. So Yuliana has clearly made some assumptions. ...Assumptions that are probably correct. But Elisa does not speak on that at first. First, there is smashing, and then there is crying, and Elisa catches her wife with strong arms and wraps them around her. Tentacles lash, but--
"For the most part," Elisa says, "They do not dare. They hem and haw and try to get their way. They are cowards, all of them."
But how does she bear it...? "It is necessary," she says, "And so I do. However... However, you have given me a grand idea, my darling."
"What if we didn't simply bear it?"
"They believe they can treat with us as equals. They believe that they can control us through diplomacy. Why do we not show them that they cannot?"
"An object lesson in their place."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Money soothes both emotional and physical damage; the gymnasium can be repaired easily enough. Yuliana is more difficult to fix.
But does she really need fixing?
Yuliana embraces Elisa twice over, with her humanity and with what is not, coiling and clutching tightly to her. "Cowards," she bites out, through tears, echoing her wife's disdain with so much more emphasis.
But Yuliana inspires in Elisa an idea, and she turns her face up from where it was buried against the nape of her wife's neck, lifting a hand to cup Elisa's cheek as a smile blossoms over her own face. "Elya!" She crows, delighted at once. "Yes... yes, it's come time to shatter them! Too long have they celebrated their transgressions, too secure in their belief they are unassailable! Yes, we'll show them...!!"
And if Yuliana's happy with it, it must be a good thing, mustn't it?
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Of course not.
There is so much emphasis in it... and Elisa smiles back, thinly, to Yuliana's blossoming cheer. "Yes," she says. "They believe that because I have been patient, that their impudence can be allowed."
Yuliana's happy with it. That's what counts.
"There is business of our Work that is to be done," she says. "Yes..."
She considers, thinking of the sky. Of what has happened recently. Of what is likely to come.
"...Yes, it is time. We will see to your scrapes and begin making plans, Yuliana. No more will you have to rage in our home fruitlessly. Your rage..."
"Will find voice."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Wretched fools!" Yuliana damns them. "They don't know the generosity you've offered them, listening to their vileness without rending them whole! They would -- they would spit on your patience! I can't suffer you to bear such insult...!" Even if they are insulting Yuliana, they insult Elisa by making her listen to how they view her.
And while her wife self-evidently doesn't need protecting, all written in the decimation of their gymnasium, Yuliana isn't about to just suffer her wife being hurt.
She's always cared very much about whether Elisa is hurt, even though she's seen Elisa rise after being shot through the heart.
"What preparations must be made?" Yuliana asks of their Work, all willing, the both of them united. "I will see to it, my love. Ah..." Her smile turns self-effacing, as she looks from Elisa's lovely green eyes to the arm she's reached up, fingers resting at her wife's cheekbones; as if for the first time, she sees the cuts and scrapes she's withstood, there. "Yes, I didn't realise..." Of course she was so taken by her anger she didn't think of her safety, but her smile warms, again, looking back to Elisa. "Oh, Elya, you're always looking out for me."
She's not wearing heels, which means she has to lift herself up onto tip-toes to press her lips to Elisa's; passion is neighbour to rage, and she is so glad for her wife's consideration, joy of love mixing with her vindictiveness.
"I scream for you, boyevaya podruga," plainly obvious but said anyway, as Yuliana names Elisa the woman who is by her side in every battle. "With you... our voices are one. Let us punish them for their hubris, and illustrate for them their place in this world and the next!"
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
"Yes," Elisa answers. The wretched fools, and how they spit on her patience... "And we need not suffer them to insult us longer."
Elisa does not notice so much of the hurt done to herself as a rule, but it is novel, to care for such insult. It has been some time since...
"There are places of power we must claim, to make our next move. But first, we shall strike at your tormentors." She smiles, and it is not so thin this time, her green eyes gleaming. "It is all right. Your passion got away with you, is all. And all will be well." She will see to her. "Your medicine appears to be working, as well..."
A tangent. Elisa cares. And when Yuliana presses up to kiss her, Elisa holds her there.
"You do, and I always hear," Elisa answers. "We shall show them. I, too, will take the field..."
"Together, our voices will ring out."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana cares for her wife; Yuliana notices hurt done, to Elisa. Even with such a self-centric worldview, she tries to consider Elisa's injuries. Whether she always succeeds...
Well. If she were perfectly considerate, wouldn't it only diminish her majesty?
Her endless green gaze grows vague, for a moment, as Elisa reminds her of something she's forgotten. "Four seats of power, South Southeast Northeast North," she recites; her very own vision, months prior. "Ah," she comes back to Elisa, comes back to those gleaming eyes, and her own smile grows sharp. "All will be well," she agrees. "Yes, wonderfully. Let us strike down those who would torment you, as well, zhenushka!"
And the medicine does seem to be working wonderfully, just as she's said -- for her mouth now is warmer than it was. She may never reach the internal heat of her fellow humans, any more, but her heart can still burn hot enough to sustain her human flesh. Hot enough to heat her cheeks, flush with affection as Elisa supports her. (Elisa has always supported her.)
Elisa has always heard her. "You will be glorious, my darling," Yuliana assures her, hand at the back of her head, all buried in the draping hair of her ponytail. "They scarcely deserve to see you, in all your majesty... your destruction will be beautiful! Yes, together, when we cry... they will know their folly."