2022-04-28: Reality is a prison to be broken (Prologue)
- Log: Reality is a prison to be broken (Prologue)
- Cast: Yuliana Dispersal, Elisa Kafim
- Where: The Principality of Riksent
- Date: 2022-04-28
- Summary: Yuliana comes to visit Elisa after a successful mission, and Elisa helps take the edge off Yuliana's nerves. Raw nerves, as it turns out, are much more honest about the horrors of the world -- and it turns ouf Elisa and Yuliana both have similar ideas of what to do about that horror.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
No thanks to Minovsky's Woman, Helmajistan is positively stable, these days. Of course, the Republic of East Asia is thrilled that their new Federation ally has joined them. Simply thrilled! And when Helmajistan required training, the REA was happy to contribute forces alongside the rest of the Federation to help teach one of their new units how to defend themselves.
If Yuliana happened to have a few meetings with selected officials while she was running those troops through their paces -- well, it's only polite to entertain one's guests. And if she happened to encourage a few people to remember their friends, well, everyone is friends here.
It's just a little housekeeping, you understand. Making sure the right people have the right numbers, the right times to call.
Entirely innocuous.
All-up, the operation took about a week -- plus a little extra time, just to visit a certain expatriate. Another type of house-cleaning. Well, sometimes people have to understand the expectations on their shoulders, if they want to live a long and healthy life. There was nothing official about it; on paper, Yuliana's flight was just delayed a day. If there's one more terrified man in Helmajistan afterwards, he's certainly not going to say why he's jumpy. He'd rather not be too jumpy, you understand.
The Nega Force have come to rest in Riksent, before they're due to return to Sri Lanka; this time, they're not even here for business! Riksent is a fun town to hit, storied and old, even if it isn't entirely as old as it claims to be.
Plus, it has very nice beaches. Yuliana wouldn't even notice it's too cold to go out for a dip, with how long she lived in Zaftra.
Right now, though, those white sands are a view provided by one of the nicest hotels in the area -- because one of Yuliana's other phones has alerted her that she has a friend staying here, right now. And so, at Elisa's door --
"Knock, knock~!" Yuliana lilts, cheerfully, not actually bothering with the motion as she leans against the doorframe. She's dressed in her usual dark suit, of course -- plus the standard obnoxiously coloured scarf, loosely slung about her neck, hiding it in just the same way her bangs cover one side of her face.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Elisa Devrana Kafim, M.D., would obviously know nothing of stabilizing and destabilizing nations. Clearly. She is a fine, respected physician, and doesn't involve herself much in politics. In other news that is true, she is a kind, gentle person, and is just so happy to see her friend now and nothing else.
The beaches are nice, though. Elisa is planning to go down to see them soon. But first, she has a visitor, and so when Yuliana calls knock knock, Elisa comes to open the auto-locking door. Hotels are nice like that. So, it swings open, and there she is: dressed in a long, breezy open collared shirt over a red swimsuit, the good docto brightens to see her dear, dear friend arriving.
"Darling," Elisa says. "By all means, come in."
She steps back to let her into the suite. Obviously it's a suite.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
They're such good friends. It has nothing to do with terrorism, or anything else untoward.
"Why, hello, dear!" Yuliana chirps, a little too much emphasis on the middle of the phrase as she saunters on in. (Obviously it's a suite. Some people just don't have to worry about money.) Easily, she tugs on the collar of that shirt as she passes by, before she gaflumps onto the fancy lounge the hotel's provided them. "I see we have much the same idea -- Riksent has marvellous beaches, doesn't it?" Not a mention of the current Spring chill.
She's evidently a little tired, though, the way she leans back on that couch. Well, maybe tired isn't quite the right word. Getting some last-minute orders to track down someone wasn't exactly part of her plan; she only has so much pharmacological leeway before things start worsening by halves.
Even so, she's quite good at putting her face on.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Not at all!
Elisa smiles pleasantly at Yuliana, casual with her as much as she's casual with anything. She hasn't worried about money since she lost the funding for that lab! It became rather irrelevant after a while...
"Yes, it quite does," Elisa agrees, likewise without bothering to mention the chill. So it's cold; who cares? Not her. It just means the beach is clearer...
Flump. Elisa closes the door behind Yuliana, and considers for a moment, regarding her in the seat. Tired is definitely the wrong word; without drawing attention to it, Elisa regards her pupils, the tone of her skin, her posture, all the little signs that add up to being... something.
"You've been hard at work I'm sure," Elisa says, walking to a small table and pulling out some bottles. Non-alcoholic for the lab rat, naturally.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
Naturally! Giving Yuliana alcohol is... well, it makes for an exciting event, but probably isn't actually useful for anyone.
Her skin is a little flush, though it's not clear at a glance -- unlike her mother, Yuliana isn't the sort of pale which would immediately burn on a beach like Riksent. Her one visible eye is normal enough, but for the way her eyelid lowers over it, shuttering her gaze; no wonder, with the way she slumps back against the lounge. Her arms sling across its back, because even when she's feeling out of sorts, she still fills any place she enters.
"Oh, for sure," the operative agrees, easily, tilting her head in Elisa's direction. "There's always something else that needs doing, you know. Ahhh, well. That's just part of the military life, dear! You're always someone else's patsy, until you get to the top." It's no secret that Yuliana is a Captain, though...
She's almost 30, and she's still a Captain.
(The tragic thing about career advancement in the military is that with every rank you climb, you get to do less and less on the field.)
"I suppose I could delegate these things," she supposes, cheerfully, "but where's the fun in that?"
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Probably. Though there is something to be said for gathering genetic material off of glasses. Not that Elisa would know anything about that.
But she does know about the signs of fatigue and other things. She considers; Yuliana is certainly well enough to fill up space, which is part of what Elisa values about her. It's important, after all. Being willing to take up the room...
To leave nothing.
"Naturally," Elisa answers, walking over with a drink in each hand; she offers the one without alcohol to Yuliana with her left hand, and moves to take a seat on the other couch. "Certainly less entertaining than doing things yourself. Though delegation can have its benefits... i've been finding that out lately, since those last few you so kindly helped me with."
A beat, "So how are you feeling, then?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
Elisa does always have drinks, for Yuliana. Not that she's blind to that particular trick herself -- sometimes you just have to identify someone on the sly, when they'd really rather not be identified -- but it's not something she's commented on, at any rate.
Maybe she doesn't think of it in this context; maybe she's willing to let it slide.
She takes the drink in long fingers, well-suited to pianos and triggers. "Thank you, darling," she asides, tilting it towards her in brief salute before she takes a long drink. Delegation...
"They're fitting in, are they?" Yuliana asides, on Elisa's new 'recruits'. She doesn't sound terribly bothered by it, which makes sense, given the sort of advice she had about conditioning unwilling soldiers.
You know. She's a military woman. You don't climb the ranks without learning a few things. At least... not in the REA.
Too bad for the Canary in the coalmine.
With a long sigh, she gets to Elisa's final question, gesturing with that hand holding her drink. "Frankly," she exclaims, "it's entirely clear why we'd be delegated to time-wasters like this. And it's entirely unfair! There was nothing in the report about the good Doctor being able to remotely activate the evacuation alarm! Honestly, between that and putting me on her retrieval, I swear I've pissed someone off. What, some tinpot pissed that I pulled rank on their base and ran to daddy about it?"
It's a little classified, probably, but Yuliana has the leeway and the lack of fucks required to just ignore that part.
Gulp. Yuliana scowls down at her glass, after she takes another long draw from it. "Don't join the military," she advises Elisa, quite peeved. "It's worse than high school politics, I swear. And that's leaving aside the actual politicians!"
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Technically anything could be an opportunity, at any time. Why, being constantly vigilant even with your friends against such things... It would be enough to drive someone mad!
Either way's fine.
"Of course," Elisa replies, and then, at the matter of the recruits--well. "Quite! They're really flourishing with the right environment, I think. It's heartwarming, really."
Too bad, too bad.
"How terrible!" Elisa answers sympathetically. "Probably. It always seems to be petty minds with petty vision that get control over so many things, doesn't it?" Certainly it's a little classified. But it's not like Elisa cares; the inner doings of the REA are hardly her business or her concern. Right?
"Of course, I never did much high school," Elisa admits, "But I suspect laboratory politics are about the same." She was an athlete, after all; her schooling was ad hoc, all done on the road. Private tutors and occasional attendance at proper facilities.
"But certainly! I wouldn't do well in 'hierarchy' I don't think, mm?"
"Well, if you need something to take the edge off, let me know. I always keep a few things lying around."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
Heartwarming is one word for it! Let's use that word.
"Ugh, I'm sure," Yuliana mutters, when Elisa brings laboratory politics into play. "Anyway, you really weren't missing much. Even back then, we had to uproot every few years because of some opportunity disaster or another. You know sea levels are a real pain on an island? By the time I got to Zaftra I gave up on the whole idea and just got an apprenticeship instead." Mechanical engineering, probably. That would be why Yuliana keeps cursing Shari by messing with her genius.
(Sure, hotwiring things isn't very safe or comfy, but if you want the other guy to die to death and don't care too much about electrical faults in your mech...)
"Certainly, certainly," Yuliana goes on, "you'd be terrible at playing the game, dear. I suppose that's why you're an exiled independent researcher these days, isn't it?" If she can't stand being in a heirarchy, she'd surely end up gutting the first senior doctorate who tried to put her in her place.
Interesting that Yuliana frames it as a game, though.
She waves her free hand, loosely. "Don't be silly, dear, I just have to get back and..." Yuliana catches a glance of herself, reflected in the glass she's holding; she heaves a deep sigh, rolling back her shoulders. Right, talking like this... "Then again, who's ever said no to a party!" She interrupts herself, cheerfully. "What've you got, Doc?"
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
It's a good word.
"Ah, so?" Elisa inquires, always happy to hear more about dear Yuliana's past. "Oh, yes. I'm quite familiar with islands." Orb, and all. Among other things? "Probably for the best. It's so important to learn real skills from a proper source." She approves, after all. But then...
It's so funny when she teases poor Shari with her mechanical adjustments. Really just a delight. The girl could use a little more fun in her life, after all.
"Oh, yes. That's true! Quite independent, these days." Has she gutted the one responsible for her fall, yet? It's a good question. The answer is no. But one day. But of course it's a game. What isn't?
Though it used to be so terribly important... Oh well!
"That's the spirit!" Elisa says. "I have red ones, green ones, intravenous ones..." She tips her glass Yuliana's way with a little laugh, and starts to rise. "Of course..."
"It would be safer if I took a reading first on your blood, to make sure I didn't counterindicate what you're already taking." Pause. "Or we can adventure!"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
"Oh-ho! Another islander, are you?" Yuliana says, with a toothy grin. "No wonder we get along. I never did really get used to inland living. Luckily, these days I go all over!" Which is its own statement, really; why does the REA need to send its special operatives across the world despite minding its own business?
For good and proper reasons, probably. Like helping other Federation nations. Surely this, and no other reason.
A lot of things used to be important.
They come to the matter of medication, though, and Yuliana's head thuds against the back of the lounge. "Ugh, do I look like I care?" She bemoans the idea of contraindication, tossing up a hand. "Everyone's so hung up on safety when we should really just be asking whether it works." It's... a way of thinking very particular to her Republic. It's entirely possible Yuliana got fed up with all the seatbelts in Helmajistan.
Silence beats for a moment, before her hand thuds down, onto her face. "Uuuugh. That's the sort of thing Doctor Baihe always used to get hung up about..." She takes a sharp breath, fingers curling in her bangs for a moment, before Yuliana sighs, again, and straightens up. "Fine! Fine. Do your checks, or whatever. Kind of violating the letter and the spirit of no outside medicine here, but frankly if our mutual friends can get more out of me than Medical has at this point then it's their own damn fault for dragging their heels."
Not that they haven't been running their own experiments. But that's neither here nor there, is it?
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
"It's terrible not to have the ocean close," Elisa agrees gamely. "But I enjoy the travel, myself. Why, I spent some time on one of the Macross fleets recently, even." It was fun! She met a family member. all very nice. All not commenting on how Yuliana shouldn't need to go all over the world for REA business.
A lot of things...
"Hm hm." Elisa is fond of considering 'what works' herself; safety is a distant concern these days, but it is a concern all the same; Yuliana is, for the moment, irreplaceable. It would be terrible to lose her!
"Oh, what's a little violation between friends?" Elisa asks placidly. She is watching Yuliana, in the moment. With Yuliana's presence especially, no one can peek into Elisa's mind and see the way she considers whether she ought to nudge her dear friend's mind a bit. But it would seem to be unnecessary.
"I think you'll like the green ones," Elisa says then, and picks up a tray from a drawer; she always keeps a few of these things handy. But there is also a receptable with a couple of trashed, used needles for some reason. Well, it's probably not important. She uses a fresh one here!
"I have the scanner here, I'll just need to apply a bit of blood..."
The process is easy, professional, and casual. It doesn't take long. Before...
"Yes, this will do."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
"The Macross fleets! Of course, you'd enjoy a spot of that, wouldn't you?" There are plenty of Zentradi on the fleets, after all.
And unlike all the Zentradi in the skies, there remains only one of Yuliana, even now. This, too, is a statement. Despite the power she wields, which occludes hearts from each other...
What is a little violation between friends, really?
... it's that sort of bond-forward thinking which might make her dwell on the good Doctor, even so.
"Hoo? Well, green is my colour," Yuliana agrees, easily enough. She doesn't complain about the blood draw; evidently, she's entirely used to procedures like this. Better taking it from her veins than her spine. That's the one which really hurts.
She's patient enough as Elisa does her calculations, though she does tease: "Do you just drag this kit with you everywhere?" Perhaps that's the curse of exile: never having somewhere to put your fancy medical equipment.
"You all good? Great," Yuliana says, as she swallows those pills, in more of a rush than her casual dialogue might suggest. Something to stop her fingers from twitching in with quite that much of a grip, to stop the screaming --
Well, never mind that.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
"Oh, quite. I so rarely have places I can spend time Macronized," Elisa answers cheerfully. And indeed this is true! True like many things that have been said this conversation. True like the fact that Elisa doesn't mind if Yuliana dwells on her a bit.
No, that would be just the thing, really.
"Yes, quite." Green. And from the vein comes a bit of blood, and under the scanner the vial goes, to indicate... Ah, yes. "Good, good. This will make you feel better, then."
The question, though, gets a laugh. "Of course," Elisa replies, as if it's the most natural thing in the world. "It wouldn't do to leave all my things lying somewhere, would it?"
The pills are handed over; green, as promised. Something to...
Yes. Perhaps not never mind that...
Elisa puts her things away and slides back into her seat. "And perhaps later, the beach. Once you've had a chance to relax a bit..."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
Once she's received those pills, Yuliana promptly flops lengthways on the couch, facing Elisa's seat, taking up all that space for herself. (Her empty glass rolls away on the floor. It's probably fine.) She folds her arms on the armrest, and her cheek flops down to rest on them, too.
"Oh, sure, sure," she agrees, vaguely, "though, you know, I never packed my swimsuit..! Entirely the wrong sort of sand out there. Suppose I'll have to do a spot of shopping..." Yuliana goes shopping! She does plenty of normal things like that, in between her totally normal workplace activities and her even more normal hobbies. It's not all killing enemy combatants and terrorising people.
Eyelids lowering again, Yuliana tosses a grin to Elisa. "I swear," she says, "I have got to stop getting tangled up with doctors."
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Flop. Elisa doesn't care about the glass. It is not her problem to worry about. It's just a rental, after all.
"Oh, so? Then that will be fun. There's a shop for it down below, the little mall down there." Not that she has an issue with a suit. But... Does Elisa do normal things like that? She always seems to just sort of appear places and be gone the next day. Is anything especially normal when she's doing it?
She laughs, though, at Yuliana's counter. "Oh, I rather think the entanglement is part of the fun." She lifts her drink to Yuliana, and drinks it down.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
Well, it's not like either of them are gentle.
Sprawled out like that, it's easy to see the way Yuliana does relax, all by degrees; not immediately, but soon enough, once the pills start working through her system. The way her fingers splay out, rather than curling in; the precarious nature by which one of her legs half-dangles from the lounge. It takes a while, but that's fine. It's relatively fast.
Her eyes close, briefly.
Here, in the precipice between numbed and raw existence...
THE GATE | THE GATE
-------------------
WHERE ( ) ARE YOU
-------------------
MY KEY | MY LOCK
There's no translation for it, really. No word to encapsulate the presence beside her, behind her, between her. But Yuliana decided, not too long after her false Awakening, that she must be the only real person in the world. The only person with true feelings, true experiences, true agency.
She just wasn't operating on the same level as the people around her.
Rather, the level she operates on --
"Are you really fine with that?" Yuliana wonders, eyes blinking open again. "This constant reminder of the paucity of your world? How can you be satisfied with a fake existence, running through the pages through to the end of the tale?" It's not just weariness blurring her vision, now tears spring to her eyes. "You hate me for pointing out the obvious, in a world stumbling blindly through its fiction without a care for how meaningless it is. You must! Why wouldn't anyone hate that?!"
That woman hated her so much, she wouldn't even come back with --
(That's not what Athrusa said, but Yuliana doesn't always pay attention to what people say, over how it makes her feel.)
Her hand pulls up, from where it was folded about her arms, to clutch at the side of her head. "Why," she sobs, all turned on a dime, "why can't anyone hear me?!"
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
The vial will not matter again just yet. Give it time.
Gentleness is a quality reserved for others...
Elisa waits. She lounges, really, taking up less physical space but arresting all the same in how she inhabits it. Time does not sway her. The clock on the wall ticks, tocks. She waits; she knows how long it should take for those medicines to take effect on a woman of Yuliana's height and weight, knows the effects they should have when paired with the rest of what is in her system, and she is patient. She will see... something.
But what? Will it be a 'truth'? Will the 'truth' be what has been shown?
So she listens. She listens, when Yuliana suddenly wonders, and it is sudden and it is not. It breaks the near-silence once again. The question, the matter of hatred... Ah, yes. Why wouldn't anyone hate it? Why... Why can't anyone...?
"Because this reality," Elisa's voice slides into the sobbing, "Is a lie."
"This world, this dimension, it is all a prison. It confines, it isolates."
"But I do not hate you. Oh, darling, I do not hate you at all, because I see through you. Of course you cannot see me, you who bears the light that blots out all existence. It is beautiful. This hollow, false world..."
"It is destiny that it will be opened. I run through those pages to the end of the tale because the end is the beginning. The void is our future, Yuliana."
She has not moved from her comfortable, seated position. How many times have they had this conversation? Surely this is the first. And yet there is something to it.
"I do not hate you, my dear. But neither am I satisfied with this existence. You know that I will change it. That is why you stay. I will bring about this false world's glorious transformation..."
"And you will be the one to help me do it."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
What is truth? Is it that underlying assumption, not always said, that Yuliana is surrounded by puppets playing their roles? Or was it always here, where it will be, where it is -- what is accessed, unwittingly crossed over day after day, unseen by those thousands of blindered fools?
What is the truth, but something to be enforced?
For the first time, again, Elisa slips easily between Yuliana's sobs, all gripped by the grief of the woman in the bell jar. This reality...
It's horrible, of course, but not any kind of horror she didn't know already. Slowly, she pulls herself sitting again, legs all folded under herself. She blinks, through her tears, as Elisa declares she can see her, see through her, even as Yuliana can't see anyone at all.
It's the sort of thing she would have openly dismissed, were it framed just a little differently. But...
"Really... you're saying it's something like that keeping me here? Ha... haha!" Her laughter hitches, over the rawness of her throat. "Do you know how many times I've thought -- this pantomime doesn't deserve me? Why should I equalise this awful world, when I'm regarded the way I am? When no one appreciates what I can do for this tired narrative?"
(She's just about to a realisation, but the real beauty is in how someone can come to the precipice of a reasonable conclusion and then swandive off into oblivion instead.)
Yuliana draws herself standing, tall in Indonesia and short in Zaftra and ill-fitting everywhere in the world; despite the drugs spreading through her system, she's steady on her feet. She has years of experience working through it, by now.
"If that's how you feel, I'll tell you..."
She reaches out, to Elisa, one open hand. An offer.
"... I'll consume this world. My sphere of influence will spread throughout humanity -- from Earth through their colonies, all the way to those precious fleets. If you mean to tear down the facade, then... we walk the same path."
Maybe that's the only sort of answer she could have given, someone who has seen the gap between the pages, where the paper ought be bound together.
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
A new horror, an old horror. A borrowed horror... a blue horror?
"It doesn't deserve you," Elisa agrees easily. "They do not appreciate you. They do not see. But it is their destiny, all the same."
If Yuliana went just a little further, saw just more down the path, then she would be of little use to Elisa after all. But here, where she sees it...
Yuliana stands; Elisa does not. She is a queen reclining on a plush throne, and she looks up without being looked down upon. Space is a trivial thing, matter simple. It is irrelevant.
Elisa reaches out her hand, all delicate and regal, and takes Yuliana's.
"I wouldn't have it any other way. That which is must be torn to reveal that which will be."
When did she become so certain of this...?
"Humanity is only a beginning."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
Green's more their colour.
There's a particular framing Elisa uses, to speak about them; it's a familiar context, to Yuliana. An easy dismissal of millions of voices, some of whom she even likes.
But that's the thing about getting invested in stories. No matter how compelling the narratives are, they're not real, not really.
"I have no intention of allowing them to reach the end they've designed for themselves," Yuliana answers, smoothly, on the matter of beginnings. "A new type of humanity is just base cruelty, when so many are left behind. When I was -- I'll leave no one behind, I promise you that!"
Elisa reclines, and perhaps that's why the violence in Yuliana hoisting her up by her hand is so evident, with that undeniable soldier's grip. Her other hand pulls out to catch her, though, before she can stumble -- grasping, tightly, at her back.
"Now you know," she says, voice low, "you can never leave me. We'll go to Hell together, or you'll go nowhere at all. Do you hear me?"
Can you hear me?
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
'Them'. It is all there is.
"Good," Elisa answers the matter of leaving no one behind, though of course--there are those who will fall to fuel the greater change. It is inevitable. But that hardly needs be said.
Elisa is brought up abrubtly by the arm, and indeed, she doesn't stumble; she isn't given the chance, whether she would or not. There is the rush of physicality, of movement, and she deigns to allow this with a grin back at her, something--well, if she were anything else, it might be feral.
"Oh, that's exactly what I have in mind," Elisa answers, staring into Yuliana's eyes.
To never leave? Or to go 'nowhere'?
Either way's fine.
"I hear you, Yuliana. And they will hear us, if it is the last thing they do."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
'Feral' is a good word. So is 'ravenous', which describes the intensity with which Yuliana stares Elisa down, in this moment. Well -- up, really, given Elisa has a few inches on her.
Either way, huh..?
This isn't the first time someone has told Yuliana they hear her. She's heard it with varying tones of panic many times, during her turns. They're all lies, of course; they don't really hear a thing. But they -- but they --
But this is the first time in a long time that she's heard the phrase, and can actually hope to believe it. Like a dam the danger on her face cracks, crumbling with the arc of her brow and the fond curve of her lips. Her hand stops gripping the other woman's, in favour of winding her fingers between Elisa's fingers, instead, with a looser wrist.
"They'll hear us," she agrees, she accedes, she anticipates.
She scarcely needs to say she can offer Elisa the power to achieve such a horrible thing.
After all...
... it was one of the first things she said to her.
'I offer nothing. Nothing at all.'