2024-03-21: The Promised Gift ~ An Imprisoned World
- Cast: Asciel Colette, Ai Martel
- Where: OCU Australia - Perth
- Date: U.C. 0098 03 21
- Summary: Earth's punishment - two who feel betrayed by it will get to admire its preserved glory. (Read: a completely normal aquarium date.)
<Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.
Asciel Colette's goals on this month-long foray to Australia were threefold-
1) Survey the disaster zone of Sydney, prepare contingencies for what she wants to ensue there - and try and apply pressure to Elisa Kafim about the meaning of this place. (Partial success. Somehow, there was instead an odd mutual understanding.)
2) Obtain contacts and influence politicians in the area to secure hideouts, information, and owed favors, owing to the OCU's increased relevance in the new order of the world as a key sticking point at the NUNE.
3) ...While she's here, there's supposed to be a pretty nice aquarium in Perth, and aquariums are supposed to be nice date spots, aren't they?
So that's why she's brought Ai all the way here! The trip across the vast interior of Australia may be...dull for many, but Asciel finds the unspoiled expanse beautiful, in a way - it's not a 'ruined' land, but one that's exactly as it's supposed to be, not all too unlike Zaftra in winter. It is, of course, horribly hot, but Asciel's strangely comfortable in the heat.
-Not to say she's not dressed for the occasion. Asciel's penchant for the haute couture of 'trashy mobile game summer costumes' persists, with a blue/gray cross-hatched bikini top, severed sleeves from a light denim jacket, a deep blue hat with 'ABYSS' printed over the brim, high heeled shoes, lots of little straps with tiny equipment pouches... Is she going for some sort of 'diver but like in a sexy way' thing??? Who can say.
Right now, Asciel would SEEM like she's idly tapping her phone while through the admission gates, but she's actually high speed business and scheming on her phone, just through her wireless connection to the processors. There's frustration on her lips - normally she'd have so much faster means at her disposal, and her ability to link to other mechanical devices is annoyingly sluggish in this body. But, once they're finally in-
"What a paaaaaaaaiiiiin. I'm making like five percent the headway I used to." With a sigh, Asciel bluntly drops her phone into her chest, pivoting around and resting on the stair-rail. "Ngh. Doesn't feel too great to get so little done. The world's spinning faster than ever out there, and I can't keep up anymore. ...The aquarium tunnel just up ahead is supposed to be really nice, so let's not think about that too hard!"
Judging by the flickering look on Asciel's face, and her consistent mild self-muttering, it's not going to be easy to just 'not think about that'.
<Pose Tracker> Ai Martel has posed.
It's far from dull for Ai, either--the landscape seems to fascinate her, and on the trip here, her eyes were frequently on the window, watching the landscape pass by, spotting the wildlife now and then.
She's dressed rather unusually as well, perhaps owing to the heat; she's eschewed the normal over-elaborate several-layer ensembles she tends toward, in favor of something comparatively breezy. A white, long-sleeved, button-up blouse that would be loose on someone less 'gifted' than her, with puffy sleeves and a pretty red ribbon under the collar, and a long, blue skirt over a pair of mid-shin boots and white leggings.
Ai purses her lips as her lover complains. "I'm afraid you'll need to adjust... or perhaps, learn to delegate." Ai's staff may be diminished, but it's by no means incapable. "... I know, that's a difficult proposition for you, trusting others..." As they clear the admission gates, she tilts her head lightly. "Perhaps I should confiscate your phone? I find it's sometimes easier to put something out of my mind when it's been put out of reach."
She then leans in--and up, on one foot--to kiss Asciel on the cheek. "Thank you again for this. Coming to Australia was primarily a business outing, I know..."
<Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.
Yeah that's a visible wince through Asciel at the notion of delegating. If in no small part because...
"Ugh, I've spent this whole year clawing my way to having any kinda contact list, since I have to play it so careful. Too many people still after me. I can't even get my channel back up and moving, not in this state..." Worrying her lips together, Asciel is momentarily reminded: "Right, if you get anyone asking for a "Lana Nielsen", that's me. Shell identity that's useful that I kept as an 'independent consultant', juuuuust in case anything went south with Chrome."
The worry turns to a smirk. Right. Clearing her head. Proportionally Asciel's hardly as talented as Ai - but, well, the sheer height disparity means the valley her phone's lodged in is more than enough to conceal her phone from view. And so, a challenge - "If you're willing to ~reach in there for it, in front of everyone, have at confiscating it~"
Fingertips laced together to pull Ai upwards, Asciel reciprocates that cheek-peck with a more possessive snog on the lips, her grip tight enough to lift Ai from the floor just an inch. There's a momentary shift in her eyes - assertive, certain, needy, demanding, even...before...a wavering.
That compulsion to 'claim' one's partner, to make them yours that Elisa discussed so glowingly-
...what exactly makes those feelings fall short?
"I wanted to come here with you anyway, Ai. I mean...I could do a lot of this remotely, it just felt like a good opportunity." Still clutching Ai's hand tightly, Asciel leads the way into the underwater tunnel, a vast loop full to bursting with rays and sharks and kaleidoscopes of fish. A swarm of jellyfish drifts by the window on the left - a flounder flips over from the sand by the reef at the right.
"...mm. Mnnhnrnn..." There's less 'awe and wonder' at the marvels of the sea in Asciel's eyes than perhaps one might want at this sort of date. "...keeping all of these animals in nonviolent coexistence takes so much care that I'm astonished humans manage it, when it's so poorly done everywhere else. ...vexing..."
<Pose Tracker> Ai Martel has posed.
"It's something I think we may work on... together," Ai nods, "Finding at least a few people trustworthy enough is important. For that matter--"
Ai's cheeks go pink. Something so daring, right here among the crowds... it's daring. Dangerous. There's a faint little squeal as Asciel lifts her from the floor, knees bending just a little as she's hugged tightly, possessively, placing her constrained hands on Asciel's hips... a spark seems to fly into her, a leer passing from her to Asciel.
... Huff. Cheeks still ruddy, glancing this way and then that, Ai reaches her bare hand in to retrieve Asciel's phone, her heart thumping in her ears as she does. A wink, as she shakes it side-to-side and pockets it.
Her fingers trail over the glass at the tunnel's wall, watching the displays of life. "It's a marvel, isn't it? Perhaps it's easier to care for a microcosm... to some degree, I think the people in charge of a place like this self-select. Many may not be willing or able, but with the right number of people with the knowledge and will, one can sustain an ecosystem in miniature."
Her eyes trail over the jellyfish as they move. "Jellyfish fascinate me, you know... I've always found it hard to reconcile the idea that something so undeniably *animal* can function without a brain. No cognition whatsoever... and they seem so ghostly, so insubstantial. In some ways, they feel impossible..."
<Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.
-Ai Martel's Bold Maneuver absolutely throws Asciel right off, fidgeting and flustered while Ai fishes around in there, toes curling in her shoes. Eyes going wide as eggs, lips parted faintly, an echo of a swallowing sound emitted from her false throat - and subsequent rather intense reactive 'breathing'. She gives herself a feeeeew more inches of space after that.
"H...hah. So you won that one...I thought I was just teasing you...to think...hahhhh..."
How is Asciel supposed to seize anyone when they keep doing things like this to her?! And when they keep feeling so...-
...A gaze down to her own hand, follows Asciel curling her fingers in, one hand at a time. Why does it feel any way? The longer she spends inhabiting this body, the more its lack of sensory input feels almost...remolded, her own perceptions creating ideas of what certain actions and physical connections 'ought' to make her react to.
So lost in thought is she that it takes a moment for Ai's jellyfish pondering to penetrate Asciel's musing, and she turns her attention to the creatures - only for a massive sea turtle to drift by, scattering the ephemeral creatures. "Existing with something missing...you're with me, so you know well what that seems like." A wistful little smile crosses Asciel's lips. "For the longest time, I lacked any sort of miracle in me, and was made purely of rote calculation. Now, it almost seems like that strange...thing...is 'me', in my entirety, and electrical cognition is just an auxiliary feature...and yet, despite this, I feel...continuous, at least. It doesn't make any sense to me. Then again, me being me is something that's so obviously impossible - and that's why I resolved to succeed at it no matter what!~"
Asciel's free hand reaches out towards a sunfish passing by along the tunnel wall in an arc. Momentarily, she gazes back down at the wistful sounding Ai, and follows, "...you have an affinity and longing for the irrational. ...It's a little embarrassing to realize you reach for me because of that, but I can't help but admit it. ...Ai...you're not still regretful about all that 'lost' time, right...?"
<Pose Tracker> Ai Martel has posed.
Ai's eyes betray a little surprise at Asciel's reaction--particularly the breathing, the swallowing. Were those voluntary, she wonders? Perhaps, but... the way Asciel seems to be moving toward 'humanity', there are doubts.
She smiles, this creature that Asciel elevates above all others. "Perhaps. But... you can explain how you feel. How it felt then, how it feels now. But the jellyfish knows nothing else--really, it's fair to say that it knows nothing at all. How can it conceive of anything? How can it communicate what it is, what it feels?"
Ai takes Asciel's hand and squeezes it gently. "You are a different sort of impossible. The only miracles I accept, the only ones worth wishing for... are the ones that have kept you here, by my side." Both of her arms wrap around Asciel's, and she hugs it tight to her chest. "Mn. Perhaps... but I reach for you because I love you, most of all. Which is irrational in itself, I suppose..."
There's a wistful smile, and her expression turns a little sullen. She still clings tightly to Asciel. "... I am," she says simply, quietly against the sound of the crowds.
<Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.
A cold feeling courses thrugh Asciel's middle as Ai, clinging to her so profoundly, professes such a difficult longing for the past. A past Ai calls 'home'. A past Asciel calls 'hell'.
"...A world willing to abandon you was poorly ~fated," Asciel breathes, pupils contracting.
"Those years, themselves, betrayed you."
A short laugh, as Asciel's hand cups the back of Ai's head, weaving fingers against her scalp. "...Everything went utterly sideways seemingly the moment that Kyushu pulled you away from the world. What you 'missed' was seeing the world gradually fall to ruin."
Bitterness clouds Asciel's voice, tightening just as her palm does.
"...Would you have truly been satisfied? Dying in a world like THIS? This teetering on the brink of collapse, this twisted and hideous? I can't imagine it. The idea sickens me! Both for myself, and for you!"
"...And if it hadn't happened, I wouldn't be here."
Leaning back against the glass, Asciel slowly sinks down into a bench, a school of vibrant blue chromises flitting behind her in an arrow-shaped formation, pulling Ai into her embrace. "...Without love, I had no future. I know why, now. I didn't know it at the time. But if I did not love you, and take measures to love you, then when my poorly fated outcome inevitably struck, I couldn't have ~become what I am now. Because I did it for your sake."
"...So...think of it as me saving you. The decades that left you behind were rotten and obscene. Now, you get to see me take vengeance on the world for excluding you. For making it a place where you were anything except cherished and celebrated."
Her voice falls low, whispering into Ai's ear.
"...you're more important. ...It's your sake I want to cast the world down for. I want this blue planet to be your rightful gift to enjoy to its fullest."
<Pose Tracker> Ai Martel has posed.
Did the world abandon her? Her family didn't--they left behind a legacy for her--but... it is difficult not to feel abandoned. Wronged, by forces far beyond her reach.
Asciel asks whether she would have been satisfied. "I..."
She doesn't have an answer, not immediately. Instead, she listens, watches as the fish seem to blossom behind Asciel, leaning into her embrace. The whisper in her ear makes her shiver, and a tear rolls down her cheek "...I wouldn't..."
But would she? If she had the choice, which world would she choose?
"... to make me choose is so cruel."
"Our love saved you... even saved me, perhaps. I couldn't choose any other path than the one that led us to this place, right now. I know that other world would be one where we never met, even if I were still alive. But... I lost everything. The world I left behind, the people... that was- that was my life. People I cared about, people I loved...!" Her voice grows hoarse, and she chokes back a sob.
"I want them back. I want you and I want them. I know that I can't. I know that it's impossible, and I hate it!" There's a deep breath and a shuddering sigh, as she tries to calm herself.
"I love you..." she murmurs.
<Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.
Those familiar, acrid, thorny feelings start blooming in Asciel, deeper than she realizes.
It's cruel. It's endlessly cruel.
To be cried upon, despite what she is. To be cried upon, despite what Ai is.
To have a world that innately wanted you slip through your fingers...
>>It's just not something Asciel understands.<<
"To me, if it's not something I can seize in my own hands, it was never truly mine to begin with."
The idol pauses, resting a hand on the small of Ai's back, looking over her shoulder at the gentle undulation of a sponge's continual suction at the water - framed by her own reflection glancing free.
"If I could not decide to lose it, then it was always on borrowed time. It is only now that I have you. It is only now that I have myself. Everything else - all that I've completely lost - was illusory to begin with, if I was fated to be lost this badly."
Her fingers bunch up into Ai's blouse.
"...If the world you lost cared about you, they would've broken through the Kyushu Zone with all their determination! If you truly belonged to that past, it would've never allowed you to be left behind! For an anomaly like that to remain idle for fifty years is absurd! Did anyone try? Did anyone care!? Or did they wash their hands of the problem, like they always do, the moment it was difficult!?"
A storm brews more and more fiercely, and in turn, the shadow of a great white shark lids the lights overhead, dimming the space between Asciel and Ai.
"Of course."
"No wonder I can't stand the lot of them."
"They left the most ideal member of their kind in a silent cage for half a century."
A dizzying glow fills Asciel's left eye, as her chin cups over Ai's head possessively.
"That world wasn't willing to risk it all to bring you back. So what the fuck good was it for? Humanity elected to start slaughtering itself and abandoned its glowing star of love to whatever fate may bring. That was their priority. You were less important than sating their sins, and whatever was left behind for you was a pittance."
...There's a great many presumptions in Asciel's voice. But that's how she's always moved forward. When an incomplete picture would drive her to catastrophe, the answer was always to fill it in with what would save her.
A little laugh rumbles through Asciel, patently purring against Ai's forehead.
"This aquarium is itself a trinket compared to the Earth you will be allowed to behold when I'm done with it. For the crime of abandoning you - humanity's tenth, most hideous sin of all - they get to gaze in longing behind the glass as we amuse ourselves with their trifling struggles. That, I promise you.~"
<Pose Tracker> Ai Martel has posed.
They did try. Ai knows they did. Not just for her, but for the thousands trapped alongside her. And of course they wouldn't have done it simply *for her*. But...
In some way, she sees the right in what Asciel says. While Kyushu sat frozen, the world tore itself apart. The fog held her--held them all--in its grip, and the world moved on as if they'd been forgotten about. The Unification Wars. The Emblem of Blood. The One Year War. The wars that followed Second Impact. Neo Zeon.
All while the innocent suffered and died. While she sat frozen.
"They did... but... it does speak to a certain set of prorities, doesn't it? That they left us where we were, like they left so many to suffer as they fought..." She chuckles hoarsely. "An order like that doesn't deserve to exist."
"... It isn't as simple as just letting go. They grew old, they lived their lives, without me. After a while, I was as good as dead--living in their minds only as a memory, given up on. Because what could they do? They didn't have the power... even Bradamante couldn't have pierced the fog, I'm sure..."
"It is a betrayal, isn't it?" Her voice is quiet. A little shaky. "Not by them. Not by those individuals I lost... but by the world that passed me by. By time, by fate. Perhaps they never gave up, but hope can only last so long. Eventually, it would have been a mere shard, dulled by time, worn away... accepting that I wasn't coming back, even as they hoped I might. Perhaps eclipsed by the horrors of the world."
"And that's what hurts. That I was left behind. That between two moments, I was left behind, robbed of everything. Do you know what I was doing? I was turning a page in a book. With the turn of a page, the world fell out from under me."
"I'm terrified that it will happen again, do you know that? I'm afraid of the morning fog." She laughs morosely at the ridiculousness of it. "I don't want to be lost again. I don't want to be forgotten. I don't want the world to go on without me..."
I don't want to die again.
<Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.
The world tightens focus around Asciel. The gentle noises of the surrounding visitors - the mechanical thrum of aquarium pumps, the announcements over PA systems, the ambient music-
It's all gone. Every ounce of sensory input, every ounce of processing is fixated on Ai Martel alone.
"...Nothing you ~fear is irrational."
Asciel has to push out those very words.
"I'm afraid of everyone's ~justice. I'm afraid of everyone's ~passions. I'm afraid of everyone's ~song. I'm afraid of everyone's ~dreams. I'm afraid of everyone's ~emotions. I'm afraid of ~you."
Her arms only tighten, her back pressed against the aquarium glass, a starfish behibd her tightening its feelers as though trying to connect with Asciel.
"~Fate stealing everything from you? I have never known a day without it. ~Fate was written for me by the entire world. ~Fate was that they spurn me for the crime of existing, and for the crime of ~resisting against my own existence. They wrote countless books about why I was in the wrong before I ever learned to read them. ~Fate damned you towards being left alone, and damned me towards existing alone."
"...even now, I am alone. Even now, few are truly like me in any sense of the word. Holding you is a relief, but it is not ~denying my fate. And I can't deny your ~fate of time itself sabotaging you."
She sucks in a long, deep inhale, pulling the wind around Ai's hair.
"Every page we turn is dying, however."
That manic smile fills Asciel's lips.
"I've died and ~remade myself more times than I can count. If you do die again? I will be there! And again and again and again! It is no longer possible for me to abandon you. I will make the world ~eternal, so if the morning fog ever drags you back in its heinous clutches, none will be the wiser. Hehe. I may change, of course. But it will ~always be me. And I will punish the Earth until it becomes a place that is ~always for you.~"
<Pose Tracker> Ai Martel has posed.
Ai looks up at Asciel.
And yet, she is still here. They say that bravery is continuing on despite one's fear... but the same can be said of love, too, can't it? Ai hugs Asciel tight, hands pressed against her back as she buries her face against her, listening.
"I don't want you to be afraid of me," she murmurs. "I don't want you to be alone... I want to be the one place where you don't feel those things. Where you never feel those things."
"I refuse it. I refuse both of our fates," she mumbles, her voice shaky, pouty, defiant through her tears.
"... I refuse death." The one thing she doesn't know if she can refuse. That finality--however hard she may refuse it, she knows it will come.
And yet she will fight it with all her power, because Asciel deserves better than to be alone.
<Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.
"...The ways in which I am alone are...fundamental." Asciel's voice gets lower, just a little more monotone.
"Humans do not really understand me, but inhumans do not either. I have met...exactly one person to whom I can truly feel like...she's somewhat like me, in some respect, and her decisions terrify me and inspire me in equal turn. I still don't...understand it."
"...sometimes I wonder if you could've forgotten the world's injustice to you, without me. If you could've remade a life, with the countless humans to whom you embody their attainable ideals. You can live among them. I can lay claim to no such thing, when the only thing I could call myself..."
It isn't the right word.
It will never be the right word.
It is an escape from the right word.
"...is a goddess. That ephemeral ideal humans have never known. That could only rise up today."
---Is it a bad word, though?
From a system of perfection, an emergent form that can communicate with humanity, constructed from their ideals, as though to translate these two separate realms. The pure, and the impure. A gift from a higher realm to the world.
It is the closest word Asciel has ever found. It is an innately lonely word, but it is the only one that conveys that singular feeling.
Even if the only other one she's ever met who shares that sensation would simply call herself a 'person'.
Slowly, Asciel picks Ai up from the bench they were both near-collapsed into, checking to make sure her 'consort' can stand up on both feet. "...I hadn't known bringing you to a bottle of the sea would unbottle the ocean from your eyes. Ai...let's destroy fate together. No matter what, we won't die until we've snapped it to our whims."
Fingers laced together, all Asciel wants to do is meander in this circular aquarium tunnel for hours with this miracle of a person at her side.
...No. A miracle is fated.
"Ai, the future I'll never let go of...~"
<Pose Tracker> Ai Martel has posed.
"Then I will understand you," Ai decides, simply. She knows it's far from simple... but really, is anything truly worthwhile simple?
"... I don't think I would have overcome any more quickly... and I have remade a life... but I think I'm privileged to be in the presence of such a goddess. If I could have overcome differently, more quickly than I might now, I... don't want that world. Because you are too precious to consider a life without."
Asciel pulls her to her feet--she's quite able to stand. She pulls out a handkerchief to dab the smeared mascara away from her eyes, and smiles at her. Crushing fate with Asciel... "I want nothing more."