2019-09-15: A Pile of Greasy Bacon
- Log: A Pile of Greasy Bacon
- Cast: Kamui, Acacia Saitani
- Where: Macalania
- Date: 15th September 2019
- Summary: Acacia catches up with Kamui, who isn't doing so well...
<Pose Tracker> Kamui has posed.
Where did Kamui go off to?
As Yue mentioned, she did see her racing ahead. And even as the combat began to die down, there's a particular trail of fallen soldiers leading away from the Forest towards the Temple. Splattered blood, broken bodies, some slashed clean...
Towards the end. Towards a cliff that overlooks the majestic icy Temple standing above the lake. The flutter of Kamui's ratty black cape is visible amidst the snow and white. Her hair whipping in the wind. The Saber is in her hand, incapable of being splattered with blood...
But not her body.
She's bloody. And it's not her blood. She's been fighting...
No.
She's been warring.
<Pose Tracker> Acacia Saitani has posed.
Acacia could have returned to the Temple via the summoner's offer of a lift - but Yue's warning makes her scan the horizon instead and then slip from the chaos of the battle, trusting her instincts when they pull her in the direction of a side scuffle.
Before long she's got a trail to follow, and it's with a grim frown that she realizes the particular burn around their wounds, hissing softly in concern as she ploughs forwards a little more recklessly. The Mana Egg is shoved back in her pocket; she's got a lot of questions about what she's just learned, but they can wait.
"Kamui!" she blurts when she spots the shock of dark hair and the tattered cape, her voice cracking a little with exhaustion. She does slow on the approach - but it's more to make sure that Kamui actually wants company, rather than out of fear or disgust at her appearance. She slows, but doesn't stop.
"... hey," she mutters quietly, wincing as her muscles protest at the way she sits down, not sure where to even begin.
<Pose Tracker> Kamui has posed.
There is silence.
Then there is the low whine of a machine's activation, as her red camera-eye lights up. A thin irisoid line emits as Kamui turns, and scans towards her.
"Master."
Most of the white gown is in tatters from combat, which isn't a problem for modesty. But it makes her look a bit less human, with the actual blue bodysuit underneath - revealing her mechanical form more for what it is. The armour plating integrated within, the damage and wear and tear that've occured over the ages.
She doesn't look hurt. It's not her blood.
"This battle isn't over yet..." she whispers. "They'll regroup... and make another try at it."
<Pose Tracker> Acacia Saitani has posed.
Acacia studies the girl sat next to her for a silent moment. It's not that she's having trouble thinking of Kamui as human - she's spent enough time around the Reploid in happier moments - but it feels like the right sort of time to etch that memory a little clearer into her mind, to recall it and hold onto it.
When she speaks, she does her best to be gentle about it. She's well aware she's not the most tender person even on the best of days, but she does what she can to soften her voice as she rests a hand on Kamui's shoulder, keeping the other girl in place.
"... the Summoner's safe inside the Temple, and there's a hell of a lot of Guardians there. Even if I agree with you, our mission's over for the time being." A pause, and she furrows her brow, sucking in a breath. "Besides... I don't want to make you fight any more than this. Not if I can help it."
So saying, she shrugs her vest off her shoulders. She can't help the wince at the cold given the button-up shirt underneath, but she places it across Kamui's shoulders regardless. ... it's not nearly as picturesque or fitting as a blanket or a longer coat. It's not even got sleeves.
<Pose Tracker> Kamui has posed.
Kamui quietly pauses when Acacia lays a hand on her shoulder. She notices how little she can feel her hand... how it goes on armour. Because there was never any flesh there. No sense of tactile reaction.
"My fight isn't over... not by a long shot," Kamui intones. "That fact was decided the moment I decided to wake up."
It's dismissive, the way she speaks. It's almost a different kind of person speaking. A cold, calculated way of compartmentialising her feelings.
The jacket plops over her. She deactivates the Saber and clicks it back onto the cannon over her arm.
"I'm starting to remember more and more... so I'm going to commit to it in the way I know how."
She furrows her brow.
"You've got to live, Master... Mari too. I'm going to see it that you make it back to Filgaia."
<Pose Tracker> Acacia Saitani has posed.
This time, Acacia does swallow, feeling a sudden lump in her throat. This is the part that scares her; for all that she doesn't want Kamui to harden herself, she's well aware that there's not exactly much she can say in defence of the situation, not with Spira the way it is.
But she can't just leave Kamui alone after a declaration like that, either, and closes her eyes as she does her best to marshal her thoughts. It'd be a lot easier curled up at home, a sheet of paper in front of her on her desk, her pen in her hands.
"... that isn't why you woke up. Remember? You woke up because you wanted to see the world outside. Not fight in it," she presses as gently as she dares, chewing at her lips for a moment before she continues. "And I don't think Gami would forgive me if I let you let that slip away."
She's silent for a while, grimacing as she looks out over the snowfields and feels the bite of the chill; rather than answer Kamui's last statement immediately, she holds off - if only for long enough to ask: "Can you tell me... what you remembered?"
<Pose Tracker> Kamui has posed.
"I did..."
Kamui answers Acacia somewhat firmly. Too firmly, perhaps. There's a stillness in the girl's eye, the way she's stopped really moving in an invigorating way. It kind of happened before in Luca. It's kind of happening again.
"I woke up because I wanted to see the world. But the world I've seen with you, Master..."
She glances back down towards the lake. A large pile of scrap Machina from the battle, broken speeders, bodies.
"It doesn't seem like it's changed any... it's still a world at war."
A pause. She closes her eyes. She speaks, to the best of her ability, rationing out a heaviness to her tone:
"And it's drawn Mari into it once more. Or Clarine. Or you... it draws you in... people who can't leave things well enough alone."
But Acacia asks what it is she remembered. She glances towards the skies for that, back up towards Filgaia. As if she could locate and sense some part of it, intuitively, within her circuitry.
"I remembered how I felt last time I was awake."
<Pose Tracker> Acacia Saitani has posed.
For all her worry, Acacia can't help the bark of a humourless laugh when Kamui says she can't 'leave well enough alone'. Perhaps, she wonders, she should have been something other than a reporter, asked Kamui to be something other than a photographer. Maybe things would have been a whole lot different.
She's silent again when she listens to the Reploid's answer, though, marking it with what she hopes is enough respect - because she's pretty certain what comes next isn't exactly going to count as respectful. Banking on the Reploid's lack of response, she suddenly shifts to move closer to Kamui, settling around her shoulders, not caring for the time being about the blood that stains her shirt.
"I... want you to close your eyes," she requests, trying to hit a point somewhere between soft and firm. "And I want you to remember the good things you've seen. Dorca and the kids playing, /Tony/ and the kids playing. How you felt walking around the forest with Clarine. Sneaking treats from the bakery, then curling up in the sun on top of the church. The first photos you took for me."
She lets that hang in the air, then swallows again. "I know it's hard right now. I'm really sorry for that. But I don't want you to have to give that up for my sake. I don't want you just to fight." She rubs at her hair for a moment, because even at a time like this she feels a little bashful just saying it out loud: "You're my assistant, and-- my family, you know? So if that means you need to yell, or cry, that's okay."
<Pose Tracker> Kamui has posed.
Kamui does, at least, acquiesce to Acacia's request. She closes her eye -- to the point where even her camera-eye shutters. "Master..."
She sees Dorca and Ranna and the Little Lightnings, as someone kicks her high above a cresting wave of ocean water. "Woohoo!"
She sees Tony and Scott and Tim as someone kicks her high above a trash can acting as a makeshift goalpost. "Woohoo!"
She remembers sunbathing and lazing around with Clarine and gifting her shoopuf pastries... (woohoo)
"... don't do this to me right now ..." she intones. "Those memories are so precious to me and yet... right now..."
The Reploid turns more fully towards the distance.
"A long time ago... I woke up. For the first time, it was not Mari who awoke me. They were a group of people who looked on at me with awe and wonder... and yet..."
Are you the Legendary Reploid?
"You have good instincts, Master. It's most fulfilling to be true to your emotions, to laugh and cry and yell when you need to."
She's silent for a while longer.
"That's why... more than anything... I need you to keep living. All of you. I can't face Varius' ghost otherwise."
<Pose Tracker> Acacia Saitani has posed.
The reporter slowly closes her eyes at Kamui's entreaty; she winces, knowing it must be unpleasant to bring them up at a time like this, to risk linking them to the fighting and war that surrounds them right now. Still, it feels important /to/ remember them, as far as she's concerned.
Kamui trails off in her story about when she last woke up - but it doesn't take a genius to realize the locus of the Reploid's thoughts. "... I'm not going to be like them. I'm not going to tell you what to do, or who to fight, or even whether to fight. I promised myself that," she mutters fiercely.
Her arms tighten around the Reploid's shoulders; she might cry, were it not for the pit in her stomach. She's always been the sort to turn steely rather than shed a tear, and kind of hates herself for it right in this moment. "I don't intend to stop living any time soon," she mutters. "But I want to keep living alongside Kamui. All of her. I wouldn't be able to face Marivel otherwise. Or myself."
<Pose Tracker> Kamui has posed.
"... ..."
The silence is almost unnatural for someone as noisy and impetuous as Kamui. There isn't a single trail of a 'mui' from her, right now.
"What do you want to do, then, Master?"
It's weird for her to confront her directly. But Acacia has spoken for a time now, and now she's facing her directly.
"Odessa has set its sights upon ARMS, and you as well. Not just now, but from your prior interactions. More and more you're drawing yourself into a whirlpool of combat. Because they won't see reason... Vinsfeld has seen to that."
She lowers her head with a furrowed brow.
"We've been able to avoid it so far with these light skirmishes... but sooner or later you're going to get dirty, Master. And if you keep following ARMS, even if you say you're going to just get the story..."
The red light of the camera eye is back.
"If you say you want to live alongside Kamui, all of her... then you'll have to live with the Kamui who has fought for so long she started giving up on her enemy."
A pause.
"Do you know... what that might feel like, Master? To fight, without the ability to feel compassion for your enemy. As if something has turned to stone inside of you. That... is the whirlpool you're approaching. The whirlpool that destroys strong convictions like yours and creates weak people like Odessa and I."
<Pose Tracker> Acacia Saitani has posed.
Acacia's brow furrows again; she meets Kamui's questions with silence, guessing that the Reploid would rather see some genuine thought on her part rather than a snap answer. "... I don't," she admits with a stony frown. "I don't know how that feels. And I'm not so egotistical as to think I can just take it away, or pretend it doesn't exist. I'm sorry."
It feels like it makes her a failure of a Master, to admit that much, and she swallows as the pit in her stomach widens. But more than anything, she's sure that this isn't the sort of time when she can blithely admit to things that aren't true in the slightest.
"... what I /want/ to do is go curl up back in Meria Boule. Pretend that the world's just fine. Eat a huge plate of greasy crap for breakfast, go bother contacts, look for useless fluffy stories. I don't have strong convictions. At least, not many, and the ones I do have you can apply really selectively," she admits with a half-chuckle devoid of humour.
"But what I /want/ to do doesn't matter. This is the situation we're in. It sucks, it's painful - but it's what we have to deal with," she decides with a sharper tone. "So the question becomes: what /can/ I do instead? And if the answer to that is provide even a little in the way of relief or peace for you or anyone else, or offer the tiniest persistent reminder that the world can be better - has been better - then that's what I'll do."
<Pose Tracker> Kamui has posed.
Kamui, in turn, isn't really one for making snap judgements at the moment. Because she takes it in full when Acacia turns and shifts her tone in turn. When, it seems, for the first time, like they're having a discourse between each other.
"But having that sense of living... that is a strong conviction in and out of itself."
A pause, as she continues:
"The world is so full of people like me who don't really understand what they want... whether she just wanted to sleep with Gami, or stay with Mari and suffer that pain... or Xiumei at that..."
She lowers her head.
"All of those things... there's so many people who can't even want that much. They're so broken, beaten down and taught to never want anything for themselves. There are people in the world who don't have the motivation or self-esteem to even want a big pile of greasy, streaky bacon for themselves," speaks Kamui.
A pause.
"So don't discount those desires, Master. Don't say it doesn't matter. And when you say what can you do... then I am in agreement."
And she's leapt off at that, with an afterimaging trail as she begins her scouting routine once more.
<Pose Tracker> Acacia Saitani has posed.
Kamui slips out of her grasp, or perhaps she lets Kamui go; whichever way around it is, the reporter's aware they both need some time to process the events of the day. It doesn't make it any easier to accept, nor does it stop the way she can feel herself gritting her teeth so hard her jaw starts to ache with a dull pain, watching the last wisps of the luminous trail dissipate away.
She stays sat where she is for a long time, as if she's expecting - hoping - that the Reploid will pop back up all of a sudden, casual and 'mui'ing like normal. Before she really knows it there's a hand in her hair as her thoughts turn in circles, old tics coming back to her as she pulls at knots and tufts, but what makes her move in the end is the soaking feeling of melted snow around her.
Her brain might feel white-hot right now, between the newfound spark of Ether and the ringing headache of jumbled feelings, but she's not so stupid she's going to just let herself get hypothermia moping around in the snow. She owes Kamui at least that much - and a great deal more besides - so there's no sigh this time as she draws herself up and focuses her vision, making for the Temple in the distance.