Scene #2610: Fires of the Hearts

Owner	Pose
Frederica	While Frederica isn't sure what's up, Yuna wanted to talk. Somewhere private. Well, what could be more private than Frederica's own home in Njorun? It's not like she has reason to keep others from coming to her house. Friends, anyways. Not that she's had many come over. Very few, in fact. Still, she keeps the place neat so there's nothing much needed to prepare for Yuna's arrival. She moves a few minor things, more from uncertainty than need. She sets up some tea and light snacks. Other than that, she just waits for Yuna to come after she'd given the other woman the address.
Yuna Kagurazaka	Yuna doesn't keep Frederica waiting for long, coming in just a couple of minutes after the address is provided. It helps that she could 'cheat' a bit in getting here; Elner teleported her to the warpgate rather than her having to walk from her Ponyville home to one of the warpgates on Equestria, and that's a fairly direct link to Njorun by her navigation. On the other hand, Elner didn't come all the way here with Yuna, so it seems to just be the two girls. "Pardon my intrusion," Yuna says politely as she steps into Frederica's residence. She's carrying a small bag from one of the snack shops in the Njorun residential sector, too - stopping to get a little thank-you-for-your-hospitality present, it looks like. She offers the bag to Frederica with a bow. "It's not much, but since it's my first time coming to visit, I didn't want to come by empty-handed." Once the gift has been either accepted or refused, Yuna takes a seat ... wherever Frederica indicates that she should, really.
Frederica	Frederica was raised in Japan. Despite not being particularly experienced in hospitality, she knows what's called for. She accepts the gift, setting it down unopened on a table. "I don't know about you, but I just ate recently and I thought since you were coming over, perhaps you would join me in a dessert? And tea perhaps?" she asks, grinning. She waves languidly about the room. "Won't you have a seat?" she adds, her gesture vague enough that it could mean anything. At the table, in front of the gaming console, or perhaps on the couch along a wall. Frederica's home is fairly small, but not TOO small. This, it seems, is definitely what would be called a 'living' room. That is, it's a good space to actually do some living.
Yuna Kagurazaka	Yuna smiles, "Dessert and some tea would be delicious, thank you - if it's not too much trouble, of course," she adds, her smile turning a little sheepish. If tea and sweets aren't already out somewhere, Yuna picks a seat that's reasonably convenient to the kitchen - so, probably at the table. She does give the game system an interestedly curious look, but there'll be time for gaming on another visit, possibly. She did say she wanted to talk ... but she doesn't seem to be hurrying to explain what she wanted to talk about, instead focusing on settling in while Frederica brings out the refreshments she mentioned.
Frederica	It's a smallish apartment. There's little that's NOT convenient to the kitchen. The table works well for tea however, so the table it shall be. It takes Frederica a minute to get everything set. Fortunately, boiling water for tea is something she can do quickly and without any actual risk of disaster... unlike cooking. The selection of cookies she brings out is not home-cooked, but they're warm and quite gooey. Best kind. After setting everything in order, Frederica takes a seat as well, pulling a chair around so it's cross-corner from Yuna rather than across the table. She sits on the edge of the chair, crossing her legs and clasping her hands forward around one bare knee, leaning forward slightly to accomplish this. It gives the impression of absolute attentiveness even as it also shows a certain poise. "Have some, please. Tell me what you think." she says, unclasping her hands to pick up a cookie in demonstration, putting it on the plate before her.
Yuna Kagurazaka	Yuna smiles, bowing her head. "Thank you, I believe I will." She takes a cookie, biting off a small piece from the edge, and chews slowly, nodding appreciatively. She sets the rest of the cookie down, washing the first bite of it down with a sip of tea before she says, "They're very good! Both the cookie and the tea." She's not entirely faking her smile ... it looks genuine enough, but there's something - she has to smile deliberately, there's an effort behind it that wouldn't normally be there, and Frederica's probably met Yuna often enough to pick up on that slight difference, even if the psychic girl isn't reading or otherwise picking up on emotions or surface thoughts.
Frederica	No need to worry about that! Frederica has some tiny ability with reading emotions - it's a side-effect of her healing. But she has to lower all her mental walls first, and be touching a person besides. And even THEN she rarely gets anything unless she's sharing some feeling with the person, or they have a particularly close bond. She's psychic, but not THAT kind of psychic. She is, however, smart and fairly observant. She takes her time with a cookie, and a bit of tea besides. Still, eventually she prompts Yuna. "You look like you've got something on your mind." she invites. "Anything a friend can help with?" she asks, smiling gently. She can be a bit of a jerk to some people at certain times, but she's genuinely pleasant at other times and with other people. People who don't threaten her that is.
Yuna Kagurazaka	Yuna lets out a quiet breath after her second bite of cookie and sip of tea, setting the cup down gently. "I hope so ..." For a moment, it looks like she's on the edge of crying, but she collects herself quickly. It takes her a bit longer to speak again, though. "Have you ever been in a fight that left you remembering it in nightmares? Not just because the enemy you were faced with was so horrifying ... but because of what you had to do just to be able to ... to protect ... to try and save something, even though ... you couldn't really 'win'?"
Frederica	Oooh boy, it's one of THOSE. Frederica looks thoughtful, and more than a little concerned, as she listens to the question. She hunches forward, fastening her hands about her knee again, looking now like she's trying to become small rather than to show she's paying attention. It's a subtle shift, but it's definitely there. "N-no." she finally says. "Not really. I've been in fights that gave me some nightmares, certainly." she explains. In her nightmares, everything burns. "But... as for a fight I couldn't win..." she begins. THIS is the hard one. Nightmares about everything burning, well, that's old for her. It's no big deal. Sure, it's the one thing that truly terrifies her above all else... the thought of losing control and destroying everything. But it's an old fear, almost comfortable, and understandable. "... Yuna... Psychicers destroyed my world. Killed billions. We couldn't fight them because our mother said we'd all die. We had to hide instead." she explains. And then, ten years later, she'd discovered that she HAD fought. Several times, in several different timelines. And every time, she and everyone she loved... died. So yes, she does know what it's like, at least, to WANT to fight when you can't win.
Yuna Kagurazaka	Yuna nods slowly. "Sorry - I didn't mean to dredge up bad memories ... although," she looks rueful, "maybe a question like that was going to do it anyway." She pauses, letting out a breath and looking into her teacup, as if she could read the leaves and divine something of the future, or even just of what she should say. "I guess ... it's not really that we 'lost' that fight, maybe ... but the outpost was levelled anyway, the best we could do was save the personnel who'd been there. And even that -" Her voice breaks; she exhales again, then takes a deep breath and forces herself to continue. "The main unit the attackers - the Confederates - fielded for that was a Titan, a giant robot. They'd taken the normal weapons off, replaced them with lots of speakers, and they were weaponizing music for a sonic bombardment ... I managed to cover the outpost from a lot of it, but the other Confederates and the Chaos Marines who'd brought the Titan still did a lot of damage ... and one of the other Confederates, that Jakuzure girl, took it over for her own thing. I wound up putting El-Line's Lightning Sword through the main subwoofer, just cut the thing open ..." She trails off, taking another bite of her cookie as she gathers herself, giving you a chance to speak in the meantime.
Frederica	Frederica handwaves a feeble sort of dismissal of Yuna's concern. "Old old news." she says, not entirely convincingly. Those who know Frederica well know that it's fear that drives her. Fear of what she might do, fear of failure, fear of rejection. The fear isn't that bad really. It's the fear that drives her to be strong, to be moral. Acceptance of fear, after all, is bravery. She winces as Yuna continues the explanation. "That must have been rough. I know how much music is a part of you." the girl claims. "To see it weaponized and turned against innocents..." she sighs. "You saved the personnel though." she notes, approvingly. "Isn't that what really counts?"
Yuna Kagurazaka	If it were that old, Yuna thinks, it wouldn't have hurt to bring it up again ... but she doesn't say that. "Yeah, I ... really don't like seeing people using music to hurt anyone. Innocents or not. And yes, we ... we saved the people. But ..." She closes her eyes, almost immediately regretting that she did - because when she's busy remembering consciously what haunts her nightmares, she sees it more clearly than ever. "Titans have crew," the idol singer whispers, bowing her head, fists clenching on her lap. "And for a Chaos Titan .... they were imprisoned, so many of them looked dead ... but they were trapped, enslaved ... Elner did a scan for me, some of them - some were still alive, some were still ... kind of sane ... I wanted to free them, Frederica," she continues, lifting her head again to look at you, blinking to try and stave off tears. "I would have given anything to rescue them, save even a few of their lives ... I still think - know - I should have tried harder, but ... the Titan was still moving, still pressing forward, and I couldn't stop it ... except one way." She closes her eyes, leaning back against her chair. "I wielded the sword again ... destroyed the Titan's reactor. Destroyed the Titan ... ended the crew's suffering ..." She trails off once more.
Frederica	Frederica winces again. Like Yuna, she's ended lives. She's done her best to save lives, and to use her powers more to protect than to take life... but occasionally she's had to cross the line. It doesn't mean she likes killing, no more than Yuna clearly likes it. "That's... that's hard." she says. "Harsh. I know you know you did the only thing you could. You did what you had to." she says gently. "And I know that saying it doesn't stop the nightmares." she adds, with the insight of one who has a strong empathy... or has actually been there. She sighs again, looking Yuna in the eye with some difficulty. "I can't tell you anything that'll be of any help." she says. Banishing nightmares is beyond her power. "Only, maybe, something Phoenix told me, if you want to hear it. It's not an answer... it's a question. But I think it might apply here."
Yuna Kagurazaka	Yuna shakes her head slightly. "I'm not supposed to ..." She stops, grimacing. "That's something Elner and I have disagreed about, I guess. I'm not a killer, I never want to be one. I don't ever want taking a life to get easier ... it should never be easy. Ever. Even if I'm in the minority to say that in the Union ... I'm still - I don't want to be a killer." It's hard to look someone in the eye when their eyes are closed; Yuna opens her eyes again, though, and meets your gaze. "Questions can be more important than answers. So what did Phoenix say ... or what did he ask, rather?"
Frederica	This memory, at least, isn't so bad. Frederica had been in tears at the time, but the pain of the question eventually helped her break through her block, helped her learn how to make use of her healing power. Phoenix, a god by whatever name in that strange world Faruja belongs to, a god of the healing flame. A figure Frederica can look up to, can try to emulate. She considers her words carefully. 'Is your power the flame that destroys, or the flame that wards and heals?' She hadn't been sure, then. She knew her power was one of destruction. It led her, however, to once again dedicate herself. To set her path. "Your... your sword." Frederica begins. Obviously, it's not Yuna's flame that counts. She doesn't really USE a sword, not exclusively, but a sword is a stand-in for a soul. A sword is all weapons. "Do you fight to destroy, or do you fight to preserve?" she finally concludes. There's little doubt as to the answer... but the question still needs to be asked. "Do you take lives, or do you save them?" she asks, a bit reluctantly.
Yuna Kagurazaka	Yuna is smart enough to recognize the metaphor - and even if it weren't, she would get what Frederica's talking about. "Back in my own universe, I was chosen as the Queen of Light's own champion to stand against the forces of the Darkness," she answers. "At the time, nobody really told me what that meant ... but I found out quickly that the Queen of Darkness - she'd enslaved a whole bunch of girls, some like Kaede and Yohko who I already knew, some like Shiori who I knew when I met them that I'd get along with ... and," she admits, "some I still don't get along with as well, but they're still my friends. They were 'enemies' whom I could free from the Darkness ... and when I fought them, that was what happened - their battlesuits kept me from hurting them badly, like my Light Suit does for me, and when I won, the 'spell' on each of them was broken." She picks up her teacup for another sip before continuing. "I never want to take a life," she says, her voice softer but clear. "And I want more than anything else to protect all the people who are precious to me, the irreplaceable ones whom I cherish in my heart ... but what happens when there's no way to protect without taking a life? How can I be the one to choose, selfishly, who should live and who should die?"
Frederica	Frederica lifts a hand, makes an obscure and mostly meaningless gesture. Nothing so crude as a shrug, but to much the same effect. She smiles wryly, not in humour but in sympathy. "Of course you don't want to take a life. You're a gentle soul." Frederica claims. "I can't tell you what happens when you can only preserve lives by taking lives. Only you can answer that question. Only you know when you cross the line between protector and destroyer." she says. Then she reaches out, picks up a cookie, and takes a bite that's way too big for her mouth. "Wen yuu..." she pauses, coughs, chews, swallows. All with a hand held delicately before her mouth. "Er, when you learn where that line lies for you, when you have fully accepted it... then the nightmares will be no more." she promises. She's not sure of this, not really, but it SOUNDS nice. And more to the point, it feels right. It's horrible to kill, but sometimes you have to in order to protect. People with the soul of destroyers never feel guilt, but then people with the soul of a protector, who accept that they only do what they must, have no reason for guilt. Conscience, sure, but not a burden.
Yuna Kagurazaka	Yuna nods slightly. "That may be a long way away ... but, I think just talking to you helped some more." She smiles wryly, picking up the cookie she started. "It doesn't feel like I can talk to just anyone about this ... I'm glad I came to you, though, Frederica. Thank you for being here for me - I owe you one."
Frederica	"Just glad to help, Yuna dear." Frederica says, not exactly interested in what's owed. She's more interested in helping out than in earning favours, particularly when it's something that hits so close to home. "And sleep well. It might take some time, yes, but I believe you'll get there before long." she says with a wry smile.
Yuna Kagurazaka	"It's not so much going to sleep that's the problem," answers Yuna, "so much as actually getting through the night ..." She'll linger long enough to finish her tea and at least one cookie, but unless Frederica invites her to stay longer (or just offers refills/more cookies), the idol will probably be on her way not too long thereafter.