Scene #732: Warning: Emotional Baggage packed with lead bricks.

Owner	Pose
Marrik	It has been such a very busy week for Marrik, and so very little of it has been due to his store. This is why it has taken him so long to send Yulia an email to go meet for talks. Yes Marrik knows email. Granted the computer he uses is more at home with BBS and Gopher than Youtube, but it's potentially surprising. No matter. The place he chose for talks was an out of the way burger place 'on the off chance you want to bring miss Nigoki.' He was sitting outside taking up a parking space beside his bike with a folding chair so he could eat while being out in the open. Man wasn't going to be hard to spot.
Yulia Koslova	Yulia might be just a little overdressed for a burger joint, but that's all right. She's rarely had a chance to get out of one uniform or another to wear something stylish, and it was begging to be worn. So the dress and jacket it is. She does not arrive in a Giant Robot, or even a smaller robot. No, she seems to have come by the commuter train, though not all by herself. There's a discreet escort - obviously a bodyguard in spite of the civilian clothes - tailing the young woman. Once she's close enough to see Marrik's face closely, she pauses for just a moment, a flash of recognition followed by a puzzled frown at that recognition, but she doesn't hesitate after that. In fact, she walks right up to him, a faint but friendly smile. "Hello there. You'd be Mister Marrik?"
Marrik	Marrik nodded and pointed to an empty chair in the same parking space. "I'm sorry, I'd have asked to meet sooner but week's been busy. Homelands unified and I had to help deal with corrupted tree singers, helping a friend tend to a medical thing, salvage." Handwobble before he took a sip of coke. He was dressed fairly casual; tshirt, jeans, and the same brown coat Yulia saw him wear the other day. "If I may I'd like to ask a few questions about Miss Nigoki's situation. It worries me. Greatly." Yea he was not going to to forget what he saw any time soon.
Yulia Koslova	That bodyguard of hers finds a convenient storefront window in font which to seemingly play with his smartphone for a while - either till the conversation is over, or he's needed. Yulia on the other hand doesn't seem to be all that worried about her personal safety with this near-total stranger. Or at least she takes the offered chair, absently hitching her feet on the low support rung. "I know how that is. I hope your friend is okay?" The pleasant smile fades, her brows knitting behind her bangs. "And why would that?" she asks, her tone cooler than it was a moment ago.
Marrik	"Mostly because the only other times I have seen a soul bound to a construct," Marrik fidgeted as he spoke since he wasn't trying to insinuate anything on Yulia's part, "It was intended to be painful and humiliating." Of course given he first twigged Yulia's radar by pulling together a zombie army she may draw wrong conclusions. "As for those I had called for. They did as I had asked and They went back to wherever they had been." Why was he talking about this? Nobody asked. "But the body she is in... Flesh of some sort and metal with you somewhere in the middle." He leaned forward, resting his hands on his knees. "I am young, so there is much I do not know, but I do not like those that have left to suffer."
Yulia Koslova	Yulia's lips tighten into a thin line, and she just barely resists the urge to bunch her skirt under her hands. No, no, she's going to stay calm. Well, acting relatively calm, anyway. Hiding her emotions is not her strong suit. "You...haven't met any of the Union's Children yet, have you." It's not quite a question, but not quite a statement. Either way, she takes a deep breath, and then answers it herself. "No, no you wouldn't have since Shinji went off who knows where looking for Asuka again and the Misatos are probably out on assignment somewhere."
Marrik	Marrik nods. "I've seen records of these machines and pilots, but it's one thing to see words, another to see what it is and who is there." Just the concept made his stomach turn. Seeing it? "I am sorry, and you are free to take a swing at me, but how the hell do you sleep at night?" This from a guy that works with the dead constantly. "Even working for a better world... I'm not sure I could do it without cracking."
Yulia Koslova	How the hell does she sleep at night? Okay, -now- Yulia is balling up her hands, bunching up her skirt along the way. Her voice cracks a bit, but she doesn't raise it, doesn't shriek, in fact it's a bit quieter. "You really have no idea, do you? And who are you to judge, and why do you even care?"
Marrik	Why did he care? Flash back to the dozens if not hundreds of times he'd seen spirits tormented, chained, cajouled, and tormented into serving someone who saw them as nothing other than tools. There were exceptions, but his teachers focused on strength over compassion and how the dead should be grateful to serve at all. Yulia would have seen Marrik's eyes close and a deep breath taken. Then his eyes open. "Somebody has to. Each is a person same as me, you, or the person giving orders. And To say I have no idea is like saying 'the multiverse is big.'" His voice was calm as he looked to Yulia and frowned at her bunched up skirts. "Strip it all away and I'm just a farmboy that's had enough dumb luck not to let his own stupidity be the end of him."
Yulia Koslova	Yulia is glaring at him when he opens his eyes again, but she's still sitting in the chair. If she were thinking a bit straighter, she would have just stomped off. But no, she has that look that of somone with a big raw nerve that's been struck. "Well then let me tell you this, Mister Farmboy. I didn't -ask- to be the Second Child. Nigoki didn't ask for what happened, either. But she's not angry about it, and neither am I. She responds to me because she -loves- me, and I continue piloting her not just because I'm her Child but because I love her, too. And I'm not going to reject her sacrifice by letting her sit all alone in a hangar."
Marrik	Her... child. It dawned on Marrik then. A horrible and terrible truth that existed there he either missed when reading through or just as likely willfully ignored. "She's your mother." He sounded like a man that got hit in the face. Yet even with the pieces in front of him it still didn't make sense. "To pilot one of those you have to have a connection that close, it had to be her or it wouldn't work." There was a sense of revulsion and horror in his voice even as he whispered, "What horror would make them think it had to be this way?"
Yulia Koslova	"Her name is Anna Kazantseva Revmira." She's clearly not thinking straight, to come out and say that. Isn't this supposed to be top secret? But that's at home, where people just wouldn't be able to understand the truth yet. So instead she's telling this to someone else who doesn't seem to be able to understand the truth here either. Child Logic at its finest. "Go back and look up Angels. Not the pretty ones you see in the stained glass windows, the terrible ones. Watch the vids. Go see why we had to build gods to fight gods. Until then, stop judging!"
Marrik	"I never claimed you. Ever." Steel crept into Marrik's voice as he tried to push what he saw when looking at the eva out of his mind. "I want you to look at me and tell me if you think I am lying. I do not think this is your doing. You wouldn't have been there at some random farm otherwise." Selfish people capable of shoving a person's soul into an abomination just so the pilot could use it does not strike him as one willing to defend a patch of land in the middle of nowhere. "The whole reason I asked you here was so I could understand. So please, back down an breath. If anyone /can/ understand it would be me." His left hand shook as he gripped his pant leg, "The magic I am best at is the domain of Death and Darkness and I was trained by people that wanted to use me as a weapon." His body tensed as he looked to the Child while continuing. "I am not the horrible thing I was supposed to be, but I learned from it. Mostly I learned to not judge so harsh I cannot reconsider. I am sorry that I hit a raw nerve, but that does not give you right or reason to hurl condemnation and judgement at /me/." Deep breath. Exhale. "Can we please start over? Hello. My name is Marrik Broom. Would you please tell me about your mother?"
Yulia Koslova	The bodyguard has been standing at just discreet enough distance to not eavesdrop on the conversation. Still, he's been paying attention to the body language if not the verbal language, and he's frowning in that 'considering intervening' sort of way. "You're the one sitting here judging me and her and my brother and the people who made us what we are," Yulia counters. "Thinking I can't sleep at night over what -she- is and what -I- am and just -assuming- she's suffering." She rocks forward out of the chair and onto her feet, her hands still bunched up but not holding onto her skirt anymore. "I don't know who you are, Mister Marrik, and right now, I don't care."
Marrik	Sigh, "I suppose there isn't much good to keep talking if we're going to keep hitting eachothers buttons." Failure sucks pretty hard and it's kinda plastered all over Marrik's face. "I'd like a do over but considering everything. You're angry as hell because I kinda stomped over you. He leaned back and just put his hands over his face before exhaling. "The phrase 'digging til you see daylight' comes to mind and yea... Look if you want to grab a bite before you go put it on my tab."
Yulia Koslova	Yulia's tone has gone cold. "A bit of advice. the next time you want to have a conversation, don't start out with making assumptions." And with that, she turns and walks away. Right past the burger joint - apparently she's not even going to take them up on that offer. After a beat, that guy with the smartphone just happens to follow after her.
Marrik	Marrik just kinda sits there since after swallowing your feet and everyone else's in the country what do you do? Seriously? "Sorry." Yea, like that'll help. It's more reflex as he sat there staring at nothing.