Scene #7970:

Owner	Pose
Lilian Rook	Lilian had been pretty clear about wanting to speak to Tamamo last night. Just not what. Clearly, it couldn't be anything terribly casual, or else there wouldn't be the need for a buffer of time before engaging, and certainly not the insistence on an inconvenient face to face timing. This would normally be the part of the day where Lilian is supremely busy engaging in 'everything she needs to get done in real-time'. Ideal time for Tamamo to use exploring Secundus, which means Lilian meeting her here 'on the job'. It's also an even more inappropriate environment for the stockings she keeps wearing recently, though Tamamo is at least in the know of exactly why she has taken that uncharacteristic plunge. She has also brought precisely nothing with her that she isn't wearing; something she won't do if she even plans to go out on the town for half an hour.
Tamamo	Tamamo hasn't been quite as energetic in her exploration as some other notables, but she does have a habit of dressing for the area. It's a combination of 'dressing down' and 'dressing up,' in this case, and not locally sourced, despite the similar style of leather. It's a little too high-quality to actually be a desert raider's gear, and to Lilian, maybe a little too familiar. 'Exploring,' however, is just what she's doing right now. For the sake of not being around others, including this area's strangers, she's onto a different point on her task list for gaining the trust of the inhabitants -- locally sourcing car parts. This is a somewhat quieter area of ruins, but well out of the way, making for moderate chances of finding workable not-junk and hopefully low chances of running into giant, aggressive mutants. She knows that Lilian wanted to talk about something, of course, but isn't pressing. Just keeping part of her attention on her while also divining for useful 'treasure.'
Lilian Rook	Catching sight of Tamamo from behind, always the first to see the other and never the vice versa, in that way of once-children raised in a household they got very used to moving quietly around, Lilian makes the mistake of contemplating Tamamo's local colour first. Namely, she wonders where she got the leather, and why. Then she just sort of nonspecifically thinks about Tamamo in leather. Then she decides quite emphatically to stop that. She needs all the thoughtpower she can get for other things. Not that it'll help much. She can do a last minute mental inventory, go over her bullet points, rehearse the lines that will be hard to say, but ultimately the more time she dwells on it, the more that Lilian has second and third guesses, and feels her confidence trickling away. Not in herself. But the outcome she wants. The one she wouldn't just lab out; not after Blueberry. It's like she appears out of thin air behind the bunrei, though it's unkowable whether she appeared or simply approached in tensely reserved silence. A couple of prim shoesteps. Familiar hands laid on her shoulders. A faintly longing grip that struggles to remain gentle, turned to arms weightlessly sliding around her. Even the sound of soft breathing near her neck couldn't be mistaken. "Tamamo . . . I'm . . . No, this is as good a time as any. I didn't want to talk about this over the radio. There's no way I could make myself understood --fully, completely-- just like that." A deep breath can be felt on her skin, faintly chilled with her knight's tension. "It's about what happened. The Tree. What you asked me to do. You know that it's just Sakura and Persephone's people that can tell us anything about it. So I asked. And there's . . . If you're still scared, I think there's a way to stop it. Turn it back." "But you aren't going to like it."
Tamamo	Tamamo can divine many things, but something she habitually refrains from doing is checking her own future lines. She can check whether she's going the right way, but that's a matter of her present mission, and not herself. Lilian isn't ever getting in her way. That makes it easy for Lilian to surprise her. "Oh!" Though she knows that presence right away. A momentary shock relaxes. It's not the best place for casual conversation, nor is it a good place to wear long sleeves, but it's an excellent one for a trace of privacy. The irradiated roaches and rodents of unusual size won't mind. Either one of them could handle that much, easily enough, too, but the distractions are only possibilities, rather than present. Tamamo focuses on Lilian, turning her head, smiling, then slowly shifting that to a frown, as she mulls over Lilian's words. "I see. If there is a way to avoid that future, at the least, it remains something I wish to hear. It is a... 'going away,' in a difference sense, perhaps, than the last time I had mentioned such a possibility to you, but all the same, it is a change I cannot help but fear as, perhaps, destructive." 'Of the self.' 'Of us.' She doesn't clarify.
Lilian Rook	Lilian can't hep but smile a little just at seeing Tamamo's. Not for any particularly infectious quality of it, but only for the momentary reassurance of the sight. Those precious few moments she has to enjoy it, before she sees it dim and die away into something else. "Going away, huh. That's how you think of it." Lilian sighs. "Well, for all intents and purposes, maybe it is. I know the . . . feeling that it brings back, is one I remember like that. Wanting to escape. Not just to get away from everyone, everything, but from 'being human' at all. Back when it seemed as though it was all just pain, and all the effort in the world could only make it hurt less." A beat. "Sorry. I'm not trying to reminisce." "I just heard someone call it something else. 'Turning inside out'. As in, the process of wearing what's inside you, outside. 'Becoming more truly yourself'. 'More honest'. I'm worried that's true as well. I told you that it felt . . . it feels better than I want it to. By a lot. I want it to hurt, so I can be scared of it for the right reasons; so I can run far away from it and stay with you, where there is no pain. The idea that it's 'just me, coming out', like it was always waiting to . . . isn't that worse? If it were just the urge to go away, the desire to stay would fight it, wouldn't it? I'd stay with you forever. Easily. But . . ." "I'm afraid they're right Tamamo. There's a good chance they are. I'm afraid because that means this happened because I did my very best to stay with you. In the middle of trying to stay as hard as possible, for a moment, just a second, I resented being born this way again. I hated being human, because if I wasn't, I could have protected you better; prevented all of it from happening. And if this . . . this thing, can keep turning me into something else --something 'more like me'-- even when I'm trying my best, what am I supposed to do if I end up something that can't be with you at all? How am I . . . what do I do?" Lilian's arms, previously like nothing but warm air, held with the utmost of inhuman precision, squeeze around her love too tight to be comfortable. "You remember what happened with Ishirou, right? Before you gave him his name. He wanted to be human, and he turned himself human. With . . . with Persephone's power. She thinks it's the best way to undo this."
Tamamo	'I hated being human, because if I wasn't, I could have protected you better...' '...what am I supposed to do if I end up something that can't be with you at all?' Tamamo doesn't need to say it, that her interest has always been 'on humans,' or that she would have failed in her grand Quest, the very reason for her existence as Tamamo-no-mae, if she could find what she sought only outside of humanity. She's said close enough to that, before, and it would only be pain to be reminded of it, now. There still is pain, in the minutiae of her reactions, the signs that she can still perfectly suppress, but doesn't, when it's just Lilian with her. She's a little more honest, like this. "You were right, of course. I do not like it. I do not think you quite appreciate by how much I dislike it. For you to make a deal with one who is, by my estimation, the most dangerous entity active in this sector of the Multiverse, and that she could wrest from you, at her whim. She is unable to control herself from attacking the minds of others, simply be being within their presence. A creature that cannot help but obey its nature, even to harm others, is, of course, no unfamiliar sight, to one versed in the natures of spirits and godlings." Tamamo's tone isn't 'cold,' exactly. There's a mix of flickering, worried warmth for Lilian and hot antipathy for Persephone. "Her innocence makes her no less dangerous, and neither does her 'love.' There is no method by which her danger might be contained that is within my knowledge, no method by which such a thing might be rendered 'safe' as you suggest. Whether she means her words sincerely is no protection, against one with a child's mind and power without limit. There is no means, in fact, by which you might tell me, 'she has not affected my mind, I am Immune,' and that we could both believe, for there is no surety present in the strength of even the hardest shield and sharpest sword, whether wielded by god or mortal. Children are not 'kind,' you know, by nature, as they are neither 'compassionate,' nor 'wise,' but 'innocent.' These are quite different things." Tamamo holds onto Lilian's arm. It's not a soft grip. "You are so quick to defend her, as one would a dear friend. I cannot say it has not made me worry for you, in every case. I shall see through what dangers befall you. How could I not? If you mean to ask me whether this, too, would pain me, I can only say that it would."
Lilian Rook	The way Lilian breathes in, tenses up, closes her eyes and sets her teeth for this reply-- she knew it would be bad, and moreover, she wasn't willing from to accept a negative response and back off from the very start. It's clearly something 'she has resolved to take'. It looks like she's prepared to receive a punch, not Tamamo's very reasonable and well-intentioned words. She opens her eyes like it drove the wind out of her anyways. Her unforced smile is ghostly sad. "I knew you'd hate it. You hate everything to do with her. I can't even blame you; I was worse. A lot worse. I almost threw everything away to kill her. In the end, you were the only one who didn't get any closure, and I've never known how to fix that. I've just been waiting and hoping it goes away, if even that. I'm really sorry Tamamo. It's not fair that I'd be the one who does everything wrong, and the only one who got hurt and nothing else out of it is you." Lilian steps back just enough to move her hands to the front of Tamamo's shoulders and hold them there, looking her in the eye with painfully tight self-control. "First, let's just speak practically. Ishirou didn't turn back into an Android when his time was up, did he? A power that 'manifests your ideal self' should just turn me back to normal, shouldn't it? I was the one who didn't change while we were in the Decompression Chamber, fighting. I don't think she can just take that away. I'm fairly crtain that's not how it works." "But really though, a creature that cannot help but obey its nature?" Lilian laughs uneasily. "Aren't I the same thing? Aren't I always dictating what everyone can and cannot do, and when, all throughout the day? How many times must I remind you that I'm an awful, selfish girl, before it sticks? In terms of self-control, am I really any better? It's all just . . . we're people who wish things to happen by wanting them. She was taught how to. Special programs on how to wish well. Training for how to not accidentally wish for something you don't want, or to wish impulsively. Nobody taught me; I just wanted it that bad. Aren't I the wild animal you shouldn't trust?" "Ah, no. That's not what I wanted to say." Lilian sighs, shaking her head. Her fingernails press lightly against Tamamo's shoulders. "If she really can get into my head, and I have every reason to believe she can't, then it's already over anyways. This whole talk won't mean anything. If this is what she wants, she could just compel me to do it, couldn't she? She doesn't need to be clever or self-controlled to give me the opportunity, or even kind once it's given. I'm not worried about her slipping some terrible thing past me, even if she were the type; you don't really think she's smarter than me, do you?" "What I'm . . . I'm just hoping my very hardest that my 'ideal self' is still the same as back then. That's all I'm afraid of, and it's myself. My own fault. Ultimately, I guess this isn't about whether you trust her, but whether you trust me. Do you trust me more to use that power like Ishirou did, or do you trust in something else more? Because I'm not sure I trust myself right now, after all this grief I've put you through." There it is. That look. That slight tinge of illness. Shallow breath and shivering grip. Thoughts silently given to something unbearably stressful. It's like a fever, coming on and passing over by some prompt that still remains mysterious to Tamamo. "I'm sorry for making you worry. I really really am. I don't know how to make it --everything-- up to you. But Persephone is more than just a dear friend to me, Tamamo. I wish it were easier to explain to you why. The last thing I want is to hurt you, but now it seems like all of my choices boil down to merely choosing the amount."
Tamamo	'In terms of self-control, am I really any better?' "Yes," Tamamo says, with instant, absolute confidence. "If you believe yourself near her equal in that respect, you only insult yourself. And I should certainly rather you didn't." There's at least a trace of pouting. 'Aren't I the wild animal you shouldn't trust?' "You have not done what she has done." Again, absolute confidence. 'If this is what she wants, she could just compel me to do it, couldn't she?' "She could, unless she were quite stupid, and I do believe that to be likely." Tamamo appears to take no notice of this being the most straight-forwardly unkind thing she's said in Lilian's presence. But she doesn't disagree, following that. She only frowns. 'Ultimately, I guess this isn't about whether you trust her, but whether you trust me.' Tamamo's quiet for an uncomfortably long time, before she quietly says, "That isn't fair." 'But Persephone is more than just a dear friend to me, Tamamo.' A flinch is easy to feel, in her arms. "How can I do anything but trust you? It is not the first danger into which you have gone, without me, and it shall not, I expect, be the last. You have decided that there is no method but this one, and too much urgency to find another. What can I say to this? She is not the only one who peddles wishes, but she is the one you chose, and if you will choose no other, I shall, even then, remain."
Lilian Rook	'You have not done what she has done' It's astonishing just how much Lilian can communicate with breathing. The way it goes in, out, or doesn't. As if all the complicated expressions she doesn't know --wasn't allowed to learn-- find their outlets in those subconscious cues of lifebreath and warm grip, desperate to be known in any shape. Dread. And that one called 'guilt' she'd only just recently learned. "Yes I have. Didn't I do it first? Even if it was for reasons I thought were right, all I did was break into someone's home. There weren't soldiers, or guards, or even really locks. There was a garden. And children playing. There were reading corners and coffee nooks. Old people talking about helping the world. Places where the children nobody wanted slept and ate and studied and kissed and discovered themselves. All I did was corner an old woman, terrify a bunch of orphans, harm someone trying to defend the pople who raised her-- I broke so badly I went out of my way to torch crayon drawings Tamamo. I'm not blameless. I . . ." "Everyone thought I was crazy, because I was acting crazy. And it was my fault that she came to my home too. Because I was going so wrong, so fast, that someone else had to trick her there. Sakura, who somehow knows me almost better than I do, who knows things I don't, and . . . a Xion who doesn't exist anymore, who loved me, picked those people. They did it for me. Because I was so . . . I was never going to let anyone in. The only thing they could think to do was to force them all to see, the reasons why I was like what I was like, so that at least one of us could collide with the other with compassion." "And in the end, when I made the worst possible decision --when I betrayed myself and did the thing I told myself I'd never do-- she fixed it. She stopped me from not being me anymore. I'm sure if she didn't, I'd have turned inside out by now. I don't think 'Lilian' would have come back that day. Someone else would have been in your arms, back then. I can't beg you to respect her, or even to like her, but please, Tamamo. Please. I know you love me, but you can't keep thinking I'm so different from everyone else. Please don't avert your eyes from what I did; what I'm like." "I'm begging you to forgive her for that much, if nothing else. Every time you blame her, it feels a little like I've been shot. It's my fault, and I'm the one you should hate. She's not . . . Phony isn't all of those things. Maybe some, but . . . Tamamo, those things are just the things you want to pretend I'm not. I can't take it, when you relieve me of that blame and scorn and put it on her instead. I hate it, because it makes me feel relieved, and glad, and sick to my stomach about it. I hate that I'm so happy that you'd blame someone else instead of me." "I'm grateful to her, because she saved me from myself, and sent the me who could still talk to you like this back home. I'm grateful because when I went back, those people didn't just forgive me, but even when they knew everything about me, they said nothing was wrong with me, and they really meant it, even if it's stupid and wrong. And, in all of this, all she's ever done is pleased with me to stay. She wants to 'go away' too, Tamamo, like me, and she needs me to stay so she can, and I think I need her to stay so I can, like a pact, because if loving you is doing it to me anyways, if I can even throw my body away for you and still slip, then I have to get that strength from somewhere."
Lilian Rook	'That isn't fair.' Lilian winces. Drags air throuhg her teeth. "I know. I said that, didn't I? But that's really what it is. Do you trust 'my ideal self' would be one that can stay with you? Or do you believe that if I could be anything, I'd turn inside out and leave you all alone?. I'm more dangerous than she is, and you trust me because I love you. She's dangerous too, in her own way, but I trust her because she loves me. Not in the way she loves everyone. Not in the way I love you. It's . . . an understanding that only two girls like us could have, I suppose. Maybe 'love' isn't even the right word. But she's the only one who can do this that I trust, and even more than her forgiving the awful way I am, and risking everything to keep you and I together, I trust her because she can't live without me." Lilian grips Tamamo tighter, and then more softly, as she flinches. "Maybe I can't explain it in words. The only way I can think of is if I shared it with you like I can share things with those children. Are you ready for that? I'll understand if you aren't."
Tamamo	'Yes I have. Didn't I do it first? Even if it was for reasons I thought were right, all I did was break into someone's home.' Tamamo shakes her head. "No, that--" is not what I meant. But she can't finish. She can only listen, in growing horror and confusion. It worsens, moment by moment. She never needed to avert her eyes from things hidden from her in the first place, and that she, trustingly, had never sought, never to find the contradictions with what had been carefully presented. 'Tamamo, those things are just the things you want to pretend I'm not.' It's easy to hear. It's hard to listen. She can't bear it. Life is slowly leaving her body, though Lilian keeps it upright. '...because if loving you is doing it to me anyways, if I can even throw my body away for you and still slip, then I have to get that strength from somewhere.' 'I trust her because she loves me.' 'It's . . . an understanding that only two girls like us could have, I suppose.' '...she's the only one who can do this that I trust...' "Do not... say that. Do not say you are as bad as her, or worse. You have never controlled my mind, to force me to love you. You have never tried to violate me, as she has, only to say, 'oh, I cannot control it, is this lighter touch better?' How you can claim to be worse than a monster, please, I cannot--" Shaking, choking, her voice seizing, it's a harsh thing when she laughs. Jarring, pained and painful, and as quickly choked away. "Oh, to think I would learn this, on this gods-forsaken world. I am a fool -- this is what you meant to tell me, yes? I have been such a blind fool, in love. I have always been. Always, and forever, my past--" An inarticulate sound, and starting again, "my past, inescapable. These are the wheels of karma, and I only stumble as they spin beneath me, thinking I progress." She sounds like she could spit, though it's all self-directed derision. ...and moreover, she wasn't willing from to accept a negative response and back off from the very start. It's clearly something 'she has resolved to take'. "So, she is the one you chose. It matters not, whether I accept a course decided. Whence comes my loss, I know not. Perhaps these mistakes, I shall understand, some day, in this era, or another. Or perhaps, it is only that she did force your mind, as well. Would that not be an anticlimactic ending to this boring tale, in which nothing was learned?" It's hard to tell if she's laughing at herself while she cries, or just crying. She finds the breath to continue only with difficulty. "I am sorry, that I could only be... the one you want, and not, like her, the one you need. I am so sorry... that I could not be enough, for you, and that I could not see... anything, without having my face dragged against it, like this. I am sorry." 'Are you ready for that? I'll understand if you aren't.' "Please, do not show me more of her, nor your feelings for her, nor her 'love.' Have I not suffered enough humiliation? Please, let me go with only this much." All Lilian has to do is let go, and Tamamo will collapse in the sand, less like a puppet with its strings cut, and more like a fresh corpse.
Lilian Rook	Lilian already looked, felt, sounded, was, unwell, just before trying to say any of this. Anxious. Sick. Overwhelmed with dread. Just the effort of saying anything at all had taken so much from her. But it was her own fear, not any fear of Tamamo, that drove her so deeply ill with worry, in the effort of mastering it. For the first time, Lilian regrets, desperately and with all her heart, trusting herself to discover love for her own, rather than chase its shadow in the future. For the first time, holding Tamamo in her arms, suddenly feeling so brittle that they might break . . . Lilian looks absolutely terrified. "No that's-- . . . No Tamamo, that's not-- That's not what I was trying to-- . . . I didn't mean-- no, no no no no no no. No!" Her eyes are the widest they've ever been; she dares not blink. Her face is ice pale; her fingertips feel cold. She is shivering; not just from the wrists holding Tamamo, but uncontrolled, convulsive shuddering all the way up from the core, weak at first, and growing stronger by the second. She can't shut her mouth. Can't breathe. Can't think. "No no no please! Please Tamamo, don't say that! Don't ever say that! That isn't what I meant! This isn't what I wanted at all! Please! Please Tamamo I don't know what it is --I don't know what I said the wrong way-- but that isn't supposed to be-- I didn't mean anything that way! Why would I ever say anything like that?!" Her breathing, so softly nuanced before, is way too fast. Too hard. She's hyperventilating now, panic drowning out every other sense. It's making her sick. Horrified tears overflow from the corners of her eyes. Her hands flinch back from Tamamo, making the mistake of releasing her; even in that moment, Tamamo can feel the difference between 'letting go as if burned', or 'letting go in fear of breaking it', and 'letting go in horror that she was ever presumptuous enough to lay her filthy hands on something so perfect'. Lilian's arms recoil back as if she were trying to hide herself, or perhaps disarm herself, fingers balled into useless, quaking fists, shoulders heaving in hyperstimulated fear and self-disgust. She's never looked like that before. Somehow it feels like she has, only where the bunrei hasn't seen. "!! Tamamo!" Lilian dives down to catch her the next second anyways, once she collapses. Her knees scrape the ground, her arms seizing the other woman's soft weight and clutching it against her as if it might disappear if she doesn't. Her body moves by reflex, but it's only overwhelming fear for Tamamo that strangles the horror she feels towards herself. Just enough to keep hold of her, arm around her waist, hand against the back of her head, her own face buried in Tamamo's shoulder. "Please! Please don't believe that! It's not true! I'm sorry! I'm so so sorry!" Lilian cries out against her. She's shaking from head to toe. "I don't get it! I don't understand at all! Whatever it is, I didn't mean it! Please just--!" Unasked for, unbidden, a rush of memories overflow Lilian and crash into Tamamo. There is no rhyme or reason to them, or any order but the chronological; simply a chaotic jumble of every single thing Lilian is trying to think about at once, so much that it no longer fits inside her own head. Every sight and sound and feeling crystallized, unforgettable, and not fitting together.
Lilian Rook	The standing stones, summer in the dead of winter. Lilian looking on at the woman who'd appeared before her. Confusion --that wasn't supposed to happen-- and frustration --the grail was supposed to give her what she wanted-- and excitement --oh dear god she's so beautiful-- and her heart slamming in her throat --why is she asking me that?-- all at once. She's so light-headed and bewildered that she blurts out the first thing that comes to mind, and feels the heat rise into her face at that woman's smile. It's the first time she's been taken seriously that way. It feels amazing. Thank god no one else was here. The way Lilian had woken up the next morning. And the morning after. And the mornings after that. The feeling of something new, someone else, injected into her life, burning excitement splitting cold stress and malaise like the painful rush of hot blood into a slept-upon limb. Subjective hours every morning spent obsessively checking every aspect of her makeup, rehearsing every topic she'd need to go over with the newcomer. She isn't sure why she feels so desperately that she needs her to like her, but the nervous craving occupies half her waking hours. Keeping her at home is nerve-wracking. There are so many things that could break the illusion here. The way that she --Tamamo-no-Mae is her name-- looks at Gawain drives her crazy. Lilian pushes herself to the point of burning her skin on the texture of time to show off and outclass him. She wants her eyes on her and no one else. How can she compete with that? He's so normal. So perfect. They fit together. Taking her out all the places she loves fills time she found unbearable before. Things she'd seen a million times before are full of wonder. She wants to know every single thing about her. She wants to hear her opinion on everything. Wants to like everything she likes. Wants to hate everything she hates. The way Tamamo smiles out on the town makes her dizzy. Seeing her enjoying the gifts she can lavish on her feels as if she's been overpaid back into being indebted. A fantastical trip to Tir na nOg, or just to the aquarium, her tailor, out singing, at home playing obnoxious board games, --she's the only one who plays with me-- it doesn't matter. She could do anything with her forever. This is a miracle. I'm dreaming. How long will this last? Things like this don't happen to me. She's going to realize any time now. She's going to figure out that she can go anywhere, and then she'll leave. So, until then . . . The final operation in Finaria is a disaster. Lilian realizes her mistake only after hearing that awful scream. Her heart stops as she is forced to reexamine the very basis of her own competence --it's an anti-divinity weapon for god's sake-- and realizes in a moment of fluttering dread that at some point, she'd stopped thinking of her as a goddess. No, she'd stopped thinking of her as 'different'; as something temporary. But of course she's different. What the hell was I thinking?! Staren being the one to rescue her in her place drives her to unthinking, incoherent rage. It's mostly at herself. But then there'd be a fight. That healing is more than I deserve. From then on, it always feels like more than I deserve. This is a reminder not to stray so close to something so pure. Not to step outside my lane.
Lilian Rook	Lilian is in Hyrule town. The little sparkle in Tamamo's eyes at a ridiculous local game overwhelms her with the urge to squeeze her close. Don't touch her you freak. Lilian is at Arx Zenith and Tamamo is shown into the room with the other Elites. She can't think of what to say about the boy she'd just savaged. It's training. This should be normal. But all she can think of is an imaginary image of Tamamo looking horrified. It feels like she needs to shower the blood off her, even though there isn't any. Lilian is fighting Onyx Witch, and like every other mission for the past year, the tension is totally different. It'd all be so much easier if she could clear her head and focus on only the target and the objective, but Tamamo constantly forms an extra vertex in her head and makes everything a three body problem. She couldn't bear it if anything happened to her. She wants to see her smile more than anything; the thought of her in pain makes her system flush with adrenaline. She deserves better than this. She deserves someone who isn't so dangerous. Someone who will stay home with her. Knowing how much she doesn't deserve her just makes her fight twice as hard to keep her. Lilian is with Tamamo in the converted guest room, and the hairpin is laid out in her hands. She feels like she's going to-- no, she is crying. She never cries. How can she possibly feel this way? Not just tolerating me, not looking for better, but rewarding me. She meant it. She really meant it. She wasn't lying to me. She isn't going to leave. Somehow, for some reason, she cares. The 'me' I am now is someone she can love. I don't know what to say. It feels like being forgiven for everything. It feels like being saved. Six weeks of double shifts she doesn't tell Tamamo about and a few pulled strings and a little blackmail to get her posted to Japan. Eight gruesome antegent engagements she never mentions. Tamamo is wearing a yukata and smiling. It's all worth it. Lilian is stood on the grand examination floor of Nova Heliosanctus. The whole reason she's here is preposterous. This is cheating. I'm cheating while she's watching. Why won't she realize? Why won't she hate me? She came to see me. Nobody has ever done that. She really believes in me, so I can't stop now. The Letter Agency files. Lilian struggles to keep her face neutral while she feels her blood boiling. How dare they have Tamamo's picture? How dare they write this --that means someone spent time thinking about her other than herself. The fact that it lists her as a romantic relation makes her breath catch. It's real. It's really real. Even they don't see me that way anymore. It's this me, now, with her, like we deserve each other. Lazy time spent at Twin Peaks over coffee. I should get us a summer house once this is over, just for this feeling. That preposterous scheme involving the art of cheerleading. Dear god she's just radiant even in one of those. Dancing on stage at the closet of Babylon, every frenzied eye in the store on them. That's right. Look at me. This is me now. She loves me and I'm the luckiest woman alive.
Lilian Rook	In bed together, Lilian wakes up first. After what just happened, she feels horrible but amazing but it's just like before but she likes it but I lied to her but she let me have a choice but just look at me; it's exactly like they said but maybe . . . it's okay for me to be this way? A year in Kamar-Taj. A year away from the real world. A year I get back in my life. A year with her. It feels like a happy ending. All my friends are here and I'm with her. We can do whatever we want. Even when I don't have to protect her, she looks after me. Even when she could go anywhere, she stays by me. We walk in the mountains, sing in town, drink in our house, draft lesson notes and teach together. I want to do this forever. Once I've reached my dream, let's be this way forever. Let's get married. Just like . . . Tamamo is speaking to Alison and it feels like death. I'm going to die. She's going to say something at any time and it'll all be ruined and she'll hate me. What the fuck was I thinking? She still doesn't know. I'm taking advantage of her. I'm disgusting! She's perfect and I'm unlovable and even Alison can realize I'm ruining her! Sapient Heuristics. Carpathia's office. It's the moment Lilian sees the crayon drawings on the walls. The moment Carpathia responds to her like a terrified grandmother protecting her children. The moment Persephone says she has to be punished. Of course I have to be punished. That's all I ever deserved. All that ever happened. All anyone has ever wanted to do to me. This is a mistake. This is a huge mistake. I thought things had changed. But I can't let her replace me. I can't let Tamamo know that she's settling for filth. That someone else could be everything she wants, but without all the damage. I'm not special at all. Why does she love me? If she loves me then there must be something good about me. Somewhere, deep down. I don't want to be punished again. Someone who Tamamo can love doesn't deserve what happened to me. Static. Black distortion. Pain. Physical. Emotional. In her very soul. Cuts and bruises and burns make her body ache and throb every hour of every day. The distance between them hurts so much worse. She has to do this. The Shadow will teach her. She'll never be good enough for her, but now she can't let go. All she can do is kill everyone who could replace her. Then they'll be together forever. Tamamo's voice. Her face. Her touch. Lilian cries. Tamamo loved her the way she was and now she's even ruining that. London. The tree of Crisis --I know it's name and I've never seen it before-- is calling to her. Nobody else can hear it, but it is. It feels like this is the end. That everything had led up to this moment and the only thing left to do is to step forward and claim what she always wanted. The merciful hand outstretched, offering to pull her up out of the everyday pain of this muddy hell of a world --to finally take her and transform her into something that can be happy. Not this fake facsimile she tricked everyone into seeing. Tamamo's arms are the only thing she has to stay here for. The only way she can bear the agony of existing.
Lilian Rook	Weeks later in the Decompression Chamber, the Fruit is allowed to show its true colours. A mass of shadow and its blinding eyes represents everything from her nightmares, but now she realizes it was meant for her. This is what she was meant to be. Seeing it up close, she can only feel deep, nostalgic longing for this shape. This being. But she could never hold Tamamo like this. Blueberry Princess is right. I'd known all along. I wanted to marry this woman and I'd never once told her the truth. Why my parents won't love me. Why everyone back home hates me. Why they'll only permit me to exist as long as I'm useful. As long as I'm the best. As long as I has this power to fight against them. I killed him. Why couldn't I just be normal? Then our love would make sense. It would be pure and she could really be happy with me. But . . . I'm sorry Tamamo. I'm so so sorry for everything. I've told you a million times that you deserve better than me. I'm awful in so many ways. I'm nothing but damage that functions in the shape of a terrible person. I never learned to be normal. I never learned how to love someone. I never learned how to tell the truth. I never learned how to feel okay with who I am. You could do so much better. You could find someone with a less silly dream, who is happy and kind and healthy, who can give you everything you deserve. But please don't go. Please. I have no right to have you. I have no right to hold you. I have no right to feel happy when you look at me. I have no right at all to think about how we can be together. But I can't live without you. You're the only one. You're the only one who ever cared. Ever listened. Ever loved me in this way. You're the only one who believes in me. You're the only one who can save me. I've tried so, so hard to be more. I want so badly to deserve you that it feels like dying. There's no one else. If you leave, I'll be all alone and it'll be just like before. Some people might act nice, help out, but nobody can replace you. You're everything I've never had and I know I'll never have it again without you. I can't just let go. I can't just walk away from the light of my life. I don't deserve it, but can't give up on salvation just yet. If I don't have you I'll come apart at the seams and I know it. It's all for you. Everything is for you. Please try to understand me. I'm begging you Tamamo. Even if you can't understand me, I want to do this for you. I'm scared Tamamo. I'm so scared I can't even think straight. I just want to stop hurting.
Lilian Rook	It feels like a minute. It feels like forever. Years of precious memories and horrible feelings, clung to as the priceless things they are, sputter out of coherence. Lilian is clinging to Tamamo's body like a terrified child. Her shoulder is wet with tears. The sound of her bawling is utterly pathetic, but she can't make the sobbing stop. "Don't goo-oo! Plea-hea-hease! Lilian wails, broken up by wet hiccups. "I don't understand! hic-- I don't get it! B-but whatever it is, I'll never do it --hii-- I'll never do it again! I-I'll do anything you want! Please! Please please please please please!" Lilian's fingers curl into Tamamo's clothes as if she thinks the moment she lets go, she'll never see her again. She heaves the shuddering gasps of a broken girl half her age, devolving right back into pitiful wailing. "Please be okay Tamamo-o! You h-have to be okay! I'll be good! I'll be perfect! --hic-- You can do whatever you want! Please, I don't know what I-- just t-tell me what have to do! Don't le-eave! Don't go! Not n-- hhi-- Not nowww! Don't hate me! Please, please don't hate me! I can't take it if it's you who h-hates m-mee! I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry--"
Tamamo	Lilian lets go, and Tamamo falls. She's falling because it doesn't matter whether she stays standing. To be in one position is as good as another, while she retreats inside her own mind, leaving the sand behind. She doesn't hit the ground. Of course, Lilian caught her. She's still someone Lilian wants -- that, she clearly understands. Nothing has changed, in that regard. Hardly anything could change that. She knows well enough that she holds value. She'd even worked so hard 'to be better,' to be someone who wouldn't, couldn't lose. And yet, she'd always lost. That's why she's here, after all. If she had found what she'd been looking for, all those centuries ago, she wouldn't have needed to try again. Lilian is saying something, but it hurts to listen. It hurts to have been so wrong. It hurts to try. It hurts to fix what's broken. She's not even sure what the shape was meant to be, before it shattered. She hears herself say, "How can I mend, what I cannot see?" If she'd known what love looked like, none of this would have happened. Then, she's gasping, wide-eyed, but not seeing what's before her. Life isn't so much returning as being forced into her. 'To experience' is reserved for the living. Though the experience isn't hers, it's one she can't escape, seeing herself through another's eyes, and feeling another's pulse as if it were her own. There is nothing but to see it through. The past is beyond all ability to change. Even She of the White-Gold Face did so only by cheating and trickery. Whatever Lilian has been saying, Tamamo knows, at least, that it cannot be a trick. She'd know, the very first time a lie was meant for her, and when the geas was broken. This would be greater comfort had she the ability to forbid one from self-deception, but neither charm nor promise can determine truth. "To lie to oneself..." she whispers, and in doing so, realizes she can speak, if only slightly. There's something wrong with her throat. She looks up, and Lilian is right there. "Why do you cry...?"
Tamamo	What was I doing, just now? Why am I here? What was I thinking? Why can't I speak? Oh. I'm crying. She can only breathe to sob. Shaking, one hand moves to find Lilian's and hold onto her. Her grip is desperate, but weak. Speech is impossible because coherence is impossible, and her thoughts are no better than the painful sorrow that is all she can voice. While speaking in this little windbreak of stacked bricks in the desert, a barely passable ruin, her tension had risen and snapped, and after she'd ceased to care about her footing, the same had happened a second time. All that remains is a flood of emotion, without explanation. She can't stop herself. This doesn't stop until she's not just voiceless, but her throat is painfully raw. Though allegedly perfect as she is, the fact of her makeup -- prepared even on this distant world, knowing whom she might meet -- is revealed by the ruining of its careful, red lines. "My--" What was I doing? What have I done? I have to try. It hurts. She tries to swallow, but her mouth is as dry as death. "I thought, you might... have found..." She can't even try to laugh. It hurts too much. "It was... stupid, was it... not? Thinking you would finally find... a 'human' to love you, and not need my f-foolish obsession. To find someone who can understand you. Not like humans and g--" It hurts. Can't I stop? No. She doesn't understand. She asked me. Didn't she? It isn't a surprise when humans and gods can't understand one another. That's the expected situation. I've only been faking a human-like life, all this time, after all. "Thinking you would... decide, some day, I had asked too much, of you. Such a heavy b-burden. To be 'always.' To be 'only.' Your future could be so bright without my weight... I thought. You could go anywhere, with your strength." She smiles. The tears are still there. "M-my... Lilian. Were you always this... young?"
Lilian Rook	'Why do you cry?' earns no answer. Has no answer. Lilian is crying about everything. She is crying because the worst possible thing, after all this time, has finally happened. Face buried against Tamamo's collar, bunched up and small and howling in graceless misery, she is crying because her world is ending. Nobody could look so piteously useless as that and find the words to such a complicated question. The fact that Tamamo joins in her tears not long after doesn't change that. It seems like Lilian could cling to her and cry like this forever. Prolonging this moment of unfathomable distress for eternity must surely still be better than letting go. It goes on and on. The girl begs, pleads, apologizes for everything and nothing, for the fiftieth, hundredth, three hundredth time. It goes on until Tamamo wills herself to move. Her hands touch Lilian's body as they have a thousand times before. Weaker than before. Almost insubstantial. Lilian flinches. A terrified whimper interrupts her hiccuping sobs. It's like she thinks Tamamo is going to hit her. It's like she's prepared to take that. Realizing, a moment later, that no such violence is forthcoming, Lilian just cries harder. At least the tone of it changes. Sporadic heaves and exhausted choking erratically breaks her inchoate wailing as her body screaming for air and a reprieve from this torture finally starts to be heard over the sheer bandwidth-consuming volume of her outbursting misery. She calms only bit by bit, by shallow degrees with each passing second of Tamamo's raw and hoarse voice. Just hearing her speak to her --still there, still willing to acknowledge her-- reassuring her each time, reduces Lilian to teary, sputtering hiccups. "Th-th-that's n-not true." Lilian blubbers pitifully into Tamamo's chest. "H-how could that p-possibly be t-true?! I b-barely count in the f-first place!" She hiccups, then gasps for air, light-headed and sick to her stomach. "I-I had the ch-chance to be a normal p-person and I . . . th-they all told me what would h-happen if I . . . and I d-d-did it anyways, b-because I c-c-couldn't . . ." Even now, at rock bottom, she can't bring herself to say something. Lilian's voice cracks and comes out as a painful whisper. "Humans don't understand m-me either . . . Tamamo. I-it's my f-fault for not telling you. For n-not letting y-you. It's j-just . . ." "There's something r-really w-wrong with me, Tamamo. And th-those people s-say it's not w-wrong at all, but that c-can't be true or else they wouldn't t-talk to me that way. W-wouldn't p-pity me like that. Wh-what she knows is just . . . the same thing is a l-little bit wrong with her too. But so . . . so much less than me." Lilian's shaking fists grip Tamamo's clothes as desperately as she can, while still somehow trying not to sully her skin. "I don't have a future! I don't even have a past!" Lilian whimpers, coherently and all at once. "E-everywhere I go it's the s-same! It's in me! Y-you're the only one I can f-forget about it with! You're the only one . . . you're the only one who wants me to herself. Who ever wanted me . . . And . . . and . . . I didn't mean to l-lie about it! But I just thought . . . I thought . . . you'd never ever ever-- hhhh!"
Lilian Rook	Lilian scrunches up all at once. Every muscle in her body. It doesn't even out her pulse at all. Her voice rises again to a plaintive, agonized whine. ". . . I didn't want to . . . I couldn't ruin that girl you loved! I couldn't kill her too! I wanted so badly to be her! I'd give everything to be her! That's all I ever wanted! I can only be her with y-you, so I need you Tamamo! And I need to do anything I can to be with you!" A shuddery little hiccup follows at hearing 'my Lilian' once again. Some of the tension bleeds out of Lilian's frame. Her voice is a hoarse burn. "Don't be ridiculous." she coughs. "Lilian Rook was never young." It's not a joke. It's complete nonsense, the sentiment and the way she phrased it, but she's not being facetious in any way; Tamamo knows her moods, and this one only means bitterness and pain. "I'm so tired of being strong, Tamamo. I'm so tired of carrying this weight. Of feeling the weight of everyone else but you, on me, all the time. I don't want to be strong. I just want it to be easier. I want to be able to just be without thinking about it! I want it to be okay to exist!" At last, Lilian reluctantly removes her head from her pathetically bowed curl. She looks up at Tamamo, face wet, eyes red, short trickles of black running. The scar across the bridge of her nose and under one eye is that same dusty gold as before. Seeing it up close like this, the resemblance to something Tamamo is familiar with is nauseatingly striking. The lacquer joining up something precious that has been broken and put back together again. Broken and put back together again. Broken and put back together again. "I can't stand being human like this. I want to be human some better, easier way, with you. And if I can't have that, I don't want to be human at all."
Tamamo	"I do not understand," Tamamo says, to a great deal of things she truly can't, and that Lilian isn't explaining. She stops short of saying 'you're not making sense.' It hurts too much to waste the words. She's even more confused, at first, by 'that girl,' than she was by 'it,' though that becomes clear in a moment, and the confusion passes into sorrowful understanding. "Please, Lilian, please do not..." Don't tell me you aren't that girl. I've seen you. I know you. Don't I? Oh, but I am a fool, and she'd be right to ignore me. How can I expect her to trust what I see, if I can't even trust myself? The request is left unfinished. 'Lilian Rook was never young.' Tamamo doesn't believe that. It's clear she doesn't believe that. But she doesn't press it. She has a reason to pretend it's true, too. 'She's perfect and I'm unlovable and even Alison can realize I'm ruining her!' Tamamo struggles to say something. No, it's fine. She doesn't need to hear about that. She isn't shrinking from my touch, anymore. It will be fine. Don't I want her to think I'm perfect? Once I've reached my dream, let's be this way forever. Let's get married. Just like... ...she blurts out the first thing that comes to mind... It's the first time she's been taken seriously that way. It feels amazing. 'I don't want to be strong. I just want it to be easier.' "Lilian, please tell me. What is... your dream?"
Lilian Rook	'I do not understand.' Lilian bits her lip. Her eyes flick downward, away from Tamamo's face. Her bangs slide just low enough to block her gaze entirely. All Tamamo can see is a little bit of blood trickling from where a tooth bites into her skin. "Yeah." Lilian says. It's a useless thing to say. Totally unhelpful. But it's often how she starts very important sentences when too tired to fight about them anymore. Her voice, her breath, strains until it barely comes out. Her fingernails dig painfull against Tamamo for an instant. "I need to tell you. I should have from the start." Lilian's head drops. Her shoulders convulse. Lilian fails to elegantly strangle down a retch like she thinks she can. Loose tears drip and splatter against the sand. She breathes in. Coughs it back out immediately. Breathes in again, and just sniffles loudly this time. "My dream . . ." she whispers. A moment where it seems like she's about to break down again, comes and goes. Having something to focus on is calming. She goes on. 'I want'. 'What do I want?' is her mantra of safety. It's her lifeline. It's her spider's silk dangled out of Hell. ". . . I want to make things like my books. Like the one I got my name from. I want to work hard and be the very best and make sure everyone knows it. I want them to admit that they were wrong about me. I want them all to admit I deserve what I have. I want . . . I want to be strong, but the kind that can make a difference, not just the kind I need to keep fighting back and not let them hurt me. I want to be brave and good at heart, so I can really use it to help them and mean it. I want to see the world I missed. I want to take the world back. I want to give it back. I want them all to stop hurting too. I want to not hate everyone." "I want to . . . I want to care enough . . . to be just and fair and good enough that it isn't . . . so hard, all the time, to not hurt them back whenever I have the chance. I want to be great at something. I want to be recognized. I want people to feel grateful I was born. I want to feel real. I want life to feel real. I want to have a story, and be happy, and get over all the things I missed having, people I missed meeting. I want to stop grieving for it all and . . . and feel like I can move on. I want to fight and win, not just beat it all back for a while. I want things to change." "I want this pain to be behind me. I want to be free of this weight. Everyone else's weight. Earth's weight. Humanity's weight. I want to be more than a sort-of half-person. I want to be mad and get over it. I want to struggle and overcome and feel good about it. I want to have peace and not be haunted by it. I want to make enemies, beat them, and forgive them. I want to love, and be loved, by people, and feel drawn in by them. I want to fight and break up and make up. I want a mission; something that stops me from drifting away, from being so alone. And I want to find the one I love the most, more than anything, and I want to marry them and live happily ever after. Just like that. That's what 'being a knight' is about. What it's . . . my model for." A sniffle here. A hiccup there. A choked, humiliated sigh. But Lilian looks up again. This time straight into Tamamo's eyes. She wipes the blood on the back of her sleeve, and says with flushed intensity, "It has to be you Tamamo. Without you, it doesn't work. I can't make it all fit, and there's no happily ever after. I'm so sorry I haven't been fair to you. I'm so sorry I never explained things I should have. I promise . . . I promise I'll . . . I promise I'll make it better. So please. Please. Don't go. Don't take away what I need to be happy. I didn't know how before you were there. I can't learn another way."
Tamamo	'I need to tell you.' "Mn." It's easier than using real words. Again, she doesn't press. It's something they'll talk about. It will be fine. Tamamo is, somehow, certain. 'That's what 'being a knight' is about. What it's . . . my model for.' 'I promise . . . I promise I'll . . . I promise I'll make it better.' Slowly, a touch awkwardly, as if she had a reason to be aching and exhausting beyond what she'd inflicted on herself, Tamamo raises herself properly to her knees, wraps her arms around Lilian, and rests her face on her shoulder. Her lips, like her throat, feel so dry they could crack. Even if it's her imagination, it's hard to face someone like that. Even if it would be fine. If only I were perfect. "It is a good dream," is what she says aloud. "A wonderful dream. A lovable dream. A dream worth loving you, and I love you for it. I heard it from you, and so... do not think... yourself unworthy of me. You told me no lies. I have not been tricked. My position is correct and just, whatever others may think of it." This would be the right time for a small laugh, but her voice, usually at the level of 'smoky,' is at risk of croaking. "This is a terrible time... no, merely, it is the wrong place, to speak of marriage. I shall let you choose a more... romantic one, whenever you wish."