Scene #8815:

Owner	Pose
Lilian Rook	Lilian doesn't ever do this, so she's not sure where to begin. Her place won't work; Petra comes there under a few contexts, and none of them fit this. Somewhere Lilian finds soothing herself would only serve to agitate her, or to make her shut down and worry about polluting it somehow; either/or, by her reckoning. A place full of people will remind her exactly of the wrong thing. Somewhere too empty would only . . . Hm. Knowing nothing at all about Hibiki's disastrous past experiences, Lilian calls Petra out to what turns out to be practically the middle of the woods, in a way that is just slightly too direct to read like she plans to murder her. Obviously it isn't her own world. Which one probably doesn't matter. It's a spot she knows with trees and a creek and mossy rocks and natural noise and mild temperatures without any snow. A lack of visible winter felt important for some reason. Hanging around in a light coat on an unusually large and pleasingly flat rock isn't usually her style. Reading an incomprehensible book of egregious thickness is, but even that looks a little different with gloves on and hair down, resting the spine in her thighs without a leg over the other. Her bag is with her, obviously, though seemingly a little fuller than usual. It's almost unnoticeable that the rough granite top has been swept of gathered moisture near the creek-facing edge. "Sit down. I'm not angry with you or anything. I just had to find somewhere quiet to gather my thoughts."
Petra Soroka	Petra doesn't seriously consider that Lilian is inviting her into the middle of the woods to murder her for more than a single resigned instant, but she does unseriously consider it for a while longer. Not that she'd be happy to hear, straight from Lilian's mouth, that she's not worth keeping alive anymore, so her rule banning Petra from killing herself is now void (this, in Petra's mind, is a lot more easy to imagine than being killed directly, even though she knows it's not any more plausible in terms of responsibility), but there'd at least be a moment of catharsis at it finally being said out loud. Like relaxing in the instant before a punch you've been bracing in anticipation of for months finally connects. Idle thoughts like these are what fill Petra's mind as she trudges through the woods to Lilian's location. It had been... a few days, since she'd left her apartment for more than an hour or two at a time; even the Lobotomy Corporation spa day had been dealt with mostly by hiring an event organizer to gather offworld staff for her, and then spending just long enough dully loitering around the hot spring until her presence was successfully acknowledged so she could leave again. It's not that her recent depressive state has made the outside world suddenly intolerable to her; the realization she had after begging for her life from Liza hadn't suddenly been reverted. It just felt guilty now, like forcing her presence into the world is betraying any good she might try to do for it. And, of course, the person Petra would both most like to be around, and the person she's most afraid of herself when being around, is Lilian. Petra comes around the bend to the creek with a bit of a wide-eyed look by default, like a skittish wild animal. She's wearing her bomber jacket as usual, with the scar-like stitching crossed from her shoulder to her hip, with just a baggy band t-shirt and jeans beneath. The bite marks on her neck are freshly healed skin, for the first time since Lilian started giving them to her. She swallows and fidgets by the edge of the clearing, then-- given a command-- follows through to sit. The position she takes when sitting is a little bit... strange, but that happens with her, sometimes. Knees pulled up to her chest, arms wrapped tightly around her thighs so that they're squeezed between her leg, eyes upturned at Lilian, she's arranged herself somewhere in the venn diagram of being curled up defensively, attentively listening and focused on Lilian's face, and putting herself in a self-formed straightjacket to keep all of her limbs contained. When she gets close, even before she says or does anything, Lilian feels prickling across her skin. "... Yeah. That-- that makes sense. It's..." Petra takes an effortful moment to try to meet Lilian on the reassuring level she's clearly at, closing her eyes and trying to focus on the ambient joy of nature. Judging by the way her fingers don't stop twisting at her jeans as she does it, it probably doesn't work. "... Gather your thoughts about what?"
Lilian Rook	"You. Obviously." Lilian's eyes linger on those marks, seconds earlier, subtly failing to show now uncertainty for how new and strange the variety is; like she can't help but be relieved that Petra has stopped showing off something so private like that, and yet is gripped with pattern-seeking worry for what that means Petra thinks of her now; and, to a lesser but extant state, about Petra herself. She doesn't like the most obvious answer. She can't think of another one. "Anyone should be able to tell that you aren't fine." she says. Her eyes hit the end of a page, but then hover there, so that she doesn't turn a page and risk looking disinterested. "We all knew, going in, that Parsons' work was going to hurt you. Some more than others, seeing as a few didn't have the guts for it in the end, but we'd . . . I had expected you might be unwell for a while. After." Deciding to save her place, she retrieves a woven bookmark from her bag, slips it between the pages, and closes the heavy book on her lap. Her hand runs thoughtfully over the cover. "To be honest, when it came down to it, nobody was willing to harm you that much but me. No one even knew how, when they had to do it on purpose." Lilian sighs, and her breath fogs just a little, on air that is still above freezing, but feels as if it could maybe be below. "So whatever happens now is more or less my doing. And as it turns out, I'm not as good as I used to be at watching someone limp around, bleeding and clueless, without saying anything." The waiting, the reading, the prelude, had given her plenty of time to prepare. It hadn't really helped. Confronted with Petra curled up like that, all guilt and anxiety and oozing self-loathing, she can't think of anything better than what comes out on the spot. "I know you don't remember exactly what it was, but I meant what I said, and I'm still sorry for it. I don't want to lie and say that you're forgiven, or that you're really a good person, and I don't want to betray how I feel by saying everything is going to be fine, either. But I still want you to come back to us once you can. And if you can't stomach the rest of them, then just come back to me." Lilian's boot heel kicks thoughtfully at the granite under her; a slow, steady rhythm, unconsciously mirroring some rhythm she picks up from staring into the creek. The irregular metronome keeps her mind off the itching under her sleeves. "I know all about how apocalyptically shitty you've been. That 'mind dive' wasn't much more than overindulgent dissection for the slow learners. And it's really not my place to tell you to get over it and move on anyways. I've just been thinking that I really know very little about the shitty things that made you that way. And that it'd feel like I'm forgiving someone I don't want to, if I let you take responsibility for all of it."
Petra Soroka	"You. Obviously." Of course that would be the answer, and Petra's venturing question was mostly meant to gauge Lilian's tone. And-- Lilian had already implied it earlier, and the environment and atmosphere was familiar enough anyways-- her tone was obvious too. All that Lilian's response serves to do is kicking Petra's discomfort at the feeling of being cared for into a writhing knot, suddenly intensely unsure how she's supposed to respond; hyperaware and obsessively self-analyzing every one of her own expressions and motions to equally berate herself for either expressing anxiety, and thus tricking Lilian into thinking she needs care, or hiding it, and thus lying to Lilian and undermining her kindness. Seeing where Lilian's eyes go, Petra's hand twitches up to rub at her neck, fingers slipping below the collar-- because of course she'd already have noticed the change too-- but the layers of hesitation and overanalysis she's on makes it hard to read anything concrete from the way she freezes up and flicks her eyes away before dropping her hand again. The only thing harder to read is her mind itself. Petra waits for Lilian to finish without interrupting, with a mixture of chest-crushing guilt and starved guzzling of her attention, alternating between being unable to meet her eyes and fixating wholly on her face. When she's done, and given Petra the indirect prompt to answer, Petra stays quiet for a little bit longer, fidgeting with her mouth dry and itching. She's squeezing her legs and arms tightly enough that it's got to hurt, and Lilian can see her hands purpling somewhat from the restricted bloodflow. "I... think... all of that..." She dry swallows, sounding faintly strained like there's weight on her chest. "That part specifically... that's just me, right?" "Who am I-- who am I supposed to blame? The part that's-- that's awful enough to leave you and Angela looking like that when you got out, and-- and literally killing Kukuru, just from being inside my head for an hour; that's the only thing that's 'Petra'. I-if you were looking for the Beauty of Ash, it had to just be me, right?" Petra rests her chin on her knees, shoulders hunched, staring unblinkingly at the rock they're sitting on. It somehow makes her look even smaller than she was before. "I can't-- I can't blame my parents, obviously. They barely did anything wrong. And, and before, I tried blaming space, but all the other kids went through what happened with the war and the Instrumentality Foundation almost shutting down, and they all had it worse anyways, since they had nowhere to go, and none of them turned out like-- like this. I can't blame how shitty the world is either, since-- the same reason. It's just me that's this bad. So the part that's this bad is just me." Petra's voice stays low and monotone, with the occasional rasp or crack, but no sign of starting to cry. Similarly, unlike usual, her aura is a constant, steady pain, without the fluctuations and flare-ups it used to exhibit. Eventually her squeezed-tight ball becomes too uncomfortable for her, but the only adjustment she makes is folding her arms on top of her knees rather than below them, muffling her words slightly with her elbow out of slightly more acute guilt. "So... so coming back to you is just, you know, a given. Nothing's... really changed at all; none of this is new. As long as I'm still alive, I just-- I just have to do my best to try to be more of a benefit to you than a harm, but... i-it scares me. I'm not-- no one in my entire life has ever been better off for knowing me, not overall. Except Cinder and Angela, but it's only a matter of time until I ruin them too. It's just what I do, it's just-- the one actual part of me that's rotten and fucked up for no good reason."
Petra Soroka	"So it's just a balancing act and I always feel like I'm going to lose." As a new fidget, Petra's started unconsciously tapping and squeezing at herself to match Lilian's offbeat rhythm. "Like-- like when you all came out. Of Parsons' thing. I-It was a request I asked from everyone, it was-- finally a sort of choice that I knew I'd hate, but it'd be better for the-- the people I care about, doing the thing I hate to keep myself alive, on purpose. And then I couldn't help just being angry at you all. Wanting to-- to scream and hurt you and vent some of that feeling, not just-- not just despite you all helping, but kind of-- kind of because you were all so visibly hurt by being near me, for trying to help me. I hated it. I hate it. It makes me so angry and there's no good reason for it." "So how am I-- how am I supposed to decide to be around more when me being around more will end up making things worse for you, somehow? I really can't stand doing it again. I wouldn't be able to handle doing it again. If I didn't have that rule, then-- then I'd really think that the best thing I could do to improve your life would be to have never existed; and the second thing would be to kill myself right now." Petra stops to consider, dazedly sick-seeming, staring vacantly at the creek. "Well-- not right now. I'd want to check on Curupira and make sure he has some food. Hope I don't bump into Cinder when I'm there. Then head back to my apartment and-- sorry. sorry. I know you don't want to hear about that. I'm not doing it."
Lilian Rook	This specific outward manifestation of Petra's unease is beyond the realm of what Lilian knows what to do with. Petra has as many shades of distress and discomfort, and as many ways of showing them, as Lilian does with weariness and disappointment; but this hadn't been one she had seen until now. It's not that she doesn't know the 'what' or 'why', either; if anything, Petra's psychic self-immolation is more understandable than it's ever been. It's that she doesn't know what to do with about eliciting it, rather than feeling it herself. Despite all that she knows, Lilian has antibodies, not antidote. 'The part that's-- that's awful enough to leave you and Angela looking like that when you got out' Which leaves her with just her traditionally-final resort remaining; of mechanically stumbling forward with the unvarnished truth, and hoping that telling it might somehow matter. "The part that still can't stop thinking about killing yourself. Yeah." says Lilian. A slip between tongues is brief and comfortably thoughtless. "I'm glad we're still talking about the same thing. I was worried it might be too complicated to explain." She still is. She still thinks it might be. Lilian puts one word after the other anyways, in the style of forced march she's been forced to show again for weeks. "If you wanted to know what it looks like, you'd ask Parsons. But there were so many dead Petras. So many of you, hurt and cold and lifeless, that it was like dead leaves. I couldn't even bear looking at it." "Seeing all those little parts of you, that were almost special, almost precious, spitefully broken and spat out, like it was just emphasizing how easy it is to be cruel to them-- it was too close to adding up, like looking at one, whole, dead 'Petra'." says Lilian. Her gaze wanders cyclically along the creek, resting in no particular spot, so she can feel attentive and speak honestly at the same time. "I don't know about everyone else, but that's what was hardest for me. Phony had to carry me for a lot of it." Lilian admits with ungraceful ease. "Kukuru died . . . no, I guess most of them got hurt because of exactly what you said. I couldn't pull their slack this time. Not all of it. Not as much as I usually do. And they paid for not realizing how much it always is." 'Nothing's... really changed at all; none of this is new.' "I'm new." Lilian says, and doesn't really know why. "This is new." It just feels important to continue. "I'm not any of those girls from before, Petra, and I don't like being woven into just that one sad, predictable pattern. The fact we're even talking like this is new. You really have changed a lot, even if it's mostly scars. And you're right, in that the parts that matter the most haven't. And that's frustrating to work with." 'I just have to do my best to try to be more of a benefit to you than a harm, but... i-it scares me' "Good. It's supposed to." Lilian stops, exhales fog, and sets her eyes down at the smooth-gravel water's edge, where it melds with the grass. Her boots tap the granite more regularly over time. 'So how am I-- how am I supposed to decide to be around more when me being around more will end up making things worse for you, somehow?' "I don't have a perfect answer for you, Petra. If you believed there was such a thing, you'd have asked me a long time ago. I decided that was fine already; that if I never 'fix' you, and things just stayed like they were a little while ago, for however long, I'd still be okay with it" Lilian says. She tries to push her tone upbeat, but a tiny smile only comes out as, at best, wrily knowing, with her forced march method still going. "But if you're serious, then you should try listening to what I tell other girls."
Lilian Rook	"After all, no matter how much you reframe it in terms of corrupting and ruining, you're still just talking about failing in the end. You've gotten so convincing that everyone else falls for it-- all the time, now-- but the fact they can't see right through you makes me feel like I'm losing my mind." "You're still utterly fixated on how awful it was to be weak, aren't you? Guilty for the people you didn't protect, ashamed of the way you acted, regretting the choices you made, back when you weren't strong enough to do anything else-- to know or see or do better, I mean . . ." "I suppose I hadn't realized you'd convinced even yourself so badly that you aren't just like Tiphereth. Or Angela, or Rita, or Phony. Even Gebura, Bota, Nika, myself."
Petra Soroka	"I don't know about everyone else, but that's what was hardest for me. Phony had to carry me for a lot of it." Petra silently mouths 'oh', then repeats audibly, whispered air becoming scratchily voiced halfway through the word. "Oh. I-- I thought... I wasn't even thinking that-- that would be the hard part. I-I thought, of all the things in there that you'd-- that you'd be right to be disgusted by, I wasn't really expecting... worry, to be the main thing. Not after seeing everything else." Petra's nails curl inwards on her crossed arms while they rest on her knees, digging into the nylon sleeves of her jacket rather than the skin underneath. She looks up at Lilian with an almost plaintive expression, her first instinct being to try to convince Lilian of her own further guilt. "That's the... cure, not the problem. It's not the right one, I-- I know, but there's only a need to hurt 'Petra' at all because of what 'Petra' is. That it feels like it's better to..." Catching on to the unsteady effort Lilian's putting into talking, Petra trails off, biting the inside of her lips to keep from elaborating on a topic that Lilian's already uncomfortable working through. "That being your biggest worry makes me-- makes me feel like I've tricked you into not hating me enough by moping around all this time. I felt, that... disgust, at me for being pathetic and awful, and it's just... even though it's not new to you. I-- I know it's not new to you. But that feels worse, since... you have to get reminded of it when you look at my heart, and if it's just 'me', then just being around you means.... I hate the idea of you feeling like you should feel sorry for me just because I'm always thinking about killing myself." Petra presses her cheek into her arms, turning her face away from Lilian. A shudder ripples through the entire length of her body and she sighs, physically demonstrating reasserting one mindset over another despite emotional resistance. She talks a bit slower, choosing her words more carefully and needing more time to even drag them out of her skull. "I don't... not believe you. That it was the hard part. I'm sorry. I-I know you care and I don't ever want to-- to dismiss that. I'm just still not... used to it mattering, and-- and it feels like I'm doing something wrong by not showing you how little I deserve it, even though 'deserving' shouldn't matter because you want it and I want it, it still feels like it does." Petra takes a breath, slowing back down after tumbling over her words. "Sorry. For making you see that. And that-- that my head is some fucked up burden that has to fall on you because no one else can deal with it." The complicated emotion in Petra's eyes when she flickers away from looking at Lilian's face isn't really that complicated at all. Being uniquely only 'handleable' by Lilian is a bit of a positive feeling as well as a guilty one. "I-- I should be helping with the slack so you don't have to. Even when it's-- especially when it's me. That's what feels bad."
Petra Soroka	"I'm new. This is new." Even if Lilian hadn't thought through the words before saying them, Petra reacts to them strongly, jolted out of her haze. She blinks a few times in quick succession, pulling her gaze up from the creek, mouth hanging half open until Lilian leaves a space for her to respond. "That's-- that's true. It is. You are. I mean, I... 'coming back to you', especially, that's-- just on its own, I'm not usually-- any good at 'coming back'." "But if you're serious, then you should try listening to what I tell other girls." As if it's a challenge, Petra balls her fists up and incrementally nods with her bloodshot eyes on Lilian, gesturing at the same thing she's simultaneously saying. "I-- I'm always serious. And I'll always listen." "You're still utterly fixated on how awful it was to be weak, aren't you? Guilty for the people you didn't protect, ashamed of the way you acted, regretting the choices you made, back when you weren't strong enough to do anything else-- to know or see or do better, I mean . . ." "How-- how could I not?" Petra blurts it out before even really processing the words, pure emotional ejecta. "When it-- it keeps happening, how can I not fixate on it? I mean, the Beauty of Ash-- I told you what it was, to me and to-- to everyone, and what it meant, and then having to kill it.... Everything always keeps coming back. Nothing I-- I fucked up by being weak ever goes away, and half the time I'm forced to make it even worse still, so if I'm always making amends and atoning, how could I not-- fixate, and hate myself for it. I feel like I'd be failing someone if I didn't." "If I... the question of being 'just like'.... I can't just... turning out this fucked up, and fucking up this much, it doesn't feel like it can just be from being 'weak'. I don't even feel stronger than before, really, or smarter, I just feel...." A thought suddenly strikes Petra, cutting through her miserable fumbling for words with a snort that even seems to catch her off-guard. She presses a hand over her mouth, shoulders trembling, failing to suppress unsteady giggling that stumbles out of her. "Eh-- eheh. Sorry. Yeah. Sorry. Nevermind. I get it. Ahaha." Petra shifts her sitting posture, relaxing her knees somewhat to go from a tight, miserable curl to a slightly more open slouch on the rock. She rubs her hand against her cheek, staring down at the water. "Hold on a sec. I'm just-- I'm just going to believe you." This is apparently a mental undertaking she can choose to effortfully enact. Petra closes her eyes for a few seconds and falls silent, forehead creasing. When she opens them again, some of the obstinantly miserable resistance she'd been putting up seems to drain away. This doesn't come with any less discomfort from her aura, which stays cranked up at a steadily unpleasant level, and she doesn't look like she's suddenly relaxed and fine again, but even the fact that she's turning more than just her head to face Lilian comes across as being more solution-oriented. Petra opens her mouth, then closes it before saying anything, chewing on her words. "But if it's just... if the way forwards is 'not failing'. I don't-- I don't trust me to do that, and it feels reckless to-- it's other people at risk, from me, so I can't just depend on myself and pretend that's safe."
Lilian Rook	'I wasn't really expecting... worry, to be the main thing. Not after seeing everything else.' Lilian kicks against the boulder once out of rhythm. Her heel bounces back off the cool stone. "You're still sort of underestimating me, aren't you?" she says, lightly annoyed, mostly thoughtful. "I told you. I already had the general idea before we went in; even about the parts you don't like telling me. Of course it was foul and miserable and dangerous to see up close, but so is everyone in enough pain." She's too deep in thought to converse in her usual pattern. Several tracks of thought run parallel in her thoughts at once, interspersing irregular pauses into what she says; her own words echoed back to her, analyzed, and responded to in motion. "Not that your pain is comparable. Outside of how everyone set you up to fail when we first met, I don't think I sympathize with you at all. Sometimes I think that I pity you, but as I resolve to be kinder, I remember that pain justified that phone call to you, and then I want to hurt you again." Lilian breathes out slowly through her nose, and lets her gaze trail through the tree-branches above. "And you'd still be underestimating me if you thought I couldn't feel that way and still worry; I choose not to feel sympathy towards you, and I choose to care about what happens to you." The thought that she should share what Persephone went through; to speak on 'Psychonautra'; comes and goes through her mind, passing in seconds of silence. 'That being your biggest worry makes me-- makes me feel like I've tricked you into not hating me enough by moping around all this time.' "What does hating you 'enough' even mean?" Lilian sighs. The sound is just rough enough to be aggrieved. "Can you even name a single person I've hated enough to stand by and watch them die miserably?" Lilian opens her mouth to say the words that would exalt her own particular morality. Her chest swells with the momentum of rebuking Petra's self-hatred for receiving her care with the hard evidence of how much she cares when she shouldn't. Those words die on her lips. She looks to Petra, and the raw-scraped thing she says is "Do you think I never want to?" Just by watching the habitual tension rise in little peaks and level into static, Petra knows full well what Lilian means when she says "Stop using that word." She lapses into a tone of recitation, looking into the middle distance by Petra. "You're 'supposed' to mope and be pathetic, and I'm 'supposed' to decide you don't deserve being cared about, and I'm 'supposed' to leave you to your fate, and you're 'supposed' to kill yourself and wrap it all up. Why should anything about me play out like one of your cathartic little teenaged suburban fantasies?" And Lilian unerringly finds Petra's eyes again. "The way you're thinking about me, right now, is still depicting me by the terms of that horrid little empty nothing world you left behind. How is it a shock to you that I don't fit?"
Lilian Rook	'How-- how could I not?' Lilian shuts her eyes as if that was the question she'd waited to hear all day. Or ever since the dive. Or ever since months and months ago. She'd almost look like Persephone, if she could muster up any gentleness. Instead, there is only the quiet surety of taking up a task decided a long time ago. 'Nothing I-- I fucked up by being weak ever goes away, and half the time I'm forced to make it even worse still, so if I'm always making amends and atoning, how could I not-- fixate, and hate myself for it. I feel like I'd be failing someone if I didn't.' "That's obvious. You're the sort of person who is powerless to move on from it on her own." Lilian resumes kicking the rock, and her boots finally fall into an orderly rhythm. Precisely timed. Petra could watch it follow the seconds on her phone for hours. "Most of those people I named were the same, weren't they? The sort of person who can tear themselves away and move on from those forever-mistakes, even when they come right back to them, is vanishingly rare. You know that, because you chase those people like you're trying to grow towards a ray of light before you wither away." Lilian sighs deeply enough to let her breath fog, and this time on purpose. Her shoulders fall with the slow release of ghostly vapour. Petra can nearly feel something hot and sticky and burning leave her chest secondhand. "So just be pathetic. Fixate on it and be helpless to move on by yourself. I'm not so naive I'd ask you to be me. The entire point is that I'm forcing you forward, because you're stuck on your own." "So the only thing that matters is that you shut up about what you 'deserve', don't resist me, set your eyes forward, and continue the long, miserable, utterly unrewarding process of becoming stronger that you've already begun. I still won't sympathize with you; I'll march you through it at gunpoint if I have to. You can look back on this and understand why I was right later." 'But if it's just... if the way forwards is 'not failing'. I don't-- I don't trust me to do that, and it feels reckless to-- it's other people at risk, from me, so I can't just depend on myself and pretend that's safe.' Lilian smiles in spite of Petra's mood. A private one, to herself, shared with Petra like the rest of the conversation; never meant to be an offering of reassurance at all. "Just like the 'soulless puppets' out there don't even have it in them to comprehend you when they actually try, you don't quite have it in you yet to fully understand me, do you?" And then, clearly for Petra herself, "I'm expecting you to fail, Petra, and I'm expecting you to hurt lots of people. You can't get far enough to escape who you were without doing it, never mind up to where I am, and I know because I failed and fucked up everyone around me too; and I'm better than you. I'm just going to death-march you through it, because I understand that you're too weak to do it on your own. And since I've decided to try at all, then I've already decided that 'asking me to help you understand me' was enough to deserve it. So for now, settle for 'because I said so'."