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Petra Soroka | PHONE: Phoning Lilian Rook, Petra Soroka says, "... I feel like the hard*est* part is next. It's all been-- kind of, really miserable, but it's like-- comparatively, it's still the easier part to get my own head fucked up and have to fight a robot, you know?" PHONE: Phoning Lilian Rook, Petra Soroka says, "I-I don't even know what I'm supposed to *do* when I-- I bring it back there. It's not like it's any use to anyone anymore. It's not like anyone's going to be happy to talk to *me* either. I-I'm not staying. So, what, just dropping off a fucking bodybag, going 'sorry!' and then-- then, leaving, or whatever?" PHONE: Phoning Lilian Rook, Petra Soroka says, "I know I have to. Take responsibility, I mean. I've got... you know, h-higher standards I'm holding myself to. But it's hard to really imagine how it doesn't just... make things worse even more." PHONE: Lilian Rook says, "You did always find self-harm easier that responsibility." PHONE: Lilian Rook says, "But I don't imagine it really matters what you do." PHONE: Lilian Rook says, "You can't control how they'll feel." PHONE: Lilian Rook says, "You've abdicated any stake over what they say or think or do a long, long time ago. As long as you don't run away, that's about all there is to do." PHONE: Phoning Lilian Rook, Petra Soroka grumbles, "Self-harm *is* easier. It's *really* easy. It'd be really nice if everything could just be fixed that way." PHONE: Phoning Lilian Rook, Petra Soroka says, "But I guess I... it sort of feels like, if I have no idea what I'm going to do or say or anything... it feels like I'm just showing up and fucking like, presenting myself and saying 'here I am! Now it's your job to figure out how to feel better!' You know?" PHONE: Phoning Lilian Rook, Petra Soroka says, "I-- I feel like there's some responsibility, there, to actually like... I don't know. My presence is, like, negative. It doesn't help anything unless I figure out some way to actually... help. But maybe there just... isn't, any, that I can do, yeah." PHONE: Lilian Rook says, "Everyone wishes they could fix everything by suffering enough." PHONE: Lilian Rook says, "Fucking Proudpick does." PHONE: Lilian Rook says, "He thinks if he directionlessly tortures his body for a while, god will think he's a Big Man and hand him what he wants." PHONE: Lilian Rook says, "Showing up and letting them find their own closure . . . that sort of is your job." PHONE: Lilian Rook says, "'Do anything. At least try. I'll make it easy for you.'" PHONE: Phoning Lilian Rook, Petra Soroka makes a grossed out noise. "Well-- yeah, I know I *can't*. Can't just be hurt instead of actually working towards something, for someone." PHONE: Phoning Lilian Rook, Petra Soroka says quieter, "I know I'm not owed anything." PHONE: Phoning Lilian Rook, Petra Soroka says, "If it's *enough* to just be there-- I-I guess, I say 'just', as if it's easy, but... you know. If it's enough then I'll do it. I'll do it anyways, on top of anything, but it's scary not having anything *but* that, like--" PHONE: Phoning Lilian Rook, Petra Soroka says, "... Well, it's sort of stupid for me to try to find any, little fucking task or thing to say or whatever, that would guarantee it gets better." PHONE: Lilian Rook says, "You can think of something you'd like to do." PHONE: Lilian Rook says, "Something you want to say to someone, or get while you're there. A point of focus wouldn't be bad." PHONE: Lilian Rook says, "But you have to surrender to the process either way." PHONE: Lilian Rook says, "That's my experience." PHONE: Phoning Lilian Rook, Petra Soroka nervously laughs, pitched up, "I-I mean, I can think of a few people who'd be a lot *worse* off for hearing from me again, but, don't know if--" PHONE: Phoning Lilian Rook, Petra Soroka says, "W-well. Anyways. Main thing's going, so I'll... make sure I do that, above anything else." |
Petra Soroka | Showing up at the station warpgate orbiting Io, with a luggage cart in tow, for the third time, makes Petra breathless with terror. Inside the large, solitary box on the cart, though, isn't clothing and personal belongings, but thousands of pounds of shattered, psychically inert glass, poured in from Berislav's pocket dimension after the Titanomachia operation. The fact that she can't even push the cart along without help from a rivulet of quicksilver coiled around her fingers feels like a statement of some sort, and not one she likes. There's almost nothing she likes about this. Not being recognized by the staff at the warpgate-- unsurprising, it's been two years since she left, and there's a not-inconsequential number of staff around the lab, but being immediately treated like a stranger feels like a bad omen-- and then needing to convince them that no, she's sure, her cargo really can't be carried down to the moon in the small personal craft; enduring the flight down all while the sickeningly familiar amber-marbled clouds swirl in the atmosphere below. Breaching the cloud cover, Petra is gripped by the sudden fear that she might be *felt* before she even has a chance to decide how she should be seen. With the fractured magnifying lens of the Beauty of Ash encased beside her, together in proximity to an environment built and painted with psionics, Petra's aura is an indistinct psychic eclipse being brought down to the surface, magnitudes worse than it ever got while she lived here. It's unavoidable that she'll be introduced by stinging discomfort long before she's close enough to say anything, but as the shuttle touches down on the launchpad, she imagines that her aura is big enough to be like a shadow falling across the entire lab, physically manifesting the discomfort that she'd naturally only evoke emotionally. Her nervous plan had been to go to Angkasa's office first as the closest analogue to apologizing to Everyone At Once, but there's no chance she'll even make it there before being pulled aside as some kind of fucked up psychonormative threat-- oh my god, I hope I don't break any of the *tech* just by being here. Petra's shoulders are tense and drawn together, nauseously silent in response to the flight techs unloading her shuttle when it lands. Her heart pounds in her throat hard enough that she feels like she's choking on it, and idyllic environment blurs into an anxious haze. Trudging and wheeling the cargo cart with the Beauty of Ash agonizingly slowly towards the entrance, Petra dimly thinks about how it's yet another thing to be thankful for, that no one is able to feel her dread associated with the lab. Cold sweat, avoidant, pale expression, shrinking into her battered bomber jacket; it's not as if anyone wouldn't be able to tell how she feels the normal way. |
Metamorph One | Things change in two years even on a moon of Jupiter. Seeing differently after nothing at all for two years is the sign of a still-living thing; both Petra, and Applied Ontology itself, and still deeply, perfectly alienating. There's almost more green than white to the landscape, now. The tracks of old tests and expeditions, faded when Petra briefly last visited, are invisible to her unfamiliar eye, now. Recent rain-- it almost never rained before-- has filled invisible deviations in the terrain with painterly cerulean puddles, reflecting warm traces of the amber-laced clouds above. She remembers the faintly soft-rubberized tarmac, and the cozily presumptive minimum or absence of rails and bollards and closed walkways, but the landing pad was definitely for two vehicles, and not three. There was never that pretty glass roof over the visitor entry walkway, expanded doublewide. She should remember the community garden, so the patch of saplings and shrubs stand out in their plastic geodaisic dome greenhouse, off a ways to the east of the back hangar, as something that must be an enthusiastic project of kids who haven't left yet. Aren't old enough. Who ran back inside as she touched down. She'd seen from the air, through the passenger window. The complex is larger by far than when she'd lived here, but not so different from the last time. A stoic refusal to raise security levels in the aftermath, and thus an absence of anything so unfriendly as a gate or checkpoint or camera along the way, strangely feels less defiant of the harm done, and more like a wound that was treated well enough to leave no scar; at once slightly humiliating and heartbreakingly sincere. It's almost as if, were she to swallow every last bit of pride she has, Petra could still bow her head, slink in shamefully through the front door, and welcome herself right back. Like it was left that way. But individuals don't think in the same terms of organization, and the sheer repulsiveness of her presence has attracted different attention than the shadow of her smash and grab. As she walks her death row course down the entry promenade, she sees the main doors slide open to admit exit; behind it, half a dozen faces clustered around the corner, twice that behind the improperly operated and long-redundant airlock entrance to the atrium, and approaching swiftly, Dianna, in white athletic wear she's ostensibly just put on. "Hey. Welcome to the station." Dianna says, in the moment of stepping into earshot. The words carry the sense of being less than a formality. "And what the fuck is wrong with you?" Petra's visible state of guilty withdrawal either has no effect on her, or is part of the impulse behind Dianna snagging her by the collar and dragging her close enough that she's forced to look up at her. "Sorry, but you're not coming in like that." she says with the air of a bouncer paid just enough to still be polite. She blinks in delayed recognition only once. Not the way she should recognize her, though. Or she'd show more feeling. "Who even approved you for visitation? I saw the shuttle come down." She releases Petra with a little shove. 'A little' from her means a lot. "Well, whatever deal you cut, I don't care; I'll take responsibility for interrupting it. Back up into the field if you want to talk, or jump your ass back up into space if you don't. Whatever this is, leave the others out of it." |
Petra Soroka | Of all the people to see marching out towards her, Dianna may very well be the worst possible. The awkward, duplicitous superposition of both 'knowing' her and having no clue who she really is adds an extra layer of guilt to the already-suffocating amount Petra feels, even more intense despite being simpler. Deception isn't something Petra usually has to deal with-- it's not something she's inured against, and she has no particular mental mechanism for processing the guilt of confessing-- and the last time she can remember specifically feeling this kind of alarm was that first time Lilian visited her in the jail cell, with Petra desperately trying to explain that she didn't actually hate her. That's both a terrifying and viscerally prescient memory to come to mind in the instant before Dianna grabs her, eyes wide and instinctively holding up her hands like she's submitting to arrest. "O-oh god. Should-- should I have-- called? I d-didn't think anyone would want-- sorry, I can't-- can't turn it off." Shaky, sheet-pale, Petra stares up at Dianna while babbling a non-sequitor. "I know. Sorry." There's no point in being shocked into tears or choked silence by encountering the exact result she expected, though. Petra defaults to a tactic out of Lilian's book to keep herself from catatonically freaking out, stiffly presenting the relevant information and staggering conversationally forwards while intentionally mentally blinding herself to the inexorable result. It means she doesn't even think to reposition herself a step or two backwards to get into a proper conversational range before responding to Dianna, chin and eyeline sunk down just below neutral to focus on nothing in particular. "Field's good. You're right. I sort of... came here on my own. S-sorry." Petra tries to wheel the as-yet unaddressed luggage cart away from the lab and finds herself totally unable to move it. Like a nervous animal, her morphmetal uncoiled from her hand and snapped back into the bottle, forcing her to fumblingly re-open it before she can move, sweating more and more as her fingernails slip off the cap and keep her poisonous presence too close to the lab for longer. Mumbling apologies, not making eye contact, Petra rolls her way backwards on the rubber walkway, taking herself off onto the dirt at the nearest opportunity. Petra eyes a cluster of trees that would provide blessed shelter from all the eyes, for the absolute worst part coming up. In the end, though, she just stops as soon as she's far enough-- hiding from anyone, even without audible or audible context, isn't her choice to make, she reasons. No one puts the gallows in an unused alleyway. "Um. Okay." Even when taking a breath to steady herself, Petra's voice sounds small and pleading. She clenches her fists, then in one abrupt, rigid motion, tears open the top of the crate and locks her eyes directly on the ground with her arms stiff by her side, so she doesn't have to look at Dianna's face as she reacts. "I-I'm Petra. Former pilot of the Beauty of Ash. Bringing it back. Sorry." Expecting she has very little time to say anything else, Petra just manages to mumble, "Hi, Dianna." |
Metamorph One | "You didn't fucking call?" Dianna replies, eyebrow disappearing into where her bangs are already messy before coming out here. "You think I believe that shuttle just carries down whoever comes up and asks nicely? Come on." she says, then only seems to pick up any other potential meaning later. "You didn't need to tell me, specifically, no. It's probably none of my business; I just don't care. No one here deserves to feel what you're putting out because you want two hours in an office." The implication that she could only be here because someone at least somewhat important to the program had pre-approved it is both present and reasonably logical. "Stop apologizing. I don't know what happened to you. Sorry for whatever it was." Dianna says. Her tone softens, but only from incredulity bordering on anger to 'but you should have known better'. She tugs the mandarin collar of her company-colours sun jacket up to her chin, and scans the distance the other way from Petra. Gesturing to the far field, away from the cultivated range 'behind' the facility, the brush of her hand causes the luggage handle to pop and lurch in Petra's palm, starting the rollers after a few seconds of her obvious struggle. "But still, take some responsibility. Don't your hands off on every else; they've got their own shit going on and they don't need yours too." Her aura of intimidation dials down while Petra actually complies; affected by habitual need, to draw a boundary, and gently abandoned when it's walked back from. The behaviour of someone used to worse, then grown used to better. 'Um. Okay.' Dianna keeps oppressively close pace with Petra until the two of them are clear of the building-- visible only as a glittery white orange-marked marble and rendered toyetic by vantage-- but backs off once the situation allows her to; once she's kept her promise to the younger kids inside. She rests one hand in her pocket, leaning on her hip, and watches Petra struggle for words with surprisingly genuine patience, worn poorly on her neutrally disdainful face. Her eyes wide, and her chin tilts back, by degrees, when Petra looks away. 'I-I'm Petra. Former pilot of the Beauty of Ash. Bringing it back. Sorry.' Dianna's eyes widen a lot. Her pocket scrunches into a ball in her fist. Two seconds of stunned loss for words go by, but her feelings boil up while she's still wracking her memories. She snags Petra again, aggressively, by the shirt below her jacket, lifting her up to her toes. She forces contact with a wild, unblinking look in her eyes, though her lips remain a blandly still as if she's still waiting for her turn in the conversation. 'Hi, Dianna.' "How was it?" is the question that bubbles up ahead of all the others. It can't be mistaken for harmless as long as Dianna refuses to fill her vision with anything but Petra's scared face. "Taking it out into the big wide world all on your own. Just you and your partner and no one to help if you trip and fall." Attempting to look away again is arrested with telekinetic force markedly less gentle than Persephone's. It feels like being grabbed by the jaw and having her head turned with the fuzzy neural impression of hands. "Lots of us thought of that, y'know. I don't blame you for wanting her back. Just for the kids who stayed up scared and crying after you took her." Dianna's free hand clenches. Her entire arm by her side tenses. "So tell me how it was worth it. How it couldn't have been any other way. Tell me all about your adventures together, tell me you treated her well, and then apologize again. That's what you're going to do, right?" |
Petra Soroka | "How was it?" That's somehow both the most terrifying question Dianna could've asked, and the most relieving. Relieving because, despite the barely-suppressed anger and disappointment, there's a little cord of familiarity between them; that her first response was, despite everything, acknowledging the faint, muddy similarities in their actions, means there's something to reach for as a lifeline. And it's terrifying, because none of that really happened. Petra doesn't try to look away from Dianna when she's grabbed, even though the position is so uncomfortable that her neck starts aching immediately. Her eyes twitch back and forth between Dianna's, breathing quickly with a budding panic attack, and her hands flex and fidget with the hem of her bomber jacket in a dementedly irregular pattern, elbows still locked rigid. "I-I-I-- no. N-no. I-I wish. That sounds so much smarter, ahaha. Ha." Petra swallows, calves quivering from being stuck on her tiptoes. "O-oh, no, this story is really going to suck." There's so much she could say, a lot she needs to, and infinite more she might add to justify and explain and rationalize where she came from and the arc she took to end up back. It's impossible to say all of it, and impossible in the moment to make the judgement call as to what's relevant, and what she needs to share and avoid sharing to make sure that she doesn't seem like she's trying to exonerate herself. There's no time at all to even think it through before hoarse words start seeping out of her mouth. "I had an-- offer. From someone. For a-- a mech, a real mech, y-you know, I know you know, I-I-- I was already losing my powers. Even before running. I c-couldn't stay, couldn't keep inflicting myself on everyone at ho-- here, so I-- I took it, the offer, took the co-ordinates where it was, and-- I mean, I couldn't just-- I can't *drive*. So...." Quiet with horrified self-loathing, words pouring out like she's at a confessional, Petra's chin sinks for the first time before Dianna yanks it back up. "Like a-- like a fucking, taxi. Like a bicycle I dumped in the fucking woods. I didn't-- I always thought someone would have come after me after I ran, to get it. I-I'm really, really sorry." That's only the start, obviously, and says nothing about why there's heaps of broken hardlight in the crate now, or why she's here *now*, two entire years later. If Petra lets the story stop there, she'd look idiotic and heinously disrespectful, but not actively malevolent-- and that would be a form of deception, so of course she has to hurriedly keep talking, words stumbling over themselves. "Well-- well, someone did. Come after. It just wasn't you. I stole that stupid fucking machine from this stupid fucking machine army city and then they stole *min*-- the Beauty of Ash." Petra's brain skips non-chronologically to another tangent, short-circuiting on the amount of information she has to convey. A nervous giggle bubbles up out of her, unwanted but the only option she has besides crying. "I-I-I lost that other one too, haha. Year ago. That's why I didn't have it that-- that other time. I-I think I just lose a mech every year? Counting the Beauty of Ash now, a second time, that's three years in a row, about the same time every year. That's-- that's kind of f-funny. I-it's insane. I-I'm really kind of horrible." |
Petra Soroka | "A-and-- oh god. Lots of stuff happened. None of it was-- sane or right or with my mech at all. M-my 'adventures' really fucking suck, I-- I-I went to jail for a bit, ahaha. Best thing that ever happened to me, probably. Went from being the worst person in the universe to being the worst person still but trying to be useful to the girl I love more than anything. L-last night she told me th-that I was improving her life a little, a-and I know that's really the-- the lowest b-bar possible, b-but it's not like I-I've ever managed that for a-anyone else be-before, y-you know?" Despite her efforts, Petra can't stop herself from crying at this point. She lets out a little sobbing gasp, unsticking her arm from her side to wave dismissively at herself. She balls up her fist again, resisting the instinctual urge to wipe away at her cheeks, both for the refusal to cover her face and out of some incoherent, unaddressed gut feeling that this would somehow mean performing a pathetic motion to trick Dianna into seeing her more pitiably. "Sorry. Sorry. The B-Beauty of Ash. I-- I-I lost my powers. Lost my mech. They took it, a-and, tore it apart, and m-made it into a weapon and-- i-it's so fucking ironic, but also really fucking miserable, a-and I learned about it a few months ago. The-- the weaponized Beauty of Ash." Petra makes a queasy noise, getting increasingly short and unintellible with her recounting. "They went into my head. Tore it out. Smashed it to pieces. Shucked it off the fucking tank they stuck it on. I-it's been-- been through a lot." Roughly, unsteadily caught up to the present, Petra finally circles back to the original question Dianna asked, breaking eye contact to look diagonally at the one patch of white dirt visible in her limited view. "... H-how can I even say if it was worth it? It's worse for everyone, everywhere, that interacted with me at all over the past two years, that I was even alive for any of it. B-but I couldn't *stay*. I-I'd die if I stayed. But it's n-not like I can just say that everyone else getting hurt was worth me *not* doing that." Petra is barely audible as anything other than a choked, breathy squeak after talking so much while messy with phlegm and tears. "I-I'm really sorry. I'm sorry for being the worst girl that ever ended up in space. I-I'm just, meant to make amends." |
Metamorph One | It's either damning of Petra or damning of Dianna that the former girl's fingers nervously pulling the hem of her jacket draw the second girl's eyes down; but it can't be both. She doesn't look for a holster; she watches her pockets. 'O-oh, no, this story is really going to suck.' "Yeah? Going to?" Dianna says. "Well you already started a long time ago, so may as well finish it." Petra's shaking doesn't make her loosen her grip at all. But there are a lot of moments in that long, rambling, terrified-stammering explanation, where it varies. Where all different sorts of dangerous looks come and go from her eyes. Dianna can hold her silence for long enough for Petra to explain, but she cannot hold it politely; at every moment, she quivers with the outward pressure of the effort, as someone who'd learned to shut her mouth from time to time, but never keep her head down. Only when Petra reaches a certain point, right near the end, does it all come out at once. Like each point has been carefully loaded into a magazine, so as to not let anything be forgotten, Dianna unload the entire stack in sequence. 'I had an-- offer. From someone.' "From fucking who? Tell me." 'I c-couldn't stay, couldn't keep inflicting myself on everyone at ho-- here' "And you inflicted enough for years anyways. Not just on us, but on the people who built this place; and the ones who didn't make it back." 'I always thought someone would have come after me after I ran, to get it' "Because you can't even act worthless right. Even running away because you can't stand us, you think we're going to go right back to where we all escaped from to tie it up neat. Like we can do anything and take anything, so we should have to." 'It just wasn't you. I stole that stupid fucking machine from this stupid fucking machine army city and then they stole *min*-- the Beauty of Ash.' "But at least it was just yours. The out-there work they left to a special little princess like you who didn't get along with the others. Just someone's hope of showing you what we saw." 'M-my 'adventures' really fucking suck, I-- I-I went to jail for a bit, ahaha. Best thing that ever happened to me, probably.' "I knew how pointless that was anyways. I remember, I said from the start, that the only thing you'd respond to was getting hurt. You were that girl." '... H-how can I even say if it was worth it? It's worse for everyone, everywhere, that interacted with me at all over the past two years, that I was even alive for any of it.' "And I couldn't even care less what happened to anyone else. Earth deserves you, and you deserve Earth. If you poisoned each other for once instead of just us then fine by me." 'I-I'm just, meant to make amends.' Years of self-directed tireless work and slow healing have furnished her with the power to look Petra in the eye and faithfully say everything on her mind out loud, communicating while leaving nothing hidden, misspoken, held back, or unclear, even at a time like this. Having accomplished the gravely important work of eye to eye sincerity, Dianna finally moves on to what she meant to do from the very start, and throws a fist at Petra's jaw hard enough to crack it. |
Metamorph One | She can throw Petra bodily to the ground just by letting go with her other hand; then she advance overtop of her. Each breath comes harder than the last. Against the sky from below, Petra can see her shoulders rising and falling with the impossibly patient anger that is just now getting to take its turn. "That one was for Misha." Dianna says. She crouches down with her back to the building on purpose; decisively cutting off her view, as if protecting it from Petra with her body. "We'll get to mine eventually." She reaches for Petra's jacket again, and her knuckles curl tight enough to crack on their own. "This one is for Ka--" "Dianna!" Nearly the only power in existence that can make Dianna stop on the spot, does. She drops her fist and looks over her shoulder, with plenty of shock and no shade of guilt. Elara, in her favourite spring coat and having left without her hat, stands at a warily safe distance from the both of them, with plenty of trepidation and no sign of fear; so in an instant, it's clear that she's spacing herself away from Petra, not Dianna. "I said I had it, El--" "I don't want you to." "They shouldn't have to see this." "'This'? You mean--" "Her! Yeah! I do! I made a promise, didn't I?! That none of that hell would ever come back to this door! That's what they wanted!" "They don't-- You're right, Di. They don't have to . . . Nobody needs to. If it's about frames, and . . . that world, then it should be us. Just Metamorph company. Which means it's not your burden alone." "It shouldn't have to be any of you either. The captain has to do the shit that she wouldn't tell anyone else to do, remember?" "I do! But that's-- I'm not hurting myself, Di. I'm not forcing myself to be here because I feel like I have to. I want to talk to her. We all have things to say to her-- and I already told two, three, and four-- so you have to let us." "Why did--" "They'd want to know." Dianna looking at Petra as if she's been saved by the bell is to be expected. Elara looking at her with that expression of queasy sympathy, hands clasped tightly together, shoulders weighed down with revulsion, is harder to process. Squinting at her as if in a great degree of pain, holding her arms to herself as if intending to pray, Elara nervously squeezes and runs her blonde hair through her fingers, and finally says, "You said . . . 'the girl I love'. Really easily, Petra. I'm sorry I-- No, I'm not sorry for overhearing. But . . . Can you-- Please tell me what that means. You always said . . ." |
Petra Soroka | "From fucking who? Tell me." Petra puts up no resistance at all to Dianna's questioning, dispensing answers immediately like she's grateful to even have the opportunity to be asked questions that she alone can answer. Rather than the neutral responses of a girl on trial, Petra practically gasps the words out faster than her tongue can process them as if she's running out of time. Her expressions are nakedly readable and unwaveringly attentive to Dianna's own, face some sick blend of blanched pale, tearily exerted pink, and nauseous green. "Watch agent. Recruiter. Kyrikos. I-I met him online. He worked inside the city." That's the answer to 'who' (enough sensitive information, given so easily, that Liza's ears start to burn), but Petra keeps elaborating more in anticipation of a follow-up. "Titanomachia's gone. The city. We dealt with it last week. I-I can't really point you to the guy, since he's somewhere else now and I'm not in the Watch anymore, a-and I can't point you to the place, s-since it's being emptied out by some Concord-- Concord refugee thing." "And you inflicted enough for years anyways." Petra cringes like she's been punched in the stomach, but her response is just hollow agreement. "Yeah. Imagine how much worse it would've been if I stayed. I'm sorry." "Even running away because you can't stand us, you think we're going to go right back to where we all escaped from to tie it up neat. Like we can do anything and take anything, so we should ansi,u,have) to." That sounds like something Lilian said, last year, Petra remembers. Demanding they be her punching bag, her savior, her enemy, her caretakers. The urge to deny it, to insist that she doesn't hate them-- anymore, at least-- and that she wishes she did better, bubbles up and dies in her throat without being audible as anything besides a miserable, quiet whimper. "I remember, I said from the start, that the only thing you'd respond to was getting hurt." "... Yeah. I'm always saying that too. I'm sorry that it ends up getting everyone else hurt too." "Earth deserves you, and you deserve Earth. If you poisoned each other for once instead of just us then fine by me." "I wish! I wish. N-no. That's what I'm t-trying to do now, but it's not what I... *did*, since running away." Petra spends her precious few seconds before being punched in an effort to convince Dianna that she actually deserves worse. Being that Lilian was the one worst off, that Petra was referring to, hearing Dianna imply that she and the rest deserved it forces Petra to speak up to deny it to her own detriment. "I haven't ruined Earth nearly as much as I should. Have to. I-I didn't hurt Earth even a fraction as much as I've hurt y-you and-- and a girl in Sapient Heuristics, and others, who all deserved a lot better than me. I-I wouldn't give a shit if I only poisoned *Earth*." |
Petra Soroka | Whether it's a knife, a lighter, a spray of automatic gunfire, or being kicked down the stairs repeatedly, 'amends' always comes back to this, eventually. Petra's jaw snaps to the side, teeth clacking together, and the world whites out with pain before gradually fuzzing back into focus with her on the ground. Even with her vision filled with stars more than with Io's atmosphere, Petra tries to focus on Dianna's face as she looms over her, each labored breath whistling through her throat. She attempts a twitchy, shivering nod as Dianna raises her fist again, acknowledging the punishment rather than squirming or attempting to escape, until Elara interrupts her. Petra meets Dianna's contemptuous glare with practically apologetic agreement: being spared her just dues at the last moment *is* to be expected; no matter how much Petra tries otherwise, no one ever just lets her be beaten as much as she deserves. Hearing that the rest of Metamorph company will be joining them soon might be an even worse punishment, though. "If it's about frames, and . . . that world, then it should be us." Still being, after everything, the walking, talking, leaking embodiment of Earth hits Petra with gut-churning vertigo. It's not as if Petra disagrees, and it's nothing new to be accused of, but the miserable treadmill of being sent back to her absolute worst every time she takes another step towards trying to be better is enough to make her feel insane. Petra's heart hurts from looking at Elara's expression, and her jaw hurts more from turning her head, and her stomach hurts from being clenched with stress and guilt from long before she even stepped foot on the moon again. Petra's eyes sting and run over with tears, soaking into the vivid green grass, wide as she stares wordlessly at Elara. |
Petra Soroka | "But . . . Can you-- Please tell me what that means. You always said . . ." Petra's words come more slowly now, partly because of her position and partly because of the heavier consideration she has to give the topic, beyond just relaying a backstory. "That's... w-well... there's sort of a simple answer that's true, and a really weird and fucked up answer that's... m-more true? The easy one's just that... sorry, one sec." Petra turns her head and spits onto the ground so she can speak more clearly, spitting out a thick glob of blood and a broken tooth. Looking at it, she shudders and makes an 'eurgh' noise, but doesn't focus on it over continuing. Continuing is more difficult than she expected, though-- despite everything objectively different and freeing about the lab, and the moon, just being present at a place where she lived 'before' makes her struggle that much more with saying the words out loud. For a depressing, heartbreaking moment, it reminds her of feeling like she's at her parents' house. She can slog through it, but only by exhausting herself. "... You know. I love her. R-romantically. I mean, she's not my girlfriend-- I have a girlfriend, I love her too, but that's not who I meant-- a-and she has a f-fiancee, but--" Petra's gaze slides to the side, a bit awkwardly. "Well. Maybe the simple answer's kind of fucking weird too." "The more complicated answer is... I-I mean... stop me if you just meant the-- the gay thing." Assuming she isn't stopped, Petra mumbles onwards with her gaze fixed on a patch of grass while still flat on the ground. "I-I owe my life to her. Not just that she saved my life, but I owe her every minute of it for all the rest of it, too. She makes sense to me in a way no one else does and she makes me make sense in the way I've always wished I could. I hurt her, really badly, in the same way everyone else does, because I didn't fucking understand anything, and I hate that I did so much. Hate what I let myself do. I'm more like her than I am like them. If no one else is on her side, I'll fight the entire world forever for her. She makes me sane. She makes me useful." Petra coughs, from the pain and exertion of talking so much while it feels like her chest is being crushed. Murmured between the pair, flickering between Dianna and Elara and the box with the Beauty of Ash, Petra defaults to her most often successful tactic: being bluntly straightforwards. "I-I'm sorry. I'm trying to do this right. I don't know if there's a right way at all, but-- but I want to try. I'm really sorry." |
Metamorph One | 'That's... w-well... there's sort of a simple answer that's true, and a really weird and fucked up answer that's... m-more true? The easy one's just that... sorry, one sec.' Elara's fingers wind and squeeze around each other. Nausea at even being near Petra begins to win out over her grim duty to care as the need for unwilling patience strains the careful balance. Even without psychic powers, she wears her thoughts on her sleeve like that. Like it's on purpose. "Please tell me the answer that's true like you coming here. Don't ruin what you're already doing." she says. Her sympathetic flinch at seeing Petra spit her teeth out is less than the discomfort she shows at just seeing Petra at all. Dianna only watches Elara's stare out of old habit. She turns her back on Petra with the stormy disposition of wanting to not have to look at her while she can't punch her. She doesn't even take pleasure in hearing that the object of Petra's desperate romance already has a fiancée, despite how suitably pathetic it sounds; it was always part of the point to separate those kids from things like that, and Dianna, as tainted by the Multiverse and angry about it as she is, still learned better than many. 'I-I owe my life to her. Not just that she saved my life, but I owe her every minute of it for all the rest of it, too.' 'She makes sense to me in a way no one else does and she makes me make sense in the way I've always wished I could.' I hurt her, really badly, in the same way everyone else does, because I didn't fucking understand anything, and I hate that I did so much. Hate what I let myself do. It's almost infuriating. Elara doesn't need to be able to read Petra's mind either. The way she reads Petra as she babbles on, vomiting up the only answer she can think of on the spot, feels like she's spilling every secret she ever had in doing so. The way those little sympathetic jolts run through her body the very moment Petra conceives of some hideous thought; how she shrinks as Petra waxes furious at herself in her head, or remembers to breathe when she's allowed to linger on fondness for a few moments; as if everything that had ever been confusing to Petra is completely plain to anyone; like she could gently lift off Petra's face and diagnose her heart like a fondly regarded machine. So the only use that powers have between them are to make Elara miserable. Punishing her for standing close to Petra at all. The powers had never been the point. It's understood that they both know. "I wish I could have heard those words before, Petra." Elara sighs, feeling the absence of pressure in Petra's silence like a release of physical constriction. "Not just when you were one of us. Even since then. Even if you wrote a letter, just to tell us. Just to say that you're starting to get it." Her fingers wind together differently, restlessly shifting her grip on her hat against her thighs. "Even if you got made fun of a little. Just anything at all. This is too much, all at once." A silent laugh bounces her shoulders, devoid of humour, but wretched for its heartfeltness. "You came here to take responsibility for being the most Petra you've ever been, but I had to ask you to find out you've been being the most that Petra has ever been." Dianna's roiling discontent has moved on, at some point, from not being allowed her violent retaliation, to seeing Elara subject herself to Petra at all. "Then sorry for not making sense to you." she spits. "I guess if we tried harder to make it click for you, maybe you'd give half as much of a shit about--" Her fingers squeeze her upper arms, stretching and balling up her sun jacket. "Even though they tried and tried and tried and tried, I guess they just weren't right for you. Fighting the world forever for them was just my job, huh?" |
Metamorph One | Elara doesn't intervene here. Not for simple anger. No matter how hateful it is towards Petra, she recognizes the unburdening too well. Every little glance and microgesture between them is a constant checkup; a ping and response, about where their feelings are coming from. The synchronous alignment of understandings that Dianna is free to be hateful if it's an act of emotional honesty, and that Elara is free to spend her heart on others as long as they actually want to be helped. It speaks to the years of unpacking violence and misery together, before Metamorph unit was ever conceived. 'I-I'm sorry. I'm trying to do this right. I don't know if there's a right way at all, but-- but I want to try. I'm really sorry.' "You're really, really bad at it." Elara says. Her voice cracks with an uneasy little laugh, halfway through her nose. "You're actually awful. I think if . . . he hadn't asked me to, I might hate you too." Dianna draws a short, sharp breath, away from Petra. ". . . No. I probably still do. I don't know how I'm supposed to accept it. That you did all that hurt to all of us, but then found what we wanted to give you somewhere else. I kind of wish you'd stayed awful forever. That it was just how you are. Or maybe I wish that person could have been here instead. I want the Petra that she got." "I know you're trying. Don't think I don't care." Dianna says. "I'd kill you on the spot if you weren't." She sounds every bit like she means it. "Even if it was that fucking-- Kyrikos, I'm not going to forget that name-- you still held us in that much fucking contempt on some level. I hate that you wrote us all off, left us to whatever happens, and then fucked off and got what you wanted somewhere else. And you got it by hurting someone, too, like you always do. I just can't . . ." Dianna breathes deep in a way that isn't unfamiliar to Petra; but learned from classes, and done because she wants to, not because she's forcing herself to be restrained. Elara lays her hand gently on her arm, and Dianna's throat unclenches enough to speak. "What am I supposed to do? Punish you for saying sorry? For bringing her back? I don't know how to make this a world where making amends is a good thing, and I don't have to pay your tab for it." Elara slides both arms around her, and leans her face on her chest. The murmured "Thank you Di." is cut with the relief of not having to be so directly exposed to Petra. "The others deserve closure. The younger kids deserve to know that no one hates them. The new ones deserve to know. I'm not just going to grin and bear it for you. You're going to pay for it, somehow. The others should get to decide too." "You said you're no good at making up anymore, Di, but this is just how you used to be. You got into so many fights and kept saying sorry and meaning it." "I'm not saying sorry to her." "And you and I aren't fighting." "I just want to put an old friend back together." "You don't mean Petra." "No, I still want to knock the rest of her teeth out. Give the VPT kids some practice." "The ones who aren't the med students are going to see her too, you know." "If the SH kids saw her then the new ones can handle it too. Maybe I'll just knock out Kyrikos' teeth instead." "You're going to kill him." "Yeah." "And the Watch?" "Maybe." "Depends on who." "Yeah." |
Petra Soroka | Elara's nausea at being exposed to Petra is mutual-- that is, Petra is also nauseous, because Elara is being exposed to Petra. Watching her shudder and force herself to give Petra the space to talk, her relief when spared a moment from being in contact with Petra's heart even the normal way, Petra is struck by the sudden thought that, after two years away, Elara looks kind of young. Proportionally, the progression of time makes Petra a closer fraction of her age, but more than that, the people Petra spends most of her time around and considers her peers are close to Elara's age group now. It's a strange time to have the realization, but it comes to Petra that being an Elite is actually really good for her. Her last ditch effort that barely, barely worked out. No longer feeling impossibly alienated by the gap in age and experience, she's now just impossibly alienated for other reasons. "You came here to take responsibility for being the most Petra you've ever been, but I had to ask you to find out you've been being the most that Petra has ever been." "I... I don't th-think I know the difference between explaining myself and trying to justify myself. Who does it... *help*, for me to say that I've actually g-gotten a little better, kind of? It feels like trying to say that I think it was worth it, when everyone would've just been better off if I k--...." Petra cuts herself off before saying it, dreading the expression on Elara's face if she did. "Letters... I don't know if I could be honest in a letter." Petra's gaze falls to the patch of ground around Elara's boots. At some point while talking, she pulled herself up to a sitting position, knees hugged to her chest and shoulders curled inwards, radiating misery in a way only someone like her could. "Even if I wrote all the exact same words, and meant them, and everything. It's not really honest without..." Petra gestures vaguely at her present state; white dirt smears on her clothes, welt on her jaw, blotchy and teary-eyed. "I didn't really think anyone would want to see a letter like that, too. Especially not... y-you all. No one wants a bunch of letters like, 'I hope you're all doing well, I got tortured for a while and then figured out I was gay,' or 'last night I finally realized I had things I wanted to live for while begging for my life from an assassin', right? N-not even just because it's from *me*. It's awful to hear stuff like that. It's worse when it's *true*." Petra falls heavily silent for a moment after that, squeezing her knees. Then she makes a noise in the back of her throat and suddenly looks back up at the pair, eyes wide. "E-er. Not like that. Just normal torture. Mostly not like that." "Fighting the world forever for them was just my job, huh?" Petra flinches and looks away from Dianna. She opens her mouth to say something, but near-nauseating emotions choke her and dry out her tongue, and when hoarse words finally slip through, they're not the ones she expected. "... I-I really looked up to you." The aching specificity of that 'you' is obvious to everyone. "I always felt like I had to... to earn it. That there was something I didn't do or feel, that you did, that made you like that. Like, so... purposeful. And it was just missing in me." Now that she's saying it, with Elara having coaxed her a little it, Petra's messy motivations all pour out at once. "S-so, what I mean is, what I've managed to work out is, is... I-I will, now. I just can't also *be* one, of them. Even if I'm more like the enemy than I'm like them, I still want to be useful to the right side." |
Petra Soroka | "And... I was there too. I heard what... what Jay said, too." Petra curls up, arms folded tight and cheek pressed into her knee to look up at Elara with as much seriousness for the topic as she can muster in this situation. Memories of Petra in the bowels of the OZ, inconsolably sobbing in Dianna's arms, become a little clearer in retrospect. "He said to not hate the kids who weren't there to see it. The ones that wouldn't know what... h-happened to him." The bitterness of the irony of Petra, specifically, being there in front of the broken Eidolon mech to hear those last words has never really left her since. If she thinks about it, that marked the day that she started earnestly committing to not just doing better by Lilian, but by 'space', ideologically-- but she doesn't think about it right now. Her voice is weak, and forced sounding. "... Whatever else I am, I-I'm definitely... d-definitely not one of those kids anymore." So it's right to hate her. "I want the Petra that she got." "This... this *is* the one she got." Some unspoken thought comes to Petra's mind, grimly funny enough for her to silently exhale the ghost of a ghost of a laugh. "It's not like she doesn't hate me too, for everything I did to her, and... y-you. I'm pretty sure I still *am* an awful person. I've just... I-I haven't stopped trying to be better, but I've changed... priorities, I think. Whether I'm awful or not, it's just more important to me that I-- that I *act* in a way that's helpful and not harmful to the people I care about." Muttering, Petra elaborates vaguely, emotional muscles too strained by the conversation to self-censor anymore. "That's what changed the most, I think. No one cares if a gun has an evil heart as long as it's in the right person's hands." "I don't know how to make this a world where making amends is a good thing, and I don't have to pay your tab for it." "... Yeah. Me either. I-I'm not really that clever." She'd tried for hours to figure out something, and came up with nothing. Months, actually, sometimes obsessively. "But... whatever the way is, anything short of actually killing me. I'll do it. I want to. I don't want to make it worse, for y-you two of... *all* p-people." "I'd-- I'd help you track down Kyrikos if that'd help. That's probably not his real name; he was sort of a... spy, type. I-I'd-- I could talk to the kids, but..." Petra rests her hand on the grass to her side, leaning on it in the direction of the Beauty of Ash's box, with both of them being, in some way or another, broken. "... In this s-state? Would that be good for them to-- to be exposed to?" "I just want to put an old friend back together." Petra twists away from the box to stare at Dianna in shock, before her wide-eyed expression sinks into worry again. "Put her-- the Beauty of Ash? That's... but won't that be expensive, and... it's not like..." Coming to a conclusion all on her own, Petra's expression settles into something more unhappily resigned. "... Well, I-I've got some money. I hope, with... with all these new kids, there's someone who can-- can take good care of her. Better than I did." |
Metamorph One | 'I... I don't th-think I know the difference between explaining myself and trying to justify myself. Who does it... *help*, for me to say that I've actually g-gotten a little better, kind of?' "I don't know. Maybe no one. Does that matter?" Elara smiles at Petra as if stings. "Whether it makes me feel happy or sad or angry, that's up to me, isn't it? For some reason, I just need to know who you are." The casual threat of suicide fails to slip her notice, even though Petra cuts it off. Elara is too familiar with them. Dianna is too. Her lip curls in hostility, freshly unholstered and ready. Both of them have heard the refrain too many times, are all-too familiar with the subject, from the days long before the war. The fact that she shuts up makes Elara squeeze her fingers and shrink her posture, as if she'd scared Petra into silence. The fact that she shuts up sets Dianna's disgust back to purely anger, as if Petra had held to an old promise. 'I didn't really think anyone would want to see a letter like that, too. Especially not... y-you all.' "How do you not get it? Did you really delude yourself into believing that? Are you lying? Are you that fucking stupid?" Dianna bristles. Elara doesn't mind her doing so at all. "Petra. You'd know if something important to you went missing one day, whether it's a friend, or a pet, or a special sentimental thing, that the single worst part is not knowing anything. Where they are, if they're hurt, if someone else has it, if it's waiting for you right there, or gone forever; thinking about it at all is hearbreaking. Even if you can't accept that you meant anything, the thing you stole was special." There are more normal people to confess epiphany through torture and near-assassination to. The fact that it moves Dianna even less than Petra's least favourite Elites is a reminder of the gulf between them. It's impossible to feign that kind of listening and non-reaction at the same time; even without psychic powers, the way Dianna looks down at her casts Petra into some murky other time and place, where she can just barely see the shadow of why her insane babble would be attention-farming bordering mundane. Elara can't fake shock and horror at hearing it, but she can look . . . Conflicted. That's the best Petra can tell. Depleted, ashamed, vicariously happy, wistful, all at the same time. She wets her lips and aborts her first few words before finally speaking. "So . . . you got exactly what you were always talking about. I guess you, too, knew what it was that you needed, even when no one believed you. But it's still . . ." Dianna can sense the sentence doesn't finish before it hangs long enough to let Petra speak at all. "I hope there was more, and I hope it fucked you up worse than just this. You don't deserve to walk away fixed and happy. None of us asked for any of it." '... I-I really looked up to you.' "Everyone does. And if they don't, they should." Dianna just says the words out loud. The ones that every survivor implicitly understands that they are never to utter in their entire lives. She isn't angry enough to believe that's it. The words come with the chest-emptying sigh of venting something held in for a long time, that Petra alone deserves to be seared by. "So shut the fuck up. Nothing you do will ever earn it." |
Metamorph One | The way Dianna pauses to breathe and collect isn't something Elara stops to register. It's not an agreement between them; it comes from her alone; and it isn't kind. "That time and those feelings are mine and they can't be simulated or recaptured or copied. I don't give a shit how much you bleed and starve and cry and ruin your life; it'll never be the same, and it'll never be enough. No matter how pathetic and maimed and miserable you get, you'll never be like I am." It feels as if she should be yelling, but the level loudness in her voice isn't an act of restraint. She presses in on Petra's personal space, shoving her back, and then again. "You can't fucking add it up until it counts the same, and slitting your wrists isn't sorry." She reaches out to push Petra a third time, then grabs her by the shirt instead, and this time Elara doesn't interfere. "Maybe, one day you become someone worth anything. Maybe even soon, 'Petra Soroka' is someone I could relax around and talk to. But it will never. Be. The same. And I will never fucking ever respect what was your own fault." 'And... I was there too. I heard what... what Jay said, too. He said to not hate the kids who weren't there to see it. The ones that wouldn't know what... h-happened to him.' Dianna remembers holding Petra at a long lag after she does. Only after Petra is finished talking, but before Elara can answer. Petra sees her eyes open wide, hears the noise in the back of her throat, and then feels a blow to her lower ribs that might have cracked them. This time she gets her wish. Elara stays at a respectful distance. Dianna still won't let go of her."That message wasn't for you to hear. It didn't mean anything to them, but you just soaked it up and let it hurt and took your chance to sneak a little bit fucking closer, right? Did it feel good? Did you like roleplaying comrades for a second?" Elara breathes in sharply. "Dianna--" "It should have been you instead of HIM! And if killing you would bring him back, I would right fucking NOW!" Petra feels her hand grip her throat; first one, then the other. She's been strangled at least once before, so the pressure she feels tells her everything; that Dianna would rather squeeze her lower jaw until it breaks than her windpipe until she goes limp. Raw, emotional, unguided and intentless urge to cathartically shatter the physical effigy of Petra that is her body. Elara visibly holds her breath, and slowly forces her hands apart, shoving them into her coat pockets. Dianna holds hers too, gripping Petra until her air runs out, and then releases by shoving her hard towards the white rock-face. "But like I said. What am I supposed to do." Dianna exhales, and runs her hand through her hair, fractionally more ruffled and sweat-damp for it. "There's no amount of hitting you that's going to bury these feelings. I'm just tiring myself out and giving you bruises to show off." She verbally spits that last part. "I'll figure it out. You can fucking sit and stew until I do." |
Metamorph One | "Kyrikos?" Elana tentatively ventures in the pause. "If she can even help at all. You know we're probably going to have to do it all ourselves, right?" says Dianna. "Maybe. But until we know that, we can still try. If it turns out that way, then you can come up with something else." says Elara. She moves closer by a few steps, resetting her distance to 'as close to Petra as she can stand'. "What about what you want?" Dianna looks back. "You haven't forgiven her. This isn't enough for you either. Please don't be afraid to say it." Elara laughs guiltily, and trails off. "I kind of like this. The girl that invaded our home and stole our precious gift to her, coming back in tears, walked up in front of the class and made to apologize, put to work helping repair the damage she's done . . . Does that feel like a reward to you?" Elara says. "To me, I think it says . . ." She closes her eyes, and draws a quieting breath. "That bad things don't happen for no reason, and that you never just have to live with them for the rest of your life. That's how it worked where you came from, but not here. Not anymore. The people who hurt you say sorry and make amends, the things you lose get found in the end, no one really hates you and no one can take it away. Just like we promised them. Even Earth, even girls from 'then', even we, can't break it." "I'm surprised. You showed your sadistic side in front of someone." "Haha, maybe just a little?" Dianna turns back to Petra. "Don't mention money in front of the kids. I'll kill you. You'll promise it and you'll do it, because your one and only job is closure." ". . . That precious thing you brought with you, Petra. Unlike so many others, she can come back." "And you can be a piece of Earth for them." "Whipped and humbled to let everyone know that we don't orbit them. Kneeling and begging to replace what Earth stole. You understand, don't you Petra? I'm sorry, but I think I'm going to hurt you in a way you won't like." |
Petra Soroka | "So . . . you got exactly what you were always talking about. I guess you, too, knew what it was that you needed, even when no one believed you." Even though it's the closest thing to resentful sympathy she's received from the pair, Petra doesn't look particularly relieved by the acknowledgement. Instead, she curls her shoulders over her knees, slackening her fetal sitting posture with a complicated expression that slides down away from Elara's face. Vaguely guilty, as she's been this whole time, and discomfortedly inwards-reflective, gnawing on the inside of her lip. It *was* what she'd needed, what she knew and said she needed, and she'd pursued it from the start. Regretting it and miserably making up for it was the expectation all along. Even this ashamed homecoming right now with Dianna and Elara-- she'd always imagined that if she ever made it back to Io for a third time at all, it would be to apologize for what she'd done and explain that she's learned better. She'd done plenty of things she hated doing even at the time, and all the details and specifics were never something she could have guessed, but from the moment she left the atmosphere with the Beauty of Ash, the shape of her narrative arc was recognizable to what she'd intended. She got exactly what she wanted, and what she'd wanted was the the maturity to regret what she did to get there. Isn't the regret that she actually, sincerely feels cheapened by the association? Her apologies are engineered mockeries; she cries on cue to a script the worst version of herself wrote years ago, every feeling and action tainted by a past she can only be distant from and never different from. Distantly, Petra wonders if this is the same toxic shrapnel that made everyone else obsess over her back then too. Even without Dianna adding her piece, Petra isn't going to jump in to respond after Elara trails off. "I hope there was more, and I hope it fucked you up worse than just this. You don't deserve to walk away fixed and happy." "Yeah." There is a lot more. So much that Petra can't go a week without stumbling across some new debris or scar she caused, somewhere out in the multiverse. Still half-consumed by her reverie, she mumbles, in reference to being fucked up worse, "... I'm trying." "Everyone does. And if they don't, they should." "... They should." Petra quietly echoes in the affirmative. Hearing it so matter-of-factly from the person she's looked up to the most, the virtues of whose admiration she'd extolled for years in the clumsier predecessor of how she talks about Lilian now, is dimly cathartic. Even while being told to fuck off because she'll never measure up-- that's a little cathartic too. "A lot of people don't. But they should." |
Petra Soroka | "You can't fucking add it up until it counts the same, and slitting your wrists isn't sorry." Petra barely resists when shoved, toppling back and narrowly managing to catch herself when she's already lost balance. She instinctively seizes up when grabbed, tensing in anticipation of the hit that doesn't come yet. Jolted back into adrenaline pounding alarm, out of her sober melancholy, Petra opens up her mouth to reflexively argue back and defend her points-- not her actions, of course, but her intent, and how she plans on using the end result, and in a rare instance, manages to bite her tongue. She could argue that, clearly, she *has* become closer to Dianna through all of that. That the primary goal was always to 'be like' rather than 'be liked', and her worldview and behavior now are indisputably far more similar to Dianna's than they were before; that even though it's different from the war, she's managed to construct a unique relationship and intertwined history with Dianna, no matter how perverse that is. Instead, she presses her lips together and swallows down the ache in her chest. The carrot of 'maybe one day' far outweighs the stick of being berated and hit. If it didn't, for Petra, then she'd never be able to function around Lilian. 'It should have been you instead of HIM! And if killing you would bring him back, I would right fucking NOW!' Being punched in the solar plexus folds Petra over and feels like it knocks loose the sick ache in her chest. Unable to straighten back up to look at Dianna's face, chest leaned onto the fist wrapped into her shirt to keep herself standing, the ache leaks out of Petra's mouth as a sound somewhere between a sob and a retch. Struggling to get her breath back for several seconds, Petra sucks in a thin, wet inhalation, and her unsteady words come out as a pathetic mewl for more reasons than just being hit. "... W-well... o-of course. I'd do it myself if... that w-worked." In the gaps between her faltering sentences, Dianna can feel the shudder run through Petra's body. She twitches like she's gravitating towards rolling her dampening face into Dianna's shoulder again, but instead it just slumps forwards, held up by Dianna's grip on her shirt. "But th-that's the whole... problem. It couldn't have been m-me instead of him. I w-wasn't even *there*." "Y-you know... I-I didn't even know what we were looking for that day. When y-you put the request out. I just... since you put up the mission, I wanted to go, because it was... p-possible to. I wanted to help. And then... I didn't know w-we'd...." Petra swallows, her voice steadying but fading quieter, only a step above a low whisper. "... I don't know how it's possible for me to both be an Elite that's actually able to help when you still need it, just like all the others, *and* a sheltered little kid who isn't meant to see any of it. I have to be able to grow up eventually, right?" |
Petra Soroka | "I'm just tiring myself out and giving you bruises to show off." Petra, tumbled backwards on her hands and rear, winces and delicately touches a pair of fingers to the side of her neck inside her collar; not where Dianna had grabbed her, but where she'd worn Lilian's purple and yellow handprints for far too long. She opens her mouth to respond, but her sore jaw clicks audibly and she flinches, stretching the muscles back into place by waggling it around with her hand. It's probably a good thing, for once, that she's lost the psychic capability to brand those bruises on her body like she used to, though she's not feeling particularly great about being smacked around by Dianna in the first place. "... Sorry. If you ask me to help, I will. With Kyrikos or... whatever else. You *won't* have to do it yourself; that's the whole point." "The people who hurt you say sorry and make amends, the things you lose get found in the end, no one really hates you and no one can take it away. Just like we promised them. Even Earth, even girls from 'then', even we, can't break it." Not wanting to interrupt the pair while they talk back and forth, Petra fixates on one phrase in particular, turning it over and over in her mind. 'No one really hates you'. From the very start, when Petra came to the Instrumentality Foundation as a little kid, there were always people on Io who hated her, justifiably. And from the very start, even throughout her worst and most repressively self-destructive moments, even when Lilian mocked her and Persephone tried to apologize, she couldn't ever once say she hated space in return. It's not a new revelation-- it might be Petra's oldest driving motivation, and it's not even the first time it's come up in this conversation, but the clarity of who 'you' includes-- who it's always included-- still makes heat prickle in Petra's eyes. Emotionally spent, bruised and curled sitting in the same spot she'd been shoved to the ground, tears slide silently down her cheeks, turning white dust grey where they land. Being whipped and humbled as Earth's most pathetic ambassador suits her. "... I'll do whatever you need. I'm here to make it better. I'll put the Beauty of Ash back together, I'll fix whatever I need to, be hurt however you need. Whatever helps. I'm here to be spent." |