Scene #8374: Nobody Has To Know

Owner	Pose
Lilian Rook	The thing with living is that no matter how bad it gets, no matter how earth-shatteringly, life-endingly awful a day can get, tomorrow always arrives at the same time as always. Petra has had plenty of time to realize where she is. After being hauled away from the smoking battlefield in the opposite direction of Dragonfly retrieving Ishirou's body, and quickly patched up by a medic from Sword Team under Lilian's command, she's had plenty of time to appreciate the fact that she took out everyone who would have actually opposed Lilian's private arrest, too. Read out a list of charges that doesn't even include the heinous murder still wracking her psyche, she is searched, scanned, bound, carried to a VTOL, locked in a windowless compartment, and flown for hours on end, left to marinate in silence with her sweat and tears and a thin layer of caked on blood and mud. When she's finally dragged off, blindfolded and deafened, carried by strangers, she has a vague sense of where she might be (relative to the scale of the Multiverse) by the previously experienced feeling of slowly choking to death on the air, tickling her lungs like a trickle of battery acid. As far as she can tell, Lilian didn't even go with her; she'd probably returned home with Tamamo, and left her. Left her to be taken inside where she can thankfully breathe, be briefly checked by a second medical team, had blood drawn and prints taken, and be thrown into the room where she is finally unbound. To the best of her knowledge, nobody spoke to her the whole time. It's been a little over twenty four hours, since then. In the same room. In terms of prisons, it's a far cry from the American private industrial standard. Solitary confinement in a space the size of an itty bitty studio apartment, enclosed on all sides with a single opaque door out; completely locked of course. The lit ceiling panels cycle their intensity through the phases of the day, consciously eliminating the disassociation of time as psychological punishment. The adjoined bathroom doesn't have a locking door, but it's at least partitioned by most of a wall, and contains a tiny shower. The walls and floors sort of remind her hospital, bright yet bland, durable and cheap. The bed is large and unremarkable. A circle rug sits between a few wooden chairs, probably for examiners more than her, around a small faux-wood table that is bolted into the floor. Empty shelves suggest that something could eventually go there. She can't see any way she might be monitored; there are no security cameras and none of the walls ring with a hollow space. It's blandly, depressingly unremarkable. Like a statement. Obviously, her weapons are gone. Her phone is confiscated. She's left with the clothes on her back, a little bracelet that says SOROKA, and her own terrifying thoughts for more than a day, in that room. When the time finally comes, late in the evening, she finds out that the door announces its use with a loud buzzer. When it opens, she even gets to see the double layered, airlock-like design in the corridor. When it closes, she's left in a worse way than she started: alone with Lilian Rook.
Lilian Rook	Lilian herself is dressed like nothing is different. Shiny heels that click menacingly over the hard floor, a shorter than usual skirt without any accompanying tights, several reusable bags in addition to her messenger bag, a wine red cardigan she is already removing, showing off a backless halterneck top. She hasn't even missed a beat on her makeup. The way she strides across the room, hangs up her cardigan on a chair, deposits her cargo next to it, indicates that she hasn't the slightest care for whatever Petra might try to do; that nothing she could even attempt would be so much as an inconvenience. She only fixes her with a gaze that silently commands her to sit as well, if she wants to get anything out of this. Unhurriedly, one by one, Lilian sorts out the items. Out comes a white packaged tray lunch, then another stacked on top, reminding Petra of how long it's been since she last ate, and raising the question of why it is within Lilian's power to bring it instead of a warden. Next, several plastic wrapped heaps of folded clothes; tops, bottoms, sleepwear; generic, prisoner issued, stitched SOROKA; unisex at very best. Next, her phone, battered and cracked, its wireless card removed, but data intact. She pushes that over, then opens the other set of bags. New shopping bags. Blouses, skirts, socks, hats, sweaters, pajamas, even pack-sealed underthings in Petra's sizes; probably thanks to the 'maid-off'. A wrapped parcel, unmarked, smaller than a suitcase, jingling as it's set down. And then, a crinkly white paper pharmacy bag. As if extracting a bullet from a wound, Lilian distastefully removes one bottle, then the other; both printed Petra Soroka. Keeping that pile to herself, Lilian folds a leg over the other, and rattles the bottles as if jangling a ring of keys. "Convince me."
Petra Soroka	The gouge that Night Mist carved into Petra's shoulder may as well have been across her throat. Mute and vacant, Petra puts up no resistance at all when cuffed, shows little recognition when her charges are read out, and only helplessly squirms in defiance of the search, not meeting any of the operatives' eyes, as if doing so was an automatic reflex. There's practically nothing on her. Half of a gunblade. Her battered metal water bottle. A pack of cigarettes. The remote to control the Ekanamsha. Her phone fell into the water when Lilian arrived with Sword Team, so she isn't carrying a single object of personal importance, hollow like a prop. It's not until an hour into the flight that the buzzing drone of the VTOL's engines settles into her ears louder than the shell-shocked dissociative static that filled them since her defeat. All at once, when awareness returns to her hearing, so does the awareness of the ache in her arms from being bound together, the dry pain in her throat, blood and dust settled on her skin and sticking in that uncomfortable way that lights up every neuron in her brain with the need to pick at it and dislodge it. Every sensory alarm becomes deafening in the moment that Petra realizes that she's helpless to do anything to address them. The majority of the trip is spent in rigid, escalating panic. Fast, shallow breaths, heartbeat pounding in her ears, rapid eye saccades at nothing, alternating with being tightly shut and leaking hot tears. Being on her way to a potentially lifelong prison sentence isn't nearly as pressing on her mind as the fact that her wrists are stuck and there's not a single person around. The wound in her shoulder twing-- no. Her shoulder fucking hurts. The acidic pain of entering the leylines is indistinguishable from the gorge choking Petra's throat for hours on end. The exercise of keeping it down is almost meditative, compared to thinking about anything else. The second time around, Petra is more docile to the medical examiners. Drawing blood, gathering data, are things that Petra is eminently trained for, the needle-prick practically being a comfort, even while bound. Maybe her relief is due to Tamamo's lingering curses slowly wearing off, maybe it's due to the presence of people, however standoffish. Then into her cell. The door closes behind her, and it's just Petra, her thoughts, and the room where she'll spend the rest of her life. Or so she thinks. Petra isn't actually sure how prison works. She'd never considered it a possibility until she got shot with a rubber bullet and didn't die, just hours ago. Murdering a Paladin Chevalier really should be met with a harder response than that, in her opinion. Lilian's words echo through her mind, the most recent words that anyone's spoken to her. "Final sentencing . . . there will be no trial." Maybe this is what death row is like? Petra doesn't know. She doesn't know anything. But it's a nice thought.
Petra Soroka	It doesn't occur to Petra to question any aspect of the cell. There's nothing she could do about it, anyways. She accepts what she's given, in her quiet little purgatory, busying herself with the preparations to make her necessarily temporary stay as simple as possible. She takes off her bomber jacket, folding it over the back of a chair. Combat boots off too, put to the side of the door. Petra leaves her overalls on, not in the least because she has nothing to replace them with, but also because reaching across her back to the hooks of the straps fills her with nameless, wordless panic. Her thoughts wander over the hours, but they especially circle around Hibiki. What were my last words to her? She didn't call her, yesterday morning. The last time they were face to face was standing over Ishir-- the b-- Ishirou's body, and then a few words in the radio afterwards.... Was that it? A scattered, indirect conversation, with Bikki traumatized and mourning? No actual goodbye? That's more than Ishirou got. When the door buzzer sounds, Petra jumps, slamming the top of her head into the faucet as she was leaning forwards to wash her face. Wet faced and teary eyed, Petra clutches the sore spot and wanders over to the door, expecting a faceless delivery of food, or maybe a bullet to the brain. She gets neither, though closer feeling to the latter despite the presence of food. "Lil--!" Petra's voice rasps out of existence midway through exclaiming, and she coughs. It's better to not sound relieved. It's obvious anyways. Petra shivers and wordlessly sits across from her, trying her best to keep up a defiant glare. The deliveries themselves barely raise questions in her mind, not the food-- the last thing she ate was a salad, in the Utonium household, 48 hours ago-- not the clothes or the oddness of Lilian bringing them, not even the pills. Lilian speaking seems to give Petra permission to, and she blurts out, without addressing the demand. "Is Bikki alright? She didn't... do anything, did she?" Petra shakes her head, and runs a hand through her hair. Rival until the day I die, just a little left. She looks unamused at the pill bottles, or more likely just confused. "What is it? Are you trying to make me beg? I don't need food or anything that badly, you're not going to get that out of me."
Lilian Rook	"You look like shit." are Lilian's first words to Petra, when spoken to, followed by "It suits you." The fact that the timbre of verbal abuse has wound halfway back to when they'd first met --somewhere in the middle of this whole, horrible arc, perhaps-- is confusing, but perhaps a little relieving all the same. Petra's gasping and fretting about Hibiki only results in Lilian staring her down until she shuts up, however. Her eyes are at once, cold, inert, and electric; a power cable quietly thrumming with lethal energy, harmless only at rest. "Did I stutter, Soroka?" Lilian says. "Why should I tell you anything about who you left behind? It was your prerogative to scrub them all from your contacts, disavow them as allies, tell them not to come after you, and disappear." She flips the pills overhand, then sets each bottle down, primly and precisely, as if glad to let go of them; like it's the cheap, plasticky texture, or just the connotation they have. "I've spoken to Tachibana. And Rita. Tangent. Candelario. Berislav. All your little friends. I don't see any reason to tell you anything." Slowly, Lilian folds one arm, and leans her chin against her fingertip. She stares at Petra as if dissecting her with her eyes. Even if she can maintain a semi-civil tone, the way she stares at her clearly isn't normal. It prickles with a latent energy similar to what she'd had at Indus; back when this really started. "Perhaps I was mistaken." she begins, building up gravity as she speaks. "I've been informed of your . . . medical situation, by the technicians. I thought, perhaps, even if nothing else, I wouldn't sleep soundly leaving you to that." It's almost as if a cold draft passes through the sealed room when Lilian pauses for breath. "I can't imagine what it must be like. Slowly changing back. The spell coming undone at the stroke of midnight. I'd believed I understood you well enough to anticipate that. I did a bit of research, you know; I had a prescription faked and everything, found some things in your size, had the registry omit some identifying information. I'm certain you understand how it is, here; you were quite keen on reminding me." "I simply thought I'd keep that line intact, rather than cross it. Do what you wouldn't, because I'm better than you. But if that's not how it is, then don't mind taking it back; I can't claim to speak for you, after all." Lilian begins slowly re-packing the second half of the things she'd brought, talking over it airily. "If I were in your position, I'd try to find a way to drown myself in the sink, rather than wait to go home in fifteen years and start all over again." "But then again, if I were in your position, I wouldn't need help to stay what I already am. If our positions were switched, you wouldn't have the option of taking it away. Like I do."
Petra Soroka	"I don't see any reason to tell you anything." Intentionally or not, Lilian does tell Petra everything she was asking about. Not everything she wanted to know, of course, but that was never an option. It sounded like Bikki hadn't gotten into more trouble, at least. The mention of Berislav makes Petra stiffen up and narrow her eyes at Lilian, instantly visibly vulnerable. 'Confidentiality'? "What did he--" Petra breaks eye contact, looking down at the table. No point. Under Lilian's probing gaze, Petra's first instinct is to shrink and stare back, core shivering from matching the intensity of-- no, it's not intense, exactly. Shivering under the pressure of-- not that either. Petra stands up abruptly instead, working out the buzzing tension by pacing around her chair, keeping eyes on Lilian as much as she can. Her grip on the back of the chair tightens hard enough that her arms tremble, and she grits her teeth loudly enough to hear. "My medical situation?! It's your fucking fault that there's one at all! I'm not supposed to be-- I'm supposed to be--" Petra squeezes her hand on her shoulder, digging her thumb into the wound. It just hurts. "You don't get to act like you're being fucking benevolent over something you caused. If not for you, if not for people like you, there wouldn't be a situation at all. It wouldn't exist." Petra runs her hand through her hair again, her hands constantly in motion without having her bomber jacket pockets to slip them in. Lingering strands of burned hair break off in pieces and stick to her fingers. She holds her hand up in front of her face to examine them, and her breath catches. That's so many. "And do I need to fucking remind you that I didn't actually cross that line? That if I'd wanted to, I could've done so from the safety of-- from my mech, and it'd have happened before you even connected the dots about it being me. You pushed the line farther. You did this, and I chose not to. And I-I-I," Her voice wavers as she automatically glances towards the sink, "And I'm, you're not better than me. Not if you're going to fucking do this to me and then demand that I dance and beg for what should already be mine." Petra shudders, and slowly lowers down to the floor, wrapping her arms around her legs. Weakly, she whines just above her knees. "Bitch." The feeble response sounds like unspoken agreement, for at least this moment where she's 'having it taken away'.
Lilian Rook	"Nothing exciting." Lilian replies, ever so briefly, on the subject of Berislav. Perfect, lukewarm, scalpel precision in her neutrality. "Nothing I didn't already know, at least." She taps her fingertip against her cheek. "Quite a while ago, too. You're acting terribly unsettled, for someone who couldn't possibly have confessed anything worse than you've already done." She remains in place, even as Petra jumps up. She remains exactly where she is, immaculately poised, as Petra storms around and screams and pulls at her hair. She remains uttery, surgically dispassionate, as Petra trembles with the sheer intensity of her vitriol. Only when the girl sinks all the way to the floor, whimpering and cursing, does Lilian sight, ever so gently, and slide her leg back down, ever so slowly. Petra hears the rustle of cloth as she stands. The sedate clicking of her heels, as she walks over. Her vision fills with Lilian's shape, as she lowers herself down too, crouching right in front of her. She peeks at Petra's bruised face through her arms with a careful tilt of her head, maddeningly perfect hair sliding around her shoulder. "Petra . . ." whispers Lilian, softly, patiently. Her hand reaches forward, as if to wipe away tears, or tilt her chin. Lilian's fingers grip her throat. Petra's perspective rises smoothly from the floor as Lilian stands, her arm like steel. Her feet leave the floor, leaving her with nowhere to look but the other woman's smiling face. Her eyes glitter warmly; warm like live coals "If it weren't for people like me, you'd be a man~" Petra is partially aware of the fact that she's being carried across the room by the grip her windpipe, by the sound of heels and the chairs receding behind Lilian's head. "You've crossed it plenty, remember? In front of all sorts of people. You've crossed it over and over again; all sorts of different lines, even! Whenever you were losing. Whenever you were scared. Whenever you were jealous." She can feel the back of her legs bump up against the bed. "But you did it because you know it even more than I do, right? That without girls like us, 'Petra Soroka' wouldn't even exist. You hate so, so much, that you're nothing." The inexorable push lifts her feet further. She's forced sitting again. You're a fake. A pale imitation. A creation borne of my shadow, who can only survive in my wake. "If it weren't for what I go through, then you'd never put a name to it. Nobody would ever tell you. Nothing would be there to help you. Things would never be so convenient as to allow you to exist, untouched in your peaceful little delusion." She taps the shoulder wound sharply with a fingernail. "You're so obsessed with what's 'normal'. With playing to the role, trying not to stick out, trying to pretend you're not different. And that's fine! Really, it is! But isn't it about time, Petra, that you admitted that thing wouldn't exist without me?" Her finger swivels to her palm, caressing the bare skin. Lilian leans so close that her chin nearly touches it. Her breath condenses on Petra's ear as she whispers. "The loving, accepting people in your life didn't permit 'Petra' to exist because you deserved it. They permitted 'Petra' to exist, because they couldn't deny Lilian already exists. Petra owes her very being to all the blood I shed; that of myself and all the other girls like us."
Lilian Rook	She leans back, fingers slowly loosening. She hasn't stopped smiling. Her gaze is fogged over, opaque and misty, alive with dark electricity. Like staring at thunderclouds. Petra is pretty sure she can't even see her own reflection in those eyes. "I get why you feel so inferior. But isn't it time you grew up? You've depended on that little toy in there for long enough. If you're old enough to take someone away from us; to leave Rita's little cooking chat barren; to break Candelario's heart; to betray Tachibana's trust; forever then you're old enough to swallow your pride, get on your knees, beg for forgiveness, and take your fucking pills like the rest." Lilian's grip finally releases fully, with a light shove, freeing Petra to breathe, and theoretically speak. Her shoe steps up on the edge of the bed immediately after. Lilian's arms fold over her knee, as she leans over and looks down at-- on Petra. "Or, if you really, really think that you're better than me --that 'people like me' are ruining it all and making it ever so hard for poor little you, the well-behaved girls-- then you can finally prove it~ You can stay here, completely and totally alone, and suffer properly as this putrid fucking world slowly beats you back into the way you were for the next fifteen years. Then you can finally be just. Like. Me." "What will it be, Petra Soroka? Should I still call you that? Or are you too good for help from a wretched little 'natural' like me?"
Petra Soroka	Petra lifts her head up from her knees at the use of her name, eyes glistening. From the fractional upwards twitch of her chin, she seems to expect a gentle touch to her cheek, reflexively offering it up. Or maybe, the still fresh bruises on her neck are more honest, and her chin tilts up for another reason. Either way, her reaction to being choked is delayed, only making a strangled squeak as her airflow is constricted. After a moment, when she tries to suck in air and can't, her eyes widen and Lilian can feel her pulse redouble in the arteries in her neck, each beat individually discernable through the pads of her fingers. Petra twists her torso and digs her nails into Lilian's wrist, but her nails are bitten down to the quick, still decorated with flakes of the week old polish she put on for her visit to Nova Heliosanctis. Just before being forced to sit, Petra lashes her foot out at Lilian's knee, just to do something. This is the third time Lilian's done this to her? Or the fourth? She can't keep doing this, Petra can't keep allowing her.... The thought disintegrates in her head, and Lilian feels her chest and shoulders jump with a choked gasp as she whispers in her ear. Petra's face is red, darkening the longer that Lilian's hand is on her throat, and the anger of the tears budding in her eyes is in stark contrast with the way her grip on Lilian slowly shifts from claws to being fully wrapped around her wrist. Finally, her face crumples, tears pouring down her cheeks. Even once Lilian lets go of her neck, it takes her nearly a minute to compose herself enough to speak, sniffling and grabbing fistfuls of sheets. The bed is still perfectly neat. Either Petra slept and then remade the bed with a surprising amount of care, or she hadn't touched it until now. "Fuck you," Are the first words out of her mouth, spoken with despair more than anger. "For thinking I wouldn't fight for it. Fuck you for saying that I didn't earn my name, and for saying I wouldn't know anything without people like you, who suffered for it. And you, especially. You're not changing anything for anyone but yourself, the way you are. You suffered and then shut up and played the same fucking role I did; you're as much of a coward as I am. Otherwise you wouldn't be so scared, of people knowing." Petra's eyes drop from Lilian's face, to her skirt for a moment, then quickly to the floor. "More of a coward, even. You actually-- you actually deserved it. You're strong enough to fight, but if you stood in front of my-- my dad, and introduced yourself, nothing would change, no one would feel any different, the world would be exactly the same, because nothing you fought for applies to me, just yourself." Petra's lips twist bitterly, still looking away from Lilian."And... that's fine for you, because you bled and earned it, and a sin for me, because I got it handed to me on a silver fucking platter. Everything was easy for me, so I don't get a say." Petra shrinks away as if physically struck, shoulders drawn inwards and hands gripping the denim on her thighs. "D-don't stop using my name. Please. I-I," She shivers and swallows, her tone, fittingly, pleading. "I-if your goal is to make me suffer to earn it, to make me get it, then j-just, beat me or something. Make me fight for it. Don't, don't make me beg, that's...." Petra giggles anxiously, high-pitched and staccato. "Fifteen years, though, is it? Is that already decided?" Her eyes dart back over to the sink. "I-I'll be thirty-three. Maybe thirty-four. M-my birthday's this month. In just a couple weeks, actually." She giggles again, and it splinters into a sob. "Weird year, huh?"
Lilian Rook	"No, Petra. Really and truly, earnestly and from the heart, fuck you." Lilian leans forward. Her heel shifts to her knee. Her hand thumps into the bed by Petra's head. "I wish Hearthward killed you, back then. I wish Ishirou had killed you before that. I wish you'd killed yourself before you ever darkened my doorstep, Petra." The way she looms closer lacks even a mocking ghost of intimacy. It's as if her breath could scald with nothing but hatred. "I'm finished fucking around and humouring your inadequacies, Petra. Here's how it actually is." She's so close that they're nearly touching noses. Lilian still hasn't blinked. "Fuck you for being the reason. Fuck you for being one of them. You can't hold girls like us in one hand and people like you in the other; you used both just to pick up the latter. This was all over before you got here. People were starting to know. I was happy, even. And the world just had to shit you out on my doorstep, because we all think that I haven't had enough, don't we? There always has to be another raw wound. There always has to be another reason to study Lilian. There always has to be another fucking arc. So fuck you for being just another fucking cog in the same fucking perpetual motion machine." It's not choking, exactly, but the way Lilian grips Petra's jaw, then, tilting it up to force her to look at her again, feels as if it might break it. "How dare you think you've earned a single goddamned thing from me. You think it's funny that I got hurt when you didn't. You think I'm disgusting for having cracks and jagged edges where you don't. You can't bear to look at me for the way I am. From the day we met, you called me freak, and all the way to your last day as an Elite, you called me a faggot. I'm a fucking pariah to you. You've built your entire life on trying to be the opposite of what I am, hoping, praying, that the rancid masses will leave you alone where they didn't for me. You joined them, offered them my blood, to spare your miserable, sniveling self one more second of being judged. Fuck you, Petra Soroka, for trying to be the cane and crying when you broke. The real one did too." Lilian releases Petra's face only to strike her; a slap across the face that she knows just how to make as loud and stinging as possible, twisting Petra's neck, echoing back in off the walls, and leaving the reddened handprint in its place. The crack sounds like a gunshot. The tingling heat has even Lilian stop to examine her palm for a fleeting moment. Breathing out is what reveals she was holding it in at all, and the tinge of relief in her sigh seems to surprise her a little too. Lilian turns and sits back down, on the edge of the bed, resuming her prior posture, holding her knee, and keeps talking almost as if they'd barely left the table.
Lilian Rook	"I don't owe you change, Petra. I never did, because you already got it from me. Didn't you? When my father was, as you thoughtfully reminded me, struggling so very hard to deal with my existence, of course he reached out to his friends and peers and his trusted sources, and he ranted and vented and demanded their advice and counsel. And those people, in turn, went on to ask their trusted peers for second opinions, and to gossip to their friends. And those people spoke of it again, and so on. My name, at some point, fades from the context, from distance and disinterest, as it ripples outwards and dilutes. So by the time it arrives at your door, and your father decides it doesn't sound so bad, and already knows the words you don't and the chemicals I don't, you can blissfully pretend that it just . . . came out of thin air. Plucked from the aether. Original. Independent. With my blood washed off it, you can stand there and smirk and say I've done nothing, reap my rewards, and preach about my deviancy and vileness for not being as 'well-adjusted' as you." Lilian tilts back her head, staring into the dimming ceiling lights. Her shoulders rise and fall with a quiet sigh. "What else can you possibly ask from me, Petra? You've already had me be your messiah, your guide, your trailblazer, your foil, your devil; you've made me your hero's journey and your unrighteous heathen, your source of identity and your source of self-worth, your ablative armour and your guiding light; all in one. Am I supposed to be your grovelling lesser, too? Your conquered primitive? Am I supposed to fear culture's axe when it's wielded by you? You only ever found the handle because it stopped an inch into my neck, when they tried to take my head." She reaches out, over Petra's shivering and sobbing; one hand drifts from her leg, and hovers over Petra's side, before falling slowly on her shoulder. "My goal? Oh Petra, I already got what I wanted. Even if everyone else who knew Ishirou just has to live without. The girl who caused all of this, who showed up to ruin my life yet again, with a different face and a different name, whom I gave every chance and held back as long as possible, trusting her, trusting everyone around her, mistakenly, is finally gone. And next year, when another one of you shows up, I'll be faster about it that time. And the next time. I'll keep removing you until you're gone forever. That's the only way to protect us." Her hand strokes down from Petra's shoulder to her hip, almost comfortingly, save for the perverse coldness behind the hollow gesture. "I'm not going to beat you until you 'earn it'. You already have it-- at my mercy, granted. I came here precisely so that you wouldn't lose it, even." She swerves, briefly, in conversational priority, disregarding the sequence of words in time. "Not yet. It could be five, or it could be thirty, depending on what I present, and what case I push. Gabriel has, of course, already squealed. It's really my choice what happens to you; as always."
Lilian Rook	Lilian looks down at Petra again. "So, if you agree with me; if think you should keep 'Petra', and I should care, and not leave you to rot, helpless and alone without me to copy off of, then you'll beg. I won't beat you up so that you can suffer nobly as the tragic victim. Quietly bearing that sort of pain is the easy part; glamorous and shallow, fit for television. That's why you like it so much, right?" Her hand slides all the way back up, over Petra's arm and to her cheek. "No, no, you'll beg. You'll stop this play-pretend heroine bullshit and you'll beg and grovel for me to forgive you; you'll throw away your pride, you'll admit what we both know, and you'll humiliate and debase yourself until I'm satisfied. Just like I had to." Lilian's thumb strokes from Petra's lip to cheek, smearing a streak of tears. "I might just hurt you for fun, though~ After all, I'm-- how did you put it? 'Some sadistic pervert?' A 'broken degenerate', yes? 'Getting off on having power to hurt people, to make up for whatever sick damage my family did to me'. This cell is where I can, ah, 'hide what I'm really like, where Tamamo can't see me like this', right~? I'm sure that nobody would begrudge me, if it were someone who murdered my friend. You'd deserve it~"
Petra Soroka	Petra flinches when Lilian throws her words back at her, still small and miserable. As Lilian draws closer, Petra angles her face upwards to look directly into her eyes, wide-eyed and bloodshot and sticky with tears. Despite Lilian being the ostensible source of her distress, her expression is tentatively trusting and hopeful, still hanging on her every word. Ice-cold malice is the only tolerable thing that could be between girls at this distance, and hatred prickles across Petra's skin like goosebumps. When she talks about someone, positively or not, when she explains why they are the way that they are--it becomes more true. Just because she said it. Petra's own words echo in her head, as Lilian keeps twisting the knife. It's an active effort to not immediately shift her mindset to believe Lilian, to not let the dissection decide where her organs should be located, a kind of compulsion that Petra has no way of defending against. She's particularly vulnerable, even, with the way that every word is inescapable in her perception, enhanced by respect for eloquence and something else. God. Even when it's just us. Even when there's no one to convince except me, I can't help it. I don't understand. Before Lilian wrenches her jaw upwards, the only response Petra can muster is a hoarse whisper, breaking eye contact to look at the wall again. "... Yeah." Panic builds in her expression, and only partly because of the way that her jawbone creaks in Lilian's hand. This list of crimes, more than any of the previous ones, is agonizing to hear spoken out loud; repulsive in its content, undeniable in its vagueness, and so, so, so much more undeniable in the one observably true event. She doesn't get it. Petra's breathing becomes frantic, shallow exhalations bringing the scent of blood and mint. Or maybe I just fucked up. In the brief moment she's allowed to move freely, Petra leans forwards and forcefully starts, her voice cracking. "No! No! I--" Being slapped like that for the second time in her life whites out Petra's world with pain for a moment, bones bruised from Night Mist's pommel the day before taking the brunt of the hit. The tears stop flowing instantly, her lips and eyes squeeze tightly shut. In blind wandering, her hand grabs on to the hem of Lilian's skirt, gripping the cloth until the ringing in her head fades. Pink saliva trails out of her mouth, and she wipes it away with the back of her hand.
Petra Soroka	The last scraps of her desperate outburst are burned away when Petra tries to open her mouth to speak and her jaw clicks back into place, her eyes immediately watering from the pain. "Did I get it from you, really? I don't think so. Even discounting that I'm younger, I probably knew before you. You couldn't have possibly been a leader, or an innovator, or any kind of influence on me, because I've just had more time than you." Her voice softens, and she finally unclenches her hand from Lilian's skirt. "Anyways. I said that it was fine, for you. Not that you need me to say that. You don't-- you don't owe me anything." Curled up on the mattress, Lilian's almost-touch sends prickling shocks up the length of Petra's side, and she shivers when the hand rests on her shoulder. The buzzing sensation only intensifies, building into painful needles like warming up from nearly getting frostbite, and Petra twists from her side onto her back to work out the energy. Lilian's hand slides from the round of her shoulder onto the front, and Petra freezes, her mouth hanging slightly open while she stares at Lilian with an odd expression. "There aren't more of me. Not-- not once a year. I don't, I don't actually hate you? I thought you knew that." Petra's voice is getting more nasally than raspy, turning into a whine. "I know the ones who hate you are really everywhere. I don't respect that at all. I absolutely can't stand those, kinds of people, I...." Her face is flushed pink, but her eyes are steady, flickering across Lilian's face with probing focus that doesn't match with her faltering speech. Until her hand moves again, and Petra's clenches her eyes shut and tenses her whole body. Her chest visibly rises and falls, with deeper, faster breaths. Lilian's hand runs down her body, then up again, like live wires embedded under her skin. "I-I-I don't know how. I don't know how to do that. Begging. I c-can't not have them, the bottles, but I-I-I-I." An empty doll for me to hate and hurt and vent every awful thing I feel. Petra's thighs squeeze together, and she writhes on the bed under Lilian's touch. "I don't know how. So make me."
Lilian Rook	"Yes. Petra. You got it from me." Lilian replies, with almost vindictive patience. Her thumb strokes back and forth across the girl's stinging cheek, as if she couldn't be bothered to comfort her properly. "Not literally, of course, but we're not speaking of just you and I, are we? We're talking about people like me, and all the problems we cause for good little girls like you. Once again, I am here to listen to you scream and beat your fists 'Why can't you just be normal? Why do you have to make me feel different? If it weren't for you, if it weren't for you--'" Lilian sharply turns Petra's head, by slight motion of her wrist. She locks eyes. "It's beyond tiresome. I don't care if you keep your mouth shut; I don't need your worthless thanks. What I don't need is your blame." She sighs. Her fingers slide across Petra's face. "There it is. Just as I said. 'Your idea'. Something 'you knew'." Then she grips her opposite cheekbone. She squeezes, palm over mouth. Hard enough to feel bone creak. Her expression doesn't change. "If you were in my position, you'd have kept your mouth shut and withered in silence. You have no idea what the cost is, so believe me; you'd never survive paying it. You can only run your filthy little mouth because the 'people like us' you despise so much went and spared you from it." She leans closer. Lilian takes up most of Petra's field of vision. Just for emphasis. "You are nothing without me and those like me. And nobody. Nobody--" Her thumb bends. The nail digs in, breaking skin, drawing blood. Quietly livid. "Has more time than me. I have all the time I need. All the time in the world §is mine." For the second time, Lilian releases her. She glances down at the blood staining her nail, while Petra says her last piece, turning the crescent of red over and over in the light, before she puts it to her lips and it disappears with a casual swipe of her tongue. She looks down again, and then moves her weight; turning towards the bed, one knee swings over Petra's middle and plants in the stiff mattress beside her. Stable and direct, so she can lean in, grip Petra's hair and pull her head back. Her breath smells like copper. 'I don't, I don't actually hate you? I thought you knew that.' "I don't believe you."
Petra Soroka	Petra stops, completely, like a bucket of cold water was thrown over her. More than any of the acidic barbs before, more than the icy hatred and disgust, those words collapse her lungs in her chest and squeeze her heart in a vice. Petra shouldn't have said that at all, really, but her feverish denial at the idea that she was just some fucking interchangeable annual speed bump slipped out before she could stop it. She gasps in pain and tilts her chin upwards to go along with the force of Lilian pulling her hair, but when her upturned eyes meet Lilian's, they're watering anyways. Blood beads along the nail imprint in her cheek. Her breathes are quick and shallow, and her heartbeat feels so loud that Petra thinks that Lilian has to be able to hear it-- or maybe she can't. Petra's pupils tremble for as long as she can hold eye contact, her lip quivering with shaky breaths. It's an impossible situation. Sticking out her tongue and just saying tee-hee~ you got me~ is so utterly repulsive and bankrupt that even she can't bring herself to play it off as a joke that way. But what else is there? Trying to convince her? Why? The silence stretches out longer. Petra finally breaks, eyes flicking down at Lilian's mouth. The bright red smear on her lips from when her tongue darted back inside. Down along the line of her jaw, to her exposed collarbone, to-- "I-I don't." There's not actually any way to look away from her. Up or down, Lilian Rook fills her entire field of vision, so Petra briefly squeezes her eyes shut. Just to give herself enough of a breather to continue, since she already started talking. "I don't. I don't hate you. I-- fuck. I don't know." She swears through gritted teeth, voice cracking. Her eyes reopen, tears flooding out. "I don't know. I think something's wrong with me. I'm not just some fucking, heartless braindead maggot that hates you for being strong and smart and..." Petra's blubbering flounders for a moment, reaching for words. No one's come to mind except her own. "Purposefully shaped. That's.... I hate those people. The fucking Charlotte Newmans and their Johns. I-- I-I-I don't, I don't want you to think that I hate you."
Lilian Rook	For the second, or third time today. For some countless number of times in their ongoing relationship. If Lilian could only read Petra's mind; if she could only do the one thing that Petra would never, ever let her; then this would all be over. Everything would stop, and everything would change, and everything would be better. But it won't. It can't. Because Petra won't allow it, and because Lilian doesn't know how to function without it. "You think something's wrong with you?" Lilian hisses. "My my. Look at how far you've come." Icy deadpan. Disdain. "Then tell me, Petra. If it isn't for the fact that I'm stronger than you, smarter than you, prettier than you, more popular than you, more experienced than you, happier than you, why is it that you hate me? If those aren't your reasons for being a heartless, braindead maggot then why do you act like one?" Lilian releases Petra's hair, but only in contemptuous facsimile of patience. Petra alone has nothing but time. "Newman? Doe? What the fuck do you know, Petra? You haven't the slightest clue of what it was like before them." Settling her weight on Petra's middle is almost worse. It isn't meant to be, consciously, but she's the one who has to deal with it. "Nobody could think of a word to call me but 'bitch'; perhaps 'whore' if they felt adventurous. Everything I said was a lie. Everything I did was an opportunity to try and tear me down again. When I succeeded, it drove them mad; they'd gather together to spit and grind their teeth about how that slut had gone and tricked them and cheated and been born into it; how privileged I was, how much I deserve to fail, how much someone should hurt me. Do you understand, Petra?" "Two and a half factions of malicious adults, plotting my downfall, licking their lips and drooling over their personal fantasy of the moment I'd fail. Grown men, completely insane with jealousy and spite, out to do anything they could to ruin my 'purity'. To 'wipe that smug smile' off my face. 'Show me my place', 'Put me down' like an animal. Anything to isolate me, humiliate me, degrade me, show me up; and to be the first to do it. People competing to be the one to deflower Lilian Rook, getting hard at the thought of seeing me cry." Lilian leans back, taking her weight off her knees and putting it on Petra's thighs. Her hands press to her face, rubbing at her eyes in exhaustion, haggard just from the effort of recalling it. "I was nineteen, Petra. Same as you. And I put up with it --with the smear campaigns and the sabotage and the threats and the violence, living damage control, protecting myself, and the few people who could see past their own inadequacy and like me-- because it was still better than back home. Here, at least, I could just be Lilian 'that insufferable bitch' Rook. They had no better reason to hate me. Nobody here mattered; they didn't have any particular power or leverage, so as long as I stayed ahead of them, as long as I hit them first, and hit them so hard they didn't dare try again, I'd be safe."
Lilian Rook	Her hands fall away, into her lap. Her voice cracks. Lilian's eyes skim darkly past Petra's face and her dull gaze slides into a whorl in the sheets. "God. You know, for a few months, I actually thought it was getting better. At my very, very lowest, I found the few people who were still there for me. The worst never happened; the people who knew just kept their mouths shut, and finally started to accept me. I met a wonderful old lady who told me I could help her help everyone. I had someone who loved me more than anything in the world." "For the first time, people wanted to take my side. Help me. Listen to me. I was starting to think it might be okay, being less than perfect. As if, perhaps, just maybe, I didn't need to be ten steps ahead of the ravening mob. Like I could be myself, and say what I felt, be a little more honest, and a little more rough; I could be kind to people, sometimes, and not have to treat everything like life and death; accept when someone else might be right and I might be wrong, and try to grow up, instead of staying that scared and desperate teenager forever." Her hand falls on Petra's face. Not to grip or scrape or choke, but with the chilling, primitive gut feeling that Lilian might be checking that it's there. "And then you came along. Just like before. Livid and fuming, insane with spite, twisting everything up and poisoning everyone against me, desperate to see me crack." "I should never have thought that I was safe. I should have known better than to think that the war would ever really be over. There's always another one; another trial, another disaster, another demand to justify my existence; another one of you, out to be the one who finally proves how worthless I really am." "Lie to my face all you like Petra. The damage is already done. No matter what you say, I already know what you are. Drooling. And. Hard." A mad titter bubbles up from somewhere deep in Lilian's chest, falling free of her lips, sickly and tilted. "Oh well. It's not like you can cause any more damage like this. I was never really intending to keep it from you, Petra. Even if you wouldn't beg for it properly. But I think you should still pay for all the damage you've done. It's only fair, right? You got what you wanted; you finally got to scar up the only part of me that ever healed, and remind me that it'll never, ever be okay to live normally. So I should get to have something too." "Even if you think you don't hate me, I hate you, Petra. I hate you so much I could kill you. I hate you so much I could fuck you. It's my turn to get something out of this, so I think I'm going to hurt you and hurt you and hurt you until this awful, awful feeling fades and all your radioactive shine burns out. So I think I'm going to do that. I'm going to hurt you until I can forget about you."
Petra Soroka	Far too little, far too late. Cracks spiderweb across her psyche. This really, really isn't what Petra wants. She claps a hand to cover her mouth, hyperventilating through her fingers, skin sticking to tear-stained skin. Nothing she says is getting through, and it's so fucking obvious why. "I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I can remember the reasons, I'm not fucking stupid. But I fucking hate acting like that. O-oh my god. I'm not lying. I'm not." It's sickening to be in this room, completely, unequivocally victorious, Lilian breaking down in front of her. "Y-you said it yourself. A solar system away. I don't know what else to do. It feels so horrible." Even without Lilian's hand in her hair, Petra keeps her face close, chin lifted to look in her eyes. The residual muscular effort might even bring her a tiny bit closer, though it's hard to say for sure. Her whole body is shaking, tears made nearly silent to not interrupt Lilian. "I hate them. I'm sorry. I said before that everyone treats you horribly, that's what I mean. But I wasn't there for it. I'm sorry. You've just always been untouchable, now. Everyone fucking worships you. I hate them too. They have no idea why they keep you around. A fucking 'good heart'." An angry rasp enters her voice. Her fingers are still clenched across her mouth, nails digging into her skin. "... I think I called you a bitch, once before. Maybe more. I don't-- I don't want to be that way. That type of scum. It's just.... If Petra's sobbing was suppressed before, it isn't anymore. It feels like she needs to hold on to Lilian's wrist for her own comfort. Quivering on the bed, she presses her hand to her mouth like she's trying to suffocate herself, her other hand digging nails into her forearm hard enough to bleed. "Oh god." A sharp laugh cracks out of Petra, two short syllables, completely humorless. "And I fucking ruined it all, didn't I? Just like I planned. I won the maggots' game, because I should know better, I do know better, like you, and I'm still just the goddamn same. I hate them. I hate this. I hate fucking Petra. I didn't get broken in all the ways that made you unstoppable at my age. I just got broken in the ways like them, the ways that make people like you hate me." Winning has never felt worse. This time Petra does reach up to grab onto Lilian's wrist, shakily wrapping her fingers around it with no force behind them. Her voice is choked and hoarse, practically pleading. "I can still b-beg. I just, I just don't know how. If you're just going to give them to me, then I'm not-- I can still do something to pay...." Petra's change in demeanor has been kind of awful to behold. After eight months, some twisted semblance of raw, bloody earnest pleading, finally, finally something like honesty. But her blood dissipates when it touches air. Is it all that it's cracked up to be?
Petra Soroka	"I hate you so much I could kill you. I hate you so much I could fuck you." It's so surreal that Petra can only giggle between her sobs. "Ahaha. Well, I thought the sink idea was pretty good. You could hold my head down if you want. I was wondering how else it'd work, they really don't make it easy." The other thing makes her pause in her hysterics. Laying on the bed under Lilian, hand on her arm, her eyes still drawn to that red smudge on her lips, wondering if Lilian will unconsciously lick it off. Petra's two favorite f-words don't seem to be anywhere on her mind. "Buh?" No other words are either, apparently. Petra shrinks defensively, hunching her head down into her shoulders, stiffening up and pressing her legs together under Lilian's weight. She's hoarse, breathless, like her lungs refuse to supply the air to respond out loud. "I--? I-I'm not going to let you do that." Feeble, and the silent pause where 'so make me' seems to hang is almost worse than saying it out loud. "Th-that's... is that why you brought me all the way out here? Is that why I'm not seeing anyone else? For your-- for your--" Petra falls silent, all at once. Her fist tenses, shaking, beads of sweat and tears on her flushed face as if suppressing nausea. Whatever that effort was going towards, all she says is quietly adding, "Lilian."
Lilian Rook	"'I'm not lying'." Lilian repeats, less-than-musing. "And I'm supposed to believe that? Just this one time isn't?" Her fingers press to her temple. "Even now, you're still lying. You knew exactly what you had to do, all along. I told you; and you took so much pleasure in doing the opposite." Her gaze wanders round to Petra's throat, missing her tears and stopping on the bruises instead. Petra feels the shudder run through Lilian's body. "You treat me horribly, Petra Soroka. It's you. You do it even when no one else is, when everyone tells you not to. If you weren't horrible, then why do you think I'd even care?" The fingers at her head slowly ball into a fist, squeezing her hair. "So what if I'm untouchable? Do you know what that means? It means nobody takes five fucking seconds to ask if I'm okay. It means everything is my problem and my problem alone, and I have to do and fix and bear everything myself and never screw it up. If there was someone out there who actually did worship me, then they could have said one decent fucking thing to my face; something normal, and not some backhanded reminder of how patient they're being and how innately dangerous I am." Her volume rises, subtly at first, then uncontrollably. Lilian is shouting and she doesn't really know why. "They don't keep me around; I just won't give them a choice! If they really thought I have a 'good heart' then they wouldn't fucking agree with you! What good is being unstoppable if all I do is stop myself when it comes to people like you?! What the fuck is the point of trying to be anything or protect anyone if it's still 'freak' this and 'faggot' that?! 'Bitch', 'whore', 'pervert', 'degenerate', 'sick', 'broken', 'psychopath'! If the best I can fucking hope for is people tolerating me for working oh so very hard to not be a dangerous animal, always needing something from me, always absent and silent when I need help, why bother?! What's so FUCKING great about being ME, PETRA?!" It's at the moment where Petra recoils and shrinks down, curling herself up and stuttering in sheer, miserable terror, where Lilian finally freezes up. Her own voice comes out as a rasp. She sounds, looks, ill. Her swerves continue to grow increasingly erratic. "There it is. That's what you really think. You can deny it all you like, but we both get it. You're obsessed with me because I'm the most fucked up monster you know of, and you want everyone else to know it too." Lilian plants her hand on Petra's sternum, fingers overlapping the collar and brushing bare skin, just to force another damning reaction. "It doesn't matter what else there is to me. It's not what you do, but what's inside that counts, right? That's why you can't stop picking and pulling and peeling apart every other piece and every other layer until there's just this left." A dry, stinging laugh, raw and bloody. "So stop denying it. You hate me, and you wish everyone else would hate me too. You've been trying to get rid of me from the start. And you thought you were winning, because the only power I have is to hurt people and force people and I didn't want to do that to you." Lilian absently licks away the red film she feels clinging to her lips, letting her shoulders sag with an eviscerating sigh.
Lilian Rook	"Well, here we are in the end. So I guess you were right. This is all I'll ever really be, no matter what else I build up over it, because you people will never, ever leave me alone. I'll be doing this forever." Her laughter rises again. Uneven and off-kilter. "So what's the harm in indulging a little? It's not like there's any reward for holding back." All of a sudden, Lilian finally rises from the bed. Turning her back on Petra, she walks slowly to the table and picks up the wrapped parcel from the assortment of packages left on top of it. It thoughtlessly exposes the ink between her shoulders through the window of her halterneck, flashing Petra with the dazzling gold of impossibly detailed designs, patiently and devotedly drawn by hand; circles in circles, solar phases and sacred trigrams, radiating light and artistic clouds and blossoms at its edges. The most adoringly beautiful that anyone has ever made a permanent seal, worn like a scar, from how hard she had fought to stay human. So isn't it just perfect, that the cracks would be filled in with gold? The damage gilded and beautified, rather than smoothed over and erased. A shattering that Petra would never even know about if Lilian had remembered to cover it up. She returns in short order, tearing paper as she walks. an unmarked heartwood box is tossed onto the mattress, clunking heavily where it lands. One knee up on the bed, and then the other, and this time she looms tall over Petra. "I'm sort of excited." Lilian says, her breath heavy and fast. "I've never gone this far before." Even from the corner of her eye, Petra recognizes the distinctive markings of the Paladins special issue trauma kits that were used to patch her up in the first place, dragged out of the box. Lilian's voice drops to a quivering whisper. "I didn't think that I really would, when I came here. I thought . . . I thought I'd find some reason not to. I thought I'd feel pity for you." She is punctuated by the gentle scrape of a combat knife exiting its holster. Liilian grips the blade like a scalpel, finger to the spine. "Nobody has to know." she whispers. Her whole body shakes with the intensity of whatever it is that she's feeling. It registers too slowly that it might actually be fury. "Nobody has to know."