mk.01 (video, action)

[paraclete]

Who: Kaworu Nagisa, and maybe you!
Broadcast: fleetwide
Action: The Marsiva
When: The evening of 1/26.

[This could be strange, but it looks like the pale youth currently on camera is a leisurely waker. He shifts several times, then pulls himself into a sitting position, slowly... His eyes are closed, and he's running a hand through his hair. Finally, something strikes him. With the lightest crease between his brows, the boy starts breathing (was he not breathing before?) and opens his eyes. The irises are red and clear.]

Again, huh? [he murmurs, but his hands drag down until he's touching first his own waist, his hips, then back up to his shoulders, his arms... The action might be more provocative than he means for it to be, thanks to the space age skintight bodysuit he's wearing. He touches his neck. He frowns.]

I see. Not 'again', but still... [But Kaworu's a fan of being vague, so he'll leave it at that. Instead, he shifts in his seat so that his legs dangle over the side of the cot, and leans forward to reach for the communicator. Now, with a closer look at his face, it's clear that he's confused to the point that it causes him pain — he looks like he's got a pretty bad headache. Regardless, whether he's broadcasting to captors or captives, he wants to put on a gentler face. He exhales, and his expression smooths out considerably, though his eyes still hint at stress.]

Lilin, yes, but non-Lilin among you. This is beyond any experience I would have anticipated. It's as though there are more keys on the piano, but they play in notes I've never heard before. It could take some practice to make a song out of that. But practice is just time and effort, right? [And now he can smile. It's something soft and easy, an expression of reassurance for anyone who can see it.] It would be nice if we could practice together.

[The smile thins into something more grave. He's certain he died, and Shinji was physically fine and accounted for when that happened. Kaworu had no reason to doubt that Shinji would find guidance. Now, though, of course he's wondering about this new place and its captives: if they can harvest a dead child, would they take a living child in close proximity? With Shinji here, it could mean danger beyond what Kaworu is prepared for. But to be without Shinji here is also to be without purpose. Either way, he's got to find out.]

Excuse me, [he says,] but I've lost a friend. I imagine several of you have done the same, in being brought to this place. But, have any of you recovered them? That's what I'd like to know most of all about this situation. [The smile has come back, and it's probably for the best, since it looks so natural on his face. Once Kaworu starts smiling, it's almost hard to believe he'd ever stopped in the first place.] Thanks, [he says sincerely.]

—

[Through the corridors of the Marsiva comes a young man — a boy, with a face easily taken for youthful — and he smells very strongly of blood. His plugsuit, though still clinging to him, has been cleaned, but the scent of blood still rises thick from his hair, his skin. Anyway, he looks curious, so he must be someone new. But it's not the mysterious halls that make him wonder so much as the creatures who inhabit them.

He's walking around with both hands level with his chest, and his fingers stick out at odd angles, some raised, some lowered — it brings to mind the image of someone doing mental math, and really struggling with a problem. When he sees you, it becomes clear that you're a part of the equation. If you're a human, he ticks off one of the fingers of his right hand, like he's counting. If you're not human, he does the same with his left. He seems enthralled.]

Comments

[paraclete]

The body is separate from the heart, [Kaworu reminds her, not unkindly.] Lilin die easily, but they're also hard to kill. [He says it like a boy in love. For all of Kaworu's abilities on the battlefield, he hasn't insulted human beings in any way but being alive. Shikinami's encounter with Kaworu's vicious sibling left her changed, but he won't forget her origins as Lilith's child. Her experiences as Lilin are priceless to him.

Anyway, he's a target and her aim is great; she hits the mark completely. He doesn't flinch, though. The only way he almost flickers is in the way he looks to the side, but he makes even that look too easy.]

It's true that I'm unprepared for these circumstances.

[He's fully prepared to acknowledge his flaws. Failure is still fresh on him, even if he wears a peaceful face, so he almost relishes acknowledging his flaws. When you die, your pretenses die with you. Shinji said he was amazing. Shinji was misled.]

Do you have a plan?

[interstices]

Yes.

[It's only half a lie. She's going to keep looking out for Shinji. It's an annoyingly nebulous plan, and not totally magnanimous, either. He doesn't have anyone else that she trusts to rely on, and Shinji's the only familiar and welcome face she knows. He left her behind when he went after Ayanami, but she won't do the same.]

Lilin never did anything for you. [Lilin aren't anything like Angels. The next words out of her mouth don't match the next.] You'll survive. Your kind always does.

[paraclete]

[When Kaworu smiles, it seems like it'll stay forever. His face is complete with a smile. His joy seems meant to be. Now, though, he isn't smiling. It's dissipated slowly, a time lapse of water leaving a lake during years of driest drought. And what a drought he's undergone...]

May I remind you that the Angels are dead, [he says, and his voice is like gauze packing the wound she's just opened up. He refuses to buckle in front of her.] And may I inform you, Lilin's done more for me than you know. [He's learned so much; he can stomach their hatred.]

At any rate, it seems I'm a little behind you. But, with a little time, I'll know what to do. [Who knows how long a little time means to him — what's the measure of fourteen years, what's the measure of 'countless' — but he can be patient.] You and I were fated to meet here together, despite everything. I'll learn what that means, in time.

[interstices]

Are they?

[The patch on her eye proves otherwise. Bardiel hasn't died entirely without issue, misbegotten as Asuka is, warped as she is. Bardiel wreaked havoc on her DNA patterns and brain both in its own demented determination to leave a piece of itself behind.]

[She exhales slowly, disbelievingly. Here Nagisa is, talking about fate as if he or anyone else can afford to be so high-minded. It's so agitating. Asuka's always preferred the concrete to the abstract. She feels like he's dodging almost every barb she's sending his way, avoiding all efforts at confrontation.] Like hell we were. I don't believe in fate.

[paraclete]

[You're not one of them, he wants to say — unwillingly, she carried out Bardiel's last testament, but she was still born from a man and a woman. Even so, she shares a kinship with him. She's been under Lilin's watchful eye. She knows their glass and fluids.

But he's sure she hates the Angels. Everyone does. It's only natural.]

I won't ask you to believe. It can be real without you. [It's an airy answer, and he says it instead of anything more regarding his family.] I'm still certain of a few things. That's one of them.

[interstices]

[She's not one of them, but she's not Lilin, either. That's the hell of it, hovering somewhere between the two species, unacceptable to either. Asuka never fit in even before contamination, but there's a big difference between not fitting in and ending up an inadvertent science experiment.]

[Well, whatever. Maybe it doesn't matter now, here.]

What makes you so sure of that?

[paraclete]

[Kaworu wonders, too, if it doesn't matter here. Since arriving, Kaworu hasn't been treated unkindly, not once. No one's traded a greeting for a chill. No one's wanted to to exchange his birth for better times.

But not everything's different. Though for different and maybe stranger purposes, he's still being used. They're still being used.]

Well, that I'm here, for one. [Nice and vague, just the way he likes it. The sum of those words is more than he'll say: he's 'here', yes, but he is here, he exists, he has awakened after death in order to give joy another chance. He's constantly haggling for the destiny he desires; of course he's sure.] Though I think it's natural to have doubts. I won't tell you that you're wrong.

[He'll just think it, quietly.]

[interstices]

You don't have to.

[Asuka studies him as if he's a half-smeared, particularly iridescent insect on her shoe, disgusting and intriguing all at once. Nagisa has a point. Whoever's done this has some purpose in mind beyond whiling around this spacecraft for eternity. As usual, she's got no say whatsoever.]

[She's got no real reason to continue this conversation, either, but something-- call it familiarity, call it the most unfortunate, sanguine connection-- keeps her from stalking away just yet. Another snappish comment makes its way out of her mouth as she impatiently straightens one pigtail and then the other.]

You don't ever get tired of faking it, do you?

[paraclete]

[Shikinami's sharp. She's got a wealth of character, for better or for worse. Kaworu can see that she could hurt anyone, if she put her mind to it. He never gets tired, huh? He smiles. It doesn't seem bitter. He smiles, and it looks at peace. He never gets tired. There's nothing that can make him tired. He doesn't need to be tired.

He is so tired. He is still smiling.]

What makes you think I'm faking?

[He'd like to know what it is he needs to improve upon. And, if he's being honest — if he's not faking — it feels bad in a satisfying way to keep talking with her. It's like a method of testing himself, an insistence that he can weather anything. She's got more than enough reason to loathe him, and he's putting himself through it on purpose.]

[interstices]

Your expression.

[Blunt, to the point. Asuka's never wandered around anything her whole life, always insistent and defiant. No sugarcoating, no niceties. It's weak to pretend, weak to be tactful.]

[Asuka finds herself already out of things to fidget with. This is the good plugsuit, the new one, that doesn't have five or six taped-up places to busy herself straightening and repairing. And that's annoying, too. She looks him in the eyes, and then she sneers.]

It hasn't changed this whole time.