[text] your blue walls get in the way of these facts

[interstices]

Who: Asuka Shikinami Langley
Broadcast: Fleetwide
Action: Handholding planet, if you want it.
When: 7/27

[It's not like her to post much, and it's not like her to post with text at all, unless it's as a response to someone else. But if there's one thing Asuka's confident in, it's that people tend to own up to a hell of a lot more on the network than they ever do in person, especially when they're typing it up. Something about the distance. Even Katsuragi always sounded far more imposing over email than in person, except for the last couple years.]

[Plus, she's curious. All those pilgrimages that it seemed as if the whole Fleet had made had to have earned some useful tidbits. Asuka's poor at cloaking her motivations in the best of times, so she barely bothers.]

If we stay here much longer, I'm learning to swim.

What did you get from the tree? Even if it's something crappy like the promo stuff we get sometimes, I still want to know.

Comments

[mortalcoil]

[yeah, he recognizes that stitch-work. when he and Zhas had gotten their gifts, he'd received a harp that he was only mostly certain was actually his old one, and his partner had received something entirely new. so, seeing those stitches and old, scuffed paint adds an unsettling level of authenticity. before, he'd been able to at least pretend that the tree was creating objects that were only similar to their memories. seeing this, though... it makes it much harder to fool himself.

accepting the doll, touching the clumsy lettering on her dress, makes him feel like a voyeur. he's trespassing. again. with the way that Asuka calls the doll "her," he can't help wondering if it has a name, but he doesn't ask. he scans over all the little details, looks into its painted eyes for a few long seconds, and then passes it back to its hovering owner.

and once his hands are free, 'Sometimes you don't want normal people to see whats inside.'

it's his way of responding to her thanks. he already knows she's a monster, so what's the harm in him looking in her head? it just spares her from having to show it to someone else in order to get something she wants.]

[interstices]

Yeah.

[The truth is, she doesn't want anyone to see what's inside. She doesn't even like to peer in herself. All she ever sees there is more evidence of her own rottenness. Better to push it away than face it. That's why the doll was so good, an intermediary and a cheerleader, even when she was far too old to need encouragement from a piece of plastic and cloth. The doll was there for her. Even the day of the attack, the doll was there, situated among all the makeup she never got to put on, all the cosmetics that signaled an adulthood she'd never have.]

[Asuka puts the doll under one arm, gesturing with her hand.]

Let's go back.

[mortalcoil]

[he nods, stuffs his hands safely into the pockets of his sweatshirt, and turns to head back down the path. he tries not to seem eager to get away from the tree and out of the woods, but he certainly doesn't dally.

and this time--without him really even noticing--he's walking with Asuka on his blind side. it's not to ignore her, though. the other reason he ever turns his seeing side away from someone is the from the unconscious instinct to keep an eye out. their nerves are rattled, he's feeling wary, and he apparently trusts her enough to let her walk along where he can't watch.]