ic inbox ( ryslig )

[gitanes]

WELCOME TO YOUR PRIVATE CHANNEL, ZHAR-PTITSA. FOR SECURE COMMUNICATION, USE 66.234.111.217 *** ZHAR-PTITSA has joined 66.234.111.217 <ZHAR-PTITSA> Well? <ZHAR-PTITSA> Hurry up.

Comments

action, 2...5th or sth. whatever works

[missleadingquestions]

[Somehow going out for ice cream with Lila has been the most surreal part of this whole experience. Part of Maya had even been expecting for her to maybe start scolding her out of nowhere, but no— the scolding never comes. They really do just go out to get ice cream, at the place Maya suggested, even. Post-sunset is kind to shades and to ice cream cones, at least.

When they leave the shop to find a place to sit in just the right balance of light and dark outside, Maya trails behind Lila, watching her, stopping after a pace or two grows between them. She stares from Lila to her ice cream, takes a lick, and then prompts—]

Hey— um. Lila. Before we hang out, and stuff.

Can I say something? Not about today.

About— the last time we talked.

if you don't still want to do this thread that's legit i'm super late

[gitanes]

[Eating is still hard as a shade, but it's getting easier. She's stubborn enough that she's worked at it a lot, less because she feels strongly about food and more because she finds it's an easy way to hang out with people, over food. Just normal person food. Ice cream or burgers or pizza.]

[So she's in the process of slowly rotating her cone in the air in search of the best place for an initial attack when Maya speaks. Turning slightly, she perks up, giving the other girl a quizzical look.]

Uhhh, sure? Like when we talked on the network, or?

[Did she forget something? Was she a dick some other time? Probably. She considers the possibility of apologizing. To Maya, she probably would.]

[missleadingquestions]

Mm, yeah, on Ryou's post about being a shade.

I was kind of a jerk, I think?

[Surprise, Lila, it isn't you who was the assumed dick.]

I didn't mean to be, but being material as a shade seemed so easy. I thought that meant everything about being a shade would be.

[She gives the smallest laugh before nibbling the top of her ice cream like a weirdo, but biting things is a lot easier than licking in this state.]

It's hard. This is the hardest monster I've ever had to be.

[She looks to Lila, then, and adds—]

I didn't know. I'm sorry for acting like that.

[gitanes]

[Lila's very rarely genuinely surprised, and she even more rarely allows herself to show it. This, though? She couldn't stop her reaction even if she tried. Her jaw actually drops, revealing the gently glowing void of her mouth in a startled O.]

[No one ever apologizes to her. Especially not about something like this. Nobody ever apologizes in a way that acknowledges that something she has to deal with is hard. Nobody ever sees that. Never.]

[It only occurs to her after the silence has gotten long enough to be strained that she realizes it's dragging. Snapping her mouth shut, she shakes her head, suddenly wrong-footed and uncertain how to proceed. But it's Lila, so of course she just barrels forward. It's clumsy, but what other choice does she have? She can't just ignore that. Not when it's such a strange and new and curious thing. Not when it feels like it's burrowed itself deep in her chest alongside her bitter heart.]

Thank you.

[Crazy. It actually sounds like she means it. Crazy.]

It's . . . yeah. It's hard. I'm . . . like this anyway, kind of. Mad all the time. I want to hurt people. They deserve it. But everything's worse. It's so much louder, all the time, I . . .

[She bites her lip. The one she doesn't have, the one she has to concentrate on when she kisses Mukuro, to make sure it stays. To make sure she stays real. If she's being honest, what Maya said about being material stings, despite the apology. But she's trying to focus on the rest of it. The rest is what matters.]

But it's . . . okay. I don't think anybody can understand unless they're trapped in it. And can't get out.

[missleadingquestions]

[Maya doesn't rush Lila, doesn't give her any awkward looks about the time she takes, she concentrates on her own ice cream, on the taste, on what she can see of Lila and her face and her expressions. Of what Lila must feel like, every day. Even Vicious had come to Maya for help in meditating and she'd been able to get him started, but she hadn't truly known what he or anyone else would need out of that kind of concentration training until she'd seen it for herself.

And the biggest differenceis—]

And.. I'm lucky. I never— I've never dealt with anger like it, but this'll end for me soon.

I'm so sorry you have to keep living with that. And I'm sorry that—

That people would... rather yell at you, or be mean back, than try to help you.

[She reaches a somber hand forward to gently take Lila's incorporeal wrist in solidarity, should Lila accept the motion.]

If there's ever anything I can do... I want to be able to. Even if you just need someone to listen to you get the bad out.

[gitanes]

[Maya takes her wrist. It's not quite touch, but it's very close. That's one thing she's never really thought about, how shades can touch each other. She's never felt safe to touch anyone. Even now, she starts, looking at Maya with wide eyes.]

[But she doesn't pull away. And her eyes sting, although she refuses to think about it. She won't cry. She really can't, even. She can't find the words, either. But Maya's being nice to her. Maya's being—]

[Like Daneca. Like Daneca — and her form shivers around the edges, solid but only barely so as she wrestles with memory.]

I don't—

[Swallowing around nothing, she bites it back. The natural response — how she doesn't need anything, doesn't want anything, can do it all on her own. She knows now that it's not true, but she holds it up as a shield all the same just in case. Even here and now. Even with Maya, who just apologized to her when no one ever apologizes.]

[What do you even say to that?]

Why do you want to help me? I don't . . . get it. Nobody nice has ever wanted to help me.

[Except Daneca. And even Daneca wasn't open like this. This is . . . something else. She doesn't know what to do with it, although she desperately wants to believe it's real.]

[missleadingquestions]

[Maya watches Lila, how she acts and responds, how little her shadowy face shows and how much it shows. She remembers speaking to Mukuro, the way that wolf would recoil at kindness she so deeply desired to be real. And she remembers— saying to Mukuro, and then Mukuro using her as an example— that conclusion they'd come to, that Maya doesn't have to understand the pain people are going through to accept it.

But more than that, whenever she hears someone like Lila— someone who believes so thoroughly that they don't deserve the help they're being offered or else that they can't trust it, can't rely on it safely— she remembers Espella. She remembers how hard Espella tried to keep a brave face on and deny the help that she needed— and how wrong Maya had thought it was that everyone was against her in the first place.

And she knows that a world where people think it's okay to let someone feel that isolated and alone isn't right.

So Maya puts that ice cream cone in a tendril of shadow so her hands are free, and takes the hand Lila's given her in both of her own. She looks into Lila's eyes and says—]

Maybe they weren't that nice after all.

[She shrugs a shoulder, her glowing eyes changing shape to simulate the crease of a brow, the line of her smile going one sided.]

...I know I'd want someone to help me.

[gitanes]

[When her hand is clasped in both of Maya's own, she feels that same old revulsion, the one she hasn't felt in over a year. She crushed it with Komaeda, cremated it with Mukuro, and maybe — maybe that's part of why she stays away from shades. Because with everyone else, it doesn't really feel like touch. Doesn't feel like bare hands on her own. Doesn't feel intimate and dangerous, doesn't make her breath catch and squeeze in her throat.]

[All the breath she doesn't need to breathe anymore. But it's reflex. So much of home is still stuck in the body she doesn't have.]

[Slowly, she shakes her head. She wants to explain, but she knows she can't. Even Komaeda didn't get it, not really.]

That's not— Nice isn't . . . the right word. I don't know how to say it.

[Doesn't know how to explain that what she really means is right people, as opposed to her wrongness. That this is not a value judgment in her mind but a simple categorization, something that was placed on all of them by a society that hated and feared power. If anything, she relished her wrongness, misses it now because it made things so much easier, more logical.]

[Does she even want someone to help her? She doesn't know. She doesn't trust it, she knows that much. It feels on first blush like an insult, an implication that she can't handle herself and her problems. At home it would be a threat, not only to her but to her family, to her father.]

[Her father, who wouldn't trust Maya either.]

[For some reason, that feels like . . . a good reason that Lila should.]

[She closes her eyes for a moment, just to block everything out. Just to have one second. It would be nice to think that when she blocks the world out, it's easier to make sense of all of this, but it isn't. It just aches more. None of the rules she knows have ever made sense here, but she's never needed them more than now.]

You . . . feel like Steve.

[That's it. That's— She opens her eyes, frown sharp and overemphasized on her shadow face.]

You're both supposed to be afraid of me. That's how it's always been. And neither of you are. Because it's different here, I know that, I do—

[But. But it's hard. She might know, but she doesn't understand. There's a separation, and she's the only one who sees it. Just her, and no one else, and sometimes she feels insane.]

[missleadingquestions]

[Maya's glowing mouth turns up into a weird smile, and she leans forward a bit, as if to cover a face she forgets can just disappear.]

You're giving me too much credit.

[She admits only because Lila is being so vulnerable at this moment. Holding back truths feels like a disservice at this moment.]

I was totally afraid of you, after the first time we talked. I thought you'd think I'm— well, you're so— put together.

[It was the same feeling she got with Franziska; the idea that someone who might even be younger than her might know what they're doing more than she does.]

You gave me advice— I mean, did you even know it was me?

[She asks, looking at Lila for a moment, then back down at their hands—]

The cure for thinking things that drag you down is to find the person who made you believe it, cut out their heart, and eat it.

I thought—

[She pulls Lila's hands closer to her own chest, or where her chest would be, as if pleading with Lila to understand her own phenomenal being.]

I thought, you have to be one of the bravest people I'll meet! And then I did meet you, and I was right!

The longer anyone's here, the more people they meet, the more people go away. But even if we never met again, I know— that my life is different because of every time we've met! I'd remember every bit of my life you were a part of!

So I can't stay back from anyone even if I'm afraid. I think—

[She laughs, suddenly, and continues—]

It's corny, but I think I'd miss out on someone great, if I did.