2010-05-12 - Cool, Groovy, Morning, Fine

Riksent Castle proper is a strange conglomeration of old and new. From the outside especially, it looks like it was made in about 1400 AD, and sits at the south side of a small, picturesque city that may have been designed just to look good on postcards. There are hills and trees and everything, though the forest is a little less lush than usual this year from the weather upset. There is even a hedge maze near the castle proper.

And yet the area inside the castle walls has all the modern comforts and conveniences, even if sometimes it is a little drafty (but on the Mediterranean, that is not a huge issue). Next to the castle itself is a small military base, suitable for defense of the tiny country, or at least its capital.

Latooni spends a lot of her time split between the castle and the base. At the moment, she is in the military facility, alone, in a tiny room that she has appropriated for her own. It may have been somebody's office once. It has three computer monitors, all arranged on one desk. One of the side ones is showing a map of the world with a cutin for the Moon and a different one for some colonies, a current readout of the Earth Sphere situation. The other side one has a series of news tickers and updates on it. The middle one is where Latooni is actually doing work right now: analyzing plans of attack used by Katharon lately.

She is not paying significant attention to anything else around her, including the door, almost directly behind her. Anyone who gets this far is authorized or would set off an alarm.

Rei Ayanami is authorized. How or why this occurred will, later, never quite become clear; suffice it to say that NERV's surplus of resources can withstand some casual abuse, and that paper trails have this magic way of disappearing into the organization's gaping maw. Rei Ayanami does not feel any particular guilt about doing this sort of thing anymore; guilt tends to be beyond her, just like how the beautiful landscape outside was wasted on her red eyes.

There are some courtesies that the First Child observes, though. First, she's dressed in uniform. Her A-LAWS duster hangs limply round her legs, and the teal, branded beret sits atop her head, suggesting the moment where the iconography of fascist stormtrooper and socialist revolutionary join hands. Her hair is rapidly approaching 'long,' and A-LAWS-logo gold clips have been employed to keep it free of her face. She's making the same face that she always makes.

The second courtesy, though, is that she knocks, twice, sharply and loudly, on the door that Latooni is not paying much attention to. Simply barging in would give the wrong impression. Rei does this with her free hand; the other clutches a small box, wrapped in nondescript brown paper and tied with string.

Becoming authorized is not particularly difficult for a member in good standing of the Earth Federation Army - and Rei, despite being assigned to A-LAWS right now, still falls under the command of a Federation-aligned group.

Latooni jerks upright as someone knocks on her door and she realizes that it is on /her/ door, not someone bumping into the hallway's side nearby or hammering on some other nearby door. She hesitates for a moment, and then spins her chair around, standing up.

She adjusts her own uniform slightly - EFA regulation, all in white and dark blue - and says, after another slight pause, "Come in."

The door opens. What follows is a moment that everyone who's had any contact with Rei Ayanami can relate to -- that difficult first proper face-to-face meeting. Ask anyone and they could all but read from a script how it works.

Rei enters, her footfalls quiet, her posture straight. Her arms hang at her sides, even though one hand still clutches the box. Her eyes lock on Latooni -- in fact, they go right for eye contact, ignoring the rest of the room. The screens hold no interest.

There's no greeting, no pleasantries. Rei just walks forward until she stops, the door closing behind her. And then she stands there, staring at Latooni like a gargoyle, not saying a single word.

Meeting Latooni's eyes is impossible.

That isn't to say Rei has trouble looking where Latooni's eyes are. She doesn't, though Latooni does not return the other girl's gaze head-on. But all she sees is glasses, thick and strangely tinted; they reflect too much, hiding her eyes behind a gleam of light.

On the other hand, Latooni does not seem appreciably concerned about Rei's social (in)ability. She herself was prone to similar problems, though she eventually grew out of some of them. She still has trouble talking to people she doesn't know, though. Like Rei.

Latooni does not say anything to the other girl for a very long time. Then, quietly, "Can I help you?"

Her inability to see Latooni's eyes doesn't stop Rei from staring into the glasses nonetheless. She's always been a determined little thing, even in the face of the impossible. Especially in the face of the impossible. But, for once, that's not relevant to the current discussion -- or, well, what becomes a discussion when Latooni throws down the gauntlet.

Rei's expression doesn't change when Latooni becomes the first to speak. As opposed to mere passivity, though, it seems that she maintained the silence by conscious choice -- there's an intensity to her stare that suggests that there are gears moving behind her eyes that aren't just mere nervousness. Still, her expression and her body language are perhaps alarmingly hard to read, simply because of sheer paucity.

"I want to ask a favor," Rei replies, a few moments after Latooni speaks; there's that customary pause, as if Rei is searching through a mental card catalogue, scanning for the proper response like some sort of AI.

Latooni Subota tilts her head downward slightly. It's rare for Latooni to actually encounter anyone shorter than she is; in her line of work, she is much more likely to get a sore neck looking almost straight up at someone who towers above her five foot one (in heels) self. She does not smile, or frown, even though nowadays she does do both. It's /hard/ to read Rei. Without benefit of social cues to work off of, she is default to not having many of her own, either.

Honestly, she is surprised to see Rei here. This is the girl that worries Leo so much? She's heard some of the things he's done - not all, but enough that she knows his opinion on her. They've not interacted in a very long time on anything but work - but the Angels. Why Rei has come to speak to her now, she's not entirely sure. Her own mental gears start to turn as she attempts to make sense of the situation.

She breaks the look first, pushing up her glasses with one finger. "All right," Latooni says. "Is this about work, or...?" It could be something else. She hesitates, then adds, "I would offer you a seat but I only have one." At least she hasn't sat back down into it.

Whatever Rei thinks of Latooni, she keeps to herself. Which is just par for the course. It could be anything, really, with the way she acts or, more accurately, doesn't act. Rei is a blank canvas, and tends to reflect what people think she thinks of them precisely because of that.

"I don't need to sit," Rei says in her flat, quiet monotone after the requisite moment of silence. Her voice isn't cold. It's not warm, either. It's tepid, like a dinner that's been left on the table too long -- and just as appealing in its absence of tone.

Now, though, Rei finally moves. She holds up the box. It cleared security; it's not ticking. Still, despite holding it up, Rei doesn't hold it /out/ -- it's not offered. "Things will get worse for Leo before they get better. He will need you." Rei puts no ominous emphasis into her words, but... she doesn't put anything else in, either, and their matter-of-fact delivery sort of /makes/ them ominous.

Leo has typically not mentioned this aspect of Rei. The mysteriousness, the strangeness. Then again, Latooni does not ask many questions about Rei nowadays. It upsets him... and she doesn't really want to know how she compares. If she's compared.

Nor has he mentioned any danger. Anything like that. That it is comes at all is not really a surprise; his life isn't always very good. That it is coming from Rei is not good news at all, though, and another mystery.

Latooni's lips shift almost infinitesimally downward. Whether it's a worried look or an unhappy one is difficult to discern even for people who are good at reading her; Rei is probably worse than the average. "What will make it worse?" she asks, once she's had a good few seconds to work out her plan, what she wants to know and how she wants to ask it. Rei knows something - or thinks she does, anyway. If it's just general worries, she should be able to figure that out relatively quickly. But Rei, as best Latooni knows, does not seem worried about very much at all, so if /she/ thinks it's serious, it probably is.

Pause.

"Me," Rei replies, as starkly as ever. Her expression doesn't even twitch. She lets the point hang in the air for a moment, and then moves on, displaying no interest in continuing that line of conversation.

"His grip on reality appears tenuous." This is coming from the girl who, a week ago, was on the radio, screaming her brains out about Char Aznable and who knows what. "I'm going away soon." Again, Rei fails to explain what she means. This is the part of Rei that contributes the most to that air of mystery -- she either assumes that everyone else in the world is telepathic, or she just doesn't care if they don't know what she's talking about.

Rei finally extends the package. It's not heavy. It rustles a bit like it's packed with crumpled paper. "When I do, give this to him." It's not a suggestion or a request -- Rei's voice manifests just enough personality to put a bit of force into her words and make them into a demand.

Me.

This makes less sense to Latooni. She knows that Rei's existence is... hard on Leo. She's not sure why. She watched the video of the Evangelion being practically gutted, and even she had to admit that yes, in absence of other proof, Rei would likely have died. But she's here. She's talking to Latooni /right now/. So Leo's insistence that she is dead is strange, to her.

Whatever the reason for Leo's behaviour, though, she cannot deny that the behaviour exists and is tied to Rei. And so Latooni's lips purse, again very slightly, as if she was considering everything about the data provided to her and trying to work through it.

"Where are you going?" she asks, without taking the package. "A gift would be better if it came from the person giving it. Even if it was as they left."

Rei hasn't blinked once this entire encounter. This adds to the way that her expression seems frozen -- like a robot, or a wax dummy gifted with animate lips. She seems perfectly inhuman. And yet, on the radio, she's screamed, cried, everything between -- lately, anyway. That might as well be a different person completely, based on Rei's behavior in the flesh.

She doesn't lower the offered package. "I told you," Rei says. "Away."

Rei only lets the silence after her comment extend enough to make her point -- she speaks again afterward. Without the slightest indication in expression or tone, she jumps the rails of the conversation entirely, hitching on to a different train. "In the world that the Angel created, I saw how you were with Leo. He will need you. I refuse to involve you in this because I refuse to put that in danger. He loves you and you need to love him back when he needs it the most."

Rei pauses a beat. "Take the package."

Latooni Subota does not interrupt the silence. She lets Rei talk; in Latooni's view, sometimes saying nothing at all is the best way to learn something.

She is proven right this time, though the information does not actually help her learn very much. Rei claims to remember that time... inside the Angel. Latooni does not remember it very clearly - which is a frightening thing, for someone with nearly perfect memory - but what Rei does say is familiar to her in a way that very few things are. She straightens, and this is a gesture big enough to be notable.

"..." Latooni's mouth moves as if she was going to speak. She ends up saying nothing for a long time. "You have already involved me in this," Latooni says, eventually, "by coming to me. What I feel for Leo - " Is very confused, probably on both their parts. Latooni reddens, just a hint of flush in her cheeks. " - does not affect me doing my job. I will help you if I can. But you have to tell me more."

Latooni reaches out. She does take the package, although she does not move it very far. It is in her hand, though. "Where are you going?" she repeats, in exactly the same tone she used not very long ago. This time, though, she adds: "And why are you going there?"

If Latooni's minor expression is notable, so too is Rei's -- although hers is more of a microchange in the way she vacantly stares. Rei stands emotionlessly through Latooni's moment of shock, the ensuing silence, and Latooni's talk of feelings. She doesn't blush, although she's paler than her by half. Rei's paler than anyone, though.

It's the comment about helping her. That makes Rei's eyes tense somewhat. Her face is so smooth and young that no wrinkles manifest, but her eyelids tighten just that little bit, halfway to a squint -- halfway to a real expression of some sort.

"No, you won't," Rei says. Again, that tone comes into her voice -- demanding without explicitly demanding. "I'm going where I need to go. I'm doing it because that's how it has to be."

Rei's expression, if it can be remotely called that, remains tense. Or maybe it just seems tense because it's not painfully blank. "And because I want to."

Latooni Subota sets the package down next to her keyboard, barely turning to do it. It lets her look away for a moment. Watching Rei's face is intense in a strange sort of way. Maybe it's the fact that she /does/ never blink and barely changes expression.

She turns back again afterwards. "How do you know?" Latooni asks, but does not press the point any further. Rei seems unlikely to respond to this line of questioning. She'll need to switch, too.

So Latooni tries the other line. "Who says it has to be?" she asks, quietly. It must be NERV. NERV controls everything about Rei. She has a sinking feeling: what if the letter Latooni sent was what pulled Rei off-duty? Unlikely, but theoretically possible. And Huang wanted her to ask questions about NERV, anyway.

Latooni does not ask /those/ questions. She can investigate on her own time.

Latooni's question is met with stony silence. Rei reverts to type -- though she's doled out cryptic comments that might even be construed into clues, full aware of what Latooni could do with such a set, she forces herself to give nothing. Her eyes relax. Her face melts back into a quietude that lacks serenity as a symptom of lacking anything else, either.

Rei's arms hang at her sides. Her hands don't move. The silence, maintaining the going trend, is a long one. Rei breathes, but that's the only interaction she seems to perform with the world outside of her head.

When Rei speaks, it's the sound of intrusion. Like a foot on a grave. Like trespassing in the realm of silence. "Your concern," Rei says, "should be Leo. When I go away, give him that package. Not before. Do not tell him we spoke. He would only be more troubled by that knowledge. Now is not the time."

Rei turns on her heels and begins to walk back toward the door. She stops before it opens, to look back over her shoulder, one red eye peering at Latooni like a dull knife that could somehow cut diamonds. "But soon."

They're in agreement about one thing, at least: Latooni is not going to bring this conversation up to Leo. Possibly not even after Rei is... away, or at least not without a lot of self-censoring.

She nods, very slightly. "I will not tell him," she says, looking straight at Rei's face again - she may have avoided it before, but if she's going to leave, she can manage it that long.

Everything else she would have said - and she was close to saying it - is cut off by Rei turning aside. Latooni holds her words. There is nothing else she can do to speak to Rei right now... even if she is left with more questions than actual answers.

Rei meets Latooni's stare, even through the glasses -- it's not that hard to figure out where the girl's eyes should be, gleam or no gleam. And then Rei breaks contact and turns away.

"Sorry to have disturbed you," the doomed teen notes with all of the sincerity and warmth of a dead fish, and then she walks through the doorway and leaves.

SOME TIME AGO

Rei Ayanami sits in her quarters, surrounded by origami cranes -- hundreds of them now, filling up every available surface. She regards the scars on her hands carefully before reaching under her pillow and taking out a diamond necklace. It's a bit ostentatious in the way it's constructed -- whoever bought it obviously wanted it to be seen when she wore it. Staring at the necklace for a moment, Rei then carefully folds it and places it into a paper-filled box, along with a small note in her precise, featureless handwriting.

Then Rei tapes the box shut and begins to wrap it in brown paper.