[open]

[redheadcarrier]

CHARACTERS: Asuka Langley Soryu and you.
WHERE: The Station
WHEN: Day: 048
SUMMARY: Asuka hasn't had a good time emotionally; she tries to distract herself by overworking.
WARNINGS: Potential mention of suicide, suicidal ideation, death.

[ Her conversations with Misato didn't go anywhere. Or at least they didn't go anywhere that would help Asuka resolve the teeming mass of uncomfortable hollowness that permeates her. Every last bit of her old self-worth feels as if it's been ground out of her, squeezed by her death, by Third Impact, and now by Misato, until she's been left flailing and trying to grasp onto something - anything - that will let her keep her head above water. She has a new purpose now, so at least there's that. There are new people around her. Some of them are even decent, but she tries not to let on that she likes some of them.

Of course, with Adra and Lavellan, it's almost impossible for her to keep that way. They're a constant presence at the back of her mind. Warm light and a familiar feeling of frustration and loss, respectively. The feelings she associates with them now and the emotions that creep in when she tries to pay attention to their buzzing, humming presence. She's adapted, too. She's found that she can tune out the voices if she wants, but that simply letting them fade into the background of her head is almost easier.

Asuka's not sure how she feels about that.

There's nothing for her to do yet and she feels antsy and on edge and if she sits too long, her mind is going to start crawling down into dark places and it'll take her with it. So she moves. She decides to train, because she's here to fight a war and if she has to fight, she's going to be ready. They have a gym and she's using it now, going through a routine. Running, acrobatics, exercises, and a barrage of punches and kicks that are aimed at the punching bag there. Her form is a bit sloppy, but there's real muscle memory to it - like a fighter who coming back after an injury. It's also a bit strange to see a five-foot nothing teenager going after said punching bag with the viciousness of a cornered animal, teeth gritted, breath hissing between her teeth, anger and frustration rolling out of her with every blow until she leaves herself panting and out of breath, still glaring at the punching bag as if it somehow personally offended her.

She spits out a few choice curse-words in German, but she welcomes the feeling of physical exhaustion that washes over her and radiates out through the hive link. Better than the alternative. ]

[OOC: Will potentially ad more prompts later; if you'd like to hit her somewhere else, just wildcard it. ]

Comments

[premorse]

[ Those could very well be the same reasons she'd be so determined to exhaust herself, to keep going until she was broken into pieces and seeing the world in a blur, smudged by whatever despair she felt to make it change. To make herself change. Hyperion can only assume that's what this is; he's seen it too many times before to pretend he doesn't recognize it.

So there's that strange, surreal kind of concern. The sense that, if he was so determined to never intervene when he lived in those dark alleys, he needs to do something about it here. It actually affects him this time around: they're real people because they're in his head as much as they're standing before him. ]

Because it's easier to fall for your own bullshit than others'.

[ To believe any of this redundant explosiveness will make a difference. ]

[redheadcarrier]

[ There's concern tugging at the edges of her mind and she's not sure how she feels about it. She's never wanted pity or handouts (and paradoxically, all she's ever wanted was for people to care, to validate her). So his attention leaves her feeling mixed and on edge and unsure of how she should respond. ]

Who decided it was your business?

[ And now she rounds on him, hands on her hips, sweat still staining her brow. She's missing an eye - her left - covered by a simple patch. ]

I don't even know who you are!

[ But she will and she can know with a few thoughts. If both of them are willing. ]

[premorse]

[ It's such a juvenile attitude. The bravado trying to prove there's nothing that can warrant fear from a kid convinced that she's seen it all. (Maybe she has. Is fear what made her lose her eye, or the opposite?)

I don't know who you are, either.

[ But they do: he's Hyperion, the name is dragging across his thoughts. It's always there and will be for as long as he remains untrained, without a shield. ]

Hyperion. That's my name.

[ As for the rest... he's about as willing to share as she is. ]

[redheadcarrier]

[ She's seen a lot. Not all of it, of course, but enough to know that the universe is a hard, uncaring place. She doesn't like it and almost wishes she could crawl back to something safer and more innocent, but that moment is long, long past. ]

I'm Asuka Langley Soryu.

[ Her response is quiet and level, but still tinged with that touch of hostility and suspicion. It's how she reacts to almost everyone new around here. It's better to be on the offensive at first. Less chance of being wounded. ]

What kind of name is Hyperion?

holy moly html cannoli

[premorse]

It's like any other name.

[ He knows what she means - what she's trying to go for. Something to fill in the blanks, lest Hyperion take the first step and threaten her ground, because she's small and a girl and young and can't afford to let anyone think it's a weakness. All of this comes from the assumptions he's gathered in grain upon grain that were the kids around him, of course - they were just pretending to be super heroes, pretending to have a way out of their regular or problematic lives, sometimes to a catastrophic extent. ]

Something to do with mythology. [ His brothers, to follow the rule, were Helios and Apollo. Triplets, their last names Crius. Their parents weren't messing around. ] Didn't choose it.

[ It should be obvious, but there are all kinds of universes, all kinds of rules, walking around in humanoid shapes. In direct contradiction to all of his assumptions just seconds ago, Hyperion doesn't take objective rules for granted. ]

html is my sworn enemy

[redheadcarrier]

Greek, right?

[ She sort of knows that. It was a part of her education, in a tangential way. Nothing she really focused on. She shakes her arms out, feeling the burn of muscle and the slickness of sweat on her skin. He's right, in a way. She's pretended to be a hero most of her life, although unlike most children she had a chance to see the reality of her fantasies and fight - fight hard. She bled for it. ]

Your parents had weird taste.

[ She's blunt, but the bluntness and bitterness aren't aimed at him specifically. He's just an incidental target. ]

[premorse]

Mm.

[ By now it's been established by the universe (and beyond) that Hyperion's economic use of words makes up for any chatty host in the premises. Who knew there could be a balance in this world!

But its goes for more than one positive answer: yes, it's probably Greek; yes, his parents had weird taste. Good people, nice enough to their kids but ultimately incapable of staying in their lives. All of this can be plucked from Hyperion's thoughts, along with the sharp and guilty realization that they, along with everyone else, are gone forever. Hyperion wasn't a full-grown man the last time they spoke, and they had already lost Helios to his own ambition before that. (Literally, the world's unluckiest parents.) ]

Where are you from?

[redheadcarrier]

[ Asuka gets a sense for it; the bitter taste of abandonment, of being left to cope on your own. Not quite the same as hers, but it's familiar enough. She's not sure if she ought to feel sympathy or pity. Her sense of her parents is one of bitterness and regret a muted, desperate need for attention from absent parental figures. Especially her mother. An amorphous shadow that casts itself wide and deep over her life. ]

Germany.

[ She shrugs with a frown. ]

Technically I'm an American, but I lived in Germany most of my life.

[ And she has a Japanese name. Funny how that works. ]

[premorse]

[ It's an interesting mix, he thinks, and one that might have been a topic for development if a) Hyperion knew how to hold normal conversations, and b) Asuka's head wasn't clouded with a presence charged with the kind of darkness Hyperion dreads. It's nothing that will push him away, though. He's still getting the sense of who needs to be avoided and who needs to be a mystery unraveled, be it for affiliation or self-defense. ]

Never been to Germany.

[ He's never been anyone outside the USA. Never thought about it, either; stepping out into places unknown was the least ideal scenario.

And here he is now. Funny how things work out. ]

What happens back there?

[ The kind of events that make the world go round, he means - no one's really presented a universe with the gifted: people born with supernatural powers that are taught, by specialized academies, to be anything but superheroes. ]

[redheadcarrier]

The last time I was there was...

[ Her nose wrinkles. Time is weird here. How does she figure out when that was? She shakes her head to clear it. ]

Four or five months ago. It's not that important. I wasn't there to have fun. I was training. I had to be a pilot.

[ And her home, true. But she'd been busy trying to make up for... everything. There's a bit of regret in there. ]

[premorse]

[ There's a slight pinch in his eyebrows. This must be the first time he's searching, not just picking up someone's thoughts. He knows it's intrusive, he knows he would recoil and try to shroud himself in darkness if it were the other way around, but there's something - a shape moving just around the corner, something misidentified that urges you to follow, because if you don't, your imagination will simply blow it out of proportion. The mind warps reality into a monster that isn't really there. ]

You're training again.

[ Not to be a pilot, clearly, but... ]

[redheadcarrier]

[ She can feel him searching. It's not hard to miss. Her body tenses a little, hands curling into fists, but she stands her ground. Even if there's a note of panic in her thoughts, a memory of something alien searching through her thoughts, a moment of utter helplessness, of being exposed and naked and raw. ]

What else am I supposed to do? Sit around until we start fighting again? This is war.

[ She sounds determined. But how much of that is a front? ]

[premorse]

[ This is war.

You get away from the end of the world to become a soldier on the next. Is that what everyone here is expected to be? Are they capable, or will they be coerced? ]

Not up to me to decide.

[ He's just. Exploring aimlessly. Why not. ]

I need to get to know the place.

[ Not that he wants someone to show him around... baka... ]

[redheadcarrier]

There's not that much to see. At least not that's important.

[ Then again, she's only been here for a short while herself. Maybe she's not exactly an expert. ]

What do you want to know?

[ Which doesn't stop her from pretending to be an expert. ]

[premorse]

How long it takes. To have some control.

[ Over what bleeds out, over what comes crashing in. The way he's seen Prince manipulate this ship like it's an organic, breathing machine. ]

[redheadcarrier]

I don't know.

[ Asuka's lips press together into a thin line. She knows exactly what he's talking about. ]

I'm still figuring it out!

[ Ugh. She hates admitting that. ]

[premorse]

[ It's okay, Asuka, we're all losers here. ]

... I hate that too.

[ A weird admission - not in its nature, but because Hyperion chose to share it. Or maybe it wasn't much of a choice at all, and instead a push from the Hive to draw a line between two dots. Two dots making great efforts to not connect.

Hyperion's open discomfort is temporary. ]

Not used to - [ The pause denounces a lack of a proper term, or the willingness to use the obvious one. ] - This.

[redheadcarrier]

What? Having other people in your brain? Yeah. It kinda sucks.

[ She skims over the admission of hatred that he plucked out of her. It's a weird feeling. Lines being drawn, connections being made that she can't remember consciously making. She rubs her temple wit ha scowl. ]

I... kinda experienced something like it, but it was a lot... Ugh. There were less lines between people. No barriers. I wasn't - I wasn't me.

[premorse]

[ Here's a new question: how do you ask someone to explain without asking them to explain?

Answer (??): You ask something else. ]

Did it help.

[redheadcarrier]

I-

[ She wants to say no. She hated it. She despised having to endure that. But it did help her in some ways. Just not the way he's asking. ]

I don't think so.

[premorse]

[ There's only a lack of disappointment because Hyperion had no substantial expectations. His brief exhale is an unspoken figures. ]

Gotta find something that can.

[ Asuka. Hyperion. Whoever else is trying not to scream and tell the entire station to shut down their thoughts so that they can stop feeling like a sphere of something amorphous, always watching, is closing in on them.

Gaze drifting over to the punching bag, Hyperion reconsiders his initial perception. Maybe that's where she was looking for help. ]

[redheadcarrier]

Maybe practice. I don't know.

[ She sounds a little resigned and a little angry. She's been forced into this, but she thinks it's still better than the alternative. She'll take it, because it's not a dead, dead world. That doesn't mean she has to like all of the aspects of it, because she sure as Hell doesn't. ]

I'll deal with it.

[premorse]

[ It would be challenging to find a greater number of things to dislike here than he did back home, but at least those things he left behind were familiar. He knew how to navigate them, and now, like Asuka, he's being forced to live in a place that's better than the alternative: a world reduced to literal ash.

She'll deal with it, she says. So will he, for now. However: ]

Alone?

[redheadcarrier]

Is there any other way? I don't need help.

[ But she does and always has, no matter how hard she tries to force others away. She needs and wants help, even if she screams at people to stay away from her. It's her paradox. A strange, strange place to be. She doesn't understand it and she tries to grapple with it and in the end, she thinks it's safer to be alone then to let others in. ]

[premorse]

Everybody needs help with something. Doesn't mean someone else has to be it.

[ The few he counted on are long gone, and everyone who came after broke his sense of trust beyond repair. There were too many prisons, too many wounds, too much laughter heard when all he could feel was blood being traded for pain and degradation.

(It's a woman's voice, mocking him. She's young and glamorous and incredibly cruel, hair tightly pulled back in a tall ponytail, her face covered in the shadow of orange lights illuminating the prison, from beyond the corner.)

He doesn't think it's safer to be alone. He knows so. ]