2018-06-13 - LOTUS AWAKENING: Fate Testarossa

Title: LOTUS AWAKENING: Eri Shimanouchi
Summary: Fate Testarossa is home...
Who: Fate Testarossa, Alicia Testarossa, Linith, Precia Testarossa
Where: Garden of Time, Altseim - Midchilda
OOC - IC Date: 2018-06-13 - April 25th, 2015

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.

"... ... Im here." The girl starts screaming and Fate cant blame her. If anything, she wants to scream too! Shes too dull to the horror. Too used to it. Its just... her life.

The woman in black takes her place and pronounces her judgment.

As she starts to vanish into golden motes ... being absorbed into the book... she wonders if this is the...

...stars?

Fate Testarossas eyes are hazy as she stares up at the ceiling at the familiar constellations within an ocean of obsidian. Theyre not real though, the stars are like paintings on a childs ceiling glowing in the dark like tiny nightlights. Five pointed, linked by lines...

It was... her ceiling?

That didnt make sense though. Her mind discarded it because the covers were so warm and the pillow just comfortably cool beneath her hair.

And yet she found herself sitting up again, dressed in her teal pajamas, her hair down.

"This... is..."

Shapes out of her periphery forced her to look sideways. At the orange wolf puppy nestled up beside the smaller sleeping...

...version... of... her...

BGM Change: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DY54Dc11Lds

Fate was stunned into staring at her. She was... her... the her in her memories of when she was younger. But those memories weren't of her... it was...

There was no knock. A grey-haired cat-woman entered the room pulling the door open, ducking beneath violet drapes

"Fate, Alicia, Arf... rise and shine."

And Fate Testarossa was rendered utterly speechless as the woman pulled aside the drapes - at least until the light of the Midchildan sun struck her eyes.

"This... This can't be... Linith...?"

The small girl's eyes open - and in that moment she knows... she knows... it's her... big... sister. "Good morning, Feito."

<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.

"Good morning, Feito," Linith says, as she steps into the room. She is well-dressed as ever: wearing her white jacket, with a cutout on the chest, and her white hat neatly placed atop her head. Perhaps there should be sadness in her eyes... but there isn't, now.

She keeps her voice low. "We shouldn't speak too loudly. Aren't they so peaceful?" Linith asks, looking down at where Alicia and Arf are cuddled up. She looks her over, and then her eyes drift back to Fate.

A gentle smile spreads across her lips. "If we could take a picture... I think that your mother would very much like to see this."

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.

Fate's eyes adjust to the light only slowly, and for a moment she puts up a hand to shield from the glare. Linith has... never looked like this. Never looked...

... it's not like there's anything different about how she's dressed. It's just that Linith always had a sad look in her eyes, even when she was happy.

And yet she finds herself looking at the drowsing Alicia and Arf as Linith brings up... "My... mother...?" Something seizes up in her whole body. As she thinks of Precia again. There's something within her memories which is like a dulcet siren song telling her that everything is alright. That her mother is the kindly person she used to know.

And yet a deeper instinct causes fear to run through her body, sets her arms to trembling. Sends phantom pains from scarred neurons to firing. After a moment Fate puts a hand over her shoulder and down her pajamas and... it's... smooth. Her back unmarred. "... she'd... like..."

Alicia finally sits up in bed, but she's hunched over, hands gripping the sheets. She's a good deal shorter than Fate but full of righteous indignation only a kid can manage... "Buuu-! You're making fun of me for sleeping past my little sister again aren't you Linith?" Arf nuzzles her, before opening her eyes, "Well it's true that you're a sleepy head Alicia! Feito is the morning person you know. You should be the one setting the example as her big sister."

Alicia crosses her arms with a pout, "You two /always/ gang up on me." Arf starts to laugh as she pads over to Fate, and nuzzles her nose under her hand. "What do you think Feito? Should we take a picture of Alicia while she's like /this/ instead? Precia might like that one even better." "NNNNNNNNN-" It's a sound of intense frustration from the other - smaller big sister. And yet all the same, it doesn't seem directed at Fate. Because she implores, "-Feito! You'll take my side right? Tell them to be nicer to me?"

It's so surreal. It feels like an out of body moment. Was this the Alicia that Precia always wanted? The Alicia she could never satisfy her with? She was a failure from the moment of her birth because... she wasn't...

"Ah... um..."

Fate's caught in that moment - where she feels intensely unsafe. Even in this happy atmosphere. The Precia that awaits her an unknown. And so she says almost pathetically - as if not really following the conversation. "Bardiche - where's Bardiche?" Alicia looks at her in total confusion, "Huh?" And Arf - "What's that?"

"It's my..." Device. She almost says it. Almost... but she can't. Because now she's doubting herself. Is... that really true?

<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.

"I'm sorry, Alicia," Linith says, with that same good-natured smile that she always wears. That same smile that seems so unflinching in the face of... the face of the happy life that they all lead. "I didn't mean to upset you. But, you looked so cute. I thought..."

She trails off, though. Linith was always a perceptive one, and she notices the way that Fate has frozen up; the way that, for a moment, Fate looks scared. "Oh, Feito..." She steps over and reaches a hand out, laying it gently on the youngest Testarossa's shoulder. "...You had a bad dream, again, didn't you? Shh. It's okay. You don't need to worry about..."

A third voice, though, comes from the hallway. "Bardiche?" she asks, before she has opened the door. "Mm. Linith, wasn't that the design you started? You never finished it, did you?"

"Yes--" Linith says, looking at the door, before she finishes. "--Mother."

The door, which had been ajar, opens the rest of the way. Precia Testarossa stands there, as real as the day she died, and much the same... and yet, much different. The bags under her eyes are gone; this is a woman who looks rested and poised, instead of crushed by sorrow. Her Barrier Jacket is discarded for, instead, a smart pants suit. Her fingers, long and elegant, adjust her tie.

She has two earrings. One is longer than the other, with a diamond piece. It pings and speaks -- something it never would have before Precia... before Precia did what, exactly, to her beloved Device?

<I wouldn't have minded a younger brother.>

Precia smiles and looks at her three daughters, nothing but warmth and love in her eyes. "Oh, my darlings. It does me good to see you all so happy. You are happy, aren't you?"

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.

Alicia seems to ease up a little as it becomes more clear that Linith isn't teasing her. All the same though she's more confused by her little sister's confusion. Fate doesn't seize up at Linight's touch, but she is pretty stiff at first. "I... a bad dream?" She still sounds a little scared. Disbelieving. "I... Linith you were... you were..." Why does she look like she's about to cry?

Alicia puts up a hand to her forehead, "Mmm - she's not warm. So I agree! Diagnosis: Bad dreams! Treatment: Hugs from your big sister!" She says a little precociously. Then buries Fate in a hug. "It's okay Feito! Your big sister is her to protect you from any nightmare." "Me too you know! That's my job as your familiar!"

"Onee... chan?" Fate doesn't know how to respond to this. One hand reflexively moves to pat Arf's head but... Alicia... Alicia hugging her. She moves an arm as if she's going to put it around her...

Then there's a voice that fills her blood with ice.

"Muh...M..."

She can't even respond to the confirmation that Bardiche exists in some way - even if he might just be a design she overheard once.

Instead she's trailing over to look at her mother - and the way she's dressed. Neither in lab coat - nor barrier jacket. She's dressed like those far off memories that weren't really hers. And the pinging of - is that Amethyst Night!? The Device never spoke... she never remembered it having a will of its own.

Fate let's out this small whimper. "Of course! Of course!" Alicia looks over to Precia, "Mama! Of course we are! Fate had a bad dream - so we're hugging it out of her."

Fate can't take it anymore, with the two attached to her... she grasps her blanket, and throws it over the three of them in what can only be described as a child's futile attempt to hide from a nightmare - like some boogeyman under the bed.

The three are suddenly a giant lump on the bed. After a moment Alicia comments with a note of muffled disbelief, "... That must have been some nightmare."

<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.

Linith stares down at Fate, and the uncertainty is clear on her face. In that, there may be a familiarity; it always hurt to see Fate suffer, and it always left her not quite sure what to do. Her eyes blink slowly, and she stares in confusion at the girl -- and with a regret, written all over her face. Her head bows down.

"Mm..."

Precia's murmur is low. Her voice always has a darker quality to it; deeper and harder to sound gentle than she would like. But something is back in her voice, now, that was lost: that gentleness for daughter, that kindness that came at odds of being brilliant -- and, in her scientific persuits, ruthless.

"...It's okay. Sometimes... we have a bad dream that seems so real, that hurts so much, that it's all we can do to hide from it." She steps forward, then kneels down, and Fate can feel something so familiar: her mother's arms pulling her into a gentle hug, instead of hurting her.

"It's okay, Fate," she says. "I'm here. Cry if you need to."

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.

Fate can feel her mother's arms pulling her into a hug. And she starts. She recoils. The mother in her memories had never hugged her once and yet the dream is telling her that her mother hugs her all the time.

This is what she wanted though! This is what she wanted more than anything! It's both the most wonderful thing...

And the most horrible thing.

It isn't long before she begins bawling as if she were a child with a skinned knee - a child who needs her mother to make it better. But these wounds are so much more than a skinned knee. Caught between her desire to believe and her desire not to be hurt /again/. "Muh-Mother!"

And it just keeps running through her head over and over...

Mother never hugged me before! Not even once!

Never!

Never!

She can't hug her back. She can't. She just cries wretchedly as she's clung to by the three - as if they were all that anchored her to her sanity right now.