*** HARMONIA has joined 710.35.155.17 <HARMONIA> Buongiorno, sorry I missed you. <HARMONIA> I'll happily get back to you as soon as I'm done with whatever business I'm on. <HARMONIA> Please leave a message.
[When you can't bring your spiritual devotional materials with you to another home, you just have to make do with what you can make up. That seems to be the philosophy Maya has been living by in all her years at Ryslig, doubly so with the creation of the Shrine at lake Dala.
The mysterious bone-and-coral arrangement hangs mounted to a tree in the thicket by the lake, not immediately imposing or noticeable. But when Maya is there, she places coral and pearls and incense or other burnt offerings, and in lieu of bells or her phone playing the integral tones for mediating, the mermaid is able to sing the tones herself. She knows it's enough to make the shrine's presence known— but perhaps that isn't always a bad thing.
And besides, if anyone approaches, her voice will help her identify anyone approaching before they get too close.
So Maya sits confidently before her shrine, where a recently-made drawing of Mia and Pearl together is set, in meditation. She doesn't always sing, but this time she has taken to it, her voice carrying along the plumes of incense in long, solid, clear notes. Pearls lay in her lap, the offering of her own emotion to her new god.
She isn't expecting the scent of her incense to be on Giorno's path between Bavan and the Hill House— perhaps it's simply fate. Should the sound and smell catch Giorno's attention, he won't have much trouble finding Maya and the shark-bone shrine amongst the lake's trees.]
[Perhaps it would be better if he did. Maybe that better judgment is exactly what he’s choosing to ignore, after that hesitant moment when he catches the scent of incense and the sound of her voice. He wants to flee, because whatever she’s doing smacks of ceremony, and he’s got no desire for another confrontation, or indeed to talk about this subject at all, with anyone, right now.]
[But the idea of running from any topic brings obstinacy to the forefront of his emotional palette. Before he can even form the conscious thought, he turns toward the sound of singing.]
[It doesn’t take long at all for him to regret it. The little shrine Maya has set up, once he finds it, confirms the spark of fear that was lit at that scent and fans it into . . . something more complicated. Disappointment makes up a decent portion of that new, expanded, complex emotion. Though his steps slow to a stop at a respectful distance, his gaze locks on the shrine after briefly glancing over those pearls.]
[He looks crushed. More than anything, he looks hopeless. But he doesn’t say a word.]
[He may say nothing, but Maya can detect him; her voice bounces off Giorno's flowery curls and upright posture, and after a moment, she stops singing to look back at him. She hadn't known that the figure approaching was him, of course, and it takes her by surprise.]
Oh!
Giorno.
[She stops suddenly, staring vacantly, at a loss for words. What is this going to mean? How will this play out, after the last time they spoke about the fog...?]
[Part of him wants to be angry about that. He really does. How can she not know? This isn't her place, her forest, her peninsula. Just because she's been here longer, this place is as much his as hers.]
[His jaw clenches tightly. His brows knit. He looks at her, or rather, slightly over her left shoulder. Focused on being unfocused.]
My tree is out here.
[His tree, his space, his safe space. She shouldn't be here. She isn't that close to it, but she's closer than he wants. All of a sudden, going home seems like the most appealing option.]
[That's a weird thing to say. Maya realizes before she speaks. We used to drown guys out here. That's a weird thing, a monstrous thing, to have as a first thought. It's where I first spoke to the fog is an even worse one, considering.]
—We lived near the lake for a couple years.
[It's not a lie, at all; they did, and at some points practically did live in the waters of the lake. And it's a much better truth than the ones she'd thought up before.]
[His head tips to one side when she hesitates and restarts. On another day, if it was a little gentler, it might be called a curious expression. As it is, it's just . . . intense. Too sharp a stare for too long without blinking. Like he's trying to peel back the layers of what he's seeing to grip the heart of it in his fist.]
[What did she think he wouldn't take well to hearing?]
I see. Well. I didn't intend to interrupt your . . .
[He almost makes a noise. Soft, derogatory. Doesn't. Instead he glances at the shrine and then away, into the woods.]
Conversation. I'll be more careful to respect this space in the future.
Oh— we're not... talking. Right now. It's not— I mean, no foggy phone calls here, right now.
[Maya seems a bit embarrassed by the implication, for more than one reason.]
It's just, like at home. We'd burn incense to the honor the dead, among... other things.
That's why—
[Maya reaches forward, adjusting the hand-drawn pictures that had made it over from the makeshift shrine behind Nai'a to this new, better one. A woman with dark brown hair who looks like perhaps if Maya had drawn a human version of Lust, a little girl with pretzel hair, and a few different monsters.
Her over-explaining is nervous, though, as it's clearly not the only reason for the shrine. But she remembers their last conversation. She remembers the lack of trust Giorno has for anything associated with the fog. Nevertheless, she carries on.]
I have these here. Until I get real ones, at least.
[His gaze focuses intently on the pictures. He can't say for certain, but at least one of those drawings could be said to bear a superficial resemblance to Maya. Then again, maybe he's imagining it. It would make sense, though. Honoring the dead and all that.]
[He doesn't want to think about funerals right now.]
You honor your lost loved ones . . . in the same space where you speak to the Fog?
[Hadn't Maya said the Fog was . . . for power? For doing what needed to be done to survive and protect others?]
[He doesn't understand. It seems disrespectful, somehow. But then, he doesn't know anything about these people. Who they are or were, or what they believed.]
[She looks to the shrine then, again, summons her courage. Her truth shouldn't be offensive to Giorno, shouldn't be wrong to say, but she still fears his disapproval the way she would anyone's.]
Being your truest self is one of her values... and I can't separate those people I lost from myself.
If... she wants me, then she has to accept this is a part of me— the people I lost before coming here, and.... every life I've taken since.
[It may still seem contradictory, but in Maya's head, at least, it's clear that it makes sense.]
[The phrase your truest self makes him take in breath so hard it sounds like a hiss. Vines from his back lash around to wrap tight around his upper arms. Some part of him is holding him back.]
[Really, in the end, Gold Experience has never left in its way. Or maybe that's just some remnant of his common decency.]
I see.
[He smiles lightly, nodding at the pictures. His mask slipped, and he's lying now, but he doesn't see it that way. He wants to keep from sullying this place worse than he already has for her, and he knows his anger won't be held back for much longer.]
It's something I've thought about. I spoke with . . . someone on the network, although I never got his name. How to do right by the people [the Fog forces us to] we eat. It's an impossible question to answer. But they deserve to be remembered in as many ways as possible.
[Say something. Say more somethings. Maya tries to will herself to speak but something about how Giorno conducts himself is just so paralyzing, makes her hesitate. The way he talks is familiar and unfamiliar, like the clouds gathering before a storm, heavy with pressure in just the way he stares.
Maybe that's why she feels so guilty without him having said very much at all. It's the way he stares, the energy around him, that brings a different voice to mind. It makes the elephant in the room stand bigger and more imposing with every second.]
It's— the least I can do.
[In the end, the shrine is really more for herself than anything. The fog will hear her anywhere. But the Fog also will know these bones were gathered with the strengths she herself gave to Maya. She will know the spirits Maya brought with her, and she will know, as long as it stands, that Maya still disagrees with the decision to force them to eat.
Maya sort of leans away, gesturing again to the bones.]
I'm a mermaid, I'm a shrine girl, so it's a— wet shrine.
[She leans into that humorousness of hers to try and cover for the awkwardness, but it's already noticeable. As always, she has no consideration for how making light of the situation could make it any worse.]
[He tips his head at her, staring at her like she's a bug under a microscope. He doesn't realize he's doing it, wouldn't know what she was talking about if she called him on it. This is how he has always been. The world attacked him for this habit since before he can remember. But if he doesn't take people apart and find out how they work, how does he survive?]
[How is he supposed to understand her when she goes from staunchly defending people who seek power from the Fog to taking her side herself to talking about honoring those the Fog has forced her to eat to joking about wet shrines? What the hell does he do with this? He hates this. He wants to leave.]
Is that . . . good? That it's wet? Does that make a difference?
[Admittedly, sometimes awkward leans ridiculous more than tense. So that's something. For a moment, anyway.]
[Maya stares blankly at Giorno for a few moments, and then turns her head like a doorknob to look at the shrine again. She wasn't expecting that question. What a weird question.]
Yes?
[Who even asks that? Of course it's better wet, she's a— mermaid.
Maya looks at Giorno again, up and down. It's very clear she's made some sort of connection in her head, the deliberateness of the motion. And she has, and the revelation she's come to makes his analyzation seem just slightly less scary; he may be mad, she can't decide that just yet, but more than anything he doesn't know where she is coming from. He is a nymph. He is not a mermaid. He is newer, and bolder, and a boy and a leader and so many things that she is not.
He cannot see it her way. She didn't see it her own way when she was a child in Ryslig not so long ago. She didn't understand the wetness, the need for water, just the way she didn't understand any other monster.]
Yes, [she says more definitively.]
I like it wet. The shrine. It's wet because it's mine.
[As hers as the decision to 'follow' the Fog god. As hers as the decision to do, or not to do, as the Fog asks.]
[The way she looks at him is frustrating. He takes his frustration and shreds it in his teeth, silently and without moving, rips the bones from it and breaks them into dust. He is angry. He is so, so angry. But it doesn't control him. It doesn't. It doesn't.]
[It doesn't.]
[On the outside, a slight downturn of his mouth.]
I was referring to better in the sense of better for the Fog. I misunderstood. Sorry.
[He misunderstood Maya. He knew she had been here a long time, knew she was tired. But he never imagined she'd fall for such blatant lies. The Fog wants her children to be their truest selves. The Fog takes her children and breaks their bones and force-feeds them human flesh by the fistful for her own petty, ancient reasons. And Maya is content to side with this for the sake of power and safety.]
[He truly doesn't understand. At this point, all he wants is to leave this place without a fight. This is her space that he stumbled into, and he has no desire to make it uncomfortable, but this is too much.]
In any case, I've trespassed too long. I'll get out of your hair, Maya. Unless you need anything in particular?
[Maya hesitates, again. She isn't unafraid of him, but there's something new to it. She should say something. She should make this right. He is confused and he is making assumptions about her in his head just like Edgeworth, seeing this his own way and not her way and she should change that. She doesn't have the awareness— doesn't want to be aware— that her desire to do so is rooted in her inability to change Edgeworth's mind, but the idea that maybe she shouldn't, maybe she can't, still gives her pause.]
I think—
[Try again.
Giorno is not her enemy. She knows that. She can reach out between the Fog and others— no, between others and herself— if she just—]
Actually, I don't think that's right.
[Maya straightens up, lifting her chin, trying to raise her voice just a little. Not to sound argumentative, just enough to stand her ground.]
I think you need something from me. Isn't that why you're asking anything?
[She lifts her arms, then, drops them to her sides; suggesting the futility. There's a sense of defeat to it despite this need to cling to approval, to speak her side.]
[Oh, now. Now that is something to say to him. That is definitely something Maya has chosen to say to him today. Hm.]
[He's quiet for a moment. Oddly, he's calmer. The shape of this is visible, distant and murky through the haze.]
You say we're not enemies and in the next second say I'm going to hurt you. I don't understand that. But please hear me when I tell you, I'm not going to stand here and be the rock you dash yourself against for the sake of it. I'm not going to repeat a pointless, painful argument in place of whoever else you're upset with.
[Giorno isn't entirely wrong, but Maya doesn't have the awareness to concede that. She doesn't think she sees him in that way, and the confusion becomes evident in the way she squints and furrows her brow.]
No... I mean, I don't think you want to hurt me, either. I don't think you could. Not— because you're not strong.
[Maya looks down at her feet with wide eyes; perhaps she hadn't even considered the physical implications.]
Actually, I might still be in a lot of trouble if you wanted to beat me up... But I don't think you do!
[She holds up her hands, defensive, quick.]
It's just—
There's nothing you could say that...
I'll answer what you need me to answer. Even if it hurts.
[Listening to this is painful. His anger has, for the moment, left him. He's just here, watching, waiting for the opening to speak, even though he doesn't want to. Apparently he's going to have to.]
[Even when she looks to him for a response, he hesitates. But he does speak, ultimately.]
I don't have any questions for you. Based on what you told me during our last conversation, following the Fog is something that would make sense for you. I'm completely clear on your logic; you laid it out in a way that I was ultimately able to understand. I simply don't agree with it. It upsets me. It makes me angry. But that's my problem to deal with, not yours.
[That— should sting. It should hurt, because it isn't something Maya likes to hear, and maybe it does in its own way.
But it doesn't slap like Edgeworth's voice raising. It doesn't sting like the misunderstandings, and Giorno's anger doesn't seem as oppressive anymore.
It isn't because she doesn't care about his opinion. No, it's just clear and honest and not accusing. He takes responsibility immediately, his tongue isn't as cutting, he doesn't call her names or demean her— rather, he affirms that he heard her. His anger that was once an angry cloud is suddenly merciful, and unlike the situations she'd faced before.
She is a mermaid and he is a nymph. He is different. And she hasn't been seeing it his way either.]
Oh.
[But after a beat of silence she adds—]
Then... I'm sorry, if I pressed too hard. I don't like that you're mad at me, but I can't make you agree with me.
[And if he agreed with her so easily, would he really be being his truest self?]
I think my reasons are different than other people's... I know you're not asking me to defend myself, though.
[She raises her hands again, a more sheepish, showy sense of concession.]
I didn't want you to be mad at me for the wrong reasons.
[The resigned tone of her voice may show she accepts, however, that may not be in her power‐ not regarding Giorno, not regarding anyone else. If he really was as honest as he sounded, and Maya believes Giorno is, then none of it is really up to her— and she has to show him at least the same respect he's showing her in having heard her.]
[He doesn't want to hurt her, not really. In his bitterest moments, he wants to lash out, but even then it's not because of her. It's because he hates what the Fog does to people. He hates watching her take people under her wing bit by bit simply because it's the best of a series of horrible options. He hates it because, among other things, there's not a damn thing he can do to stop it.]
[All he can do is resist, and watch the dominoes fall.]
[Exhaling quietly, he nods, not at anything in particular. Just to stay moving.]
What I understood from our previous conversation was that many people who follow the Fog are doing so not because they agree with her but because they feel it's necessary for survival and for protecting those they care about. I assumed that applied to you as well, when I saw you here. Was that wrong?
Well...yeah, I guess it does apply. But there's a lot more to it than that.
[Maya lifts her hand to her chin in thought.]
I guess... I remember you saying that following her blindly isn't the solution. And you're right— I believe that. I don't want to blindly follow the Fog, or change more of who I am to make her happy.
I want to understand why she's doing this, what she's really capable of— and see if that can't help us change things. For the people who can go home and for the ones that can't.
[It's . . . not awful in theory. The practice, though, has him frowning, though more with concern than anger this time.]
Putting aside the fact that she seems to have made her motivations fairly clear recently — don't you think that giving her your allegiance gives her more power and makes the problem greater? I don't have an inherent issue with the idea of infiltrating from within [fucking obviously], but not if you're putting bullets in the gun you're trying to dismantle.
[Maya seems to shrink a little; she doesn't have as many smart words for the feelings she has, but she knows Giorno deserves answers. He's shown her so much respect. She wants to have earned it, to keep it.]
I know. But maybe— maybe if someone gets close, understands... We can get her to use her power for good. She doesn't get how much it hurts— she's not a person. And that's why— why it doesn't hurt for some of us.
[Since some of the monsters were never People, either.]
So I want to know everything about her, and then... maybe we can find a way things can change.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Mid-October, post-camprrivals
The mysterious bone-and-coral arrangement hangs mounted to a tree in the thicket by the lake, not immediately imposing or noticeable. But when Maya is there, she places coral and pearls and incense or other burnt offerings, and in lieu of bells or her phone playing the integral tones for mediating, the mermaid is able to sing the tones herself. She knows it's enough to make the shrine's presence known— but perhaps that isn't always a bad thing.
And besides, if anyone approaches, her voice will help her identify anyone approaching before they get too close.
So Maya sits confidently before her shrine, where a recently-made drawing of Mia and Pearl together is set, in meditation. She doesn't always sing, but this time she has taken to it, her voice carrying along the plumes of incense in long, solid, clear notes. Pearls lay in her lap, the offering of her own emotion to her new god.
She isn't expecting the scent of her incense to be on Giorno's path between Bavan and the Hill House— perhaps it's simply fate. Should the sound and smell catch Giorno's attention, he won't have much trouble finding Maya and the shark-bone shrine amongst the lake's trees.]
no subject
[Perhaps it would be better if he did. Maybe that better judgment is exactly what he’s choosing to ignore, after that hesitant moment when he catches the scent of incense and the sound of her voice. He wants to flee, because whatever she’s doing smacks of ceremony, and he’s got no desire for another confrontation, or indeed to talk about this subject at all, with anyone, right now.]
[But the idea of running from any topic brings obstinacy to the forefront of his emotional palette. Before he can even form the conscious thought, he turns toward the sound of singing.]
[It doesn’t take long at all for him to regret it. The little shrine Maya has set up, once he finds it, confirms the spark of fear that was lit at that scent and fans it into . . . something more complicated. Disappointment makes up a decent portion of that new, expanded, complex emotion. Though his steps slow to a stop at a respectful distance, his gaze locks on the shrine after briefly glancing over those pearls.]
[He looks crushed. More than anything, he looks hopeless. But he doesn’t say a word.]
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Oh!
Giorno.
[She stops suddenly, staring vacantly, at a loss for words. What is this going to mean? How will this play out, after the last time they spoke about the fog...?]
I didn't— know you'd be out this way.
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[Part of him wants to be angry about that. He really does. How can she not know? This isn't her place, her forest, her peninsula. Just because she's been here longer, this place is as much his as hers.]
[His jaw clenches tightly. His brows knit. He looks at her, or rather, slightly over her left shoulder. Focused on being unfocused.]
My tree is out here.
[His tree, his space, his safe space. She shouldn't be here. She isn't that close to it, but she's closer than he wants. All of a sudden, going home seems like the most appealing option.]
I didn't realize you had a space here, too.
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We used to—
[That's a weird thing to say. Maya realizes before she speaks. We used to drown guys out here. That's a weird thing, a monstrous thing, to have as a first thought. It's where I first spoke to the fog is an even worse one, considering.]
—We lived near the lake for a couple years.
[It's not a lie, at all; they did, and at some points practically did live in the waters of the lake. And it's a much better truth than the ones she'd thought up before.]
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[What did she think he wouldn't take well to hearing?]
I see. Well. I didn't intend to interrupt your . . .
[He almost makes a noise. Soft, derogatory. Doesn't. Instead he glances at the shrine and then away, into the woods.]
Conversation. I'll be more careful to respect this space in the future.
[His voice is like syrup on ice.]
no subject
[Maya seems a bit embarrassed by the implication, for more than one reason.]
It's just, like at home. We'd burn incense to the honor the dead, among... other things.
That's why—
[Maya reaches forward, adjusting the hand-drawn pictures that had made it over from the makeshift shrine behind Nai'a to this new, better one. A woman with dark brown hair who looks like perhaps if Maya had drawn a human version of Lust, a little girl with pretzel hair, and a few different monsters.
Her over-explaining is nervous, though, as it's clearly not the only reason for the shrine. But she remembers their last conversation. She remembers the lack of trust Giorno has for anything associated with the fog. Nevertheless, she carries on.]
I have these here. Until I get real ones, at least.
no subject
[He doesn't want to think about funerals right now.]
You honor your lost loved ones . . . in the same space where you speak to the Fog?
[Hadn't Maya said the Fog was . . . for power? For doing what needed to be done to survive and protect others?]
[He doesn't understand. It seems disrespectful, somehow. But then, he doesn't know anything about these people. Who they are or were, or what they believed.]
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[She looks to the shrine then, again, summons her courage. Her truth shouldn't be offensive to Giorno, shouldn't be wrong to say, but she still fears his disapproval the way she would anyone's.]
Being your truest self is one of her values... and I can't separate those people I lost from myself.
If... she wants me, then she has to accept this is a part of me— the people I lost before coming here, and.... every life I've taken since.
[It may still seem contradictory, but in Maya's head, at least, it's clear that it makes sense.]
no subject
[Really, in the end, Gold Experience has never left in its way. Or maybe that's just some remnant of his common decency.]
I see.
[He smiles lightly, nodding at the pictures. His mask slipped, and he's lying now, but he doesn't see it that way. He wants to keep from sullying this place worse than he already has for her, and he knows his anger won't be held back for much longer.]
It's something I've thought about. I spoke with . . . someone on the network, although I never got his name. How to do right by the people [the Fog forces us to] we eat. It's an impossible question to answer. But they deserve to be remembered in as many ways as possible.
no subject
[Say something. Say more somethings. Maya tries to will herself to speak but something about how Giorno conducts himself is just so paralyzing, makes her hesitate. The way he talks is familiar and unfamiliar, like the clouds gathering before a storm, heavy with pressure in just the way he stares.
Maybe that's why she feels so guilty without him having said very much at all. It's the way he stares, the energy around him, that brings a different voice to mind. It makes the elephant in the room stand bigger and more imposing with every second.]
It's— the least I can do.
[In the end, the shrine is really more for herself than anything. The fog will hear her anywhere. But the Fog also will know these bones were gathered with the strengths she herself gave to Maya. She will know the spirits Maya brought with her, and she will know, as long as it stands, that Maya still disagrees with the decision to force them to eat.
Maya sort of leans away, gesturing again to the bones.]
I'm a mermaid, I'm a shrine girl, so it's a— wet shrine.
[She leans into that humorousness of hers to try and cover for the awkwardness, but it's already noticeable. As always, she has no consideration for how making light of the situation could make it any worse.]
no subject
[How is he supposed to understand her when she goes from staunchly defending people who seek power from the Fog to taking her side herself to talking about honoring those the Fog has forced her to eat to joking about wet shrines? What the hell does he do with this? He hates this. He wants to leave.]
Is that . . . good? That it's wet? Does that make a difference?
[Admittedly, sometimes awkward leans ridiculous more than tense. So that's something. For a moment, anyway.]
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Yes?
[Who even asks that? Of course it's better wet, she's a— mermaid.
Maya looks at Giorno again, up and down. It's very clear she's made some sort of connection in her head, the deliberateness of the motion. And she has, and the revelation she's come to makes his analyzation seem just slightly less scary; he may be mad, she can't decide that just yet, but more than anything he doesn't know where she is coming from. He is a nymph. He is not a mermaid. He is newer, and bolder, and a boy and a leader and so many things that she is not.
He cannot see it her way. She didn't see it her own way when she was a child in Ryslig not so long ago. She didn't understand the wetness, the need for water, just the way she didn't understand any other monster.]
Yes, [she says more definitively.]
I like it wet. The shrine. It's wet because it's mine.
[As hers as the decision to 'follow' the Fog god. As hers as the decision to do, or not to do, as the Fog asks.]
cw force-feeding and cannibalism imagery
[It doesn't.]
[On the outside, a slight downturn of his mouth.]
I was referring to better in the sense of better for the Fog. I misunderstood. Sorry.
[He misunderstood Maya. He knew she had been here a long time, knew she was tired. But he never imagined she'd fall for such blatant lies. The Fog wants her children to be their truest selves. The Fog takes her children and breaks their bones and force-feeds them human flesh by the fistful for her own petty, ancient reasons. And Maya is content to side with this for the sake of power and safety.]
[He truly doesn't understand. At this point, all he wants is to leave this place without a fight. This is her space that he stumbled into, and he has no desire to make it uncomfortable, but this is too much.]
In any case, I've trespassed too long. I'll get out of your hair, Maya. Unless you need anything in particular?
no subject
I think—
[Try again.
Giorno is not her enemy. She knows that. She can reach out between the Fog and others— no, between others and herself— if she just—]
Actually, I don't think that's right.
[Maya straightens up, lifting her chin, trying to raise her voice just a little. Not to sound argumentative, just enough to stand her ground.]
I think you need something from me. Isn't that why you're asking anything?
What do you want to hear?
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I really don't think this is a good idea, Maya. For either of us. Not here.
no subject
[But Maya stands it.
Give me a chance.]
And I'm not your enemy.
[She lifts her arms, then, drops them to her sides; suggesting the futility. There's a sense of defeat to it despite this need to cling to approval, to speak her side.]
...And, you know?
You can't hurt me worse than anyone else has.
no subject
[He's quiet for a moment. Oddly, he's calmer. The shape of this is visible, distant and murky through the haze.]
You say we're not enemies and in the next second say I'm going to hurt you. I don't understand that. But please hear me when I tell you, I'm not going to stand here and be the rock you dash yourself against for the sake of it. I'm not going to repeat a pointless, painful argument in place of whoever else you're upset with.
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No... I mean, I don't think you want to hurt me, either. I don't think you could. Not— because you're not strong.
[Maya looks down at her feet with wide eyes; perhaps she hadn't even considered the physical implications.]
Actually, I might still be in a lot of trouble if you wanted to beat me up... But I don't think you do!
[She holds up her hands, defensive, quick.]
It's just—
There's nothing you could say that...
I'll answer what you need me to answer. Even if it hurts.
As long as what you leave with is the truth.
no subject
[Even when she looks to him for a response, he hesitates. But he does speak, ultimately.]
I don't have any questions for you. Based on what you told me during our last conversation, following the Fog is something that would make sense for you. I'm completely clear on your logic; you laid it out in a way that I was ultimately able to understand. I simply don't agree with it. It upsets me. It makes me angry. But that's my problem to deal with, not yours.
no subject
But it doesn't slap like Edgeworth's voice raising. It doesn't sting like the misunderstandings, and Giorno's anger doesn't seem as oppressive anymore.
It isn't because she doesn't care about his opinion. No, it's just clear and honest and not accusing. He takes responsibility immediately, his tongue isn't as cutting, he doesn't call her names or demean her— rather, he affirms that he heard her. His anger that was once an angry cloud is suddenly merciful, and unlike the situations she'd faced before.
She is a mermaid and he is a nymph. He is different. And she hasn't been seeing it his way either.]
Oh.
[But after a beat of silence she adds—]
Then... I'm sorry, if I pressed too hard. I don't like that you're mad at me, but I can't make you agree with me.
[And if he agreed with her so easily, would he really be being his truest self?]
I think my reasons are different than other people's... I know you're not asking me to defend myself, though.
[She raises her hands again, a more sheepish, showy sense of concession.]
I didn't want you to be mad at me for the wrong reasons.
[The resigned tone of her voice may show she accepts, however, that may not be in her power‐ not regarding Giorno, not regarding anyone else. If he really was as honest as he sounded, and Maya believes Giorno is, then none of it is really up to her— and she has to show him at least the same respect he's showing her in having heard her.]
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[All he can do is resist, and watch the dominoes fall.]
[Exhaling quietly, he nods, not at anything in particular. Just to stay moving.]
What I understood from our previous conversation was that many people who follow the Fog are doing so not because they agree with her but because they feel it's necessary for survival and for protecting those they care about. I assumed that applied to you as well, when I saw you here. Was that wrong?
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[Maya lifts her hand to her chin in thought.]
I guess... I remember you saying that following her blindly isn't the solution. And you're right— I believe that. I don't want to blindly follow the Fog, or change more of who I am to make her happy.
I want to understand why she's doing this, what she's really capable of— and see if that can't help us change things. For the people who can go home and for the ones that can't.
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[It's . . . not awful in theory. The practice, though, has him frowning, though more with concern than anger this time.]
Putting aside the fact that she seems to have made her motivations fairly clear recently — don't you think that giving her your allegiance gives her more power and makes the problem greater? I don't have an inherent issue with the idea of infiltrating from within [fucking obviously], but not if you're putting bullets in the gun you're trying to dismantle.
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I know. But maybe— maybe if someone gets close, understands... We can get her to use her power for good. She doesn't get how much it hurts— she's not a person. And that's why— why it doesn't hurt for some of us.
[Since some of the monsters were never People, either.]
So I want to know everything about her, and then... maybe we can find a way things can change.
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