*** 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.
[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.
. . . Do you really believe she doesn't understand?
[That's what he's stuck on, at this point. The idea's not a bad one. He just can't wrap his mind around this.]
She's not a person, no. But she knows what human suffering is. She's punishing humanity using monsters, so I'd think she's well aware. She experienced emotional pain at the death of her loved ones. She feels it now. It feels like letting her off the hook to say that the reason she doesn't change things for the better is because she doesn't understand.
[He presses his lips together for a moment, then sighs.]
You're not the first person I've heard this line of logic from. It just doesn't add up to me. She can't both feel her own suffering so intensely that she needs to lash out and not understand what dozens if not hundreds of monsters have told her: that she's causing them pain. Either neither is true, or both are. Otherwise, all I can hear is people making excuses for a coward's bad behavior. Is there a piece I'm missing?
[Maya closes her eyes as she lets what he has to say wash over her, taking it in despite the way it stings— though it doesn't sting because she thinks GIorno's wrong in any way. They're reasonable questions, and some of them are questions that she's had before.]
I don't... need to make excuses for her. She's not on trial.
I'm not asking you to believe in her, or to trust her, or to think that anyone else should.
But I've been working at this— trying to understand the rules of this world for years, and they're different. Things that were impossible, truths that contradicted in my world— don't, here, or in others. So maybe, because of that, there's a possibility where she's just so mad... she can't see anything but her anger.
You don't have to trust the fog god— or... me, I guess.
[Maya starts to toy with the shell pendant on the necklace she's wearing.]
. . . With all due respect, Maya, she is and will remain on trial until she releases the people I am responsible for from this place and the forms she's trapped them in.
[His voice is still calm. If anything, calmer, not in the cold of his anger but in resolution.]
If you choose to engage me in conversation on this subject, you're stepping into a courtroom by default. I understand that that isn't how many, if not most, people here consider the issue of the Fog God, and I can respect that. I can and do trust you to do what you believe is right, which it sounds like you are doing, whether or not I personally think it's a safe plan and whether or not I'm concerned for you. I underestimated the complexity of the situation, and I'm sorry for that.
But if you want me to ask you questions on this subject honestly and in good faith, she is going to be on trial. It's her fault that I'm here, but to be frank with you that's not the problem. There are people who are, in one way or another, my responsibility, and she is causing them pain. You told me all I can do is be there for the people who matter to me. This is how I do that. There is no forgiveness. She's guilty until I get proof that all of this was some terrible misunderstanding. Because she's messed with my people. No one gets away with that. Not even a god, and certainly not on such flimsy reasoning as a claim of not understanding.
If these questions are uncomfortable for you, then perhaps we shouldn't talk about this anymore. If you're fine with continuing, please respect that it's not a conversation that I'm able to have without her culpability as part of the picture.
[Maya comments, finally, taking a breath after Giorno speaks. At conversing, at out-talking someone... But Maya's good at using her own brand of levity to buy herself time.
And she does— she thinks about what he's said, bringing her hand to her chin and tapping it and closing her eyes.]
Okay.
I don't think I need to convince you.
Even if it's uncomfortable, sometimes the truth is worth pursuing! But if you can trust me to do my best, even if you don't agree with my methods, then, wouldn't I kind of be the jerk if I didn't do the same to you?
[Maya nods, having decided already.]
You talk so well because you're a leader, right? So this is you... leading. Like I said! I don't need you to trust her.
[He stiffens slightly at first. Maya doesn't say things the way he interprets that statement, cutting and sarcastic, but it's a possibility that catches him all the same. He reads tone into words before he can stop himself, readying himself for a possible battle that doesn't come.]
[She meant it. . . . Strange.]
. . . I'm making up for lost time.
[It sounds like a joke. Dry as dust. Even as he watches her, thoughtful and watchful. Does he trust this? There's no reason not to. Maya doesn't deceive. Not in such a direct way, at least.]
Trust isn't always reciprocal, unfortunately. But I appreciate your willingness to give it.
[He glances over at the shrine, frown lingering on his lips, looking troubled.]
What kinds of contradictory truths did you mean? The ones that don't match up.
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no subject
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?
no subject
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.
no subject
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.]
no subject
[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?
no subject
[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.
no subject
[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.
no subject
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.
no subject
[That's what he's stuck on, at this point. The idea's not a bad one. He just can't wrap his mind around this.]
She's not a person, no. But she knows what human suffering is. She's punishing humanity using monsters, so I'd think she's well aware. She experienced emotional pain at the death of her loved ones. She feels it now. It feels like letting her off the hook to say that the reason she doesn't change things for the better is because she doesn't understand.
[He presses his lips together for a moment, then sighs.]
You're not the first person I've heard this line of logic from. It just doesn't add up to me. She can't both feel her own suffering so intensely that she needs to lash out and not understand what dozens if not hundreds of monsters have told her: that she's causing them pain. Either neither is true, or both are. Otherwise, all I can hear is people making excuses for a coward's bad behavior. Is there a piece I'm missing?
no subject
I don't... need to make excuses for her. She's not on trial.
I'm not asking you to believe in her, or to trust her, or to think that anyone else should.
But I've been working at this— trying to understand the rules of this world for years, and they're different. Things that were impossible, truths that contradicted in my world— don't, here, or in others. So maybe, because of that, there's a possibility where she's just so mad... she can't see anything but her anger.
You don't have to trust the fog god— or... me, I guess.
[Maya starts to toy with the shell pendant on the necklace she's wearing.]
I just— really want you to.
no subject
[His voice is still calm. If anything, calmer, not in the cold of his anger but in resolution.]
If you choose to engage me in conversation on this subject, you're stepping into a courtroom by default. I understand that that isn't how many, if not most, people here consider the issue of the Fog God, and I can respect that. I can and do trust you to do what you believe is right, which it sounds like you are doing, whether or not I personally think it's a safe plan and whether or not I'm concerned for you. I underestimated the complexity of the situation, and I'm sorry for that.
But if you want me to ask you questions on this subject honestly and in good faith, she is going to be on trial. It's her fault that I'm here, but to be frank with you that's not the problem. There are people who are, in one way or another, my responsibility, and she is causing them pain. You told me all I can do is be there for the people who matter to me. This is how I do that. There is no forgiveness. She's guilty until I get proof that all of this was some terrible misunderstanding. Because she's messed with my people. No one gets away with that. Not even a god, and certainly not on such flimsy reasoning as a claim of not understanding.
If these questions are uncomfortable for you, then perhaps we shouldn't talk about this anymore. If you're fine with continuing, please respect that it's not a conversation that I'm able to have without her culpability as part of the picture.
no subject
[Maya comments, finally, taking a breath after Giorno speaks. At conversing, at out-talking someone... But Maya's good at using her own brand of levity to buy herself time.
And she does— she thinks about what he's said, bringing her hand to her chin and tapping it and closing her eyes.]
Okay.
I don't think I need to convince you.
Even if it's uncomfortable, sometimes the truth is worth pursuing! But if you can trust me to do my best, even if you don't agree with my methods, then, wouldn't I kind of be the jerk if I didn't do the same to you?
[Maya nods, having decided already.]
You talk so well because you're a leader, right? So this is you... leading. Like I said! I don't need you to trust her.
So, I'm gonna trust you too.
no subject
[She meant it. . . . Strange.]
. . . I'm making up for lost time.
[It sounds like a joke. Dry as dust. Even as he watches her, thoughtful and watchful. Does he trust this? There's no reason not to. Maya doesn't deceive. Not in such a direct way, at least.]
Trust isn't always reciprocal, unfortunately. But I appreciate your willingness to give it.
[He glances over at the shrine, frown lingering on his lips, looking troubled.]
What kinds of contradictory truths did you mean? The ones that don't match up.