hadriel_logs | the dead know better

Entry tags:

lilith,
maketh tua

the dead know better

Who: Lilith (

cashlin) and Maketh (

mismanagement)
What: Awkwardness. Attempted reconciliation. Mostly awkwardness.
Where: Lilith’s apartment
When: Four days after this
Warnings: tbd

A thorough inventory of the shop containing Lilith’s bottles takes almost two days to complete, and fills up an entire notebook with lists. She’s been able to sort the bottles into identifiable types – some useful for weapons or construction, a few for drinking, and some that might have medicinal uses. For a little while she considers writing up a system to organize and identify each individual bottle – a numerical code to keep track of everything – but decides against it. That would take too long, in all likelihood.

She does test each bottle, though. It’s insane to think she wouldn’t. One mistake and someone might drink acid.

No, never. Not on her watch. She has to be more careful now. With everything.

Especially with the people here. She’s stumbled too much. It cannot happen again.

There have been – incidents. She shouldn’t have tried to give Lilith orders. It wasn’t her place, wouldn’t have worked even if they’d been back on Lothal because Lilith is many things – of this, Maketh is certain – but she is not a soldier. Will never be a soldier. Treating her as such only leads to—

Well.

Maketh stares at the bottle. It’s a squat thing, blue in color. Inside there’s a thick, rich liquor that reminds her of the drinks she had in the Academy, the ones that made you hallucinate by the end of the night. It tastes faintly of licorice. This particular bottle has been tested – just in case – but remains mostly full.

It’s the nicest liquor that Maketh could find in the shop. She thinks, perhaps, that it could work as an apology. People like gifts, don’t they? It’s not a bribe if you mean it sincerely. She intends to leave it outside Lilith’s door and then approach her later – give it a few days more to sink in. By that time, Maketh will have a script written out for the encounter. She won’t say the wrong things, their working relationship will continue without break, and these problems will cease.

Simple, Maketh thinks, and kneels to leave the bottle.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Lilith doesn't look back the day that she storms away from Maketh. A few days pass without incident and with no weight on her conscience. While hunting on the fourth day, however, she uncovers a hidden alcove the caves: she picks up her phone and very nearly shoots Maketh a message to let her know about it before she remembers that she isn't speaking to her.

She should probably send her a message at some point. Regardless of what the other woman had done, Lilith had picked a fight. It isn't like she doesn't want to talk to her ever again, or to leave a comparatively untrained ally to herself. Or to leave her to deal with... whatever it was that'd set Maketh so much on edge. Lilith had dealt with a wendigo herself-- she'd seen the speed, nearly met the jaws and nails of one first-hand. She almost doesn't want to find out what'd happened to Maketh.

So she looks down at her phone, thumbs hovering uselessly over the keyboard. What's the right thing to say in this situation? What on earth does she say at all? 'Hey, I think you might've died or faced something truly awful, and I was too coward to let you know I was worried'? She types and deletes three full responses before giving up and setting the damn thing down on the nearest table in defeat. Fortunately, there's a distraction in the form of a soft noise on her doorstep. Not that she'd been anticipating any visitors. Jack dropping by to drop some extra animal skins, maybe?

She opens her door without much thought-- just as Maketh is bending to leave her gift in front of her apartment.

Oh.

"Uh."

She's... actually speechless. Maketh on her doorstep like this-- with a bottle of apology booze, no less-- is the very last thing that Lilith would've expected. There's a brittle, tense silence that Lilith spends staring down at the woman kneeling on her doorstep.

"... Hi," she manages at last.

Maketh flinches, nearly dropping the bottle. Nonononono. This isn't supposed to happen, she had this moment all planned out, the first step in a sequence, and Lilith is not supposed to see her. And now it's all wrong, the system messed up and what is she supposed to do now?

Stand up, Maketh supposes. Fix her posture. Stop gaping like a child.

She pushes herself up, making a vain attempt to straighten her coat. There's no way to appear professional now. Still, she tries, eyes focused on the space just beyond Lilith's shoulder. "I wasn't--going to stay," she murmured. Then thrust the bottle toward Lilith. "It's not poisoned. I checked."

Lilith's not any more able to meet Maketh's gaze. Her eyes are firmly fixed on the short blue bottle that's been shoved at her. She's got little other choice but to take it-- she's too dumbfounded not to-- and to figure out a response before the two of them set off another horrible awkward silence. Lucky that now she's got a good excuse. The bottle itself is beautiful. Holding it in both hands, she swirls the contents: the dark liquid's already looking like something she'd like to try. And true to Maketh's word, it's clear that the nearly full bottle has indeed been opened.

Sure, the burden of initiating the apology's not on her, but at what cost? She'd love to run back inside and deal with this in another four days, but that'd. Probably be counterproductive.

"Thanks," she answers quietly. Hesitantly, she looks up from the liquor and at Maketh.

"You sure? I don't have anywhere to be. You don't have to leave. Um... Unless you wanna."

Apologies in the Empire are strictly formal and usually involve some form of groveling or another. Usually they aren't called apologies, either. Instead they're failures of one kind or another, worthy of punishment and - occasionally - humiliation. In the Academy you might get whipped. After graduation, demoted. Or possibly killed.

Maketh has dreams about watching Aresko's head fall from his shoulders, sometimes. The smell of cauterized flesh. How there had been no blood at all.

It's not like this - ever - and Maketh flounders, fighting the urge to squirm. She...well. She enjoys Lilith's company, the sheer competency of the woman standing before her, and wishes vainly there was a way to go back to that.

She wonders if Lilith will like the alcohol, in the meantime.

"I--I might..." Maketh takes a breath to steady herself. She has no right to be this nervous. "I'd like to talk. If I could."

Perhaps she can salvage things if she explains.

"Yeah! Sure-- we can definitely talk."

Lilith's fidgety, rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet occasionally, leaning on the doorframe to offer Maketh space to come inside and in the hopes that she'll conveniently sink into the wall. Her experience with any sort of actual apologies is equally limited. It was always easier not to say anything. Offenses were always glossed over in her group: you kept a thick skin, you vented your anger, and you moved along, no skin off anyone's back.

If only it were possible to do the same with Maketh. She's... different. There's no blood-earned trust there, but she's reliable. She makes sense, and though Lilith would never allow her to be in charge of her, never completely... it's something she welcomes. And something she's loath to just throw away.

"Besides," she adds, an afterthought. "I don't wanna drink all of this alone."

"Thank you," she murmurs, stepping inside carefully. Once she's through the door, she stands at attention - hands clasped behind her back, eyes straight ahead. Chin up. She remembers this vaguely from the Academy and thinks maybe she'll find the proper words to see it through regardless. Despite her eventual success, there were mistakes at the Academy. Moments not unlike this had followed, where she'd been called to account for her conduct.

She'd survived those moments. She can survive this if she does it right.

"I overstepped my authority," Maketh begins, careful not to make eye-contact. "Forgot my place. My conduct was unbecoming. I was not--well."

The last part comes out a little quieter than the rest.

Maketh twitches, and wishes she'd kept that to herself. "I will be better. It will not happen again."

She’d wanted to ‘talk’. This is more along the lines of a mission briefing. Or a debriefing, rather. Whatever this is, it isn’t talking, particularly not if she’s got all the poise of a woman standing before a firing squad. Lilith’s face falls. She thinks of the Crimson Lance, all distance and sterile impersonality; she thinks of Athena, who'd violently defected, of the carefully chosen words Roland had managed to give her about his years of service.

She can't help but to wonder: what had Maketh gone through with the Empire that’d make her apologies come out like this?

“It’s fine,” Lilith manages with difficulty, though the words aren't any less genuine. “I was out of line, too. I could... I could tell that something was wrong. I should've just asked instead of pushing you like that." And, of course, letting herself get pushed right back.

It's a tough admission, even if neither of them have actually breathed the word 'sorry'. And she risks one step further.

"Maketh. Is it okay if I ask? What the hell happened to you?"

Maketh waves, throat suddenly tight, but manages to hold herself still. Back straight, shoulders flat. Imagine a metal rod stuck through your back, her instructors had said. Picture it going through your bones. Focus on that image. Give it detail, give it life. Go back to that in moments of stress. Take comfort in the clarity when the situation becomes uncertain. And never, ever stand with anything less than perfect posture.

That was - and remains - the most important part. Discipline is god. Maketh lost her composure. She acted without discipline. This cannot happen again. She needs to do her job.

"You didn't do anything wrong," Maketh murmurs. It comes out softer than she intends. Her mouth twists, fighting back a more damning expression. Show nothing. Stand up straight, soldier. Say your piece. Take the blow if it comes. "What happened to me, uh--doesn't matter. It doesn't excuse--"

Her throat is painfully tight. She can't breathe. Maketh tips her head back furiously. She will not cry. There is no cause. She will not cry.

Lilith can reach through dimensons, tear them open with her hands, and walk straight through them. She can kill monsters five times her size without breaking a sweat. Lilith is many things, but she's not soft. She's done far worse than making somebody cry, for fuck's sake, this should, in theory, be nothing. Yet she watches the other woman with wide, fearful eyes. Lilith's like a wild animal frozen in a pair of blinding headlights. She can't fight a problem like this; she can't turn tail and run from it. Maketh Tua-- straight and narrow, carefully constructed Maketh Tua-- had worn a facade, and at last, it's splitting clean down the middle in front of Lilith's eyes.

She can take anything but tears. Lilith has absolutely no idea what to do. So she reacts on instinct.

"Hey--"

As straight and tall as Maketh is standing, there's something in the way she jerks her head back, in the way she's struggling to speak, that makes Lilith expect, a little ridiculously, that she'll fall over. She sets the bottle of alcohol down on the nearest table and hurries forward to rest a firm hand on the other woman's arm, to keep her, hopefully, steady. "I-I mean it, you're fine, Maketh! You're fine."

God. Don't faint, Lilith thinks. Please don't faint.

"Just breathe. It's okay."

Of course she's fine. To be otherwise would be -- ridiculous. Maketh keeps her eyes straight ahead, even as they water, and though she flinches when Lilith reaches for her, she doesn't jerk away.

Reveal nothing. Stand tall, let it come. Survive the moment, then regroup.

Simple. Of course.

"I am an officer of the Imperial Court," Maketh recites, though she's shaking and she doesn't know why. "I will perform my duty with honor and the u--utmost discipline--"

No, that's not right. The Empire killed her, the Empire isn't here. Lilith is here, and she's got a hand on Maketh's arm. It doesn't hurt. It ought to. Penance is supposed to hurt. That way it's remembered.

Is any of this the right thing to do? Are these the right things to say? Maketh's breaking before her, and it's worlds and galaxies beyond what she knows how to deal with. Her entire body seems to quake even under Lilith's stabilizing grip. Slower than the first move she'd made, she takes Maketh's other arm.

For the first time in a very long time, Lilith is scared.

"You're not with them, you're in my apartment, Maketh." Her voice is low and steady, but the nervousness in her tone isn't something she can perfectly conceal. (What if she scares her off again? What if it's Maketh who storms off this time? What if whatever military nonsense that's been drilled into her brain is going to keep setting off more of these creepy mantras?)

"I don't know what kind of bullshit that Empire of yours fed you, but I already forgave you. No harm, no foul."

Lilith's grip loosens, and her hands slide slightly lower on Maketh's upper arm. Her fingers, resting just above her elbows, press tiny wrinkles in the fabric of the woman's uniform.

"You don't need to do this anymore. It's okay. You're okay."

The pressure draws her back. Maketh shivers, drawing back from the next line in the recitation - glory to the Empire and death to our enemies. Something in her brain stutters. The words don't quite make it out.

Lilith. Lilith is here, hands squeezing gently. Mussing the lines of the uniform that Maketh spent an hour ironing this morning.

Maketh blinks furiously. No crying. She will not cry, she's not weak. "I don't---what is wrong with me?"

This wasn't supposed to happen.

"Ohhh my God, you're back."

She chuckles weakly-- it's a humorless laugh, all relief and barely diffused anxiety-- and now it's Lilith leaning, just a little, on Maketh for support.

"I don't know," she replies. "You started apologizing and just... went on."

...Oh. She's still grabbing her arms. Lilith, embarrassed, allows her hands to fall back to her sides.

"Sorry," she murmurs.

Back from where? Maketh wants to ask, because she never left, she was just following protocol. Except that it doesn't work in Hadriel, she doesn't understand any of the rules anymore. It used to be so easy. Toe the line, memorize the rules, and everything would be okay. Except now she's starting to wonder if maybe the rules hadn't been the problem in the first place.

Maketh swallows hard, reaching out to put her hand awkwardly on Lilith's shoulder. "I didn't--I didn't mean to...worry you."

Something in her head malfunctioned for a moment. She forgot a rule. That's all. It's fine. Everything is fine.

She's just relieved that Maketh's done with whatever bizarre breakdown that had been. Perhaps putting all the puzzle pieces of what'd happened to her-- both in this underground hellhole and before she'd arrived-- is going to have to wait. If an apology's enough to set her off that badly, continuing to pry might hurt instead of help.

"Well... we're both-- sorry. So that's taken care of." Sorry, sorry, sorry. This is why she doesn't apologize; say it once and that stupid word starts spilling out left and right. "Don't worry about it, all right? I'm just glad you're okay now."

She smiles faintly.

"Do you need to... I dunno, sit down?" That'd be helpful, right? She's on a calming-Maketh-down winning streak now, maybe it'll hold out.

Protocol says: step back. Evaluate the situation. Determine what must be done and in what order. Break it into steps, one after the other. Just like that. Follow the logic, it does not lie. Control yourself, you are a soldier, you are not--

Stop, Maketh thinks, pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes. Stop, stop, don't go there. She might have gotten lost a moment ago, let things spiral. Don't do it again. You upset Lilith. Stop that.

This shouldn't happen. Maketh doesn't know why it did. This shouldn't--this is supposed to be simple. Maketh has done penance before. Accounted for herself in front of superiors. Certainly it hurt, sometimes, but she survived each time and rose stronger because of it. This is nothing. This ought to be nothing.

"That--if you don't mind," Maketh murmurs. Sitting is a good idea. Her head is spinning. Everything feels crowded, too many thoughts pushing up against each other, demanding attention.

Lilith watches her press down on her eyes-- as if she's shoving another bizarre, reflexive speech back. Her own fear hasn't completely ebbed away, she realizes, as she hesitantly raises her hand to rest on the shoulder of this new, unfamiliar Maketh Tua.

She really shouldn't keep indulging this. She shouldn't know more; it'll only make things worse. Lilith may have gotten lucky enough to pacify her for the moment, but if it happens again... she's not sure can navigate yet another minefield successfully. It's not her place to worry, after all. It isn't in her temperament to care. Not like this.

Or it shouldn't be. Even so, she finds herself gently ushering the other woman to the nearest chair. (One of the few that's actually comfortable for a normal human to sit in for more than a few minutes, no thanks to the gods.)

"Knock yourself out. Not like I'd make you keep standing if you're not up to it." She mutters a couple words to excuse herself, and with several swift steps across the room and back, she's pulled up a stool and taken a seat, herself.

There's a chair, suddenly. Maketh lets herself be pushed into it, trying to to take comfort from the strength of Lilith's hands. The pressure is gone in an instant, anyway. She keeps her eyes closed a moment longer, pressing her nails in until it hurts.

Focus. Find the words.

"I didn't mean to upset you," Maketh says finally. "I don't--know why I did that."

Upsetting her? That's what she's the most worried about? Lilith blinks back her surprise and leans forward, elbows resting on her knees as she eyes Maketh quizzically.

"Don't mention it. I'm mostly glad that you're, you know, lucid again." Lilith presses her lips together, thinking, before she continues: "Is that-- uh-- something that tends to happen?"

It's like feeling around for a wound, almost. That's simple enough. Right?

Maketh folds her hands in her lap, careful to sit up straight. Good posture, that's important. "Sometimes," she admits. "Though...it's been, uh. Happening more. Since I came here."

It shouldn't be. There is no cause, there is nothing that cannot be survived and look, isn't she sitting here, breathing? Therefore Maketh is fine, she should be perfectly fine, this should not be happening. It should not be happening in front of other people. Especially not Lilith, who Maketh wants desperately to respect her as an equal.

No chance of that now, she thinks - angry at herself. Look what you did. You showed weakness. You've ruined this.

"...well, this place is basically trauma central," she replies, matter-of-factly. That much isn't a secret. If Lilith hadn't already seen more than her share of terrible by now, she'd have been at least a little bothered, herself. If the trauma is, indeed, the reason that Maketh's reacting like this, that is.

"D'you know what brings it on? Stress, or something? It was like you just... stopped listening to me, and started rattling stuff off."

Like some sort of Imperial machine. In the time she's known her, Maketh's been smart and savvy on her own, but never programmed, almost, as she was then. That someone like her could have that so deeply instilled in her mind... The thought of it makes her skin prickle with unease again.

"You're not dizzy or anything? You feeling okay, physically, I mean?"

Yes, well. That shouldn't matter. Trauma is a fact of life, one that's expected and prepared for. Survival ought to be the end of it. Maketh hates that it's sticking to her in this place - the look on Henry's face when he done what she'd ordered, how Chris had tried to help her in the aftermath. Even Lilith, eyes wide, hands squeezing tight on Maketh's arms. Trying to make it better.

Maketh clenches her fists tight. Forces them to relax. Sit still. No squirming. Back straight, head up, eyes forward.

"I don't have a head injury," she murmurs, though that's not what Lilith asked - not really.

Maketh clears her throat. "It's...something we learned in the Academy. To resist interrogation."

Interrogation. Damn.

"Well." Her tone's subdued. Lilith can't begin to guess at what was so important about Imperial secrets that she'd need to be completely conditioned like that. "You can relax around me. I'm sorry if I... set that off, or anything, I--"

She breaks off. She sighs, thinking: Maketh still looks unbearably stiff, as much as she wishes simply telling her to relax would actually work.

"We're friends, right? It's never gonna be an interrogation."

Maketh cracks a weak smile. "I'm meant to be apologizing. I'm afraid I'm not doing it very well."

For her behavior in the bar, for the way she snapped at Lilith and tried to give her orders. That's not what their friendship is. And it is a friendship, Maketh thinks. She hasn't had one of those for a long time. First Henry and now...

"You are my friend," she says after a moment. "I just, uh...don't think I'm well. Right now."

"I don't get a whole lot of 'em," Lilith replies. "You tried, at least. Maybe we can call this the practice round."

She can afford her that, if they really are, verbal confirmation and all, friends. Which is when she gets an idea: perhaps patience is actually the thing that she'd need most right now?

"I get it. Kind of." Lilith edges backward in her chair a little. It's an attempt to give Maketh just a little more breathing room. "So, since you say you're not well... d'you want to hang out here until you are? I can't do much more than keep you company, but it's on the table."

People here are very strange, Maketh thinks. Sometimes she finds them frustrating, but more often than not, kind. She rubs her face absently, testing to make sure she's not going to start crying. That would not do. "Well, I...that would be all right."

She hesitates. "You could try the alcohol."

In Maketh's experience, booze makes everything much easier.

Lilith smiles. Here is the safest place that Maketh can be; until she's settled a little more, she'll happily keep her here.

"Good idea."

And booze does, in fact, make things easier, even if this isn't the way she was expecting to have some of it. Lilith heads off to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of the stuff-- and, without asking, pours a second. She's back in her chair a moment later and passing Maketh a glass.

"Here. A sip might calm you down some more."

Maketh accepts the glass readily and drinks. More than a sip, really. But she doesn't tip her head back and down the whole thing like part of her - a good part of her - really wants to. She doesn't have these problems when she's drunk.

Unfortunately, she came to apologize and the words never come out quite right once the alcohol has made its rounds.

"Do you like it?" Maketh asks hopefully. It was the nicest kind she could find.

Lilith's not any more judicious with how much she takes from her own glass. The strange drink, brilliantly blue and like nothing she's ever seen, is warming: it's nearly good enough to put her completely back at ease.

"Hmm..." She feigns an expression of skepticism, then grins, wryly. "Yeah. I do." And she takes another sip.

"How long did it even take you to sort through all of that? That was a whole wall of bottles."

Maketh grins a little. It's easier to smile now. Some of the tension in her back and chest has lessened, letting her breathe. And the alcohol is good, the sort of thing she might have taken in high ranking company on Lothal. "A few hours," she admits. "But it had to be done."

"Heh. That would've taken me ages. Nice job-- I wanna check out the rest of it sometime."

She swirls her cup idly. "You're really good at the whole organization thing. It's... doing a lot of good around here."

Maketh blinks, surprised by the compliment. "It's...it was, my job."

Back on Lothal. For the Empire.

Maketh pushes that aside. "There are good people here. They deserve...well, they deserve something better than this."

"Well, your job skills're coming in handy." A feeble smile. "Now people like me aren't gonna go for drink and get a dissolved esophagus."

Speaking of drinks, she takes another sip.

"It's funny. This place sucks, but... it hasn't been all awful for me. I'm no Imperial, but for as much as they screw with us, they do at least feed us. Give us shelter.

And we're not alone."

Maketh huffs at that, almost a laugh. She can't quite manage the rest of it just yet, still feels too ragged at the edges. Too raw, not yet recovered from what just happened. She smiles, though, as best she can. Lilith is a good person, well worth knowing, and Maketh desperately wants to be seen as competent in her eyes. "Yes. I...I feel like I have a chance here. To be someone else."

Her mouth quips. "No, we're not alone. I've had enough of that."

"I say take it if you've got it," Lilith answers, smile playing at her lips. Maketh is beyond competent in Lilith's view-- maybe a little too competent, if this incident is any indication. "A chance for a fresh start doesn't come around all that often. I'd say it's worth being stuck here."

She tilts her head, considering Maketh's face.

"You feeling a little better? I think the alcohol helped."

Maketh nods, trying to smile a little. Look reassuring. "It generally does."

Alcohol is good for that. It keeps her focused and prevents the thoughts from getting too tightly wound in her skull.

"I--I am feeling better, thank you. You've been...very kind about this."

"Don't mention it. I'd have to be a real jerk to kick you out."

She knows, deep down, Maketh would've done the same for her.

"And it's not like it's a pain to have you over, or anything. Like you said: s'all right to start over. To... let people in, maybe."

"Easier said than done, I'm afraid." There's no protocol for this. Not one that Maketh knows, at least. She tries to smile for Lilith. "But I am...trying."

"Well, hey. You got me now. All this stuff aside. Let's call it a work in progress."

Lilith smiles.

"Just take a breather for now, okay? You gotta give that brain of yours a rest sometime."

Edited 2016-06-16 06:02 (UTC)

Maketh exhales shakily. "I have you."

That's something. That's just going to have to be enough for now.

"Thank you, Lilith."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

the dead know better

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject