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Post by Ylanne on Apr 20, 2020 10:36:49 GMT -6
"You know." Ahmad sat up again, looking at Aerilyn. "There are ways to get it to her faster, but, you have to be able to be sly about it, innocuous, and know who you're handing the message to. I can't do it directly, for... well." He pulled himself up, until he was sitting fully upright. The screen for his games was black, showing nothing. "Or. You could ask to talk to the lawyer. Yolihuani Ixehuatl. I talked to her once or twice, maybe a couple months ago. But I assume she's with the Director when they're in court." He watched Aerilyn intently from this position, trying to ignore the sense of unease creeping on him. "Like I said ... I think Ưi'dhàr is probably a distraction of some sort. But I also know her well enough to know that... She takes this kind of thing seriously. Maybe more so now." More so now that she was likely to die in prison. He wondered what kind of regrets he would have by the time he'd lived as long as her.
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Post by demikara on Apr 23, 2020 8:20:23 GMT -6
"I'll ask her lawyer." Aerilyn decided. The lawyer would probably be the safest way. "But it's returning ashes to a gravesite. I don't understand what could be urgent about that." Important, sure. But urgent? Aerilyn didn't know. She had no clue what her older friend was thinking most of the time though and that was the simple truth. Arianne was a complex person. "Hopefully, the lawyer will be willing to pass along the letter." Aerilyn doubted she'd get a face to face meeting with Arianne of course, but she could send a letter and that was better than nothing, even if it wasn't really ideal. She'd much rather speak face to face, but what she wanted no longer seemed to matter, at least not to anyone in charge. Along with Arianne's health and well being, the court had put everything about Arianne's needs on the lower end of the totem pole.
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Post by Ylanne on Apr 23, 2020 11:22:52 GMT -6
Ahmad nodded, already unsure what it would mean. "Yeah. I guess since she'll be at court all day, it'd be hard to visit. Maybe over the weekend, if she's not too tired. If they let you." Or maybe not. He suspected he'd be up on the witness stand on Friday. At least, that's what the younger prosecutor, Thục-Đoàn Phùng, had told him. Ahmad turned away, listless, heart pounding impossibly in his ears, and turned on one of the games, the logo filling the screen. What else was there to do but wait? Wiryaman could be angry; he'd let her. He didn't understand how anyone expected him to focus.
The trial continued over the next day with jury selection over, opening arguments made, the old woman giving hers briefly, while trembling from fatigue or pain or both, the entire speech encapsulated into a statement of her loyalty to and love for Terra, an insistence that she could not possibly have betrayed the world for which she had repeatedly sacrificed, a request that those weighing her fate consider carefully how the accusations against her had even manifested. The prosecutor instead described her as arrogant, power-hungry, convinced she could act unilaterally for her own interests and with impunity for whatever she did. The old woman gave no visible reaction to this depiction, only sat quietly and listened intently. For Ahmad, trapped in suffocating meetings in one board room or another, wandering listless between the Bureau's cafeteria and a lounge, checking his phone but understanding none of the notifications that scrolled across it, hearing Wiryaman speak to him but as if from a distance, with some invisible barrier between him ... the days blurred into one another easily. The headlines meant little.
Thursday night found him lying in the bathtub with his work clothes on, flat on his back with his knees sticking up in the air, staring at the ceiling where bits of the drywall were peeling away from humidity and him forgetting to flip on the exhaust fan. His phone lay on the floor in the bathroom, out of reach. He folded his hands, breathing slow and soft, and imagined that the entire bathtub itself could enclose and encase him, shielding him, and carry him away from the city, the damned Government Center complex, the damnation that awaited him come morning. His shoulders pressed into its sides, and it smelled vaguely of lavender and rosewood from their shampoo bottle, which leaked ever so slowly from a crooked cap behind him. He'd turned the lights off, but the streetlamp from outside cast an eerie glow over the center of the bathroom floor, and he imagined for a moment that the shadows it made would leap to life and grab him, and whisk him away to safety.
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Post by demikara on May 3, 2020 9:42:45 GMT -6
Supposedly, her husband was home. Where he was, she wasn't sure, and Aerilyn, curious now, systematically searched each room of the house. She got to the bathroom and opened the door, given the light was off, and stared at her husband's knees from the dim light of the hallway. "Darling, why are you lying in the bathtub in the dark. Fully clothed." That was a new one and she was definitely curious. Aerilyn came closer and checked him over visually. He didn't seem injured.
That didn't mean too much, of course, but she'd wait for a response before checking physically.
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Post by Ylanne on May 3, 2020 10:07:03 GMT -6
Ahmad's eyes were the only part of him that moved, flickering upward and over to look at Aerilyn. He had caught a whiff of her familiar scent, her clothing, her hair, at the end of a long day, when she'd come into the bedroom. He realized he had no idea what time it was anymore. It had to be after eight, maybe after nine. He'd come home around seven, and Aerilyn had said she had things to do after court was over for the day. He'd thrown his keys into the basket in the kitchen and then trudged up the stairs, thinking he might start up a game, or jump in the shower, but instead, he'd climbed into the bathtub, and thought alternately about taking a bath or doing something vastly more drastic, but in the end, had just laid there. "I don't really know." He heard his own voice, curiously, as if at a distance, watching himself. "I don't feel particularly well... I'm worried I might be sick." He hated what he was going to have to do in the morning. He hated that the two people most important to him would be there to watch it. He hated what it would do to them. He hated what it would do to him.
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Post by demikara on May 3, 2020 10:17:12 GMT -6
Aerilyn sat on the edge of the tub and place a hand on his knee, facing him. "Sick or nervous?" She offered. "Because tomorrow is kind of a terrifying day for you." And she could acknowledge that. Tomorrow he would testify. Tomorrow would be one of the hardest days of his life. She knew he had to be scared. He had to feel like he was betraying their friend.
"She said it was okay. That you should go ahead and do it." That was hardly the issue though. Her permission was one thing, but it didn't change how the situation felt. Some part of her knew that he had to be feeling like hell. She couldn't know exactly what he was thinking though. This was too different of a situation from anything she had ever faced.
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Post by Ylanne on May 3, 2020 10:26:57 GMT -6
Ahmad stared at the exact points at which Aerilyn's fingers rested on his pants, creasing them ever so slightly, creating barely discernible shadows with the new folds in the moonlight. "I don't know," he heard himself say again. There was something odd about the sound of his voice. An echo he hadn't noticed before. The tone was wrong. "Both, probably." His stomach had been churning for hours. His chest hurt, near his heart. His ears were ringing half the day. He hadn't heard it when Wiryaman had called his name until the third time. "I keep wanting to vomit, but I ... every time I go to the bathroom. It doesn't happen." He'd never worked in clandestine operations, not really, except for the occasional favor to the old woman, a brief exchange, a quick car ride, but never more than that. Now with his name and face in the public eye, he'd never be able to do anything even vaguely on the operations side of things again. "The worst part is, I'm disgusted with myself, doing this, basically just to save my own ass, and I know at the same time, that's all I really want to do. And I hate that. I'm going to die one day a weak and cowardly man."
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Post by demikara on May 3, 2020 10:58:30 GMT -6
"I don't think you're weak or cowardly." She said simply. "No more than anyone else is, at least. This isn't exactly an easy situation to be in." It wasn't something anyone could be prepared for. Aerilyn kissed her fingertips, then touched them to his cheek and smiled weakly. "Is ti wrong of me to be glad this was your decision?" If it hadn't been, she would have lost her friend and her husband and she didn't know if she could survive that.
"We'll have crackers and soup for dinner, I think. I'm assuming you haven't eaten, but you do have to have something." Even if it wasn't a lot. "This doesnt' make you weak or cowardly. There wasn't really a choice and you know it." He never would have survived prison. Not her Ahmad. He was entirely too gentle a soul to have made it.
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Post by Ylanne on May 3, 2020 11:42:13 GMT -6
Ahmad blinked slowly. He folded his own arms across his chest, and it struck him that this very same pose was the one most bodies were arranged into inside their coffins. "There's always a choice," he said, his voice barely audible, and wavering. "Even Director Drulović always says that. Except ... she knows how to find the third or fourth options when there are two awful ones in front of her. I don't. I don't know how to get out of this." Every cell in his body, even down to the molecular level, where cells themselves were inconceivably massive, screamed for an escape route. "I'm not glad about this. I don't want to go. And I'm not sure I can eat anything..." His stomach rumbled in protest, but he felt the bile churning inside there too, volatile, threatening, and waiting for him to dare defy it with dinner. "I just want to disappear."
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Post by demikara on May 5, 2020 12:07:32 GMT -6
Aerilyn reached down and cupped his face gently with her hand. "There's not always a good choice. The only choices were to give in, to be sentenced yourself, or to run far away and hope we could afford that." It would have been expensive, given they'd have to leave Terra. They didn't have the means to run away and they both knew that. "So that was hardly a choice at all. And they still would have prosecuted her. This way, you can still be there for her." This way, they could still support their friend.
This way sucked though and they both knew it. "Come get out of the tub and we'll cuddle on the couch and have some soup. You at least need a light soup. Something to sooth your stomach."
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Post by Ylanne on May 5, 2020 12:48:44 GMT -6
Ahmad stayed still for several long moments, staring straight up again at the ceiling. "I don't know if I can keep anything down," he said, but he began to move, his limbs wooden and heavy, the movements like swimming in a terrible dreamscape, where every motion comes with great cost and usually fails in the end anyway. He saw himself as if from above, rumpled shirt and pants, grabbing the edge of the tub and clambering awkwardly out of it, until he stood in the middle of the bathroom floor, socks on tile, now moist from his sweat. He shivered there, as if he'd actually stepped from a hot bath into the chilled air. He took Aerilyn's hand, and felt her returned touch as if there were a veil between them. "There's supposed to be another choice," he said, echoing his earlier though. "There has to be another choice." His whole body felt like a weight threatening to pull him into the floor and disappear him.
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Post by demikara on May 5, 2020 13:07:06 GMT -6
"If there was another choice, a better choice, she would have found a way to let you know." Aerilyn reassured him and held him close as she guided him gently to the couch. "Here love. Come sit here. I'll heat you up some soup and be back with you in just a minute." She pulled the nearby throw over his shoulders and tucked it in around him. Gently, she kissed his temple. "You need food and rest, to be as prepared as possible for tomorrow." He needed her support more than Arianne did at this point. Maybe they'd let her sit with him. She wasn't sure if it was allowed, but it may be the only way he could get through this.
Aerilyn slipped down the stairs and opened the cupboard, pulling out some canned broth and crackers. She opened it and while it was in the microwave fixed herself a sandwich before grabbing a tray so she could carry the now hot soup up the stairs. Carefully, she poured them both a glass of water as well.
He had a sensitive stomach. She didn't want to risk anything heavier than this. If he felt up to it, they had some ginger tea h could take as well. Hopefully he'd feel up to it, but right now, she'd consider it doing good if she got this much in him.
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Post by Ylanne on May 5, 2020 13:22:48 GMT -6
Ahmad sipped at the soup, letting the broth warm him from the inside. He felt it spread within him, emanating throughout his bones and muscles, offering at least the possible hope of comfort. "Thanks." His voice sounded awfully quiet even to his own ears. He wasn't sure if he was capable of speaking louder than barely a whisper now. He pulled his knees up to his chin and burrowed into the corner of the couch as much as he possibly could, feeling the weight and pressure of it against his back. He drank about half of the glass, setting the rest down on the table beside the couch, though he had to find space for it among an assortment of video game controllers competing for a spot on the crowded surface. Ultimately, he sacrificed one, shoving it to the floor, to make room for the soup. "I'm thinking about faking my death. I did learn how."
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Post by demikara on May 5, 2020 13:26:01 GMT -6
"I don't think I could stand that." Aerilyn admitted. "It'd mean my losing you, and I admit I'm selfish." And she didn't want to lose him, not even if he faked her death. "And I don't think I could fake-mourn you. You'd have to take me with and no one would believe you died that way." They'd have to split up for him to do that.
She'd never make it and she knew it. She gently wrapped her arm around his shoulders. "It'll be over with tomorrow. Your part in all of this will have passed." And then they'd have to deal with the aftermath. She didn't think that would be any better than it was now though. He wasn't handling this well and she was more than a little worried.
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Post by Ylanne on May 5, 2020 13:37:15 GMT -6
Ahmad leaned into Aerilyn. He swallowed, and his fingers curled shut onto clammy palms. "Maybe." He closed his eyes. His stomach lurched. "This feels worse than final exams and boot camp and war with the Aschen combined. Because it's so personal." And he could do absolutely nothing about any of it. The prosecutor had shown no sympathy, only rolled her eyes, and Lisbeth had said nothing about it except that of course he had the day off and could come in on Monday instead. She'd offered more time, but Ahmad wasn't so sure he should accept. "And I don't... I don't even know how I'll ever be able to talk to Director Drulović again afterward. What is there even to say? She just wants you... to go offworld. To complete some mission for her. And she wants me to ... to what? Seal her fate? I don't get it. And I don't know how that... how that's supposed to make anything better." But he knew better than to defy the old woman.
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