Description: Episode #10: Un-Kamen Rider OR It's a May, May, May, May Lee! May Lee, Tae Kwan Do prodigy and budding young superheroine knows what's right and what's wrong in Southtown, and does her share to make life a little easier for the embattled inhabitants! But when Nataya arrives and takes her on a whirlwind ride through the city, would she have been better off with the terrorists?
Despite the fact that there's an invasion on, certain things occur no matter what. The sun keeps coming up each day and people still keep waking up and having the audacity to need things like 'food' and 'water'. It's the constants that are important in times of crisis. Recognizing the certainty of things in an uncertain world keeps a person focused.
Very few get as focused as Nataya when it comes to operating within the constraints of certainty. For some reason, she's largely left alone despite the fact that there is nobody else in the streets and there's an occasional troop movement here and there. Maybe it's because she doesn't look like much of a threat. Maybe it's because some random woman riding around on a bike laden with food seems perfectly harmless. Or maybe it's the fact that she acts like she belongs there, like some sort of background detail that continues, no matter how vicious the fighting gets.
ALmost like a background in a fighting game. Hm.
Whatever the case may be, Nataya rolls down the street on her frame-bike, which is a facy way of saying it's a rolling mini-mart shelf. It's rusty, it rattles, and it's stacked to the brim with food, supplies, and other things that allow people to get on with the daily necessities of life. Despite the incredible amount of weight it must entail, Nataya seems undisturbed . Instead, she pedals down the street with a sunny smile on her face, occasionally making a wide turn around the odd body laying on the sidewalk without much reaction.
It's a little creepy, but Nataya doesn't look like a person that seems like she's enjoying the destruction any more than she'd be enjoying a beautiful day in the park. Instead, she just seems to let things stop at 'enjoy', without further modifiers.
And she pedals.
A sack bulging with tools, with wood, with nails and screws is bouncing madly against the back of a tiny Korean girl who comes near to being dwarfed by the load she's hauling, and much like riding around on a bike with a supermarket tied to oneself, running down the street with a shoulder load of stuff purchased from a number of hardware stores - with all the gunshots, explosions, and wild emanations of chi, these things are rather in short supply - is not a great way to draw attention.
May Lee(, Defender of Justice)'s expression is set with determination; her eyes are locked dead ahead as she navigates the course set for her by a careful MapQuest search. Her tongue is poking slightly out of the side of her upturned mouth. Her scarf, bold and red is a flag fluttering behind her like a wind-swept trail(wait, what wind?). Even being made to hurdle the burned out, wheel-free husk of a car is not enough to break her stride or alter her expression.
It maybe helps that she's picturing herself as leaping just shy of the waiting claws and fangs of a vicious Wolf Imagin, Rider Den-Oh style. She even takes the time to wave to a garrison of soldiers just as she touches down; there's no need to be /rude/, after all. They're /right there/.
As the soldiers look between one another, and then after the strange girl in bewilderment, she continues her run.
Serendipity at it's finest, for as the soldiers decide to take motions against May Lee, they're summarily mowed down by what is literally half a ton of supplies on wheels. Nataya's cart holds it's integrity just fine, half out of skill, and the half out of...
Well, Nataya's just got a certain way around her. Certain things just sort of fall into place for her, which keeps everything in place for the most part. Call it karma.
Shouting soldiers raise voices and weapons at Nataya, who only gives them as smile as she backs up the 1000 pound bike up on them, and the unpleasant snap of bone and tendons crunching like cheap convenience store crackers drown out the sound of weapon fire. The bike slams into them repeatedly until nothing's left but a series of unpleasant gurgles.
She might be a grinning idiot, but she plays for keeps.
And then she's off like a shot, the rolling, rickety contraption catching up to the nimble Sentai fan and Tae Kwan Do prodigy fairly easily, thanks to a considerable amount of strength and the fact that... the thing /does/ have wheels, after all.
"Hey!" She calls to May Lee. "Where ya headed?"
There's a disturbing red smudge being pressed on the sidewalk behind her.
Catching up with May Lee is pretty easy. After all, Nataya is strong, and she's on a bike.
Also, she kind of /stopped cold when the people she was just waving at were mowed down/. The bone and tendon are like two seats in an awful symphony, and for a moment she can't help but try putting those particular instruments to KR Den-Oh's theme briefly, causing her to shudder at her own flash of morbidity and quickly work to replace the bad thoughts with good ones, like kim-chee and Kim Kaphwan.
None of that does much good when automatic weapons fire are turned into ugly, wet noises, and especially not when the otherwise perfectly sweet-seeming girl bikes up to her as if she /didn't/ just incapacitate a whole bunch of guys with her convenience store on wheels.
The red tread marks on the pavement, those don't help either.
Her mouth is agape, her eyes are wide, and her scarf is not only limp against her body, but it's sort of wrapped around her neck as if in a loose textile hug. Answering the question isn't really an option for her, and really, the best she's managing is to sputter things like, "Y--you... b--but..." as she tries to process things.
'Incapacitate' is such a vague word! 'Maimed' is more appropriate. Whitewashes and euphamisms aside, Nataya makes no excuses for her actions. Things just kind of happen around her, and the stares and stuttering aren't unknown to her at all.
"You need juice," she announces with a firm but gentle tone, as if stating the one true fact left unsaid in the entirety of the Universe. Reaching into a crate nestled between a box of fruit and a stack of what looks like Army surplus blankets, she produces a bottle of fruit juice which is the standard fare of blended Asian fruits that look wholly unappetizing on the picture but generally taste pretty OK when it comes down to it.
She presses the bottle into May Lee's hand, and then leans back in her bike seat. "Now, where're you headed? Because if you go that way, there's like a whole convoy of those guys and you won't get anywhere. But if you go /that/ way, there's a street gang down there that's still a little upset. Down that way, I think there's another patrol. And the YFCC's over there, but I think it's seen better days, mmkay?"
She pauses, and then reaches down to get her own bottle of weird fruit juice. Giving directions is thirsty work. And crushing the agents of evil into salsa also makes a person a bit peckish.
May Lee's eyes flick down to the bottle that's suddenly in her hand, and then they return to Nataya, still dumbstruck at the casualness with which the display of violence was perpetrated. She 'listens', but really, the words are just kind of flowing through her without a whole lot of meaning.
At least, until she hears 'YFCC', at which point her gears begin to whirr again. /That's/ where she was going! Of course. Because it had been heavily damaged. Because she wanted to pitch in. Because these soldiers(whose awful maiming was maybe a favor for the world, but she's having a hard time seeing it that way) have been targetting it, among other gathering places for young fighters.
More than just being reminded of her destination, she remembers her sense of right and wrong, though. Her scarf gently unfurls from around her neck until it is once again borne on wind that wasn't there a moment ago, her mouth slowly shuts into a determined little line, and her eyes narrow with determination. She gives a little nod, more to reaffirm herself than to try and respond to Nataya.
And then with no warning at all, she flips the juice bottle high into the air,
As it spins, the sack falls to the ground so that her other hand can be pointed resoundingly towards Nataya; the hand that was gripping the juice has been snapped up to her chest at a sharp, strong angle against it.
"I meant to go to the YFCC to offer it these tools and these supplies, but this... you... even with all the wrong these men have done, /killing them isn't okay!" she intones.
With that, she catches her juice, she pops the top off with a powerful flick of her thimb, and she takes a sip from it.
Killing? Nataya doesn't kill people.
...all that internal bleeding and the ruptured organs and stuff do. Normally, she'd leave things at a severe, sometimes permenant crippling, but she lets karma do the guiding. After all, Nataya sees herself more as the just desserts handed out by fate more than a person that acts of her own volition.
After all, you can't jail a tornado, you can't fine a earthquake, there's no reasoning with a tsunami. Or Nataya, for that matter.
She sets her bottle aside for a second, brings up her hands, and claps once. "I clap my hands together -- this is the moment! Right now, into this instant, must flow the /all/. We create our own space... yes indeed we do."
She smiles brightly, eyes widening, "The river's wayer knows no stopping, yet never is that water the same, and the water within the river never takes pause to think 'Hey! I'm a river!'"
"And so it is. And so they are. And so should we be. And we should be going that way then, because if you're headed to the YFCC, I know a shortcut. Hop on," she says, jerking her thumb to the hop-on handholds at the side of the rolling store. "We'll get you and your supplies there faster than you can say 'Excelcior'. Whatever that means."
Nataya's master, despite his age and wisdom, liked comic books. Go figure.
May Lee /would/ respond to that... but she's stuck trying to figure out how. Her chin tilts up slightly to let her gaze go thoughtfully upwards, her finger presses lightly to her bottom lip, and internally, there is no doubt an entire army of scarved hamsters running on wheels as she processes.
Ultimately, though, she cannot put forth anything better than, "I... don't know how safe it'd be to accept a ride from a violent stranger while she's on drugs."
Her scarf once again settles against her as her uncertainty erodes the heroic mindset she'd just moments ago slipped into. She begins to raise the bottle to her lips before freezing, peering down into it with widening eyes, sniffing it, and then panicking.
"Ohmygod! They aren't in the /juice/ are they?! I didn't just drink sweetened LSD, did I?! Master Kim told me that temptations can hide anywhere, and juice qualifies, doesn't it!" she sputters. Her righteous indignation is gone for now, what with all of her fear. In fact, she even lets the bottle tumble to the ground so that she can quickly move towards Nataya and grab her by the shoulders, if allowed. "How do I look? Are my pupils dilated? Do I look like I'm about to see talking rivers?!"
Most people that say that they're high on life are being sarcastic at worse or silly at best. The select few that actually are high on life usually mean a general sense of well being and contentment. And then there's people like Nataya, who take life straight into the vein, snort it up their nose and smoke it.
So in a sense, yes, Nataya is on drugs. The only problem is that its mainlined through an IV tube.
May Lee's hysteria and shaking causes Nataya to rattle about like a maraca as the girl loses it, afraid for her personal integrity. That doesn't stop Nataya from reaching out with her own, incredibly strong hand with a grin, grabbing the girl by the scarf, massive supply haversack and all, and then heaving her into the piles of stuff set into the frame of the bike.
No 'calm down', no laughing off May Lee's terror. Instead, she adds to it by taking off with superhuman speed. Nataya is fast when she needs to be, and her bike accelerates at a pace that can only be described as 'white knuckled' as she charges down the street, mowing down anything dumb enough to dally in her path.
Abandoned shopping carts go flying, trash sprays up behind her in a roostertail of urban blight, and at least one more random thug nearly explodes that that one guy near the end of Robocop as Nataya slams straight over him, causing the bike to get extra lift as it hurtles down a small hill, bringing the YFCC into view.
The poor place as seen better days. It's current look is best described as 'Post'. Not Post-Modern, but just post. As in 'post-building', since it looks like a gutted out abandoned building suitable for squatters and other hobo types.
And all throughout? Nataya decides to hum a mostly forgettable melody to whatever popular J-Pop tune infests the airwaves. It's a somewhat surreal experience. But then so is getting sucked up by a torando.
It's all that May Lee can do to grab her sack of stuff when she's unexpectantly and powerfully loaded onto the bike. Bad enough that she's possibly 'tripping balls', as she once heard one of her classmates say to another; she'd /really/ never hear the end of it if all of her supplies were left by the wayside too!
She is, perhaps, incredibly fortunate to have decided to bury her face against Nataya's back soon after getting on, for fear of what she might see otherwise; she misses the guy being crushed beneath the bike's wheels, and maybe she won't even have to see his blood spattering the concrete when they've come to a stop. She is of course hanging on for dear life the entire way, because for all that she may have the balance of a martial arts prodigy-slash-tokusatsu heroine, they are going /incredibly fast/ and it's not a flat trail.
She's decidedly less weirded out by the humming than she perhaps should be as well, and in fact it has kind of a soothing effect; she isn't a big ball of calm when they've come to the YFCC, certainly, but she's not a gibbering mess either; she even manages to mumble, "Thanks," as she uncoils herself, climbs down to her feet, and shuffles towards the 'entrance'.
All in all, she and the building have quite a lot in common, currently: both of them are quite shell-shocked.
And the monk girl follows suit. It's not that she doesn't think that May Lee can't care of herself. It's more that she's curious about the place since she hasn't been here in a while. Not since the time when she accidentally near-clobbered Yuno into a fine powder during a training match.
"Well," Natay says, waving her hands at the mess of the building. "Here we are. Pardon my speed, but just walking anywhere in this town gets a wee bit dangerous." As if hurtling down the road an barely subsonic speeds is the epitome of safe!
"I don't think there's many people still around. It's mostly vacant. Probably mostly refugees if anything, and uh, I'd step to the left or right of the door if you knock. There've been incidents," Nataya says coherently, as her smile evens out a bit more at the thought of her attempt to render aid to the people of Southtown, only to narrowly avoid getting shot by people that had managed to find illegal guns to protect themselves with and far too many nerves than they should have in order to use them correctly.
Still, she takes that in stride. No need to beat them up, unless they get insistant.
Nobody - especially now - could mistake May Lee for a carpenter, and while she may have been set on doing a few menial tasks to help out... now doesn't really seem to be the time. What she does do is take advantage of one of the broken out windows to drop the sack off on the inside; there's a little card with her name and phone number for just this eventuality, because a true heroine knows that preparation is the key to success.
She takes in a deep breath once she's made her delivery, and then she wheels 'round to face Nataya head on. She brings her gloved hands up to wave them lightly before her face a few times, and once she's certain that everything's okay, she exhales in relief and rests those hands on her hips.
"As--as I was /saying/, you can't go killing people with your bike. It's wrong!" she manages. Sure, the fire isn't there, but the message can only rest for so long.
If this were a cartoon, Nataya would have a big fat '?' over her head. Killing people? What? Who's killing people? People are letting themselves die. After all, if they weren't here in the first place causing all these problems, then there's no way Nataya could have flattened them with her bike.
Okay, so maybe that's not 100% true, but she'd have to go way out of her way to do it, and there's a pretty low likelihood of that.
"Not following you," she says, smiling brightly as she raps her knuckles on the door to see if anyone's home. Doesn't look like it. Her hand rests on the knob, and she givesit a little shake. Hm. Locked. With a firm motion of her hand, she snaps the doorknob clean off, hooks a finger into the mechanism, and turns the lock telekinetically, forcing it to click on open.
"Here. We'll probably need to rest here tonight, since there's going to be heavy patrols downtown that are looking for stragglers on a staggered 'curfew' thing they've got set up. I think." Mostly because Nataya's punched out a few people that decided to make her observe the curfew, and forces of nature don't simply pull up a cot and take nappytimes when there's things to be done.
And while the interior of the YFCC may resemble any given 1980's post apocalyptic school in desperate need of a montage, it'll do for now, since there's still some running water and other facilities that make the basics of life easier.
With a wince for the shattered doorknob, May Lee can still pull together a proper expression of indignation, and now is definitely the time for one. All of those pops and crunches and gurgles couldn't have been the mad monk's way of /helping/ those people after all, and they didn't /look/ like they were going to get up and go dancing or monster fighting after the treatment they got.
"The guards! The ones you hit? With your /bike/?" she explains, gesturing behind herself, then towards Nataya with large arm movements to punctuate her words. "A few punches for medically stable unconsciousness, sure, but /that/..."
She shudders lightly to think of it. She also follows Nataya inside; /that/, she cannot protest, as much as she'd rather be at home consoling herself with her DVDs right now.
"Imagine, if you will, that all the cosmic forces that conspired to put reality together demanded that, at any given time, a certain event was to occur that defined reality for one person," Nataya says as she pushes her bike into the hall, letting it rattle and clank as she pushes it aside so that there's room to move deeper into the complex.
"Now, you may not consider it as fate. But whatever occurs, occurs for a reason, and in that sense, there's a sort of Universal balance. The 'correctness' of an action is defined by the balance of all things. When one end of a scale is tipped strongly, a proper countervailing force must be applied to reach equlibrium. The world turns because there is equality of forces, and for every day there is a night as a result, yes? That's a kind of cosmic justice, different than the justice of mankind, but related, tangentially, yes?"
Her feet patter through the empty complex, the sandals echoing slightly as she moves to set up camp by retreiving the practice mats that can be used as impromptu bedding and the portable stove to heatup the provisions she's been packing around.
The sunny smile on her face is still there, but it's a far more sober one than before. If May Lee wishes to press the issue, then Nataya is more than happy to discuss it further. "The values that a person places on others are relative only to the values they place on themselves. There is only one absolute truth, and the very idea of what is 'just' is to seek 'balance'. I didn't do anything to those people. By virtue of being in the place where they were, events occured that rendered karmic correction upon them with all the appropriate wieght it required. After all, if I hadn't happened, then we wouldn't be here, would be? And maybe that's what needs to happen: two people here to hold down an empty fort until the real defenders return."
"I don't know. I just find the flow of life and react accordingly. Not much else needs concern. Don't you think?"
Cosmic forces, the balance of the universe, karma, justice... it's as if Nataya's the metaplot of an entire Rider season, only without the special effects, armor, or straightforward-ness. So May Lee is stuck scratching the back of her head in confusion and vague discomfort as she tries to get a grip on what's being told to her. She kind of gets it, and yet, she kind of doesn't; it's a lot of words to try and explain why it's okay to bash people like over-ripe melons of jackbooted evil.
"So..." she finally, uncertainly begins as she steps around the practice mats being rolled out. "... why couldn't you have ridden your bike towards me /without/ killing those people? Wouldn't we have wound up here anyway?"
The monk girl smooths out the mats before trotting off to find other amenities. There's usually a radio somewhere in the facility. Hopefully there's one with functioning batteries. "Well, I'mnost sure if they're dead. But I had to make sure that they didn't attack or chase you, or call for more help, or be able to identify us. After all, if I had let that happen, who knows what would have occured? But that's not the point."
She returns, radio in hand. It's an old, beat up one with mostly worn silver and gray plastic that's been spattered with paint over the years and looks like its been spending most of the time in a closet. "The point is that it already happened. A moment occurs instantly. Then it's gone. Life is a sequence of moments that must be appreciated individually. From those moments, you learn to react to the next. The reason it works that way is that there's no going back once you commit to an action in the moment. Once you perform the action, the moment is gone. The instance has passed and you're in the next."
She smiles settling down to the portable stove with a pot of water she retreived while chatting away and a box of instant noodle soup with a plastic spork in hand. "I suppose you might think that's a fancy way of saying that it already happened and that you shouldn't worry about it... but that's not the case. What occured back there was a result of an accumulation of moments, both mine and theirs. For whatever reason, there was a pupose for me dealing with them that way that is frankly beyond my comprehension, and what occured to them was the result of whatever chance decided to fate me in their direction, leading to this discussion right here, right now."
She claps her hands. "This is the instant. All things flow into and from it. It is the All. Then it passes to the next."
May Lee grows stiffer and stiffer as she tries to get some grasp over what's being told to her; it's quite a lot of words for what seems to be rather a simple concept, at least to her. She drops herself to the mats to work deftly at untying her sneakers as her thoughts continue to race - and the monk continues to philosophize - and finally, when it's all done, she can't offer much more than a small and high-pitched noise of distress.
"It sort of sounds like you're letting the universe take responsibility for your actions instead of... being responsible," she quietly offers. She's rather past righteous indignation and past just exuberance; she's just plain awash in confusion, and anything approaching a violent form of response is gone from her. "I guess that makes things /easier/, but is it really /right/? We have laws, and morals..."
The monk-girl tilts her head. Most people don't want to talk about this sort of thing. It's easier, after all, to toss aside the thoughts of others. As a result, she rarely speaks about what drives her. But if May Lee insists, she won't deny her an explanation.
The heating coils warm up, and small bubbles start to form at the bottom of the pot, which reflect in her dark brown eyes as she speaks. "Imagine, if you will, a pothole in a road, which causes many to be injured or worse due to its prominence in the thoroughfare."
The boxes are opened, and dry noodles flop into the slowly boiling pot as Nataya produces a vegetable peeler and starts working on the vegetables. Vegetables? Yes. Floating from the cart are boxes of vegetables, via telekinetic means. It's slow, and Nataya would probably have gotten them faster if she had just stood up and picked them from the cart by hand. However, it's clear that she's trying to divide her concentration deliberately.
"A pothole is a pothole. It exists as a thing in sight. No more, no less. But many people have many opinions in reality as to how to deal with it. Should they hire a contractor? Which contractor is the most cost effective? Should it be filled in the first place? After all, the pothole could be a memorial of an important occasion. Maybe it's evidence to something else. Who knows? There's laws that determines who fills the hole. But the pothole is still there."
Carrots plop into the soup, cut carefully into little round slices and they dance around in the boil. "And then there's the matter of filling the hole. The only way to fill a pothole is to use just the right amount of dirt. Too much, and you have a new problem. Not enough and the old problem is still there. But everyone has an opinion on how much or how little material to use. There's opinions as to how much to fill the hole. But the pothole is still there."
"Now," she says, plucking a cauliflower floret from the air, "Say that in the night, someone arrives to fill the pothole. For the sake of argument, say it's done adequately. The hole is filled with enough material to ensure that the problem has been dealt with. Is that person wrong? Of course he is. After all, we have laws, morality. But he's "wrong". But the pothole isn't there."
The lid is covered on the pot. "Remember, the pothole has hurt many. Removing it helps many people. But at the same time, what has happened is "wrong" in the sense of the artificial laws and morals that a city decides on. But what the person that fixed the pothole has done... is it "right"?"
"Law and justice are related, but not the same. Law is built to keep order. Justice is an absolute value based on the establishment of equilibrium. Sometimes they help one another. Sometimes they don't. But Order and Justice aren't always the same, and therefore hold different values of 'Right' and 'Wrong'."
Sneakers are kicked off to skid along the mat as an imaginary pothole is created, debated, and surrepitously filled. She pulls her goggles down from her hair as well, mainly so that she can smooth her no doubt mussed hair down a few times before sending them spinning along the mat as well to stop against the shoes.
"You're talking about a pothole like it's a person," May Lee finally says in a quiet voice. Her confusion is still present, and that's still about all she is; even with the oddness of the comparison made, she's still not especially angry. "Of course there's more to right and wrong than what the mayor and the governor and the police say, but they're a big part of it; of course filling a pothole in just right in the middle of the night is right. But it's just a pothole."
With that, she clambers up to her feet, chin tilted slightly upwards and back straightening.just so. "It just isn't /fair/ to compare human lives to potholes; human lives are precious, and potholes are... well, holes. Even humans that hurt other humans... there are jails, and there's always rehabiliation and reteaching for them, isn't there?"
The scarf that has for some time since their arrival at the center been still against her back is gradually borne upwards on soft breezes that stir the pulverized plaster and chipped wood all around, and while she may not be set enough in her convictions to let them shine out from her through a winning smile, the would-be heroine's voice is gaining a definite character of certainty as she continues, "I understand that you're doing what you think is right, or what the universe mandates... but there's always another way beyond just killing, or leaving people to die. Always. Even if they're the worst of the worse; can't the balance be maintained by a good thumping and a trip to prison? Won't /that/ fill the pothole?"
"Won't it?" She smiles. "Look outside. Do you think this is the first time that this has happened? Do you think it'll the the last?"
"There is always another way. You can always drive around a pothole. You can take another route so that you never encounter it. You could attempt toleap over the pothole, or rename it a historic landmark, and call it something else. In some rare cases, people change to suit the situation."
"But it's still there."
She sits and waits for the food to boil properly and pours it out in two bowls. Leftover scraps and boxes float away to be dealt with later with a motion of her hand. "Keep in mind. What they're doing is no less wrong than the reaction taken against them. To their mind, their strength gives them the absolute right to take everything they see."
She blows on the soup carefully, letting it cool. "You can call anyone anything. Perhaps a person is better than a pothole. Or maybe a pothole is better than a person. It has no opinion. It doesn't force it's veiws on others. A pothole doesn't seek to cause pain or injury. A pothole is a pothole. It feels no remose for what happens because of it, but then feels no vengeance when it's dealt with."
The smile on her face never wavers as she starts to eat her soup carefully to keep from burning herself. "Look past what you consider right and wrong. Consider the alternative. Maybe by fighting back, we do the worst thing possible. Nobody can see the future. Perhaps we're missing a chance for utopia. If not by the hand of the conquerer, by the person that would overthrow the conquerer if he ever came to power. But by obstructing that, we won't ever know, will we?"
"But," she says, carefully spearing a carrot with a chopstick, "we'll never know the other way, will we? Wise people ask questions, but only the questions they don't think they already know the answers to. That's why there's the now. Everything in balance. When there is a considerable imbalance, considerable force is needed to right it. If the imbalance is weak, all it needs is a nudge. Absolutes result in imbalance. And imbalance leads to an over or underfilled pothole."
"I can't answer the question of whether or not putting a person in jail will fill the pothole. That's something that only the future can demonstrate. However, think of it this way. If every day I have to force the people of the city to pay to constantly make sure the pothole is filled, is that fair? When a pothole is filled forever, it never bothers anyone again."
Even as she takes her soup, May Lee's scarf is continuing to flutter on the winds of her convictions. She even eats - and quickly at that, though her cheeks puff now and again as she blows on the steaming liquid - as Nataya speaks, the grimaces and confused discomfort of before gone now that she's set in her understanding of the young monk.
She's coming down into a seated position as well, as the moment for needing to stand tall behind her ideals has passed, and the moment for relaxing after her harrowing bike ride and hard sprint through the city is here. Finally, as her legs cross before her and a number of noodles are drawn up from the bowl between her chopsticks, she quietly suggests, "Maybe it'd be easiest if we stuck with me not having to see you kill or almost kill anyone, because to me... filling this 'pothole' by breaking things that don't agree with you until they can't argue anymore is just... wrong. It'll /always/ be wrong; each person killed for doing the wrong thing is another person who didn't get the chance to see the error of his ways and make something of himself,"
The noodles, dripping with broth are pulled carefully into her mouth with that, and she waits until she has chewed and swallowed them to offer a wan smile as she adds, "That's why I don't think it's fair to compare them to potholes; people have way more variables. You could fill a pothole or not fill it. The city could fill it or someone independent could fill it, and maybe it'll have an effect on the people who drive over it once or twice each day, or some days, but a person? A person could affect every other person around them, every single day, for years and years, and just getting rid of them, even if the effects aren't always good shuts off so many possibilities."
She wipes one of her gloved hands across her mouth, and then she slowly exhales and settles into eating more of her soup; she's about used up her reserves with that, at least for now.
Nataya smiles. "Possibilities are possibilities. This," she says, clapping her hands once, "is the moment. Looking towards the future suggests desire, and looking towards the past suggests regret. Both gnaw on the concience and erode the spirit. There's something to be said about learning from the things you do and then using it to ease your way through the future, but worrying about the possibilities is an exercise in futility."
"But, do what you will. It's not my job to stop you or encourage you," she says, finishing her meal before turning on the radio to see if she can catch any new information. "I only make happen what should happen. I'm not making any judgment calls. I arrive and things just happen."
Which is more or less true. Nataya's actions come as a result of a seperate guiding force. But that's a discussion for another time. "A person occupies no greater space in reality than anything else. Everything is part of the cycle. Giving special dispensation for one thing over the other suggests that you're qualified to make a judgment call and that everything has a relative value. In the great expanse of the cosmos, in where we are all just a part of something greater, can you really define what is and isn't deserving of mercy? Can an ant truly know an elephant?"
She stands to start cleaning the area up properly. "You're already making assumptions about me. I've made none about you. You could have killed ten people, or you could have helped ten people. Regardless, I'd still be here, serving you soup. And so it goes."
May Lee's head quickly shakes at the mention of assumption; noodles trailing from her mouth wag back and forth with the movement, and between that and her puffed out cheeks, she's looking rather on the silly side, given the tone and content of the conversation at hand.
She quickly slurps to swallow the noodles, flashes a brief and faintly self-conscious smile, then breathes in deeply before saying resolutely, "Not /all/ assumptions are bad; people assume all the time that dangerous things /are/ dangerous, and it gets them by okay, for one thing. But even /then/, I wasn't trying to, like, stereotype you or anything; I don't have anything against people who are from where you're from! Or you. Or..." she trails off, scratches the back of her neck as she considers what to say next, and then just sort of looks down into her bowl as the scarf finally stops flapping.
"I've just been watching, and listening, I guess. Trying to not ignore you," she murmurs.
If she takes offense at May Lee, it doesn't show. Nataya's fairly unflappable and really seems fairly accepting of just about anyone, so May Lee's slights, real or imagined, are pretty much ignored altogether.
"Don't think anything of it. Like I said. This is what happened. There's no reason to be worried about what was said or done it the past. It's already done." The news reports aren't giving anything anyone hasn't heard already. Stay inside, don't provoke the enemy. Don't panic. Make sure you have all the supplies you need. Standard stuff.
"Knowledge of truths is different from assumptions, really," she says, making sure everything is set correctly, washed and dried, before heading to the cracked windows of the YFCC, peering out into the streets. "I'll take first watch," she indicates, "and if I see a break in their formation, we should head towards a safer area. I understand that some of the schools are safehouses now. Barring a break, I beleive the best time to leave will be around 3AM, so you should get rest now."
Nataya on the other hand, needs very little rest. The ascetic lifestyle leaves her with a lot of time and not much need for sleep.
And with that, May Lee is forced to wonder when she'll be among her posters, her DVDs, her bedsheets, her collectible pot warmer again; she'd managed to keep her home and the area immediately around it reasonably safe, enough so that she's been able to safely return to it each night, in spite of her near daily forays into the city for the purposes of pitching in with her fists or with supplies whenever possible.
All this talk about fate and being subject to the whims of the universe is sitting especially poorly with her now as she contemplates that; she sighs, and she even pouts lightly(and perhaps vaguely, even heroically) as she finishes the last of her soup.
"I think I'm a little too wired to sleep just like that," she says before hopping to her feet and jogging to another window to take up a position beside it. She taps a cluster of fractures, smiles to herself, and remarks quietly, "These cracks, they totally remind me of Master Kim." A beat, a little blanching, and then she looks sidelong towards Nataya as she hastens to explain, "Not because they /look/ like him, since that would be weird, although they do a little, if you imagine him from a profile with the right amount of shadow. I, uh, just, his kicks, they usually splinter marble like this."
She swallows slightly, nods to herself, and then snaps her attention back to the window, confident in her communicative abilities.
The only response is the same enigmatic but cheerful smile. It's not clear, but she either understands completely,or doesn't comprehend anything at all. It's a nearly impenetrable expression, but there's one thing that's certain. She's honest about it and genuinely seems to be happy anywhere she happens to be, even if that place happens to be a burned out youth center.
"Well, do whatever you want. It's just a suggestion. I find that most people don't want to take the time to meditate, so sleep is just as good, considering everything that's happened today."
The name of Kim does stir some recognition. Not that Nataya knows him personally, but Kim's famous enough to warrant recognition just in the fact that the man's a legend in his own right. A justice fighter known to most anyone that participates in fighting, or knows of someone that's a fan of fighters, really.
"So you're a Tae Kwan Do practitioner? I don't beleive I've ever fought someone that's a pupil of Master Kim. In better circumstances, I'd probably want to see how I'd fare against formal instruction from a master of a regularly practiced and recognized martial art." So far, she's fought just about everything short of that... including people that use 'hockey' as a form of attack.
It's been a rather odd time for Nataya.
The recognition brings another, less personal smile; Kim's name may not be a terribly obscure one, but May Lee all the same cannot but be pleased for the simple fact that she's set in her knowledge that he rather deserves to be known.
"For years!" she replies with a resurgence of cheer. "Since I was a little girl, even. Having the honor of meeting Master Kim is why I'm here at all; he saw me and thought it best if I come here, where practically everyone's a possible teacher, to keep learning."
With that, her glee is subdued somewhat; Southtown definitely ain't what it used to be nowadays, and sure she's had some new experiences - like being shot, blown up, and very briefly paralyzed, say - as a result of the chaos, but they aren't /exactly/ what she was hoping for when she was packing her bags in Korea.
It really is so much nicer when things are resolved in twenty-three or forty-six minute chunks.
Her hands slide into her pockets as she turns to move nearer to Nataya's window; she's still maintaining a small smile as she says, "Maybe the next time, we won't be waiting for a break in guard schedules," she suggests. Or smashing people with bicycles with a cheery smile; /that/, she leaves unsaid, but she certainly shivers very slightly to think of it.
Fighting is a pursuit for Nataya that doesn't really resonate the same way it does for most. It's not an art. It's a thing all it's own, a way to seek balance in body and mind. The problem with that is her fighting style is a brutal, graceless spectacle of destruction.
It really doesn't match her overriding personality at all, but she doesn't say a word about it. Instead, she nods more to herself than anything else. "Maybe," she replies. But that's all she says on that matter.
Unlike May Lee, Nataya's training hasn't been as extensive. She left her master as soon as he had taught her what he thought she needed to know for now, so she's slightly curious. "Do you still train with Master Kim? Or do you know everything you need to know and are just perfecting your art now?"
The ins and out of training are actually a mystery to her, since she really shouldn't know what she knows in the first place. It's a strange situation. But again... that's a story for another time, when the world's not in peril.
As she leans next to the window adjacent Nataya's, May Lee's smile can only brighten at the subject of her training. "Not for a while, given how, um..." she begins to reply before trailing off and gently scratching the back of her head. How /does/ one sum up an urban war when it comes to describing its effect on the daily routines of the battlegrounds' inhabitants?
"... hectic... things have been." She smiles a broad smile of triumph that is pretty much only for her at that, and then she continues, "Otherwise, we train a couple of days out of the week. Sometimes with his sons, sometimes... well, actually, a /lot/ of the time now, with his /other/ trainees, Chang and Choi." Beat. "Actually, I guess I've been the one taking care of them lately; they only /just/ got back."
There is another barely perceptible shudder at that; she's /still/ having a difficult time wrangling Chang and his seeming affinity for silky, lacey things.
"Who ever really knows everything they need to know, though? There's always something new to see, or learn, right?"
"I hope so. Life would get infinitely less interesting if there's a finite amount of things to learn," Nataya replies with a tilt of her head. "It sounds interesting. Maybe I'll come to a session some time. It would be interesting to train in a style that's slightly more flexible than the ones I know."
And by 'flexible', she means 'not devised for the purpose of causing extensive brain damage with an elbow strike'.
"But it really is getting late. We can talk more about this later. Right now, you should rest. We'll need all our energy to get to Pacific from here, and I have a friend that's down there that you might want to talk to."
That is if Rust's still there. It's been quite a while since she's seen the high school shop teacher. Then again, the man was a creature of habit. He'd be there, or around there at the very least. "I think he'll be able to help you a lot more than me. I've sort of got a limited use in situations like this. It's usually best that I stay on my own. At least for now."
And with that, she waves may Lee away from the window, or tries to anyway. "Now get some sleep. I'll wake you up when it's time to go."
Heaving a low sigh tinged with groaning, May Lee complies by pushing off from the wall to pad back to the training mats and then dropping somewhat near to her sneakers and goggles to curl up into a reasonably suitable position for sleeping. She sort of wants to suggest that Nataya follow suit, but she seems reasonably stubborn, and certainly insistant upon staying up to keep watch.
Instead, she says, "You'd be welcome whenever you wanted, I'm sure you could find the dojo, or you could call ahead and I could tell you where it is, or--
She snaps into sort of an upright position as a revelation hits her, her legs remaining folded even as she pushes herself up with her hands. She is blushing in embarassment as she quickly says, "May Lee; my name is May Lee!"
"Nataya," she replies, "it's been a pleasure to meet you." She performs the requisite wai, which is the Thai greeting of hands in what is normally considered prayer as she bows her head in respect.
"I'm sure we'll have many opportunities to talk in the future," she says warmly before turning her head to the shattered glass, taking a deep breath before closing her eyes. Her power isn't meant for this sort of thing. In fact, it's almost against what she was taught to do with it. But drastic times call for unusual actions.
Smoke seems to rise off of her body, forming clouds that pool by her feet, then rush outward like a thing alive, pouring into cracks in the windows, walls, doors, floor... any place they can find entry, they go. They sparkle with a silvery tinge as they go, occasionally manifesting pinpricks of lights like stars that give May Lee pause, as if looking at her. They linger for a moment before she sends the cloud outside, settling in a hovering lotus position as she meditates and keeps watch, falling silent and motionless.
The woman's breathing falls shallow, then eventually seems to stop as she deadens all her vital signs, trapping herself in a zone of deep, deep meditation as a thin cloud swirls outside.
It's an odd sight, if not just downright creepy.
Why, exactly, is May Lee being made to sleep when Nataya's showing off her ability to summon smoke and light with nothing more than a little thought, or meditation, or something? It borders on criminal; on inhuman, even!
She could almost overlook the nastiness with the red treadmarks when dealing with a living SFX generator. Sure, when she's really into it, she can generate some electricity, or a little light or some explosions, but nothing like /this/.
"Oh my God!" she exclaims as wisps of smoke flit past her to seep through the floor, her fingertips passing through them while they're still in reach. "How are you--wait, let me guess: smoke chi, right?" Beat. Scritch-scritch-scritch. "Wait. No..."
The little heroine that could's forehead furrows in thought as she contemplatively taps her bottom lip.
Unfortunately, no answer is forthcoming. Nataya's mentally gone, leaving behind a floating shell of a human being with barely a pulse, much less signs of breathing. Maybe this is how she takes watch? Difficult to say, since she's never really taken watch before. You can only be involved in so many wars, after all.
The clouds seem mostly outside now, swirling about, leaving the inside quiet execpt for the small chatter coming from the radio and the sound of a leaking pipe someplace, which leaves for Maylee the sleeping mats and her thoughts... whatever those may be.
Certainly, there's a lot of things that have been traded her. Acquaintence and philosophy at the very least. But really, in a case like this, maybe that's enough. Nataya's met lots of people on her trips around the world, but nobody yet has asked the important questions... although May Lee's come closer than she'll know.
And maybe that's what makes all the difference.
Log created on 00:25:30 04/24/2009 by Nataya, and last modified on 14:05:55 04/26/2009.