Day 47: Greenhouse (2nd Shift)

[himetsuru]

Why couldn't she get it out of her mind? It was a stupid white dress. So what if it was visual evidence that she was a princess? It should not be bothering her this much. It was a just a dress

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[madeinthehrl]

"Look, Maria, the greenhouse!" There was an annoyingly patronizing quality to the nurse's voice, as if Soma had never seen a greenhouse before and had no idea what one was, despite her having been here only a week ago. "And the seeds you planted last time have sprouted! Isn't that nice? You can show your father when he comes again next week

[himetsuru]

"Fighting off the dredges of a hangover," Falis replied even though her brow was drawn down in thought as opposed to a headache. Some of her thoughts were still lingering back on that white dress whereas others were tossing around names. Like the 'Maria' she'd just heard. That sparked memories of something on the board when she'd been that pathetic child. At least Soma didn't know Falis had been--

"Rose!" The little plastic pot-thing the plant Falis had been holding was suddenly crushed when the hunter's hand jerked in reaction to the name her damn vulture called out, her eyebrow twitching a little. "Here you go, honey," the vulture continued as she set down a more sturdy pot and some dirt. "Go ahead and put it in here."

"Yeah... whatever," she replied. As the nurse left, Falis ground her teeth.

[madeinthehrl]

Soma was almost relieved to see the anger and annoyance in her expression reflected in that of Falis. There was something reassuring about seeing that at least one her friends hadn't changed after all. "I didn't know the patients here made alcohol, too."

She uprooted one of the seedlings gently, running a finger along the fragile roots before what she'd heard caught up with her. Rose, the nurse had said. That was right; Maria had spoken to a girl named Rose on the bulletin board. A friendly girl, someone who used to play sports before she'd arrived here. Maria had promised to meet her on the recreational field. Was that a coincidence? Falis's irritation, readable even without her quantum brainwaves, seemed to imply otherwise.

"Are you still interested in a game of soccer?" she said quietly.

[himetsuru]

Picking up the trowel, Falis jabbed it roughly into the soil in the pot before she tried to uncrush the plastic thing the plant was in.

"I don't know how to play," Falis replied in a low voice. "That child was the one that knew and I can't remember anymore. How about we just forget about Maria and Rose and anything they agreed to do since they aren't us?"

[madeinthehrl]

"Let's," said Soma with more conviction than she really felt. It was true--the last thing she wanted to do was remember being Maria. But he had said things to Maria that he would never have said to Soma. Things that he hadn't taken back afterward and that he still maintained were nothing but truth.

She didn't know how to feel about that. She'd become someone she wasn't for a day, and learned that she might have been someone else entirely, once upon a time.

She opened her mouth to speak, but she hesitated visibly and shut it again. There was no need to bring that up here.

[himetsuru]

Falis' eyes flashed over when Soma went to speak but didn't.

"What?" Her tone wasn't demanding at all, more resigned than anything else. Rose was so different than her, that it was understood anyone that had encountered her, even on the board, would have questions. "You can ask me anything. I'll answer. Today."

[madeinthehrl]

"Did anyone else--anyone who didn't think they were someone else--tell you that who you thought you were was real?" She paused. "That was poorly phrased. I--what I mean is that someone from my world told Maria that I had been someone else before I was Soma, and he didn't think he was anyone but himself at the time."

[himetsuru]

It was a good thing Soma rephrased the question because Falis had just stared at the other girl. She'd thought it was a given that there were a lot of people that thought 'Rose' was real. After it was said in a better way, Falis thought for a moment.

"No, no one did that to me, but I have to ask you something, Soma," she replied, stopping what she was doing and attempting to catch the girl's golden eyes. "Is there someone who believes in you? No matter what things you've done in the past, no matter how much blood you've shed, no matter how much pain you've caused, no matter how many times you've doubted who and what you are. Is there someone who unfailing believes that you are worthy of living, that forgives everything you have done or tried to do btu failed?"

[madeinthehrl]

Soma looked up, meeting Falis's eyes. She hadn't often found herself at a loss for words in her own world, but now she was beginning to see that it was because she'd never had cause to discuss anything that would warrant it. A newly-created supersoldier of the HRL had little room for self-doubt. Why worry about the past when the present was what mattered?

She still thought like that, most of the time. So why did E-0057's words bother her so much?

Pulling herself out of her thoughts and back towards Falis's question, she frowned a little. There was the colonel, she thought. He knew what she was, what she was bred to do, and he accepted that. But did that mean the same thing as what Falis was saying?

"I don't know." For once there was almost no emotion in her voice, almost a regression to the girl she'd used to be. A simple statement of facts.

[himetsuru]

Falis' thoughts had drifted back to Milano and Kaito. When they had left the room of Teoria, the ancient machine sealed away for all eternity, Falis had told Kaito that she didn't care if he lived or died, but since there was someone who believed so strongly that the pathetic fallen king was worth saving... that was enough for Falis to spare his life and it was best for Kaito to remember that. The strength that Milano had shown Falis was something she had never seen in another until Hokuto. She had a feeling Soma needed that kind of strength.

"Do not take this as a threat, but tell me, if you do not know, why would a hunter spare your life? Is the face that people see when they look at you the face of who you really are?" That same look as earlier crossed Falis' face. "Or is it a face that you have forgotten, drawn away by the pull of the here and now?"

[madeinthehrl]

Sudden anger crossed Soma's face, but it was the anger of frustration and not directed at anyone in particular. "I don't know," she repeated. "I don't understand any of it. How can I be someone I've forgotten? That's what he told me, that he knew me as someone else who was taken away from him. That's why he doesn't want to fight me anymore."

She wasn't who he thought she was. She was sure of that. If he was telling the truth, Marie was like Maria, a completely different person, there for a moment and torn away the next. But if Marie came before Soma--was this Marie's body, or Soma's? Maria had been so convinced she was Maria. And Soma was so convinced she was Soma. And E-0057--

"He said I wasn't the person he knew," she said abruptly. "What if I'm like Maria, thinking I'm someone I'm not?"

[himetsuru]

Falis let the anger wash over her, understanding it better than she let on. "So what if you are? The memories you have, the things that drive you... that's who you are. Just because something in the past may have been different and something caused you to change who you were, so much that you were practically reborn... that doesn't change who you are."

The hunter's eyes narrowed. "No one but you can tell you who you are, Soma. Why do you think I am the way I am?"

[madeinthehrl]

"That's what Maria thought," said Soma, gripping the watering can so hard it hurt. "If she believed anything, she believed that. She wasn't real, but she thought she was..."

It hurt to think about it too much. The supersoldier, the part of her that had never really left the army, told her she was wasting her time. Whoever she had been before, too much had happened for her to go back now. Just because she didn't remember her childhood, she told herself, and just because E-0057 did--that didn't mean a thing.

But she still wanted to know who she'd been. Wasn't that all right?

The other girl's question caught her by surprise, and she turned to look at her again, frowning in confusion. "What do you mean by that, Alita?"

[himetsuru]

"If she was willing to believe the lie, then no one has the right to tell her otherwise," Falis replied.

Soma's confusion was understandable. Honestly, Falis hadn't meant to say anything about herself, but it just came out. Now she had to deal with the consequences, and she would, but she didn't have to bring up the soul commutation.

"I am the Sovereign of the Mitto Gardenchia Region, Crown Princess of the Olshia North Alliance, the Twelth Andelnia Chou, Alita Castilia Arago Forland," she said, her head raising up just enough to adopt the royal bearing she'd learned to do. After a pause to let that long-ass name settle in, she continued, "And yet I am also a bounty hunter that used to be addressed by another name and spoken of by mothers to their children to scare them into returning home before dark."

She tilted her head, the royal bearing still with her. "Which am I - the princess or the bounty hunter?"

[madeinthehrl]

But Maria was wrong. Wasn't she? What if I'm the one who's wrong? --If I am, I don't want to go back. Little as she knew of this 'Marie,' the last thing she wanted to do was become the girl E-0057 had known. If she had ever existed, she was as good as dead, she had no way of coming back, and it was best for both of them if she stayed that way. That was different from being someone who remembered being both. She was just about to voice her thoughts when Alita spoke again.

Soma said nothing for a moment, just stood there in surprised silence. She'd never seen Alita like that before, head held high in an unfamiliar bearing that had to be courtly, almost transformed in her bearing and speech.

"Sometimes you're both and sometimes you're neither," she said at last, lowering her eyes. "I think...you take the qualities you need from both. Isn't that right?"

[himetsuru]

"You are correct," Falis replied. She then relaxed and the noble bearing slipped away. "I can be either, both or neither. And what I choose to be is determined by me. I may be supposed to be the prim and proper princess, but I don't have to be. I may supposed to be the greatest bounty hunter, a terror of old wives' tales, but I don't have to be. And, if I really wanted to, I could just be a girl and lay down my sword and crown. But I don't have to be. I am whatever I choose to be."

She lightly touched Soma's shoulder to get her to look up. "Does it matter that you might have once been a different person? No, it doesn't because you don't have to be her. You are whoever you choose to be. And if you don't remember the girl some guy remembers, don't want to be that girl, then that guy's shit out of luck. And it doesn't matter what the fuck he thinks."