Yeshua had managed to navigate a few of the corridors of the facility without any hesitation. He wasn't worried that someone would be worried for him. It was ridiculous, in his mind, that anyone would have stopped him while pointlessly walking. Eventually his small stroll left him where he had started; the Mess Hall. While not exactly accomplishing anything, the boy felt some of the pressure on his shoulders to lift. It was a miracle of medicine - solitude.
His eyes darted around the large room, a hazy mist of background noise descending over it. Before he could smell the appetising food, he saw a young girl that was almost swallowed by the bench she was sitting on. Her body was small and frail but she had seen things a child should not have. The juxtaposition of her very existence sent a shiver down his spine. She was a Pilot, just like him. Yeshua realised that the only difference between them was that she was weak and submissive. He hadn't run into her during the battle, but he doubted she would have put up anything that could resemble a fight. His mind raced with accusations and pages of pity and malice. He explained to himself how she was useless as a pilot, but his thought was broken when he realised he was standing opposite her, on the other side of the table. He had been standing for far too long.
"I-I'm sorry to be standing here." he failed to articulate, shoving his hands into his pockets and shuffling his gaze to somewhere other than his feet.
Elora was looking around the mess hall when she was spoken to by the pilot who Lorenzo was really angry at. He had an aura of certain intelligence to him that came apparent in the briefing hall, but right now he seemed to be just like her: nervous. Then she remembered something, and put her hands to her cheeks.
"Oh, you're, umm, Yeshua, right? You pilot the sniper Framewerk...they're meant to work alone, so I don't think the professor was fair with you..." She meekly looked at Yeshua with innocent pity.
While Yeshua had somehow managed to deter his original malevolent thought of this frail person's lack of skills in piloting, Elora mumbled his name. It had brought his senses to the real world. Koehler had done the same earlier, and if Yeshua remembered, it was because he didn't know how to talk formally. This girl had managed to snap him out of his trance by saying his name, frightening him in a new way.
The first part of her sentence was inaudible from either the background noise and chatter or his inability to hear properly or how the girl had an inability to speak properly. He had managed to listen to the remark about his Framework, the Anzu, proud and powerful. She saw exactly what he did; Lorenzo was unfair to him. In fact, it was so similar to his disgust with the superior officer that for the first time in a very long time, a smile appeared on his face. It was horrifying. It didn't belong on his face.
"Yes, yes. Th-that's exactly what I said -- thought. He came off as a pompous scoundrel, if you'd also agree with me."
Elora reeled back at the creepy.looking smile that suddenly appeared on his face. It was then that she realized that she was talking to an actual boy for once, something she rarely did in her pre-Framewerk life due to the constant harassment she had to endure. But she did want to learn more about him; despite his weirdness, there was genuine insight that sometimes gleaned outside, as it did when they first discussed about the mock battle.
"Well, he said a lot of bad things. And he did hit me," Elora said while showing off the mark on her cheek, which was now starting to disappear. "He's a bad man. But maybe it's because he's had to go through a lot of stuff...It's hard to be nice if you've lost your family, like he did. I know how that must feel..." Elora turned sad as the topic caused her to remember her presumably dead parents.
For the last fifteen years of his life, it was easy to get lost in a different thought. It was easy to not pay attention and feign interest. Rare times had been when he was being taught, when he was reading and when he was being attacked. These were none of those times, Yeshua remarked, yet he had just listened to everything she said with a sharp interest. While her small voice was clouded by the mist of noise around her, it also glowed like the sun after a rainy day. As she gestured to her cheek, the contours of her fragile yet remarkable face invited him, but he had learnt many years ago that he would soon be having these thoughts. They were disgusting and immature, but the subtle gesture had made his jaw loosen slightly. A red, boiling anger ran through him at the thought of someone attacking her. Yeshua remembered that this was definitely the case. Lorenzo had slapped her without holding back, and if he was holding back, the man was evil as it is. When she tried to justify his anger, his only rose. However, the rage that flowed through him never spilled out. He remained calm.
"Don't try to justify him. People are broken. They have been and now is no different. Nobody should slap you. You're the least menacing thing in the world."
His voice caught slightly as he figured out what he had just said. His eyes seemed to know no place to rest and his hands twitched like they had just been electrically shocked. The uneasy feeling in his throat and mind failed as he continued to move his lips. He had to set things right; for humanity. He couldn't risk the defender of the human race to be weak and immature. His comment had made no sense in quick analysis; a cup of water was less menacing than her. There were many things, yet he had felt the need to exaggerate. Was it to compliment someone he had never talked to before? It wasn't this reason, Yeshua realised, as he knew that he had tried to help her, emotionally. A pilot didn't need help.
"You don't deserve to be a Pilot. How can you pretend your protecting us when you can't even protect yourself? You're weak, not a soldier. The only thing we should be giving you is pity."
Yeshua's words, while true, bit into Elora's already unstable self-esteem. She was weak, and she knew that better than anyone else in the world, no, the galaxy. Having that confirmed by an observer still hurt her, and she turned even sadder. She didn't know what to say first, but after she blinked a bit and sniffled a bit, she responded:
"S-So you think I don't deserve to be here? That I should just give up now, and go home? I want to try, you know. I'm weak, but I can be strong. Lora believes that I can do it, and I don't want to disappoint her. But if you want to bully me about it, fine. It's not like I'm not used to it..." she said with her head down, looking at her feet.
His blood had not stopped boiling. Yeshua had thought so, that she was so innocent in her reply and had referred to Lora, the other pilot, his leader, who had taken the awful job of having to try and put a spine in this crumpled piece of paper. As she mumbled onwards, like a tire rolling down the hill, there was no stopping what she was saying. She descended into a more gloomy expression than before, if Yeshua had thought it was possible. His hands clenched into fists in his pockets as she accused him of bullying her.
The arrogance of Elora stunned him and, if it was possible, turned someone that had been an object of pity in his eyes into an object of hate. This young, very young, woman pretended in her horrifying fantasy that she was the worst off, like he was some silent predator. This girl he had almost shown care for without having to say a single word. She had made no effort, yet he had felt a need to talk to her. Subconsciously or consciously, it had worried him.
She was 14, a year younger than him. They were arrogant, children, to Yeshua. That had been the case for all so many years and that was why he had delegated himself to book reading, study and the curiosity of nature. This was the reason his father left him the old library, why he left his grandmother's house in the night to find himself, why every person he talked to hated him in one way or another and why he now had gripped the edges of the table, his gaze falling towards the floor.
"You don't deserve to be here. You don't deserve my pity."
His glasses sparked like a the kindling of a fire as he turned around and walked away. If it was possible, he had now found a more ridiculous Pilot than Koehler.
Elora trembled at Yeshua's rising temper, and recoiled when he heaved on the table, before he up and ditched her after some bitter words. Elora held her shoulders and looked aside, feeling worse off than when she talked with Lora. She now started to think about what she said, and if there was something particularly offensive that she included in her rebuttal, but finding nothing. She sighed. This wasn't as bad as when she had to face Lorenzo, but it did add a scratch to her feelings.
