Oh, My Poor Head [Abalia, Gamu]

While it was not necessarily typical for Abalia to come to others for advice, she had to admit that there was nearly no one else she would have trusted when it came to matters of brutal honesty. Naturally, she knew that Makoto and Elyss would be honest with her, but their opinions were still colored by their perceptions.

By contrast, she knew Gamu's view of things was that of a wild animal, simply based on the world she saw.

As she stepped into the Captain's office, she spoke clearly and confidently, her usual demeanor as cold as ever. Of course, even in spite of that, there was an undoubted humanity to it that had once been absent from her speech. Then again, perhaps it only made that icy distance all the more terrifying.

"Captain Kurotsuchi. I would appreciate your input on a few matters, if you have the time."

She smiled when she saw the face that came into her office. The captain leaning over the desk with the poise of a predator, thankfully for Abalia she was subserviant but to any other individual that innocent face might've wanted to devour them. For this particular woman she only wanted to know the sensation of being consumed by this being that had reached an apex beyond her own. So long as Gamu never achieved that kind of potential herself, the woman named Abalia could control her but in that small chance that Gamukira Kurotsuchi surpassed her. It would mean the end of their silly back and forth. At least in her current behaviour.

"Oh? My input you ask for? To what do you offer me Abalia for my insights?"

It was a game that she never tired of, demanding more of this woman only to receive domination in response. To receive nothing but the threat of giving Abalia what she wanted in return for the chance to continue crawling in her shadow like the monster this woman was. It was just so delightful, right?

"Well. Move those lips to cadence of what you want, Abalia. Am I finally out of use?"

She knew that she wasn't. There was so much that she could still do for Abalia that she felt confident there was still things to be wringed out of her if the captain commander wanted.

"It is regarding the matter of my professional life. Though, given my nature, I suppose that is not so different from my personal life."

Taking a seat in, Abalia watched Gamu rather passively, her gaze as intense as always, though lacking in its typical overbearing nature by sheer merit of the conversation being had. It was, after all, a somewhat personal one, and while she would not typically consider Gamu someone to be included in her personal life, the fact of the matter was that she already was. The woman watched her children rather often, and whether or not she cared to admit it, Abalia knew that she could trust her.

"I believe that my situation has changed quite dramatically since the introduction of my heart. I find that it is not as easy as it once was to simply separate my role as Queen of Vastime and Captain Commander of the Gotei."

Tapping her finger idly on the desk, Abalia briefly considered how best to word this question. Not on account of her own inability to word things, of course, but rather because she knew that wording was quite important when dealing with Gamu.

"Do you think it would be a failing of mine were I to accept that I can no longer serve in both capacities?"

"Hmm?"

She stared at Abalia with a jubilant smile that betrayed nothing of what she thought inside, there was no inclination which betrayed what went inside the bubblegum monster's head.

"Of course. If your emotions betray your capacity to lead and dominate then your emotions are a weakness which you now carry."

Gamu said while standing up and sitting on top of her desk, looming over Abalia like a bird of prey that was intently watching how Abalia responded to what she said.

"So, are you weak? You're not here to ask me to reasssure you or tell you that everything's okay... So does that mean my little Abby is looking to me for help as to how to proceed with her own self-discovery of weakness? Do you loathe this sudden awareness of inability to control two individual organisations?"

"I am certainly not weak. On the contrary, I am still wholly committed to my duty, moreso than those around me."

There was a confidence to Abalia's voice that had never before been present, a self-assuredness that could only ever come with emotional capacity. She met Gamu's gaze with her typical intense gaze, and studied the woman's eyes as she spoke.

"I seek not reassurance, or even help in managing what might be called weakness. I accept the reality of the situation, that it is untenable to lead in such a way as this. I have no particular desire to spend my life exclusively in a professional capacity, away from my children and those I consider friends."

Did she mean Gamu as a part of that? Well, who could say? She would admit, if nothing else, that she would be displeased if something were to happen to her.

"I do not consider it a betrayal of my capacity to lead. Rather, I simply realize that I no longer wish to lead all that I do. And I believe that Vastime is already something ill, something I cannot lead forever even were I to put forward all of my effort toward it."

"That's so hot."

She spoke with no hesitation or any tinge of bashfulness to her tone. There was just the reality of it, what kind of individual except those at the apex could so casually decide? Forsake all those poor individuals for her own selfish whims of wanting to indulge in pleasure. How could she not find that so alluring? It just got her so excited.

"Well, if you are so inclined then forsake them to the wolves. Throw those petty people into the horizon and let them fend for themselves while you indulge like the predator you are, feast on whatever you want and indulge to the fullest extent of enjoyment you can take."

Pure hedonism, or rather presenting the idea that everything to someone like Abalia was able to be discarded or given worth by her own whim. That life itself had only meaning if she decided so, anything that was not deemed as necessary or allowed was secondary. If she wanted to throw either to the wolves then she ought to. Even if Gamu was asserting that to do so would involve making such a decision, to be either animal or god. What would her emotions say?

It was all so enticing and simply delicious to Gamu. She wanted to watch.

"I am not nearly so irresponsible as to simply abandon a duty I have taken on with no plan for my replacement. It would be an affront to all that I am, and all that I have done, were I to simply leave them to fend for themselves."

That much Abalia knew for certain. After all, it was not a matter of her no longer caring for the people of Vastime, or of her lacking desire to ensure their stability. It was a nation she had done a great deal to build up, after all. But she knew all too well that she, an absentee queen whose time was evenly split with a foreign entity, could never truly lead them. She supposed that was the greatest way in which she differed from her late husband.

"My outlook on the world is quite far from your own, even if we perhaps see the world more similarly than most likely realize. I have always sought power for the sake of helping others. There is no appeal in it for my own benefit, and if I am to cast away my title as White Gold Queen, it is because those around me have been bettered by the act."

She almost felt boastful, speaking in such a way, but it was not intended to be so. Abalia's own greater emotional capacity simply made it more apparent to her how it was she operated, that she had lived selflessly even to the point of creating problems.

This selflessness thing of her's was so peculiar, Gamu even noted in it many of her experiments and human trials. The behaviour of one forgoing their own wellbeing for another, it was just such a bizzare kind of thing to possess. Where was the self-preservation? The need to continue to live? Self-preservation is the only thing she understood of humans beside the need to acquire power over eachother, the way they clinged and crawled above their peers to survive or rule them.

"Is that so?"

Gamu sat back in her desk, flexing a little bit of her reiatsu in the room until it'd have a physical presence. An environment that made Abalia's body need to work just a little bit harder to be in the other captain's presence. Unfortunately she wouldn't feel that dread, the psychological impacts of her existence like other insects might - a rather attractive trait - but it was important for her next question.

"So do you fear death? You don't feel inclined to claw up the mountain in a desperate attempt to live like others do but lift them all up... Why? Other people can't be that important, you don't even know most of those people."

"I fear nothing."

The statement was made accompanied by a plain expression of Abalia's rather tremendous willpower, a simple gaze that reminded Gamu of her place in this situation. If anything, there was all the more intensity to it now, a pride that had never before been in the woman's eyes or in her voice. It was that simple. She feared nothing, and she wanted that known.

"I care for others because I understand that they may suffer as I have suffered. I do not relish the sight of others in pain simply because I have known it. If I have strength, authority, then it is my right to make others happy as I have found happiness. Others might use such authority for their own desires, but I desire nothing more than peace, tranquility, prosperity."

Ah it was so exciting when her own heart raced, adrenaline through her system and the primal fear that made her thoughts rush. A flight or fight response that only this woman could give her which was more potent than any drug. Though their worldviews were antithetical, Abalia's wishes sounded so boring and uninteresting. What a boring life and world she proposed where there was no need to grow.

"Suffering's inherent from the moment you are conceived, the very soul cycle is clearly modelled to promote it. Power, pain, dying. These are the core of the reality you're in, and yet you choose to deny it?"

Gamu's spiritual pressure receded, it was going a lot more philosophical than she intended initially and it was a tangent which went away from the point that she asked about. Maybe she did want Abalia to understand, agree with her on some fundamental level and acknowledge the fact that she was correct. To validate her entire existence and driving attitude.