The world of the mystical and magical is beyond Li's comprehension. It may be out there, it might not be. She isn't sure. She's never seen magic back home. At the same time, she hasn't been let out often enough without orders or watchers to truly know if her lived experience counts for much. There are many things out there she hasn't experienced. Instead of science or magic, Li has lived life not grounded in anything. There is no future, there is no past, she was often told. To cope with everything happening in her life, she had accepted this as the truth. Existing purely in the present was the only way to hold onto, if not hope, some desire to survive, some reason not to cave into despair. Emotions would have been too much to deal with, especially in her line of work. The weight would have crushed her.
Right now that weight is not crushing, but it's unbalanced, a strange thing she doesn't know how to carry properly upon the shoulders of her mind. To try to get through it requires, ironically enough, that same thing she's always done: focusing on the present. The past is awful. In the present she has a friend. She hasn't had that in a long time. She has a friend who isn't another Li, a person who's from outside her little world, who wants her to be okay.
Of course she'd risk her life for him. He would and has done the same for her. Donatello is a good person. The actions taken in the depths of her Creature mindset aside, she acted of her own free will earlier, and she'd do the same again. There's a lot of selflessness in him trying to protect innocent people at great risk to himself. That's the kind of thing she wishes she were capable of doing. That's what she hopes she'll one day be able to do back home, if she can do what it's rumored one Li did before her and totally break free of all conditioning, if she can ever gain total control of herself back permanently.
"I usually get ordered to do it. It's only switched on like this a few times before in my whole life. I'm sorry. I didn't think this would happen." If she had, she would've tried to put together some kind of heads-up about it. This unease she's induced in him is nothing she'd ever want to cause in someone so moral and kind. "I'll never hurt you, though, even when I'm like that, and I don't hurt civilians. I'm not... I'm not like some of the others back home." That's not how any of the Lis were programmed. The Xues, sometimes, and the Zhuang, always. Not her, though.
If he knew what that phrase meant in Mandarin he'd be several different kinds of horrified by it. 'Come home, beast' is not a kind phrase to choose as an off-switch. Fortunately he's as ill-versed in Chinese as she is in Japanese. She knows only a handful of phrases, while he probably knows, at most, some basics like 'hello' and 'thanks'. They'll just have to wait and see if his intonation being off messes with the process of reverting her. Some part of her thinks, irrationally, that if anyone can get it to work despite the language barrier, it's him. The improvisation, the inventions, the creativity, it speaks to a mind that's willing to try and keep trying. She trusts him this much. How far that trust ultimately extends, she doesn't know. She doesn't have enough experience to really think that far ahead or understand what she's feeling.
"She's the goddess of compassion. She hears the sounds of the world. I don't remember much of who I was, when I was Pan Xiaohu, I mean. But I remember going to a temple dedicated to her, just a small one, when I was little. When I was doing recon at a night market, I saw a stall with these, and... I woke up, like I did when you said my birth name. I wasn't supposed to, but I did." Li presses the pendant to her chest with both hands, feeling the smooth stone against her skin, grateful for its' presence. She swallows, unable, as always, to put words to the feelings she has for Guanyin freeing her from her handlers' control for the first night in years, in that snowy New Years' market a year ago. "I'm not supposed to have this," she admits as she tucks the pendant away again, putting on her glove once more, "but it's helping me stay me. I don't like what I am when I'm... like that," there's no way to put it that's sufficient, "and she's helping me not be."
She rests her hand atop his on her shoulder, even if doing so strains her injured shoulder a little with the movement. Someone else's hand under hers reminds her of something, of being very young and walking with someone's hand in hers somewhere so cold it almost hurt, somewhere she felt safe. The memory isn't quite there. It could be, in time. Li tries to hold onto that hope, that these things will return in time.
"Thank you, Donatello. You're a good man. I know this is probably all really strange and I don't even know how to start explaining it, but you're taking this really well. I think we can get through this without another slip-up. If I do have one, though, I know you won't let it go on. And that means so much to me."
This time, the reason she doesn't hug him is because it wouldn't even come close to conveying the relief she feels, though it's evident in her voice.
no subject
Right now that weight is not crushing, but it's unbalanced, a strange thing she doesn't know how to carry properly upon the shoulders of her mind. To try to get through it requires, ironically enough, that same thing she's always done: focusing on the present. The past is awful. In the present she has a friend. She hasn't had that in a long time. She has a friend who isn't another Li, a person who's from outside her little world, who wants her to be okay.
Of course she'd risk her life for him. He would and has done the same for her. Donatello is a good person. The actions taken in the depths of her Creature mindset aside, she acted of her own free will earlier, and she'd do the same again. There's a lot of selflessness in him trying to protect innocent people at great risk to himself. That's the kind of thing she wishes she were capable of doing. That's what she hopes she'll one day be able to do back home, if she can do what it's rumored one Li did before her and totally break free of all conditioning, if she can ever gain total control of herself back permanently.
"I usually get ordered to do it. It's only switched on like this a few times before in my whole life. I'm sorry. I didn't think this would happen." If she had, she would've tried to put together some kind of heads-up about it. This unease she's induced in him is nothing she'd ever want to cause in someone so moral and kind. "I'll never hurt you, though, even when I'm like that, and I don't hurt civilians. I'm not... I'm not like some of the others back home." That's not how any of the Lis were programmed. The Xues, sometimes, and the Zhuang, always. Not her, though.
If he knew what that phrase meant in Mandarin he'd be several different kinds of horrified by it. 'Come home, beast' is not a kind phrase to choose as an off-switch. Fortunately he's as ill-versed in Chinese as she is in Japanese. She knows only a handful of phrases, while he probably knows, at most, some basics like 'hello' and 'thanks'. They'll just have to wait and see if his intonation being off messes with the process of reverting her. Some part of her thinks, irrationally, that if anyone can get it to work despite the language barrier, it's him. The improvisation, the inventions, the creativity, it speaks to a mind that's willing to try and keep trying. She trusts him this much. How far that trust ultimately extends, she doesn't know. She doesn't have enough experience to really think that far ahead or understand what she's feeling.
"She's the goddess of compassion. She hears the sounds of the world. I don't remember much of who I was, when I was Pan Xiaohu, I mean. But I remember going to a temple dedicated to her, just a small one, when I was little. When I was doing recon at a night market, I saw a stall with these, and... I woke up, like I did when you said my birth name. I wasn't supposed to, but I did." Li presses the pendant to her chest with both hands, feeling the smooth stone against her skin, grateful for its' presence. She swallows, unable, as always, to put words to the feelings she has for Guanyin freeing her from her handlers' control for the first night in years, in that snowy New Years' market a year ago. "I'm not supposed to have this," she admits as she tucks the pendant away again, putting on her glove once more, "but it's helping me stay me. I don't like what I am when I'm... like that," there's no way to put it that's sufficient, "and she's helping me not be."
She rests her hand atop his on her shoulder, even if doing so strains her injured shoulder a little with the movement. Someone else's hand under hers reminds her of something, of being very young and walking with someone's hand in hers somewhere so cold it almost hurt, somewhere she felt safe. The memory isn't quite there. It could be, in time. Li tries to hold onto that hope, that these things will return in time.
"Thank you, Donatello. You're a good man. I know this is probably all really strange and I don't even know how to start explaining it, but you're taking this really well. I think we can get through this without another slip-up. If I do have one, though, I know you won't let it go on. And that means so much to me."
This time, the reason she doesn't hug him is because it wouldn't even come close to conveying the relief she feels, though it's evident in her voice.