Oh, what's that? You'd even be willing to sleep on the floor, you say? Well, that's quite a bit of commitment to staying in somebody else's cabin, but far be it from me to stop you!
[We sure are very sarcastically breezing right over that bathtub suggestion as if Rita said something completely different, yeah...! Though at least Jade only lets the positively saccharine cheer hang for another obnoxious second, or so--long enough to adjust his position in his seat a little more--before settling back and regarding Rita with a more moderate sort of amusement in the end.]
...At any rate. I do recall you wanted to speak about a few theorems, where my fonic artes might happen to be concerned...before we were rather sidetracked, anyway. Is that still the case? Or are you here for some other reason...? [Look, he's being very generous here, even giving her a hook if she wants it!]
[Well, whatever, he's moving on and she did want to speak to him about certain artes, actually! However...there is a quiet, long moment where she regards him, considering. She recalls (however reluctantly) the face on Jade's mug, how a moving corpse with red hair and and a high white collar was one of the figures haunting her nightmare after the last excursion--thanks, she hated it!!--yet also how Jade had run that zombie through without hesitation to save them, faltering only at the pair that approached him after; his horrified gasp of Professor is still all too easy to remember, like the way his hands were shaking in the rover. She wonders now if it was only the "Professor" zombies that caused that tremble.
...Of course, Rita's also not the sort to like intentionally needling at a friend's trauma and grief just to satisfy a tiny bit of morbid curiosity, and is the answer really that important now? No, not really. If she could actually do anything to help that trauma, it might be a different story, but...well, she doesn't. And something tells her that smashing a captain statue probably wouldn't do all much for him.
So, at long last...]
...Yeah, that's right. [Just going to answer casually as if that long pause didn't just happen.] That meteor spell you used--did you come up with that arte?
[The senile remark is simply met with more obnoxious smiling; she knows as well as he does exactly what he's actually doing on that front, after all, though she's certainly quite free to verbally rationalize it however she likes!
...Even if the rather protracted pause that follows does end up parsing. Oddly. Rita's never exactly been one to conceal her feelings on matters particularly well, but Jade has gradually found that the considering sort of expression settling on her face about now is one of the more difficult ones to read all the same. Clearly she's weighing something in thought, but he's not quite sure exactly what.
For all that...there are a few guesses, to perhaps choose from on that front...
In the end, though, the most "expected" sort of angle is taken...where his own half-guess half-offer ends up being accepted anyhow. Which--it is one of the easiest topics she could possibly pick to throw at him. So Jade's happy enough to accept it in turn, as opposed to pressing her for any more honest reservations; those reservations might still exist, he suspects, but if she isn't about to bring them up herself...then this works just as well in the meantime, now doesn't it?]
Ah, unfortunately I cannot take credit for that particular one. It was in fact an existing spell, when I learned it--very old, however. A forbidden arte, with a rather complex sort of sealing process... [Answering casually in turn, as if that long pause definitely indeed didn't just happen...though there's genuine curiosity in the tilt of Jade's head about here, too.] 'Meteor Storm', it's called. ...Does this arte or something roughly equivalent to it exist in your world, actually?
[It's a much easier topic to focus on--and one she is very genuinely interested in too--especially when digging into just how...unsettling it was that even Jade's hands were shaking would...probably be a highly uncomfortable conversation in itself.
...Yeah, this is better.
In fact, Jade's description ends up being...not at all what she expected. Forbidden arte, really?]
No, not that I know, but if I learned the formula for your version... Anyway, why was it forbidden? It seemed pretty useful to me.
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come_sailaway
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[We sure are very sarcastically breezing right over that bathtub suggestion as if Rita said something completely different, yeah...! Though at least Jade only lets the positively saccharine cheer hang for another obnoxious second, or so--long enough to adjust his position in his seat a little more--before settling back and regarding Rita with a more moderate sort of amusement in the end.]
...At any rate. I do recall you wanted to speak about a few theorems, where my fonic artes might happen to be concerned...before we were rather sidetracked, anyway. Is that still the case? Or are you here for some other reason...? [Look, he's being very generous here, even giving her a hook if she wants it!]
no subject
[Well, whatever, he's moving on and she did want to speak to him about certain artes, actually! However...there is a quiet, long moment where she regards him, considering. She recalls (however reluctantly) the face on Jade's mug, how a moving corpse with red hair and and a high white collar was one of the figures haunting her nightmare after the last excursion--thanks, she hated it!!--yet also how Jade had run that zombie through without hesitation to save them, faltering only at the pair that approached him after; his horrified gasp of Professor is still all too easy to remember, like the way his hands were shaking in the rover. She wonders now if it was only the "Professor" zombies that caused that tremble.
...Of course, Rita's also not the sort to like intentionally needling at a friend's trauma and grief just to satisfy a tiny bit of morbid curiosity, and is the answer really that important now? No, not really. If she could actually do anything to help that trauma, it might be a different story, but...well, she doesn't. And something tells her that smashing a captain statue probably wouldn't do all much for him.
So, at long last...]
...Yeah, that's right. [Just going to answer casually as if that long pause didn't just happen.] That meteor spell you used--did you come up with that arte?
no subject
...Even if the rather protracted pause that follows does end up parsing. Oddly. Rita's never exactly been one to conceal her feelings on matters particularly well, but Jade has gradually found that the considering sort of expression settling on her face about now is one of the more difficult ones to read all the same. Clearly she's weighing something in thought, but he's not quite sure exactly what.
For all that...there are a few guesses, to perhaps choose from on that front...
In the end, though, the most "expected" sort of angle is taken...where his own half-guess half-offer ends up being accepted anyhow. Which--it is one of the easiest topics she could possibly pick to throw at him. So Jade's happy enough to accept it in turn, as opposed to pressing her for any more honest reservations; those reservations might still exist, he suspects, but if she isn't about to bring them up herself...then this works just as well in the meantime, now doesn't it?]
Ah, unfortunately I cannot take credit for that particular one. It was in fact an existing spell, when I learned it--very old, however. A forbidden arte, with a rather complex sort of sealing process... [Answering casually in turn, as if that long pause definitely indeed didn't just happen...though there's genuine curiosity in the tilt of Jade's head about here, too.] 'Meteor Storm', it's called. ...Does this arte or something roughly equivalent to it exist in your world, actually?
no subject
...Yeah, this is better.
In fact, Jade's description ends up being...not at all what she expected. Forbidden arte, really?]
No, not that I know, but if I learned the formula for your version... Anyway, why was it forbidden? It seemed pretty useful to me.