Post by Jackie Bariole on Nov 19, 2019 23:09:05 GMT -5
Jackie would have sooner stopped talking altogether, but that option was conspicuously absent in the list alternative conversations Nasrin proffered. Crushes, as the pinkette rightly observed, were right out, and Jackie had no real want nor wont to explain just how right her companion's surmising had been. The topic of things which Jackie was afraid of could have filled the time, if only the two of them weren't still in the midst of grimm infested wilderness. As things stood however, it seemed an act of especially poor judgement to go discussing what she was afraid of, when those very fears could end up bringing another pack of Beowolves down upon them. Jackie thought about pointing this out, had in fact opened her mouth to do so, before she hastily reconsidered. Better to sidestep the topic entirely, rather than call even more attention to it. Not that Jackie actually wanted to talk about her fears, in fact there were few things she would have been more uncomfortable discussing, such as crushes, but she at least knew she had an answer to that particular question. What were the alternatives? Dreams? Jackie tried not to grimace at the thought, and failed dramatically, for dreams were almost as dreary a topic as fears would have been. To talk of dreams would be to make those dreams real, and dreams that were real were dreams that could be crushed. Better to keep them all bottled up inside, unspoken, so that when they went from audacious to unattainable, one could more easily pretend never having had them at all. Jackie almost said that too. Conscious of the sudden dearth of conversation she'd allowed to follow Nasrin's most recent sally, she might have said just about anything, no matter how ill-conceived, just to have said it and thereby broken the silence, of which she was the primary architect. Telling Nasrin what she thought of dreams and dreaming would have even had the added benefit of ending the conversation for good, most likely, but throwing such a huge wrench into the machinery of discourse demanded a certain amount of boldness and apathy, and Jackie had neither to spare. That left what? Hobbies? A topic whose sole appeal was how very inoffensive it was. A laudable trait, admittedly, given the competition, but one which made it no more appealing to Jackie as a potential avenue for discussion. She could not conceive of a pass time more boring nor lacking in stimulation than trying to make Nasrin care about the sorts of things Jackie found interesting. She almost said that too, catching herself just barely at the penultimate moment, such that a quiet click actually came from the back of her throat. Jackie didn't even try to keep from grimacing this time. Her face grew ruddy in the very picture of embarrassment and wearisome indecision. She looked up at Nasrin, then quickly away, and subsided into silence once more, her face flushed all the way from her neck to the very roots of her hair. She was aware she'd been silent long enough for it to be weird, and that her constant false starts were only compounding the issue. She was conscious too of the warmth of Nasrin's hand, still holding her own, and that these two perceptions should be about equal in her mind was not something the brunette wanted particularly to examine. Silence had a sort of inertia, Jackie had found. Stay silent long enough and, for her at least, it becomes next to impossible to do anything but. Yet knowing this did not somehow drive one to action nor to breaking the silence. It did quite the opposite in fact. The longer the Silence continued, the more important whatever broke it must be in order to justify the emptiness which preceded it. For silences of such duration as the one Jackie had just painstakingly constructed, only the truly profound could intercede. Jackie was not profound; Jackie was hardly even eloquent. Her superior intellect and strong grasp for language notwithstanding, she'd have been better disposed to ending the Silence with a gunshot than with having said anything worthwhile. A hypothesis she proved when, quite against her better judgement, Jackie tried, "I like Dust." as a way to escape the event horizon of her own conversational ability. She knew at once she should have kept quiet, and grimaced. It was such an appallingly inane statement, akin to saying she liked 'Air' or 'Water' or 'Food', or some other necessity for life. As soon declare her fondness for the hours of REM sleep which intensify study and memorization required. And what did Nasrin care about Dust anyway? And, even if she did care, she could not possibly possesses the foundation required a discussion of any significant depth. Jackie could already picture the pinkette's eyes glazing over as she tried to talk about crystal resonances or the aura-reactive ionic and covalent bonds of reactive minerals. She could already sense Nasrin's impatience and anger, as she tried to solidify the necessary concepts without coming across as patronizing. Or, even worse, that soporific earnestness affected by those who couldn't care any less, trying to seem interested. Her expression fell in upon itself, collapsing as a mask made of clay. Having said the words already, Jackie knew she would have to follow them up with something. As before, she took entirely to long to do so and, as before, had to drag herself from the miring Silence she'd produced. "I study Dust and its interactions, and contrive my own mixtures," Which wasn't saying much; Many huntresses did the same thing. Mixing one's own cartridges was so common among other dust users as to be utterly mundane. Nasrin probably mixed the Dust for her shells. Jackie stared intently at the floor. That she'd spent so long to say what amounted to 'I am interested in that thing which you and the rest of the world take for granted,' did not surprise her. It was painfully inline with her expectations for herself, which did not stop it from being disappointing. "The Gravity round and Ice round you saw me use," Like it was a confession being extracted under pain of torture, Jackie forced herself to continue, "Such reactions from such comparatively small charges; Not easy." It wasn't special either. Someone trained to use Dust could have achieved the same effect with a bit more aura. As it stood, it was only through Jackie's own aura manipulations that her custom rounds could be so effective. In Nasrin's hands, or those of anyone else not versed in the specific resonance of the Dust mixtures used, Jackie's custom rounds would have performed just like any other. Would have performed much the same as blunt force calibration, which is to say smashing the cartridges instead of firing them. There was nothing special about Jackie's interest in Dust and, so, nothing special about the compounds she mixed. "I have been experimenting with mixtures of Fire Dust with a similar effect in mind." Jackie glanced at Nasrin, then away, before continuing, "Fire Dust is tricky, though. Highly reactive, highly volatile, far more so than any other Dust type. It's inclined to fuse with other dusts, and the compounds it produces are just as unstable. I've had some success with encouraging a chemical reaction instead of an aural one, with the Dust serving as a catalyst, but so far the results are still too unpredictable for field use." Jackie grimaced, as if recalling something painful, then added, "I've also been experimenting with different methods of delivery. With mixed results..." |
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