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Wendy the Werewolf Stalker Campfire [Wednesday Evening]

It was beautiful outside this evening, and so Emma found herself out by her cabin's campfire; cigarette in one hand as she balanced her notebook on her knees. It was easier to work on her creative writing assignment out here than in the cramped quarters of the cabin, and if she didn't like what she wrote, well, she could always burn it.

And really, there was no downside to lighting things on fire.

[open!]

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"Of course you can," Valentine said, her intrigue obviously rising as she tilted her head and sat down at a good conversational distance from Jack. "And I'll try to answer as best I can, too."

"It's not that fascinating," he said, amused at her obvious curiosity. "It's just something a friend reminded me of. Say you have some kind of gift that you could use to protect other people, though you aren't the only one who can do it. Are you obligated to use it? Or do you still get a choice?"

Ah, but Jack was wrong there. Almost anything was fascinating for Valentine, especially odd questions, especially, as it turned out, to be one with a psychological tilt.

And, really, odd questions didn't just come from no where, more often than not, so the real fascinating part was trying to figure out the source for them.

And it was a very interesting question at that, one that made her quirk an eyebrow as well as a grin, and immediately think of Ender, although that really wasn't so rare at all.

"Obligated?" she asked. "No. Of course not. You can always choose; that's something I'm adamant about. But whether or not you choose to do it says a lot about you, wouldn't you say?"

Jack nodded as he considered how to phrase the rest of this. "Of course, but it seems as though this society weights the dice. If you chose not to use your gift, you're called a rather filthy name by those who do use it. But of course the ones who use it may die young and violently."

He looked thoughtful, weighing it out. "It's all a trade-off, and I suppose it's a rather stark choice -- honor among your tribe, or relative comfort outside it. So it probably says everything about you."

"Not necessarily," Valentine said. "There are so many nuances to everything, and I'm just as adamant that people are so much more than the choices they make as I am that they have those choices to begin with. I guess...there's another factor here, though, right? Why is the person choosing not to use their gift to protect people? Is it just because they don't want to? Do they feel that others are more capable than they are? More likely, it's a combination of both, and probably so many other reasons I'm not even thinking of right now."

"The person I heard this from doesn't know," Jack said. "The reasons, I mean, though yours are good general guesses. It seems like everything is very segregated -- if you chose not to use it, you don't have much to do with the people who do."

And if you didn't do it, you got called a blood whore. That was a term that was going to stick in Jack's head for a while, really.

"Hm." Valentine made a thoughtful, considering sound. "I guess it boils down to what's more important in the long run. In the grand scheme of things, removing yourself entirely as an individual from the situation, which is the better choice? And so long as you stick with your convictions because you believe in them, weathering the rough road ahead should be a little easier. People will almost always segregate on things, anyway."

"In the grand scheme of things, I don't have enough information," Jack admitted. "I know what I would rather do, I think, but what I've heard is so one-sided. I do respect my friend's decision."

He snorted. "It's not a choice I would ever have to make, anyhow."

"If you don't have enough information," Valentine said with a wry grin, "then I certainly don't hearing it second hand, although it isn't like it's that unfamiliar of a conundrum, either. In a very...vague, general sense, anyway."

And of course she was curious about the specifics, but Jack was talking about a friend, and she wouldn't want to press on him to betray a trust. Not when, if it still remained intriguing, she could try to piece it together herself. It would give her something to do around here.

"No, in a vague and general sense, it's ... probably not unfamiliar at all, though the specifics are unusual," Jack said. "I'm sorry. I'd feel odd telling you the whole story. I don't think there is a real right or wrong, though."

[OOC: *crashes out*]

Valentine shook her head. "No, it's okay," she said. "I can understand that. You just wanted a second outside opinion to weight against your own, since you yourself aren't directly involved, while this other person is. Or I'm just completely talking out of my butt right now, in which case," she grinned, "don't mind me."

"I did, and I got one. But Valentine," Jack said, opening his eyes very wide, "I always mind you. It's hard not to."

... serious time over. Can has flirty times now?

And, of course, Valentine recognized the change and slipped easily into it, grinning and putting the seriousness aside, dismissed for the moment, but not forgotten. Not until she'd discover whether or not it was anything useful. Her grin took on a skeptical tilt, leaning toward Jack a little as she fixed an arched eyebrow on him.

"Jack," she said, "if you're going to spout flattery, I'm sure you can come up with something more applicable than that. The only reason you'd find it hard not to mind me is because you've actually got more than a lick of intelligence to you."

"You're giving me instructions on how to flatter you, now?" Jack asked, and it was his turn to sound skeptical, though he smiled at the compliment to his intelligence. "Why wait for me to do it? It seems like you wouldn't exactly be coy about your own virtues."

Which Jack didn't find entirely true of her, but that he claimed it might in itself be a kind of flattery.

Edited 2009-07-23 15:41 (UTC)

"I just think," Valentine pronounced with a grin, "that if you're going to do it anyway, you might as well do it well, and who better to know what flatters me than me myself? You're getting it from the source here, a valuable education."

"Tempt me with knowledge?" Jack said, raising an eyebrow for effect. "Now that's the one thing I cannot resist. How should I flatter you?"

"Ah, now," Valentine sighed overdramatically. "There's the rub. You can't, I'm afraid, nor should you. Breath better wasted elsewhere, Jack."

"You aren't going to tell me you don't like boys, or don't like compliments from boys," Jack said skeptically. He was curious where she was going with this.

"Of course not," Valentine agreed. "I didn't say anything of the sort. It's just when I hear a compliment, from a boy, girl, even a person of inconsequential gender, it's rarely something I don't already know."

"That's my project for the year," Jack decided. "I'll find a compliment for you that isn't something you've already thought about."

Valentine snorted, not a derisive laugh by any means, just an amused one. "Well, that should be interesting," she said.

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Wendy the Werewolf Stalker Campfire [Wednesday Evening]

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