| Title: Are you trying to understand me? Time: Saturday, April 10, 2004 The Thespians: Lien Nguyen and Pascal Curio Location: Mundainger Biology - Aquatics Zone Notes: Pascal's grown really angsty lately and I'm not sure whether or not I'm okay with it. I'm trying to figure out the source of her angst, and I think I'm just about there. It's probably 'internal', but there's actually a really plausible 'external' reason to it as well. We'll see how it goes. In any case, presenting you with angst, and more angst. |
+---[ Mundainger Biology - Aquatics Zone ]-----------------------------------+ | | | This huge room is enchanted so that the walls are actually tanks that can | | be reached into to get fish and sealife, except that on the far wall which | | is a small private tank. Simulated tidepools dot the seafoam-green tiled | | floor, holding tiny creatures such as miniature dolphins, oysters that | | hold emeralds and things that look like sea-urchins, except that their | | needles shoot out of the water and into the air occasionally. The plants | | that inhabit the water are amazing, pink seaweed and purple seafoam to say | | the very least. Also included among the marine flora is a huge mass of | | bubbles, forming into all sorts of shapes, from sandcastles to a 'Welcome' | | message directed towards the new students. | | | | The vegetative life is the least of the interest-tickling things in these | | tanks. Cats, dogs, hamsters and rabbits all swim in the tanks...with their | | bottom halves converted into fish fins. A huge octopus sits in one area, | | using all..25 of its tentacles to write compositions. Ghostfish are | | popularly seen as well, huge see-through goldfish with large, sharp teeth | | that jump at the students every once in a while. Another thing that seems | | to strike attention is a beautiful, mature mermaid sitting happily upon a | | large rock in the private tank at the far end of the room, waving and | | greeting new students. She seems to be quite content here, probably having | | made a deal with the school, and she has quite a little setup in that | | tank. She is not without company either, as the two posters on either side | | of her tank hold pictures of two cheerful merpeople. | | | +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |
| Sukaku stole her books. Lien's still a little befuddled by this. She might have expected lecturing or nagging or whatever, but... this proactive a solution is anything but what she'd expect. Silly her. Sukaku isn't like ordinary boys. He also threatened to steal any other books she tries to read today, unless they're for relaxing. So, she is forced to rest, and rest she does. She's sitting on the floor out of the way, with her dolphin swimming nearby, but she's not talking to it. To tell the truth, she still looks too tired. |
| So it's not actually like Pascal Curio expected to find Lien here. She expected Lien to be in the library, hunched over an insanely high stack of books. Making love to them, of course. So the older girl wanders down the hall here, running her fingers absent-mindedly along the walls, letting them break through occasionally into the water. As she sees Lien she stops with a frown on her face. A look is cast around the rest of the room as Pascal figures that Sukaku is probably lurking around the corner, ready to come save his precious Lien-san. Her steps bring her about ten feet away from Lien and Pascal stops there, glaring at her. "No studying today?" She fights to keep the bitterness out of her voice, and the glare down as she finally breaks the silence. |
| It IS rather uncanny how Sukaku always manages to show up around Lien, isn't it? Still haven't gotten rid of Elijah's paranoia, have you Pascal? Lien's eyes rise, look briefly up at the older girl, then goes determinedly to stare into the water. Everyone she's ever confided in about this (that is... uh, two people) has told her to just ignore them. Well, she's going to try. She doubts it'll work, but she doesn't want to deal with Pascal again. |
| Elijah has his reasons for paranoia, and so does Pascal. Past experiences only help to fuel the paranoia though. She looks at Lien briefly and having no response, she seems rather content to take a slight step back and sitting herself down in front of a lethargic looking dogfish. Two can play the silent game and Pascal keeps her gaze forward, the sullen look still on her face. It probably helps that every so often the wall of water shifts so that the light hits it and Pascal can see Lien from the reflection. |
| Oh, yeah, Pascal. Right. She's really going to have to work to restrain herself from starting a conversation with you, after yesterday. Lien stares resolutely into the water, but a frown forms after mere moments. Her little dolphin friend has left her momentarily to come and examine Pascal curiously. The child scowls. The dolphin doesn't see. |
| Pascal's stopped staring at Lien through the mirror provided by the water. She turns her head as Lien's little dolphin friend approaches and Pascal barely allows her facade to soften. She stares somberly at the dolphin, her eyes narrowed lazily while she presses her lips together. The frown switches from Pascal to Lien, and the older girl continues to stare at the dolphin her head tilted to the side. |
| The dolphin mimics her expression about as much as you can when you don't have a neck. (That is, its entire body rotates sideways and its bright eyes remain fixed on Pascal.) It chirps and the sound can be heard, muffled, through the water. Still Lien doesn't speak, but now she's beginning to look agitated, fidgeting and shifting her position irritably. The dolphin should know better than to make friends with /Pascal/. (Never mind that Lien gets along quite well with Pascal's cat.) |
| That dolphin is doing a good job actually. Pascal's eyes remained glued to it, so much so that one might be able to guess that she's forcing herself not to look at Lien, which is probably just as well anyway, given the smaller girl's expression right about now. The corners of Pascal's lip twitch and she fights to keep a smile down at the dolphin's little antics, and she merely tilts her head to the other side to see what the animal will do. |
| Yay! The dolphin has a new friend! It swims a happy little circle and appears to grin at Pascal. Isn't that great, Lien? ...Lien? The creature stops in the middle of a rather impressive triple-spiral and looks back to the younger girl. She's abandoned pretence now and is watching both Pascal and the creature with her lips pressed into a tight line. On looking at her, the dolphin stops showing off and looks distinctly crestfallen. "She likes you," Lien says finally. |
| "And I like her," Pascal replies evenly, watching the dolphin swim back towards Lien. Only then does Pascal look at Lien again, but she doesn't really say more. The look in her eye though kind of reads, "Surprised?" but Pascal still doesn't say anything. She's actually fighting to keep a scowl off of her own face and so she looks away from Lien again, crossing her legs indian-style and resting her chin on her palm as she gazes back into the water. |
| The dolphin looks from one girl to the other, dismayed, but Lien actually looks less irritated. "You like animals," she says. "But not people very much." In her opinion, if Pascal would be as nice to people as she is to animals, the world would be a much better place. |
| "That's right," Pascal continues on evenly, turning her head to look briefly at Lien. The look is a casual one, one you might give to some stranger passing by you on the street. In other words, the type of look given without much care. And in Pascal's opinion, the world would be a much better place if it were just animals. And her. Double standards and all, you know. "Kind of like how you might like this dolphin more than Toby, or Billy." Not. |
| The dolphin seems to have relaxed considerably now that Lien's not sending looks of Doom at it. Contrary to popular (well, okay, Lien's) belief, she can't REALLY understand English. Though she probably does realize she's being discussed. "She's good to talk to. She listens better than people. But I don't like her more than people." Except when she's really angry, but those times don't count right now, because right now Lien's just tired. |
| The other palm now functions as a pedestal for qPascal to place her chin upon as she shifts slightly in her position upon the floor. She continues to stare into the water, her eyes drifting to the side between Lien and the dolphin. She gives a slight shrug, directed more to the wall in front of her than the water. "It's nice when they don't talk back and they listen, hmm." Except her question isn't really posed as a question. She does turn to look at Lien for longer than she has so far though. |
| "Yes, it is." Lien returns Pascal's gaze, for a while at least, but turns away then and watches the fish pensively, for quite a long moment. Finally she gets herself to speak. "Why do you hate me so much?" As long as they're having a halfway civil conversation, why not? |
| "Who says that?" Posing her own question in response, Pascal can't help but scoff now, taking her eyes off of Lien to look back at the water. She removes her chin from her palm, straightens her back and then leans back, her hands reaching backwards to prop her body up. The right side of her lip twitches upwards, and she presses them into a thin line. She continues to stare into the water at the various fish that float along in their tanks, and says nothing to either confirm or deny Lien's question. |
| "Nobody. It's not that hard to tell. Why else would you act like you do?" ...that's actually a compliment, Pascal. Lien figures that /Elijah/ is just a jerk--at least she figures you must have a reason. She's still staring into the water too. "I was just wondering, that's all." |
| Com-pli-ment? Whassat? Pascal turns and gives Lien a strange, puzzled look, not even bothering to hide that smirk that's threatening to split her face. She tilts her head back in an effort to get rid of the hair that falls over her face and gives it a good shake. She smirk fades, and in a slightly teasing voice, forced light, she manages, "Are you trying to... /understand/ me, Lien Nguyen?" Hurray for hearing other people say it properly. Namely professors who didn't mangle it. |
| Lien really doesn't want to hear the 'I don't need nobody, thankyouverymuch,' spiel again. Not that she believes it or anything. So, after glancing briefly at Pascal, she turns back to the water and watches two young dogfish playing, a rather difficult expression on her face. "I just wanted to know. It's not as fun for me as it is for you, you know." Yeah, that's sort of the idea. |
| If Lien thinks that telling Pascal how she feels about the whole situation is going to make it better for her, it won't. Pascal purses her lip to one side and gives a shrug. She didn't particularly feel like repeating the I am a rock I don't need no moss growing on me speech either, and she has enough faith in Lien's memory that the she'd remember anyway. Pascal stretches her legs out in front of her and looks at Lien with a lazy expression. "I can make it /very/ fun for you Lien. Easy even. I could always just leave you alone for the rest of your life you know." As opposed to, oh, being nice? |
| Nice doesn't count as white? Surely Billy Asterik thinks it is. Lien doesn't look back at Pascal. All she's trying to do is get the older girl to maybe think about how her fun might affect other people, or something like that. (Hah. Maybe she should have this talk with Sukaku instead.) "You wouldn't. You like it too much. I just wanted to know why you do." |
| "Is that a challenge, Lien?" Pascal asks all too nicely, sitting up and lacing her fingers together. Her legs cross once more indian style and she actually turns her body square to Lien now. "I may have lost the bet with Toby," Here's hoping he told her, "But that doesn't mean I can't try something else." She pauses and taps the side of her chin lightly. "I can always find something else to do to have fun..." and she trails off because she actually can't think of something right now. |
| Toby never told Lien about the bet, but she pretty much gets the idea. She'll ask him about it. Unlike Toby, however, she's not an idiot. "That's stupid." Come to think of it, this whole conversation is rather lame. What, she's just going to ask Pascal to quit being mean to her and that'll be that? "Forget it. I shouldn't have said anything. I guess I just didn't understand how you enjoy any of that." |
| "Just because Sukaku understands the world doesn't mean you'll be able to, Lien," Pascal shrugs and stands up from her seat on the floor, saying that all rather lightly. She'd like to add on, 'deal with it,' but for some reason, doesn't. "You don't understand how I enjoy being the way that I am, and I don't understand how you can study so much." She's not going to start ragging on the girl again, it's clear that Lien's tired and anyone can see it. Pascal takes a long look at Lien and the corner of her lip curls up slightly. "At least you can tell the world you tried." She scoffs again and then gives a casual four fingered wave to Lien and the dolphin. "Later." |
| Except, Lien's studying doesn't hurt anybody. (Except, possibly, herself.) She doesn't say so, though she'd like to. Instead she just draws up her knees to her chest and looks at the dolphin. "I don't think she -does- enjoy it," she tells the animal quietly, when Pascal has gone. Ah, well, what have you got if you haven't got childish innocence? |
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