[ After Corvo accepts the toast, he browns his own bread with a tiny spell and gets to steadily eating away at the pile on his plate. He's mid chew when he has to swallow a mouthful of tomato and eggs back to answer. ]
Yeah, I'm used to carryin' Elvish waybread. It's sorta like tack but a lot more fillin'. Somethin' about the flour-
[ He stops at Corvo's second question and... freezes. As though hit by a cold wave. The sight of the light blue swirling around Corvo's hand takes him straight back to part of what he originally came to talk about. That cold venture through Ajna's last blizzard, when he was fading in and out of awareness, and Corvo had done... something to get him to safety faster. It had saved his life, but he couldn't shake the feeling that it had done something else too.
He abruptly shakes his head to shake the intrusive memory off. Also to answer Corvo. ]
Nah, I... just my kucks, but I don't usually fight that close range to use them.
[ When he goes back to his breakfast, the eagerness he was eating with before is gone. He picks at it a moment, then looks up distractedly. ]
Do you smell that? It smells like... I dunno, like salt water all the sudden.
[ Like salt water and low hanging fog and cold. But that's a ridiculous set of scents for where they are. He goes back to pushing his eggs around. ]
Never mind, it's probly just this bein' too salty.
[ That question is just too close, to near. The magic dies on his hand as quick as he can make it ( and it's hard, because it wants and wants and wants and too much of a reflexive these days. too easily reached for ) his hands drop to his lap, fingers wrapping around the mark, pressing harshly into it like it might help it still under his skin. Even then it's difficult.
He's a poor liar, he knew that, so he says nothing of it instead, easier to ignore and he'd been become so practiced in that. ]
[ He takes another tentative bite of eggs. No, they aren't too salty. The smell isn't coming from the food. ]
Not yet. We'll probly get to guns whenever Shepard and Aeryn's classes start. I'll get through this test without them. Never needed them before, don't wanna start needin' them.
[ The sent of ocean is fading, but now he can't seem to shake that earlier sensation of cold. Why had he suddenly become so cold when Corvo lit up his hand with magic? It glowed blue, so similar to the dark ice magic of his world, but Corvo was certainly not an ice mage. His magic was closer to... well, he can't really relate it to anything of Erden, though it feels similar to Death manipulation. He'd still rather Corvo have that over ice.
Ice. His mind fills with half-remembered images from the blizzard, of a whiteness too thick to see through, of air too frozen to breathe, and a sensation of moving through something. Whatever it was, it... might have smelled like salt water. The memory is too blurred to recall. But he remembers moving too fast and too slow all at once. It made his chest hurt... makes his chest hurt...
Jasper shivers and suddenly the cold is gone. He's been staring at his still full plate, idly pushing a piece of sausage around. He's not sure for how long. ]
[ it's long enough that something becomes a sickening surety in his mind, about what is going through Jasper's mind, not in details so much as the listlessness. It's telling. He'd made a study of those he'd lived with all this time. Knew perhaps not well, not all, but particulars. Jasper was... animate. He did not lend himself so much to the empty quiet stares Corvo knew he'd had a long habit of.
So he scrambles, and he knows he's not good at this. These shiny false veneers of normality on the premise that everything would be alright, because he knew it wouldn't be. Things were never going to get better. Not for them, not in this place. But the boy had a assessment soon, and it wouldn't serve him to be mind half fractured on dark slippery things with too infinite eyes. So it's the same as with Terra, he pushed forward in a brusque almost commanding tone.
Here, he means, keep the mind here, don't think, don't, there was the edge of the map and over that great unknown space lay monsters. ] I won't go easy on you simply because you're rovermate, you'll learn infiltration whether you like it or not.
[ That seems to snap him out of the lingering memories just long enough to get ahold of his senses. ]
Don't want you to go easy.
[ Finally he stabs and eats the sausage he'd been pushing around. No, he doesn't want Corvo or anyone to go easy on him for any sort of training. His head feels clearer as his will returns, and with it, his appetite. Soon the entire plate is polished, a tall glass of juice drained along with it. Nothing much else is said as he finishes. Strange, haunting magic or not, Corvo's silent presence is enough to keep him company. ]
[ It's playful, when he reaches up and tugs at a lock of his white hair.
As I trained Her Majesty's guards. You just must swear to not hate me too much when it's done.
[ But he leaves it at that, settles it back to let Jasper finish his meal and relaxed enough with that with a need for much more, he kept his arms cross loosely over his chest, head tilted up to the roof. Comfortable.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Yeah, I'm used to carryin' Elvish waybread. It's sorta like tack but a lot more fillin'. Somethin' about the flour-
[ He stops at Corvo's second question and... freezes. As though hit by a cold wave. The sight of the light blue swirling around Corvo's hand takes him straight back to part of what he originally came to talk about. That cold venture through Ajna's last blizzard, when he was fading in and out of awareness, and Corvo had done... something to get him to safety faster. It had saved his life, but he couldn't shake the feeling that it had done something else too.
He abruptly shakes his head to shake the intrusive memory off. Also to answer Corvo. ]
Nah, I... just my kucks, but I don't usually fight that close range to use them.
[ When he goes back to his breakfast, the eagerness he was eating with before is gone. He picks at it a moment, then looks up distractedly. ]
Do you smell that? It smells like... I dunno, like salt water all the sudden.
[ Like salt water and low hanging fog and cold. But that's a ridiculous set of scents for where they are. He goes back to pushing his eggs around. ]
Never mind, it's probly just this bein' too salty.
no subject
He's a poor liar, he knew that, so he says nothing of it instead, easier to ignore and he'd been become so practiced in that. ]
Worked out the guns yet?
no subject
Not yet. We'll probly get to guns whenever Shepard and Aeryn's classes start. I'll get through this test without them. Never needed them before, don't wanna start needin' them.
[ The sent of ocean is fading, but now he can't seem to shake that earlier sensation of cold. Why had he suddenly become so cold when Corvo lit up his hand with magic? It glowed blue, so similar to the dark ice magic of his world, but Corvo was certainly not an ice mage. His magic was closer to... well, he can't really relate it to anything of Erden, though it feels similar to Death manipulation. He'd still rather Corvo have that over ice.
Ice. His mind fills with half-remembered images from the blizzard, of a whiteness too thick to see through, of air too frozen to breathe, and a sensation of moving through something. Whatever it was, it... might have smelled like salt water. The memory is too blurred to recall. But he remembers moving too fast and too slow all at once. It made his chest hurt... makes his chest hurt...
Jasper shivers and suddenly the cold is gone. He's been staring at his still full plate, idly pushing a piece of sausage around. He's not sure for how long. ]
no subject
So he scrambles, and he knows he's not good at this. These shiny false veneers of normality on the premise that everything would be alright, because he knew it wouldn't be. Things were never going to get better. Not for them, not in this place. But the boy had a assessment soon, and it wouldn't serve him to be mind half fractured on dark slippery things with too infinite eyes. So it's the same as with Terra, he pushed forward in a brusque almost commanding tone.
Here, he means, keep the mind here, don't think, don't, there was the edge of the map and over that great unknown space lay monsters. ] I won't go easy on you simply because you're rovermate, you'll learn infiltration whether you like it or not.
no subject
Don't want you to go easy.
[ Finally he stabs and eats the sausage he'd been pushing around. No, he doesn't want Corvo or anyone to go easy on him for any sort of training. His head feels clearer as his will returns, and with it, his appetite. Soon the entire plate is polished, a tall glass of juice drained along with it. Nothing much else is said as he finishes. Strange, haunting magic or not, Corvo's silent presence is enough to keep him company. ]
no subject
As I trained Her Majesty's guards. You just must swear to not hate me too much when it's done.
[ But he leaves it at that, settles it back to let Jasper finish his meal and relaxed enough with that with a need for much more, he kept his arms cross loosely over his chest, head tilted up to the roof. Comfortable.
It was... nice, like this. ]