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| No title. |
| (2012-12-20 - 2012-12-20) |
| No description. |
| Jasmine | Jasmine has passed through Traverse Town several times since her first, fateful visit. It's hard to avoid, and as long as she doesn't stay long, relatively safe, for herself and for others. She too has changed since then, been baptized by many fires, with a life that promises all too many more, and emerged the stronger for it. Her robes are positively /tattered/, and quite filthy, with the sort of depth of dried mud that implies there may have been some intentional camoflauge involved sometime within the last week. But though her eyes are sad -- for she too felt the death of Manhattan, and her inability to reach it in time to help, whether or not she'd have made a difference, weighs very heavily on her soul -- she shines with a brilliant sense of determination. Of purpose. It's tucked into the corners of her mouth, sets her chin, and lifts her slight frame's posture to add several inches of height from sheer attitude. The tinkling bell of the shop's door heralds her entrance, but it's her smile that lights up the room, when she spies her favorite person in the universe at the very table of their meeting. After bowing her veiled head in greeting to the waitress, she steps quietly in that direction. The words she utters may be the same as before, and the warmth behind them similar as well, but utterly intensified in magnitude. They are quietly joyful. "Please, may I sit down?" |
| Jasmine | "Belle," and the single syllable is a blessing, an oath, a paean to love. "I am so /glad/." Certainly, the difference in Belle and Jasmine's shape has little to do with their relative efforts. Either Belle is better at avoiding detection, or Jasmine has the misfortune of a more active pursuer, or both. Continuous flights from danger, one way or another, remains something they have in common. The princess weeps openly in Belle's arms, tears shimmering down her cheeks and into the taller girl's shoulder. Her embrace is positively fierce, and, perhaps, strengthened by a tiny edge of relief. Some tiny part of her had feared Belle's wrath for leaving her behind in Balamb. But all of her would have done it anyway, and did. She relaxes a beat behind her friend -- one gets the feeling she could have held on all day -- and gazes up at her every bit as searchingly. The air is filled with Belle's questions, but Jasmine's eyes are filled with more. Only when she is satisfied by her rather penetrating inspection of the other girl does she give voice to any answers, and her hands drift downwards to clasp her friend's, gently and gladly. "I am as well as I can be under the circumstances," there's nothing she can mean but Manhattan, really, but her tones are filled with hope to banish any despair, "I would love something to drink, and I've been running, mostly but not entirely. There have been so very many things to do, and I have done my best to serve. Nor have I forgotten our promise," to together solve their shared mystery; her voice hushes when she mentions it, dropping well below the decibel of loud coffee shop conversation, "And I have much to tell. But first you must tell me more of your own story, for I have had no news at all. Which was good, in some ways, since your relative anonymity is a great asset, but also scary." The admission comes easily to her; feigning fearlessness has never been her nature. To deny it is to empower it. "I am so /glad/," she repeats. |
| Jasmine | Jasmine is very good at blaming herself for things, taking responsibility to an extreme and slightly self-destructive degree; her fears were in no way based in rationality, but then, guilt sometimes isn't, especially when it's tied up with other strong feelings. Of course Belle wouldn't really hold it against her, any more than she would, if their positions had been reversed. Her smile reignites fully at Belle's assurance of well-being, though it had never extinguished completely, and indeed never does, even when Manhattan comes back up. "We'll fix it," she promises quietly but in deadly (or perhaps the opposite?) earnest. "I know we can." Intellect gleams behind her eyes, the look of someone who knows a wonderful secret and is overjoyed to share it; she may be a perpetual motion machine-like engine of faith, but it is never blind. She squeezes back, reassuringly, then pulls out a chair for herself and sits down before she falls down. She is limp with happiness. "Just as I know you have been doing more than trying... there's nothing you can't learn, given time and resources." Her belief in Belle's abilities are absolute. She ducks her head at the compliment, but otherwise accepts it gracefully. "They're certainly not clever enough to catch /you/," she agrees, turning it back fondly. "I'm afraid they used Manhattan to try to catch me -- there was an army to intercept me on the road. I've only just lost them." Thus her rather extreme appearance, presumably. "Someone knew I would come, I suppose, and how, and when." She tosses her head, her veil flying backwards; her eyes flash defiantly. "I'd do it again, too, and next time I will be clever enough to get through. I will /not/ allow them to impede me that way twice." Her tone softens; she may snap a bit at herself and her enemies, but never Belle. "What about you?" |
| Jasmine | Jasmine accepts her coffee, when it arrives, with a quiet nod and thank-you. No conversation is too important to forgo manners. She sips at it slowly, and when she first tastes it, winces just a hair with something like disappointment. For some reason, that's always her reaction, whenever she takes coffee. But it's hardly a priority, and indeed the mug is soon forgotten. She leans forward, instead, to hear Belle's news. Accusations of heroism are met with a lissome shrug, but the theory is met with an actual, concrete answer. "They call themselves the Shadow Lords," she murmurs, very careful to not allow them to be overheard; such a name shouldn't be spoken lightly. "Agrabah's Grand Vizier -- Sultan, now, by coup -- is one of them. Jafar, the one who led the attack on Balamb. Perhaps he was all along, I don't know." When she speaks his name, she cannot help but shake her head... angrily, but also mournfully. His wretched state saddens her more than anything else. "They control the Heartless; perhaps not all of them, but many. It sounds like they were behind Manhattan's fall, as well as our own problems... some of them, at least." Her eyes widen when Belle reveals she was actually in the great city during its troubles, full of compassion. But when her friend ruminates on safety, she seems hesitant to believe it. "You were right to try, and no less brave for all the gambit failed." One hand sneaks across the table to squeeze Belle's. "I think it may be a matter of what was at stake. They were able to destroy a whole world in Manhattan, whereas the attack on Balamb Garden was nowhere so major, in scope or in stakes; Baron and Jafar were there for revenge, and for us, but not for that sort of massive destruction," Jasmine reflects, pursing her lips thoughtfully. "So I hope you're right and you truly are safer now. I know you'll be cautious either way. As for why they destroyed Manhattan, I have my guesses... there were an awful lot of people still in that city when it fell to Darkness, if the size of the refugee camp is any indication. It's possible they're still alive... as Heartless." As over a /million/ Heartless, a force that could be turned to bear on any of the remaining worlds to devastating effect. The very thought chills Jasmine to the bone. She leans forward still further. "There is another name," she adds, in a whisper that makes mockery of her other whisper with its nearness to silence. "For us. When I sent the sphere, I only knew the name, but since then someone has provided a definition to go with it. It doesn't explain everything... but it does make for a beginning." |