(OH MY GOD THAT'S SO HECKIN' GOOD) Jack laughed slightly, rubbing the back of his neck as he thought. His curly hair flopped over his eyes, and he pushed it back, accidentally smearing cannon grease on his forehead, the dark line a vivid contrast against his robin egg eyes. He didn't seem to notice though, as he cocked his head and opened his mouth to speak. "I guess I basically do what Natalia tells me to do. I'm mostly just in charge of taking care of the crew, and making sure that things are in working order while Natalia goes and plans. Not nearly as exciting as working with the cannons. Just a lot of talking and conflict resolution."
(Oh my gosh thank you so much!) Avice stared at the grease on his forehead for a moment and smiled. She hopped over a cannon to stand in front of him, then wiped some of it off, mostly just smearing it, before looking at it on her hand. "You have something on your forehead." She said, wiping the grease off her hand using her shirt.
He stiffened while she rubbed the grease off, a little startled. However, when she finished, he looked up at her, smiling with an emotion that seemed foreign on his face. Maybe shyness. That was probably the closest word for it. "Thank you," he said, rubbing off the remainder of the smear and wiping it on his pants. He noticed her dirtied shirt, and pointed at his similar pants. "It's a matching set!"
Avice chuckled a bit, going back over to the cannon and resuming the scrubbing. "The cannons have left their mark. We belong to them now." She spoke in an eerie voice, but was wearing a joking grin. She looked around for a moment, before speaking up again. "Ah. We're almost out of cannon balls. I suppose we'll have to get more soon."
"Damn, really? We'll really need those for this trip, I think. Better to be safe than sorry, and all that. We'll pick some up in Maydye." He paused for a moment, and moved on to the next cannon. "Speaking of which, what do you think of all that? The quest, I mean."
Avice thought for a moment. "I don't really know at this point. I believe in some stuff like that, but the riddle didn't make much sense to me. I trust Natalia enough to follow her, though. That and if that Rhys guy is lying or betrays us, he'll get cut up real quick." She cocked her head. "What about you? What are your thoughts?"
He paused, weighing his words. "I trust Natalia, too, but I'm a little worried. I think there's probably some truth to the story, but I doubt there's a 'giant heart' or anything like that." He sighed, and shrugged slightly. "I've known Natalia for a long time, and generally she is as skeptical as it gets. Something must have given her a huge amount of faith in this story."
Cobiah walked to Jade's quarters. He received no answer from knocking, so cracked the door open just a bit. He was greeted with Jade laying on the ground, seemingly immobilized. He helped her to her feet, by slinging one of her arms over his shoulder, and gently guided her to the bed. " "Tried to stand up?" He asked. "Probably not the best idea without some sort of aid. I didn't bring a cane with me, but..." He loosened his rapier from his belt, and handed it to her in the scabbard. "That should be long enough to act as a cane."
"Hmm.. I see. I wonder what it could be? Even so, I couldn't figure out the riddle if I tried," she chuckled nervously, "as I'm not very smart. The quest and everything going on with an attacker has had me stressed out lately, and migraines usually come with that. It's just so complicated."
Jade muttered some curses to herself as she was helped up, her face a fiery red. "I was trying to figure out how to get to the door," she said sheepishly. She took the rapier with a nod of gratitude. "I figured that if I could get to the handle, I would be able to pull myself up.... or something. Evidently, that didn't work so well for me." * * * "Oh, I don't know about that," Jack said, reaching deep into the cannon to get a particularly stubborn patch. "I think you're plenty smart. Although, you're right about this whole attacker thing being complicated. I have absolutely no idea who it could be."
Avice watched him for a moment, somewhat surprised. "Oh. No one has ever called me smart before. Thank you. And you might want to be careful because spiders like hiding out in the cannons if we haven't used them in a while."
Jack turned to look at her, a question forming on his mouth, when, almost on cue, a spider about the size of a small palm crawled up his arm. He froze, staring at the spider with an intense look of focus. He slowly raised the other hand, poised to flick it away. He got closer and closer, but the spider suddenly bolted, and he panicked, and threw his arm back, sending the spider flailing through the air.
"And now you're here." He walked to the door, and opened it. "After the incident last night, captain wants us to walk around in partners. I was assigned to you. In your current state, I'd imagine I'm a bit more of a helper for now... I'll vouch for you if anyone thinks you're slacking off, though." "You should probably grab a meal too. Getting stabbed in the back probably isn't the best for your nutrition."
The spider landed on the cannon in front of Avice, who was laughing like a madman at this point. She picked it up by one of its legs and threw it out of one the windows that the head of the cannon pokes through. Once it was gone Avice slumped down, still snickering.
Jade cocked her head and watched him for a moment. "I'm sorry about the assignment," she said. "I know that working with the stabbed girl probably wasn't what you wanted." She stood up again, leaning on the rapier, frowning with concentration as she crossed the floor to the door. It almost seemed easy, but if Cobiah looked hard enough, he would see that she was squeezing the handle so tightly that her knuckles turned white. "You'll probably get to avoid any unnecessary questioning, though, since they probably wouldn't assign a person they were suspicious of to be my partner. They must trust you more than most." * * * Jack sat, clutching his heart with mock fear, and gazing at Avice with a look of disgust on his face. "I could have died. That was the most terrifying experience of my life."
Avice calmed down a bit, wiping away a tear. "At least it wasn't one of the venomous ones." Suddenly her expression turned horrified as she pointed to his shoulder. "Look out!" Of course there was nothing really there. She just wanted to scare him.
Jack flinched and thrust his hand back in a swat as he whipped around to face the imaginary foe. He scanned the space behind him for a moment, until he realized that he had been tricked, and he slowly turned back to Avice, a look of mock annoyance on his face. "That wasn't very nice," he chided, resuming his work on the cannon, but checking very thoroughly for more spiders.
Avice laughed a bit, as she finished the last cannon. She then sat down and let out a sigh. "It's much better down here with someone to talk to."
"Well, if Natalia doesn't find who attacked Ms. Eloquence, then you'll never be alone down here again," Jack said jokingly. He finished his last cannon, and then laid on his back and looked at the sunlight streaming through the boards on the ceiling. After a moment, he turned on his side and looked over at Avice. "I have to go do some checks with the crew. Would you be okay coming with me, or is there something else you need to do down here?"
"I'll come with. It'll be fun doing to different for a change!" Avice stood up and stretched, leaning against a support beam. "Make sure you don't hit your head on the way out." She teased, heading to opening to the deck.
