Exposure therapy.
RL Date: 5/31/09
IC Date: 11/21/19 --When +tag sends two indoorsy kind of people outside when the IC weather is cruddy...
Diving Cliff, High Reaches Weyr
Thrusting out from the shadow of the mountain, this long and narrow clifftop might once have been a ledge, but a pile of bramble-strewn, graffiti-chiseled boulders where a weyr's mouth would have been suggests a reason for its abandonment long ago. Though its views of the eastern bowl are grand, particularly the lake itself and the yawning air entrance to the hatching sands, its location makes the diving cliff unique: jutting some ten or twelve feet above the deepest part of the cool, clear lake.
Especially in summertime, many climb up the narrow stairs to seek the thrill of a swift fall into the water, but those who just want to enjoy the view can take those same stairs back down: carved directly into the bowl wall, worn and crumbling and slick from use, but enough for the careful to get the job done.
A light rainfall patters on and off throughout the day, making everything slick and gray and muddy.
The rain has, for now, trickled to a stop. The cold, watery Weyr picks up industry almost immediately as people scurry to accomplish things that the weather has put off for them-- a fence is mended in the feeding grounds, the shore is combed, just the general industry that ground to a halt now picks up during this gap in the drizzling, miserable, almost-winter weather. Alex does not partake in this industry, of course, because he doesn't have that sort of job. He has made his way out, across the bowl, along the lake (which troubled him, being too crowded with perhaps a dozen people milling around), and has just successfully made his way to the last three steps that will get him on the diving cliff. When, naturally, he slips, bangs his knee, scrapes his hand, and comes up with fresh injuries and even less dignity. Story of his life.
It's unlike Carobet to brave the cold. It's unlike her to be anywhere but indoors when the temperature has dipped below a certain point, when rain is likely to become slush (or snow) at any moment. But the weather has cleared for now, and the air has the brilliant crispness of the beginning of winter, and perhaps this is what has drawn her outside, bundled in a coat, a small bound volume under one arm. Or perhaps it's simple luck that brings her near the diving cliff just as Alex takes his fall. She takes the next few steps quickly, attempting to catch up with the familiar figure in his less than elegant position. "Are you okay?"
No, see. A minute ago, Alex would have thought what little dignity he had was all dashed. Now there's someone on the steps behind him, now he realizes who it is, and now he straightens up with a look skyward that briefly, importantly questions fate and what he's ever done to it to make it treat him this way. To answer, turning, he shows Carobet the very little puffy red on the heel of his hand, nothing serious, and gingerly offers the other hand back to her, explaining, "These steps seem to have an issue with friction."
"Or perhaps the laws of gravity were suspended for a second or two?" Carobet asks, mouth twisted into an amused grin that looks perilously on the verge of laughter. But no, can't harm Alex's dignity any further. If she can help it. She reaches down, extending a hand back towards him, an offer to help him back onto his feet-- the way he's supposed to be. "But you know far more about gravity than I do, of course. I merely allow it to limit my movement." Her head turns slightly in question. "What brings /you/ here?" Not accusatory, just curious.
"That's not poss--" Alex stops, his ouch-hand scrubbing vigorously at the top of his hair while his eyes squint in a pained expression. "Don't make jokes about gravity? It's a very heavy subject for me." Ba dum. Woefully, straightened back up with very minimal prying on Carobet's hand, he dusts off his knee, more damp than harmed, and scrabbles up the last few steps, like he can pull the wool over the eyes of friction if he just goes quickly enough. "I was... in need of fresh air. What's that?" He means her book which, once he's safely on the ledge where there are a few puddles but it's not so very slick, he points to.
"Well, if it were possible, it'd be understandable why you fell," Carobet observes, as Alex rights himself again. And then she follows, taking each step carefully, eyes downcast as she watches the placement of each foot. /She's/ not risking a fall. "Oh, this? Um. A journal." Thank goodness for the hood over her ears; maybe it will help hide the fact that she's embarrassed about it, and blushing a little. "I, ah, well. I recommend journaling to my patients often enough. I thought I might take my own advice. Figured this would be a good place to be... alone." Clearly, she figured wrong. Oh well.
Having just gotten safely up those steps, Alex almost immediately looks back down them, mentally plotting his course for reaching the bottom in one piece. Which has the benefit of distracting him while Carobet's embarrassed. Which is probably on purpose, since a glimpse of her face and even a remote understanding of her tone is enough for him on that matter. "Do you want to be alone?" One foot on the ledge, the other one drops to the first-step-down while he waits with raised brows. At least he asks it without the kicked-puppy look, just the "would totally understand someone else's want for privacy" look.
Carobet shakes her head. "No, not really. I wasn't actually looking /forward/ to being alone." She skews her face in a pout, the look of a child implored to take medicine. "It was probably a silly idea, anyway." Once more composed, and shaking off her embarrassment, she pulls back her hood to allow a less obstructed view of the Weyr from the diving cliff. "It's beautiful from up here, isn't it? Too bad the snow's mostly melted. But still... worth the daring brush with gravity."
All right, then, he'll stay. But Alex still gives Carobet, pouting, something of a wary look while he passes by her toward the edge of the cliff. For someone that just about fell down a flight of steps, he doesn't seem so much worried about the height and the possibility of tumbling to a cold-watery-grave. "So not spiders and not heights," he deduces, glances across his palm for a second before he bends his fingers in a kinda come-over-here gesture back at her. Yes, come over to the edge of the cliff, little girl, you'll be safe...
"And not tunnelsnakes," Carobet supplies, as she walks towards the edge of the cliff, where Alex beckons. "Is it really that odd to not have irrational fears?" As she reaches the edge, she makes the mistake of peering down towards the watery depths below. My, that /is/ far. But she's already professed that she's not nervous of heights, so her face remains stoic, impassive. Nothing to fear! Besides freezing to death in the lake, and is that really so bad?
"Yes." Really, it is! Alex even explains, "I'm afraid I'm going to go blind. I'm not going blind, but it keeps me up nights sometimes. Irrationally." But that's not why he beckoned Carobet over here. More, leaning over like he can force some of the clouds to dislodge from the high peaks that surround the Weyr, like pitching forward will make it possible to see through them, he points a lanky arm almost straight out to the east and squints out at the end of his finger. "That's where the farviewer's going to be." He glances over sidelong, twitches his brows at her totally unmoved expression; does she maybe want to retract that bit about fear-of-heights now?
No. No, she's not scared, that's her story, she's sticking to it. "You have a reason to worry about blindness, though," Carobet points out. "Your craft is dependent on your ability to see. There's some rationality to that." But before she can go all Mindhealer on him, her curiosity is piqued by where he points in the distance. Her own eyes squint, one hand shielding them from the sun, just in case that helps her to see any farther. "A farviewer. You're building it? When will it be ready?" Since she's stood here on the edge for a minute or two, and she still hasn't slipped, and the cliff hasn't crumbled into the lake, she begins to relax. Stoicism makes way for an actual smile, as she continues to cast her eyes out into the distance.
Shaking his head, Alex notes, "Before I was a Starsmith." Back in the days when he might have been a semi-normal kid. Fathom it for a moment. What he's pointing at is, right now, wreathed in clouds and gives every impression that the snow has already settled down for the winter at that altitude, looking very cold and grim. He's building it? "What did you really think I was doing? With all the blueprints and maps and--" His hand waves insubstantially through the air; the general weirdness. "When is... a difficult question."
"Well, I knew you were doing /something/! But you've always been so cagy, telling me you're doing long division." If Carobet were younger, she might stick out her tongue. But she's not, and Alex isn't being that cagy for once, so she doesn't. "Why is it up so high? Is that where farviewers are usually placed? You don't know how long it will take to complete?" So many questions; Alex is probably regretting sharing anything now. As for blindness? "You know, I might be able to help with that fear. If you wanted."
"Hah!" Because he'd forgotten about the long division bit, and, being reminded, shouts a short laugh. Done now, pointing and illustrating, Alex smartly folds his arms over his trunk to keep warmth tucked against his sketchy person, persists in looking thoughtfully toward the high mountains and no as often toward Carobet. It helps keep the bolt-and-run prospect to a minimum. "What do you know about atmosphere?" Which somehow answers her questions? "Will it... hurt your feelings if I suggest that you probably won't be able to?" His smile, as often is the case, turns a little arcane there.
"Absolutely nothing." Carobet thinks for a moment. Not entirely true. "I know it gets harder to breathe the higher up you go," she finally says. Still, that's not a whole lot. Her eyes shift from the horizon back towards Alex, her own smile turning wry. "Perhaps a little. My personal pride would be hurt. Mostly, though, I might take it as a challenge." Hypothetically speaking, of course.
It has taken him some months to realize that not everyone thinks his boring crap is interesting, but kudos to Alex for nodding and saying, "Exactly. Because the air is thinner." And not explaining about pressure and altitude and density ad infinitum. "So there's less of it... try to see through?" Does that make sense? No? He glances over, broadens his smile, and concludes, "Then I won't suggest it. Shouldn't it be your-- professional pride?" What a term.
"Ahh. I guess that makes sense," Carobet says, actually sounding interested... at least to that extent. Go Alex. "Professional pride? I suppose so. But aren't they pretty much the same thing? My personal pride stems from my professional pride. Anyway, you know me as a person, not a mindhealer." If there's a divide there, anyway. "What makes you think I wouldn't be able to help?"
Aleczir, scratching the back of his head again; "It does? Professional... personal..." He kind of struggles with this for a minute, during which he eyes Carobet like he's waiting for some sort of clarification-- not that it will matter, since it never has before. "What makes you think that you would?" he asks gamely. "If I know you as a person--" /If./ "--wouldn't that make it more difficult?"
"If you wanted me to help, then I guess that would make you-- technically-- my patient," Carobet allows. "But exposure therapy isn't like regular talk therapy. There's less of the whole feelings and emotions part involved." She glances back at Alex, adding emphatically, "I promise." She shrugs, as if the whole issue of her personal/professioanl pride isn't really that big of a deal, anyway. "What makes me think it would? Why do you think I'm not afraid of spiders?" Or heights, but obviously, that's not such a great example.
Exposure therapy. Twitch. "Wear a blindfold and wander around until I'm comfortable with being blind?" Alex shakes his head, denying that possibility-- whether or not that's what she actually meant. Just a guess as to why she's not afraid, "Because you're odder than you want people to know. Why aren't you afraid of spiders?"
"I'm not /odd/," Carobet insists, folding her arms over her chest in a huffy punctuation to that statement. Or to keep herself warm, of course. "They just teach us these techniques. And really, it isn't /logical/ to be afraid of things that aren't going to hurt you." See, appealing to logic. That's got to help get through to Alex. "Which is what exposure therapy is all about."
Glancing over, at Carobet looking cold, at the rain threatening to pile up on the horizon, at the slickness and dampness and the general state of oncoming winter, Alex counters, "You are odd. You're better at... hiding it... than some of us." Him. "I know what exposure therapy is. Do you want me to know you as a Mindhealer instead of as a person though?" Not an idea he cottons to, clearly.
"That's besides the point," Carobet says, her voice just beginning to twinge with exasperation. "I want to help you if I can. If you want me to. Since you're a... friend." If that's the right word. Her eyes drift from Alex back down to the watery depths just inches away and many feet below. "What's so odd about me? That I'm a girl and I don't mind crawly things? That I like listening to people talk about their feelings?" Said to the water, since it's easier to ask that way.
Lips tapping aimlessly together for a few moments, Alex looks down and down and down at the water while Carobet does, like he's trying to figure out what she's finding so interesting. "When I was first an apprentice, I used to collect? Bugs. Moths mostly. There were... a lot of them. In the dorms. For some reason. I would pin their corpses onto this cork table I had, with glass over it. And that's what always comes to mind when I think about talking to a Mindhealer." So he exhales, shrugs, and smiles an apologetic smile toward her. As to why she's odd, the smile shades from apologetic to amused; "You're still talking to me. If 'normal' is the conformation to a standard or commonality, that makes you 'odd.'"
"So," Carobet says, trying to understand him correctly, "When you talk to me, you think about sticking my corpse on a cork board?" She eyes Alex warily, not exactly returning the smile just yet. "I'm still talking to you because I find you fascinating. I enjoy talking to fascinating people." Oh. Maybe she is odd. She laughs, smiles, a slightly uncomfortable, self-effacing reaction. "As a Mindhealer, I should probably reject any instance of the use of the word 'normal.' Normality is a myth. Or... something along those lines."
Eyes cast upward, really thinking over Carobet's guess there, then it's, "Not... exactly..." But close enough, says the shrug? Just about to say more, maybe even to be flattered that he's fascinating, that look returns skyward for entirely different reasons. Water has just hit him in the face. Again. And now again. "Rain is not a myth," he reports, pushes his fingers busily toward the stairs in a gesture meant to imply they better hurry or they're going to get soaked. The unfortunate part being that, somewhere between here and somewhere warm-and-dry in the caverns, he gets lost in his thoughts again and wanders off without explanation. Lucidity is a rare commodity.
Carobet hurries off as the rain commences, tucking her journal underneath her jacket and donning her hood once more. Can't let a little rain ruin her hair. Somewhere inside the nice dry cavern she looks around for the disappeared Alex. Oh well; at least she's not stuck on a corkboard somewhere.
IC Date: 11/21/19 --When +tag sends two indoorsy kind of people outside when the IC weather is cruddy...
Diving Cliff, High Reaches Weyr
Thrusting out from the shadow of the mountain, this long and narrow clifftop might once have been a ledge, but a pile of bramble-strewn, graffiti-chiseled boulders where a weyr's mouth would have been suggests a reason for its abandonment long ago. Though its views of the eastern bowl are grand, particularly the lake itself and the yawning air entrance to the hatching sands, its location makes the diving cliff unique: jutting some ten or twelve feet above the deepest part of the cool, clear lake.
Especially in summertime, many climb up the narrow stairs to seek the thrill of a swift fall into the water, but those who just want to enjoy the view can take those same stairs back down: carved directly into the bowl wall, worn and crumbling and slick from use, but enough for the careful to get the job done.
A light rainfall patters on and off throughout the day, making everything slick and gray and muddy.
The rain has, for now, trickled to a stop. The cold, watery Weyr picks up industry almost immediately as people scurry to accomplish things that the weather has put off for them-- a fence is mended in the feeding grounds, the shore is combed, just the general industry that ground to a halt now picks up during this gap in the drizzling, miserable, almost-winter weather. Alex does not partake in this industry, of course, because he doesn't have that sort of job. He has made his way out, across the bowl, along the lake (which troubled him, being too crowded with perhaps a dozen people milling around), and has just successfully made his way to the last three steps that will get him on the diving cliff. When, naturally, he slips, bangs his knee, scrapes his hand, and comes up with fresh injuries and even less dignity. Story of his life.
It's unlike Carobet to brave the cold. It's unlike her to be anywhere but indoors when the temperature has dipped below a certain point, when rain is likely to become slush (or snow) at any moment. But the weather has cleared for now, and the air has the brilliant crispness of the beginning of winter, and perhaps this is what has drawn her outside, bundled in a coat, a small bound volume under one arm. Or perhaps it's simple luck that brings her near the diving cliff just as Alex takes his fall. She takes the next few steps quickly, attempting to catch up with the familiar figure in his less than elegant position. "Are you okay?"
No, see. A minute ago, Alex would have thought what little dignity he had was all dashed. Now there's someone on the steps behind him, now he realizes who it is, and now he straightens up with a look skyward that briefly, importantly questions fate and what he's ever done to it to make it treat him this way. To answer, turning, he shows Carobet the very little puffy red on the heel of his hand, nothing serious, and gingerly offers the other hand back to her, explaining, "These steps seem to have an issue with friction."
"Or perhaps the laws of gravity were suspended for a second or two?" Carobet asks, mouth twisted into an amused grin that looks perilously on the verge of laughter. But no, can't harm Alex's dignity any further. If she can help it. She reaches down, extending a hand back towards him, an offer to help him back onto his feet-- the way he's supposed to be. "But you know far more about gravity than I do, of course. I merely allow it to limit my movement." Her head turns slightly in question. "What brings /you/ here?" Not accusatory, just curious.
"That's not poss--" Alex stops, his ouch-hand scrubbing vigorously at the top of his hair while his eyes squint in a pained expression. "Don't make jokes about gravity? It's a very heavy subject for me." Ba dum. Woefully, straightened back up with very minimal prying on Carobet's hand, he dusts off his knee, more damp than harmed, and scrabbles up the last few steps, like he can pull the wool over the eyes of friction if he just goes quickly enough. "I was... in need of fresh air. What's that?" He means her book which, once he's safely on the ledge where there are a few puddles but it's not so very slick, he points to.
"Well, if it were possible, it'd be understandable why you fell," Carobet observes, as Alex rights himself again. And then she follows, taking each step carefully, eyes downcast as she watches the placement of each foot. /She's/ not risking a fall. "Oh, this? Um. A journal." Thank goodness for the hood over her ears; maybe it will help hide the fact that she's embarrassed about it, and blushing a little. "I, ah, well. I recommend journaling to my patients often enough. I thought I might take my own advice. Figured this would be a good place to be... alone." Clearly, she figured wrong. Oh well.
Having just gotten safely up those steps, Alex almost immediately looks back down them, mentally plotting his course for reaching the bottom in one piece. Which has the benefit of distracting him while Carobet's embarrassed. Which is probably on purpose, since a glimpse of her face and even a remote understanding of her tone is enough for him on that matter. "Do you want to be alone?" One foot on the ledge, the other one drops to the first-step-down while he waits with raised brows. At least he asks it without the kicked-puppy look, just the "would totally understand someone else's want for privacy" look.
Carobet shakes her head. "No, not really. I wasn't actually looking /forward/ to being alone." She skews her face in a pout, the look of a child implored to take medicine. "It was probably a silly idea, anyway." Once more composed, and shaking off her embarrassment, she pulls back her hood to allow a less obstructed view of the Weyr from the diving cliff. "It's beautiful from up here, isn't it? Too bad the snow's mostly melted. But still... worth the daring brush with gravity."
All right, then, he'll stay. But Alex still gives Carobet, pouting, something of a wary look while he passes by her toward the edge of the cliff. For someone that just about fell down a flight of steps, he doesn't seem so much worried about the height and the possibility of tumbling to a cold-watery-grave. "So not spiders and not heights," he deduces, glances across his palm for a second before he bends his fingers in a kinda come-over-here gesture back at her. Yes, come over to the edge of the cliff, little girl, you'll be safe...
"And not tunnelsnakes," Carobet supplies, as she walks towards the edge of the cliff, where Alex beckons. "Is it really that odd to not have irrational fears?" As she reaches the edge, she makes the mistake of peering down towards the watery depths below. My, that /is/ far. But she's already professed that she's not nervous of heights, so her face remains stoic, impassive. Nothing to fear! Besides freezing to death in the lake, and is that really so bad?
"Yes." Really, it is! Alex even explains, "I'm afraid I'm going to go blind. I'm not going blind, but it keeps me up nights sometimes. Irrationally." But that's not why he beckoned Carobet over here. More, leaning over like he can force some of the clouds to dislodge from the high peaks that surround the Weyr, like pitching forward will make it possible to see through them, he points a lanky arm almost straight out to the east and squints out at the end of his finger. "That's where the farviewer's going to be." He glances over sidelong, twitches his brows at her totally unmoved expression; does she maybe want to retract that bit about fear-of-heights now?
No. No, she's not scared, that's her story, she's sticking to it. "You have a reason to worry about blindness, though," Carobet points out. "Your craft is dependent on your ability to see. There's some rationality to that." But before she can go all Mindhealer on him, her curiosity is piqued by where he points in the distance. Her own eyes squint, one hand shielding them from the sun, just in case that helps her to see any farther. "A farviewer. You're building it? When will it be ready?" Since she's stood here on the edge for a minute or two, and she still hasn't slipped, and the cliff hasn't crumbled into the lake, she begins to relax. Stoicism makes way for an actual smile, as she continues to cast her eyes out into the distance.
Shaking his head, Alex notes, "Before I was a Starsmith." Back in the days when he might have been a semi-normal kid. Fathom it for a moment. What he's pointing at is, right now, wreathed in clouds and gives every impression that the snow has already settled down for the winter at that altitude, looking very cold and grim. He's building it? "What did you really think I was doing? With all the blueprints and maps and--" His hand waves insubstantially through the air; the general weirdness. "When is... a difficult question."
"Well, I knew you were doing /something/! But you've always been so cagy, telling me you're doing long division." If Carobet were younger, she might stick out her tongue. But she's not, and Alex isn't being that cagy for once, so she doesn't. "Why is it up so high? Is that where farviewers are usually placed? You don't know how long it will take to complete?" So many questions; Alex is probably regretting sharing anything now. As for blindness? "You know, I might be able to help with that fear. If you wanted."
"Hah!" Because he'd forgotten about the long division bit, and, being reminded, shouts a short laugh. Done now, pointing and illustrating, Alex smartly folds his arms over his trunk to keep warmth tucked against his sketchy person, persists in looking thoughtfully toward the high mountains and no as often toward Carobet. It helps keep the bolt-and-run prospect to a minimum. "What do you know about atmosphere?" Which somehow answers her questions? "Will it... hurt your feelings if I suggest that you probably won't be able to?" His smile, as often is the case, turns a little arcane there.
"Absolutely nothing." Carobet thinks for a moment. Not entirely true. "I know it gets harder to breathe the higher up you go," she finally says. Still, that's not a whole lot. Her eyes shift from the horizon back towards Alex, her own smile turning wry. "Perhaps a little. My personal pride would be hurt. Mostly, though, I might take it as a challenge." Hypothetically speaking, of course.
It has taken him some months to realize that not everyone thinks his boring crap is interesting, but kudos to Alex for nodding and saying, "Exactly. Because the air is thinner." And not explaining about pressure and altitude and density ad infinitum. "So there's less of it... try to see through?" Does that make sense? No? He glances over, broadens his smile, and concludes, "Then I won't suggest it. Shouldn't it be your-- professional pride?" What a term.
"Ahh. I guess that makes sense," Carobet says, actually sounding interested... at least to that extent. Go Alex. "Professional pride? I suppose so. But aren't they pretty much the same thing? My personal pride stems from my professional pride. Anyway, you know me as a person, not a mindhealer." If there's a divide there, anyway. "What makes you think I wouldn't be able to help?"
Aleczir, scratching the back of his head again; "It does? Professional... personal..." He kind of struggles with this for a minute, during which he eyes Carobet like he's waiting for some sort of clarification-- not that it will matter, since it never has before. "What makes you think that you would?" he asks gamely. "If I know you as a person--" /If./ "--wouldn't that make it more difficult?"
"If you wanted me to help, then I guess that would make you-- technically-- my patient," Carobet allows. "But exposure therapy isn't like regular talk therapy. There's less of the whole feelings and emotions part involved." She glances back at Alex, adding emphatically, "I promise." She shrugs, as if the whole issue of her personal/professioanl pride isn't really that big of a deal, anyway. "What makes me think it would? Why do you think I'm not afraid of spiders?" Or heights, but obviously, that's not such a great example.
Exposure therapy. Twitch. "Wear a blindfold and wander around until I'm comfortable with being blind?" Alex shakes his head, denying that possibility-- whether or not that's what she actually meant. Just a guess as to why she's not afraid, "Because you're odder than you want people to know. Why aren't you afraid of spiders?"
"I'm not /odd/," Carobet insists, folding her arms over her chest in a huffy punctuation to that statement. Or to keep herself warm, of course. "They just teach us these techniques. And really, it isn't /logical/ to be afraid of things that aren't going to hurt you." See, appealing to logic. That's got to help get through to Alex. "Which is what exposure therapy is all about."
Glancing over, at Carobet looking cold, at the rain threatening to pile up on the horizon, at the slickness and dampness and the general state of oncoming winter, Alex counters, "You are odd. You're better at... hiding it... than some of us." Him. "I know what exposure therapy is. Do you want me to know you as a Mindhealer instead of as a person though?" Not an idea he cottons to, clearly.
"That's besides the point," Carobet says, her voice just beginning to twinge with exasperation. "I want to help you if I can. If you want me to. Since you're a... friend." If that's the right word. Her eyes drift from Alex back down to the watery depths just inches away and many feet below. "What's so odd about me? That I'm a girl and I don't mind crawly things? That I like listening to people talk about their feelings?" Said to the water, since it's easier to ask that way.
Lips tapping aimlessly together for a few moments, Alex looks down and down and down at the water while Carobet does, like he's trying to figure out what she's finding so interesting. "When I was first an apprentice, I used to collect? Bugs. Moths mostly. There were... a lot of them. In the dorms. For some reason. I would pin their corpses onto this cork table I had, with glass over it. And that's what always comes to mind when I think about talking to a Mindhealer." So he exhales, shrugs, and smiles an apologetic smile toward her. As to why she's odd, the smile shades from apologetic to amused; "You're still talking to me. If 'normal' is the conformation to a standard or commonality, that makes you 'odd.'"
"So," Carobet says, trying to understand him correctly, "When you talk to me, you think about sticking my corpse on a cork board?" She eyes Alex warily, not exactly returning the smile just yet. "I'm still talking to you because I find you fascinating. I enjoy talking to fascinating people." Oh. Maybe she is odd. She laughs, smiles, a slightly uncomfortable, self-effacing reaction. "As a Mindhealer, I should probably reject any instance of the use of the word 'normal.' Normality is a myth. Or... something along those lines."
Eyes cast upward, really thinking over Carobet's guess there, then it's, "Not... exactly..." But close enough, says the shrug? Just about to say more, maybe even to be flattered that he's fascinating, that look returns skyward for entirely different reasons. Water has just hit him in the face. Again. And now again. "Rain is not a myth," he reports, pushes his fingers busily toward the stairs in a gesture meant to imply they better hurry or they're going to get soaked. The unfortunate part being that, somewhere between here and somewhere warm-and-dry in the caverns, he gets lost in his thoughts again and wanders off without explanation. Lucidity is a rare commodity.
Carobet hurries off as the rain commences, tucking her journal underneath her jacket and donning her hood once more. Can't let a little rain ruin her hair. Somewhere inside the nice dry cavern she looks around for the disappeared Alex. Oh well; at least she's not stuck on a corkboard somewhere.