How old are you now?
Who: Rose Lalonde, Dave Strider
Where: Viaduct Courtyard
When: Saturday December 3rd
What: Rose decides to have Dave meet her to celebrate their birthdays
Rating: PG-13 for Dave's filthy mouth.
Insincerity seemed to be a common, recurring trait among Striders and Lalondes. Gestures and words were always inclined to a barbed preface or suffix. However sharp that particular barb may have been, it would be a rarity in which its incision was tense or met with contempt. Whether or not this was their own little way of expressing affection would always have to reamin ambiguous - if not, what would the point be in the first place? Sincerity and insincerity, changing and mutating constantly like cells of cancer.
But this was a healthier cancer, the kind you could tilt your head back and enjoy with a subtle smirk on your face. That's kind of what this night was about, anyway. Bridging the careful, narrow gap between heartfelt gestures and the facetious was pretty difficult when it came to gift-giving, and it wasn't without consideration of Dave's propensity to irony that made it all the easier to indulge in the absurd - in the purple box sitting upon her lap, wrapped in lavish tapestry.
The courtyard, accented heavily by the twinkling eye of twilight, made for perfect ambience. The paved walkways and the short, cropped grass began to blend themselves into the same dark shade as the sun's gaze drew ever weary. The darkening emptiness and untouched soil only accentuated the intimacy of the curled, stylish stone bench she had cleared for them. The kind of place and time that would be reserved for only cases of the most heavyhanded victorian romanticism. Declarations of love, completed by the first soft kisses of a romance budding into some destined for the sinister, ridgic confessions of familial abuse, and other eccentric emotional fare. Absolutely perfect irony for a simple birthday gift. Dave would no-doubt appreciate her taking such delicate care into crafting this atmosphere.
That said, it wasn't all wrought entirely for the sake of facetiousness and the slight upturn of otherwise pursed straight lips it would soon invoke. Dave was still her friend, her only friend from her version of earth that was spirited to this castle with her. Silently she would count herself lucky, and while she would have no doubt been able to handle this place on her own, what fun is having your greatest fantasy handed to you on a silver platter if you've no one to share it with? That was why it kind of stung her with how much he despised the place, if only only the most minute of levels. Just like the three of theirs stalwart refusal to every parse the pages of a Dutton or a Barkley. It's hard to enjoy something when your friend is suffering. Maybe a gift would lighten him up, make this place seem less like a stupid fucking roadblock of wizards blasting each other with howling cockmagic. If she gets a proper reprieve from Noir's rampage, why shouldn't he?
Despite the obvious, egregious display she had coaxed up, it was difficult, if not impossible to enjoy the peacefulness that was leading up to the crescendo of Strider's most colorful of vocabularies. Swinging her feet gently alongside the chilling wind, licking moist her chapping lips, she waited, taking in the scenery. It was no Land of Light and Rain, but a tempering if overwhelmingly cliché setting. As she sipped one of the cups of hot coccoa she'd procured from Madam Pomfrey to keep herself in a coat of warmth that only seething hot liquid rushing through your insides could quell, (and to hush some of Dave's whining) she had to remark on herself, and of Dave too.
"It really has been a while," she softly whispered into her own mind and teased a blond lock of hair between her fingers, "we're getting older."