• Ϯѻɼϯʉɼɛɗ • →ʂlคvɛ ɼp← f u l l

[SilentShadowDreamer]

((OOC: You are absolutely not wrong, love. I am so proud. razz ))

Reticence's laugh was weak, shaky, and not at all humourous. "As it turns out, yes," he breathed. "Half."

He had felt Maxy's stiffening when she'd started putting things together, and now he gently pulled away from her, standing up and walking to the far side of the room. In her place, he wouldn't have wanted to be near him, either. If that made any sense.

It explained more than it didn't. Marcelius's treatment of him, for one - he'd always known that the Keshval let him get away with things that no one else would have dared try. It explained the almost effortless leadership he'd always had over the other slaves - Keshval had that effect on humans. It explained the painful devotion he'd always had towards their master, and why he'd never really remembered a life on Earth.

He'd never had one.

Reticence still didn't know the full story, and wasn't sure he wanted to. With the very basics of it - what he'd learned today - his life was already upside-down. He'd always found other ways to explain away the things that made no sense. There had always been an excuse. Now there wasn't.

And he didn't really know what to think about that.  

[iiGypsy_Jazz]

Maxy knelt there dumb founded for a moment, not sure what to feel.

Her gaze dropped to the floor and she hugged herself while she thought. It made sense... But how? Who was the other half?

She looked back up after just a few seconds, and watched him carefully. Her face held the expression of a kicked puppy.

It was terrible, but that little fct just made her want to get close with him.

She was so caught up in her thoughts that she didn't seem to realize her legs had fallen asleep. So, when she tried to stand she crashed back on her knees within a moment. The force of it made her yipe in surprise and she shook her head to try to get a full grip on everything going on.

"Reticence..." she was still watching him, though.  

[SilentShadowDreamer]

His attention was still on the far wall, like it was the most interesting thing he'd ever seen. He didn't look back. But inwardly, he was startled - he'd expected the next thing he heard to be the slamming of the door as Maxy ran for it.

"Yes?" he replied quietly when he heard his name spoken. His voice was still a little rusty, but it was recovering somewhat.

He had no idea what to say or to think. Probably Maxy would ask for the rest of the story now. But he didn't have it. He only knew what he'd said earlier.

Much as he wanted to know some things - like who his mother had been, and what had happened to her - he knew, too, that it was probably better he not ask. There were some things it was probably good that he didn't know.

Not that he wouldn't try to find out anyway, once he fully understood what he'd already learned.  

[iiGypsy_Jazz]

"Will you be okay?" the words just kind of slipped out. Maxy gave up on being able to stand, and instead sat back on her knees.

Inside, she couldn't help but wonder if she was going to get in trouble for hugging him. If he was half keshval, did that mean he was supposed to be treated like one?

It's not like he told her not to, but he also didn't say it was okay, "Is it okay that I hugged you? " she didn't mean for her voice to come out as childish as it did.

She hated it when she sounded like a little girl, but there was nothing she could do about it now. That's what she got for talking without composing herself first.

She tilted her head to the side and ran her fingers along the floor.  

[SilentShadowDreamer]

Reticence sounded so tired when he answered that it was almost unnerving. "I think so," he replied dully. "Why not?"

That wasn't really the kind of hope-inducing answer that people looked for when they asked that question.

He glanced at her as he turned around, and looked a little confused at her next question. "Hug...? Is that what that was?" He didn't seem to understand the question, as he just sort of shrugged awkwardly. "I...guess?"

Then it clicked, and his eyes went dark and shadowy with something that could not quite be called anger. "I found out about this barely half an hour ago," he said softly. "I'm not any different than I was before. Certainly not more important than any of the rest of you. I don't matter to him. Don't worry."

Very deliberately, he put his hands behind him and stepped away from her, looking down at the torn shreds of paper on the floor.  

[iiGypsy_Jazz]

When he didn't know what a hug was, Maxy couldn't help but laugh. It was very different from his laugh. It was rich and sweet like chocolate.

At his change of expression she stopped, though, and sighed, "maybe it does... It could, right? Just not yet. You could have some advantage in the future." she hoped it would give him some sort of hope, however doubtful that was.

She looked down at the paper with curiosity, and asked quietly, "Reticence, can you come over here? Please?"  

[SilentShadowDreamer]

Reticence looked away. "You don't understand yet, Maxy. Being half-Keshval means I'm half-not." Humans were slaves here. Not treated as living beings with their own thoughts and feelings. To be half-Keshval meant nothing when the other half was human.

Unless it meant worse.

At best, he was nothing to the master. At worst, he could be the reason that something happened to Marcelius. He was...shameful, an embarrassing secret.

And there were already people asking questions.

When Maxy asked him to come over, he gave her a strange look and awkwardly took a few steps in her direction. "What?" he asked suspiciously when he moved closer.  

[iiGypsy_Jazz]

Maxy patted the floor next to her, "Sit for a minute."
She brushed some torn pieces of paper to the side without looking at what was on them, figuring that was private.

For someone so smart, she couldn't believe he didn't know about these before.
Hugs were very important, or at least that what she always thought.  

[SilentShadowDreamer]

Reticence gave her an odd, suspicious glance. Sit? Why? Why on the floor?

Feeling more docile than usual - no doubt due to the shock - he compromised, sitting down on one of the humming black boxes. "They're chairs, you know," he told her. "You can sit on these. It's what they're for."

It wasn't that he didn't know about hugs...okay, yes it was. He didn't know about them. They weren't the kind of thing that happened here. When he'd given them to Naïvete after a particularly painful experiment, he'd classified them as "comfort", nothing more.  

[iiGypsy_Jazz]

Maxy glowered at him for a moment. Her legs were asleep and she couldn't reach that far... Totally ruined plan A.

Instead, now she reached up with her arm to him, "Can you help me up, then? My legs are asleep." she gave a light humph, but ended with a reassuring smile.

She wiggled her toes beneath her and was met with the tingly needle sensation that made the rest of her want to squirm.  

[SilentShadowDreamer]

Reticence glanced over at Maxy, looking a little confused. But he offered a hand to her, and clasped hers easily enough. Then he stood up, pulling Maxy up to her feet with him.

"Better?" he asked absent-mindedly, his thoughts still mostly a million miles away.

And while it was certainly understandable under the circumstances, it would probably be frustrating for someone who apparently had some kind of plan.

((OOC: Not sure what to make Reticence do, as I don't know Maxy's plan.))  

[iiGypsy_Jazz]

Maxy held his hand securely and let herself get pulled up.

"thank you!" she gave a mischievous grin before she hugged him, just like that.

She hadnt planned to hold him for more than a second, but he was very warm and didn't smell half bad... Plus her legs were still half asleep.

Silently, she wonders if he would get mad at her for this, but she wiped the thought from her mind.  

[SilentShadowDreamer]

Reticence jumped when she hugged him, and though he quickly figured out what she was doing, it didn't make it that much less uncomfortable.

He waited for a few minutes, but Maxy didn't seem to have any plans to let him go anytime soon. He gave her the benefit of the doubt and decided it was because she was having trouble standing. So he took the more direct route of removing her arms from him and sitting her down on one of the black boxes, which would feel warm and a little buzzy to the touch.

"What was that?" he asked blandly as he looked down at the papers on the floor. There was no way to tell if he was angry or not.  

[iiGypsy_Jazz]

Maxy frowned at him, and shook her head a little.

"That was me trying to make you feel better." An almost visible cloud of depression hovered over her for a moment, "Obviously, it didn't work." Her lip trembled, as if it working was the most important thing in the world at the moment.
"I'm sorry....I tried." She offered a weak smile. "I know hugs make ME feel better...I just thought..."

What had she been thinking? Her and Reticence were two very different people. She felt stupid, now, for having ever thought something of the sort.  

[SilentShadowDreamer]

Reticence almost instantly blanched when her lips started to quiver. "Stop that," he said sharply. "Don't cry." His eyes were warily on hers - if she started crying, it was likely that he'd be out the door in an instant. It freaked him out when women cried.

He offered a hesitant shrug. "It was...okay," he muttered at last. "I..." He just didn't know how to deal with them.

It had been a long time since he'd had someone try to make him feel better. Even Curiosity and Naïvete tended to think of him as a man made of stone - never worried, never hurting, never scared.

"It's fine. If I tell you it worked, do you swear not to cry?" he demanded. Whether it would be true or not was debatable, but he really didn't want her to start crying.