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[rathercommon]

crystal | letter | cease and desist notices slipped under her door | action

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[reshapes]

"How long did it take, I wonder? For him to go a little funny. I mean, he was only stuck in that box, bound there to the dusty bones of his master, for a little over a hundred years. That's not really very long at all when you think about it."

[rathercommon]

Her brows draw down. "What are you talking about?" she demands. "That's - That's a horribly long time. I can scarcely go a day in my room without being able to move around and see new things. A hundred years is unthinkable."

[reshapes]

A small, humming sound. The boy clasps his hands together. He taps his thumbs against one a other and he does not look to the window for even a brief instant of contemplative silence.

"When you put it that way, I suppose it is. Now personally, speaking as someone who has spent a day or fifty in bottles, I wonder if it was the being closed in a box part or if it was the being trapped in the bones one."

The boy brightens.

"Not that it really matters. He and I have a thing or two in common regardless. Would you like to guess what that is, or should I just tell you?"

[rathercommon]

Do you want to guess is a dare, and Kitty has a bit of difficulty resisting dares. At least when they're dares that involve demonstrating that you're the cleverest one in the room. But - well - There's no point here, really; all she'll do is get it wrong, likely because he'll lie if she does get it right. So.

"Just tell me."

[reshapes]

Having his bluff called is almost as satisfying as if she'd played along. Almost. Nevertheless, he heroically soldiers on.

"We both have been stuck somewhere we don't belong, bound to something we aren't meant to be bound to, and most importantly- and this really is the vital bit -, we have more or less have been left to our own devices. So it's possible that you are either radically underestimating me and what I am capable of today, or--"

A shrug. A smile. It has too many teeth, but doesn't sound like a threat. Not really. "It is only a matter of time before things get really nasty."

And then, springing ever so deftly from somber note to good cheer: "Or maybe neither. Who can say with Afrits. He may have been batty from the get go."

[rathercommon]

What is he saying - that he'll go mad? It's a strange thing to say, especially since it sounds strangely, vaguely, like a warning. Strange, because frankly, he's at least a small sliver mad already...and also, strange, because why would he warn her about that?

Kitty ponders this for a moment, frowning, and then firmly shakes her head.

"He wasn't left to his own devices," she responds. "That's the vital bit. He was shut up in a box to be bored and go mad for a century. You're not shut up in a box."

[reshapes]

He says, hmmmmm, and it's in the tones of someone debating the value in trying to describe green to someone who can't see it. In the end, he falls on the side of:

"The point is," --because it isn't any of this-- "That who I do or don't trust isn't the problem. You're the one with a rampaging spirit shaped chip on your shoulder who's convinced every other word out of my mouth has some ulterior motive buried in it."

[rathercommon]

She flushes, feeling dreadfully uncomfortable. "That's not true," she says. "I haven't got - any chip on my shoulder, spirit-shaped or otherwise. I want to protect spirits, I'll have you know."

[reshapes]

"Right. Make you a plaque, shall I?"

[rathercommon]

She opens her eyes wide and spreads her hands. "D'you think that this might be the reason I don't trust your sincerity?"

[reshapes]

In exchange, the boy crosses his arms over his chest. Tough luck, kid.

"Because I'm not handing you a medal for a little basic decency? You ask me, that sounds like a personal problem."

[rathercommon]

"Because it's always a trap," she says, pushing her hand downwards in a gesture quite reminiscent of stomping her foot. "Because that's always how it is with you. If I'm cruel to spirits, I'm despicable. If I'm good to spirits, I'm laughable. There's never any way to say the right answer. There is no right answer with you."

She lets loose a noise of sheer frustration.

"Don't you get tired of it?"

[reshapes]

What kind of question is that meant to be? Of course it's a trap, time honored and criminally vulgar as a Spanish bull fight. Just because she's wearing all the brocade and the fancy cape doesn't mean there isn't a sword under there somewhere. He's not stupid. He's seen the glint of it. Whether she realizes it or not doesn't change the fact that she's armed.

"There's any easy way to get out of me running you round and round in circles, you know."

[rathercommon]

"Let me guess," she bites, "leaving you alone. Never talking to you again. Letting you live your life and not inconveniencing you with all of my - hopes and - desires for the world to get better, because they're all just so foolish and inconvenient for the life you're trying to live, which is one in which you're imprisoned and forced to work till you die with no hope of improvement ever. Is that how?"

[reshapes]

"Ooh, good guess." Which he is tempted to let linger for a moment, though doesn't. He can see that opinion ready to burst right out of you, Miss Jones. "--But no. It's by trusting me. Believing what I say when I say it, even if it's something like 'I'd rather like to give cutting the arm off a go, actually.'"

The boy sighs, all dramatics and sulking radiating from where he's slouched width-wise across her bed. "Don't you just hate when someone has faith in you? It takes all the sport out of lying."

[rathercommon]

She crosses her arms, scowling at him. "And what - it's supposed to all go one-way, then? Oh, Bartimaeus, you're so trustworthy. How about you trusting me?" A huff. "Because I see absolutely none of that from you. Ever."

[reshapes]

Here, a flicker of offense flashing in the dark eyed boy's narrow face.

"I'm here talking to you, aren't I? And you, the only person in the whole world who knows what I am. I could be off in the library. Ooh, Leander. You're a bit of a weirdo, yeah? How would you like to do me, a humble little mage, a personal favor?"

[rathercommon]

"Talking to me to find out information you wanted to know," she responds. "What happened to Mandrake. And it's not like I know what you are 'cause you lovingly entrusted me with that information, now did you? I just know 'cause of before." She shakes her head. "Not trust. Nothing even approaching trust."

[reshapes]

He opens his mouth. He scoffs. Does she even hear herself? Oh Bartimaeus, let me interrogate you with a series of ten dozen questions. Oh Bartimaeus, let me make all kinds of demands on your time and attention. Oh Bartimaeus, let me take advantage of you the moment you don't have complete control of your blathering tongue. And now this! It's as if the moment he isn't flashing teeth and flexing claws in her direction, she forgets entirely who and what she's dealing with. Like it is not obvious what privileges she's been given simple by the merit of not being devoured outright.

Well there are limits.

The boy on the bed bristles. It's a subtle change - like the shift in the direction of the window breathing past the closed window of the narrow little room -, but somewhere in the last series of moments, the shadows have bent themselves more fiercely about him. They sit heavy under his brow and in severe corners of his mouth, and the gnarled shape of his knuckle bones and knobbly elbows and skeleton thin wrists. It is not a lioness with her glittering eyes and lithe, muscled body. But it is something - a shape waiting in a corner, a figure who waits.

"I wonder," he says, far too pleasantly. "What exactly it is you think that most spirits would do to little girls that annoy them."

[rathercommon]

And it does spike a little tingle of fear in her spine. In spite of everything, he can pull that from her. It's frustrating, isn't it, bouncing between threats and obfuscation. Irritation to fear and back again. It takes an effort. And so she decides that this time, she isn't going to fuss about with leaving irritation; fear will be given no attention or energy from her.

"You know perfectly well that I've got firsthand experience with that," she replies tartly, "and I'm bloody tired of you trying to frighten me when you don't have a good answer to what I've said. It's very - small-minded. You ought to be cleverer."

[reshapes]

"Cleverer--"

CLEVERER. Well now she's just being insulting on top of everything else.

"I'm not trying to frighten you, Kitty," says the hollow cheeked figure on the bed through his sweetly bared teeth. The light of the rift shard glows between his bone narrow fingers, glinting in his fist. "I'm merely pointing out what is typical."

[rathercommon]

Kitty scoffs. "Now who is it who wants a medal for showing a little basic decency? Congratulations. Thanks. You're not murdering me for fun. I'll make sure that when I make a trophy for well-done-being-somewhat-not-hateful, I won't make it of silver."

[reshapes]

Oh, that does rankle. Were he a more petty, low humored sort now would be the time to become a thing of all teeth. Why, he could be more bristling than a dozen Nile crocodiles if he cared to. And while he might not have a particular taste for human², occassionally one can find pleasure in even the most pedestrian of hobbies.

But at this rate, he's half beginning to think she wants to be eaten. He'd have her halfway down his gullet and Kitty Jones's shrill voice would come floating back up to say, I told you so.

"You are missing the point," protests the dessicating body, flesh stretched taut. "The point is--"

Good question, actually.

"The point," he repeats. There's a period at which when becoming a mummy where one naturally trends towards sounding a little dusty and parched. He clears his throat and insists, "Is that I don't have to put up with this."

Which is more or less the instant in which the gangly body unfolds like a particularly morbid accordion and rises from the bed.

2. They're just so wet and stringy.

[rathercommon]

"Typical," is her response. Her arms are crossed; she surveys him with an absence of fear. Indeed, she's fully committed to this decision to prioritize irritation over fear; she positively radiates it.

"It's a dreadfully poor showing from you, you know, Bartimaeus. I make a great many very good points, and your response? Is to threaten to eat me and then run away. Because you haven't got any actual good answers." And then, with a shake of her head - "It's stupid. It's all stupid, you know. We ought to be working together, but instead you're too up your own arse with hating me and deciding that, oh, a human could never possibly do anything for you, oh, Kitty Jones, she's a wicked little monster who's too pathetic and weak to ever even help."

That's a rather lengthy speech, and yet Kitty is a talented young woman; she delivers it rapid-fire enough that it's finished before Bartimaeus has even fully risen.

[reshapes]

It's nearly exhausting enough to melt flesh from bone. But honestly, he's never been one for the naked skeleton look. Even with his Essence at it's most gaunt, he's done his part to keep a scrap of skin or a paltry down of feather on hand. And really, the pulsing chunk of magic crammed at the edge of him might be unpleasant - will, he is certain, rip him to pieces if he isn't careful -, but it's not like it's doing much more than siphoning him off in slow motion right this second.

So no, the skin stays. But he adds a bit of unearthly smoke and nauseated green asp tongues of fire racing here and there for effect. And because he is annoyed.

"What exactly is it that you think we should be working on together? Knittibg socks for all the Kirkwall orphans? Sending me flapping around from one end of the continent to another, dropping baskets full of puppies whenever I spot a large enough pack of people with sad eyes? Or, no. I'll bet it's closer to Bartimaeus, I'd like you to go straight away ti fire bombing Minrathous if you please. Never mind the semantics."