Jade plays music and sings to John and Davesprite. This'll be referenced later - once the others are gone, she doesn't find the heart to sing for a long time. She's sort of weirded out to hear her own voice (which will have deepened a little, considering she'll be like 14) when she eventually does. It's the first time she's done any music in front of anyone. She gets started singing. Davesprite doesn't seem to react at all, though he's watching. This worries Jade. Does he.. not like it? But John sort of gawps - he's amazed at her talent - and smiles. At least he's for sure enjoying it; that's enough, and she continues. After the song, Davesprite still doesn't say anything, make any kind of expression, let alone one Jade can read. John applauses and tells her he's crazy impressed - he never knew just how good she was! She smiles and thanks him. But - Davesprite. Gosh. Did she ask him to come hear her song, something she hadn't shared with anyone before, only for him not to like or care about it? Did she waste his time? Was this a good idea? Davesprite interrupts her thoughts: "Dang. You're seriously good. Nice." Jade nearly sighs of relief, but catches it. She sure knows she doesn't want to bring any of her thought up and make things difficult! But seriously, she is so relieved. It's so awesome that she has friends who like the things she shares. "Heh, thanks." (Ok, todo question here. Does Jade play her ukelele? She had it kept in the LOFAF lab. Maybe she fetches it, then brings it back after. For later events, it's got to be there. Putting it back gives the opportunity for a night-time reflection scene I'd like to write... and maybe parallel later, visiting LOFAF at night another time, well after John and Davesprite are gone. Probably not long after she sings to herself again - that'll have sort of gotten her into the mindset of figuring her thoughts and feelings about everything out. I think she'll go to an outside porch, or some similar place she would have spent a lot of time at as a kid, staring up at the stars. Blah blah trope, but I think she'll have legitimately always felt comfortable with the night sky of space. Of course, there won't actually be any stars, or really space at all, in the artificial night-time the planets experience now - it's just the shadow LOFAF casts upon iteslf, staring out into the darkness in the ship and the meaningless void beyond. But being there still comforts her.) > --- Conflict between Jade and Davesprite. Something that will last. It's an argument. It doesn't start out as anything significant. Jade enters the room Davesprite's in and starts talking about $something. Eventually he says something that she really disagrees with, so she calls it into question. He responds defensively. Being a COOL GUY and majority Dave Strider (who has all those experiences with his bro), he isn't emotionally affected by her questioning what he said. This frustrates Jade: can't he see he said something bad? It escalates from there. Jade pushes how what he said was wrong. Davesprite stays defensive. Eventually, he gives up, and admits he might not have said the best thing possible. It's not obvious to Jade whether he actually means that, or is just trying to get it over with. In fact, he does, to some degree, but he doesn't think he said anything so significant to warrant Jade's outburst. He expresses that to her, but Jade takes it, perhaps rightfully, as minimizing his fault and turning the situation onto her. In the moment, Jade is frustrated. She's outwardly confident on her viewpoint, but internally she's squashing arguments her own mind is raising against her. She feels she's being rational about that - she can't afford doubt when she's supposed to be really certain in what she's arguing, right? There's no real resolution here. Davesprite explicitly calls off the argument; he's tired of the conflict. She realizes neither of them are getting anywhere. He leaves her. She slumps onto the couch after he's left. Jade reflects, her own steam dissipating a little. Was Davesprite right? She did make a big deal out of one thing he said - perhaps more than was necessary. Yes, what she said was wrong, but could she have just calmly told him that? Did she blow it way out of proportion? Her thoughts here echo the things Davesprite said closely; she's seriously considering what he said. She wonders if he didn't do the same for her. Most of all, though, she's frustrated with herself. She feels she let the argument get out of hand, and she blames herself for cutting off the ordinary conversation she'd originally meant to have, and - key point here - for Davesprite leaving her. She got in the way of him just enjoying the day or doing whatever he was in the middle of, with a discussion that boiled into a fruitless argument, and he ended up leaving her alone. During all this, John is in the adjacent kitchen, cooking. He's stuck out of their argument entirely, not really knowing what to think or how to make himself of any use within it. When Davesprite leaves, he's heading into the kitchen. Jade hears him kaplomp into a chair in the dining room, just outside her view. After a moment, John glances toward him and says he's cooking rice for supper. Davesprite doesn't respond, and John turns back to focus on his cooking. Jade sees this all, John's voice catching her attention. She doesn't respond to it. She can't stand to talk to anyone right now. She wonders if the way she grew up has fated her to never be capable of actually talking to anyone, about stuff that seriously matters to her anyway; to never truly have any friends in the real world. > --- The last supper. John prepared it - some kind of vegetable and one of those boxed rice mini-kits (not Betty Crocker) that happened to be kept in the ship kitchen before they arrived. (He probably has similar stuff in his own house, but in this fic he hasn't yet been to LOWAS.) It's pretty tense. Jade is still thoroughly distraught, if a bit tired - upset and frustrated at herself but not with the same energy she had just after the argument. Davesprite isn't really saying much of anything. They've all gathered to have supper together. Jade has trouble just looking at him, let alone reading his eternally neutral Strider-brand expression. John still isn't really sure how much he should be partaking in whatever's going on between the other two. He's tentatively trying to lighten the mood, or at least to get either of them to talk, preferably to each other, even if he doesn't really know whether that's a good idea or not. Jade's still down, but she puts in the effort to talk. She complements John's cooking, but it comes out weaker than she'd intended, or at least she thinks so. But John smiles, and thanks her. He remarks he's really gotten boxed food down to an art over the years. (In all honesty, he has: he put his own spices and tweaks to the recipe in. Not dramatic adjustments, but enough to give it a certain Egbert flair.) Now that Jade's made the first move, Davesprite ventures to say something too. Even if he doesn't understand why, he sees Jade is upset, and there is some semblance of guilt in him there. He doesn't want to make things worse. In actuality, he adds only a comment in agreement with Jade: "It's good." John thanks him. Partially sub-consciously recognizing that Davesprite is another real person who's actually there, Jade looks up from her food, toward him. She's trying to understand what's going on inside his mind. He's got the usual neutral face, though held perhaps a little more still than normal. His wings are tucked in, and he's a bit hunched down. His sunglasses make it impossible to tell where he's actually looking, but his head is tilted down - more toward the center of the table than his plate of food. (Do sprites eat? Yes, sprites eat, if at least just for enjoyment.) Jade sees he's feeling some kind of guilt, or at least being more careful with what he does and says than normal. This mostly worsens things for her, though. Instead of appreciating that he's trying, and that friendships are difficult and complex but that there's hope that things might improve between them, Jade finds her guilt renewed: she made things difficult, she got in the way, she made this supper tense, she upset Davesprite. Just at the moment Jade is reenveloped in that, Davesprite turns his gaze toward her. He dares something he thinks might help - he twitches a smile ever so slightly. Jade almost immediately realizes she's been staring at him and abruptly looks away, back to her food. What is he saying? Jade has no idea how to read the gesture. Urgh! She wishes people would just speak what they're trying to get across. Frustrated at everything, she shoves a particularly large spoon of rice clean into her mouth. John stifles a laugh. Jade notices and glares at him - but realizes that.. really isn't called for, and consciously relaxes herself. She supposes the sight of her stuffing her slightly canine mouth with rice would be a bit of a funny sight, and she knows John isn't trying to be mean or anything. She smiles a little, and takes a gentle, much smaller - dare she think "petite" - spoon of rice. She's tilted her head right toward her spoon as she raises it, but her eyes are angled straight at John, searching for a reaction. And there it is: John actually does a little laugh now and is grinning, not held back. Slightly startling Jade, Davesprite quietly clears his throat, just loud enough to grab her and John's attention. He raises his eyebrows just over the rims of his shades. John glances towards Jade, but she hasn't even thought to consciously be upset at Davesprite, not at that moment. He looks to Davesprite, who has lifted a dainty rice- spoon, a little clumped ball at its end, and presently has the spoon flipped upside down, contents suspended thanks to the majyyks of sticky rice. He melodramatically, slow-motion puts his lips closed against the spoon, eyebrows still raised, and pulls out the spoon, totally rice-free. Jade actually does a little snort-giggle. John smiles wide; she catches him, entirely friendly, rolling his eyes. John sighs, relieved. He says something dorky/Egbert-brand - he's really glad he has the both of them here on the journey, and as friends in general too. Davesprite nods. He says he shares the sentiment. Jade looks at the both of them, and smiles: "Me too." > --- Jade visits LOFAF. That night, Jade has trouble falling asleep. Her mind is rampant with all sorts of confusion and loneliness and yet warmth and comfort all at the same time, and it's keeping her up. She decides to visit the lab/home she grew up in, now on LOFAF in the ship's living room, hoping to sort out her thoughts at least a bit. Jade tiptoes out of the bedroom, down the hallway and into the living room. (The three of them share the same bedroom, which was actually some kind of generic, empty storage room before they repurposed it with their sleeping bags. Those were probably duplicated from an original Jade had somehow. Alchemy never stopped being a thing, you know! Actually I'm clueless how this would really make sense, I don't think I want any of them to have gone to any of their planets before yet, blah blah blah figure this stuff out later. IT'S JUST A CUTE IMAGE OK.) She shrinks herself down and teleports to the base of the tower on LOFAF. It's a single action, nearly instantaneous, though she still hasn't quite gotten used to the tingle of having her own space messed with yet. Jade looks around LOFAF, and then up, towards the top of the tower. Her observatory-bedroom that's so familiar to her is gone, of course. Jade has trouble remembering all the stuff that happened right before she merged with Jadesprite and ascended to godhood. She hasn't really yet opened the can of beans that is Jadesprite's own memories, being in part her dead dream self, but as she takes in the scene it becomes apparent that a lot of her memory of what went on while Jadesprite was, well, a sprite, is quite muddled. She shudders. There's so much she feels she ought to figure out eventually, and she can't really imagine talking to her friends about quite a lot of it, despite how glad she is for their presence and, well, friendliness. Also, it's still cold on LOFAF, especially under the night sky. She enters the base of the lab. Jade hesitates when she reaches the elevator room. The teleporters probably still work, but suddenly the notion of confronting really any of her thoughts at all freezes her up a bit. Just what does she want to figure out? Being inside her home reminds her of how she used to just be okay and not worry about much. There really wasn't much that she could have felt conflicted about; even if it was kind of weird living mostly alone and having a magical dog for a guardian, nothing ever changed. And when she did, occasionally, feel uncertain about anything in life, she'd never afforded it that much thought. It never felt all that difficult to just set aside the things that weren't easy to be sure about. Jade knows that isn't the point of her visiting her home tonight, but she still kind of wants to cling onto the carefreeness that she feels she remembers. She takes the stairs. > --- Jade shrinks John and Davesprite to fit onto LOWAS. John wants to visit his home; Davesprite tags along. After all the craziness of yesterday, he's a bit worn out. Him and Jade aren't necessarily mad at each other - in fact, they never really were; they were more so unto themselves - but they aren't exactly totes chill as though nothing had ever happened. In her mind, Jade is reluctant to see them go. As much as the air between her and Davesprite isn't exactly 100% smooth, she seriously enjoys company, and doesn't want to imagine having neither of her friends here around. But she sees Davesprite probably needs some space away from her, so she agrees to send them both off. John says they'll only be gone a couple hours - he suggests Jade can teleport them out and back to normal size once it's 11:00. She says sure, and thanks him - knowing she'll only have to be alone for a very specific amount of time is a lot less daunting to her. John and Davesprite depart. John says "see ya" with a smile; Davesprite, "later". Jade puts her hands into that rectangle gesture she always does - it's not actually necessary to make use of her powers, but she likes the symbolism. Just as neon green sparks of air begin to collapse around the two, invisible to all but her, Davesprite turns his head. He was staring out into space (hehehehe); now he's looking straight at her. He.. smiles, totally full, honest. It's bigger than Jade's ever thought a Strider could go - dangerously approaching the span of an ordinary smile, even - and truer than she'd ever imagined. She's baffled as to why he's smiling. Perhaps he had some semblence of knowledge about what would happen to LOWAS. Only he may ever know. She's confused and surprised, but she smiles in return. A flash of green as the air totally collapses around them. John and Davesprite are gone.