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[recreatable]

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[elsecall]

It's difficult not to think about Shallan. Ultimately, the young woman's attempt on her own life had been a manipulative tactic to cover her theft. Still, Jasnah remembers pacing outside the hospital room questioning every thing she had and hadn't said. And she remembers the clumsy apology once she'd been allowed to see the girl.

Jasnah knows she can be withholding. Distant. Hard. Half the reason why she's rejected so many potential wards hasn't been because the girls didn't meet muster, but because she knows she's not the teacher that most of them need.

"Noted." She answers. Simple and direct. Unwilling to gild a lily she's already flushed with compliments a minute earlier.

[recreatable]

Teasing: "Good talk."

And he drops the subject. He hadn't been intending to needle her into compliments, exactly, although he's certainly not mad at having received a few. It's just that it would be nice if she were to spare a little more approval, that's all, and his communication style is far too passive-aggressive to say that directly.

Moving on— "There are a few places to eat the street over." He remembers because of the smell; he'd been glad just to smell something that wasn't yeast and sugar. "Think you can make it?"

[elsecall]

...Except in her mind, it absolutely was a good talk. And while Jasnah certainly doesn't intend to trip over herself to dispense praise at every turn, it's helpful to realize there are things she perhaps shouldn't leave unvoiced. Not everyone is as patient and understanding of her silence as her blood relatives.

But! Yes. Moving on.

There is a mild list to her her walk — canted ever so slightly towards him. It's enough to make it seem like they're tête-à-tête, conspiring. Reality is far, far more pragmatic.

"One street?" She considers. "I'd like to try. I'll — I'll tell you when I need a pause."

A brief, intentional squeeze on his forearm. As though it might replace signing on a dotted line.

[recreatable]

The trek down the street is lengthy, but Verso works hard at keeping her distracted with idle, inane comments. Pointing at the window of a shop and asking her about the product on display. Looking up at the sky and noting that a cloud sort of looks like a snake riding a magic carpet. That sort of thing. When she wants to pause, he pauses. When she wants to go, he goes.

Eventually, they make their way all the way down to the next street over, where he leads them not by sight but by smell into the establishment that has the strongest aroma of spice. Not his first choice as a fantasy Frenchman, but it seems a good reward for Jasnah.

He pulls out her chair, helping her into her seat, saying, "Good job. Tomorrow, maybe you'll do two streets."

[elsecall]

But — oh, the spice on the air makes her stomach rumble. The thought of something more than bread and various stuffings within bread is just-almost-maybe enough to erase some of her current worries. Verso helps her into a chair and she can be grateful that they're in Thaylen City. Where some of the population still worship the Passions, and the strict divides between men and women aren't quite so strict. At least they didn't encounter too many horrified stares as they'd walked down the street arm-in-arm.

...However, a slightly agitated waiter now hems and haws on the periphery of their table. Jasnah makes a split-second decision to fall back on their previous ruse. Maybe it'll be slightly more reassuring to have a man and woman dine at the same table if they're man and wife.

"—Gemheart," she snaps a glance at Verso. Trusting him to pick up on the tactic. "Let's stick to the pink wines today, hm?"

[recreatable]

For a split second Verso looks confused, but as trusted to, he picks up quickly. His hand slips away from its place between Jasnah's shoulder blades, where it had been steadying her as she lowered herself into the seat, and he settles in the chair across from her, fingers tapping against the table. They'd spent so much time in close quarters—privately, without prying eyes—that he'd already forgotten about Rosharan sensibilities.

It had been fun to pretend to be someone else on the ship. It's fun even now, but there's a bitter undercurrent to it, the reminder that the only way she could ever be interested in him is if he were someone else. He rubs at his face.

"Right. Whatever you say, darling." A glance to the waiter— "Happy wife, happy life, no?"

Ha, ha. He spends a bit of time hemming and hawing over the menu and asking questions of the waiter before he lands on what he understands to be some sort of spicy meat curry; too hot for his liking, probably, but it's for Jasnah, not him. When they're left alone, he says, "'Gemheart' is rather a bit saccharine for you."

[elsecall]

— Jasnah doesn't allow the waiter to leave before a milder, sweeter curry is also added to the order. Ostensible for herself but in reality for him. Or, at the very least, to maintain the fiction of their appropriate dishes so that they might swap them and proceed merrily along.

But when he questions her choice of endearment, she counters: "You wouldn't say so if you saw how they're harvested."

[recreatable]

With a quirked brow: "Go on. I know you want to tell me how they're harvested." He's got your number, babe!!

[elsecall]

"Axehounds, chulls, gumfrems, chasmfiends — they all have gemhearts."

She taps her chest — one finger, three times between her collarbones.

"Gemstones that grow inside those animals. And others. Stones that are bigger and clearer than what can be mined. The bigger and clearer the stone? The better it is for fabrials. Chasmfiends have the largest. Emeralds, always."

[recreatable]

Yeesh. Yeah, that's less saccharine than previously thought.

"Oh, so you're calling me a chasmfiend, then," he points out, playful. Obviously, Jasnah isn't actually calling him anything. Half the time, she still calls him 'Dessendre'. "Just what every man wants to hear."

[elsecall]

A subtle near-roll of her eyes. Verso can best believe it would have been considerably less subtle in private. She's heard Dalinar call her mother gemheart when he thinks he's addressing her quietly enough in the corner of the council rooms that no one else can hear. Dalinar has almost always been wrong. But the first time she heard it—? Someone saying something so targeted towards Navani that was also so warm and sweet...? Well. She thought it rather lovely. So different from——

"Scratch gemheart, then. What would you prefer?"

[recreatable]

What would he prefer. That's a funny question. Considering that he gets all warm and fuzzy just at the sound of her using his first name—he'll blame it on some sort of psychological conditioning that she unintentionally performed on him—he isn't picky at all. But this isn't a real relationship, and it's not a real question, so:

"I've been known to answer to handsome."

Kidding, he's kidding.

[elsecall]

Easy, joking exasperation. The unseriousness of the suggestion isn't lost on her — but she does pocket it, naturally, for the sides of the scene still ahead of them. Realistically, the task has been accomplished with what's been said thus far. Realistically, there's very little left to perform. They can simply be themselves and finish the meal in peace. A married couple can't be all that different from any other two people sitting across a table from one another.

"Well, if we're opening the floor simply to any old adjective..."

She levels it like a warning.

[recreatable]

Oh, that's how it's going to be.

Verso quirks a brow, mouth a faint but unmistakable smile, then leans back in his chair with a flourish of his arm as if to say the floor is yours. Go on, Jasnah. Pick some adjectives for him. He's dying to be perceived.

[elsecall]

There are two ways to play this, right? Dreadfully earnest or playful.

"Antsy."

Please just let me use this word even though there are no ants on Roshar.

[recreatable]

The lore police are outside your house RIGHT NOW.

"A restless spirit," he corrects. Something like that. If only Jasnah knew how many times he'd ditched Monoco and Noco to go take care of some sketchy dealing or another. "But I'm not sure it really has much appeal as a pet name. You can't say"—with a faux-sexy intonation—"hello, antsy."

A shrug. "See? Doesn't work."

[elsecall]

Faux or not, that intonation he uses actually manages to evoke a frisson of — horror? Embarrassment? Her eyes dart furtively around their smaller corner of an already small restaurant. As if she's worried someone might have heard him.

More or less, it proves his point.

"Forget antsy. I acknowledge it was terrible."

Sweeping her hand across the table as thought she could sweep it all away. Maybe she's just not built for pet names.

[recreatable]

Well, witnessing that horrified look on her face is far more horrifying than anything he could ever do. He'd thought she'd find it amusing— or if not amusing, then at least annoying in a sort of endearing way. He hadn't wanted her to be embarrassed by him.

He clears his throat. "And you can forget everything I ever said about flattery." Sarcastic: "The expression on your face is flattery enough to last me a lifetime."

[elsecall]

Lesson learned. There is a patter — a kind of back-and-forth — for which she makes a poor match. She squares up in her chair, refusing to shrink back from the awkwardness, even though her thumbnail still picks at the table edge in a too clear tell of her own antsy nature.

The joke had gone a little too far a little too quick. But she doesn't have the words to explain it. So, feeling a tightness in her throat, she swallows and falls back on what she knows best.

"Whose lifetime?"

Arch, distant, shuttered.

[recreatable]

Oh. The atmosphere has turned suddenly uncomfortable, and he's not sure why. He'd only been trying to make her laugh (or roll her eyes); he really hadn't meant anything by it. Across the table, he sinks a little further into his chair.

"Mine, I guess," he answers with a shrug, although his heart isn't in whatever stilted repartee she's trying to engage with him in. There's silence for a long second, and then he opens his mouth, impulsive. "Did I—"

"Hot bowls," the waiter says, setting two bowls of curry down on the table. The one in front of him smells so aromatic that it makes him raise his eyebrows in surprise. Not Lumièran food, and definitely not anything he could ever have found on the Continent.

Whatever he was about to say, he seems to have lost his nerve. "Merci," he says, and then wrinkles his nose. "I mean, thank you."

[elsecall]

Saved by their meals. Jasnah, recognizing the question pocketed behind those first two words, also recognizes that she wouldn't even know how to answer it. Like there's some universal ledge everyone knows how to leap from — even if only playfully, among friends, with rolled eyes and slaps on the back. And she lacks the depth perception to follow.

She's still ruminating on this experiential void when he trips up, uses a foreign word with the waiter, and she barely registers the mistake. Instead, she reaches for a cup (pink wine — not alcoholic at all, and actually something of a mild stimulant like caffeine) and thinks about how long she needs to wait in order to make a request to swap bowls feel somehow less abrupt.

Twenty, thirty seconds maybe.

"You can try it. If you like."

Before we trade.

[recreatable]

The mood has been completely brought down by— well, he's still not sure exactly what brought it down. Something he did, clearly, although he can't figure out what or why. He feels uncomfortable in his own skin, certainly not in the mood to taste test, but she offers so he does it anyway, lifting the spoon (or whatever utensils or lack thereof they use on Roshar) to his mouth.

It's— quite hot for his palate. He coughs a little.

"Not poison." (Probably.) With two fingers, he slides the bowl toward her.

[elsecall]

(It's okay. They have spoons. Occasionally, you might see a skewer instead of a fork. Beware!)

Had he realized that had been her intention? Getting him to taste first — waiting a beat to see how he felt in the aftermath — and only then considering digging in for herself. Maybe their conversation during the walk had stuck with him. Maybe she's just that transparent.

Maybe it, too, is a joke she's supposed to play along with but can't quite find the requisite levity to rise and meet it.

"Here," she mirrors his movements and slides the milder, nuttier curry to his side of the table. "I hope it's more to your taste."

[recreatable]

He takes the bowl, sliding it the rest of the way to its place in front of him. Eating is a good excuse not to say anything—he needs to chew it over with Twix—so he's quick to take a bite; it's still quite different from anything he's ever eaten before, but not nearly as overwhelming to the senses. More palatable. Of course Jasnah prefers the thing that sort of hurts his mouth to eat over this.

After long enough has passed that he doesn't feel he can get away without saying something, he comments, "Tastes far better than the foot in my mouth."

He's still not sure what he did, exactly, but it seems better to take the blame for it and move on.

"Clearly, I've spent too long in the company of sentient paintbrushes."

[elsecall]

She dips her spoon in the bowl — stirring the meat and lavis grain, kicking up a plume of aroma that almost-but-not-quite reminds her of sipping in Stormlight. For her, the brief silence is fine. Maybe not comfortable but absolutely fine.

The first mouthful sends a cascade through her nervous system. One of the few times where the biological imperative to avoid danger is genuinely pleasant. A thoughtful chew; a second bite.

But then he speaks and she — almost indignant that he'd raise the specter of their friction instead of just compartmentalizing it — has to confront the way in which he's shouldered the blame.

"It's not your fault."

Well. Not entirely.