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[recreatable]

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[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.

[recreatable]

That's— frustratingly vague. This whole thing wouldn't be so awkward if he'd at least known what he did to offend her; he could apologize, avoid doing it again, move on. 'It's not your fault' sort of makes it sound like it's some inherent quality of his that he simply couldn't circumvent, though, and he frowns for a split second, almost unnoticeably short but not quite.

Despite being the mopiest person known to man, Verso is an expert at lightening situations. Some misplaced responsibility, perhaps, for other people's feelings. He raises his brows, questioning.

"Is my sexy voice that bad?"

[elsecall]

"Bad?" She echoes, confused. "No. Not at all."

But then she's left holding the loose, complex threads of an explanation she doesn't really want to give. It hardly seems dignified for a grown woman (a world leader) to blurt out that she's so far removed and unaccustomed to even such harmless, friendly flirtation that it likely can't land as it's intended. Warm and fun and unserious.

It makes her feel like some unsocialized axehound. So very far away from the queen who presides over a council chamber with easy, unfettered control. At some point she has to acknowledge that she's managed to curate an existence ringed almost exclusively by relatives or by colleagues. Most of whom would never dare to speak to her as he speaks to her.

(And the one who did? Well. He was better built for shrugging off her prickly ways, it seems.)

Jasnah stirs her spoon once again in her bowl. Counter clockwise. Ultimately, she lands on a confession:

"I'm not very good at this."

[recreatable]

Wow. That's even more frustratingly vague. This is all so pedestrian that he wouldn't know where to begin picking out what she means by 'this'. "At... pity-laughing at someone's bad jokes?" It's obviously facetious, but he hasn't any idea what else to say. "You'll get better."

[elsecall]

Well. Yes — he's correct. Pity-laughing at someone's bad jokes is a splinter skill within the larger this that she's trying to verbally tiptoe her way around. But tiptoeing doesn't suit her much. And, yes, when she senses it she hates to recognize the prevarication in herself too.

Frustration bubbles over. Speaking so plainly it almost sounds childish, she counters:

"At making friends."

Adolin always made it seem so easy, didn't he? Fluttering about, winning everyone over — easily gaining the confidence and love of his men. Jasnah has always relied on respect (and a little bit of fear) instead.

NITPICKS FOREVER

[recreatable]

Oh.

Verso stirs his curry, wondering how that could possibly be— Jasnah is clever, powerful, a good conversationalist. Yes, she has a rebellious streak, but he finds it hard to believe that there aren't people beating down her door to be the queen's friend. Even putting her personal qualities aside, being royalty seems like it should be enough to earn her most people's favor.

"Well," he says, "we've already established that you're my friend." Careful wording here: you're and my. He isn't presumptuous enough to say that we're friends after she so summarily rejected that idea. "So, the making is already done."

[elsecall]

Jasnah does have one true friend. One person who she can rely upon the understand her — entertain her meandering thoughts; scold her when she wanders too far off the metaphorical path. Someone in whom she confides and confides in her in turn. Someone who chose her. Who chooses her every day. And whose partnership she values more than a perfectly cut gemstone.

And that one friend is unconscious. Tucked into a spice tin. Nestled in her pocket. And she's never been called upon to pity-laugh at his bad jokes. Mostly because Ivory doesn't make bad jokes.

"Not so good at staying friends, then," she amends her statement based on his feedback. Yes. Even once she says so, it feels more honest.

Silently, she wonders if it's deeply human to want something so much — a bond, a relationship, a connection — while also simultaneously frightening yourself out of the possibility. Social ostracism has added too many knots and twists to her outlook.

[recreatable]

Mmm. Verso frowns. He can relate, in a way. He's excellent at making friends—even with all of the cards against him, he's been able to manipulate and wheedle his way into alliances. The actual friendship part, though, the part that involves getting close to someone, letting them in... even the times that he's opened himself up to it, it ended violently and abruptly before he could ever finish the transition.

"Neither am I," he admits, voice low and almost conspiratorial, like he's sharing a secret with her.

Playfully: "We have so much in common. We should be friends."

[elsecall]

She also finds it hard to believe that someone so persistent and so needlessly friendly might have a hard time keeping friends. Unless. Except. A brief flicker of a frown. There are other circumstances afoot for Verso. Of course. A too long life and a Continent filled with death.

Ordinarily she might ask and needle and pry. Today, in this moment, she chooses not to crack the fragile ground they've managed to climb back onto after their sullen silence.

"Feels unethical," she counters. But the humour is there if he looks hard enough. Wry and funny in a way that only makes sense to her. "Considering you're my Wit."

Says the woman who'd been sleeping with the last one.