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Post by Jackie Clovis on Nov 3, 2016 14:29:51 GMT -6
The library could represent any number of things to those who frequented, or even infrequented, its stacks. To some it was a place of learning, wherein the foundation of a paper or thesis might be found among the many treatises and documents it held. To some it was a place of escape, wherein any number of fantasies might be brokered and explored among its numerous novellas and penny-dreadfuls. To some it was merely a convenient place to hook up outside of the dorms, a place quiet and secluded enough to make lascivious liaisons just that little bit less dangerous. To Jackie Clovis, however, the library represented something else entirely; A welcome isolation. Since she had been very young, reading a book or even pretending to read a book had been a means of secluding herself and broadcasting her general unwillingness to engage with those around her. It had been a means of telling the world that she did not want to be bothered and that it should kindly just let her alone. It had not always been the most fool proof method, as even literacy had invited scorn and derision from the right, or wrong, sort of person, but it had been reliable. The library had merely been a logical extension of the shield which books provided her with. It was generally accepted that everyone had come to the library for approximately the same reason; Because they desired to go undisturbed. It was for this reason that they Vytal Academy Library had become as much a sanctuary for Jackie as her own dorm room. More so, in fact, thanks to the small number of people who actually knew where she slept, the majority of whom were less interested in Jackie Clovis and more interested in her big sister…
Thus, Jackie found herself seated in a corner, one which she'd observed saw less traffic than the others around the building, with her nose half obscured in a book. She wasn't an especially remarkable looking girl; A bit tall at six feet, she had lank dark hair that hung before her down turned aquiline face in a thin curtain. Her clothes, much like her features, were similarly unremarkable. A long skirt, the sort that had gone out of style years prior, hugged her hips and covered her all the way down to her ankles, while her dark gray blouse covered up as much of her upper body as was possible for a single piece of clothing. Her long, nervous fingers danced restlessly across the page as she read and gave clue to her only really remarkable feature, that being the marked alacrity with which she read. She was reading a small manual on the construction and maintenance of complex dust containers, whose close written text and oppressively narrow script would have put strain on the sharpest of eyes, and had made it about halfway through the dry text since picking it up off the shelf. She'd actually found it to be quite absorbing for what it was, and had idly wondered if she might be able to track down some other treatise of the same authorship. Dust combination was a far more fashionable subject of research, as there was no real shortage of what might be accomplished with the right quantities combinations of elemental Dust, but the safe and practical containment of such a volatile substances should not be overlooked. Least of all when one had reason to suspect those containers might suffer undue stress in the execution of their duties.
Reaching up, Jackie softly rubbed her cheek as she flipped the page, almost as if she had expected something to be there. Her cheek was unmarked, naturally, but that hadn't stopped the vague ache which had risen up there. Grimacing minutely, she tried to put the source of that ache out of her mind and refocused on her book. Hopefully she would be able to finish it before it was time to brave the walk back to her room…
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Post by Jackie Clovis on Nov 10, 2016 4:21:18 GMT -6
When one lived the sort of hunted, haunted existence which Jackie did, one developed a sort of sense for when things were going to go a bit sideways. Nevermind the fact that, most of the time, the exercising of this acute sense of trouble could be easily written off as 'heightened anxiety' and 'frayed nerves', because for every three times that Jackie 'overreacted' or became 'hyper-vigilant', there was at least one time where her sudden anxiety was wholly justified. As a tall shadow fell across the scant light within which the furtive Clovis girl was trying to read, she had reason to suspect the approaching situation to be of the latter variety. Naturally, Jackie did what she always did when it looked likely that someone might try to socialize with her, and made herself as unappealing a target as she physically could. She closed off her body language as much as she could without erecting a physical barrier between herself and the outside world, hunching her shoulders and hiding her fact for good measure. Then, just to be absolutely sure the hint was taken, she tried to make herself seem so wholly involved in her book as to have become utterly oblivious to the world around her. Not that she had; Jackie was so high strung that she found it nearly impossible to ever totally ignore the world around her.
Her efforts soon proved to be wholly in vane when, despite doing everything she physically could to shut herself off, someone spoke to her from beyond the flimsy shield of the book she was no longer actually reading. Thankfully, the person speaking neither sounded especially upset, nor did she posses a voice which Jackie recognized, let alone had cause to avoid.
"Sooooo..." the unwelcome visitor drawled, her choice of opening apparent short hand for the inevitably directionless small talk Jackie instinctively dreaded would follow. "Dust containment, huh? That sounds interesting. Learn anything... Useful yet?" It was only profound force of will and an inherently quiet nature which kept Jackie from groaning audibly in response. She'd had this conversation before, and in no permutation of it had it ever gained her anything. Jackie could practically taste the unfamiliar speaker's disinterest, dripping from words which she was trying vainly to instill with even the faintest hint of interest. And that was disregarding the utterly disingenuous inquiry which she'd seen fit to tack on right at the end.
Jackie didn't answer. Obviously she didn't answer. She'd have needed to be quite mad to answer. The worst possible thing she could have done was answer. Instead of answer, she tried to emphasize her already emphatic efforts to look utterly unreceptive to outside attention. This included pulling her book so close in to her face that she was no longer actually able to read it and twisting a full thirty degrees where she was sitting, so as to try and preclude any act that could be construed as willful involvement in social interaction. Her assailant didn't take the hint however, and only blithely continued to try and instigate some kind of conversation with Jackie.
"Uuuuuh, let me start again. My name is Scarlet, nice to meet you, you have much in the way of plans today by chance?"
This utterly incongruous behavior, to push for conversation when Jackie was no longer even trying to be subtle about her desire to be let alone, could not help but fluster the skinny girl. The least result of which was a furtive glance at the interloper out the very corner of her eye. Like everyone else at the school, the speaker was almost homogeneous in her exceptionalism. Black on red, or red on black, made for an especially striking colour scheme wrapped around a lithe and not altogether unappealing figure. Jackie disliked her immediately, and not just because she had made it her apparent mission to interrupt Jackie's reading, but because she was a prime example of the sort of banal individualism which characterized all those mad enough to want to be a huntress. A hopeless kind of resignation took hold them, as Jackie reasoned that this stranger's intrusions would only escalate, settled like a lead weight in the pit of her stomach. Whether because she was powerless to keep herself from answering, or she answered with the honest belief that it might make the blonde go away, Jackie did contrive to answer her.
"Reading..." she said in a voice so small, it would have taxed a microscope to perceive it. Then, as if to drive her point home, Jackie showed the stranger her book. The one she had been, and wanted nothing more than to return to, reading. She did so with an almost pleading expression, equal parts wariness and hopefulness, on her face.
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Post by Jackie Clovis on Nov 20, 2016 19:15:26 GMT -6
It was oppressive. That was really the only word for it. To be the central focus of someone, a person whom Jackie didn't even know, who simply sat there. Watching, Lurking, Judging. It made Jackie want to scream. Why couldn't this girl just take a hint and leave her alone? Why was she being tormented so by somebody she'd never even met before? Couldn't she see she was unwelcome? Couldn't she see that Jackie wanted nothing to do with her? Why wouldn't she just go away? It made her want to lash out, to throw a book at the unwelcome faunus. To rant and rave until she learned some manners or retreated in fear.
Yet, even for as badly as she wanted to do all of these things, Jackie continued to do nothing. For as painfully and self-consciously aware of the faunus girl's presence as she was, she did nothing save to further close herself off from Scarlet, which was a tactic which had yet to bear fruit. She continued to flip pages, though was no longer able to take in the informative, if dry, contents of her chosen textbook. She was far too fixated on the other's presence, which seemed to rest upon her focus like a physical weight. It made her feel angry and helpless and thoroughly obliterated any focus she might have rallied in an attempt to absorb the contents of her book. Not for the first time that day, nor even that hour, Jackie considered the penultimate escape from the discomfort of a thoroughly unpleasant situation. That errant thought alone was sufficient to make her hate this blonde haired girl all the more keenly, for it was accompanied by a deep sense of shame and outrage that such a thought might have even crossed her mind.
Abruptly and with a sudden ferocity which, if even briefly, overrode her usually deferential nature, Jackie clapped her book shut and looked sharply in Scarlet's direction. There was nothing which might have been mistaken for challenging in that gaze, but there was expectation and impatience which the lank haired brunette made no effort to conceal.
"What?" She asked tersely. Her posture, still closed off, had grown tense as a compressed spring, while her taught face and wide eyes had every appearance of some vigilant prey-animal a splint second before a panicked flight. She was angry, and she made no effort to hide that fact either, but more-over she was in an acute state of nervous distress.
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Post by Jackie Clovis on Nov 24, 2016 21:16:13 GMT -6
"Oh my god finally, the first bit of human emotion I've gotten out of you, its good, you aren't made of wood." the faunus girl cooed insufferably, her mockery quite effectively obliterating what little assertiveness Jackie had been able to muster. Immediately, Jackie's cheeks and neck grew red and warm and she averted her eyes with nearly instinctive immediacy. She was struck, nearly as immediately, with the notion that, perhaps, she should have kept quite and hoped the faunus girl would get bored, as she had initially planned to. No good could possibly come from her trying to talk her way out of things...
"Well first thing's first, I told you my name so I was wondering if I could get your's?"
It seemed, for a moment at least, as if Jackie might retreat back into her book without answering, but even she understood that the book would not bring her the escape she so desperately wanted. Still, despite this immutable fact, Jackie spent several moments staring longingly at the interminably dry text which had so absorbed her attention in the peaceful moments before Scarlet's unsolicited arrival.
"Jackie." She said shortly, without looking back up. Whatever inconstant resolve she'd found to meet Scarlet's gaze, it had plainly made itself scarce. Even her anger, evident only moments before, had been swallowed up behind a mask of stiff, stoic acceptance for the unpleasant direction the situation had taken.
A few moments passed, each with Jackie wondering if Scarlet might make any jokes about her name. 'You look more like a 'Johnnie' to me.' or 'Jacked up on what?' or something else equally trite, predictable and cutting to Jackie's already microscopic self-esteem. Scarlet subverted these expectations, however.
"Hmmmm, better not leave things so hollow sounding. Would you mind terribly if I got you something to eat?" The faunus girl said, leaving Jackie to wonder, a bit belatedly, exactly what that was supposed to mean. Then Scarlet segwayed right into unflattering, but not unjustified, commentary on Jackie's diet.
"You seem dreadfully gaunt, it's a little worrisome honestly." This development, of having her appearance criticized by a complete stranger, was more familiar ground where Jackie was concerned, and almost comforting as a result. In so uncommon an exchange as the one developing before, and in spite of, her, she was glad of any flotsam of familiarity on which to cling.
"I know it's not my place to tell you when you should eat or nothin, but free food is nice, yeah?"
Raising her head, to stare at Scarlet from behind her lank fringe, Jackie searched for sincerity on the strange woman's face. Frustratingly enough, she found the faunus to be mostly unreadable. Her smile was like so many others, in that it seemed friendly, if a bit mischievous. Jackie knew from experience that those were just the sorts of smiles which seemed genuine, right up until the they took your clothes and abandoned you in a mall changing room with nothing but you underwear on. If she'd been a little stronger, a little bolder and less wholly certain that Scarlet could hurt her, she would have punched the faunus right in the middle of that mischievous smile of hers. Being that Jackie was Jackie, and possessed only of the same scant vitality and irresolute personality that she always was, she just squeezed her thumbs and resolved not to take her clothes off anywhere near Scarlet.
"If you wanna cut through some shit and know my intentions though, I'll share them at any time." As if in answer to her unspoken thoughts, Scarlet's expression grew even more self-assured and infinitely more punchable. Jackie, out of the sort of self preservation which others might call cowardice, neglected to punch her, even then. What horrible trick Scarlet doubtlessly had lined up for Jackie, the brunette could not begin to guess, but she also didn't have the guts to make the faunus girl back off, a fact said faunus was quite plainly aware of. So Jackie just shook her head, confident that anything Scarlet did say would be a lie, and moved to stand.
"The Cafeteria, then?" Jackie asked quietly with all the morose confidence of someone heading to the gallows. Surely it must be the cafeteria, for Jackie could not think of a more public place in the whole school where food was served.
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Post by Jackie Clovis on Dec 6, 2016 2:38:36 GMT -6
Jackie hesitated as she gathered up her things, and only properly noticed after exactly long enough to make her brief pause the most noticeable. With a guarded glance, she regarded Scarlet. Scarlet, who had just told her she was free to pick wherever she wanted to eat. For the first time since the faunus woman's unexpected and thoroughly unwanted arrival, Jackie doubted the well cultivated suspicion she'd met the stranger with. The reason was simple. By letting Jackie pick the place they went to, Scarlet was forfeiting any foreknowledge of where they'd be going, undoing any efforts she might have made to lay a trap. That didn't preclude the possibility that Scarlet meant to humiliate her in some way, of course, it only greatly reduced the chances of pre-planned ambush. Scarlet could still skip out on the bill, humiliate her or lead her into some sort of danger, but the odds that she'd premeditated such acts were fundamentally lowered. Seeing nothing on the serpentine woman's face to reassure or reinforce her suspicions, Jackie returned to gathering up her books. She the text on dust containment into her shoulder bag, as well as another on Grimm physiology and a veritable tome on aura control. Then, straightening the strap across one shoulder, she turned to face Scarlet. All the while, she was searching her memories, all them, for a likely location to suggest. Jackie, as a rule, ate in her room and didn't leave to go anywhere that was not class or the library, but she still had a very expansive knowledge of numerous dining establishments throughout the campus. Unfortunately, she only really knew which one of them sold the rarest, bloodiest steaks and cheapest alcohol, not which ones would be the best place for a well balanced dinner and just enough of a crowd to keep her safe without so great a crowd as to humiliate her well into the upcoming year.
"There's a place near the western dorms..." Jackie said finally, starting past Scarlet through the stacks. "Fluids..."
'Vytal Fluids Bar and Grill', or Fluids as it was more commonly referred to around the island, wasn't exactly Jackie's first choice, but then her first choice would have been to have supper in her room like she always did, far away from anyone who smiled like a bear-trap. Still, Fluids was a sight more upscale than most of the places packed into Jackie's memory banks, and its proximity to the dorms meant a quick escape would be easier than if she'd picked something farther off campus.
Making it down to the front door, Jackie briefly paused in the small alcove that directly preceded the path into the courtyard. She tried not to make it too obvious as she scanned the few loose knots of humanity in the open area beyond for any faces she might recognize or, more importantly, who might recognize her. Spotting nothing terribly suggestive, she stepped briskly onto the path and turned quickly towards the western side of the quad, walking with her shoulders hunched up around her ears, as if to conceal her face.
@scarlet
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Post by Jackie Clovis on Dec 27, 2016 1:07:06 GMT -6
Jackie shifted uncomfortably, and not just because she was being forced into further conversation with Scarlet. While she had tried not to make her scrutiny of her surroundings too terribly obvious, she couldn't mask the great discomfort being in the open always caused her. Her back crawled with the persistent dread that she would, at any moment, be spotted by someone who knew her. Worse still, she might be spotted by someone who knew her sister.
"I don't know... I guess so." She answered with apparent disinterest and distraction, doing a pretty terrible job at concealing her restive eyes. Through all her memories of fluids, she could not recall ordering anything that wasn't either red meat or alcohol. She supposed they must have served a pretty decent steak, given just how many she could remember ordering, but anything else was entirely unknown to her. Jackie couldn't recall so much as glancing at a menu, despite having eaten there numerous times.
She met Scarlet's next question with less of an uncomfortable shift and more of a self-conscious cringe, as if she were worried that someone close-by might hear the faunus girl. In fact, as Jackie turned half towards the taller girl, she looked on the verge of putting her finger lips in plaintive admonition.
"It's not a big deal." She answered, unconvincingly and on reflex. Her tone was hushed and urgent, as eager to assure the strange girl as arrest any further inquiry she might make. Her own voice range false on her ears, and her shoulders slumped before she could stop them, though she managed to stop short of actually throwing her arms over her head.
"All I mean is..." Jackie persisted in a more moderate tone, hoping to breeze quickly past her previous indiscretion. Except she couldn't think what to say next.
What did she mean, exactly?
"That I don't want anyone to see me..."
Oh god, that sounded way worse, didn't it?
Cringing again, Jackie wished she had just kept her mouth shut. She always did that, saying precisely the wrong thing...
"Look..." She sighed, "Why do you even care? You don't even know me."
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Post by Jackie Clovis on Dec 30, 2016 21:00:00 GMT -6
It was truly exhausting, Jackie thought, to be on guard all the time. She didn't like being around other people, that was true enough, but the added exertion of always wondering what angle they were playing or what grudge they might be harboring turned something that was simply tedious into something outright excruciating. She was no long as certain about Scarlet's motivations as she had been, though her mistrust for the faunus had not diminished, and this added contrition and patience said faunus was exhibiting made her feel more than a little uneasy. Which was to say nothing of the apparent compassion that Scarlet was displaying. To say it put Jackie on edge would have been both a grievous understatement, and suggestive that she was not incredibly on edge already.
"Look..." Jackie said, a bit more sharply than was necessary, "It's not like that, okay?"
If it seemed like she was hastily trying to distract from Scarlet's ostensibly heartfelt appeal, it was because she absolutely was. She felt deeply embarrassed to have someone, let alone an absolute stranger, express what seemed like genuine concern for her, especially in such great abundance. Which was to say criminally little for how awkward and even a little irritated being made the subject of sympathy made Jackie feel. It had been a very long time since someone, other than her brother, had reached out to her in such a way, and it made her feel unclean to be on the receiving end of someone else's charity.
The very implication that she required such charity, in the form of simple social interaction, rubbed Jackie about as wrong as a thing possibly could. The reason behind which had more than a little to do with Jackie's own, subconscious acknowledgement that she quite desperately required such charity in the first place. Gritting her teeth a little, Jackie tried to hunch up her shoulders even further, and used her abundant veil of lank hair to further conceal her burning face. She felt like she needed to defend herself now, even though Scarlet hadn't really made any accusations or condemnations. What little pride she had felt wounded, and she wanted very much to provide some plausible explanation for her behavior that didn't hinge on her being a sad and pathetic pariah.
"I'm just worried someone is going to recognize me." She said finally, her voice as low and quiet as she could make it without rendering her words utterly unintelligible.
"Someone who knows my sister..."
A pause, so pregnant as to be on its way to a hospital, quickly followed, during which time Jackie stared straight ahead in the direction they were walking. Why, in the name of the shattered moon, had she gone and said that? Nevermind that it was the truth; The very last thing she wanted to do was talk about Heidi, much less to a complete stranger. Still, she'd said it and painted herself into a corner as a result. Better to elaborate before Scarlet could ask any uncomfortable questions.
"She's made more than one enemy on campus, and a lot of them wouldn't mind getting at her through me."
Having said it, Jackie still didn't feel much better. Her stomach was tying itself up in a knot at the merest thought of explaining how Heidi had come by some of those enemies, and exactly why most of them would prefer to exact their vengeance on Jackie instead.
They were just about at Fluids by that point; Jackie could see the garish neon sign that marked the pubs entrance reflect on a nearby window. Hoping to assuage any further conversation on the subject of her sister, the lesser Clovis shrugged in the direction of their destination.
"Mind the step." She muttered, stepping off the street and into the vaguely pastel gloom of the club. Fortunately, they were early enough that nobody was minding the door, allowing Jackie a rather hasty and familiar path to the farthest side of the room. It wasn't bad, so far as bars went, with less of the dingy glow and more of a post-modern buzz. Throughout the whole club, not a single conventional light was present, casting the entire service floor in a perpetual gloom that the exceptionally prolific neon lights failed to fully disperse. Everything was lit up in hues of deep green and vibrant blue, with splashes of red and yellow here and there to draw the eyes. In place of the ubiquitous televisions that often populated bars, there were small panes of running water, backlit in in pastel by some oblique method. The furnishings were almost universally sterile and reflective metal, often accented in matte blacks and grays. The booth that Jackie chose was the most shaded from the omnipresent colorful lighting, and even its table top managed to look cavernously dark amid the rage of color and motion. The illusion that it was really a portal into the deepest abyss was only broken when Jackie, in adoption of her characteristically furtive and closed off pose, lay her curled arms atop it to better hide the rest of her body.
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Post by Jackie Clovis on Jan 2, 2017 19:12:52 GMT -6
Jackie did her best not to look wholly out of place as she filled space in the capacious booth she'd picked near the back of the club. Her efforts were met with middling success, given that her down played fashion sensibilities clashed fundamentally with the neon opulence of her surroundings. Her drab, earthy colors were made garish by the prominence of pastel lighting, while her pallor was turned especially sickly by the lack of any other sort of illumination. Even her hair managed to look especially lank and greasy, rendered full of colored reflections as it had been. There was scarcely any part of her that was not made to look even more drab nor desultory in the stark neon glow, save perhaps her eyes. Usually a muddy hazel of mostly unremarkable hue, some confluence of light and shadow had conspired to form brief suggestions of other colors beneath her downcast brow. Not the least of it was the smallest hint of gold behind the curtain of limp and lifeless brown hair.
"It's okay, I guess." The lesser Clovis remarked noncommittally, while her often hazel, occasionally golden eyes swept the room like a like a cut-purse in court. She hadn't a single memory of this place that wasn't drenched in in alcohol and smothered in flesh, and getting her bearings was a bit difficult. Only now, had she remembered that those on the second floor mezzanine could look directly down on the booths on their side of the room. Fortunately, there was far few people than past experience had led her to expect, with the only shapes moving in the pastel shadows seeming to belong to service staff. Jackie felt a stab of worry that one of them might recognize her, but quickly smothered it under a more controlled acknowledgement that they likely would not. Her eyes reluctantly sliding back to Scarlet as the faunus took a seat across from her, Jackie simmered in the wretchedness of her own anonymity. No, none of the servers were likely to recognize her, and it sickened her that she actually found that knowledge to be a bit disheartening. Her lip twitched slightly, unkindly, in the neo-noir haze and she dropped her eyes, hazel once more, down to the hands in front of her.
Scarlet's little question did little to pluck her back from the brink of inattention, even though it was something that Jackie had been speculating about since the strange woman first approached her.
"I think I can safely say..." She said, keeping most of the acid out of her her quiet tone, "That I don't have the faintest clue..."
There were some obvious ideals, like that Scarlet was looking for an easy mark, that she was secretly an agent of one of Heidi's many enemies, or that she was simply bored and looking for someone to make miserable. If any were the case, however, the faunus was certainly taking her time getting around to it. Saying as much would have taken some semblance of courage, and Jackie's semblance was not to be employed lightly. She was saved, or at least excused, when the practiced stiletto click of an approaching server encroached on their conversation.
"Drinks for you two?" Asked a not-unfamiliar voice that made Jackie want to recede into her clothes. She didn't dare look up, all her certainty about being recognized evaporating in a second. Not that she needed to look up to know the golden curls flowing down one side of her almond colored face, combed away from the shaved scalp on the other side. A few booze fueled memories, rendered altogether humiliating by perspective and present circumstances, made the skin on the back of her neck prickle and her pale face grow hot with embarrassment.
"Just water." Jackie croaked tersely and, perhaps, just a bit too sharply. Indeed, the venomous insistence in her biting reply caused the surprised, and surprisingly pretty, blonde waitress some pause.
"Righty-then." The young blonde forged on, with forced professional chipper-ness that immediately mixed guilt and regret into the turmoil of embarrassment already doing flips in Jackie's stomach. Shifting two bright blue eyes, eyes Jackie had distinct memories of thinking to be very pretty, over to Scarlet, it was impossible not to notice the softening of the server's tone now that she wasn't addressing the terse earthen smudge with her back pressed into the corner.
"And for you~?"
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