[There's a slightly longer than is comfortable pause on Velvet's end before she replies. The information about q-tips she files away in the same place she's left her thoughts on Hot Topic, but at least she has a frame of reference for something like what he means, this time. She just has to remember that's what they're called here.]
It wasn't a joke. But thanks for the warning. I'm not trying to get in trouble with the joke police.
[Her sense of humor picks some really unfortunate ways to confront the world with its presence.]
[She can't see his face, so she misses all the play of responses across his face to anything she's said; it's the price she pays for giving him the same inaccessibility to her own. Her raggedy clothes shift with a clink of buckles and a rustle of stiff fabric as she moves herself back into frame. Her golden eyes are sharp and cautious, but not angry; her jawline isn't the tight set of hard angles it would have been a moment ago, when her teeth were clenched shut in thought.]
[There are reasons why she's "shy". She chooses her next words at a steady pace, considering what scrutiny she invites from whoever's listening in, considering what scrutiny she wants. Velvet doesn't do dissembly - doesn't lie, period - very well, and she's not about to master it in a minute - but she's at their mercy here, all of their "mercy", and being completely honest to a recklessly dangerous fault won't get her very close to anywhere she might want to be right now.]
It's ... nice of you, to believe that. That wouldn't be the assumption most ... - [the word comes out uncertainly, a carefully phrased shot in the dark] - humans, who think like you, would've made.
no subject
It wasn't a joke. But thanks for the warning. I'm not trying to get in trouble with the joke police.
[Her sense of humor picks some really unfortunate ways to confront the world with its presence.]
[She can't see his face, so she misses all the play of responses across his face to anything she's said; it's the price she pays for giving him the same inaccessibility to her own. Her raggedy clothes shift with a clink of buckles and a rustle of stiff fabric as she moves herself back into frame. Her golden eyes are sharp and cautious, but not angry; her jawline isn't the tight set of hard angles it would have been a moment ago, when her teeth were clenched shut in thought.]
[There are reasons why she's "shy". She chooses her next words at a steady pace, considering what scrutiny she invites from whoever's listening in, considering what scrutiny she wants. Velvet doesn't do dissembly - doesn't lie, period - very well, and she's not about to master it in a minute - but she's at their mercy here, all of their "mercy", and being completely honest to a recklessly dangerous fault won't get her very close to anywhere she might want to be right now.]
It's ... nice of you, to believe that. That wouldn't be the assumption most ... - [the word comes out uncertainly, a carefully phrased shot in the dark] - humans, who think like you, would've made.