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‘Okay, here’s one,’ Davesprite says, pushing his shades back up his nose again. He’s hanging upside down from a tree, tail curled around the branch like the snake from The Jungle Book, except with much less slutty connotations. Though, he is holding his t-shirt down/up (depending on your point of view) with one hand while the other drags along the grass.
‘I am prepared,’ Rose says solemnly. ‘I have trained from birth to accept your magnificent—stop, Dave, stop!’ she attempts to fend off the leaves that Davesprite throws at her with his telekinesis, but she’s not able to. Her laughter is only muffled because she’s trying really hard to keep her mouth closed, because he absolutely is not above shoving leaves in her mouth as punishment for being full of shit, which is very hypocritical of him.
‘Would you rather . . .’ Davesprite says, stopping his leafy assault. He uses both hands to block Rose’s counter-attack and his shirt falls into his face.
‘You have given me my weapons and the tactical advantage of superior vision,’ she says, smugly, as she smooshes crunchy leaves into his belly button.
‘Fuck off, Lalonde!’ Davesprite says. He falls out of the tree with a thump, then floats up and away so he can brush himself off. He straightens his shirt and shades and then lies back on the ground next to her.
‘Would you rather be imprisoned in a cage of very thick candy or very thick straw?’ Rose asks.
‘Firstly, it was my turn,’ Davesprite says. ‘Secondly, candy, obviously, how is that a question?’
‘Because your tongue would be raw before you could suck a hole into even one bar,’ Rose says. ‘But straw would poke up your fingernails and possibly give you splinters.’
‘Still candy,’ he says. ‘Unless there is a time pressure, in which case I guess straw, but I’m not happy about it.’
‘You’re not supposed to be happy about it, you’re in a cage,’ she says.
‘Then reverse those answers so I’m extra miserable,’ he says. ‘Now shut your moan-hole, it’s my turn.’
Rose raises her hand. Davesprite groans, hands over his face. She waits patiently as he gets it out of his system. She has to swap arms from fatigue before he recovers.
‘It’s my turn,’ he complains. ‘Fine, fine! What is it?’
‘Moan-hole,’ she says, simply.
‘I’m leaving,’ he says, sitting up before he starts to float away.
Rose leans back on her hands and watches his progress. He makes it to the path, pauses a moment, then comes back. He lies on the ground again. Neither of them comment on his failure to leave.
‘Would you rather lose the ability to talk or lose the ability to write?’
‘I like both those things,’ Rose complains.
‘That is the point of the game,’ Davesprite says. ‘I’m real proud of you for figuring it out. It was a toughy, I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t have high hopes. That’s not a criticism of you, obviously, it’s just that you didn’t even finish middle school, you know? It’s impressive you can even get dressed in the morning, or wait, does Kanaya dress you? Because that would explain a lot. Never let that woman go, Rose.’
‘You’re an ass,’ she says.
‘Ass comments are off-limits,’ he reminds her.
‘I do not recognise your authority to censor my words, and therefore I will not alter my behaviour whatsoever,’ she says. ‘However, I wasn’t commenting on features of your anatomy that you may or may not possess, I was commenting on your personality. Also your behaviour and your words.’
Davesprite considers this. Acceptable, he decides. She is actually pretty good at respecting his boundaries, she just would never, ever admit that. He floats a single, uncrushed leaf onto her face without looking. She blows it off.
‘So?’ he asks her.
‘Mm?’
‘Give up talking or writing.’
‘No,’ she says. He cranes her neck, but she’s not visibly pouting. Shame, he’d have made fun of her for that for ages.
‘Can I use voice to text?’ she asks.
‘Yeah, but you can’t edit the results.’
The expression she makes is definitely in the direction of a pout. He doesn’t point out that neither of these things is actually going to happen.
‘I give up speaking,’ she says.
‘Lucky Kanaya,’ he says, monotone. Then he caws loudly in alarm, because she leans over and plucks a feather from his ruff. ‘What the fuck!’ he says.
‘I didn’t appreciate your cheek,’ she says. Then, because he rubs the stinging area with much affront, ‘Sorry.’
‘I’m going to bite your toes off while you sleep,’ he says.
‘I already did that to you,’ she says. ‘They were delicious.’
He glares at her. She glares back, but in a silly way. His glare gets more silly, too.
‘Okay,’ she says. ‘Here’s one.’