Bertie Jackson
December 03, 2021 6:56 AM
On...puzzles (Mara) by Bertie Jackson
Step One of The Plan was to get Mara to the library, like it was just a normal outing. Then, somehow, make it a date. Or was he supposed to ask her to the library but as a date? At what point in the process was she meant to be aware of that, and how did he say it? He had considered asking Philippe for more advice, but he felt like he should be able to sort out his own problems. He was an Aladren, after all.Based on the last time they had gone to the library, opportunities to segue it into a date were not forthcoming. So, all he had to do was go up to Mara and ask her to go on a date to the library with him. Except that sounded odd, when they went to the library frequently. Perhaps he should lead with data?
And he was also running out of time to segue from the library to a date to other plans.
“Hello,” he said when he saw her in the common room. It was a bad sign that he felt even that word catching in his throat. “I know anecdotal evidence isn’t as robust as a double blind trial or anything,” he began, wondering if his words were even comprehensible because he was stuttering more prominently than he had since starting school. “But, did you know that Anya-um—umm—---” It was frustrating because talking to Mara was normally relatively easy, and he could just feel his face getting hotter and hotter, and his thoughts going almost fuzzy at the edges, which he did not like because he was not a fuzzy-thoughts kind of person, in any of the various interpretations of that sentiment. “I have a puzzle for you,” he managed, and ran up the stairs, deciding this would be easier in written form, and very glad for the couple of minutes’ break this would allow him. Given that time was running out, and asking one thing was painful enough, he decided to just cut straight to the chase.
HTWW JZF RZ EZ ESP MLWW HTES XP?
He returned, a minute or so later with a note, handed it to Mara, and then realised there was the agony of having to wait whilst she decoded it. It was sometimes hard not to jump in and prompt her when she was working her way through a puzzle, though she was getting better at them, and he was getting better at knowing when to keep his butting in to himself. But this wasn’t a normal circumstance.
“Are you almost done?” he asked, after she’d been working at it for approximately as long as he’d been alive.
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Bertie Jackson
On...puzzles (Mara)
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Mara Morales
December 23, 2021 2:10 PM
....I'm certainly at least a little puzzled. by Mara Morales
Weirdness, Mara thought, was in some ways not so much the opposite of normality as the reflection of normality. The mirror reversed what it reflected, and reflected what it reversed. They were both just states that existed only relative to others; take away points of comparison and they promptly became meaningless, just as they were when unattached to an object.When the object the word 'weird' was attached to was Bertie Jackson, it had an uphill battle to go on to justify its existence. At first, despite the increased stuttering and the sudden mention of Anya Delachene for some reason, Mara didn't file her non-conversation with Bertie under the banner of 'weird for Bertie, necessarily.' There had been something about double-blind trials buried in there, and that indicated a normal enough topic of conversation, at least for Bertie, had probably been intended somewhere along the line. When he suddenly changed directions, announced a puzzle, didn't give it to her, and then ran away, though, she had to raise an eyebrow. She suspected she still looked a little confused when Bertie finally reappeared.
"O..kay...." she said, accepting the puzzle with a puzzled smile. She began to work on it, as usual a bit slowly, and the puzzled look increased after Bertie interrupted her.
"Not sure. You okay, man? Wait too long to switch to decaf today?" she teased.
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Mara Morales
....I'm certainly at least a little puzzled.
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Bertie Jackson
December 24, 2021 3:35 AM
Okay, but it's not that hard by Bertie Jackson
Why didn’t she get it? Why didn’t she get Their Code? How had she not figured that out by now, when it was the one that he used for All Significant Things, and when it contained such an obviously symbolic shift? Maybe she wasn’t the one for him after all. Maybe he was just projecting what he wanted to be true. But that wouldn’t be logical, and he was logical.And apparently, he was the weird one.
He managed a weak smile at her joke, a self-defensive reflex given that he knew he was supposed to be amused. He wasn’t quite sure he could manage to verbalise a response to that right now. What would you even say to that?
“I’m fine,” he lied, answering the theoretically easy part, though tripping over his words and pushing his glasses up even though they were already resting neatly where they ought to, He sort of wanted to curl into a ball whilst he waited, except that was probably an even bigger clue that he wasn’t okay.
Maybe he should say it was a mistake, or that he wasn’t sure the puzzle was any good and snatch it out of her hands and go join NASA and get pinged into space far away from people. That sounded great.
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Bertie Jackson
Okay, but it's not that hard
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Mara Morales
January 01, 2022 7:27 PM
We'll have to wait and see about that. by Mara Morales
Mara was only so-so with codes, but somehow, she had a premonition about this one as soon as she broke the first word. And it was...one that warned of Complications.If it had just been them, it would have been fine. Unfortunately, though, it wasn't just them. They weren't just Bertie and Mara, they were the younger siblings of Zara and Jessica. Who hated each other. Plus Zara hated Mara, too, and Jessica was a drama queen with emotional regulation issues, paranoia problems, and so much money that Mara was pretty sure the girl was eighteen years old and still sort of confused by the concept of things not going her way. And she was...well, she had been pretty sure that all four of them were aware of this. It was kind of how she'd still talk to Leonor even though Jessica had never forgiven her for dating Jeremy Mordue after Jeremy said something vile to Jessica at that Opening Feast in Mara and Leonor's first year. Jessica had made socializing at Sonora a bit like juggling grenades for Mara in general, but for the moment, all the ones she could see still had the pins in, or whatever it was that made grenades only infrequently explode when they weren't supposed to.
So, uh - is your sister okay with this?
As she finished decoding the message, Mara considered just...asking about that, but she dismissed that plan almost as soon as it formed. The reason they were friends was because they were rational people who didn't let their opinions on each other's sisters, or on their sisters' feud, interfere with them having some decent company around here. She would have been seriously ticked at anyone who asked her if she'd asked Jessica's permission to do anything that didn't involve Jessica's personal property, so it was a really safe bet that Bertie felt the same about the idea of asking Zara to approve of his plans before he executed them. Plus, it ticked Mara off to think about being subject to approval anyway.
"You know what? Sure," she said, looking up from the paper. "Sorry I'm not quick enough to reverse-engineer a code back on the spot, but yeah. Fair warning, though, my dancing skills never advanced much past the Hokey-Pokey. And what was that thing about Anya about?" she asked, remembering that.
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Mara Morales
We'll have to wait and see about that.
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