tapestodiane | 027

Entry tags:

027 - audio

[There's a sound a bit like static, then some rustling and clicking. Following that, a trill, a whistle, and something Talking Bird Julee feels she obviously has to share with the world:]

Diane. Diane.

[A few more clicks - probably from her beak. She has a pretty light voice, but she goes darker for the next line.]

Holy smokes.

[And then she'll just be whistling the tune to I've Told Ev'ry Little Star for a while. Who knows where Cooper is - probably off getting a caffeine fix or something.]

(backdated to April 19th!)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Eartha Quake.

_{[Yeah, he'll just be repeating that with a wide smile on his end.]}

I like it. _{[Terrible pun and all.]}

I'll need to trade her someday, for her to reach her full potential.

[NO THAT'S NOT A HINT AT ALL.]

_{[WELL THAT COULDN'T BE LESS OBVIOUS.]}

I'm sure we can arrange that at some point.

Much obliged.

Though you'd better not trade me Julee in exchange, or I might be tempted to keep her, instead.

She's something else, isn't she?

_{[There's a lot of love there, which he himself finds both strange and comforting. It's a bird, but he really is attached to her. He'd never have expected something like that.]}

[It's unmistakable, really. No indication that he might in any way dislike birds at all.]

She's a myna? Or something closely resembling one, at least?

_{[She'll find out, sooner or later.]}

She certainly speaks like one, but she looks more like a small parrot.

[Quite possibly the hard way.]

I'm eager to meet her.

From the sounds of it, I'd say the feeling is mutual.

But until then, I'll have to make do with stealing time to chat while you're otherwise occupied.

[Which coincidentally leads into an excellent segue...]

Important errands? Or do you just have a habit of leaving your Gear behind?

Not normally, no. I went out for a piece of cake and a moment of peace.

_{[He normally kept his gear on him, but given the day in question he'd opted to leave it behind, just for a while - especially following his own advice of a treat and some of his friends' demands from last year.]}

[Not yet intimately familiar with Coop and his love for all things pie, the mention of cake doesn't immediately stand out as strange. Not yet, anyway. So it's the moment of peace she focuses in on.]

You were reflecting on something.

[It's a zen thing, presumably.]

Today is my second birthday in Johto.

_{[He seems to consider it himself as he says it. It's still surreal to know he's been here that long.]}

[Now that's a topic certainly worthy of reflection, yes. Particularly considering how often she thinks about apparently missing her own by a handful of days here. But of course, there's still an observation to be made —]

You weren't planning on mentioning it?

[SHE WOULD HAVE REMEMBERED IF YOU HAD, OBVS.]

_{[WHICH IS FLATTERING but he still mentally shrugs.]}

I'm not usually one to celebrate.

It seems like a shame not to, when the opportunity only comes around once a year.

[And there's a moment here where she debates just how straightforward she wants to be, before finally just deciding to go for it.]

How old does this make you?

_{[The fact that it doesn't seem like much to celebrate isn't something he stresses.]}

Thirty-six.

[He's older, then. In a way, she's almost unsurprised by it; comparatively speaking, she's had a fair string of older men leaving their mark on her life already. The Inspector, Suhara. Even Maelstrom, as much as she hates to admit it.

And then she catches herself and takes a minute to wonder when it became such a natural inclination to add this one to that list.]

The prime of life. I hope you have plenty to enjoy about it.

_{[There's a mildly amused sound on his end. Not a laugh, but the sound one makes around a smile.]}

A surprising number of things, this year. Thank you.

_{[And it's true. It might be something of a depressing thought that the birthday he's celebrated in a completely different world easily trump most of the ones he's had in his own reality, but it's fact at this point and he doesn't stop to question or linger on it.]}

[Cake and reflection, she muses. And were it not for the chance antics of a clever little bird, she might never have known at all.

She wonders if he was right when he suggested they might be two of a kind. Her last birthday — not the one she missed by a handful of days here, but the one back home — was, in its way, just as solitary as the one he's describing now...and yet she'd done something about that, hadn't she? Planning a crime around famous gifts, daring her detectives to figure out her motive...

Though it hadn't been until they'd read her dossier that they'd realized how it all added up. Because without that incentive to look, no one would've known, or had reason to suspect. The thrill of the chase had been gift enough, then. It usually was; more often than not, it was the game she was really after. And yet, if she hadn't...

And yet, but for a chance line of questioning and a birdsong, he might have gone the whole day without drawing a single hint of attention to it.

So maybe they're not quite so alike in that respect, after all.]

You may not be one to celebrate, but are your friends the type to let a birthday go unnoticed?

[Presumably he has friends. Given his demeanor, he's probably got a lot of them. Sociable guy, that Agent Cooper.]

Only because I let them.

_{[He still sounds somewhat entertained by the topic. In truth, he never did feel very strongly about his birthdays, even as a boy. He could understand the significance and appreciate it all but it never did strike him as anything too special.]

[The interest kept waning over the years, of course, and he only notes it because of the official count. It could be because he's more solitary now, thinks less of himself, or because he just never truthfully understood the big deal, but he lets them slip by largely unnoticed and he doesn't mind.]}

You keep it a secret on purpose.

[It's an accusation, but a light and playful one. She doesn't know if it's a correct one, either, but either way she'll learn something from the answer, and she's eager to keep investigating the source of his amusement here, curious to see where it stems from.]

I don't keep secrets.

_{[Again, another truth. There's a difference to be made between lying and not talking about things.]}

I simply don't make it a habit to announce it.

[That's a distinction she's more than familiar with. Omission isn't the same thing as falsehood; it just shifts the burden to the detective to ask the right questions, and read between the lines to see what isn't there but should be.]

You don't keep any secrets?

Secrets are dangerous things.

_{[As he recalls telling Audrey. She's been on his mind more frequently than others from his time immediately before Johto and maybe that's why he quotes it exactly.]

[And when he thinks about it, her and Carmen do share similarities.]}

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