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!)

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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.]}

As a philosopher once said, "Never was anything great achieved without danger."

[And another once told her directly, you are drawn to danger like a moth to a flame. This is a conversation they've touched on before, that of risk versus boredom, but she still finds herself hovering on the verge of anticipation, half-expecting to hear Suhara's words in response, even though there's no way he could possibly know to say them.]

The same philosopher also believed that humans are invariably selfish, aggressive and power hungry.

_{[In other words, he's not inclined to take those words to heart.]}

Ambition is a double-edged sword; in and of itself, it's not inherently good or bad. Tempered with maturity, it can lend itself to greatness. Wielded with ruthlessness, it becomes destructive.

[And turns a young detective with limitless potential into a man obsessed with a single, fruitless goal. "Show me a hero and I'll write you a tragedy", indeed.]

Machiavelli only focused on half the equation.

A method which can never lead to a full understanding of human nature - or anything else.

_{[Secrets are still dangerous.]}

Does keeping secrets imply a dangerous nature?

No.

They're just dangerous, in and of themselves.

[There's a sort of shrug in her tone here, a half-agreement.]

But they do keep life interesting.

_{[He nods, because they are. The information itself might not always be, but the act of concealing it always has the potential to be damaging.]

[Then again, he can't argue with that, even though his voice takes on a largely passive note when he agrees.]}

I suppose they do.

[She should leave it alone there, she knows, having picked up on that shift in his tone, but still, she pushes just a little bit farther, making sure to guard her own so she doesn't reveal too much of how personal it really is.]

And sometimes they're kept because the alternative would be worse.

The outcome is easier to handle if you know the truth. The act of keeping something secret can be more damaging than the secret itself.

[...A bit too late for that revelation, isn't it.]

There's always the exception that proves the rule, detective.

[She will just TRY HARD to make this lighthearted again because oh, man, this is getting into uncomfortable territory.]

_{[FORESHADOWING]

[He does seem a little appeased at having that quote thrown at him again, and Julee is still singing sporadically to herself in the background. He exhales slowly rather than protest.]

[He understands, since she already told him she HAS secrets, and figures that she's trying to justify her keeping them.]

[So he repeats his answer from a month ago, a bit of a compromise between the loaded topic and the banter the quote brings back.]}

Except for rules without exceptions, Carmen.

[IF HE ONLY KNEW.

Strange how it feels as though they've just averted a crisis somehow, like they're both letting out breaths they hadn't realized they'd been holding. Another narrow escape, but as the saying goes, a miss is as good as a mile, and almost only counts in horseshoes.

And it's not until a moment later still that it hits her that this feeling means he's right.

Well played, detective. Well done.]

Which makes the ones who break them...exceptional?

_{[And there's a quick smile, because puns, even if terrible, are always source for amusement.]}

And would you be one of those people?

[Oh, please, like her ego would let that one go by without remark.]

I'd say so. Wouldn't you?

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