Welcome to Gaia! ::

Chandra shrugs, controlling her expression through sheer force of will. It is clear to her that if they were not involved, it wasn't because Truth didn't want to be. The woman's behavior made that clear this afternoon. But Chandra did not want this to end up like the last time they had spoken.

It was an important lesson to learn, this staying quiet sometimes. It made sense with enemies, but with friends... Chandra looked carefully at Dare ... it felt like lying.

"Truth," Chandra said, committing it to memory along with the woman's face. It would possibly pay to know someone else with powers like Dare's.

"I missed you as well Dare," she said honestly, removing her cape and allowing it to drape over the back of her chair. "I did not know if I would see you next in Life or Death. Or ever."

Her cape removed, Chandra pulled her hair back quickly into a small ponytail at the base of her neck. Anything to keep her hands busy and out of her lap where they would twist and fret.

"The Dead are pale comparisons to the Living," Chandra recited dully. It was one of Xochi's favorite sayings. "They do not understand passion in the same way because they are not operating under a deadline."

Picking up on Dare's humming, Chandra decided not to recount her latest revelations among the Dead. Instead she tilted her head to the side to better listen to the faltering tune emerging from some unknown source.

"Do you know the song?" she asked, trying to keep the conversation light.

Chandra glanced away at Dare's words. Her inborn talents weren't exactly the stuff of polite conversation.

But if she couldn't be herself, what was the point?

Looking carefully down at the surface of the table, where she had now laid her hands - both palm down and still, Chandra let her hair fall down in front of her face a little.

"That is a wonderful skill Dare. I'm sure you make some very beautiful music."

Music she would love to hear. Or to particpate in, the way they had on a couple occasions when they both were younger - and softer. But time moved on, and they'd changed. Perhaps too much.

"My skills tend to be a little less useful. I can sometimes see the color of a person's soul - whether the choices they've made have been good or bad - and I can feel when a person has died somewhere or if they are about to die."

Her voice trailed off into silence. She knew this would make him uncomfortable and maybe he would leave, making her efforts to wean him from his companion earlier in vain. But she couldn't be something she wasn't - even if it meant having Dare around more.

"The newly dead," Chandra said slowly, raising her eyes so she was truly looking into Dare's.

It was a bit of a shock to meet his eyes and she realized in that moment that she almost never really looked into someone's eyes. She feared what she would see there - what they thought of her and perhaps what she thought of them.

"I see," was really all she could muster. She wanted to tell him that she was sorry, that having to see the memories of people you didn't know anything about except that they were dead had to be heart wrenching - but she didn't really have experience with finding words for such emotions.

She tried again, her eyes most likely giving her away.

"It must be tough, seeing lives you know have already ended. It is nice that you have the music."

Chandra lets Dare's hands go without any attempt to keep them. Even though mentally she craves that sort of affection, physically it isn't particularly comfortable. It is simply a reminder of the warmth of the living, a trait she has been denied and one she cannot hide.

"Would it be?" she questioned, leaning back in her chair. "At least if you knew the person, you would have a framework within which to place the memories. You might even share some of them. I would like less the memories of those I did not know, for their life and memories are alien to me. What if their memories somehow slipped into mine?"

Lost in her thoughts, Chandra is startled by Dare's question. Her normal reluctance to speak is bypassed by shock and she blurts something out.

"Doomed? Just because something is not easy does not mean it is impossible. And not to be rude," she says, calming a bit, "but I doubt you have managed to mess anything up past the point of repair."

Chandra pounces on a particular phrase, sitting up again. Dare has found a sore spot, probably without realizing it.

"Forgive you?" she said, her eyes narrowing. "Why would I need to forgive you? What have you done?"

And if you're going to so do something, she added mentally, why don't you just warn me now.

"Oh," Chandra said, sitting back again. "Well, yes of course I remember. But I would not have verbally sparred with your friend Truth if I did not wish to speak with you. It would have been much easier to walk away."

On several levels, she added to herself with a mental sigh. The silent part of this conversation was getting to be pretty heavy.

Crossing her legs under the table, Chandra stretched her pale hands out in front of her on the table and spread her fingers wide.

"I would not have been upset by the way you treated me if I did not care for you. Since I do, it is easy to forgive you and hope that you will not act that way again."

Chandra shrugged, she was quickly reverting back to the safety of an impassive mask.

"You can assume my forgiveness, unless I tell you otherwise."

It was a bit more of a blanket staement than she had intended, but it conveyed the intended sentiment. He had a bit of a special pass in this department, having been around for so much of her life.

"One act of ... unkindness ... will not erase the memories and emotions of my childhood."

Many such acts, however, would merit a rather special sort of revenge. She grinned seriously, baring a tiny bit of the small fangs she had had since infancy, but then comforted herself with the notion that revenge against Dare would never become necessary.

Pushing back a wispy strand of hair, she slouched unconciously in her seat - putting her on more comfortable social footing with Dare.

"People have to walk their own paths. You can influence them," she explained slowly, parroting her earlier conversation with Lafe's guardian. "but they ultimately choose for themselves. It is a lesson I am still struggling to apply to my life."