PLOT

Jacq was late to breakfast, the jet lag had yet to wear off. She had thought most people had probably eaten by now and so she decided to take with her a somewhat detailed reference book on crystal growth. To most people the book would appear an arduous read but to Jacqueline this sort of thing had become her light reading material. Arriving at the cafeteria she took a tray and a simple breakfast comprising mainly of fruit, she had never liked these ‘full’ breakfasts as they called them, they always left her feeling a little ill afterwards. Sitting at an empty table with her book, dressed in little more than an oversized fleece and her long black hair tied back into a pony tail she flicked through the index.

She picked slowly at her food, she was in no rush to finish, after all according to the timetable she would only miss combat training, whilst she enjoyed such activities the word ‘combat’ made it all too militaristic for her tastes. Flicking through the book’s pages she reached the chapter detailing all the necessary conditions for crystal formation, she knew it inside and out of course but she was still looking for a more rational explanation of her power. She had difficulty accepting that she could manipulate the environment in such a way but since she had arrived here she was starting to believe it just might be possible after all. It’s strange what you believe when surrounded by people with such abilities. Stabbing a piece of banana with her fork Jacq got slowly more engrossed in her reading until she had almost stopped eating altogether and was taking no notice of her surroundings. She had almost excepted she was sat alone and so paid no attention to the girl walking into the cafeteria.

Shama had put the turban on her head and was wearing her loose, faded black and white stripped sweater. The loose black pants gave plenty of anonymity to her legs until they clenched around her ankles and by then it didn't matter. What she felt odd was not binding her breasts. She had been told that she didn't need to anymore, but it wasn't something she could quite believe. It was more than that however. It extended to the fact that she wasn't comfortable without her chest bound. For as long as she had been developing into a woman, she had only known what it was like to feel her chest bound tight. And now...it wasn't. She wasn't sure how exactly she felt about such a thing honestly.

She slipped into what they had told her was the cafeteria and questioned. This time, she was questioning why in the world she was being given food. She hadn't begged for it. She hadn't worked for it. She had done nothing at all actually. It had her confused and torn. This wasn't like any world she had ever seen or heard of. The world she knew, you either begged for your food, stole it, or bought it. Shama had always been one of the ones who begged for it. She sighed and reluctnatly grabbed a few things to eat eeling nervous about it the whole time.

There was only one other person in the room. She wasn't sure if she should even go near her, but at the same time, it felt rude to just go off and be alone. So she sighed and moved towards her slowly, bitting her lip and wondering how in the world she was going to get out the right English words. "Seet here?" she asked. The words were heavily accented and odd even to Shama's ears. She hted this English language. Hebrew and Amarigna she could understand. Why couldn't they speak those?

Jacq reacted with a start. She had been so engrossed in her book that she didn’t see the figure approach her. After getting over the initial shock she looked up to see the... girl? Jacq took a moment to analyse her first, she could swear that it was a girl but so much about her appeared so heavily masculine that she genuinely wasn’t sure. It then occurred to Jacqueline she was staring, despite her attempts to shake her upbringing she could still hear her nanny’s voice in the back of her mind telling her not to stare. Shaking her head slightly she snapped back into reality and began to process what the girl had said.

Poor girl obviously wasn’t English either, at least Jacqueline had a good schooling of the language but the difference in accents could make this difficult. She strained to make out what the girl was asking out of the combination of a heavy accent and poor grammar before realising what she had said. Jacq replied in her own somewhat heavy accent, it had been diluted during her years studying in England but there was still a definite dominance of a French accent in her voice, “Oh yes, please have a seat.” She delicately shut her book and slid it to the side as she placed her fork on the side of her bowl and held out her hand to greet the newcomer, “Jacqueline Gaudreau.” The introduction was somewhat more formal than was needed but from her upbringing Jacq had never learnt any other way, “Have you been here long? I only arrived early this morning.”

Jacq was smiling quite politely but anyone adept in reading a face would soon realise it was quite fake. Not that she was displeased to meet the girl, it was just what she was used to. Most of her life had been spent on teaching her how to stand and look pretty whilst her father closed a business deal that the polite and innocent smile had become second nature when meeting someone new.

Shama managed a smile as she sat across from the woman who introduced herself. She bobbed her head in a nod. "Shama Darzi," she spoke the words softly, but they were words that were easy for her. This was her name after all. It had been something she had been taught to say with a certain kind of pride since she was a child. The only problem was that the name was a clear contradiction. It didn't even matter that her mother had given her her grandfather's name to hide the truth of what she was, it was more than that. It was the fact that one name was Hebrew and the other name was Arabic. That was wrong. So many people knew that and the ones that had had always shunned her for it not even knowing the darker shame of her name.

The questions took a little longer to process. There had been so much to them. Simple words in abundance could be very difficult after all. She didn't know why people didn't understand that fact. It had always seemed like such a simple thing to her. She shook her head. Somethings weren't worth thinking on, especially for a simple mind. "No, not long," she admitted softly forming the words carefully. Twisting her tongue around some of the vowels was difficult, but she managed it. And that made her proud of herself. "Day before I come," she said. She wondered if those words made sense in English. She had seen that their words were arranged differently than those of her own tongues and it made her wonder why.

"Ees not so bad bad here," she said with a shrug, her thing sweater seeming to jump up and then settle back down around her thin frame still keeping her body hidden and ambiguous.

Shama wasn’t trying to be irritating, and if Jacqueline had been an outsider watching the conversation she would see nothing wrong but there was something, just one little thing that she couldn’t quite put her finger on that was aggravating her. Maybe it was the way Shama answered, possibly the way she shrugged perhaps it was the way she dressed but the feeling was building in the back of Jacq’s mind festering away until the right moment came along.

“No, it’s alright isn’t it. I’ve only been here a few hours but it seems pretty good so far.”

Jacqueline’s fork stabbed a piece of sliced banana with surprising force as her eyes locked with Shama’s. She wasn’t trying to be offensive but in the subtle changes of her posture and the way her eyes could burrow into people, it was starting to show that something hadn’t clicked.

“So... Shama was it? What is it you do? Everyone has some ‘gift’ right? So what’s yours?” Although her speech had accelerated and her tone sharp, she was genuinely interested. All these power things were still new to her and she really did find these inhuman abilities everyone had fascinating.

Shama didn't quite realize the situation she was in. After all, being around people on an intimate level of any kind had been something she had avoided. Therefore, one on one conversations with anyone but her mother had been something she had never done. Getting close to people had always meant that chance that her secret would come out and she simply couldn't allow that. She wasn't even sure she could allow that now. It was why she chose to wore the most baggy clothes she could along with her turban and bindings around her chest. No one needed to know she was a girl, did they? After all, what would happen if they did. It was simply too much, a girl with a Hebrew male's name a Muslim surname...that was worse than a boy in that situation.

The moment that Jacqueline's eyes locked with Shama's the other girl's eyes flicked away. Looking people in the eye was also something she didn't know how to do. It had been another thing that simply had too much risk. Instead she focused on her food and the words that were coming from the other female's direction. They were coming quickly and her mind was getting backed up as she tried to grasp it all. She was going to go into a panic in a moment.

"Too much, תאטי בבקשה, אני לא מבין אותך." Shama begged slipping into Hebrew. The young Ethiopian squeezed her eyes shut as her mind tried to grasp the words and the only thing she understood was git. She caught that. "Power?" she asked, her brow furrowed sharply. "Reason we here?"

Typically Jacqueline would have fallen into sarcasm here, with some form of remark like No I meant what did you get for Christmas last year. but she felt the words would fall on deaf ears with Shama. This only served to frustrate Jacqueline further, having to restrain herself. All this built up frustration was beginning to manifest itself subconsciously when Jacqueline’s fork began to sparkle as Jacqueline coated it absentmindedly in a very thin layer of crystals. Glancing at Shama once again with a condescending look Jacqueline decided to speak simply, hopefully that would get through, “Yes.” But Jacqueline’s mind couldn’t allow her to keep her words so garishly vague and she found herself involuntarily adding, “I asked what your power is.” It was still simple as Jacqueline managed to bite her tongue before allowing it to complicate the sentence.

“I make crystals... like jewels.” Suddenly Jacqueline dropped her fork with a start glancing at her hand, subconsciously she had forced the crystals into small razor like projections, catching her fingers on a couple of them. As the fork hit the table these crystals shattered, turning to nothing more than a fine powder, leaving the fork unharmed. Looking at her hand Jacqueline saw a few drops of blood appear on it which she dabbed delicately with her napkin before resuming her meal and looking at Shama expectantly.

The sarcasm would have been lost on Shama entirely. She had never been good on catching those kinds of things in other languages. Whoever had said that tone was universal was very wrong in that area. Different cultural values allowed her different things. Body language changed from region to region. Why shouldn't tone be any different? Most simply did not think that through. After all, why shouldn't tone carry over? Language didn't though. So why should tone have been any different? Besides, when you weren't forced to use sarcasm, you have no reason to ever learn it.

"Oh..." Shama said as Jacqueline gave her the example of what she could do. Now it made sense to her. And in some ways, the words even made sense. She could store them away in her mind to remember. "Voices," Sama said before trailing off and biting her lip. "I hear...what say," she tried to explain with the few words that she knew. It was what made sense to her. She could only hope that the words made sense to Jacqueline as well.