Hiding the Marks

"I don't know about obvious," she said carefully. "But you do seem awfully...bright? Well, a little jumpy, certainly. Sorry, I'm not very good with words." She glanced down at her lap for a second. Then her curiosity got the better of her and she looked up again. "But what happened?"

Adonia looked down at her lap a moment before sighing and slowly scraping the discolored scales off her arm to join those already scattered across the ground, revealing the large bruise covering her arm.

"I er..... had a bit of an accident" she said with a sheepish grin. "well... more of an encounter.... but yes...."

She tilted her head to the side once more, narrowing her eyes slightly as was her habit. "An...encounter? With...?" That bruise looked nasty, and she almost winced sympathetically.

"A... creature... in the dungeons" she said with a grimace remembering the incident with the giant Dane. "This one's not nearly as-" she stopped short... he didn't to alert Jane to the nastier ones spanning the length of her back and the large bump on the back of her head.

"Ah, creatures in the dungeons. Always exciting," she said calmly as if they were discussing the weather. "But it's not nearly as what?"

"er... not nearly aaaaas..... bad as it could have been!" she said looking relieved that Jane had not caught on to her slight lie. Technically the large man was a creature.... technically.... She rolled her shoulders in discomfort from the large bruises, before trying to steer the conversation back to Jane.

"Have you ever been down there?" she asked.

"Once or twice," she said with a shrug. "Not really long enough to run into something nasty though, and never without my scythe. I don't generally like rumors, but without..." she was about to say 'without my guns I feel safer having something large to hit things with', but changed the end slightly. "...I just feel safer with it."

"I understand.." she said thinking of her own scythe, frowning a bit as she remembered that it hadn't done her any good against the Danish brute. "I generally prefer to have mine with me as well." she admitted, flicking her hair back from her face.

She looked at Jane a bit sheepishly. "You won't tell anyone about .... this" she said indicating her arm. "Will you?"

She sighed. "Personally, I think a trip to the infirmary couldn't go astray. I mean, if you get bumps and bruises and...stuff...then you might as well go get it fixed, you know? But I won't tell anyone if you don't want me to."

Adonia shrugged. "I'm studying medicine with Iva right now" she sighed, "but generally you have to wait a bit for thing like bruises to go away.... plus... I don't want Jack to know" she admitted.

"Ah..." she sighed. "Well...what are you going to do then?" Bruises did have an irritating habit of sticking around, which was one reason why Jane liked wearing long sleeves and pants, though admittedly (once she'd gotten used to swinging her scythe) she hadn't gotten as many bruises since joining the Athenaeum.

Addi sighed. "I'm really not sure..." she said looking at the bruise appraisingly and moving her shoulders experimentally. "I gotta think of something... I was gonna cover it with my scales... but it turns out they are discolored as well."

"Hmm..." she thought for a second, trying to puzzle over this.

"Do you think you could get a shirt or something to cover it?" she mused aloud. "No, that wouldn't work because it would be out of the ordinary..." Jane narrowed her eyes in thought, not really seeing Adonia anymore but lost in the puzzle of what they could do to hide the bruise.

Adonia looked at the bruise with some annoyance. "I could wear a shirt if it weren't so out of the ordinary.... or if I had a good excuse I suppose..." She laughed lightly. "I suppose I could always use my scales to cover them and say the discoloration is something I spilled on myself." She said cheekily.

(Sorry for late reply. ;3; I didn't see that you had posted *facepalm*)

"Well, that's better than anything I've come up with," she said with a shrug. "The only real problem with that is that stains go away quickly when you just spill them on skin...or scales...and bruises don't. Maybe we should start coming up with an excuse for you to wear a shirt...?"

Adonia gave the older girl a sheepish grin. "Yes.... that probably would be best." she said, fiddling with her hair a bit as she thought. "Its a pitty I don't normally dress in regular human clothes" she mused. "There must be some excuse I could make though... Just what...."

"You could....claim it's cold? Or that you have a cold? Would that be a good excuse?" It was an excuse often used for strange behavior in Jane's time, despite the fact that there was a medicine for almost everything except for a few new diseases that had sprung up, and the first that came to mind. The second biggest excuse was for some obscure religion that nobody else had ever heard of and was most likely made up on the spot.

Adonia laughed. "But cold doesn't bother me... though I'm not sure if Jack knows that..." she mused.... "Perhaps I could just say that I wanted to try some different clothes.... "

"That would be a problem, yes," she consented. "But that's a good idea. Maybe you could say that you liked the style? I bet there's tons of stuff you could borrow or something that would look flattering, so that would be a good excuse."

"Indeed" she said, pondering the problem. "Perhaps I should ask Tahi if she can help me..." she mused, a smile playing across her face at the thought.

If there was anyone in the Athenaeum who could help her with her wardrobe issues, it was Tahi. The new mentor was known to have quite the incredible collection of clothing stowed away in her room.

She didn't know her as well as she would have like to, but she did hope that perhaps the young woman would have some ideas as to how to solve this dilemma.

Jane knew who Tahi was, through mention and just by making a point of knowing who people were, but she'd never come into any real contact with the mentor herself. So she nodded diplomatically, trying to remember what she'd heard. Which wasn't much. "If she would help, it'd be worth asking. Maybe she'd come up with a better excuse, too."

"Perhaps" Addi mused, rolling her shoulders in annoyance as the bruises on her back throbbed. "She is known to be up on all the hot gossip... you really can't say much of anything around here without her being able to hear it if he want's to." she said looking around her. "In which case I should definitely talk to her..." she said with a nervous grin.

"Probably," she said with a nod. "I mean, from what you just said, she probably knows already and is trying to decide which outfit would look best on you."

Addi laughed. "That would be just like her." she said, as she looked back at the young woman sitting with her. "So what i your time like?" she asked

((Sorry if I already asked this... I've lost track XD))

Jane paused, thinking for a second. "Very...different," she said at last. "Coming here has been like coming to a completely different world, admittedly one I've read about in school when we covered history. It's very odd, and has taken a while to get used to, but...people are kinder here, which has certainly helped. I have to admit that there are a few things I miss about it, though."

[ Nope, no problem xD ]