Speaking the Science of Rain (Dakota/open)

[JETTA]

It was raining. The noise of the rain over the bunker was deafening but Jetta sat silently, watching the beach far below. She was trying to decipher what the rain was saying. It was not a simple task, though. Rain did not think like human beings. It used science, wind, cooling air, moisture, and much more to communicate the simplest thing such as the amount of time it would rain. Or how big the rain drops were. It was a strange thing, really.

Watching through grey eyes, Jetta was deep in thought. She was like that sometimes. The previously always happy, always confident, always taking one for the team girl had moody spells more often than not. She could still switch them often. Didn’t mean she always would, though. Like many of the others, Jetta had seen quite a bit in her life. At eighteen, she had probably seen similar to what a young enlisted soldier saw over deployments. But over a longer period of time. Not that it bothered her too much. She had usually been the one to cause it. Except for the ones where it was her team getting injured. Killed.

Gently, Jetta stroked a thumb over her dry lips, subconsciously a little thirsty as she gazed at the ocean through the rain. Assuming she was alone, Jetta let her wings unfold, her feathers still damn from the flight she had taken to reach the bunker. It was hard to fly in the rain but if one communicated quickly enough, they could avoid the larger gist of wind and rain by speaking science. Flying in the rain or watching it always put Jetta in a melancholy mood. Almost like how watching a fire did to most others. Mesmerizing.

[DAKOTA]

Dakota sat in a building, thinking. Jetta should have been here. They
agreed to meet up, compare their notes on some of the activity in
town, ect. She had been waiting for several minutes and was about
to get up and leave when she heard something. It was raining.
Suddenly, flashes of a memory shot across her mind. They had had a
conversation not a few weeks ago, and she struggled to keep the
bits and pieces that she could remember in her mind...

"Have you ever wondered what the rain says?"

Dakota had been thrown off balance by that question, so she had
simply responded with a shrug and the lame excuse of "I don't think
I get your logic, Jetta."

Her feathered friend gave her a sincere gaze, then a slight laugh.
"Everything talks, Dakota. You just have to listen harder to things
with quieter voices."

Dakota would never call Jetta insane. As she listened to the pitter-
patter of the rain, their conversation clicked together a bit, and she
moved out of the room, feeling the light rain that was just starting.
There was only one place Dakota knew where the rain's voice would
be the loudest. The war bunkers almost seemed the right answer for
a place Jetta would want to go. It was like her. Dakota gave a down-
stroke of her wings, taking further off into the sky.

Rain, lightning, fire, wind, tree, walk, fear, human, flight...

Dakota had to suppress the fear that welled into her. That was
months ago, she couldn't let it bother her now. She felt the water try
to slip into her feathers, and she started a bit faster, trying to avoid
the through soaking that would come with her flight to the bunker.

By the time she arrived there, her wings were wet, and the storm
was nearing it's peak. She slipped inside and shook off her wings,
folding them against her back. Trying to sense her friend, but failing,
she decided that calling out for her would be the best course of
action. "Jetta?!" she called, hearing the words echo around the
concrete structure over the pounding of the rain.

[JETTA]

The rain gave no sign of easing up. Occasionally thunder rolled, telling Jetta that this storm was not about to end. It was that season for rain, though. Vaguely, Jetta wondered what had happened on these beaches so many years ago. She couldn’t ask the sands and hills herself, for even she didn’t have that power. That kind of talking required a skill that she wasn’t sure she would ever have, even if she spent the next fifty years learning it.

Jetta heard a voice, then, of a familiar friend of hers. “In here.” Jetta called absentmindedly, still staring at the rain. She would be able to follow the sound of her voice, ears even more sensitive than the echoes that would have confused many. Once Dakota came closer, Jetta looked up and looked at her through the shadow that shrouded them both, reading her as she knew Dakota would be reading herself.

There was a slight hint of something in her body language that suggested fear or unease. It was only leftovers from something previous, though. Had Dakota run into trouble? Was something wrong? But no, that was gone. Whatever it was, it was something inside of Dakota. Not able to read her further, Jetta refrained from asking. Her friend would tell her about the fire, the rain, the lightning if she felt the need to and Jetta would ask if the time was right, but when greeting each other it was not.

Smiling slightly, a hint of her typical mischievous smile, Jetta turned back to the rain, pretending to be aloof and mystical. She knew Dakota would see right through it, though. She had fun trying to trick her, though, as she was sure Dakota occasionally did to her. “A draught is coming…” Jetta said mysteriously before looking back at the pouring rain. It was a laughable prediction, given the current circumstances. She was teasing, of course. Trying to lighten her own mood a little, to snap out of the trance she had been in.

Shuffling her brown wings, Jetta knew trying to get them dry was in vain. The air was too damp. Even now it spoke to her, whispering across her fingertips. They had to have a fire if they wished for it to be dry. Jetta didn’t wish to kill the tiny particles of H2O yet, though. It wasn’t as if they were intentionally unfriendly to her feathers.

[DAKOTA]

Dakota took the few seconds of "silence" to shake her wings, then
she heard the response. She counted the echoes. One, two, three...
She closed her eyes, tracing back the sounds. It came from the left,
at an angle. There was another turn it bounced from. She started
down the left hall way, then came to a right turn, or follow. She
turned right and came into a darkened room, seeing Jetta in the
middle of the room. She gave a smirk, walking up to her and taking a
seat by her, giving her wings another shake to get rid of the water.

All the emanated from her companion seemed to be darkness. She
was in one of her... Moods, again. She didn't try to dig, seeing as the
girl would give her privacy to her emotions, should she had been
able to read emotions as well. Besides, the last thing that they
needed to worry about was Jetta deciding to attack her. They both
knew that a battle between them, how entertaining it might be,
would have to end in a draw. In Dakota's mind, they were evenly
matched, but she was never a hundred percent sue, and had a
feeling that she wouldn't be able to kill Jetta, if it came down to that.

Dakota felt the emotions shift, and she gave a smile. The other avian
said, with a mysterious flair, that a drought was coming. She gave a
laugh, light and whimsical, shaking her head. "Yes, a drought while
we live next to the ocean," she responded, giving a smirk towards
her friend. Something was bothering Jetta, but Dakota couldn't quite
put a finger on it. She decided to save it for later. Now wasn't really
the time. Dakota nodded to her surroundings before she responded.

"Nice weather we're having," she continued, giving a shake of her
head. "What brings you out to the middle of nowhere?" she asked
curiously, a sly smile playful on her lips.

[JETTA]

Smirking slightly, Jetta watched Dakota with lazily half-hooded eyes, the only gleaming part of her in the cool darkness. “Have you ever tried to drink from the ocean, my friend?” She asked, a figurative question. A fight between the two would have been an incredible thing to see. However, as Jetta did not know the end results of it, and either way seemed less than favorable, it would satisfy her if such a thing never happened.
Dakota could not have been surprised to find her here. Not many people knew where to find Jetta unless they knew her. If you knew her, you usually knew where she would be. Why was Jetta here? There were many reasons, of course. The lonely rain eased her aching mind, from which she longed to be free, only if for a few moments. The stones and hills drew her as well. They hinted at a hidden and deep language, so powerful yet so sorrowful, that Jetta could just barely begin to tap into.

A lot had happened on those beaches. Mostly unhappy things. That was Jetta, seeking to hear something else brooding when she herself was being broody. It helped clear her mind. Never would she decipher the language of the shore or the stones and that intrigued her. It kept her mind busy in vain effort, stretching and expanding it in ways that made her dizzy when she snapped out of it.

“How did you know where to find me?” Jetta asked with a sly smile, instead of answering the question. In a way, it did answer the question. Jetta didn’t try to shield her emotions, nor did she try to strengthen them. They were simply what they were.

Patting the stones beside her, Jetta motioned for Dakota to join her if she so wished. Jetta’s little perch over-looked the ocean and other stone buildings, runes from not-so-ancient wars. In truth, the place was starting to make Jetta itch for a fight. If Dakota wasn’t feeling it as well, Jetta wasn’t sure if she knew her friend anymore. With a twitch of her knife-hand, Jetta grinned at Dakota. It was a strange one. Almost a reflection of her sister (clone?). Minus the sharp teeth. The flare in her eyes wasn’t quite that one of bloodlust insanity, though. However, it was nearly as dark. A sign for the mood Dakota had caught her in.

[DAKOTA]

Dakota watched Jetta as she spoke, asking whether she had tried to
drink from the ocean. Dakota refrained the urge to tell her that there
were machines and other such things in order to make the ocean's
water drinkable. Instead, she just gave a smile and replied with.:
"Yes, I find the salt-water invigorating for a sore throat." A daring
smirk played on her lips, and she considered the thoughts of a fight
against her friend. By simple law of syllogism, it was a toss up about
who would win the fight. They had both fought the same person,
both won and lost to them, so it would be completely unknown the
powers that each of them would have in a fight against the other.

Jetta asked how she knew where she was, and Dakota gave a
smirk. "Something you said once," she replied, just as mysterious as
the other girl had made her response, giving a nod. The rain wasn't
letting up, but it wasn't getting worse either, so that was good for
the time being. The storm might have reached it's apex, and was
now going to start slowing down once it killed off all the extra
energy it had stored. The sooner it was done, the sooner they could
run off to do other things, other than just sit around.

She patted the stone beside her, and Dakota moved to sit next to
her friend. She could feel her friends itching anticipation, she
wanted a fight. Dakota cocked her head at her friend, giving a
smirk. "I see you've kept as much energy as this storm," she
replied evenly, raising a brow towards her friend. "I don't think
just any fight would suffice for your craving, however," she
continued thoughtfully, watching Jetta's face for any sign of her
assumption being true.

ooc: fight? :3