please let this go well

[Zoe Wallerstein-Smythe]

Zoe nodded, adding another shy smile. She could practically feel the words falling together in her mind, layered over a picture of Alice. the hard cocoon hides the beauty//constant struggle to release//tight smiles tear holes//grasped hands pull//are we both in the cocoon?

More nodding at the mention of Shakespeare, eventually leaning forward, eyes open. "Exactly! All too often they just give a happy ending to someone, even if they didn't deserve it, and, well, things usually end more painfully then that," it wasn't quite as cynical or heavy as Alice's thoughts, as usual, but still. As for the poetry at ten, Zoe at least understood the jest. "Well, poetry can be quite dangerous," she said.

Zoe closed her eyes, seeming to draw on something as she spoke: "Poetry is above all a concentration of the power of language, which is the power of our ultimate relationship to everything in the universe," came out in intonation before she opened it. "Though that's from the same person who said that 'poetry is the liquid voice that can wear through stone,' which I kind of like better," Zoe shrugged and took another sip. "Sounds less pretentious..."

She looked to their entwined hands again, smiling shyly to herself, knowing that it had to be exceptionally silly, given everything. She shook her head. "Like I said, I'm very into it, obnoxiously so. Don't worry though, I don't go around quoting from poets all that often," she rolled her eyes. "Though you're more then welcome to, if you want to try and woo me, that is," said a little teasingly, with an actual mischievous smile that lit those expressive brown eyes again.

[Alice Hobbs]

Nodding, Alice offered Zoe something of a smile before pursing her lips. "Yeah," she nodded again, "Anyone who live knows that life is not a dance on rose petals, as so many movies and stories seem to make it out to be. A lot of those things seems to give people an unrealistic view on life, whereas Shakespeare did not -- or at least, not to some degree." Which of course, Alice didn't really agree with, which again, wasn't much of a surprise, given her cynical view on well... everything. "Dangerous?" she asked, quirking her brow. "How so?"

When Zoe started explaining though, Alice pushed her own thoughts away and gave the girl her full focus. "Adrienne Rich?" Alice asked with a tight smile before laughing. "Honestly, I have little knowledge of poetry, its meaning or how to even write it, so consider me... Clueless." And boy, was that a tough nut to swallow.

She did however find it rather attractive to watch Zoe speak of something she was clearly that passionate about.

Pursing her lips, Alice tried digging through her brain for any poems she knew; Which was surprisingly hard, consider how much she read. "I'm sad to admit that nothing really comes to mind as we speak, but I'll keep that in mind for sure," she smirked. She was certain she would use that knowledge one day, if things ever progressed that far, of course. And why Alice was thinking about the future like that, she didn't know. Especially as she had scolded Zoe for doing the same thing. Planning the future was normal for Alice, but planning the future with someone else was completely different. It felt odd, and she could notice the effect the other girl had on her.

She just had to decide whether or not it was a good thing.

[Zoe Wallerstein-Smythe]

It certainly sounded as though Alice and Zoe saw things quite nearly identically. Life was hard, damn hard, and if they were dancing on rose petals, someone had left the thorns attached. It was a matter of whether or not you were willing to bloody your feet to move forward...

...and each of Zoe's footsteps bled.

"Yes, that's her," agreed Zoe, beaming and nodding, "so you can't be quite completely clueless on the issue. Believe me, there are people here who wouldn't even known who Adrienne Rich was unless I told them,' she rolled her eyes, thinking of several of her friends. She and Becky had a long conversation where Zoe had fought hard to convert the other girl. While she did enjoy those conversations, there was something nice about being able to say so now.

Zoe looked down bashfully as Alice teased, shifting in her seat again. "I don't mean now," she said. She gave Alice a shy look. "I don't expect you to be able to produce poetry on command or anything. Besides," she took a breath, finally able to pull herself to look Alice in the eyes, "if you did, then I'm fairly certain I couldn't quite resist you. As we're in public, that would be most dreadful, though I'm quite certain that despicable blog would come with a very lovely name for you when they inevitably wrote about it," seeing as said blog seemed unable to leave Zoe out of its messages. She couldn't help but wonder who she'd angered to get that much attention.

[Alice Hobbs]

"Mmm," began Alice, pursing her lips as she shifted her position. "I know of the name because I read a lot - and take classes I don't normally need," she added; Not that she had ever taken a poetry class, but she could vaguely remember the poet's name being mentioned in some English or Literature class? Oh, whatever. It didn't matter in the end, did it? Waving it off with her free hand, Alice sighed. "I don't know much more than that though, so don't get your hopes up just yet."

Alice's head tilted to the side and yet another coy smirk formed on the brunette's lips. "My, look who suddenly grew a pair." The smirk turned into a crooked grin. However, at the mention of the blog, Alice's snorted. "There's something to be said about someone who commit themselves to gossip about other people, and it's not something could, I can promise you that." Rolling her eyes, Alice looked at the other girl.

"If the blog find me interesting enough to write about me and my life, then so be it; It's not like I'm going to run around feeling embarrassed for something I did when I made the choice to do so myself -- or rather, possibly made a choice." 

No, Alice could care less about some damned blog; Of course, she had heard of it several times as it often seemed to be the talk of the day, but she had never cared enough to actually look at it. Gossip didn't interest her. Especially not when it was about people that didn't interest her. Which was more or less everyone at the school, give or take a few people.

"So, as you can imagine, getting my name up in a blog is the least of my concerns."

[Zoe Wallerstein-Smythe]

"I'll keep my hopes at an appropriate level," lied Zoe evenly. She really should know better, even as she was fairly certain that her mind was immediately jumping to conclusions that simply did not make sense for her situation. Was it really so wrong to hope that she might be happy for once? Then again, maybe she'd picked the wrong person to try and be happy with.

Though Alice was snorting and teasing soon enough. Zoe wasn't surprised at all to find that Alice was so easy in accepting the blog. She smiled and looked down again, once more trying to hide her awe at the other girl. Didn't Alice realize how impressive she sounded? How strong? Should Zoe say it? No, no point: Alice would just wave it off. Then again, maybe Zoe should be the one sitting there telling Alice all the wonderful things about herself.

"Well," she finally said, pulling her eyes up from the mug, "the blog seems to quite like to stalk me," she sighed, looking down. "It's the one that called me the Lesbian Pikachu and made certain that quite everyone knew that I'd sent my ex to the hospital. So like I said," she looked up, smiling a little sadly, "it will inevitably write about you. Probably something about you being the druggy fairy or something," Zoe actually giggled at that. "Or maybe you'll be a Pokemon too, and they'll talk about how I was all... oh, how is it phrased," Zoe tilted her head and chewed her lip in thought, "very effective? That sounds about right. How I was very effective against you," she smiled, clearly pleased with herself, even rewarding with another drink.

[Alice Hobbs]

Alice had to admit that she was a little surprised to hear that a blog would take interest in someone so shy, but then again, maybe that was exactly why the blog had picked Zoe to begin with. Picking on the people that appear weaker to exploit them, and thus create a scene. What better way was there to make the higher ups feel more insecure than putting the spotlight on someone that might not matter as much?

Furrowing her brows as she worked through the different theories, Alice licked her lower lip. "Lesbian Pikachu?" she asked, quirking her brows in amusement. "Really? That's awfully tacky." Then again, it was also a little cute, and she could totally understand the mouse reference. "Well, I'm not worried, so you shouldn't be either. At least not for my sake." No, Alice really couldn't care less about what other people thought of her. After all, that said more about them than what it did her.

She did however smile at Zoe's attempt to make the whole ordeal sound cuter than what it really was and for once, Alice didn't feel the need to burst the happy bubble Zoe had spun around the situation.

"Maybe I'll be a Butterfree and they'll call us Butterchu," she smirked.

[Zoe Wallerstein-Smythe]

Tacky? Definitely, and Zoe found herself nodding in agreement. Though at the same time, she was tempted to point out that it was kind of cute, as she'd realized when she'd actually found out what a pikachu happened to be. Alice, however, seemed to pick up on that though, considering how she continued.

"Butterchu?" replied Zoe, letting out a little giggle again. "That sounds both ridiculous and adorable at the same time. Though I suppose that does sort of work for the situation," she let out another nervous giggle before looking down at her coffee again. Doubts wormed their way into those few moments of silence, and Zoe fought to keep her grin on her face. Alice clearly liked her, so Zoe needed to stop wondering why that was, needed to just keep going forward. The conversation was going fairly well, after all.

The coffee, yes, that would work: "how do you like, um, the coffee?" asked Zoe, looking back up to Alice. "Or, uh, whatever it is you got. There," she pointed at Alice's drink and then looked away, flushing again, clearly embarrassed at having so easily lost her own nerve and gumption.

[Alice Hobbs]

"Exactly," Alice smiled. At least Alice had that much knowledge of Pokemon, though, that mostly came from her sister's period of the anime and games rather than her own. Alice herself wasn't one for games; She never really had been. Then again, she was a very bland person who didn't like a whole lot of things. Surprise, right? Squeezing Zoe's hand again, Alice turned her attention back to her now sleeping hand, which she had little to no control over. At least not in the general sense. It felt odd, but not in a bad way. Not something she couldn't get used to at any rate.

Zoe's question had Alice's eyes snapping back up again, warming a little as they gazed at the other girl. Nodding, she dropped her gaze to her cup of now cold cappuccino. "Cappuccino," she said, "And I like it very much -- which is why I ordered it." Another smile followed as Alice chuckled softly. "You've never had one?" It was pretty much the only caffeinated drink that Alice drank. She wasn't big on coffee unless it was creamy and sugary.

Which was - now that she thought about it - kind of ironic.

Lifting the cup to her lips, she took another sip of it and grimaced slightly as she noticed just how cold it had gotten. "It's not nearly as good when it's cold," she added, feeling the need to explain her grimace. Someone as nervous as Zoe was bent to notice small things like that, right?

[Zoe Wallerstein-Smythe]

The squeeze drew Zoe's attention back down to their entwined hands. She couldn't believe that she'd forgotten, just sort of thought of it as natural. What was more surprising was that Alice seemed to still be able to move. Zoe knew that her power worked differently on different people, but, well, this had to be the slowest she'd ever seen it work. Maybe she was slowing it down or something?

"I've had cappuccino before," replied Zoe, this time rolling her eyes a little. "I come here quite often, so I've had quite a bit of the menu, actually," she looked down at the drinks, noticing that yes, they had gone a little cooler. Zoe's probably wasn't quite as bad, as she'd been doing a slightly better job of drinking it. There was a grimace there, which of course Zoe noticed, but she at least was able to note that it had happened around the drink.

"Did you want to get another?" offered Zoe, gesturing. "Or, um, we could go and walk if you'd like? We should probably, um," she looked down at their hands, flushing for a moment. Zoe licked her lips and pulled her head up. "We should probably switch arms or something soon though. I'd hate to accidentally damage you at least," she smiled, "not on the first date, right?"

[Alice Hobbs]

"Ah," she said, once again nodding; She seemed to do that a lot. "Cappuccino is pretty much the only caffeinated drink that I drink, so." She shrugged a little at that. "I'm more of a water and juice drinker than anything else, honestly." Though, a little coffee every now and then didn't hurt. Or rather, a little cappuccino every now and then didn't hurt.

Shaking her head no, Alice smiled, "No, one cup is more than enough," she laughed. "I'm not sure if my body could handle that much caffeine." Then again, she wasn't even sure if it affected her much with her ability and all. She knew that she had to drink an enormous amount of alcohol in order to feel even the slightest hint of effects, but she wasn't sure if that worked the same way for coffee. "As for the walk, yes please; I don't like sitting still for longer periods of time. It makes me restless," she explained as her eyes dropped down to their hands again. "Yeah, that's probably wise," she said, smiling. Lifting her other hand for the girl to take, Alice released her hold on her hand.

"Well, you haven't managed to scare me off thus far, so even if you did end up damaging me, I don't see that being a deal breaker." If anything, Alice was the most likely to do any damage; Perhaps not in the respect of abilities, but in general terms, anyways.

"Anywhere in particular you'd like to go? The park, perhaps?"

[Zoe Wallerstein-Smythe]

"Duly noted," replied Zoe, nodding. "I'll make sure to just ask you to juice bars from here on out."

Then smiling and moving on with regards to the drink. They seemed to be ready to move on to the walk, which suited Zoe. She wasn't quite as restless as Alice in that regard, but she certainly wouldn't mind getting up and moving now. She readjusted her position on her hand, taking the other hand as she rose up.

"You haven't scared me off either," replied Zoe, nodding, figuring that she should try and toss that back for a change. After all, the date did rely on two people to agree to stick around, and, well, Zoe didn't see any reason not to try and tease. She reached into her pocket with her other hand, trying to pretend like she wasn't tingling. Alice probably didn't have quite the motor skills and all, and Zoe did have enough to handle it and all.

"Well," she said as she set some money down, careful to fold it and tuck it in, "I do think the park would be quite lovely. It's not too far from here either, just a bit down that way," she nodded and pointed, then flushed. "Though I suppose you'd know better then me. You've probably been here much longer," considering that Zoe had only been around for a few months, after all...

[Alice Hobbs]

Quirking her brow, Alice watched Zoe curiously as she seemed to think that she was being far from obvious. Though, she figured she could give her this one, at least for now.

"The park it is," Alice nodded, "I'll pay for the ice cream," she said and winked at the other girl. Getting up onto her feet, Alice offered Zoe something of a smile as she nodded. Yes, considering how Alice had spent her entire life here, it would be foolish to claim she didn't know the town like the back of her pocket. "Probably?" she laughed, shaking her head, "I grew up here, Zoe," she added with a smirk.

The park was beautiful, especially this time around the year. They'd already been over it, but it was even more breathtaking in person. The colors, the pond, everything. It was magnificent.

Waiting for Zoe to get up, Alice started walking towards the door, reaching out her free hand to open it. Placing herself with her back against it, she gestured for Zoe to walk first, "Ladies first," she said, grinning. After all, Zoe was obviously the more lady-like out of the two of them, in case that hadn't been made obvious yet.

"What kind of ice cream do you like anyways?"

[Zoe Wallerstein-Smythe]

Ice cream? Zoe didn't quite remember agreeing to go out for that, but she certainly wasn't going to object to the idea. Spending more time with Alice sounded like a truly marvelous idea, and listening to the other girl planning it out only made Zoe feel all the more bubbly and excited. She also certainly didn't mind splitting the costs, seeing as she only had so much.

The laugh and the comment had Zoe flushing. Yes, Alice certainly would know the area more. You only had to listen to Zoe for a few sentences to realize that she certainly hadn't been calling Kalispell her home for too horribly long. Still, she knew how to get to the park, and she was already heading with confidence.

The ladies first comment drew another sweet giggle from Zoe, and she turned to half-pull Alice through, smiling at the other girl. "As if you're not lady," she said teasingly. She came around to walk beside Alice, adjusting their hands so that Zoe's finger slid comfortably around Alice's. It still struck Zoe as a little odd that her power seemed to be taking a while, but before she could wonder too much, Alice asked her question.

"Oh, well," she said, chewing her lip in thought for a few moments. "I usually like the lighter fruitier kinds, sometimes even sherbert," she said, nodding and smiling shyly. "Let me guess: you like chocolate, right?" she tapped a finger from her loose hand on Alice's arm, smiling at the other girl.

[Alice Hobbs]

Laughing, Alice pursed her lips, "No, I'm not," she said, snickering a little; There was very few things that was ladylike about the brunette. At least, she didn't consider herself as such. She did however smile a little as she felt Zoe's finger slide around her own. Casting a glance at her, she quirked her brow, but didn't say anything about it. She figured she didn't need to embarrass the girl any further.

"Sherbert? Not sure if I've ever tasted that," she admitted; She was the kind of person who preferred few kinds of ice cream, and usually stuck to those until she grew sick of them. When Zoe attempted at guessing her favorite though, Alice shook her head, "No, I'm not really fond of chocolate ice cream; Vanilla and pistachio are my favorites," she said, grinning. She had liked those ever since she was a little child and she had yet to grow tired of them.

Guiding them towards one of the ice cream stands, Alice moved over to the counter. Looking at Zoe, she nodded towards the menu list, "Pick whatever you want," she said as she reached for her wallet. She herself was going to have one pistachio, one vanilla and one tutti frutti ball of ice cream; Because everyone knew that mixed ice cream was the best kind of ice cream.

[Zoe Wallerstein-Smythe]

"Well, you must be, otherwise I wouldn't be attracted to you," protested Zoe, sticking her tongue out for a moment, feeling like she'd just won that little argument. Oh, she figured she knew precisely what Alice meant: that she was rough around the edges. Zoe had barely been around the other girl and she already could tell that most of Alice's edges were sharp enough to cut. That didn't bother Zoe at all: you could always smooth those out, or at least move around them if you knew how.

Not that she'd want to change Alice so much as learn to respect and like the edges. She did so far: she liked that she felt herself sharpening upon the other girl and, well, like she said: she hoped they rubbed off on one another. Her heart felt a little lighter, though she knew that simply being out, openly dating another woman who wasn't Devyn, was helping a lot with that.

Though it did surprise her that said woman hadn't had sherbert before. The correction had Zoe giggling. "Really, vanilla? You don't strike me as much of a vanilla girl," she replied, giving the other's hand a squeeze. "And I've never had pistachio: it always sounded so strange. Which should even us out," referring to sherbert.

Oh, a cart: Alice must have known about it, but Zoe seemed surprised. Thankfully they'd just been talking, putting it at the forefront of Zoe's mind. She looked over the various selections, noting that they did seem to have a decent amount. Only one flavor of sherbert, but at least they had that. Orange was never something that Zoe much cared for though. She hemmed and hawed for a moment, before looking over.

"I usually eat lighter things," she admitted before looking back. "It just always feels so strange to eat the heavier..." she looked at the scooper then at her date, then back at the ice cream, feeling like she should make an actual decision sometime soon. "Oh, is that a cotton candy flavor? I'll have a scoop of that' she said, nodding and pointing at the batch, practically giggling with relief. "Oh!" she said, looking up. "Can I have a cherry?" she looked over at Alice. "It's alright if I have a cherry, right?"

{post 1,000 for Zoe}