a little mad time [open]

[annabelle]

living is easy with eyes closed

[/color]

- - - - misunderstanding all you see - - - - [/font][/color][/center]

"Thank you."

Anna offered a smile to the girl who delivered her tea along with the newly ordered apple pastry. Giving the pastry plate a small push to the side, she took a sip from the tea as she waited for steam to stop rising from her treat. It's rich, peppermint flavor warmed her almost, imediately so she breathed in deep, inhaling the aroma. The scent always took her back, usually to her mother who kept peppermints in her purse or pockets when she didn't carry her purse. Pushing the nostalgic thought aside, she set her tea away and focused back on the table in front of her.

Against her pension for overworking, she'd taken a day to herself and even left the CIA building on her own-a rare feat for her. Despite the warm, summer weather she wore a pair of loose jeans with a t-shirt and sneakers, one foot tapping with her song. She seldom wore anything except pants, largely due to a puckered, white scar on the back of her left leg courtesy of a stray bullet several years earlier. While she wasn't really interacting with people, she'd taken one of her sketchbooks and a pack of colored pencils to Alice's Tea Cup, having a certain soft spot for the place. It helped the place was based around one of her favorite stories, plus it was the inspiration for her latest drawing.

The right earbud was tucked into her ear, the classic rock station playing, while the left hung at her side. She hummed along, quietly to Pat Benatar as she began shading on the picture. It showed a sleeping Alice curled up under a tree, the Cheshire Cat and other Wonderland inhabitants watching over her from the branches. Only the Mad Hatter was missing, though the strange little man was drawn hanging upside down with his hat clutched in one hand. Her picture was a throw back to the original book more than the latest Tim Burton offering. Adding a bit more coloring to one of the Cheshire Cat's stripes, she tucked the colored pencil back into its slot and withdrew another one.

"New song, getting too melodramatic," she mumbled to herself before hitting the skip button. She further skipped over the message warning her she only had two skips left. Her hand went back to the picture, resuming its coloring of Alice's hair while her other lifted the cup for a drink, eyes barely lifting from the drawing. A moment later, she paused to rotate her wrist so it wouldn't lock up then cut into her pastry, still studying the drawing as she took a bite.


tag open
words 433
lyrics strawberry fields forever - the beatles
credit a girl with kaleidoscope eyes @ caution 2.0
notes Anna's feeling talkative tonight!

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[DINAH EVELYN DONALD]

Dinah was out on her own, and to her mind this was seldom a good thing. She was used to being alone, but less used to being out, such that it was. As she wandered the city streets, she wasn't sure why she'd come, but every now and then, she'd be struck by enough wanderlust and/or cabin fever to force her out of the safety of the CIA buildings and into the wider world.

She'd grown up out here, after all. Well, not here -- she'd grown up near Detroit really -- but she'd spent the first eleven years of her life out in the 'real world'. But then she'd spent the rest of them within the cocoon of the CIA's child spy program, and over the years, that had come to feel more like the real world than the one that lay beyond the CIA doors.

Still. She was out and she was alone, and still not sure this was a good thing. Which was why when she spotted Anna seated alone through the tea shop windows, she ignored all signals that her fellow agent might prefer to be left alone -- the earbuds, the sketchpad, the fact that she had at no point invited Dinah along -- the slightly younger girl hesitated only briefly, turning back and forth on her heel a few times, before heading into the shop and heading for the other girl's table.

"Oh!" Dinah offered, without first saying hi or attempting to bring attention to herself in any other way. She'd been meaning to, but then she'd seen Anna's drawing and that had chased all social niceties from her head. "Hey, you're drawing, um..." She gestured around at the shop to finish her thought, trying to convey how she thought it was neat that the other girl was sketching something to fit her surroundings.

Such words really shouldn't have been so hard to find, but for some reason, they escaped Dinah, so she trailed off with her vague gesture, which faded into a somewhat awkward silence. And then, as though to break it, she randomly recited from memory: "How doth the little crocodile improve his shining tail..."

At least Anna was spared the full poem recital, since Dinah recalled then that she'd meant to add more about the drawing. "It's really good. Although I guess you're, um, colouring more than drawing, but you did draw it first, right?" It seemed unlikely that Anna was colouring in someone else's drawing, but then, having only arrived in time to see her working on Alice's hair, Dinah did have to allow for the possibility.

"I saw you," she added, nodding towards the front of the tea shop, "Through the window." It was a comment unrelated to the drawing, meant just to explain why she was here, but it followed on the heels of the other so closely it could be hard to tell whether she meant instead that she'd seen Anna colouring through the window. Which was also true, so either way, the comment stood.

[annabelle]

living is easy with eyes closed

[/color]

- - - - misunderstanding all you see - - - - [/font][/color][/center]

With her attention focused on the drawing, Anna didn't notice Dinah outside the window nor did she lift her head until a shadow darkened her table. Her eyes lifted as she set the newly picked up colored pencil aside and offered a smile. If it had been anyone, the struggle for words and randomly recited line would have been awkward; however, it was nothing unusual with Dinah. It was the randomness of her ramblings that made them amusing.

While her initial intention had been going solo, she'd admit part of it was doubting anyone else would enjoy the shop. What self-respecting teenager would want to eat in a place inspired by a children's book? In the same vein of thought, a small part of her didn't want others to know her occasional flights of fancy. She was supposed to be serious, work-focused Anna yet the shop made her feel young and carefree again, back before the CIA when her mother would take her to the park then for tea.

"And pour the waters of the nile on a golden scale," she finished, tapping the music player off. She removed the earbud and tucked them away in her pocket before making a gesture for the other girl to sit. "I did draw it, but that was at least forty-five minutes ago. I've been sitting here awhile."

As much as she'd been enjoying her music, she wasn't about to send away a friend, especially not one who went out less than she did. It was surprsing Dinah had left on her own without someone else, though she was glad to see the other girl in daylight. While she'd gotten into the CIA program later than Anna, she'd always had a reserved nature that made Anna want to look out for her, make sure she was alright. It had taken her only a matter of years to become mother henish to the other teens, against some of their wishes, though Dinah had never seemed to mind. She made a note to invite the other girl on her next Alice's Tea Cup outing.

Turning the drawing around, she moved it so Dinah could see it right side up. It had minor details colored and shaded, though the bulk was still gray lead and white space. "There's only so much time you can spend in the tech lab without going crazy, Di, and I was pretty close," she informed her with a shrug, her only explanation. "Feel free to order something, my treat."

tag dinah
words four hundred eighteen
lyrics strawberry fields forever - the beatles
credit a girl with kaleidoscope eyes @ caution 2.0
notes Yay! :)

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[DINAH EVELYN DONALD]

Dinah, of course, was not your average self-respecting teenager. Not that she lacked for self-respect, at least in some aspects of her life, but it never quite seemed to occur to her that she should do things a certain way for appearance's sake. The idea that Anna was too mature to enjoy such a whimsical shop never occurred to her. If anything, she found the whole thing delightful. Sometimes the book had made her head hurt with its logical fallacies and loopholes, but it had an underlying sense to its nonsense. Carroll had, after all, been a mathematician at the root of it.

Dinah beamed as Anna finished the poem's stanza, always glad for those moments when it felt like other people actually understood her. They'd been few and far between since she'd lost her father, and even his eyes had sometimes glossed over or gone a bit blank when she'd headed off on one of her tangents. Her mother had perhaps tried to understand her, but they'd never had the same connection. And then her mother had remarried that terrible man who always seemed to be angry with her though Dinah had never known why...

She fought to keep her thoughts from running off into dark places and instead forced her attention back onto the matter of the tea shop, the book and the drawing. She took the offered seat, pulling the chair back from the table and then lightly falling into it. "I feel as though I'm late then," she confided when Anna pointed out how long she'd been sitting there. "But we didn't have plans to meet. It's all very White Rabbit." She smiled a little and sat back in the chair, slouching with her hands entwined together on her lap beneath the table's surface.

She sat up again abruptly and leaned forward against the table's edge as Anna turned the drawing around, leaning in so that she could study it more closely. Her dark eyes took in each part of the drawing in some detail. "Did you come here because you were drawing this, or did you draw it because you were here?" she wondered aloud, before sitting back again and looking up at Anna. "How much time is too much?" Was she crazy because of spending too much time in the tech lab? But no, she'd been weird even before she'd arrived at the CIA; plenty of people had gone out of their way to tell her as much.

So as quickly as the worry came on, it faded and she gave a little grin. "We're all mad here." Never had a quote seemed more apt, perhaps. "Escaping insanity in a place of nonsense... I think Lewis Carroll would approve." She didn't really need more explanation than that. Sometimes you just needed to get out. "I needed out too. Well, maybe not needed, but wanted to. Greatly. The walls were... getting smaller, I think."

She took in the offer to order something and nodded her thanks, meaning to say as much as well, but it got forgotten as her attention shifted to thinking about what she might want. In the end, she wound up putting in an order for a tea and tart, figuring that was suitably thematic.

[annabelle]

living is easy with eyes closed

[/color]

- - - - misunderstanding all you see - - - - [/font][/color][/center]

Anna laughed, quietly, amused by the various Alice in Wonderland comments working their way into the conversation. "I'd hate to have tea with the White Rabbit. I imagine he'd run out in the middle without even finishing his cup," she remarked, eyes focused back on her colored pencils. Tapping each with her index finger, she finally selected a light blue then traded it for a slightly darker one.

At Dinah's question about the drawing, she thought a moment. It had been a random thought to base the image from the cafe, a flash of inspiration coupled with childhood nostalgia. Her original intent had been to draw strangers, perhaps a mother with young children or a couple on an odd date. She'd simply felt an urge to draw something and be around people, not interacting with them but observing their behavior. It was one of the other ways she was useful to the CIA, ability to blend into a setting and go unnoticed while observing every miniscule action occurring around her.

"I came because I thought it would be fun and the drawing just happened. If you want, you can have it when I'm done," she offered, a quick flip turning the drawing back to her. She sipped her tea then set it aside, beginning to color in Alice's dress, being careful of the little apron meant to remain white. "Too much time would be somewhere in the ballpark of eleven and a half hours with only two bathroom breaks and a hamburger."

Smiling at the quote of them all being mad, Anna lifted her teacup and performed a pretend toast. "Lewis Carroll would definitely approve of saving sanity with nonsense. The the world has absolutely no sense, who's stopping us from inventing one?" she quoted, eyes never lifting from the paper. Her drawing hand didn't pause for the toast, though she gave an agreeing nod after a moment, her head coming up. "They do that occasionally, helps to play music when you're down there. It makes the space seem bigger, plus someone's bound to come complain so free human interaction without actually trying."

She paused to eat a bite of her scone, allowing Dinah to direct the conversation. Hopefully, she'd move off the topic of work since the entire point of her trip had been avoidance. Then again, it was different to actually be working or talking with someone else about work.

tag dinah
words five hundred forty-one
lyrics strawberry fields forever - the beatles
credit a girl with kaleidoscope eyes @ caution 2.0
notes Yay! :)

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[DINAH EVELYN DONALD]

"If you could even get him to sit down in the first place," Dinah replied with a little grin, quite enjoying the flight of fancy imagining having tea with actual characters from Wonderland. "But then, the tea party was pretty mad, so he might fit right in. Except he'd be gone, so I... guess he'd fit in, but in absentia?" She wasn't quite sure how that would work. Could you fit in if you weren't even there? Especially if it was your absence that qualified you to fit in in the first place?

"I don't think I'd mind a mad tea party," it occurred to her randomly. "But this is nice too," she added quite sincerely. Granted, this wasn't exactly a tea party, but Dinah was actually enjoying it. Amusing conversation with someone she considered a friend was probably about as close to a party as she'd care to get anyway.

She glanced around the teashop then before nodding. Anna's reasoning for drawing that particular picture on this particular subject made sense to her. "A spontaneous drawing," she pronounced it with a little chuckle that was a titch loud for their surroundings. Dinah certainly didn't have Anna's knack for blending in. She always felt awkward and like she stuck out, and then her hyper self-awareness made her that much more awkward and did cause her to stick out. Unless she was undercover, which was probably the only reason she'd survived in the program this long.

"Really?" she went on, sounding surprised when Anna offer to let her have the drawing. "I'd like that, thank you." Whenever she tried to remember her manners, she either forgot before she got there or else it came out sounding strange and forced. The strange thing was, she actually meant it. "And yes, eleven and a half hours is quite a long time," she concurred. "Have to remember to stop after eleven."

Dinah grinned again, appreciating the quote. She lifted her new cup of tea to return the toast and then took a careful sip, since the liquid was still steaming. "It's nice to know I'm not the only one the world makes no sense to. To which the world makes no sense," she corrected herself with a little shrug of her shoulders. "Anyway, I'll remember about the music. But I'm not sure I want people complaining. Human interaction is... tricky at best. Perhaps someone should invent walls that don't move."

She didn't really seem to be joking. Instead, Dinah just gave a nod to confirm that and leaned back in her seat again. "So, how do you decide which colour to make each... part?" she wondered as she looked at the half-coloured drawing. "I never know what colour makes sense where."

[annabelle]

living is easy with eyes closed

[/color]

- - - - misunderstanding all you see - - - - [/font][/color][/center]

"He'd defnitely qualify for absentia attendence since I imagine he'd make a stop, even if he didn't stay," Anna agreed, more and more amused by their conversation. It was exactly the kind of mindless talk that had nothing to do with anything. The entire conversation was wildly preposterous yet she loved it, found herself more and more intrigued by the barely younger girl. "It is nice, though there are usually a ton of kids here."

Her fingers swept across the page to finish coloring the dress. Occasionally, she'd pause to study an angle then add a bit more shade work. Tucking the color pencil with the rest, she withdrew a pink and began work on the Cheshire Cat, outlining every other stripe before coloring. The simple task was as calming as an hour spent with her music and hard to crack computer codes, simply easier and with less thinking required.

Nodding to the words of thanks, she paused in drawing to sip her tea again. She smiled at Dinah's note to stop at eleven hours, though she doubted twelve hour stretches would be repeating. It had simply been a new system with way too much work put into it and an array of false files easily sorted. The task would have been a lot simpler if she'd sought help from one of the others yet part of her wanted to do it on her, prove she was still the best.

"Then wear headphones so no one else hears it," she suggested, trading the pink for a purple. She tested the tip with her fingers before going back to work, her brown eyes focused on the drawing. "Human interaction's only as tricky as you allow it to be, but I do agree walls should remain stationary. It makes it easier to concentrate."

At the question about her drawing, she lifted her head and gave a small shrug. "I have an eidetic memory which is commonly called photographic. Once I see something, it's permanently there unless I force it off to a dark corner," she explained, tapping a button her phone. She turned the small device so Dinah could see several pictures of the various Wonderland characters lined up across the screen. "I looked at them for about thirty seconds then started coloring. It's easy for me to remember where everything goes, though the fourth picture has the Mad Hatter colored incorrectly. All the colors are muted so it was a probably taken from a low resolution copy."

She paused, realizing the tangent she'd gone off on. Giving Dinah an apologetic look, she cut her pastry into smaller pieces. "Sorry, didn't mean to bore you, but at least you learned something new," she stated before lifting a bite. "Drawings don't have to match the original so colors are irrelevant unless you want to match it."

tag dinah
words four hunred seventy-three
lyrics strawberry fields forever - the beatles
credit a girl with kaleidoscope eyes @ caution 2.0
notes

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[DINAH EVELYN DONALD]

"Oh yes," Dinah agreed sagely, nodding with a certain gravitas that didn't quite fit the situation or the ridiculous conversation. "It would be rude not to at least stop by and I don't think he'd want that." She grinned, a little awkwardly and abruptly, but still reassuring the other girl that she wasn't actually being serious about all of this.

Dinah sat back then and looked around at the shop again like she was just noticing it for the first time. "Oh. I'm not terribly good with children," she admitted, glad that it at least wasn't packed. Then again, she generally didn't like crowds of any age, so it wasn't really a point against the children. Except kids were often less gentle about her awkwardness than most adults, and she hated the weird looks they gave her whenever she tried to engage someone very young in conversation, or worse yet, to entertain them in some way.

As Anna went back to her colouring, Dinah watched for a long moment, making no secret of the fact. Since she had nothing really to do with her own hands, she busied them straightening her utensils so that they lined up perpendicularly to the edge of the table, nudging them this way and that until she was pretty sure they were a nearly perfect 90 degrees.

"Headphones. Yes," she agreed, considering that point and hesitating slightly before adding, "Except then I always feel like someone is going to sneak up behind me." Especially when she was on the computer, she relied on her sense of hearing to clue her in about the room around her. Not that anyone would be likely to attack her within the safety of the CIA offices, but this job didn't come without some degree of paranoia.

"At any rate, I guess I must allow it quite a bit, but I'm not sure how not to," she admitted, with regards to human interaction and whether or not it was tricky. "People are... strange. They almost make moving walls make sense. Neither makes it terribly easy to concentrate. But I do like it here," she came back around to the initial point without even pausing for breath.

She listened to Anna explain about her eidetic memory, nodding a few times as that all made some sort of sense. Dinah had a good memory herself, albeit not photographic. Hers had more to do with numbers and events and how they all fell on her mental graph. A photographic one would certainly be much more useful when it came to deciding what colour to make everything, she decided. "You didn't bore me. I asked," she pointed out, genuine in that sentiment. "And I like learning new things. It's probably good you didn't do the Mad Hatter with the wrong colours though. Or maybe that would be even more fitting," she mused to herself, pausing for a moment while she considered whether a wrong Mad Hatter was more right than a right one. "But I like the way you did it," she finally decided, looking back again to the picture.

[annabelle]

living is easy with eyes closed

[/color]

- - - - misunderstanding all you see - - - - [/font][/color][/center]

"Children aren't so bad. They just lack a filter so whatever comes into their evil little minds comes out like word vomit," Anna commented, brown eyes still focused on the drawing. She was shading in the newly traced purple stripes, blowing a bit of colored dust aside. In her experience, kids were the ones who said what no one else was willing to say yet thought on a daily basis. The few younger children to be brought into the CIA had always gone under her wing unless one was particularly vocal against it in which case she'd leave them to wing it. "You just gotta ignore them."

Despite her attention being on the drawing, her peripheral vision observed Dinah's relentless straightening of the utensils. It made her curious yet she'd learned better than to question the quirks of others. There was generally no explanation behind the quirk except for having done it repeatedly. No one commented on her weird habits so she wasn't prone to making others uncomfortable. However, a part of her couldn't help it.

"No matter how much you turn those, I don't think they're going to tell you the meaning of life," was the comment that slipped out as she returned the colored pencil. Another rotation of her wrist followed by two bites of pastry and she lifted another pencil, beginning work on the Mad Hatter. Her strokes were careful now, coloring in more miniscule details with each step. At the words about someone sneaking up on her, she chuckled, quietly. "I know the feeling, hence why I use speakers rather than the headphones, though I suppose you could be one of those zen people . . . to each their own."

Anna kept her attention on the drawing, trading one green for another to finish details. The mix of colors gave a little more depth than a flat color, though she nodded along with the words. At the words about a wrong hatter, she thought a minute then dumped the green pencils, replacing it with another. A few streaks later, the Mad Hatter's jacket was a bright blue along with the Cheshire Cat's eyes. She traded a few more details, deciding Dinah would probably prefer the obscurities judging by their present conversation. It was easy for her to make the change, more natural than creating an exact duplicate of someone else's work despite her beginning picture. The changes made it feel a little more hers. A slash of blue lipstick crossed Alice's lips.

"Am I one of those people who qualifies as strange?" she asked, pausing for a sip of tea. Part of her already knew she was a bit odd, though that came with the territory. She'd always been a bit off, gotten worse through the last ten years doing odd jobs-not exactly kid friendly-for the CIA. "And I promise not to be offended if you say yes. I'm fairly sure strange is a job requirement for what we do."

tag dinah
words four hundred and ninety five
lyrics strawberry fields forever - the beatles
credit a girl with kaleidoscope eyes @ caution 2.0
notes Dinah seems to be good for helping Anna not be so serious.

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[DINAH EVELYN DONALD]

"Oh, it's not that I mind children," Dinah was quick to clarify as she flashed a quick look around, as though looking for any children nearby who might somehow be offended. "I just... I just think sometimes they mind me. I don't... I guess I don't really get them," she said, brow furrowing slightly as she tried to figure out what exactly was the problem. "Even my younger sister never seemed to like me much." She shrugged, the hurt long enough past that she no longer got upset by it for the most part.

She paused midway through readjusting the knife, going completely still with her hand still hovering over the utensil as she looked up, like a kid caught filching from the cookie jar. She was sheepish for a moment but then grinned. "But wouldn't it be neat if it did?" she pointed out, glancing back down at her utensils just in case the meaning of life was now somehow spelled out there. "Maybe no one's turned them enough to be sure. It makes about as much sense as 42," she went on, giving the knife a final nudge before sitting back again, clasping her hands in her lap to keep them from wandering.

"Zen? Uhh, not really," she admitted with a little shrug. "I don't know what I am, but not that. But I like the quiet most of the time. It's just then the walls sometimes don't stay put. So I'll have to think about this." It would take some figuring, the trade off between headphones making her paranoid, speakings with the potential to annoy and bring people into her little personal bubble, and the ever-creeping walls.

She smiled vaguely to herself as she watched Anna work, giving a little laugh as she noticed the small changes the other girl was making; Alice's blue lips were especially amusing to her. "Is she cold or, uh, goth? Emo?" Dinah could never keep track of all these various trends, and wasn't sure if kids even still did goth or emo or if there was some new name by which they went.

At Anna's question, Dinah looked back up at her, not rushing in to answer but considering the query quite sincerely. "A little strange," she decided with a small nod. "But less strange than a lot of people. You mostly make sense, or... the good kind of nonsense," she added with a gesture towards the picture and a reference back to their own earlier nonsensical conversation. "But I guess we are all rather strange, so I'm grading you on that scale and not, uh, compared to normal people. I don't know so many of those anyway."

[annabelle]

living is easy with eyes closed

[/color]

- - - - misunderstanding all you see - - - - [/font][/color][/center]

Anna gave an agreeing nod with the words about how neat discovering the meaning of life in utensils would be. She'd never thought about it yet better accepted theories had been discovered in bizarre ways so why not? It wasn't as though she was going to tell the other girl to stop moving silver, not that she figured Dinah would listen. The final nudge to the knife before her hands moved to her lap earned a quirk on the lips.

"Well, you'll figure out how to cope one day hopefully before you wind up crazy," she remarked with a dismisive shrug. Her words held a note that said that portion of their conversation was over. Pausing in her drawing, she studied it a minute then went back to green, her shading continuing to change minor details. "I'm going to vote cold. Smart children don't sleep under trees in what I'm guessing is the middle of winter, judging by the lack of leaves and prominence of branches."

The words goth and emo were mulled a moment before she dismissed both. She'd never been fond of labeling trends, not even ones well established. It felt wrong to her, though it only took a glance at the peacefully sleeping girl with her lightly tinted lips and bright blue dress to know she fit neither category. She was ordinary with only a hint she might become extraordinary based on her Wonderland guardians. If anything, she was the picture of innocence and naivety. That thought brought a knot to her stomach, a single thought back to her own childhood when she'd been both of those for a short time. The nostalgic thoughts were washed down with a sip of tea, gone lukewarm as she sat there, occasionally sipping.

Her lips quirked upwards at Dinah's asessment of her, amused she'd taken a moment to honestly think the answer through. "Glad to hear I make the good kind of nonsense," she replied with a couple quick sweeps her hand across the paper, darker coloring added to the wood. It looked a bit more realistic with those added lines so she sat back a moment, studying her handiwork. The image was almost perfect, though she soon picked up and drew a small book resting near Alice's legs, Wonderland embossed across the front. "Normal is the absence of personality so I'd say being strange would be the compliment. For the record, you're not all that strange, either, Dinah, at least not to me. I've met stranger in and outside work, present company excluded."

tag dinah
words four hundred and twenty four
lyrics strawberry fields forever - the beatles
credit a girl with kaleidoscope eyes @ caution 2.0
notes

[/font][/size]

[DINAH EVELYN DONALD]

With her hands now safely holding onto one another in her lap to keep them fidgeting, Dinah looked down at the utensils as she'd finally left them lying and had to fight the urge to readjust the knife just a smidgen more. The heavy handle counterbalanced it so much that it was hard to get the angle perfect, since it always seemed to shift just a few degrees as soon as she lifted her hand off of it. With more work, she was sure she could get it, but... why? They certainly didn't seem to be revealing any secrets of the universe yet, and the conversation was more interesting than continuing to fuss with them.

She drew in a breath like she might have more to add about quiet versus headphones versus moving walls and the whole endless rabbit hole of one solution simply causing another problem, but she decided against it at the last moment, so that she drew in a sharp breath only to immediately let it back out again, sinking back in her chair slightly. "Cold makes more sense," she concurred, as she leaned forward slightly again to look at the blue-lipped Alice. "She never seemed terribly smart to me. I don't think I'd go chasing after a rabbit down its hole. But then look at the adventure I'd be missing out on -- on which I'd be missing out -- so perhaps I'm the one who isn't so bright," she rambled, correcting her own grammar without missing a beat.

"Oh yes," Dinah replied sincerely and a bit grandly as to Anna making the good type of nonsense. Her own hands still clasped together in her lap, she watched as Anna continued working on her drawing, adding these additional touches, looking up only when the other girl spoke again. The comment about her not being that strange brought a crooked but genuine smile to Dinah's lips. "That's very nice of you to say," she replied.

She wasn't entirely sure how much she believed that, but then... what would Anna have to benefit from lying? It wasn't even like she'd have offended Dinah too terribly if she'd told her she was strange. So Dinah took it as a good sign that her attempts not to keep somehow chasing people away had been working. At least Anna had always seemed to Dinah to do fairly well with keeping up with her, no matter where her strange brain took her next.

[annabelle]

living is easy with eyes closed

[/color]

- - - - misunderstanding all you see - - - - [/font][/color][/center]

The revelation of Alice not being very bright drew a laugh from Anna as she lifted her head. It was a thought she'd had more than once yet most people told her to stop ruining a good story by thinking too hard. "She wasn't terribly smart, but I imagine the story would have been very boring if she'd just stayed there with her sister," she agreed, taking another bite of her pastry. She chewed it in thought then added, "If you get technical, she fell in the hole while chasing the rabbit so she didn't really decide, either. It kind of just happened."

She went back to her drawing, shading a bit here and there. There were only a few details left, though she wanted them to be perfect. Her head continued to nod along with the words, mostly focused on her drawing. The small book titled Wonderland was colored last before she inspected the drawing, eyebrows drawn together in speculation. It was a nice piece, bright and colorful yet part of wasn't fond of the color changes. A little voice that whispered in wasn't done right despite more of her liking the minor flaws to the formerly perfect drawing.

"And finished," she stated with a smile. She carefully tore the page out, working the edges for a few minutes to avoid an unnecssary tear. One hand smoothed it out before she placed it in front of Dinah with a flourished wave of her hand. "It's all yours, but no selling it. I can't have other people getting rich off my work."

While she said the words as a joke, part of her did hope her work was good enough to someday become a full-time job. It would still have to be put aside occasionally for CIA work yet it was something she enjoyed, one thing that was strictly hers. Part of her was thrilled Dinah liked the drawing so much, oddities of its original coloring aside, though she didn't typically give her drawings away. Most were tucked into her closet or plastered on the walls surrounding her desk in the tech lab.

"Got any plans after here, or are you just winging it?" Her words were asked a bit abruptly as she picked up her tea, not liking quiet. It always made her long to speak and fill it with words, feeling as if the silence were closing in on her. Taking a sip from her tea, she set the pencils and newly closed sketchbook aside, content to continue a regular conversation.

tag dinah
words four hundred and twenty three
lyrics strawberry fields forever - the beatles
credit a girl with kaleidoscope eyes @ caution 2.0
notes

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[DINAH EVELYN DONALD]

Dinah smiled a little, pleased to have made her friend laugh, and in a good sort of way where it had been at least partly intentional and not about something silly or stupid she'd done. "Yes, well, that's a good point," she had to grant. "I think most stories would be pretty boring if the people in them weren't at least occasionally stupid, I suppose. And it... wouldn't be much of an examination of humanity if characters were always perfect."

She cocked her head to one side and contemplated that, as well as the technicality that Anna noted. "Another good point. I shouldn't hold hold an accident against her. I could say she shouldn't chase rabbits in the first place, but then, um, then we're back to it being a boring story. And I guess I can relate with falling down a rabbit hole. You know, metaphorically speaking. I've never actually fallen down a rabbit hole. At least not that I can remember, and I can usually remember nearly everything." Who amongst them didn't know what it was like to end up in a topsy-turvy world beyond their control?

As she rambled, Dinah watched the other girl put those final touches on her work, as though she might some day be able to learn the art simply through diligent study of watching someone better at work. There were many things she could learn that way, but drawing and colouring probably weren't among them. She sat back again, taking the picture delicately as Anna tore it from her book and handed it over.

She held it up for a moment to admire it up close and then carefully laid it aside where it wouldn't be at risk of getting any tea or crumbs spilled on it. "Oh no. I wouldn't. I don't even know the going rate for something like that. Besides, it's a gift. You don't sell gifts." Dinah didn't get many gifts, so she took them seriously when she did.

Dinah took a small sip of her tea, looking down at the picture where it sat now on the table. As Anna spoke up, breaking the silence, Dinah looked back over at the other girl. "I, uh... Winging it? I think? I had a few ideas but they weren't terribly involved. I thought I would either, uh, head back to work or go home. I haven't really decided yet."

She set down her teacup carefully and then looked back up again. "If you wanted me to go though, I... don't have to stay," she added as that possibility occurred to her. She sometimes had trouble telling when people were politely trying to give her the brush off and it led to much awkwardness. And then on the other hand, there were those times when she guessed someone was trying to nicely get rid of her when they weren't, leading to yet more awkwardness. "I mean, if you have plans or... want to be alone or... something..." she trailed off a bit lamely.

[annabelle]

living is easy with eyes closed

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"No, perfect characters tend to be really boring so I much prefer stupid ones or at least ones who do stupid things," Anna agreed, taking a sip from her tea. It was bordering on lukewarm, though she didn't want to waste it so she drank it anyway, giving it an occasional stir. The effort it would take to call over a server and have it rewarmed seemed a useless amount. "True, but I recall being a kid, and I can honestly say I chased a few rabbits of my own. None of them ever led anywhere as cool Wonderland, though."

She thought about the words a moment, deciding a rabbit hole was the best explanation for CIA life. It was a confusing, complicated mess with too much going on yet extended time turned the swirling madness into understandable reality. The nonsense into sanity. In the end, her life with the CIA made much more sense than reality ever had, plus she felt accepted, even wanted. It was more of a fit than being abandoned right and left by those who'd claimed to love her. A part of her filed that thought a way to create a new picture later, one that combined the metaphorical rabbit's hole with her own reality.

She shook her head with a smile. "It was a joke, Di. There's probably no going rate since I'm just an odd girl who likes tea and nonsense, but hang on to it. I might make it big one day." Her cup was lifted for a drink and another bite was taken from the pastry, her eyes occasionally sliding outside the window. She studied the various people wandering up and down the sidewalk, though her gaze returned to Dinah.

"What ideas do you have that aren't terribly involved? Maybe we can make them more involved," she offered, back to dicing the pastry into smaller bites. There was a new habit of hers that her hands stay occupied, an attempt to keep herself from biting her nails. It was working fairly well so far, though she'd been in no stressful situations lately. One hand crept toward her mouth at Dinah's stumbling words, the thumb nail being bitten for a moment. "I have no plans except to continue taking up space here and figuring out these involved plans of yours."

tag dinah
words three hundred and eighty eight
lyrics strawberry fields forever - the beatles
credit a girl with kaleidoscope eyes @ caution 2.0
notes Sorry for shortness but wanted to get this up for you!

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