Silent Fractures

Wormwood smiled, not expecting this sudden change. "Depends on the poetry. I have no gift for it, but I'd like to think I can appreciate it."

Wormwood walks around the bed and goes to the bag, picking up the two books (With his mouth, I guess? That's got to be how Earth Ponies do it, unless they can grip things with their hooves [a personal theory of mine]) and carrying them over to the bed. He places them between the two of them and opens the one that doesn't look like it's her writing.

When Wormwood brings the books back, Heart seems to be watching him, or staring off into space. She absently traces the scars around her cutie mark, but is brought back to reality when he sets the books down.
The first book is by M. Pie, and despite Heart's general personality, the poems are all rather blunt and emotionless. But some of them are sufficiently dark, especially the one entitled "Obsidian":

The cataclysm rumbles to life, magma bursts and hellfire scores the earth. Boulders and Pebbles scream and melt together. Sulfur and ash turn everything black. The earth is transformed, a beautiful, black glass, a mirror for death itself. Everything becomes darkness, everything becomes stone. Everything becomes the world, as the world becomes Obsidian.

While Wormwood reads, Heart is scrawling something in her own book, the purple-aura'd pen scribbling furiously. She finishes, closes the book, and slides it under her pillow. "So what do you think?"

TheCavalry wrote:"I think I can hazard a guess as to what their skills are."

The Reini lay down, resting her chin on her delicately folded fore hooves, watching the other two ponies. She actually began to hum something under her breath- an odd, lilting rhyme- before looking at Cold Iron.

"I assume your skills are related to those masks in some way," she said casually. "I'll admit to curiosity. How do they work?"

((OOC: sorry for the delay had a gaming session & had gone to see my mom afterwards... She's felly unwell at the moment. & the visits are helping her mental state))

"Same here....but I prefer to hear it talked form them, themselves then trying to assume....if you assume what the skills, are at play, you could be mistaken....and if you are mistaken about, what your allies, can or can't do....Everyone Dies...again..." Cold rambles in a half-panicked state as the reality of everything was starting to dawn on him but he takes a few deep breaths to calm himself as he looks to The Reini. "But enough about my worries. My masks you asked about, yes? Well, I'm a Child of the Three Masks... Does that mean anything to you? If so, that'll help explain things..."

((OOC: Make a General Knowledge and Insight Checks at a three tiered DCs of 15, 20 or 25... Meaning you get the best info if both checks are 25 or higher, you get ok info if one's 20 and the other is a fail... And the worst if both rolls fail... The type of info changes depending on what the results are, this is rolling between PCs so the info is what I can give you of personal history & check. If you make 15 on the General Knowledge check, The Reini has heard of the term "Child of Three Masks" (how much I'll tell yea depending on everything else and if you get one of he higher DCs you get more "you already know this" info & junk) the changes are how much info is sent in the "you already know this" type I'll post in and how much is of Cold Iron informs you about himself.))

If he noticed her hide the book under her pillow, he doesn't show it. He simply says, "I think I may never look at rocks the same way again. I found "Obsidian" fairly interesting, however... obsidian's such a beautiful stone, hmm?"

"...Yeah, it really is. Black glass from a volcano, it's pretty cool. It's so exotic and dark..." She blushes a bit, though she isn't certain why.

"Yeah..." Wormwood notices her blush, but doesn't comment on it. Not like you, a voice in his head says, though from where that thought came from he didn't know. He wasn't sure what else to say, so he just sort of stayed quiet.

"Yeah... I think it'd be neat, the things you could make out of it. If I had a house I'd want obsidian floors... maybe a mirror." She looks at her cutie mark again. "...maybe a knife."

"An obsidian floor or mirrors? That'd be amazing!" Wormwood smiled, then it faltered for a moment. "A knife? Yeah... it'd be pretty sharp. Obsidian has edges like glass, but that shouldn't be surprising." He glanced at the scars around her cutie mark, and remembered what she'd tried to hide from him earlier, and a dark look came over him. "What would you do with a knife?" The look in his eyes should tell her he already knows the answer.

"Make food, whittle, open letters." She matches his dark look. "Why, what did you think I'd do with a knife?"

"I..." He glanced at the spot that had once been hidden by her sleeves, checking to see what was there. He didn't know how to answer this question, so he just said what was on his mind. "I think you know the answer to that."

Spoiler:

Counter stealth, 2+6=8

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Heart looks at him angrily, and then follows his gaze down to her leg. She hurriedly tries to hide it, but she isn't fast enough. It's a little hard to see against her magenta coat, but on the inside of her leg above her knee is some discoloration, and what must be bite marks. "Is that what you think I do? I cut myself, make myself bleed? That must be it- I'm just a dumb little goth girl, why wouldn't I cut myself?"

Wormwood grimaced. He was losing control of the conversation - if he ever had it to begin with. "I'm not concerned with why wouldn't you. I'm more concerned with why you would." He looked into her eyes, and despite his dark look there was concern - and pain - in them. "I don't think you're dumb, and I certainly don't think you're... damaged or anything. I just think you're... complicated. And I want to understand you."

"Ponies always want to do what they can't. If you could understand me, you wouldn't think I was like that." Heart shifts on the bed, looking at her leg. "That's not what that is, it's just..." She hides the leg under her again. "Maybe you're just wrong. Maybe I am dumb and damaged."

Spoiler:

"I can't say it does," she admitted. "But then, I haven't been a particular advocate of the theatre."

Spoiler:

Wormwood was silent for a long moment. Then he said, "And what if you are? What then?"

"Then I-" Heart looked at him, tears forming again, but this time she honestly didn't know what to say. Saying what he might have expected to hear wasn't necessarily true... but neither was what she wanted to tell him- and she didn't know what the truth actually was. "Then you shouldn't, I mean you should..." She couldn't finish her thought, just looking at him, desperate for something.

"What?" He took a step closer to her, butterflies rising in his stomach. After a moment, he said, "If-If you want me to leave, just say so... but you haven't so far... and I know there's a reason for that."

"Well we..." Was there a reason for that? She wasn't going to sleep yet, she was still scared, she wanted company... those were probably the reasons. Her reasons. She sees his nervous approach, suddenly less forward and accusing. She had been joking before, but... "Well, what? What are you getting at?"

"I think..." He had to keep himself from gulping. "I think, deep down, while you push ponies away, you want somepony to talk to you. Somepony to really, truly care. And the ones who truly care are the ones who look past the walls you put up. Am I wrong?"

Why am I doing this...? He thought.

There was some truth there. It wasn't an accusation, confrontational, insulting, but potentially true. "Not that you would know... but maybe? So many ponies hate me for just being, so it's confusing when one wants to get to know me, and I guess it's not bad." She seems to be a little more calm now.

Some of the uneasiness began to settle in him. "So you don't mind me trying to get to know you?" He smiled. "I think you're an interesting pony to get to know."

"It's nice one of us thinks so." Heart rests her head on her hooves again, still looking at him. "I still don't understand why, when its so much easier just to ignore me."

His smiled faded. "Well, maybe that's true. And maybe I don't understand why either. But sometimes the harder things in life are the more rewarding." He reached out a hoof to her. "What about you? It's easier to ignore somepony, true, but sometimes I think you'll find that trying to be friends is worth it. So, what do you think?"