macaroni et fromage [oreiller]

Despite herself, she couldn't help but giggle a bit at that, covering her mouth behind her hand. Candy... pizza? Although she couldn't piece together what something like that would even taste like in her mind, it was surprisingly easy to imagine Jason trying out such an experiment. Chocolate? Did they put it in the oven as well...? "Unfortunately, I am not half the chef you are, Monsieur." She did some cooking herself, but nothing as colorful as that. "Ma mère et mon père were quite the cooks themselves growing up. They would have disowned me on the spot. I was, how you say... spoiled when it came to mealtimes, at the least." That was one thing she could look back with fondness, but it was almost a bit of a curse in itself. Her expensive taste had to come from somewhere. Too much of a good thing? "Regrettably, I had no brothers or sisters either, so I never did something so mischievous."

His smiled twisted, quietly listening to her words as he ate his meal, imagining her and her family in a small cottage in the French countryside, fresh meals being made in the kitchen. Maybe it was too romanticized, but it was a sweet thought all the same. "Is that so?" Jason mused, shooting her a playful look. "I'd always thought you might have had some mischievous side to you. No offense, of course." He took a small sip of the bittersweet wine. "Or have you always been this perfect?"

Another cliche, romanced idea, he supposed. The young woman everyone looked to, every boy wanted to talk to, every girl wanted to be, who wasn't quite so Angelic behind closed doors. Again, it sure as hell wouldn't have been the first time he'd met such a person. Verona, she fit it close, but never pulled up the innocent cherade. Serah. He grimaced just to think the name. The young man paused once he'd realised he'd begun to turn his thoughts sour, taking another quiet drink. That wasn't what he'd wanted at all.

Hm... A dark side? Was that what he wanted to know about? Elodie paused, staring into her drink, before bringing the glass to her lips, her face unchanging. She drank deep. "Do I give you that kind of impression, Monsieur?" she asked, swirling the wine around in the cup. A light smile touched the corner of her lips. "How ghastly. Consider me offended. What other assumptions do you make of me?" He didn't know. No one did. There was no way anyone could. Every minute of every day, every second, even when she thought she was alone, she danced through this charade... If she let the masquerade slip, even for a heartbeat, it'd spell doom.

She shifted her grip on the glass, meeting his eyes. "I will admit, I..." Her sentence trailed off, the words drying up on her tongue. His shadow flickered like a flame across the wall behind him, shifting shapes, changing, dancing... Elodie blinked, and the hallucination disappeared. Ah. Another apparition. She swallowed. "I am far from perfect."

The young man laughed it out quietly, tearing his gaze away from her as he turned back to his food, making light of her teasing and keeping that same smile of his glued on. "Nothing so terrible, I promise." He near sang, swiping his drink up again as she spoke on. It wasn't until she hesitated for once and he'd looked over back towards her that he noticed that just maybe, something might have been wrong. "Hey," Jason set aside his glass and cheap silverware. "Tout vas bien... avec toi?" He seemed rather cheerful despite his subpar French skills, reaching over and making a soft grab for her hand.

The walls were melting like candle wax, revealing the rotten flesh underneath. Black blood pooled out from under the table and lapped at her feet. Howling screams wailed in her ears, louder, louder, LOUDER.

She jumped. The moment he touched her hand, she jumped. She couldn't help it. Elodie set her glass down and covered her mouth with her hand, nodding with a light smile, doing her best to mask the uneasiness creeping across her face. "Je suis désolé," she answered with a sigh, folding her hands in her lap. "Your français is improving." That was the only thing she could latch onto for a moment, letting out an embarrassed lap as she turned her gaze to her plate. "You have a good tutor."

Elodie could feel it creeping up on her. The visions... The visions always got worse when she tripped up like this. Something, a ghost, a figure, flitted out from the corner of her vision, but she forced herself not to look at it. She closed her eyes and counted to three until she felt it all fade away, the ringing in her skull.

"Pardon, I was just... distracted."

Could she say why?

Ever since she was young, she'd known better than to say a word. That wasn't any different now, but... but...

The way she looked past him, staring deep and thoughtfully at seemingly, well, nothing; it was somewhat unnerving, to say the least. She jumped from his simple touch and admittedly, he flinched himself, recoiling his hand back and playing it off quickly. A light laugh escaped him. "Merci," Jason near sang back, watching her closely as she fiddled with her hands in her lap and practically turned away from him. "My cooking really must be awful, no need to be modest." He poked fun at himself for the chance of her smile again. "Maybe you need another drink?"

He was lost on what to do, unable to remember any other time she had seemed quite so tormented. Concern was written across his face, clear as day. "It's alright, ma chérie." The young man shot her a small wink, reaching across the table with an open palm, a small offering. "Tell me if I can help." She was his guest, after all. He couldn't let their evening together be so distant. Or have her suffer from food poisoning.

"Ah non," she rushed, shaking her head. No, no, why couldn't she keep up the mask? She'd slipped, the one thing she couldn't afford, and even through all his smiles and jokes, she could hear the tinge of concern in his words. "You have prepared a wonderful evening. I am sorry that I seem... That I am not..." Elodie sighed, and after a moment of deliberation, put her hand over his. Could she say why? The visions swarmed around her, a horde of black locusts, melting into wisps of red mist and shrouding the table, so she just stared into his hand. "It is no fault of yours, Monsieur. I just have... poor control over my gift, you see... Have I ever told you?" No, of course not. She felt her heart race, clasping his hand tighter. "I hope you do not think worse of me, but I see things... Visions."

Hallucinations. Lunacy. Call it what it is.

Elodie slipped her hand away, grabbing at the glass once again. "I do not have the mental discipline to control them, or even interpret them, and sometimes I get..." Episodes? She fumbled for the word, her face a blank mask, before sighing, the same old sleepy smile returning to her face. "...You understand."

She lifted the glass to her lips, tipped it back, and gulped it down. There was a cold presence over her shoulder, but she didn't bother to turn her head. "Thank you for concern, but it is not something I would want you to worry about. It is something I am accustomed to."

How dreary... Elodie stabbed her fork back into the macaroni.

As her hand tightened around his, Jason found himself squeezing back without any hesitation, listening quietly as she rambled to him - nothing short of flustered it seemed. Despite her dreary words, he kept his smile on all the same, if only to help reassure her. "Hey, no need to be sorry." He said, his tone firm. A twinge of disappointment overtook him as she drew away from him and instead went for the comfort of her wine instead, but it would have been awkward to hold hands like that for long at a dinner table of all places, he supposed.

"... We've been friends for how long now and you think your gift would scare me off?" The Guardian mused, raising an eyebrow. "I might be the one offended now." He didn't quite understand her gift as a whole, or know of the horrid things she was seeing, but to him it was clear as day how uncomfortable she was. It was rare to have ever seen her so damn out of it. He paused in thought, taking one more sip of his wine before an idea struck him.

Jace said nothing at first, excusing himself from the table and striding near his bed, which could hardly be considered much of a walk at all. He made a reach for the violin at it's side. "I think I can help," he said, golden eyes glancing back her way. "At the risk of annoying a few neighbors."

She couldn't help but sigh, tightening her grip on the fork. "Je suis désolé," she repeated under her breath, dipping her head, despite the objection. It wouldn't be the first time. Back home, the Motte family was known for its strain of madness that had plagued the line for generations, the madness that had consumed her mother and father and brought them to the grave, the madness that had made them outcasts in a tiny town above the clouds. Relief. Jason still spoke in that same tone he always did. He couldn't take anything seriously, could he? "Je suis désolé."

Elodie didn't look up when he left the table, until she heard him speak again.

His violin? "I would love to hear you play, Monsieur," she said after a few moments, her smiling widening ever so slightly. "But you do not need to do that for my sake..."

Jason waved her modesty away, his gaze warm as he picked up his dear old instrument. "You're my honored guest, remember? If it's in my power..." He smiled quietly to himself, tucking the wood under his chin. It was nice to finally have an excuse to play again, admittedly. He couldn't remember the last time he'd gotten a real chance to play. "What's an evening dinner without music anyways?"

While Jason could do nothing to scare the effects of her gift away in itself, he could help her in other ways. Obligatory Lenny Face. He pulled up his bow and strikes the first few notes on the delicate strings, a soft blue light appearing at his touch and reaching out to where the young woman watched on. It was enough to quell any fears, any apprehensions; to sooth and clear the mind. Music had the greatest effect on people, his perhaps more than others.

His song was short, but sweet, not having dragged on because - in all honesty - he wasn't certain it would do much of anything for her at all, but Jace stayed hopeful, looking at her expectant and letting the instrument gently fall. "Pardon if I made things worse," He said jokingly.