rolling out for a pre-canon test drive | twin peaks

[intuit]

Well, mun, I'll be the first to admit that I'm not sure what's going on. While I won't complain about being taken from my schoolwork — important though it is — I would appreciate some assurance in regards to both my immediate and my long-term future. There are some opportunities that come only once in a lifetime, but I possess a certain fondness for my current state and existing paths in yellow woods, so to speak.

I won't lodge any further complaint, as I believe I have made myself clear, so I hope you'll take this to heart.

Yours,
Dale B. Cooper

Comments

[pinnedup]

Schoolwork?

What are you learning?

[intuit]

Well, I'm looking into anthropology, prelaw, and psychology; as of now I'm working on a few independent projects which I hope will aid those particular pursuits.

— Have we met before?

[pinnedup]

That sounds like quite a lot. You won't miss it if you're taken away?

No, I don't believe so.

[intuit]

As I see it, if I play my cards correctly, I may be able to incorporate whatever I experience into my studies.

Um — I'm Dale. Cooper.

[pinnedup]

That would be nice, wouldn't it? Like testing yourself.

I'm Jennifer.

[intuit]

[ Cooper brightens at that, happy with being understood. ] Exactly! I guess the only trouble there would be getting people to believe what happened, considering that I hear outer space is a viable option around these parts.

It's very nice to meet you, Jennifer.

[pinnedup]

It seems miraculous, doesn't it? Outerspace... but I'm told there are no windows to see anything outside the ship. Do you need to tell others about the outer space part?

Oh- thank you, Mister Cooper.

[intuit]

It really does, although the lack of windows certainly puts a damper on things. And I suppose there are a few people I'd like to be able to tell, should I end up leaving.

Please, Dale's fine. People call me Mr. Cooper and I start feeling like my old man.

[pinnedup]

You could leave them letters.

Are you sure? All right, Mister Dale.

[intuit]

You know what, Jennifer? I may do just that.

[ He doesn't bother correcting her, now, simply smiling once. ]

Where do you think you're headed?

[backboned]

Seems like a whole lotta words just to up an' say, 'girl, best not'.

[intuit]

To be fair, I'm not completely against the possibility of going somewhere. It's all rather exciting — but just a little too binding for my tastes, though I suppose that's a bit selfish to say.

[backboned]

Excitin'. [ To Ree it sounds like an absolute nightmare, but she's said it herself: her siblings are the necessary weight around her neck. She wouldn't know what to do without them. ]

Ain't you got somewhere to be?

[intuit]

Not at the immediate moment.

[ Cooper knows that his relative lack of responsibilities — school and almost nothing else, with his brother estranged and his father perfectly capable of taking care of himself — is a luxury in some ways, but he can't help thinking, sometimes, that it's a curse, too.

But maybe it's better that way, that nothing keep him tied down, if he wants to make it to Quantico. ]

You in the same boat? In regards to the present danger of being sent somewhere, I mean.

[backboned]

Like hell I'd let her.

[ She seems certain of that. There are times — more often than she'd admit and far more frequently than she'd ever show — when Ree isn't quite sure where the path is going to lead, but there are a handful of specific truths that will always be the case. Her tenacity demands it. ]

Fought off worse'n her before and I'll do it again, if I gotta. [ Ree stares at the stranger before giving her shoulder a shrug. ] She keeps going on about my uncle comin' round, maybe. We'll see.

[intuit]

[ Cooper can't help a certain amount of admiration for that surety. It's written in the way he simply blinks at her for a few moments and then offers up a smile — not a dismissal but an acceptance of what's been said. He doesn't question the fact that she's been through worse. ]

Your uncle?

[backboned]

[ The smile he offers makes her vaguely uncomfortable. People don't really smile round where she's from and when they do, it's got a grimness to it, or a knowingness. ]

Teardrop, yeah. [ Ree shakes her head. ] We're not close or anythin', but— 'sides my momma and brother and sister, he's all I got. And blood's blood, by rights.

[intuit]

Blood's blood, [ Dale says, by way of agreement. (It's a principle he's familiar with, albeit not to the extent that Ree is.) ]

How old are you siblings?

[backboned]

[ He's awful clean cut and his shirt's pressed too nice for Ree to believe that the stranger knows how much blood truly is blood, but she's not here to argue. ]

Sonny's twelve and Ashlee's six, and 'fore you ask, I'm seventeen, sir.

[intuit]

It's Dale, [ he says, almost by reflex. (It's a matter-of-fact statement, not a reproach or anything similar. 'Sir' isn't a title he's much used to.) ] Dale Cooper.

[backboned]

Dale. Alright. [ Ree says this with a touch of suspicion, if only because men in nice clothes and such well-cut hair don't find themselves in her part of the mountains unless they want something, and they're always Mister So-and-So. Never just 'Dale'. ] Suit yourself, then. Don't make a lick a difference t'me what you up an' call yourself.

[intuit]

No, I guess it wouldn't. [ This is said more absently than not, as if he'd just realized that this was true in the grand scheme of things and not just on a scale relative to the two of them. Still, it only takes a moment for him to snap back to attention. ] Might I ask for your name?

[backboned]

[ A little more of that suspicion. Who asks for permission to ask that sort of thing? ] Sure can, I guess. Name's Ree. Ree Dolly.

Though I don't think that means much to you, not bein' from 'round these parts. [ It's a strange concept for her. Everyone knew what Dolly blood meant back home. ]

[intuit]

You'd be right, there, [ Cooper admits, with a rueful sort of tone, although he brightens almost immediately after, as if some small glimmer of warmth might improve upon their situation. ] But it's nice to meet you regardless, I'm sure.

[rhinemaid]

They don't listen. If your objections entertain them, it only makes matters worse.

[intuit]

— Worse? [ To his credit, Cooper doesn't seem completely surprised by this prospect; rather, it's a notion he hadn't entirely been willing to entertain. ]

[rhinemaid]

[ matter of fact: ] Now you're interesting. Have you ever seen a cat unravelling string?

[ it's like that, Ilde is pretty sure. ]

[intuit]

Once or twice, [ Cooper says, with the sort of resignation in his voice that suggests he gets where the metaphor is going. ]

I guess I'm just hoping the cat gets bored sooner rather than later.

[rhinemaid]

Usually when the mouse stops moving, if you don't mind a mixed metaphor.

--it's not all bad.

[intuit]

That's hardly a comfort. [ Although the words on their own seem anxious, he doesn't seem too torn up — rather, he seems amused, the four words punctuated by a brief laugh. The point isn't lost on him, as grim as the metaphor is. ]

[rhinemaid]

[ 'disturbing observations delivered tranquilly' is but one of many services ilde offers to the world. ]

You don't seem to need comforting.

[intuit]

[ That prompts a shrug, and a half-bashful sort of smile. ]

Not particularly, [ Cooper admits, mouth briefly drawing itself into a thin line. ] Or at least, there's no use in getting panicked.

Dale. Dale Cooper.

[rhinemaid]

Ilde Decima. [ --Featherstonehaugh, inexplicably pronounced Fanshaw, which she doesn't use. ]

Are you going somewhere?

[intuit]

If I'm correct, my — uh — older self may be, but I'm not headed anywhere in particular.

Yet, at least, which I'll take as a blessing.

[rhinemaid]

It's odd; variations. [ VOICE OF EXPERIENCE ... though mercifully not with herself. ]

I was going to say quiet's probably preferable, but I shouldn't assume.

[ --that he comes from somewhere quiet. ]

[intuit]

There are quiet days and loud days, [ Dale says mildly, and the sort of long-suffering tone that implies that more are loud than not. ]

Although I guess that's true of pretty much everywhere.

[rhinemaid]

Some places have more of one than the other.

[intuit]

And what of where you're from, Ilde?

[rhinemaid]

I could be from a few different places-- [ depending on how she chooses to interpret the question; home, the last place she was in her own world, the city she lives in now ] --but I can't call any of them quiet.

That used to be what I was going to do when I grew up, actually. Have quiet.

[intuit]

Not the worst of ambitions, I think. There's certainly something to be said for quiet.

[rhinemaid]

It's a nice thought. [ unlikely-- but nice. ] By a river, with a big house, and no one around for miles, and somewhere to write, and a music room.

What are you going to be?

[innasci]

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood.

[intuit]

And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

[innasci]

[ Epeius smiles, like Dale has told him a very funny joke or perhaps a fond anecdote. ]

They didn't like the idea of reading me bedtime stories. Like the kind other boys get to hear. I got Frost instead, but that's alright, isn't it?

[intuit]

I think so. More than alright. Poetry's got its own merits.

[ Dale smiles back, then, because there is something conspiratorial about being able to recite a poem — like being in on the same secret or having seen something that no one else had managed to catch. ]

Who are 'they?'

[innasci]

[ Epeius likes that the man smiles back. People very rarely did in his direction, though he's smart enough to understand why. ]

My parents. I can't recall their names anymore, but they knew I was smart, from the very beginning.

[intuit]

[ The boy's response is innately sad; Dale's brow furrows and the corners of his lips threaten to turn down as he listens.

He knows what it's like to lose a parent, but not both, and not at such a young age. ]

Have you never heard a bedtime story, then?

[innasci]

[ It's an honest mistake for Dale to make — Epeius' parents aren't the ones who are dead, it's Epeius himself. Perhaps, if the young Mr. Cooper pays close enough attention, he'll see it: the way the little boy seems to flicker at the very edges like he's some sort of optical illusion, illuminated from the inside with dim light. A ghost, or perhaps just a projection. ]

Once! They don't allow children on the ship — not really. But they made an exception once for one of the helmsman and I heard one. It was about children who got lost in a forest, but I can't recall their names anymore. [ He presses his lips together and looks vaguely sullen. ] It was nice, though. I think I would have liked bedtime stories. Just as much as poetry.

[intuit]

[ It's not a discrepancy that Cooper notices just yet. (In all likelihood, it's the sort of thing he'll remember once they're finished talking.) He's a little too intent upon what he's being told. ]

I'll tell you another one, some time, [ he decides, despite knowing that chance meetings like this are a rare thing indeed. ]

Did you have a favorite poem?