4844/This Life Is Better

This Life Is Better
Date of Scene:	23 January 2021
Location:	Student Gardens
Synopsis:	Ruth Aldine is
Cast of Characters:	Jubilation Lee, Ruth Aldine

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Jubilation Lee has posed:
The tranquility of the student gardens is disrupted by the sudden arrival of one JUBILATION LEE. She's rocking out to something blaring in her headphones, so loud that it comes spilling out and could be heard by anyone nearby. Her shades are on, she's blowing bubblegum bubbles, and she just doesn't have a care in the entire world as she sings along under her breath.

99 red balloons
Floating in the summer sky
Panic bells, it's red alert
There's something here from somewhere else

Under one arm, Jubes has a stack of pink flyers advertising her upcoming talent show. A roll of packing tape is worn as a bracelet. She's spreading the word far and wide and the word, apparently, is reaching the student gardens.

Ruth Aldine has posed:
The student gardens, a little bit of tranquility due to the fact that not too many students are really interested in going to the gardens by themselves. It would usually be during school hours, where some ambitious teacher would bring the kids in to let them, or try to get them interested in gardening or learning how to create something self sustaining and..

boring. Just boring.

Ruth is usually there, in that climate controlled area. Dead of winter she was there with a blanket to sprawl out on, Mackey Tag, her rotweiler at her side chewing on a mint bone or snoozing.. and nothing else. The dreaming genie would usually stare at the ceiling. Playing peek-a-boo with random students minds. Not to read them, but to see through their eyes and what was actually going on with the school. It's a gross intrusion, but no one said that she couldn't. Not that she was asking either.

The first to hear Jubie's approach was Mackey Tag, who drops his bone to look up, sit up, and 'peacock' with one foot up. Large mouth opening to pant loudly and chuff like a cat, all to get Ruth's attention.

"I can hear that, yes." She says to the dog. "Sorry, we almost have the same ears. Juuubballleeeeeeeee..." She sing-song idly calls out, not too loud, not too quiet, where she also sits up for as well.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    The next thing Ruth might hear is the elastic twang of packing tape being pulled out from the roll. Jubes bites a piece off with her teeth and uses it to tape one of her pink flyers up on the wall of the climate controlled dividers. She squints one eye to inspect and nods her head. After careful consideration, ten more out to do it for this area, Jubes figures. And so, she sets off to find the next spot! Only to find...

    "Ruth!" she exclaims, pulling her headphones from her ears and letting them dangle at her neck. She grins widely at the dog and even reaches a hand out to pet him...but she doesn't. Somehow, the world's messaging that you should never pet a service animal has managed to cement its way into Jubilee's brain.

    "Whatcha doing?"

Ruth Aldine has posed:
Mackey wasn't an ordinary service dog, if people had an insight into the dogs mind, they would be essentially weirded out. To the fullest extent. The outstretched hand was met with a paw tap, which as soon lowered so that he could stand upon all fours. And as a method of his hug? He turns his body around to sit on her foot and lean. All was right within his world.

"Watching tv. Yes." But there was no television around. Just her, the dog, now Jubes, and a lot of flora.

"I sing the body one eye, sorry." Ruth explains. "Who eats peanut butter and jelly. Joined by the girl who we could not see but is always there." She points out, then lifts her chin to the ceiling. "I see the body nurse, yes, who scolds a body plasma for eating rotten fungus on a dare."

"What is that." She didn't point, but didn't really make it clear she was speaking about the flyers in Jubilee's hand.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Jubilee stares. Stares. STARES. She considers Ruth's description, really she does, and even tries her best to follow along with it. "...So, is that, like, a Grey's Anatomy episode?" It's tough to follow Ruth sometimes. She plucks the top flyer from her stack and gets to work taping it up like the previous one. The flyer is identical, advertising an upcoming talent show Jubes is hosting in the recreation room.

    "Oh!" she says with a grin. "It's a flyer for the First Annual Talent Show For Gifted Youngsters Presented By Jubilation Lee!" She strikes a Rockette pose by tilting her foot out and bending at the knee.

    "It's going to be great! You should totally come! I'm looking for judges..." She waggles her eyebrows. The thought of Ruth judging a talent show is in some ways her best idea ever.

    There's a moment of recollection and Jubilee's bravado tampers a little. "...Hey, Ruth..." she begins, her voice softening. "...Listen, uh, about the other day... In the rec room." Where she nearly kicked the other girl's head off.

    "...You know why I did that, right?" Of course she did. Enough context clues were given by Ruth for Jubilee to understand that they were on the same page.

Ruth Aldine has posed:
"No." Ruth puts it straight, but to explain it would be easier. Which she doesn't. How could you tell someone you barely know but absolutely like as a person that you're invading peoples privacy by .. well, being the quite literal interpretation of a fly on the wall?

The first talent show? Ruth was intrigued. While she was usually the quiet one in the corner, the fly on the wall as previously stated, she did open up (due to drugs) to Quentin and scream her heart out to a song. One that seemed like he actually enjoyed. But to actually render a decision? That.. in a way freaked her out, which was told by the 'balk' she put on and tried to erase.

"Ew." Is all she said. "I would rather compete." Totally different. VERY different. Something is wrong.

Though, once Jubilee softens, she remains polite enough to allow the words to fully come out before Ruth interrupts her, nodding her head.

"I know why everyone does everything, yes." She states. "But understand it. I do not." She settles back upon the heels of her feet, her hand lifting to scratch at her blindfold. It looked like it hurt, the way that she did it, as she does leave marks upon her skin where the cloth does not touch. "You love each other."

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    For the smallest of moments, a wrinkle in the threads of time, Jubilee looks disappointed. But then...

    "Compete? Even better, girl!" Jubes announces with a smile. "You wanna throw your hat into the ring for, get this -- a TEN dollar gift card to Burger Shack!" She shoots a thumbs-up at the blind girl, stares at it, and then pulls it back. "What's your talent? NO! Don't tell me! I want it to be a surprise!" She is so very happy.

    Jubilee falls quiet, nodding her head a little at the thought that Ruth already knows everything. And also doesn't. That's weird. Jubes moistens her lips and opens her mouth, as if to belt out one of her trademarked witticisms. Her smile is big, bright and just about to launch some kind of platitude. But... then it doesn't. She swallows the lump in her throat and tilts her head to inspect the rest of the garden. Alone. Jubilation empties her lungs and manages a faint smile.

    "Are we good?" she asks, her brow rising a little. She doesn't comment on Ruth's conclusion.

Ruth Aldine has posed:
Ruth, is not one to turn down a ten dollar gift card to a Burger Shack, even though she knows she won't even get the prize. But she had to try! Even though she knew she was not going to win. But she could win. In the one that she does she gets food poisoning due to the raw meat that they left over night. There was no health code violation because no one felt like reporting the Burger Shack to the Health Department.

Though Burger Shacks corporate office caught wind of the mixup and fired the manager to ensure that nothing else like that would happen again. And no one was compensated for their sickness.

Good thing that didn't happen yet!

Jubilee's question had her tilting her head, a little frown appearing upon her face. "Sorry. Why would we not be." She states. "If you did not, you would not have had the first date that was not at the movies. Yes." Ruth was convinced of that.

"You avoided being puked on."

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Ah yes, first prize is a ten dollar gift card to Burger Joint, which will have at least seven dollars of value left by the time of the talent show. Who wouldn't want a chance at that?

    Another poster is taped up in the student gardens. From the look of it, Jubilee has at least 200 in that stack of hers. All pink. All obnoxious. "...Well, I mean, I /did/ try to kick you in the face," she explains while pulling off another piece of tape. "But, you know, I didn't /want/ to hurt you, so I'm glad I missed. I thought maybe you might be upset about it." She reaches up to slap the piece of tape onto the next poster but then freezes. She snap-turns towards Ruth, surprise splashed across her face.

    "What?" is her first reaction. They haven't really said anything to the other students about what's been going on. At least, Jubes hasn't. Did Nori? Did it even matter with Ruth?

    "...When?" When did she avoid being puked on?

Ruth Aldine has posed:
"You would have broken my fingers." Ruth states, rather clear in fact. "Ms. Frost would have taken me to the infirmary after she fixed Noriko. Ms. Frost then would have scolded the air because of our lack of fight training and expressed how annoyed she was with the other people and mildly Quentin." She nods, then shrugs.

She finally rises to her feet to step towards a poster, taking it from its spot which would soon to be replaced again.

"Comedians riding in cars getting coffee." Ruth states, frowning. She turns towards Jubilee to give a half smile. "First date. You made the first move. You asked Noriko to get something to eat. You both spoke and ate. You both made fun of people. You both smelled something foul and she puked on you."

She pauses, then nods.

"Deep dish pizza with the works. You had a gift for her but you both had to leave." She bobs her head a little, and if she had eyes, they probably would have crossed and closed. "But it never happened. This life is better." She nods and claps her hands softly, the paper making that.. wicky wobbily sound as she does.

"You can leave though. I will put this back, yes."

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Jubilee's eyebrows rise as Ruth explains this alternate timeline. She stares with the bridge of her nose taking on a wrinkle. They didn't get something to eat. They didn't make fun of people. They didn't smell anything and no one puked. It takes her a few cycles to figure out that Ruth is talking about events that haven't happened to her in the truest sense. A soft smile forms, her eyes lowering to look at the ground as she swims in that thought. Some part of her liked thinking that there was another Jubes and another Noriko dancing the same dance they're doing but with different steps.

    This life is better.

    "You can keep it!" Jubilee insists with a grin as she's apparently dismissed. To confirm it, she slaps another poster up in its place. No harm done. "Good luck in the talent show!" With that, Jubilee puts her headphones in place and saunters out of the student gardens and away from Ruth's air of wonder and mystery, off to pepper the rest of the campus with these pink flyers.