Pure or Not
Draft two
"Looks cold out there." Tallen said after she looked out the window she and her temporary cabin mate had been staring out from the last half hour.
It was a cold night.
Anyone outside could have easily seen their breath if there was light to see it. Stars winked at their muted reflections on the back of the grayish-white clouds that covered the skies along with the moon's glow. Below, near ground level, snow drifted down lazily before getting picked up by a stray wind and being blown into something. Other then the wind it was a quiet night, animals above and below the sea were curled up in dens and pocket-caves, hiding from the cold or swimming around looking for food.
Two people were also hiding from the cold in much the same way, inside a partly underground safe house of sorts. Safe from the outside elements but not from boredom brought on by inactivity.
"It does." J'onn said in his deep, rich voice as he glanced at the shorter woman that parked herself beside him. He stood easily at six foot seven, had broad shoulders and chest, he had no hair but it fit him; mostly because the other had never seen him otherwise. J'onn's golden eyes hardly missed anything, the abnormal shade of them plus the fact that his skin was green, showed that his was more then a little different from the average person. A dark blue cape was clasped around his shoulders and nearly dangled down to his feet, his boots and skin tight 'shorts' were also the same color. Two bands of red crossed over his chest making an X shape, last but no least a golden belt of sorts encircled his waist.
All and all he easily dwarfed the young woman beside him who was only five and a half feet tall. Her short blondish hair was shoved up into a baseball cap where it was out of the way and her own eyes were blue. She wore a slightly too large gray sweeter and thick, black pants, possibly snow pants and equally thick gray boots of her own.
Tallen smiled as looked up at the man, showing that she wasn't intimated by him and that they have a good relationship as friends. "Penny for your thoughts?" she asked.
"Penny?" Confused, J'onn looked down at the young woman, "I do not understand, how can a coin…?"
"It's an expression J'onn," Tallen said, fighting the urge to sigh. It had been like this most of time they had stayed in the compound. She was getting use to it really; at times it was funny and others annoying, but right now it was neither. It was just seemed normal at the moment. "What are you thinking about?"
"Nothing, and everything." The man said taking a deep breath that wasn't quit a sigh. He glanced down at the young woman as she shifted to look out the window again.
"That's a lot to think about." She said.
"Perhaps," J'onn nodded, still looking down at the other. "My I ask you a question Tallen?"
Fighting down her first response of saying "You just did." Tallen said instead, "Shoot. Just not at my head please, I need it." It seemed her sense of humor could not be completely repressed.
"Why do humans always fear what they can not explain, or understand?" The man asked after a pause where he thought of the best way to phrase his question.
Tallen's head snapped up and around to look back into J'onn's golden gaze. She hesitated, her mouth opening, but clicked it closed as she thought about the question and the possible reason behind it. "I've wondered about that before, and I'm not really sure." She said at last, frowning. "The short answer is that it's human nature, or so I was always told, but..."
"You believe there maybe more to it."
"Of course," Tallen nodded, "But it's not easy to figure out. Not many have really tried that I know of, there's bound to have been some who did try. I know I have, but we humans are weird as a whole, me thinks."
"I concur." He agreed with a slight smile. J'onn watched as the young woman stepped up to the window and turned so she could rest her back against it. Now facing each other he could easily see the face she made at him in a good natured fashion.
"Oy!" Tallen scowled but her guise of mock anger was broken as she smiled again a moment later, "Well, it is true. To your question again: I think it's partly instinctual. Something about human ancestors being in family packs. We still clump together like that, just look at my family, and if you wandered off not knowing what was out there then you're likely to become someone else's dinner. I think that's a big part of it, we don't have your peoples' gifts."
"Perhaps not but you do have others." J'onn said.
"Maybe, I guess." Tallen agreed as she racked her mind for the said gifts of human kind as some of the cold leaked through the window and her sweater; trying to reach her skin and suck out body heat. "Adaptability is one of the strongest, as a whole. But there's always exceptions to everything, as you know."
"That is true," the man said, his gaze moving to look beyond the young woman to the falling snow out side. However, he kept part of his attention on her using his telepathy abilities. "Ingenuity is another one of your stronger assets. Being able to flourish only a few generations, at lest, after colonizing every terrain of you world."
"Almost all," Tallen corrected as she lightly kicked at an imaginary dust bunny on the clean floor. "We're still working on Antarctica and the underwater world." She looked up to the ceiling, almost wistful as she thought of the possibilities of oceanic colonization. Even the faint possibility of genetic alteration, so humans could survive underwater with out being dependant on air tanks. That wasn't to be in her life time though, and she knew it. It never hurt to dream did it?
"Being able to dream is another."
J'onn looked back at the young woman as she shifted, trying to escape the cold that was starting to seep into her back, but at the same time she was unwilling to leave the extra support. More then a little curious now he silently encouraged her to continue by giving her his complete attention.
"Not just the dreams of sleep," Tallen said after gentle mental nudge from the Martian when she didn't say anything for a minute. The young woman propped a foot on the wall below the window, "We keep on dreaming about the next thing to do, always looking forward. It's the ability to hope for a better life for the next generation as well as those we care for. That hope, that dream never dies. It might be repressed some, or covered up under the unfairness that reality tends to throw at you every now and again, but it's still there. I think that's one of the major things that have kept our species alive for so long. Its also one of the key components that fuels a person's inner fire, soul, how ever you want to look at it."
J'onn rolled her words around in his mind for a minute of comfortable silence between them. He focused back on Tallen as she gave a sigh. He could feel her mood shifting some, becoming sadder and he caught brief flashes of a bad confrontation with someone. A glint of old pain entering her eyes as she moved so that she, too, could look out at the still falling snow, her shoulder pressed against the window now. The man opened his mouth to ask what was wrong, he could of course find out with out asking. That, however, would be rude and against the way of his people. Besides, the young woman spoke up before he could ask anything.
"Of course, with every dream there's a nightmare." She muttered, more to herself then to the other. Tallen blinked as she was brought out of some unpleasant memory by a warm hand resting on her shoulder.
"That may be true, but there are as many, if not more attributes that make up for the faults of humans." J'onn said his voice reassuring and almost father like. "You yourself have shown them as have others. Kindness, compassion, a sense of honor and good morals, but, as you said, there are always exceptions to everything."
"Too right," Tallen said, the window's chill sapping the heat out of her side and right arm like it had done to her back as she thought about her biological father, and the falling out they had. "It's confusing though." She added, not quite an afterthought.
"What is?"
"Us. Humans. Why we act the way we do." The young woman reached up and curled her cold fingers around J'onn's hand, seeking both warmth and comfort. She may be an adult now, but Tallen was still young enough to need comfort from others. Or perhaps that too was apart of human nature; to seek out reassurance that it will turn out okay. She was aware of something brushing against her consciousness. It wasn't a new sensation or a frightening one. J'onn had entered her mind before so she knew what it was like, and besides, the Martian seemed to always 'brush' the minds of those he trusted every now and again
"For all the good and promise we have, we still fight and kill each other. Sometimes over the stupidest things! Or scarier yet, no reason at all; other then pleasure in plain cruelty to others." She shivered at both the thought of that and from the cold, "I can barely accept it, even though I've seen first hand some of those faults, and what happens after..."
"First hand?" J'onn echoed and frowned, worried about the young woman. She had yet to show she had been affected by an experience with a human 'fault' for the time he had known her. He thought for a moment and remembered something from another conversation.
"Your father."
It was more of a statement then a question.
"Yeah, Da." Tallen sighed as she nodded.
J'onn move, gently touching her mind, giving reassuring thoughts and feelings as he wrapped his own fingers around hers, and feeling started to come back into them as they were warmed up.
"What happened?"
"We had a falling out. A couple of them, one was. . .not so good. Kinda nasty really." She said and exhaled deeply, "Over a few things, mostly I grew up enough to really see what he was like. That he wasn't the person I always thought he was."
"Mmmm…" the man made the thoughtful noise in his throat. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be." Tallen waved it off with her free hand, she gave a half a laugh that wasn't quite as empty as it could have been, "You know what I found? Despite all we've been through, my dad and I. All the pain, all the worry and fear I went through each time we met these last few years, I still try to. . .I keep coming back. . .I still love him. But it hurts. A lot more then it should."
"Yes, it does hurt, but it will fade with time." J'onn's golden gaze drifted back to the snow outside, noting that it was not nearly as thick as before.
"Yeah, I know. It's just getting from here," Tallen lifted a finger and held it in the air and freed her other hand to poke at another invisible point that only she could see, "To there, that's the hard part."
"That is all too true." The man said, thinking of the time it had taken him to move on after the loss of his family. "Life does go on, however. Perhaps nothing with replace what you lost, but, then again..."
"…something just might heal that hole." Tallen smiled up at him and accepted his offered hand, letting the taller man pull her back to her feet. She looked out the window, seeing that it had stopped snowing.
The last few flakes were drifting and spiraling down to complete the pristine white covering. The snow was a pure, silvery white, so freshly fallen that it had not yet had time to be stained by the ground and other elements, or men and their machines. The light of the exposed stares glinting off the snow, making it seem like millions of diamonds and crystals were resting on the surface.
Icicles were just starting to from around the roof of the compound, seen only as nubs that flashed in the light that spilled out of the window to the night outside. Each branch of every tree and bush that stood just outside of the pool of light was also cover with the cold, white fluff.
Everything was somehow cleaner, brighter and somehow more than what it had been. The world was greater, newer and full of fresh possibilities like the land just on the other side of the glass.
In a way, human kind was a lot like what the two were seeing out side the window. The darkness and ill deeds of men and woman alike were hidden, or just out shined by the greater things they had done, and will do for each other.
Tallen closed her eyes as she leaned back into the form behind her, letting him warm her up again. J'onn wrapped his arms around the shorter woman, tilting his shoulders in a way so his blue cape closed around them both. He mentally traced the colors of her emotions, lightly soothing them into a clam, contented state. The man muttered softly in both his voices, aloud and telepathically, as he rested his head on hers.
"For all the strangeness of humans…you are what you are, and you are a growing race that is still stretching its legs."
Tallen closed her eyes resting her head back and letting herself slide into sleep. Completely trusting J'onn as he shifted to lift the woman into his arms, his cape still wrapped around both.
Queen's notes:
I love my English teacher, I really do! One of the last things for the class I took was to write something with two-four people sitting or standing around just talking about something that's important to us. She said if we could work ourselves into it all the better. I chose the do J'onn J'onzz and I talking about human nature. I'm putting this up just cuz' I think it's nice and if you don't like it, please I don't want to hear about it. I'm happy with what I wrote and the A I got for it.