"He'd better," she said, matching Jayati's dry facetiousness. "I can take a lot from Roman, but that smell is where I draw the line." The good-natured flicker in her eye softened her earnest expression. Though it wasn't immediate, she'd come around to Roman and his boisterous energy, as exhausting as it was. She didn't mind working with him or covering the shift, but she'd been busier in the past few weeks and she did look forward to the next opportunity to recoup and revel in her quiet solitude. Hopefully it would come sooner, rather than later. She smiled slightly into her glass as she sipped before she stared into it thoughtfully.
The instinctual need to evade Jayati's curiosity crept up on her, tickling the back of her neck. "Into performing?" It was innocuous enough an interest that Alistair didn't mind, but at the same time the truth was tied to a life she'd ceased to revisit. It wasn't the first time she'd been asked, but it was the first time she felt...strangely reluctant to closing up on someone that she was sincerely fond of. It wasn't as easy to detach, to bar herself with impassivity. Or rather, it was, but it came with a nagging conscience. God, feelings were truly unfitting for a Jorōgumo.
And yet.
She sighed, shaking her head as she privately admonished herself and the relenting smile on her face.
“It started with a woman,” she started, palming her glass, watching the lemon slice float beneath the watery surface. "She was..." Images flashed in front of her eyes: soft black hair, deep brown eyes, a smile that made flowers bloom. A century and a half later and she could still hear what that smile sounded like, what it stirred inside of her. It was interesting, the things the mind wouldn’t allow you to forget. Alistair looked up. “You could say curiosity got the best of me.” Tale as old as time without the charming fairytale ending. With a silent chuckle, she drew in toward Jayati an inch, lowering her voice to a more secretive whisper.
“But for me to get into that, I would need something a lot stronger than water.”
It wasn’t much, but she’d given Jayati a personal piece of her past, more than she’d given anyone since coming to Summerview. In her own way, this small admittance was a token of trust that, if the other woman would receive it, conveyed a careful willingness to share more with her. She chuckled again and glanced back toward the stage.
"I will say it wasn't all that difficult. I didn't have much when I first entered the world as a human, but I did have my voice."