[Claire tries to keep her expression stern, tries to stick with the real topic of conversation, tries to deduce anything about him from what he's saying, but it doesn't work, and she bursts out laughing, definitely harder than she ever has at one of his comments before. Maybe it's the nervous energy, like she's about to perform on stage for someone who's been able to do the routine just as well as she can for just as long, but his remark is funnier than it should be.]
Damn it. Now I can't punch you for being indecent. [She does anyway: slugs him hard in the arm with the point of her knuckles. Not as hard as she really could, but still hard enough to make a point. Before taking off for the tree, she shoves her jacket into his hands.] Hold this.
[Being as used to and as unafraid of heights as she is, climbing a tree with branches that might break under her weight at any moment seems like cake. Once her feet are off the ground, Claire climbs higher and higher, past the branches thicker than a man's arm, past the branches that bounce under her feet as she finds her footing, up to the branches that groan and snap when she steps off of them. She's high enough, and she looks down from where she is, to call out.]
Ready?
[Whether he is or isn't, Claire jumps like someone leaping from a diving board, belly-flopping into the ground with groans and snaps, her bones popping like so many tree branches. It doesn't hurt, it never does, but when she gets up, it's with an off-kilter smile, though that might be because her jaw is broken. She speaks before her skin has finished repairing itself.]
[Action!]
Damn it. Now I can't punch you for being indecent. [She does anyway: slugs him hard in the arm with the point of her knuckles. Not as hard as she really could, but still hard enough to make a point. Before taking off for the tree, she shoves her jacket into his hands.] Hold this.
[Being as used to and as unafraid of heights as she is, climbing a tree with branches that might break under her weight at any moment seems like cake. Once her feet are off the ground, Claire climbs higher and higher, past the branches thicker than a man's arm, past the branches that bounce under her feet as she finds her footing, up to the branches that groan and snap when she steps off of them. She's high enough, and she looks down from where she is, to call out.]
Ready?
[Whether he is or isn't, Claire jumps like someone leaping from a diving board, belly-flopping into the ground with groans and snaps, her bones popping like so many tree branches. It doesn't hurt, it never does, but when she gets up, it's with an off-kilter smile, though that might be because her jaw is broken. She speaks before her skin has finished repairing itself.]
Cool, huh?