Jackie flicked through one of the folders in the pile she had to read through today. A lot of it was supposed to be interesting, such as the history of HOG and other Descendant events. However, it was written in the dullest possible fashion, making it difficult for Jackie to sit through, even with music playing.

Thankfully, the next one was a pale blue one, that never failed to get her attention.

She skim read the rest of the brown one before starting the blue folder, which turned out to be a profile on Jack, great.

Another flick through revealed what Jackie thought, it was a fairly detailed account of Jack's life, and she didn't want to read that. Especially not when she knew him personally. This is stuff she should hear from him, not from an emotionless piece of paper.

Jackie still had a cursory look at the impersonal sections, such as powers, where she found something interesting. Or just odd, depending on how you looked at it.

"Jack can talk to leaves?" Jackie had no idea whether to laugh or just be confused.

"Huh? He can what now?" Taboo asked sleepily.

"Talk, to leaves..."

The two looked at each with equal expressions of confusion.

"I didn't think leaves were conscious."

"Me neither." Jackie looked at it to make she had read it correctly. "I'm going to have to ask him about this."

"Or maybe ask someone like Stephen, he might know something about this." Taboo yawned and stood up, shaking herself off. "Since he has a different power and all."

Jackie 'hmmed' and got back to reading, storing this away for later.

She didn't see Jack before the next Workshop, and ended up glancing over at Stephen more than she probably would have normally, the leaf thing still in her head.

Stephen did notice, and was a little confused. Was Jackie distracted due to the Head thing? Still didn't make sense, even though Alfred's death had hit everyone hard. Maybe she thought he was a better candidate? Now that was just egotistical.

When everyone had a break Stephen went over to ask Jackie what was going on.

"Is everything alright?" he asked, having to 'look' down at Jackie due to his taller stature.

"Fine Stephen." Jackie sighed.

"Are you sure, I mean, Alfred..."

Jackie took a deep breath as she felt a stab of emotional pain somewhere in her chest. "Thanks for that Stephen."

Stephen had the good grace to look a little guilty, awkwardly fiddling with his sunglasses. "Sorry"

"It's alright. Anyway, there was something I want to ask you." Jackie was fully aware of how weird this was going to come out. "Have you ever, talked to, leaves?"

Jackie fully expected Stephen to laugh, but instead, he looked thoughtful.

"Talked to leaves... No, but I have heard them, I guess you haven't."

"No, I wasn't aware leaves were conscious."

"I'm not sure, but I do hear them whispering, especially on a windy day."

"Have you ever actually tried to talk to them?"

"They don't stand still long enough." Stephen shrugged. "I mostly catch a bit of a conversation before they move on again."

Jackie wasn't quite sure what to make of this conversation. "Can Rachel hear them too?"

Stephen thought for a second. "I think so, I've never really asked, but she's stopped to listen the same times I do. I did assume that we all heard them, but that doesn't seem to be the case," he sounded a little sad at that.

"I'd never even heard of this until a few days ago." Jackie admitted. "How about we get Rachel over?"

Stephen just shrugged and Jackie waved Rachel over. The sixty odd year old woman jogged over, her greying hair tied back in a bun.

"Yes Jackie? What's the matter?"

"Can you hear leaves talking, or talk to them?" Jackie asked.

"I can hear them, never tried to talking to them." Rachel replied. "And I know why you're asking, Alice can't, so I assume this is an air using only ability."

"Succinctly sums it up." Stephen noted.

"So, that's it?" Jackie asked, looking between the two older Descendants.

"Afraid so. Just glad to know I'm not nuts." Rachel added. "Are we done?"

"Should be, there's not much interesting about this." Stephen shrugged. "Sorry Jackie, but we can't really make this exciting."

"It could be, interesting at least, if you ever managed to talk to them."

"I wouldn't hold your breath," said Rachel dismissively, while Stephen looked thoughtful.

"I'll think about it, although I'm not seeing anything useful coming out of it. We can't control the wind itself, so using leaves as a method of communication is dodgy at best."

Jackie nodded silently and couldn't help but smirk slightly. It was good to know that she and Stephen were on the same wavelength.

"Alright, keep thinking on it though." Jackie advised, and Stephen nodded. "Now, let's just everyone back together and get back to work."

"On it."

So this one if a long time coming, partially from a post a year ago on William Joyce's instagram and something that PuellaPulchra mentioned to me, also a while ago. I did also have a hard time making this interesting, and I'm not sure I succeeded, since this power was always going to be more low key than Jack's command over them.
In truth, Stephen and Rachel could talk to them if they wanted to, but in comparison to what their main power can do, they never really bothered to explore this aspect of their powers. Not to mention, Stephen's got a point, they can manipulate air, but actually controlling the wind is beyond them, so communicating with leaves, especially over long distances, is iffy at best.