ArchivedLogs:Special Snowflakes

Special Snowflakes
Dramatis Personae Mya, Rasa, Desirée
In Absentia	2013-09-06 '
Location <XS> Back Porch
The back patio is a restful place to sit and relax, in most weather. Ample seating comes in the form of umbrella'd deck chairs and a cushioned porch swing, and the neighboring gardens attract butterflies and hummingbirds to make the viewing pleasant. The hot tub is usually open for use, though in snowy weather the transition in and out is a shivery one! She's actually got her feet propped up for once! Instead of floating, she's sat her happy but down in a chair next to the hot tub. For a change, she actually has pointy elfy ears with dangly earrings and a yellow and purple scarf that covers the lower half of her face. It only makes her look slightly less alien... but she'll take any she can get. Right now, she's got one of her pusling, glowing balls of smoke floating between her hands and she's busy playing with it as if it were clay. She has to make all her own accessories, so it takes some work. Mya likes crafting things, and while she can't actually enjoy the hot water of the tub, even the heat wafting off of it can serve to feed her. Her eyes serve as a brightly glowing, soft blue beacon in the dark of the night, while the smoke floating between her hands is practically a lantern for all the light it casts. Six more less sizable balls of smoke, roughly the size of a golfball, cast softer, purplish light roughly equal to a candle in illumination, floating in a circle around her. Their seething surfaces almost resemble lightning flashing through dark miniature clouds, for all their silence. And suffusing it all? The soft smell of cloves and cinnamon. The door from the building to the porch opens quietly to disgorge one fresh new face. Desiree has /survived/ her Very First Day at Xavier's, and if her quick smile is any indication, she's even survived it somewhat /happily/. The girl wears a green wrap skirt paired with gauzy white long-sleeved top, largely see-through, it's easy to see the green bikini top underneath. There are purple rubber flip flops on her feet and a towel draped over her arm, a twirl and a bounce in her step as she heads out onto the patio. "Oh, /wow/, I /heard/ there was a hot tub, /awesome/." This might be addressed to Mya, or might just be address to the world at large; it's hard to tell, though her words are bright and warm. "-- What are you -- making, what is that?" Her head tilts, green eyes focusing on Mya's smoke-ball curiously. Rasa ventures forth from the Great Hall, looking a bit tired and run down, a gray cast to hir yellow skin. Hir hair hangs in orange cords around hir head, damp from a post moving shower and clinging in places to hir skin. Ze's wearing a light blue bathrobe and wearing orange flipflops, but most noticeably is the four pack of bottled juice ze carries in one hand, the soft hum of music coming from the pocket of hir robe. Ze pauses when ze catches sight of the glowing lights surrounding the girl by the tub, brows climbing hir face, a metallic bronze tinge starting to replace the gray. Eyes shift to Desiree and hir expression softens a bit. "Hi, Mya," Rasa offers quickly with a nod, then turns to the new girl. "You're Desiree, right?" Ze continues toward the tub, loosening the knot on hir robe. "I met you briefly at the welcome back party for the twins." Mya looks up at Desiree, then offers a smile that only shows in her eyes and the way they briefly turn a softer shade of blue,"Oh, um... I think this one might be a shirt or dress. I have to work very hard to alter my appearance in any complex way. Haven't even gotten around to adding a mouth, you know? I'm Mya by the way. Nice to meet you." She leans forward to extend her all too long fingers to greet Desiree, while her other waves in Rasa's direction. Words scroll across her forehead: HELLO RASA. "Words are actually easy. I know exactly how they're supposed to look. Come to use the hot tub too? Let me know how it feels." "Have to -- oh. Huh." Desiree eyes Mya for a moment in open curiosity, then flushes darker and shakes her head abruptly. "Sorry, I'm still getting used to --" Her hand waves towards the school building. She also eyes Mya's outstretched hand, a little uncertainly, her own hands curling in against her chest to cling tighter to her towel. "Oh, I don't -- know if that's --" This train of thought is derailed by Rasa's appearance, which prompts another warm smile from Desi. "Desi, yeah. Oh! Oh, right, you're --" She winces apologetically. "I'm /so/ sorry, I'm not good with names. R -- r." Her fingers snap, her expression sheepish. "Rasa," Ze replies quietly with a small shrug. "Don't worry about it. You've probably been inundated with names today." Ze moves over to the hot tub and sets down the bottles, the glass clinking lightly against each other. Ze then turns and hangs hir bathrobe over a chair, revealing a baggy pair of board shorts underneath that hang almost to hir knees, with a single white band across hir chest. "Take your time with all this. It's very weird to start." Ze glances over at Mya. "What kind of description did you want? Did you ever feel a hot bath... before, you know?" Mya tilts her head as the girl withdraws her hand, then does that 'eye-smile' thing again,"OOOOH. Touch-based power? I wouldn't worry. This isn't ACTUALLY my body. That's down in the basement. What you're seeing, it's just smoke, some of it kind of coalesced or solidified. It's basically my power given form." She leans back over though, a moment later, and returns to scultping her smoke ball. "Just how it feels, I guess. I only remember warm sponge bathes, really. Near the end, I wasn't really able to take care of myself for certain values of the concept." Then she looks back to Des,"She's right, though. Cut yourself some slack. This place is amazing, you know?" "Rasa, right, sorry." Desi's cheeks flush slightly, but her smile is still easy. "Yeah, it's kinda been this huge swarm of faces. But yours at least is kind of familiar." Her nose crinkles up slightly. "-- Kinda. I don't think you were that colour when I met you, though." At the information about Mya's un!body, she relaxes a bit more, sliding her hand out from under her towel to extend it to the smoke-avatar. "Oh! Yeah, I -- it's not always good to -- I have gloves a lot, but I didn't want them for /hot tub/, y'know?" Her brows quirk upwards, a little puzzled. "Near the end of what? -- It /is/ kind of weird to start but -- I don't know it's sort of nice? Like /everything's/ weird, I guess. I think I'm too overwhelmed to even /remember/ that I'm overwhelmed, if that makes sense." Rasa stiffens when Mya refers to hir, hir lips pressing together. As ze exhales, ze grows a little more bronze. "I tend not to stay the same color often. Kind... of based on my mood, I guess." Ze climbs the steps to the hot tub and lifts one foot to test the temperature, a red color starting at hir toes and running up to hir ankle. "Hmmm." Ze frowns a little. "It's hot and wet." Hir foot plunges deeper, the line of red climbing, always about four inches above where the the surface of the water laps against hir skin. "It makes sense." Mya frowns a little bit,"Hir. Damn. It's going to take me some time to get those pronouns right." She pauses and looks right at Rasa,"Correct me as necessary. I really hate getting these things wrong." She snaps her fingers which actually makes very little sound indeed. Her handshake, meanwhile is actually rather fragile and sooty. "Everything's weird, which means nothing's weird. And I meant near the end... I was dying of cancer, I was pretty much ready to go. Then I sort of mutated at the last minute." She stretches as if she actually had bones to unlimber,"Thanks, Rasa... I appreciate it. Rasa was one of the first people I met here. She's really neat if you get to know her. Or do you two already know each other well?" Desiree's touch is gentle, as she returns the handshake, tentative as though she is a little wary of /breaking/ the smokey hand. She finds a chair of her own to rest her towel over afterwards, shedding her gauzy white shirt and unwrapping the skirt to leave a green and black bikini bottom, tied at the hip. "-- No, I've only met hir once before. We have mutual friends. Hopefully we /can/ get to know each other better, though." There is juuust the faintest bit of emphasis given to 'hir' when Desiree says the pronoun. She moves towards the hot tub, too, leaning against its side to trail her fingers in the water. Her smile fades when Mya mentions dying of cancer, her eyes fixing downward on the water. "-- Oh." For a moment, the warmth in her tone is replaced by a heavy flatness. "Oh. That's. I'm sorry." "Ze," Rasa speaks up, moving across the tub back to where ze left hir bottles of juice, settling a knee on one of the bench seats underwater. "I'm sorry. I just don't know how to describe the feeling when you don't remember what it's like. Do you feel temperatures now, or is it all the same?" Ze grips the bottle and twists the top off, leaving the wrinkled metal cap in the cardboard sleeve the drink was in. Mya examines the girl's swimsuit,"Ze. Thank you." She's still examining Des' swimsuit when she's apologizing,"Oh, don't be. Mutating was the best thing that ever happened to me. Saved my life after a fashion, gave me my mobility back, and I feel no pain whatosever, even in my actual body. I'm safe, well fed, and protected. I have friends, and an amazing place to live." She pulls a few chunks out of her ball of smoke and begins to thin it out like fabric,"It's a happy ending, not a sad one." She looks over at Rasa, then, answering,"I don't feel the temperature the same way you do, really. It's... It's more like data. It gets relayed in a way that makes sense to me, but... it's kind of devoid of any sensational texture. Make sense? Anyway, thanks for trying." Desiree steps up onto the step leading to the hot tub, though she doesn't climb in. She just trails her fingers down further into the water, eyes still fixed there. "Good." She musters a quiet note of warmth back into her tone, though it's still flatter than it was before. "Good, I'm glad you -- got a happy ending." Her fingers curl into a fist, loosely, watching the water run through them as she lifts her fingers back out of the water. "Have you both been here long?" "I've only been here about nine months," Rasa replies, reaching for another bottle and lifting it toward Desiree as an offering. "Would you like some?" There is concern in hir eyes and in the press of hir lips, but ze does not ask. "It's been... interesting." Ze gives a little smile as hir brows furrow, the expression somewhat sheepish. "What made you decide to come here?" Mya begins to form something similar to a jacket of sorts, if only in the vaguest of ways, from the ball of smoke,"I've been here... a month? Maybe a little bit longer? I've technically been a ward for a little longer, but they had to radiation-proof my chamber first." She shrugs and looks over to Rasa,"Ze has been here longer than I have... By a lot, from what she just said." "Radiation-proof --" Desiree looks a little confused at this. "Oh -- oh, thank you." She leans forward to take the bottle of juice, uncapping it to take a quick swig. "Interesting." A small smile returns to her face, though it's brief. "The twins have told me -- a few stories. Definitely seems more interesting than my last school." The question just earns a shrug of one shoulder. "This is the place for freaks, isn't it?" "I guess." Rasa settles down further into the water, the rest of hir flushing red, radiating the heat ze feels from the tub. Ze closes hir eyes a bit as ze takes a sip. "There are a few nonfreaks here too, but well, not many. It's mostly for those of us that can't really go somewhere else - for our own sake or the sake of others." Ze gives a little smile. Mya nods at Desiree,"Radiation-proof. My real body is, like, mega-irradiated by ionizing radiation. So I can't exactly walk around spraying radiation everywhere. So I got my chamber." She gives the girl a thumbs up. Then her eyes turn a dark red and she frowns,"Freaks. That's... an awful word... or are we taking it back?" She begins to fluff and work the color of the garment, meanwhile,"Which reason are you here for, Rasa, if I may ask?" "Oh --" This doesn't noticeably alleviate the confusion in Desi's expression, but she nods. "I don't know. I kind of like 'freaks'. It suits most of the people /I've/ loved, at least." Her arm curls against the rim of the hot tub, chin dropping to rest along it. Her other hand balances the bottle at the tub's rim. "Though I'm not really sure I've ever met /anyone/ who wasn't one, some way or other." "I don't know. I would say ... both, but I wasn't really a physical danger to others before I came here. Just a burden." Rasa stretches out under the water, arching hir back until the rest of hir begins to float. "I don't know how things would have turned out if I stayed, but it was probably for the best to just come here. The academics are good, too. What classes are you guys taking?" Mya peers curiously at the hot tub, then ever so carefully dips the tip of her finger in the water. It promptly dissolves. It reforms a moment later, and she's soon back to working on her jacket. It's beginning to shape up like a bomber jacket. "Everybody's a special snowflake, it's true. Some are just special in more esoteric ways." She looks over at Rasa,"I don't think people at large will ever understand people like us, but... that doesn't mean we can't make sure they're glad we came along." "Special --" Desiree's eyebrows lift faintly, and then she looks back to the water. "I mean, I don't know if I'd put it quite so -- uh, snidely, but --" She straightens, her fingers flicking droplets of water back down into the tub so that she can watch the ripples spread out towards Rasa. "I don't remember. Sex ed. I think I'm -- going to grab a snack, do you -- want --" This trails off; she curls her fingers around the bottle more tightly. "It was nice to meet you," she adds instead, polite and quiet to Mya. "Oh, sex ed. That'll be an interesting class. I think Shane's just going to try and make Jax blush every minute he can," Rasa tries to lighten the mood, but nods to Desiree as she gets up to leave. "Okay. There's usually some good stuff in the kitchen. Did you need me to show you around in there, or are you good with basic pantry items?" Ze smiles a little and takes a drink, nearly finishing off half hir bottle. "Sorry, Mya. I ... haven't gotten to the point where I'm thinking about making other people feel good yet." Mya chuckles at Desiree,"I eat... things you don't find laying around in the pantry very often. But thank you. I've almost got this jacket done I think. I may call it a night." As for making people feel good? "It's not really about making other people feel good, so much as making a mark. I don't know... Lot of high-minded ideals rumbling around in this head, you know? It's weird thinking about taking sex-ed. I'm not actually physically capable of it, you see. Or, not in any meaningful way that I'm aware of." She lets her smoke-creations poof away,"It was nice talking to you two, but I want a little bit of sleep. More later?" "I think Shane does that even out of class," Desiree says with a quick laugh. "Oh! I can probably navigate the kitchen alright but -- do you want anything, I can bring something back." She wraps her skirt back around her hips, tucking it in on itself but leaving the shirt off. "I think this is about the time we're /supposed/ to have high-minded ideas. Who knows, maybe you'll learn something here to help you put them into action." Her fingers lift, curling to Mya in a wave. "Night!" "I could use a turkey sandwich." Rasa announces, "but I have this thing against asking people to make me a sandwich, so... if you see some trail mix, that would be lovely." Ze gives a cheeky smile before glancing over at Mya. "Sure. Later. Have a nice night, Mya." Ze sets hir bottle down then submerges under the water for a moment to get hir hair wet. Mya wiggles her fingers lazily in departure,"Likewise. Sleep well when you get around to it." Her smokey from begins to dissipate in wisps and curls of smoke, until finally all that's left is one waving hand. That, too, disappears shortly, poofing into nothingness moments later. As she departs, so too does the smell of cloves and cinnamon. Desiree's eyes follow Mya's disappearance, curiosity in her expression once more. It shifts into a quick smile as she looks back at Rasa. "-- I'll make you a sandwich," she says, light and amused. She sets the juice down beside her things, leaving her clothes where they are as she trots back towards the kitchen, presumably soon to return with food.