ArchivedLogs:Roommate Meetings

Roommate Meetings
Dramatis Personae Mari, Rahne	2013-04-20 Mari moves in and meets her roommate, Rahne.
Location <XS>Mari and Rahne's Dorm - FL2
<XS> Mari and Rahne's Dorm - FL2(#530Rn) A standard, if comfortable, dorm room. Two beds, two closets, two desks, two dressers. This is not quite what she expected. Less than a week ago, Marian Hayworth was a street rat, sleeping in the dark corners of Boston. Now, here she is, in a prestigious private school, with a bed of her own and a roof over her head. Getting in through the front door was a chore, of course; her mother's known allegiances had attached themselves to her name, and being off the grid for a while added to the suspicion, but, eventually, she managed to make it in. She'd said her goodbyes to her father, then began the long process of registering for the school. Luckily, she was used to paperwork already... Because there was a lot of it. Exhausted and hungry, Mari had been led into the room by her new shadow, a guard who had been assigned to her in the interim; with no faculty member able to break away from their duties to come see the new arrival yet, the guard needed to ensure the new arrival was secure until things could be sorted out. Now alone, Mari let out a deep sigh, dropping the small backpack containing her meagre collection of worldly posessions onto the bed beside a small stack of carefully folded linens. Picking up a pillowcase, she carefully ran her fingers over the fabric. It wasn't very soft, very... generic in both material and color, but it was functional. And it would be far better than the bags of trash she'd become accustomed to. Nodding thoughtfully to herself, Mari slid her backpack to the floor, then began to make the first bed in over two years. To be totally and completely fair, anybody stepping into this particular dorm room could easily mistake the already occupied half as being for a nun instead of for a teenaged girl at a boarding school; there are no pictures on the walls of the latest boy bands, or heartthrob actors, or horses, or pink things or rainbows, or anything else you might associate with, well, a 16 1/2 year old. There is no clutter, no clothes tossed about willy-nilly or school-related supplies in mish-mash piles on the desk, no make-up and no perfume strewn about on the dresser. What there is: a wooden cross hung on the wall over the head of the bed, a Saint Andrew's Cross (Scottish) flag on the wall above the desk, books in neat stacks under it, and a well-worn, well-loved wool blanket on top of the impeccably made bed. Oh, and a frisbee on the dresser. It looks like it has been chewed on by somebody of canine persuasion. Anyway, as much as it looks like it, the other occupant is, indeed, not a nun. And she shows up not too long after Mari does. The small slip of a Scot, short red hair and all, peeks in through the door, as if unsure about whether or not she can come into her own room. "Ach, erm, hi. Are ye movin' in?" As the redhead speaks, Mari refexively jumps a little, letting the fourth corner of the fitted sheet slip from her hand and snap back to the mattress. The slightest squeak of surprise slips from her lips, and her hand presses to her chest for a moment until her eyes fall upon the Scot, noting moments the lack of threat in face or voice. Instantly, the stress seems to melt from her as she breathes out, head sagging slightly to the side as a gentle smile crosses her lips. "Yeah," she exhales, nodding several times as relief continues to settle on her face. "I'm sorry, you startled me a bit there. Yeah, they've set me here, I guess." Glancing at her hand to ensure cleanliness, she then steps forward and extends it. "So, yeah, hi! My name's Marian Hayworth, though most call me Mari. You are?" When Mari jumps, Rahne takes a tiny step back in reflex herself, hands up both to show she's nothing harmful and in apology. She has certainly been on the receiving end of such starts herself and knows the feeling, after all. "Ach, I'm sorry, I didnae mean ta startle ye," she says, words spilling out at a quick clip. But when the other girl recovers easily enough, and even offers forward a hand, the wee Scot finally makes her way in through the door for a good shake. "I'm Rahne. Rahne Sinclair," she says, a smile showing to go along with it. "It's nice ta meet ye. And, erm, welcome ta Xavier's, I guess I should be sayin'." "It's a pleasure to meet you, Rahne," she says graciously, dipping into what could be a slight curtsey as her hand is taken. "And, yeah, thank you... It's, yeah, been a little overwhelming today... and yesterday... Okay, the last few days have been a rollercoaster of..." She trails off, the practiced, yet warm and genuine, smile on her face slowly receding as her mind trails back to the events of the last week; her brother finding her, her father's reactions of joy, her mother's reaction of rage, the intervention of the police, and, now, here. "So, yeah. How long have you been here? This place seems really nice. And big." She glances at the cross on the wall, and a thin thread of fear laces into her words. "Wait, is this a Catholic school? I hope it's not, I did that once and I developed a distinct aversion to rulers..." She attempts to hide the grimace with an embarrassed smile, rubbing the back of her hands as if remembering the pain. Rahne's features scrunch a little, with a smile that's understanding and maybe a tiny bit conspiratorial, or at least one of relief for being able to share something that isn't usually talked about. "Aye, it's a bit overwhelming ta come here," she agrees, and by the sound of it, it is something that comes from the heart. With formal introductions over, she moves to her bed to sit on it, legs tucked up under her, modest even in loose jeans. "Just a couple o' months, really. Me mum thought it'd be good fer me, ta be around people my own age, learnin' in classrooms and all that." She blinks at the second question, but on following Mari's gaze, a small, surprised laugh escapes the wee Scot, a hand quick to come up and cover it. Even if her eyes remain merry. "Ach, nae. I think it's 'bout as far from Catholic as ya kin get. Dinnae fret." The blonde lets out a visible sigh of relief. "Well, good... I didn't think it was, really, since the school isn't, 'Saint Xavier's School of Perpetual Motion' or anything, but, well, my dad was really kinda Catholic. So it was entirely possible." She turns and quickly pulls the corner of the fitted sheet over the mattress, smoothing it out before following Rahne's lead and setting herself onto the bed. 'Oh, this will be nice tonight,' she thinks, eyes shuttering closed for a moment as she settles down onto the mattress. Eyes opening again, she smiles across to the redhead. "Well, that's good. You like it here? I really know nothing about this place except that my father said it'd be good for me to be here." They'd spoken very little about what the school was during the three hour car ride on the way here, with the main theme her father used being 'you'll be safe there'. Considering he was paying, she wasn't going to argue... But it's still all kinds of weird. Rahne fiddles for a moment or so with the tiny gold cross she wears on a chain around her neck, a subconscious habit thing, really, before letting go of it to let it hang. "Professor Xavier might get a kick out o' bein' a saint," she muses aloud. "Aye, it's mostly nice," she says after, though, moving along with the conversation. The wee Scot draws her knees up to tuck them against her chest, arms wrapped around her legs to hold them there. Her toes wiggle briefly within their socks. "We get ta eat like kings, an' it's always warm inside. Big library, an' we kin read anythin' we want in it. The grounds are huge. Lots ta explore, if ya like ta be out in the woods. Most everybody's nice, or tries ta be." She gives a shrug of small shoulders after, with a glance away. "I miss home sometimes. But that's neithar here nor there." As she begins to pull off her boots, Mari pauses. 'Eat like kings', she said. That means food... If not for her mother's training on how to not eat while she was doing pageantry, she would've been far worse off when homeless. She still knows what hunger really feels like, so knowing that, at least for a bit, she won't have to worry about it... Her stomach complains loudly in response to her mind's eye. "Quiet, you," she mutters to her abdomen, before looking back at her new roommate. "This place sounds great," she says, smile crawling back onto her face. "I look forward to exploring, once I don't have a guard following me. So, home... Where'd that be?" Even a quiet stomach growl would be hard-pressed to slip by Rahne's ears, especially in the quieter space of a dorm room. "Ach, are ya hungry? We could visit the kitchen, find somethin' ta snack on," the small slip of a Scot offers. She even starts to untangle herself so that she can slide off of her bed and onto her feet. With the question about home, though, she says, "Oh, Scotland," with a fond glance to the flag. "The Hielands. That's where I come from. What about you?" Waving off the redhead, Mari smiles. "No, no, it's okay," she says, attempting to stop the Scot from fretting on her. "I've done without for -far- longer, so, yeah, it can wait until, like, regular cafeteria hours or something. Like, right now, I just don't want to further inconvenience glaring eyes of distrust out there, since, well, I'm technically supposed to stay put until an actual faculty member comes and does the meet and greet... thing. Seems today was kind of a busy day for them." Finally getting around to pulling her boots off and setting them, neatly, under her bed, she pulls her new bare feet under her. "So, Scotland? I can see why you'd be all kinds of homesick. Every picture I've ever seen from there is gorgeous. But this place is really... far. From there. I'd think the UK would've had a good school over there." "Are ya sure?" Rahne asks, wavering on it, toes of one foot on the floor. She glances outside the room, though, brow furrowing a little. "Aye, well, if yer supposed ta stay put, then." And so she tucks her legs back up. "I dinnae have any snacks tucked away, or I'd share 'em." That fond smile creeps back into place with talk of Scotland, though, and she almost looks positively dreamy there while reminiscing on some of her happier memories. "Aye, it kin be so pretty. And simple. Can that be a good thing? It's so complicated, in the city here. So much ta see an' hear an' smell, it gets so hard ta really... I dinnae ken. Undarstand a place?" She rubs at her nose with the cuff of her oversized sweatshirt. "Oh, me mum is friends with Professor Xavier," the wee Scot explains away. "'Sides, I dinnae think there's a school quite like this ovar there. Ya ken, for kids like us. Or me mum'd ken about it, I think." A wide smile grows on the blonde's face, and she covers it a bit with a clenched hand. "I know what you mean," she says, nodding emphatically. "I was homeless for a while. When I first started living on the street, I kinda made friends with this older male-to-female tranny named Jen. We kinda had the same conversation at one point... 'You just need to think of a city as it's own living organism,' she told me. When you start looking at it from the big picture, it really starts to make a lot more sense; it's like, yeah, cops and firemen are white blood cells, regular day-to-day people are the blood cells that flow the vitality into and out of the city. But Boston's a whole different feel from New York, so..." As she shrugs from the last statement, something else catches her attention, however. "Wait, what do you mean, 'kids like us'?" she asks, brow furrowing in confusion as she hits a genuine mental roadblock. "I-- I don't... I don't think I quite understand." The wee Scot's mouth opens in a round little O at the mention of being homeless, and as she attempts to follow along with what Mari explains, she sounds a baffled, "A who the what now?" about the person named Jen. But the rest of it starts to make sense, once Rahne really puts her mind to it, and she absently chews on a thumbnail while thinking on it. At Mari's baffling, though, she blinks, and her brows draw together again, deep lines cutting into her forehead. "Ach, dinnae ye ken?" she asks, almost tentative about it, as if not wanting to insult the other girl. She draws her knees back up to her chest, and glances back out the door before looking back to Mari. "I mean... Yer a mutant, aye? We're all mutants here. That's what I mean." There's a note of question to what she says, as if she isn't sure herself that she's understood the question. Maybe Mari meant something else? "Oh..." You can almost see the gears starting to turn. "Oh." A place where she could be safe and learn about herself... "OH." That's why her father brought her here. He had learned about it because of his wife's antimutant sentiments, which is why he dropped her off outside the gate. Which is why there's a guard outside. "Right," she finally states, her eyes returning to normal after having gone wide a moment before. "Okay, yeah, right, that-- that makes sense. Okay. Right. I don't know why I didn't get it before. Of course. Right. Sorry." It's pretty damn obvious, thinking about it. Well, good thing it's out now before she wandered around and ran into some kid on fire or something. "Anyway, yeah, Jen... As she liked to tell people, she was born Richard but then cut off the Dick, so all she was left with was Jen. Sweet woman, crazy, but good. She passed a year or so back." The blonde bites her lower lip for a moment, then leans forward, elbows on her knees, fingers interlocked. "Okay, so, direction change again... Is it cool to ask people what they can do? I mean, I figure a place like this might be pretty open, but I don't know if that's a subject that is best left to the person broaching the subject themselves or if I can be all, 'hi, my name's Mari, I bleed a lot, what do you do?' and stuff." Rahne stares at the other teen. Not because of Mari's not knowing, no she didn't get hung up on that. She stares because of the explanation of Jen. The wheels turn in her head. Eventually, "Ya kin--" squeaks out, before she then glances to the doorway and leans forward, dropping her voice to a low, questioning whisper of, "Ya kin do that?" with cheeks burning. As if it is some kind of awful taboo to think about, much less talk about, but her curiosity is just too strong. For the more relevant to the situation question, though, the wee Scot sits back again. "Erm, aye, ya kin ask. Some folk'll answar ya pretty openly. Some might mind it, though I dinnae think they'll be mad at ya for askin'." After a beat, she asks, "Bleed a lot?" with brows furrowed again. If she hadn't known Jen, Mari's knowledge of the subject would be just as Rahne's is... nil. "Believe me, it was a shock to me, too," the blonde assures the Scot. "It's not like the surgery is really super awesome and can give full on lady-parts. Jen had been on hormone therapy for a while, and she could still have... y'know... with her past boyfriends, but without ovaries... Well, yeah. Apparently, the female to male trans are worse off; they can provide a floppy bit, but it just hangs there and doesn't have the same kinda... um. Use." She smiles, embarassed, her hand coming up to cover her face a bit. "So, yeah. They can. Kinda." Sliding the hand off her face, she reaches up and pulls the beanie from her head and tosses it onto her desk. "Yeah. I bleed. I heal quick when I do, sometimes block things from hitting me, and have put a guy or two on his ass after they attacked me. It's kinda gross. Actually, it's really gross, but, yeah. Not looking forward to any training I have to do here for it, since that means cutting myself open, smacking myself in the face, or only doing the training every couple weeks..." She coughs into her clenched fist. "Anyway. You?" By the looks of her, Rahne maybe regrets asking about Jen and all of that. Or, at least, regrets the full explanation she gets. The girl turns redder than a beet, and Mari's choice of words in there a few times does not help it any. Without a rock to crawl under, she'll just have to curl up into a tighter ball, knees hugged to her chest. "Oh," she sounds, simply, for the other explanation, about Mari and bleeding. She still doesn't quite get it entirely, but. It is probably just one of those things where if she sees it, she'll understand it a lot better. "I cannae imagine they'd make ya hurt yerself," she timids out. Then, there's a long pause before she answers, looking away, "I turn inta a.. a wolf." Nodding, Mari seems to accept what the Scot says... The blonde isn't above hurting herself for all kinds of reasons, but pain isn't really all that when you're expected to do it. Yeah, she has three box cutters in her bag both cutting herself and self defense, but the idea of doing military-like drills of cutting herself and firing arterial bolts at a target just sounds... Okay, it sounds funny, but it sounds so very wrong as well. But what sounds a lot better? Rahne's mutation. "Really?" Mari says, leaning forward. "That seems pretty awesome, really. I mean, useful, easily described, cool backhistory..." A grin crawls onto her face as she contemplates this further. "Nice. I'll make sure to get a lint brush for hair, but, yeah. I assume this is free will and not some kind of historical moon thing, right?" Mari might think it awesome, like a lot of people do, but with the way Rahne sits, not looking at the other girl, knees hugged to her chest, it's probably pretty clear that she's not in that camp. She gives a shrug of small shoulders. "I suppose it kin be useful, aye," she admits, at least. After that, she takes a moment to pause, to inhale a deep breath and then let it out slowly. An argument going on in her head. "Nae, not the moon. Has nothin' ta do with that," she says, and wills herself to unfold a little, to finally look Mari's way. "I kin go halfway, too? Or, erm. I've been workin' on just parts. Like... if I want ta smell bettar, or if it's cold and I need fur. Things like that. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's hard." A knock at the door interrupts Mari just before she's able to answer. As the door handle turns and cracks open, a gruff female voice says sternly, "Miss Hayworth? I need you to come with me. Your advisor is available and needs to speak with you in order for you to have full access to the campus." Immediately, Mari pops up off the bed and starts to scramble for her boots. "Right, right! I will be along in a minute." As the door closes and the blonde quickly puts her boots back on, she turns to the redhead and smiles before stumbling towards her desk. "Well, you know, they say that all the good things in life are good because they're hard," she says, grabbing her beanie and sliding it on. Her smile suddenly turns wry as she begins to walk towards the door. "...Though, I do suppose there are some female-to-male trans out there who might disagree." She snickers slightly to herself before continuing, "Alright, I guess I'll be back in a bit. Talk more later?" And with that, before getting an asnwer... she slips out the door and down the hall to meet with her advisor and restart her life.