ArchivedLogs:Play

Play
Dramatis Personae Kelly, Lia	27 November 2013 Playgrounds are fun, even if it's cold...once there are fewer wandering zombies.
Location <XS> Playground
Set on the still-expansive grounds around the side of the school, this area is to the outdoors rather what the rec room is to the indoors. There's a large basketball court out here; a fenced-off tennis court adjacent. Further distant there are setups for other sports -- a large track, a soccer field. Closer in to the school, though, in its own large enclosure adjacent to the basketball and tennis courts, is the playground, a huge expanse of equipment set up on alternating plots of slightly squishy flooring and mulch. Centrally there is a large sprinkler-fountain, not always /on/ but it can be turned on with a push of a button; spreading out around this is the actual playground equipment, sturdy and varied. A huge dome constructed in honeycombed interlocked poles and rope netting rises hiiiigh for climbing; a large swingset holds four pairs of swings. A large roundabout in bright colours stands in one corner near a long see-saw. The huge bridge-and-tunnel castle structure at one end has many routes of entry, from poles to climb up (or slide down) to a small climbing /wall/. Monkeybars. Four different slides of varying lengths and spiraling. For the adventurous, between things to climb on and jump between and bounce across it is probably possible to skirt one end of the playground and back without touching the ground, though it might take a particularly adept feat of balance and agility. Or possibly wings. 'This will be fun.' Kelly signed to Lia as he walked out towards the playground proper. 'No zombies, monsters, hamburgers, or messes.' The pudgy mutant continued... not entirely sure he was getting this all right, just yet. But the proposal from earlier was clear: Since there were no classes today, and hence no dance class to take together, perhaps the playground would be fun? He was bundled up as much as he dared in his school clothes, though his jacket has now developed a few dozen hole in its sleeves where vines have slashed and torn through, and his feet were as always bare. The rain had let up hours ago, but it was still pretty chilly in the 40s, an overcast keeping the sun hidden. This left the colorful play equipment in a desaturated state. But at least they would be alone. Lia's lack of actual outdoor wear has not had the chance to come up much, considering the zombie threat outside and the girl's tendency to send dolls out in her place due to said threat. In deference to the cold, the thin girl is wearing two sets of the school logo clothing that had been provided to her, one atop the other. A navy hoodie is zipped up over a royal purple sweatshirt, and a pair of forest green sweatpants peeks out from under the navy ones that match the hoodie. The puffy multicolour effect is something like an obese peacock. She also has two sets of tube socks tucked in under her only pair of sneakers. Another pair of socks has been sliced up with scissors to create fingerless gloves for her hands, and her hood is pulled tight in lieu of a hat, ash-brown hair spilling out the front of it. 'Your hand-talking is getting better,' she signs back. 'Why do we not want hamburgers? Jeremy likes those.' The girl is /bouncing/ toward the promised playground equipment. "Snow?" Kelly says again, while making the sign for 'Hamburger', thinking he'd tripped something again, and then hunches up his shoulders at his own expense. "I mean, snow is fun and all, but we'd need real winter stuff for it, not... well, what we've got on." He teased, his own outfit less peacock and more hobo in a mulch pile. "Decided not to bring a doll with you?" he wondered, however, glad that it was the real her, certainly, as he lagged behind the excited girl a few steps. 'Snow,' Lia signs in reply to correct Kelly. 'Playing in hamburgers would be very messy, and wasteful of food.' She frowns slightly at the mention of dolls. 'I have left Coppelia in the dorm room, in case we need help very quickly. I have found it harder to take her with me places and still be able to hand-talk /and/ use my hands for other things.' Her nose crinkles up for a moment. 'One of my tutors suggested that maybe I should try not to carry her so much anyhow.' Kelly tries to keep up with Lia's signing, but he has to give it up after a while. Better he may be... but not QUITE good yet. He resorts to finger spelling a lot of the time in his response. 'That's good. She would get -d-i-r-t-y out here.' He answered and then had to resort to speaking for the rest. "How are you getting along with your tutors, anyway? I still don't haven't gotten assigned mine yet." The large dome looms ahead of the pair now, its crisscrossing bars begging to be climbed. Noting Kelly's confusion, Lia returns to speaking aloud. "She doesn't mind. I don't think her dress has been white in a very, very long time." The girl turns to walk /backward/ while she converses with Kelly. "Okay. We have been doing a lot of playing with numbers so they could find out what I had learned already. I...went to school," she still sounds a little uncertain of the statement, "but not for very long." She backs right up to the geometric climbing dome, taking a blind step up off of the ground and then hanging forward toward Kelly. "Oh! Ohohoh. This is very cold!" Her eyes widen from the contact of metal and skin. "Too cold to play on?" Kelly wondered, walking up to it himself to reach out and place a hand on. Shivering a little, himself. "I'm sure you'll pick up things really quickly." The boy says as he considers the large dome with a critical eye. It would certainly even be colder up at the top with the wind blowing. "We can go back inside where it is warm..." he suggests, though only half heartedly. "At least dance class if fun." Mentioning the one class they would be in together. "Um...I don't know?" Lia scrambles backward up the dome a little further. "It is mostly cold on my /hands/. My socks do not cover my fingers all the way. But I could not hand-talk without cutting the toes out of the socks. They are not made for hands." She shakes her head vigorously at the suggestion of going inside. "Not yet, not yet, we haven't played on all of the things!" Turning to facilitate more lateral movement as she gets nearer to the top, Lia scurries to the centre of the dome where she sits like a spider at the centre of its web. "I like dance class the best of the classes. Though hand-talking class is also fun. Writing class is confusing. There are more rules for writing than there are for talking...they don't all make much sense." "Just be careful up there!" Kelly says as he watches her ascend, "Socks aren't meant for gloves and are probably slippery for climbing." He slips into the center of the done... with some difficulty getting his stomach in... And looks up at her grinning wide. "And we don't have to go in yet." He bit his lips and considered the device, and looked down at his own hands, lifting them slowly up as he pulled his right sleeve back and let his vines snake slowly out into the cold and up... up... up! Until their wiggling tips were poking up near Lia. "Gosh, I'm not a good writer, either, but hand talking is really complicated. But I guess the lessons I look forward to least is going to be powers practice... " “Yep!” Lia calls back as she lets herself slip between two of the bars, reaching up to catch herself and dangle from her hands. She kicks her feet back up into the bars, climbing from the middle out toward the edge, giggling at being /upside-down/. “There's powers classes? Is that like computer class? That's the only other one I have.” "Holy crap, you're kinda good at that." Kelly says in astonishment as he watches her invert herself before his own vines wrap around the bar and he grunts as he lifts himself up with them, hanging from them in the middle of the dome. "I don't think it's like a normal class, just... something to help us get used to what makes us different, get better at it. Uhm, our magic. But you already seem really good with your dolls." Then he laughs. "If it's like computer class I'm not sure I'll do very good. I'm ok until they start talkin' bout spreadsheets, then my brain gets backwards." “I like climbing!” Lia exclaims through ongoing laughter, flipping around to climb back toward the top again. Once she's next to Kelly she hooks her legs over the bar and hangs upside-down from them. Her hoodie slides partway up her stomach. “The Keepers made me use my magic a lot. I guess...instead of school?” She pushes with her arms to start herself rocking back and forth as she hangs. “What's a spreadsheet? Do they go on bigger beds? Why would they be on a computer?” "Oh no, it's a program you can use to use a computer to do a bunch of math stuff." Kelly explains, and grins. "Like, if you need to keep track of a whole bunch of money, or other things. I'm guessing that a lot of business people probably use 'em, which is why they teach 'em." Kelly sends out his other set of vines to wrap around some bars, and ends up hanging from both of them in a Y shape, their prickly tips poking out in all directions. "Do you like using your magic, Lia? I mean, I know they made you do a bunch of things you didn't like at the labs. But you seem to like being a monkey and a fairy and stuff." “So why do they call it a sheet? I thought you had to do math with a pencil.” Lia sounds a little /skeptical/ about all of this. She pauses in her rocking to make speaking easier. “I like to make the dolls dance. I don't...like to use them to hurt people. Or to use the bodies. Or when they want me to put my magic in people. That doesn't work, but they wouldn't believe me.” She shivers a little, then returns to rocking upside down. "I can't imagine that they'd ever make you do that here." Kelly says, shivering. "I mean, I don't mind dancing with you, but you can /totally/ stay on the outside, not inside my head." He gets to swinging himself and then tries to arm over arm... or rather vine over vine... across the dome. It works for the first two... "I'm worried they're going to make me get big, like... well, like I got big when we went with Jax to the barn." Kelly stuttered out, and before he can afford to get moody, his vines slip, and he tumbles down into the soft-ish cold ground with an OOF! "No, they promised. No tests like those here." Lia's face scrunches up a little. "I /can't/ be in your head. You're already in there. Can only fill something with magic when there is no magic there already." She shakes her head firmly enough at Kelly's worry that her hood falls down, sending her hair flying every-which-way. "There aren't supposed to be power tests we don't like. They promised." Her breath catches in a sharp gasp when Kelly tumbles. She flips herself over again, landing quickly on her feet in a crouch at the boy's side. "Kellygreen, are you okay? Did you break?" "I'm ok!" Kelly says, grunting a little as he pushes himself up. "Just a little tumble. Hehe, I need more practice." He adds again, getting himself steadied on wiggling feet. "And... nothing broken except a couple of thorns." But seeing her flip and landing, Kelly points at her feet. "But seriously, Lia, you're a good climber. Maybe you might also like gymnastics? I think you'd probably be kinda awesome at it." Shaking his head, Kelly rubs his back where he landed, a small bruise he isn't about to tell Lia about under his clothes. And surveys the castle with some scrutiny. "Let's play on something else though... if that's ok? Or you can go on ahead." Considering the powers question, he adds: "I don't think they'll ever make us do things like the labs did, but I do think they'll ask us to do things we don't like. You know, like homework, or cleaning up the room or chores. But... instead of the labs where I think it was having you do things that were better for /them./ The school is going to ask us to do things that are good for /us./" “Tumbling is fun. Maybe you should practice someplace /softer/, though.” Lia pushes back to her feet when Kelly rises. “Does it hurt? When the thorns break?” Her dark little eyebrows sink toward one another in concern. “I like climbing! I've never done gymnastics before.” She pulls the hem of her hoodie back down and situates the hood over her head once more. “I do not think that making you do things with your powers that you don't like is good for you. So. They shouldn't do that.” The girl's eyes dart around the playground. “We could climb the castle and go down the slide! Or...swings! I like swings. And jumping off once you're up high.” She wiggles out of the dome between bars. "Want me to push you on the swings?" Kelly asked as he wiggled out himself, and again it was a little similar to pulling out one of those bouncing balls from the nets in the toy store. Pop! And he was out. "Yeah, it hurts and stuff, like... he bends down for her, tilting his head so that she can see his flowers more clearly. "Like, the planty parts are just like fingers and toes and stuff, if you touch 'em, I feel it, and when they brake or come off, it hurts. But... the good thing is the thorns will grow back. Think of them... like finger nails." “Sometimes that will make you go higher and then you can jump and it is like /flying/,” Lia agrees, skipping off toward the swings. “Can you make your flowers wiggle like fingers?” Her eyes widen, delighted at the idea. “I hope it didn't hurt very much. You can cut and break fingernails without it hurting, usually.” The girl throws her slight form onto one of the swings, wrapping her hands around the chains. Kelly got behind her on the swing. "Tell me when it's high enough." He says and slowly starts to push on her to get her going. "I... yeah, I can make 'em wiggle, and grow and stuff." He says, but that makes /him/ embarrassed, "I haven't really practiced with 'em, cause... I used to just cut them all off." The pushes would slowly get her going higher and higher, but he was practiced with it, no big jerks, just nice gentle swings. "But don't worry too much about me, I get better really fast, you remember how bad I was when you thought I was a zombie, and I was tip top in a few days." Looking at her bundled up swinging form, he shook his head and wondered: "You know, now that you're here at school and not in a lab, you can really do anything, have you thought about what you're going to do when you grow up?" Lia's legs pump to assist the swing up higher, giggling at the idea of wiggling flowers. “That is a pretty magic. You...should not cut them off. They are like fingers. You said.” She nods agreement with his observation, however. “You do look better fast.” Bend, push. Bend, push, she keeps working the swing higher. “Do? I should do more school, right? I have not been to much school.” "Oh yeah, school is really important." Kelly agreed, as his hands continued to gently catch Lia by the shoulders, and push just enough to make each swing bigger than the last. But now he was having to step back quickly, catch her, and follow her swing back with several more steps. "I know... and they are... but... well, when I was by myself, people didn't like that I had flower magic. They wouldn't help me, or they would chase me away, and some people would try to hurt me. So... I made them go away." He wasn't proud of it, now, but... it was the truth. "School is important, yeah, and you don't need to decide anything now, you've got a long time to go to school, meet friends, and learn all kinds of things. But then /after/ school, you get to be whatever you want. Like a doctor, or a teacher, businessman, or a dancer... Maybe just a mom, or a family person. Everyone does something, hopefully its something they like doing." “I think I will do more school, then,” Lia concludes simply. “Oh...I guess that makes sense.” If Kelly could see her expression, he would note it is still largely confused. “I like dancing. Not...doctors.” She frowns briefly. “Do you want to swing, Kellygreen? I am getting high enough to jump if you want to switch.” Her speech is rife with pauses, quieting at the apex of her swing and talking more when she is closer to the other student. "Oh no, jumping requires shoes." He said, wiggling his toes for emphasis. "You go ahead and jump all you want. I'll have fun when we get to slides. I'm pretty sure I'll have the advantage there." He said as he patted his stomach and kept the pace going for the swing. "And hey, you don't gotta decide now, but just think about it. Cause even now, you can take classes to learn what you need to know. I used to want to be a doctor, actually." He said proudly. "But... now I think I'm changing my mind." “I can jump, and then we can have slides!” Lia insists, giggling again. “You don't seem like a doctor.” She pushes through another two cycles, building up height and speed, pushing forward and finally letting go to soar forward. She seems to float for a moment, then lands on her feet, letting her knees bend to absorb the shock. “Slides, Kellygreen!” she reminds, immediately turning and running to the next activity. "Slides." Kelly agrees and does his best to keep up. It will be... mostly a losing proposition on his end, but definitely a good day.