Logs:Super Senior

Super Senior
Dramatis Personae Lael, Roscoe	2023-11-16 I just barely catch myself about to tell you to cherish this time of your life.
Location <XAV> Lake - Xs Grounds
Bright, bright, bright; the lake glitters wide and expansive here, stretching off into the distance. Sunlight, moonlight, starlight, it catches them all. Lapping at the rocky shore, its deep waters are frigid in winter and cool even in summer. A stone pier stretches out a ways into the water, wide and smooth, though often icy in winter. The water teems with life nevertheless, home to myriad species of fish that provide for ample fishing or just lazy watching on a slow summer day, for those who want to take a boat from the boathouse out to the center of the lake, or perhaps lounge on the pier and try their luck. For the middle of November, this is an unusually bright and cloudless afternoon, warm enough that Roscoe has ventured out without his jacket, in a dark-blue and black striped T-shirt, joggers, and red hi-tops. A pair of thin-wired, cheap white headphones snaking into his front pocket are blasting Kero Kero Bonito not just into his left ear (and sporadically his right) but leaking "Rock 'n' Roll Star" tinny and faint in a small radius around him. He's kicking a rock aimlessly along the rocky beach, and narrating it to himself like a very unprofessional sportscaster << too close to the water, too close to the water -- and he saves it, here we go -- close call with a dead crab claw, eww >> which vaults into a random pang of guilt and, << where you think Jermaine is now? >> but then back too << too close to the water, too close to the water! >> before he can come up with an answer. He abandons his rock (a different one than the one he started with, anyway) once he reaches the pier, instead reaching into his pocket to dial the music down as he steps up onto it. Lael is sitting on the pier, lightly dressed for what is very possibly the last warm autumn day they'll get in a gray tee shirt somewhat inexpertly screenprinted with a green flame and the words "THINK LIKE A MOUNTAIN" and rugged faded blue jeans rolled half-way up his calves even though his bare feet don't quite touch the water. His sturdy brown boots sit beside him with the laces tied together, an olive drab satchel leaning against them. His head has been bowed for some time, attending to something in his hands, but he looks up over his shoulder as Roscoe joins him on the pier. There's a fat-handled, short-bladed whittling knife in the hand he lifts in greeting, which despite everything else about him doesn't seem so much threatening as casual, a wave with just the thumb and first two fingers. Only now that he no longer has an excuse to stare at his feet is Roscoe glancing up at Lael. << Knife, >> is his first thought, with a sharp urge to keep his distance, but then his gaze flicks off the knife and he seems to take in the rest of this very chill picture more clearly; his shoulders loosen slightly and he raises one hand in greeting too, the one not fussing with his phone, and wanders closer down the pier. "Whatchu doing?" he says curiously; almost as soon as he's asked, though, he's already tilting his head to peer through Lael at whatever is in his other hand, eyes widening -- << oh that is cool. >> "Whittlin'. 'Bout half-way through a chess set." Lael pulls one of his legs up onto the pier so he can twist around more fully, setting down the whittling knife and brushing off his work in progress with the drop cloth in his lap before holding it up to show Roscoe. It's a small figurine, as yet rough, in a crown and flowing gown, standing on a round pedestal. Though this would-be queen is much less lifelike than those of the Staunton set and other similar abstract designs that constitute the vast majority of modern chess sets, its size and proportions might well suggest a chess piece even if he hadn't named it so explicitly. Maybe. "She'll have a sword, too, before I'm done. Going for a Lady of the Lake thing. Want to see the others?" "Whoa," says Roscoe, inching closer and crouching down to look at the little chess piece. "You're making thirty-two of those? How long does it take?" He tries mentally to place the sword on the unfinished figurine, wondering at how tiny it will be, discarding his first visualization of the sword held aloft in the air (<< that would be awesome though. >>) At the suggestion of seeing more he is looking with interest at Lael's satchel on the pier next to him, << are they in -- wait no don't look in his bag you creep. >> But he definitely wants to see them, as nonchalantly as he says, "Yeah, sure. You must really like chess." << Or whittling? >> Lael sets down the half-finished queen and opens his Army surplus bag to extract a lumpy canvas tool roll. "Yup. I started just before term did, but who knows when it'll be done if I get fancy with the pawns. This ain't the first chess set I carved," he adds with a touch of pride, his hair coming a little more lively as he speaks, "though the other one's real simple and the pieces don't always stand up too great." He unrolls the canvas and lines up the chessmen one by one: 15 in total, counting the queen he's working on (white, as it turns out, though it's all just lighter and darker shades of wood), her king and all the pawns still absent. The finished pieces are still rough in a rustic sort of way, but lively and evocative of Old World legends. "I like chess alright, but this gon' be a gift to the Professor--now, he's wild about chess. You ever get in trouble and wind up in his office, challenge him to a game. Don't matter if he see right through you, he won't be able to resist." As Lael is lining up the chess pieces, Roscoe's face brightens, and he leans closer, reaching one hand out before a sharp << no touchy anything that isn't yours >> instinct jolts through his mind, and he pulls back smoothly, drops his hand on his knee instead. "They're super cool," he says, to a mental reminder to Be Respectful. "The Professor is gonna love it." Immediately he is afraid that this comes across more like Sucking Up << (is that disrespectful?) >> but he elects to move swiftly on. "Well, I'm not getting in trouble anymore, so," he says first, but then, "...really, that works? Have you tried it?" His imagination first puts the Professor opposite him at one of the rickety (w)rec(k) room tables, then hastily course-corrects to a classroom with a chess clock to one side, saying, "Engage." "Go on, you can pick 'em up," Lael says breezily. "This is good solid oak and walnut, but if they break that easy, I'd want to know before I go making a gift of it." He plucks up one of the white knights, astride a horse poised to leap, and rotates it slowly between his fingers. "Not that I get in trouble often, but yeah, I tried--and it worked. That don't stop him talking to you about whatever got you sent there, but he'll be less focused. And if you like chess, the game is probably an improvement over just listening to him try be reasonable." His locs are settling into their accustomed background level of disquieting squirminess. "The carving I been doin' since I was real little. Hard part for me's gonna be making a board that lies flat and looks good. Should probably be putting a little less work into this and a little more into my portfolio." Roscoe picks up a knight, too, smiling toothily at the details he can see more clearly up close. "Cool. I do like chess," he says idly, but then he frowns, eyes flicking from the chessman up to Lael, skipping with unease away from his writhing hair. "Try be reasonable? Is he not reasonable?" << He seemed so reasonable, >> he tries to reassure himself, remembering how grateful he had been, how wise the Professor had seemed in the dingy back room of the laundromat. He sits back a little on his heels, and pulls his attention back to the knight in his hand, which he sets carefully back with its fellows. He's trying to draw chessboard schematics in his mind that don't involve gluing sixty-four equally sized squares together, but what he asks is, "Your portfolio for... college?" He's not sure Lael struck him as a finance bro, << is that disrespectful? >> "I think he's plenty reasonable," Lael says philosophically. "But sometimes what's reasonable for one person ain't for another, and I don't think he always realizes when it's those times. He'll listen, though, and that ain't nothing." He starts tucking the chess pieces away again. "Kind of sad how low I set that bar." He chuckles, his hair coiling and writhing tighter for an uncomfortable moment. "Art school is technically college, but practically a lot of folks would disagree. My folks included! Lucky I've had better sources of guidance than them--but there's that low bar again." "Oh," says Roscoe; he's trying to map the Professor onto an impossibly broad spectrum of adult reasonability, his list skewed so sideways by cops and prison guards that, by comparison, the professor sounds totally reasonable to him too. << But that's not sad, >> he protests, << that's just called being grateful. >> He is not wholly reassured by this, his shoulders stiffening at the way Lael's hair shifts. "Oh, your art portfolio," he says. His parents would also disagree that art school is college, << is that... also sad? >> is confused and a little dismayed as he considers just how many schools his parents think are useless. "That sucks," he says. "I bet art school is great. Are you gonna study, uh --" << does whittling sound unprofessional? >> "-- woodcarving?" "Oh, I'm grateful, too." Lael studies the white queen he's been working on, after he's rolled the other pieces up. "However complicated the last few years been, at least I've had a home and a community here. I didn't have nothin' and nobody but Naomi before, and God knows where I'd be now if she hadn't bullied me into comin' up here." Something in the way he says "God knows where" suggests he has a guess or two but doesn't really feel like going there. "I'm gonna study sculpting, which includes woodcarving, anyway. You thinkin' 'bout studying something folks don't think too highly of?" << Oh shoot that's right he's a teep, >> is half-sheepish that Roscoe forgot about powers when he's been using his willy-nilly, and half-alarmed, an inexpert self-monitoring impulse kicking in at once with << don't think about anything, think about nothing >> that doesn't quite muffle a complicated twist of guilt/envy/pity and << I didn't know that >> and a feeble attempt to reconcile this new information about Naomi with the complicated twist of fear/embarrassment/pity she inspires. "I didn't know that," he says aloud. He can't think of anything to say about sculpting except that all the sculptures he can name are super naked, so he seizes gratefully on this follow-up question even though his answer is, "Uhhh I dunno! I'm not thinking about studying anything yet. I'm only in ninth grade." "Oh, I try not to make a big deal." Lael gives a small shrug, and smooths away his hair's incipient fit of writhing by making them braid themselves down his back. "Some folks get awkward about it, but I reckon don't hardly nobody come here without their life going one kinda sideways or another." He gives an encouraging smile. "Try not to worry too much about the not thinkin', that don't really work anyhow, and you'll learn better ways when you take Psionic Self-defense. I know I'm a super senior and all, but gosh ninth grade sure feels like a whole lifetime ago. I just barely catch myself about to tell you to cherish this time of your life." Roscoe sits back on the pier, cross-legged, slouching back on his hands. "Yeah," he says. He's paying rapt attention, now, brightly anxious to learn something from Lael before it's too late (the urgency of this thought process is probably a remnant of Lassiter, with "transfer" swapped out for "graduation"), though he's not sure he agrees. << That blows, >> he is rallying internally, << what about when it is a big deal? >> He's meditatively watching Lael's hair braid itself as he listens, head tilted to the side, even as he begins to grow concerned that Lael might be somehow too mature and smart to be relatable, probably because he's a super senior. << I cherished ninth grade so hard that I -- no no that's not funny. >> He's grinning anyway -- "Don't worry, soon as I can I'm gonna cherish the crap outta high school," he promises. "It's a little funny," Lael admits with a wry grin of his own, "and that's a good sign, especially when it is a big deal. Ain't always easy figuring out whether the folks you talking to are gonna think something's funny, or a big deal, or what-have-you. Not even if you can read minds." He taps his head. "But sometimes, finding out is how you get to the relatin', even with folks you don't think as you got much in common with. That might be just about the only real wisdom I got." He looks out over the water, then glances back at Roscoe. "Now, I got to go where the scholarships take me, but I do plan to stay in the area. You want to learn somethin', though, I got some scraps of wood I can show you how to carve." Without so much as a blink to signify the shift in perspective, Roscoe is looking at Lael again instead of through him at his hair, though the most profound thing he can say to all of this is, "Yeah," which he actually means this time, though Lael will not be beating the mature and smart allegations today. A stray thought that << I did learn something >> is slammed back fast by, << shut up I wanna play with knives >> as he scoots closer. "Cool," he says, and as sincerely as he can, "thanks."