ArchivedLogs:Building Friendships

Building Friendships
Dramatis Personae Anna, Kai, Rasa
In Absentia	2013-11-25 A moment of normal, post-chaos. (Part of Infected TP.)
Location <XS> Rec Room
School this may be, but life for Xavier's students certainly isn't all studying. Outside classes, this is a popular spot to find students in their downtime. An enormous tribute to slacking off, this room is a wealth of fun and relaxation. Comfortable armchairs, couches, and beanbags offer plentiful seating scattered throughout the room, and the cushioned windowseats by the high windows offer a cozy nook to curl up and look out on the grounds. The room is often filled with the noises of gaming -- whether it comes from the big-screen television (tall racks of DVDs beside it, if nothing can be found on the multitude of cable channels), tricked out with consoles from retro to the latest releases, or the less electronic clatter and thump of the pool table, air hockey, or foosball. For those a little more subdued in their gaming, the cabinets hold stacks and stacks of board and card games, ranging as classic as chess and go to as esoteric as Dixit, Catan, and Gloom. One of the tables usually employed for the purpose of //playing// cards must have been empty when Anna came in, because she seems to have commandeered it all for herself -- not something that's really like her, as far as anyone who's been around her can tell. Generally the expert violin playing is the only thing that ever makes her stand out or noticeable at all, and that's the way she likes to keep it until she's well and truly relaxed with people (and being around a zombie infection did not do much to //help// her relax in this particular new setting) but today it seems as if Anna has gone for a different tack in keeping herself entertained. The table has been eaten by a massive house of cards, one now three stories high with an elaborate balcony scheme and a couple of gables. She is ever-so-cautiously placing card number three hundred and such up on the top, eyes wide, edge of her lip between two teeth when something in the air shifts, or she turns her hand the wrong way, or //something//, and the entire thing topples down in front of her. This is met by an immediate sigh and a series of bitterly whispered French Canadian swears. Rasa enters cautiously, as all are wont to do these days, in case someone has fallen ill despite the cure that is starting to pass through the veins of the infected. The tension does not seem to let up easily. Ze is dressed for the first time in several days in normal clothes, an embroidered yellow top with long sleeves over a bright magenta wrap skirt with a vibrant sky blue border around the edge. The skirt is atypically tied in the back, to make room for the long droopy tail that drags on the floor behind hir. Hir skin happens to be a pale robins egg today, with hair several shades darker, but not quite reaching the depth of navy. Ze walks barefoot through the school, defiant of the cold. When Anna's house of cards collapses, Rasa sucks in an air of displeasure, giving hirself away as an observer to the violinist's art. Ze frowns as ze draws near, eyes scanning the aftermath and hands out as ze helps to pick up the cards that have scattered off the table. "Eeesssh. Sorry to see it go like that. It was amazing really. Practically a work of art. Are you interested in architecture?" The figure that enters the rec room shortly after the collapse of the House of Cards is one that's been sort of scarce around the campus. Kai has been in /classes/, but beyond that, he's hardly been seen in the common areas. Today, though, he seems to have ended his self-imposed exile, slipping into the rec room and sliding along the perimeter. Despite being inside, the small Korean boy seems to be warding off the cold in a pair of navy sweatpants and a grey Xavier's sweatshirt that looks to be at least a size too big. On his feet are a pair of slippers that look like plush dinosaur feet -- someone's idea of a joke that has found a practical use. The slippers don't really help with the stealth. He pauses at the sound of Rasa's voice, and turns his head to watch the card gathering silently for a moment before he moves to help, as well. "Oh -- thank you," Anna replies, a little cautious and a bit surprised at the sudden wave of assistance, but certainly not refusing it in either case. She //recognizes// them both, at least, in the distant fashion where she recognizes most people. "It is my brother's passion, more than mine," she demures, "simply something I picked up how to do from my father. A hobby in idle moments." The pale blue duster she's wearing is more evidently too large for her when she starts collecting the cards together, the sleeves falling midway down her hands -- but then again she's got her well-manicured fingers shoved through some of the holes also found in the sleeves. Insta-gloves? "It is not so special as all that." In addition to the thanks, they both get bordering-on-awkward smiles; aiming for friendly, rather than her default polite. "Maybe not special for you, but I don't know if I've seen anyone else at the school manage a passable first floor." Rasa pinkens in the cheeks like someone turned on a light beneath hir skin, the pinkness seeming to eminate from hir cheekbones. "Shit, I said one of the words. I ... I apologize. I just got released, cured and all that and ... I really shouldn't have said it." The words tumble from hir lips awkwardly, hir eyes lowered, the volume barely above a whisper, but as ze speaks, the word 'sorry' writes itself across hir face several times over, in a pretty, yet haphazard script. "I'm Rasa, by the way. Don't know if I've seen you in any of my classes. Are you new here?" A glance is spared for Kai, but ze lets him introduce himself. Kai listens to the conversation as he crouches flat-footed to collect the cards. Each one gets stacked in his hand carefully before the next is collected. Occasionally, he glances up to look between Rasa and Anna, tipping his head with a curious look. He pales a bit at the forbidden word, and shifts his weight ever-so-slightly away from Rasa, his eyebrows knitting before he drops his gaze to the floor. Because cards. "I am Kai," he says after Rasa introduces hirself, his voice low and cautious as he looks up at Anna. "I like Legos," he offers on the subject of architecture. "They do not fall down as easily as cards." "Legos are more reliable," Anna agrees, with a less awkward genuine smile that probably would've been a lot brighter were it not coming on the tail end of flinching at Rasa's revelation. Not just the word itself, but the word paired with the admission he'd been sick; it's a bad combination for someone who is still shocky about just about everything she's experienced since coming to New York, but she bounces back. She speaks slowly, precisely, with an accent, but all of that is her normal: "I never got to do anything with them, though, so I'm not as good. And -- I'm sort of new, I got here in September but I've mostly kept to myself. Getting -- used to things. My name is Anna." "Ah. Keeping to yourself. That's a mixed bag," Rasa offers quietly. "On the one hand, it maybe saved you from infection. On the other hand, if you got cornered by one of the less alive, then you might not as readily spring to mind for people to check on you." To the point, the metamorph draws in a deep breath and shuffles the cards ze picked up into a slim stack and leaves them on the table. "Um. Nice to meet you, Anna. I am still a bit under the weather as the treatment made me very sick, but utterly not contagious. I apologize if I'm coming across as strange." "You should get some," Kai says of Legos, nodding firmly. "If you like building things. I do not think people would mind. /Do/ you like building things?" It seems an idle question as he collects the last of the cards in his immediate area, and begins tapping the deck into proper alignment. He offers a nod of agreement when Rasa speaks, and rubs the crook of his arm with a wrinkle of his nose. He doesn't have anything to offer other than one thought. "I would rather hear you talk strangely and know you are well than the alternative." "I concur," Anna echoes Kai, with a steady nod. "Though it seems as if 'well' might be pushing it as of yet? If the treatment causes sickness. I hope you have good tea." Which, in Anna's family, is the answer to any symptom what ails you: drink tea. Lots of it. Many different kinds. "I'd be happy to make some if you don't. And building things can be -- relaxing," she finally settles on the right word, after a thoughtful pursing of her lips. "Perhaps you can show me how to best employ Legos." "Oh. Well. Tea might've helped." Rasa scruffs the back of hir neck quietly, frowning as ze stares at the table itself. "I mostly drank some juices and ... other liquids and slept it off. Seriously, I am getting the flu shot next year. I don't want to be sick ever again. I am so tired of it." Ze pulls out a seat and settle in it heavily, pulling hir tail onto hir lap and stroking it idly. Ze glances up at Anna and smiles, looking over at Kai from time to time. "I do not know if I had the flu or the sickness, but I stayed in my room," Kai says, setting the cards on the table before he slides into a chair, "I ate a lot of soup." He kicks his dino-feet a bit as he watches the older teens, his fingers clutched tightly along the edge of his seat. "Mostly." Anna's idea on Legos gets a small, shy smile, and a lift of his shoulders. "It is good fun," he says. "I have some that were a present from one of the teachers for my birthday. But I am not a good builder," he amends, his eyes widening. "Mostly I just make things for Lord Adolphus and the other bugs to crawl on." He leans forward, his eyebrows lifting. "I can show you how to make bug-crawling things, though." "Soup is good too. Hot liquids, in general -- I was taught they are the solution to everything. Suppose it isn't very difficult, but that is how my family -- does things." Hesitation in speech is apparently something rather characteristic of Anna, as she frequently pauses to consider her words mid-sentence. She at least is no longer reacting to the inherent oddness of Xavier's and its residents; that she acclimated to somewhat quickly. "I avoided people because it seemed like the best choice. I also failed to answer emails from little brothers demanding information about what zombies were like." /That/ comes with an eyeroll. "Flu shot hurts for about a day. Then it's gone. What kind of bugs do you have?" "Oh, there were plenty of hot liquids. The broths are popular right now, using the bones of some of the hunting conquests to extend the nutrients to other people, but yeah. I was down in the med lab. They took very good care of me." Rasa is pleased to let the conversation drift over to Kai, as ze leans forward and starts to attempt the building of another house of cards, working only on getting two cards to hold each other up to start. Hir concentration darkens the shade of hir skin and turns hir hair to midnight blue. "Kai, I think that Doctor McCoy can diagnose you if you have the actual illness and you should confirm with him specifically what you had. We don't want you to die." Ze is a little bit and perhaps unfortunately monotone as ze speaks, hir eyes focused on the cards. "I like soup," Kai confirms with a nod. "My mother used to make a good soup with horse meat. I wish they would make it here." He sounds a tiny bit wistful when he says this, and his feet kick a bit more slowly. The question about bugs gets a brightening of his expression, and he lifts his eyebrows. "Oh, I only have Lord Adolphus, and he is a millipede," he explains. "But Ivan is my very good friend, and he has many bugs that I help him with." He frowns, then, as something occurs to him, and he falls into a thoughtful silence. When Rasa speaks, the younger boy blushes deeply, and lifts his shoulders. "I will go and see him," he says, the promise vague in its offering and a slightly sad note creeping into his tone as he continues. "I do not want people to be worried about such things." Anna pauses for a moment, expression crossing a few confused-possibly-disturbed lines before settling again. Because, of course, eating broth made from what sounds like zombie bone marrow is not exactly the most pleasant idea ever. She's at least able to focus on the distraction of Rasa's color change and not think about it too hard, starting another small group of cards near the one Rasa is making at a good angle to join them once they're sure both will stand up. Adding on right up close too early being a possible source of instability, after all. "My sister has a small snake; not quite the same thing, but the wriggly creature has made me positively inclined toward others." It's sort of related, and it's after a moment of quiet card-balancing that she continues her semi-tangential speaking, "People will worry. The community here seems like that. And is horse meat legal in the States?" Maybe that's the problem; she wouldn't know. "I have no idea how legal it is in the United States, but there seems to be some sort of moral gray area that surrounds the consumption, probably due to affection for steeds." Rasa considers. "But with meat as scarce as it is... well, I guess I can't really ask anyone to give up one of the horses easily, but if we run out of deer in the forest, we might have to." Ze is not the best at stacking cards. Ze manages two sets of the angled cards holding each other up, but when ze tries to lay one across the top, the stack falls over flat. "Pffft." Ze glances up at Kai. "Good." Kai wrinkles his nose. "I do not understand why people get so mad about it," he admits. "It is very good, if it prepared right." He considers that, swinging his feet slowly. "I would not want to eat Mister Jackson's horse, though. Or any of the ones in the stables." He shrugs. "Deer meat is good, too. The soup is good, anyway." He looks like he might be about to say something to Anna, but Rasa's glance and reply get another blush out of him, and he falls silent, picking up a stack of cards and fiddling with them as he attempts to change the subject. "Where are you from?" he asks Anna, looking up finally. "I've never eaten either," Anna admits softly, as she frowns at Rasa's cards -- like doing that will make them apologize, or something, but what it does instead is make her cards fall over. Or else, that is what they do when she looks away. "Horse or deer, I mean. But I think people around home do -- Chatham," she replies, and then is careful to qualify, as she has recently learned she must, "The one in New Brunswick, not upstate New York. Or central New York. Or -- New York's directionality is very confusing, it seems to change depending on who you ask and where you are? I'm Acadian, anyway. And you both? If either of you are from the Chatham in New York I might laugh." "Alas, no. I've mostly been continental US, myself, on an awkward tour of some of the bigger cities, but my parents are Persian." Rasa offers quietly leaning forward to try again with the card house. Hir lips press firm in extra concentration. Ze starts turning the cards over instead and looking at the patterns and somewhat assembling them in lose solitaire style. Kai frowns as Anna explains where she's from, and he looks a little confused. "I do not think I know New Brunswick," he says. "But I am not very good with geography." He waves a card at himself, shrugging. "I am from a place that is known as North Korea," he says. "I have been many places, but I haven't seen any of them." He says this matter-of-factly, even as he attempts his own house of cards. "Will you show me how to make a good card house?" he asks. "Then I will go and get my Legos, and show you how to build with those." He nods, clearly convinced at the fairness of this trade. Then he pauses, considering it more carefully. "That is, if it is a thing you would like to do." "Eastern Canada," Anna clarifies, because that might help; she doesn't know where a good majority of the /states/ are, though she can place Iran and North Korea. Ask her about a town in either and she'd be just as lost. "And I would be happy to," she agrees, with that relaxed-friendly smile succeeding at last. She doesn't make a particularly bad teacher of card-houses, either; for the next hour or so, she's carefully lining up cards and explaining the trick to the balance, and watching Kai try -- and Rasa, as well, if ze decides to divert back from solitaire -- before the focus of the group changes to Legos.