Logs:Still Marinating

Still Marinating
Dramatis Personae Emilia, Sera, Sriyani
In Absentia	2024-01-14 "Did bite. Not tasty."
Location <XAV> Forest - Xs Grounds
Quiet and shady, the trees rise all around here high and thick. In stillness, woodland creatures make appearances, though sudden noises scare them back into the cover. Dappled sunlight filters down between the thick foliage, and the ground underfoot is heavily overgrown, though here and there paths have been worn, by deer or years of students wandering familiar trails. Emilia takes her time, really centers herself. If only she could remember. But does she want to? Is it good for her? She's currently devouring a steak, presumably one she was given from the kitchen, with her bare hands, having given in to her feral side, the side that her mind created to protect her from further trauma, her deepest, most feral survival instincts. Forks be damned, she doesn't need one. Although, she isn't exactly in a state to remember manners, anyhow. Just what had they done to her? A lot. A lot that she couldn't remember, that her brain had blocked off. Her current situation brought back memories of the time she'd been found, eating a bear. This was... marginally more healthy. She had already bitten a few students, who, luckily, were not seriously injured, and who had not held grudges. Some of the staff gave her a polite yet stern talking to after that, stating that they knew she'd been through a lot, but she could not just walk around biting whoever she felt like, or whoever annoyed her. While she did not care, they did. And that was enough to get her to conform. The rational part of her knew this was all ridiculous, the way she was acting. The still sane part of her, buried underneath the waves of trauma and lack of care. But if they wanted to treat her like an animal, she was going to act like one. And unfortunately, that was a hard thing to break. It would take time. And therapy. Maybe even telepathic therapy. Good luck... She had to resist the urge to eat another deer that passed by, watching it with claws bared, munching steak off of her claws. At least they'd cut it up for her, cutting it in half. She felt for anyone who discovered the scene. Part of her wanted to make friends, she really did. But how did you communicate, 'I was tortured for years and that really affected my mental state?' She still didn't know. Dressed in all black workwear, it's much better than the outfit she arrived in, bloodied scrubs. No doubt Sriyani can be heard before they can be seen, making very little attempt at stealth as they tromp through the woods heading in the general direction of the mansion. Their lined winter boots crunch at leaves and sticks alike, and they're humming cheerfully along with some Bollywood tune that's piping through the headphones tucked beneath the hood of their winter coat. Their crunching steps come to a sudden halt when they see Emilia, though, head turning one way -- then the other -- and their eyes going wide in their round face. "Is the kitchen -- out of plates?" They're kind of skirting wiiide to give Emilia a large berth. Sera is ambling down the path from the mansion with a thick book tucked under her arm, dressed in a green duffle coat with a gray scarf wound loosely around her neck and gray boots to match. She might be deliberately growing her hair out, or maybe has just missed a trim or two, because one sweep of wavy brown hair keeps falling across her vivid green eyes. She's just come into view when Sriyani speaks, and her eyes widen to even more dramatic effect when she sweeps the hair aside from it. "Oh, goodness!" She tilts her head ever so slightly to one side, studying Emilia with a small and slightly fey smile as she comes to a stop well out of the splatter zone. "You must be the new girl." Emilia's head slowly turns, examining the two, before she realizes just how bad this must look, the rational part of her once again, slowly returning now that she is not in torture hell. She slowly eats the last steak off of her claws, retracts them, then quickly devours the remaining steak, before slowly standing. She has made a hole in her boots from her claws. Damn. She liked those boots, they were comfortable. At least they are now pre-customized. The new girl. Was she new? Yes, yes she was. She only arrived yesterday? The day before? How long had it been? Surely only a couple of days. Two moon passes. Two nights. Two days. << Get your head right. >> She's frustrated. Scared, confused. Quite obviously, rather... feral. You know what they say. Treat people like animals long enough... But her hostility is not directed toward Sriyani or Sera. They, and she, are fine. What is happening? What is this? What is she? Who are they? They smell... different. Like her? They are All Like Her. That was what she was told. There's so much confusion, so much mental anguish. Whoever Emilia was before, that was gone. She would have to break herself down, reinvent herself, find herself again. Standing to her full height, a staggering-- to some-- 6'2", Emilia realizes just how tall she actually is, compared to most. Most, being the keyword. There were some she'd seen that were giants. She bit them. A conquest to be conquered. She later learned that this was Not Okay. And she has not bitten anyone since. There was also the standard medical checkup, where she nearly bit the poor staff, and they had to forego all the clinical elements and just treat her like another person to get her to go through with the exam. So much fear, anguish, confusion. And a bit of hatred. Self or otherwise. She hated that she acted like this, but she didn't know who she was anymore. It was hard to act like your old self when you didn't know who that was anymore. "U-m-m-m," Sriyani feels pretty dubious, sounds pretty dubious, watching Emilia veeery carefully as they scoot around to get closer to Sera. There's something like horror and fascination mingling in their mind, though their expression is mostly just an uncertain squint. "She goes here?" It's Sera they're asking, rather than Emilia. Sera tilts her head a little farther as Emilia stand up (and up) (and up), her pleasant if inscrutable expression unchanged. "Mm. Unless there's another six-foot girl with metal claws roaming these woods." She glances aside at Sriyani, her eyes widening slightly with -- not fear, exactly. "I heard she bit someone, though I suppose you can't believe everything you hear." Emilia's shameful expression seems to confirm that last rumor. Taps her boots into the ground to dispel stuck dirt. Her claws from her feet momentarily embed in the dirt as she does so, and she shakes them loose like a cat who got their claws stuck in a curtain, before retracting them back into her feet. Despite that, she hasn't said anything, mainly because she isn't sure if she remembers how to talk like a normal human being, at least not without stunted speech. "Did bite. Not tasty." Is all she says, hoarsely. It's something. There's a deep frustration in that mind of hers. It's a self frustration. Why is she acting like this? How does it work? Why can't she understand it? How does what they did make her act like this? Reduce her to this? It's infuriating. She almost wants to cut down a tree in anger. She does not. The tree does not deserve it. It's hard to put into words her feelings toward these two beings. They seem nice, but who are they? Are they staff? Students? No, too young to be staff. She steps a bit closer, understanding that she scares them, or at the least, maybe intimidates them in some way? She gives them their space, smells the air. A subtle way of smelling them. She can't identify anything in particular. How annoying. She likes smelling people. ...And that, she realizes, is weird. You don't go around Biting People, and you do not randomly smell people. These are two things she has learned. Again. It's weird how things return to her, manners she'd forgotten. "Emilia. That is my name." She says, a small moment of clarity. "Around here I would not be surprised." Sriyani takes a step back automatically when Emilia steps closer. They lift a hand, pushing one ear of the headphones off their ear -- this is not yet a Full Attention conversation, it seems. "I mean, yeah, you shouldn't bite people, what did you expect?" Their nose has crinkled up, their expression amused (though Sera can feel the disgust simmering beneath.) "Most of us don't marinate ourselves like, just in case." They consider this, and then ask Emilia with a deep curiosity: "Why'd you bite people?" Sera steps back as well, hugging the book to her chest with both arms, now. "Ah. Welcome to Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, Emilia." Did she really need to say the school's full name? Presumably Emilia already knows it. "I'm Sera, and for the record I did not pre-marinate today. Would you have eaten them?" she asks, blinking owlishly at Emilia. "If they were -- tasty?" She considers both questions. Would she have eaten them? No. Eating people was wrong. Animals, eh... But people? No. "No." "Why? Did not trust them." It's a half answer. She didn't trust them, and they pissed her off. But, nonetheless... She had to readjust her behavior if she wanted to have any chance of having a life free of what they'd done to her. There's a deep seated rage boiling under the surface. Not at them, just her circumstances. Weapon Plus ruined her, made her into some kind of animal, brainwashed her, tortured her, all for their own goals. Eventually, Emilia feels some strange sense of calm as she looks around at the forest. It's pretty out here. Though how Xavier's has a whole forest honestly confuses her. How long did it take to plant all these trees? Emilia wants to say that they don't need to marinate themselves, either of them, as she won't be eating them, but that's pretty much already been said. Emilia keeps her distance, understanding, somehow, that Sriyani is uncomfortable by her. She steps back when the woman steps forward, and that is a sign enough not to come closer to either of them. She is an unknown, a new element. A danger. And she isn't sure if she loves or hates that. Having the agency to make her own choices, to defend herself, is nice. The method by which it was acquired is not. She hates being a danger. There's a deep resentment toward that aspect, being a danger. Overall, it seems Emilia is relatively docile right now. As long as she's fed, she can handle herself. Being here though reminds her that classes exist. Does she even remember how to do math? Counts her fingers, just to make sure. 1, 3, 2. No. 1, 2, 3. Good. Somehow, she knows this is right. There's a curiosity to Emilia, that she's feeling. She wants to get to know these two, but she worries that her reputation precedes her. She is known as the "six foot girl who Bit several students with metal claws" after all. "Uh-huh." Sriyani is nodding, slow, to this answer, and though the squinch of their face does not get any less scrunchy, the tension in their mind is melting to a baffled fascination. "You know that's super messed up, right?" Their arms have crossed over their chest for warmth now that they aren't moving, hands tucking into the opposite elbows. "I mean like do I get to bite you now because you're way sketchy and then Sera would have to bite me and then where does this slippery slope end?" Sera arches her eyebrows. "What did they do?" she wonders abstractedly. "I'd like to know how to avoid your distrust." She shakes her head and pushes the sweep of her hair out of her eyes again. "But I think you're safe," this assurance is for Sriyani. "You're being very upfront about the biting you might do. Though, just in case: did you marinate yourself today?" She shakes her head. She won't tell, if only because it will make her seem more untrustworthy. How did she say that she simply didn't trust them because they got too close? Well... exactly like that. Tries to think of all of the languages she knows. Well, only two. Maybe slightly three, but not too many. Ukrainian, Russian, and English. English is the most fluent, seconded by Russian, and Ukrainian, she only knows the loan words from Russian, and some basic phrases. "Do not sneak up on me. I... don't like it." "Tried to pull... jokes on me. Did not end well for them." She isn't sure whether the question is to Sriyani or her, so she doesn't answer the last question. "I am... sorry for how I may have been... seen. Things have not been... easy for me. And it all... comes back... very.. slowly." As you can see, she gestures, as if to say. "Both are safe. Not going to hurt either of you." "I marinate myself every morning," Sriyani tells Sera, "it seems only polite you never know when someone's going to want to bite you. But most people aren't as considerate so --" Their shrug is made less visible by the puffy layers they're dressed in. Something churns in their mind in a more chaotic mix -- irritation and sympathy and fear and grief all comingled. Outwardly they just smile, bounce slightly up onto their toes and now it's Emilia they're addressing, wider-eyed and earnest: "Oh! Well things have been really easy for most of the rest of us here so that's actually totally understandable. I bet we'd all bite people too if things got, like, hard." "No sneaking, no joking." Sera taps the tip of an index finger to the thumb of her other hand, then the other index finger, keeping firm track. "I'll keep it in mind, though I'm glad to know we're safe. You know, it's actually very common for people to cope with humor, when things haven't been easy." Her steady smile brightens. "It might be worth a try, no?" Emilia shrugs. Despite being cold enough for the two to wear layers, Emilia is just wearing a couple layers on her upper half, a t-shirt and workwear jacket, waxed cotton to have water repelling, or repelling... whatever else. And then it's just a pair of black cargo pants, and boots, which the pants are tucked into, and they're logging boots, so they've got a small heel on them and a sole that looks like it could grip onto a tree. Understandably. That's... kinda the whole point. Where exactly they got this stuff, Emilia didn't ask. But it didn't seem like anyone's stuff. She'd feel bad if someone had given up their stuff. Emilia was forced to wear socks with her boots. She does not like socks. Socks are Itchy. But it was that or risk blisters, and she'd had enough of that. There's a blank slate of Emilia's mind now, not really anything significant to feel. It's almost... creepy. How someone can just be a blank slate like that. But in reality, it's almost like an extreme calm, whether forced or not. This is the first time she's felt true peace. No running, no fighting, no fear of when the next needle would come, the next test. "I'll work on it." She says simply, giving an unnatural smile. She needs to work on that too. It looks... menacing. But she clearly doesn't mean for it too, and it fades soon after. Sriyani puts a hand to their mouth, stifling a laugh though not stifling the (bleak) (bright) upswell of amusement that bubbles in their mind at Sera's words. They drop their hand after, tucking both sleeves into each other. Still bouncing in place, which does considerably help take the uncomfortable edge off the frigid bite in the air. "I have nooo idea how you've been seen but I think if you keep at it you'll definitely be making, uh, an impression!" Is this encouraging? Their smile is encouraging, anyway. "Where did you come from before, anyway?" Sera's smile softens subtly, and maybe it's just that shift in her expression but she seems to exude her own calm -- less extreme but in no way contradicting Emilia's. Her amusement, too, is in harmony with Sriyani's though not identical. "You don't have to smile to do humor. Some of the funniest people I know are --" Here she schools her face to something that isn't blank but is intensely, almost caricaturishly neutral. Almost, but not quite, and just not-quite enough to look sincere. It also fades soon after. "If you want to work on the smiling, maybe try it out on a mirror, first. There's nothing wrong with that at all." Where did you come from before anyway? Subject has been prepared. Initiate test. All signs normal, no sign of aggression. Give me the 13 gauge. For a moment, Emilia believes she's back at the Facility. But only a moment. The presence of those who were Not There makes it so that the memory does not stick. But when she's alone, who can say... And how did she explain the Facility to them? Did everyone know of its existence? Was it well known? No. She couldn't. In response to Sriyani's question, before Sera begins speaking, Emilia merely, with a slightly fearful expression, shakes her head. There's an overwhelming fear there. She does not want to talk about it. She's not ready. May never be ready. It was... too difficult right now. Any telepath was in for a treat, she could say that much. But she'd probably eviscerate anyone who entered her head without her permission. That was, if they could. She'd never tested it out. Could they, with her Adamantium skull? Did it block it completely? She would very much like her thoughts to be her own, her memories to be her own. She nods at Sera's advice, taking it to heart. Practice. A lot of things are going to need practice. "Um-m-m," says Sriyani again, brows scrunching and head tilting curiously to one side as if this might help them see into Emilia's head. It doesn't work, of course, and, not privy to any of the other girl's internal workings, they ultimately just finish with a slightly awkward: "Okay, then!" Somewhere amid the awkward stretch silence the cold has won out; they pull their hands from their sleeves to blow on them and then tuck the sleeves back together. They're turning aside -- an awkward smile for Emilia and a less awkward one for Sera, and, "Fff I hope there's a fire in the study," is what passes for 'goodbye' as they hasten away towards the mansion. Sera tips her head to one side again, her brows arching just so. After a moment with no reply her gaze dips. "Well, you have a new home now, if you want to make it that." She gives a warm and friendly smile that feels all the warmer and friendlier to Emilia. "I'll see you around, Emilia." The name comes with just the lightest emphasis and a touch of solace, not at all like an afterthought even though she says it half over her shoulder as she's turning to follow Sriyani. "If there isn't one already, there will be soon."