ArchivedLogs:Photo Therapy

Photo Therapy
Dramatis Personae Faelan, Xiao-shan
In Absentia	2013-09-16 '
Location <XS> Xiao-shan's Room - FL3
A calm, polite, civil bit of tea; it's what Xiao-shan prefers for /this/ session. The giant woman is currently sinking down in a comfortable chair in her office, opposite Faelan; she's bringing a silver tray with two cups of tea (and a bit of lemon with a small cup for sugar lumps!) down atop of the table between them. Xiao-shan is dressed for work, today -- a black suit, clean white collared shirt, and dress slacks -- with her hair pulled back into a brisk, professional pony-tail. She offers Faelan a warm smile as she sets the tea platter down in front of him: "Sugar? Lemon?" she asks, before adding: "How have you been sleeping?" Xiao-shan's office is as placating as one can imagine; the window opens up to a splendid view of the rolling hills of Xavier's estate -- with placid landscape paintings decorating the walls. There's a black, ergonomic desk -- a laptop -- along with several bookshelves /groaning/ beneath the volumes of psychology books /and/ books on Chinese literature. Despite her suit and slacks, there's something informal about the way Xiao-shan presents herself -- no tie, no skirt, simple leather boots -- which seems to defy the brisk professionalism inherent to the room itself. Wearing attire from his earlier duties as assistant librarian, Faelan is wearing a grey polo shirt with the Xavier logo on the breast pocket thats only one size too larger for him, and a pair of khakis with cargo pockets. He seems a bit more relaxed than he has been in years past, perhaps the responsibilities helping him a little. He watches her as she sets down the tea tray and picks up a cup for himself with three lumps of sugar, and stirs it a little with the spoon. "Good evening ma'am. I wasn't too late for my session was I? I've been trying to be more careful with stairs, less likely to have an accident or anything that way." He nods a little and sips from the cup of tea as he watches her for a measure of approval. "--no, that's quite fine," Xiao-shan responds, watching him as he lifts the cup of tea to sip. "I think I prefer you operate at your own pace. But how have you been sleeping, Faelan? And how have you been doing with the other teenagers at the school? I know," she adds, her tone quieting to something more gentle that defies the mass of her frame, "that you sometimes have trouble with -- apprehension? Fear." "I have been sleeping alright. I have my own room now that I've graduated and working here. Its nice to have a little spot of my own, well as much of my own as it is with it being a dorm." Faelan smiles a little at that and shakes his head. "Its been over a year since I teleported out because of a nightmare. I think, its because everyone is actually okay for a change. Nobody is missing, or kidnapped. I mean, Professor Suresh had an accident with his powers, but it was here, and he's okay as far as I've heard." He nods a bit, though there's a slight frown. "I haven't spent too much time with the others lately though since I graduated. I mean I see people when they come and go from the library, but I don't have classes with anyone or much else outside of meals and occassionally going to the rec room. I know I'm supposed to work on the socializing thing, but I still don't really bond well I guess you'd say." "That's understandable. A lot of the students here don't -- ah, 'play well with others'? It's intimidating for a lot of reasons," Xiao-shan says, nodding her head. "Still, it's important -- for you to learn to become comfortable around people. Comfortable in places that aren't as placid as Xavier's. Well, not that this place is /placid/," she adds, with just a hint of a grin, "but at least it's sometimes a bit more quiet than the other places you might encounter. Actually, mmmn -- you've been training to control your power, right...?" "I know, but it seems that when I leave the school, I keep running into scary people. You had heard what happened when we had gone to the Orchard right?" Faelan shakes his head at that, a frown plastered to his face. "It could have gone a lot lot worse, but we got lucky I guess." Letting out a sigh, he runs a hand through his mussed hair. "And I had been doing some training with Professor Wagner. Trying to better aim it, though I don't really have the knack for it. I do what he's been saying, but I can't seem to ever find the test rocks again, except for like twice, and I don't know what was different about then. I even tried with the same rock to the same place, and now its lost." Sighing, he sips from the tea again. "At least I'm practicing with rocks instead of people or myself. And with what happened with Professor Suresh, I'm glad that I hadn't taken him up on his offer of me to practice on him." "Regrettably, powers tend to be incredibly different from manifestation to manifestation," Xiao-shan says, slowly nodding her head as she clucks her tongue against the roof of her mouth. She pauses, lifting the tea cup, but not sipping -- only huffing aside the rising cloud of steam that emerges from the surface. "What works for one teleporter may not work for another. Have you gotten a handle on using your power spontaneously, though? Without intending to? I'd imagine that's a higher priority than fine-tune control..." "Erm, for the most part yes. But part of that is also why I'm being more careful too. I did it when I had fell down stairs for example, and well, once off the ladder in the library, but don't tell Miss Winthrop. I didn't want her to worry about it because she has to rely on me to do it, cuz of her feet and all." Faelan nods at that, responsible face in place. "Sometimes when I toss my trash into the trash can and I miss, well... I don't know where they end up sometimes. But I'm doing a lot better. I'm staying calm, and removing myself from situations where I start feeling too anxious before something happens. But, its not like I have people surprising me every day. I still feel bad about sending Ivan away." There's a slight blush at that, embarassment showing on his face. "I know everything turned out okay, but it could have been worse." "It's okay to feel a little bad about that, but I wouldn't beat yourself up over it. It's something you have to work on, that's all," Xiao-shan responds. "Do you have any close friends, Faelan? Anyone you like spending time with your age?" She pauses, before adding: "How would you feel about using some slow DR sessions to experiment with your powers? With your advisor's consent and help, of course. It might help you be less nervous if you can learn how to deal with stress without teleporting things -- and we can set it so the only thing you'll teleport will be holograms." Faelan nods at her advice, then shakes his head at her question. "Not really. I mean I talk to a few people when I see them, or we bump into each other, but well nobody really close." He shrugs a little at that, knowing that he had been told to do otherwise. "I spent most of the early years when everyone is getting all cliquey hiding, and then I was trying harder but well then things just kept happening and I was afraid of getting close to people who might just disapear. When the other students disapeared all of a sudden, well, it hurts to lose people you care about." He closes his eyes a moment, breathing deep and calming again. "And I don't know. I mean, I don't think I can teleport something that isn't really there? I mean, a hologram is just light right? I've only really ever managed to teleport things that are ya know, things. So the only thing around to teleport, would be me." "True. We'd have to run some tests first, to make sure it would be safe," Xiao-shan says, in response to the matter of the DR. She's frowning at the rest of what he's saying, though -- the expression lingering on her face long after the sip of tea she immediately takes afterward. "I'm sorry to hear that, Faelan. There isn't much help I can offer with that; whenever you get close to someone, you always run the risk of losing them. I /do/ know several students here who would probably love to have you as a friend, but... mmn. Maybe you could join one of the clubs? I suspect they're available even for alumni..." Nodding vigorously about the matter of safety, Faelan seems to approve of that. "We could always ask Mr. Jax if I can try and teleport one of his illusions. It would be the easiest way, without having to go... down there." He apparently doesn't seem fond of that room for some reason. At her frowning, he shakes his head. "I am kinda friends with people. But you said close friends, and well, there aren't really any that I can think of. And Megan had gotten mad at me and then I haven't really even seen her around much after that so I apparently am good at driving people away too." He lets out a sigh at that, and bites at his lip a moment. "Professor Summers suggested the same thing about the clubs, but I don't really know of any club that I fit in. I don't really know much about sciences, and I'm not really musical or athletic aside from running. It would either be me asking someone what club I should join and doing it because they told me to, or picking randomly. I'm not really /Good/ at anything aside from ya know, avoiding things." Xiao-shan offers Faelan a slight twitch of a smile at the comment about driving Megan away: "A /lot/ of people come to the school with a lot of emotional and social challenges, Faelan. I don't think you're any better at driving people away than anyone else, here." At the comment about being good at things, /that/ prompts Xiao-shan to give Faelan an outright grin: "Well, don't pick based on what you're /good/ at, pick based on what you think is fun! The whole point of joining a club is to have fun and to /become/ good at it. Does anything interest you? There's a robotics club if you want to learn how to build machines -- there's also a martial arts club -- it isn't as frightening or startling as it sounds," she quickly adds. "I like nature stuff. I don't know, maybe I could do photography? That's kinda quiet and peaceful and stuff. Or maybe hiking." Faelan squinches his face up abit thinking. "I don't know if there are any club activities for that really. "And no, I don't really have any interest in machines really. I'd just get in the way of people like Kisha, and she'd probably turn me into a robot so I'd be more useful or something." Shaking his head, he blinks a few times at the martial arts club not being frightening or startling. "Um, I'm sure it would be a good idea to have self defense lessons that don't end with me or someone else ending up miles away, but I don't know if I'm ready for that yet. My instincts are based on fear and injury ya know? So probably not yet. Maybe something calm... like yoga? Or tai chi?" He asks somewhat hopeful to dissuade from martial arts. "There's a photography club, I believe. I /think/ there's a hiking club," Xiao-shan responds, although now her eyebrows are knitting together in thought, like two gears in an enormous machine attempting to grind their way through a particularly pernicious problem. At the mention of Kisha, Xiao-shan grins: "She might be a little too intense for your tastes, yes. Martial arts isn't just about self defense -- actually, at its heart, it's all about self /control/ -- mmn, yoga could be a good fit. Or tai chi! I don't know much about either of those, but..." Her thought trails off. "I'd probably need to get a camera for the photography club thing. I don't think the camera phone would be good enough. Maybe if I save up some money for it, though I'm trying to save up the money so I can try and pay for college stuff myself a little. Miss Winthrop says theres a lot of options for online college, so that would probably be a good step, and saving up will give me time to figure out what I want to actually learn." Faelan nods at that abit, thinking about the other options. "The other stuff would probably be better, I don't need to buy anything special for those ones. And I don't know much about those other ones either, but Profes.. Miss... Hrm, I don't know what title to use for Miss Walters, since I don't think she's teaching for now. Anyway, she had said yoga or tai chi might be good for me, since its something I'd have to focus on and all. And yeah, that self control thing. And they wouldn't involve me getting hit. Which is nice too. And hiking, well, I kinda accidentally did that a lot. I guess that's something I am actually kinda good at." "I'm sure the school can work with you to help you with the camera -- they probably have a few out-dated models they could supply you with, if you promised to be careful with them. I don't know if they use a chemical process or digital process. Hiking is --" Xiao-shan grins. "It's nice to wander, sometimes. Gives you a chance to find yourself. I know a number of students do it; you could join them." "I don't know either really. Though, I guess if the school had outdated ones it would probably be film cameras. It would be nice to combine the two, since I would rather take pictures of stuff out there, than like taking pictures of a bowl of fruit, or people. I have a lot of post cards up in my room and all of them have really pretty landscapes of the places... well the places I accidentally ended up." Faelan shows his embarassment again at that, and shook his head. "But pictures of birds and animals and stuff would be kinda relaxing. Well, as long as something that wants to eat me doesn't show up. I can ask around at least, though I guess some of it will depend on when they meet up. I don't know how willing they are to flex my schedule around yet, I've only worked for a few months so far." "Mmn. Tell you what," Xiao-shan decides, clapping her hands together above the tea-cup -- in a slow, soft gesture calculated not to startle! "I'll speak with your advisor and see about finding out the availability of a hiking club along with getting you a camera for you to join the photography club, and seeing how either can be sync'd up with your work schedule." Smiling and inclining his head, Faelan replies "Thank you very much. Though, I guess this kinda falls into the category of one of those things that I'll have to get better at. I wonder if I could ask Ducky or Ivan to come with me, they'd be able to help me get some better pictures at least. I mean, the whole getting things to do what you want and all." He nods, rolling the idea over in his head abit. "Scenery would probably be the easiest place to start though, you don't usually have to worry about a hill getting up and walking away from you mid shot." Xiao-shan laughs. "I /think/," she tells him, "they'd be happy to help you. One way or another. Alright -- I'm glad this has given you some ideas to move forward with clubs -- I think it's important that you get some practice being social." She reaches for the cup of tea in front of her, once again. Finishing off his tea, Faelan lets out a long suffering sigh. "I know, I know. Its what you guys have been saying for years now. And I try, I just, pbah." He shakes his head at that, and frowns setting the cup down. "Thank you again. Hopefully this will help. Or something else. At least the work has been helpful I think. I should probably go see if the library has a book on photography I can start looking at at least. I'll see you next session then."