Logs:Private Ear

Private Ear
Dramatis Personae Cassy, Marinov
In Absentia	2019-06-28 "I dunno about all the ethics stuff."
Location XS - Lake
With the Summer sun shining down on Xavier's there's never been a better time to visit the lake. Unless perhaps you are a stronger believer in health and safety. For today Cassandra Villeneueve is doing something that is neither safe nor good for her health. She's hunting lake monsters. Of course her idea of hunting for a lake monster seems to involve dangling herself off the end of the docks, so her head is totally under the water, and remain for an extended period. But worry not! For she has taken two very important safety measures. Firstly she has a snorkel to allow her to breath without trouble. And secondly she's attached a rope around her waist and then attached the other end to the pier. What could possibly go wrong? With the day as warm as it is, Marinov is presently approaching the lake in their swimsuit, a pretty modest black two-piece, with the bottom being a pair of shorts and the top being a tight chest covering. The approach that they are taking is pretty fast, and they are in fact bounding down the docks rapidly, having opted for an all-fours run, past Cassy to leap and then splash into the water. When they surface, they start to tread water, peering over the surface of it curiously at Cassy. "Uh. Are you... ? What are you doing?" Cassy barely has time to react in panic to the sound of running before Marinov leaps over and hits the water. And no matter how neat a dive it may have been the sudden noise is, for her at least, extremely loud. "GAH!" she yelps and tries to haul herself upright, gets her head briefly out of the water, then flails and her head dunks back under again. "I uhm. Ouch." "So.. there's this rumour about a sea monster," she starts. Still managing to talk just fine despite her head being underwater. Although there are ripples and odd bubbling in the area around where she's submerged. "And I was listening in. Like sonar. So far I'm pretty sure I've got an idea what fish sound like... I figured I'd be able to detect anything big swimming around. Water carries sound very... uhm... best not swim very close to where my head is. I don't think it'd be dangerous but if I was really loud suddenly... The water might boil a bit." "Oh, shit, sorry," says Marinov when Cassy yelps. "I guess I shoulda known that would have been loud, but..." Their ears twitch a bit when Cassy continues to speak while submerged. "I think the only monster in this lake at the moment is yours truly. You can hear the fish just swimming around in the water with sonar? That's pretty wild. And, um, yeah. I'll keep my distance if that means you can guarantee you won't boil me alive." "No need to like... panic or anything," Cassy assures, waving her hand expressively despite still not really being able to see thanks to the whole head underwater thing. "I'm... pretty sure I'd boil my own head before you got hurt. And the lake is waaaaaaaaaaaay too big for me to heat the whole thing up." She giggles. Or at least makes a giggling noise from the bits of her body that are above the water. "I'd hope I'd be able to get myself out when the water got painfully hot but... Uh-oh.... I think I'm a little stuck." To the above water observer it does indeed seem that Cassy has, in her moment of panic, slipped just far enough forwards that the only thing holding her fully out the water is the rope. But far enough that she can only flail at the slippery wet edge of the pier. "I think I can hear fish. Ninety percent sure. They don't sound like you do while swimming anyway..... Wait was that a confession? Have you secretly been masquerading as the lake monster?" "I don't masquerade! I mean, not in the lake anyways... I don't think I'm the lake monster, there are more likely candidates out there. I'm the Xavier's Woods panther, though," says Marinov. "You need help there? Like, if I slowly and calmly fish you out of there you're not gonna cook me up, right? I don't want to be freshly prepared fish food..." They start- tentatively- to swim over towards Cassy. "What exactly makes you so interested in becoming a monster hunter?" "You don't? Awh that's a shame. You could probably make some pretty amazing masquerade ball outfits," Cassy muses, still thankfully breathing okay through the snorkel. "If you just haul on the rope I should be able to get myself up. I'd pull myself up but I can't quite reach and my hands are all prune-y." "It's not that I want to be a monster hunter... I just want to know the truth. Besides if you think about it maybe mutants are behind all the rumours of mysterious monsters. Big Foot or the Yeti could just be early mutant sightings. Besides.... this place is kind of a snoozefest over the Summer." "Honestly, yeah, Bigfoot is probably some mutant who just wants to be left alone. Like, there's days I want to disappear into the woods and become an elusive cryptid, so... yeah," says Marinov, getting just a little closer to aid Cassy in getting back into prime monster searching position. "I don't mind that it's a bit quieter in the summer, I get to get a lot of work done and hang out outside a lot... Though it's ended up being more work than hanging out this summer." They climb back up onto the dock, looking down at the water with perked up ears. "If you do find anything, I'd be curious to know though." "I bet Bigfoot is a mutant with animal qualities from an extinct animal. Did you know there's an extinct type of giant monkey.. Or was it an Ape? Anyway it's called Gigantopithecus," Cassy explains cheerfully, still waving her arms around like she's having a totally normal conversation. "It was like ten foot tall and weighed about a ton. Sounds a lot like how people describe Bigfoot. And if you were that huge you wouldn't fit in anywhere sized for other people." Her arms cross. "I did consider trying to solve crimes. Maybe a murder or something. But.... It doesn't seem very safe. I'd have to reveal I'm a mutant and then I'd probably get in a lot of trouble." "You could probably become a pretty effective blackmailer. Like, as career choices go... that's definitely one of them," suggests Marinov, dipping their feet again into the cool water as they continue looking at it. "And it could just be a really hairy mutant. Whose whole thing is just being a big hairy guy. I get kinda like... really wrapped up in thinking about that shit if I start to think too hard." They shrug lightly and then look to Cassy. "Maybe a reporter. Like, doing columns and shit." Cassy lets out a long sigh. Or at least a few bubbles do escape her mouth and then her body produces the sound of sighing. "It's really hard not to just... know all the secrets in a place like this. I wouldn't ever want to blackmail someone though. That's... hrm.... So maybe I would if I was able to stop a worse thing from happening? All those ethical power lessons just kind of confused me. We're supposed to... be normal I guess and not use our abilities for personal gain at the expense of other people. But if those people are bad and you can make them do nice things or just stop being so horrible isn't the morally correct thing to stop them?" "As for being a reporter.... Does anyone really care about the news anymore? People seem to say and do horrible things all the time. They get reported and then what? No-one seems to mind because they don't trust journalists. Or they think 'Hey I voted for that guy they couldn't possibly have done a bad thing because if they had I wouldn't have voted for them. So the article must be wrong.' and ignore it." "I dunno about all the ethics stuff. But yeah, if you were blackmailing corrupt politicians and like, business guys, you'd be able to fix society and shit!" says Marinov, throwing up their hands. "If you blackmail people into being halfass decent, then that's probably okay. But I didn't, uh, get the best grade in my ethics class so that's me. Bad at ethics." They shrug helplessly. "And yeah... fuck, journalism seems like a pretty rough job. Pay is shit, recognition is probably shitter. But at least truth being out there is something." "I could become a consulting detective like Sherlock Holmes. That'd be pretty cool. I'd need to get my mutant power under control enough so I could pass for Human though. Or we'd need to be living in more tolerant times so people wouldn't freak out every time I talked," Cassy muses. Then, after a pause, she adds "You uhm. Anywhere close to that rope? Turns out being upside down for a long time is making me a little dizzy...." She giggles again. "But yeah I think I might hold off on fixing society for a tiny bit. Ideally I'd want my Mom to change jobs first. Her clients are all pretty terrible people and I bet they'd take it personally if I tried blackmail them. One guy is called... I don't know the exact term in Spanish but it translates into Meathook. Because when he kills people it's with.... Well you get the idea. He's some sort of big shot Sicario." Eh, well, even those terrible guys deserve a fair trial and all that, yeah? Even guys named Meathook," says Marinov. They tilt their head and hop to their feet to check on Cassie. "Yeah, if you stay upside down for a long time, it's not great for your brain I heard. I mostly prefer my head above my shoulders..." They tug on the rope to help her up. "I think you could still be a Sherlock Holmes without seeming too human. Just gotta be looking the right kinds've places for mysteries. Mysteries the cops don't care anything about." It takes a little effort but with Marinov pulling on the rope Cassy eventually gets herself out from the water. "That's something like what she says. The bit about trials I mean. Not the upside... wait I think she did tell me that one time too. I got stuck in a jungle gym trying to come up with an escape artist trick." She leans a little over the edge of the pier and starts trying to wring water out of her hair. "I suppose I'd also have to learn how to actually be a detective first. Unless I solve literally every case I take by just hearing the culprit saying how and why they did it. Which.... Probably 's not gonna work in the long run." "I guess rich crime guys probably have other ways of getting trials manipulated to their favour, so maybe they aren't exactly 'fair' anyways," says Marinov. They get up to their feet and head to the end of the dock. "I figure deduction is easier when you got a whole bunch of extra clues... Is it gonna be real noisy for you if I take another dive now that you're... up out of the water at least?" "Oh I'll be good. Water transmits sound waaaaaaaaay better than air. So now I'm out.... I should be okay," Cassy assures, gesturing at the end of the pier for Marinov to dive back in if they want. "I could also just flat out frame people. Copying voices is... much easier than you'd expect. So, check out my Xavier impression." And with no apparent effort her voice changes to very closely match the Professors "I'm thinking of introducing a mandatory top hat dress code and see to it that you all wear monocles from now on." She grins and, still in the altered voice adds "It obviously works better when I'm on the phone. Why I bet I could even impersonate the President and ring up a talk show to confess to all sorts of crimes. At least until Homeland security traced the call I guess...." "Holy shit, that's spot on," says Marinov, their eyes widening, "You could make everything on the intercom sound real good, if you could get in and out unnoticed, institute mandatory style requirements on a weekly basis. And yeah, I guess like... if you called in as the president, that would lend some actual credence to 'don't believe what you see and hear'." They start walking a little bit back to prepare a running jump. "My Xavier impression is like..." They make their voice a little deeper in a very unconvincing imitation. "I am Xavier. You have you be respectable. I am a very serious man." "I've been thinking of installing a Panda sanctuary on the grounds," Cassy proclaims, still in Xavier voice. Then, flicking back to her regular voice she adds "I should probably find out how many laws a prank like that would break first. I don't wanna wind up in jail or anything." She scoots to the edge of the pier so Marinov will have a totally clear run. "But I won't be using it for school mischief. Not like. Teacher impersonation anyway. I bet it's something they'd consider expelling someone about. Impersonating a teacher with malicious intent. If nothing else I'd be in counselling or detentions for like.. /ever/." "They might consider expelling you for that, yeah... undermining their authority and shit like that," says Marinov. "If there is one thing that'll get you in trouble..." They trail off. "Anyways." They start to run and jump high and far into a dive, their ears folded back so they don't get water in them. As Marinov makes their dive the air is filled with the sound of respectful applause, as if a small crowd of onlookers were stood on the pier. "I guess I should probably head back and wash all the lake out of my hair," she muses. "Hope you enjoy your swimming!"