ArchivedLogs:Covered in Bees!

Covered in Bees!
Dramatis Personae Ivan, Jackson
In Absentia	27 March, 2013. Morningtime, pre-breakfast. *_*
Location <XS> Gardens
From indoor gardens to outdoor, though without the protective greenhouse glass the back gardens do not last all year round. Still, the gardens out here are well-tended and well-worth spending time in, as well. The paths wending through the beds of flowers and herbs and vegetables spread out through the school's back grounds, tended by students as a credit class. Benches offer seating and a small pond is home to koi and turtles, as well as a few frogs. It's a beautiful early Wednesday morning over in the Xavier School gardens. A lot of the students are still drowsily eating their breakfast or only freshly climbing out of bed, if even that. No thanks in part to the fact that some would argue Old Man Winter's coat tails are still wafting in the late March winds. But for Ivan? He may not be sturdy, he may not be strong, but the stereotype of Russians and their harsh weather? One hundred percent true, in this case. The cold, to him, is like an old friend. And this is /nothing/. Plus he just really really wanted to get up this morning and get things started! Wake up and buckle up, spring. You're about to get some new helpers. A brand new-looking, waist heightish stack of wooden boxes of some sort stands in the middle of a grassy patch some distance away from the main gardens - a Langstroth style beehive, shaded by the still mostly barren branches of nearby trees which yet to properly start their spring growth. A cardboard box and what looks to be another two hives' worth of parts lies on the ground nearby, yet to be constructed. Some of the parts look a bit-- rough, having been made by other students wherever possible. They should suffice just fine, however. Ivan himself looks utterly pleased, a white spray bottle in his right hand and a timid smile on his face as he surveys this new, buzzy structure; Indeed, already there is the faint hum of insects at work. Hundreds upon hundreds of them, snuggly inside or crawling out of the slit of an opening at the bottom of the hive. Off to the side, there lie two white protective suits and pairs of gloves strewn out in the grass. Probably should have worn those, Ivan. Then again, the teenager doesn't seem bothered by the few bees who haven't yet taken to their new home. Not even the dozen or so that have instead decided to crawl all over his black, wool coat or over his hands or, indeed, on his face and into his hair. Nope. His smile inches slightly wider. This is the BEST DAY. Jackson is LATE, or at least, he's not early. He's certainly early for /class/ but this is Not Class and he is hurrying as he makes his way out of the building and into the gardens. The gardens have yet to flower but Jax is a vividly bright spot in them for all that; tall purple/fire-engine-red trihawk. Shiny-glisteny metallic red leggings beneath black cargo capri pants. A purple corduroy jacket worn over a /very/ shiny-sequiny silver top. It's probably just the /hurrying/ that makes him look a little harried; the look dissipates into a bright-warm smile as he flits his way down the path and over nearer the brand-new hive. "Ivan! Mornin'! Hi!" His thick Southern drawl is bright and chipper. "Oh, gosh, they're already like music, ain't they?" For a moment he sort of /hums/ along with the buzzing drone of bees. "This'll be great, the grounds'll be better'n ever -- do you feel them? Do they feel different than -- nothivey bugs?" Ivan is slow to respond to Jackson's greeting, but when he does turn around to face the colourfulx10 adult, it is accompanied by a cheerful little wave of his free hand. It's about as loud as Ivan's greetings get! He wrinkles his nose as a bee crawls across it, sending it airborne, and his smile stays, brightly. The first question gets an enthusiastic little nod, but the second one prompts him to tear his eyes away from Jackson, and back toward the hive for a bit of thoughtful staring. "They are..." He starts quietly, head angling a little. "... easier? /More solid/." The last two words come out as though this is very a good thing indeed. Then, giving a short glance to the suits on the ground, he does something that almost feels a bit like breaking a RULE: He says something completely of his own accord! And neither Peter nor Rasa are even around. "I do not know if we will need the suits. Usually, yes. But..." He gestures weakly, perhaps as though suspecting he's overestimating himself. Another glance at Jackson, as if to make sure he hasn't said anything foolish yet, "They are good bees." Jackson's hand lifts towards the bee that goes airborne from Ivan's nose, watching it thoughtfully. "Solid. Hm. Make it easier to get a hold of? Do you talk to them like individually or do you talk to them like --" His other hand waves towards the hive. "like all them're one entity." His smile is still bright; if Ivan's said anything foolish it hasn't shown in his warm expression. "Oh, I don't doubt it. We'd all'a us be dead without bees. Plus, I mean, /adorable/. They got the cutest little faces." Ivan looks like he had not considered that- about the faces. His free hand goes up in front of his face, curled into a fist, and one of the bees entangled in his hair bumbles its way free and up to land on Ivan's knuckles. As he stares, his expression goes from happycontent, to happycontentapproving! They DO have pretty adorable faces. "Hhmh--" He searches for words as he continues inspecting the lone bee on his hand, "It is both." He peers back up to Jackson, lifting his hand to SHOW. Lookit little bee face and bee legs and antennae. "I tell a small group of bees that everything is okay, and they will tell other bees that it is okay. I am not sure how many bees they tell. But I think it is good that most of them are inside, and quiet." For now. Jackson leans a little closer, at the offered hand, his one good eye peering at the bee. He does not squee. But he does /brighten/, noticeably, both in smile and in the very faint shimmer of light around him. "So you talk to just a couple, but since /they're/ workin' together, it works together for you, sorta?" His voice is dropping more thoughtful, considering. "What happens if you try to stretch more? Reach 'em all at once? Well," he amends, quickly, "maybe not /all/ at once, but -- gradually?" Ooh, brightness. It catches Ivan's attention briefly, the bee on his hand shifting its tiny little weight with it, whether intentional or not. It flies off shortly afterward. "... I don't know." The boy responds, the smile weakening. Before... a silent realisation forces it right back on his face with double the strength it had before. "I have never had--" A pause to make sure his grammar's still correct, yep, "-- this many insects in one place before!" He may usually be quite reserved, but it seems his enthusiasm makes quick work of overriding some of his more reserved attributes. At least for the moment. He turns to face the hive again with renewed curiosity. He looks like he's about to approach it, but a moment later, he's looking at Jackson again, arms thrown up, still with the spray bottle. "... I don't know!" This is a /good thing/ it is /exciting/. "S'okay," Jackson says, easy and cheerful, "you don't gotta know everything right away! Half the fun's in the learning. Figuring out how you can stretch yourself." The brightness around him gets /just/ a hair brighter at Ivan's excitement. He nods towards the hive. "There's a /lot/'a bees. Don't try to reach 'em all at once, that might get kinda overwhelming. Just, maybe, slowly, try and reach a few more of them. An' tell me what it feels like." Okay. Okay. Okay he can /do that/. Ivan is fairly sure he can, at least. He led around all of those cockroaches in the sewers fairly successfully! But he did have the adrenaline of trying to save his best friend on his side, there. Still, now he has the adrenaline of actually /learning/ and being encouraged! He nods and at once turns to face the beehive again. His smile weakens under the strain of focus, and his brow creases. "There is a queen." He explains, more quietly and like himself again, "I am careful not to make her move because she is in a box for the next three days." Bees start crawling out onto the slope at the bottom of the wooden boxes. A few at first, then flooding through the crack as if it was a liquid, fuzzy blanket. "Too many?" A question, not a statement. He may not look back toward Jackson but he sounds calm, confident. Good bees indeed. "That's good, too. Being able to try and expand to the lot of them and isolate the queen -- s'good practice. Good /focus/. It ain't all just about how much you can do but how well you can focus it." Jackson rocks up onto his toes, back onto his heels, watching the flood of bees pour out of the crank. "Too many?" He asks, and he glances sideways from the bees to Ivan, studying the teenager thoughtfully. "You tell me. You look calm. How do you feel? Ain't too many if you're still in control. Of them /and/ of you." There's a pause, then, in the bees' movements. A ripple that surges through the puddle of bugbodies, stopping them in their tracks. The ones on the very outer edges seem to suffer from it most, losing direction and in some spots, separating themselves from the rest of their kin in seemingly random directions. /Buzz/. Ivan himself looks confused, what's left of his smile dying down a little more as his idle thoughts turn to concern. The grip on the spray bottle tightens slightly as he cants his head toward Jackson, mulling over the words spoken. Especially those last two, which if Ivan's expression is anything to go by, he was not expecting. "I feel fine." Not an enthusiastic sort of fine, but a fine nonetheless. Ivan is not known for lying, and for him to change his ways now is probably unlikely. That confused expression lingers, however. Jackson looks at Ivan. Looks at the bees. There's a faint crease of his brow as they ripple and shift; concerned, perhaps, but it's a quiet-calm kind. "Mmkay. You might want to nudge 'em back. Scale it down again. Take these things slow." Now he's watching Ivan more than the bees, and his tone is still warm, though even-quiet now. "I got a question, Ivan, when you're talkin' to them, is it like just talking? Or is it like feeling them in your head? Like -- do you just speak, or do you /connect/?" Another ripple, this time through Ivan's face. Disappointment, clear across his face. He looks almost apologetic as he turns his attention back to the bees, as though trying to hide his face from Jackson. Hnnhbees what did you DO. The insectblanket quivers with sudden activity, much more energetic and /chaotic/ than when it had exited the hive. It parts, but does so the very opposite of neatly, with approximately half of them scrambling over or under one another to make their way back toward the beehive in unorganized little groups. A few of them seem to give up on everything all together and /literally/ buzz off, up into the air around them. The ones that stay, at least, gather together in an almost perfect circle on the ground, virtually unmoving. "With this many--" Ivan finally replies, tone a stifled sort of focused, failing to look at Jackson this time, "--I need to do both." "Hm." Jackson considers this, and nods. "S'it the number of them that does that, or is it the -- bees, they're kinda less individual than a lot of critters, ain't they?" His gaze flicks to the bees on the ground, to the bees buzzing up into the air. "It's alright, Ivan," he says, when he looks back at the boy. "I wasn't asking cuz there's anything wrong with it, I was just asking cuz it's important to know. Just means when you're working on a scale like this, you gotta be all the more careful, mkay? You know what I said about focus? It goes both ways. Some part of you needs to be focused not just on them but on /yourself/ -- you don't want to lose track of /your/ thoughts and who /you/ are when you're letting so many other creatures in. Does that make sense?" "Yes but I do not think it is that--" Ivan's reply comes hastily, almost defensively, and without thought as the airborne bees around them fly without clear direction (getting used to their new environment, or perhaps slightly aggravated for different reasons?) only for his words to be cut short halfway. His shoulders drop ever so slightly, and he inhales slowly, before rephrasing his reply to a single word: "/Yes/." It is something to consider, at least. With that, he leans forward and starts to move-- toward that group of bees still within his full control. As he walks, the bees in the air around him calm, moving either to surrounding foliage or back toward the hive. When he's close enough, he spritzes the bees with the spraybottle. "Sugar water." He explains, however quietly, peering downward still. The bees stir, but quietly, this time. Happily? Mm, sugar. "What do you think it is?" Jax is light in the face of defensive, genuinely curious as to Ivan's insight. He drops down to a crouch, peering curiously towards the bees on the ground. "They okay? /You/ okay? Ain't no shame in resting if you're tired." Again, Ivan is quick to respond, though this time with a nod. To all of it. /Everything/ is fine. And indeed, he doesn't /look/ tired, and the bees are behaving well enough. "I do not think it is necessary. I can /do/ this." He finally replies, a somewhat meek smile making its way back onto his face. Most of his enthusiasm may have left him, but he's still happy to be out here with all of this. And as if to show just how much, the two hundred or so bees start to move ever so neatly and compliantly over to in front of Jackson, slowly starting to sort and separate themselves into three groups. One big, two small. A few seconds later, there is a contentedly buzzing bee-comprised :) staring up at Jackson. Perhaps to make up for the fact that Ivan seems to have trouble making eye contact all of a sudden, somewhat shyly keeping his attention on the bugs. He does, however, say, "Thank you." "Mmkay. Just keep in mind what I said. Take some of your focus, and focus on things that ground /you/. Ivan-things. People you like, happy memories, things you enjoy. Then you can spare the rest'a your focus for bee -- /eeee/." This is a squeal, for sure, but it's a /happy/ squeal, as the BEEFACE forms in front of him; Jax's glow brightens, small skittery-whorls of colour dancing out to dissipate into the air. "Ohmy/gosh/, Ivan, that is the best thing that's happened to me all week." Jackson's eye is HUGE-wide, and his smile bright. His large trihawk changes colours, from neon to honeybee-striped. He rocks back to sit on the cold ground with a whumph, staring in delight at BEE:). "Ohmygosh," is, again, delighted. "I think we can get a little-bit more practice in 'fore class starts. -- Ohmygosh, could you make, like, a /dragonfly/ /out/ of /bees/?" Ivan's brow furrows as he seems somewhat reluctant to accept the advice given, but he's willing to consider it nonetheless. Can't hurt to. He IS listening! At least until the /eeee/, which together with the sudden change in Jackson's colours seems to catch him offguard. The :) shifts around uncomfortably as the bugboy's mind reels, but tightens once more when Ivan looks back up at Jackson again to study the advisor's face, his own smile growing into something much more genuine again. Success! "Da!" Uh. "-- Yes!" The smiley face collapses in on itself when he looks back down toward it, before it elongates into a... well, it's mostly dragonfly-shaped, bees piled upon bees for the legs, the rest mid-air, tightly together for the abdomen, head and tail-end while a scarcer amount of them make up the wings. SPRITZ. More sugar water gets rained down onto his dragonbeesfly in a fine mist. Good bees. "Oh. My. Gosh." Jax's hands clap together, once, happy-eager. "Some day when it's warmer an' there's more of 'em about I think we gotta make a whole dragonfly /army/. They can wage war on /gloom/." Because pretty. Dragonflies. *_*. Or maybe -_* in Jax's case. He has finally recovered, somewhat, from CUTE OVERLOAD; he's still glowing but he's getting back to his feet, dusting off his palms and the seat of his pants. "You could have, like, a whole wide range of bee-related accessories. Bee cap? Bee necklace? Bee armwarmers? /Bee beard/?" These notions seem to delight Jackson. "S'it make you tired, at all? How long's it take 'fore you start to really feel it?" POOF. Or BUZZ. Either way, the bees making up the somewhat idle giant dragonfly disperse, only to fly directly into Ivan's face. BEE BEARD IS A GO. Sideburns and all. It's pretty glorious. Some just relax on top of his head instead. Through the writhing mess of legs and tiny little bodies, he beams, "I-- don't know that one either! I do not feel tired yet. Perhaps I will try in the evening to see how long." Something occurs to him, then, and straightens up all the way, eyes widening before he whispers through the buzzing, "I AM THE /BEE KEEPER/." EXCITE. Jackson /giggles/, bright and cheerful at the BEE BEARD. Slowly, bees sprout on his own face, a swarming writing mass of them to beard him as well, though silent and without the benefit of tinycrawlinglegs to tickle. "You're pretty much the /best/ beekeeper. School's gonna be lucky t'have you 'round." He reaches out, and -- well he doesn't /clap/ Ivan on the shoulder, exactly, not particularly sure what critters might be lurking under his clothes, but he does give a very /gentle/ shoulder-squeeze that, given his general level of /exuberance/, probably intended to be a clap before he thought better of it. "Class is gonna start, soon. Y'wanna grab some breakfast 'fore the bell rings?" His head tips back towards the door. Ivan doesn't say it, but the words 'and you're the BEST ADVISOR' might as well be written clear across his face. In BEES. They're not, though. They're far too busy being a manly, manly beard. Trying to outmanly Jackson's fauxbees, no doubt. The shoulder-squeeze is met with a nod that sends all the bees tumbling downward across his coat. "Yes please." Or is that 'YES BEES'? Probably after he puts the bees away, though. That excitement, however, is likely to stay with him for at least another couple of hours.