Logs:Flight of Fancy

Flight of Fancy
Dramatis Personae Ryan, Scott
In Absentia Horus, Anahita	2024-12-10 "I think I see where we've gotten mixed up."
Location <NYC> Chimaera Arts - Dumbo
This is just one of the many abandoned warehouses in DUMBO, and like many of them it has recently changed hands. Unlike most of those, however, it does not have some corporate developer's sign out front promising a transformation into luxury condominiums or a boutique shopping center or the latest concept restaurant. Instead it's marked by a piece of weathered but wildly colorful plywood propped up on a stack of broken pallets, which reads "Chimaera Art Space!" above "chimaera.org" in smaller letters. The warehouse is moderately large and decorated with graffiti art in various styles--some of it recognizable as the work of renowned local street artists. A pair of monstrous scrap metal sculptures, perhaps still works in progress, flank the entrance. The building itself has undergone significant renovation recently, complete with wiring, plumbing, and a modular partitioning system. The grounds, too, have been cleaned up, ramshackle fences torn down and rusting detritus removed in favor of reclaimed (and brilliantly repainted) outdoor furniture ringing an impressively engineered firepit. It is very cold; there is already a fire going outside, surrounded by a -- smoke circle? improvisational theater group? unclear, there's music playing, some noodly dancing and a painfully clearly enunciated speech about Not Being Taken Seriously that has gotten pretty far away from its original complaint. Closer to the building is a somewhat hulking man inspecting the graffiti, his face impassive behind a thick woolen beanie and reflective red glasses; the hulking is due more to his heavy blue parka than his posture, but after a moment he has to creak his back straighter again, like just standing here he has been letting it teeter into itself. He shakes his head and finally heads in, glancing around the art space quick and assessing. There are clunky cumbersome steps just coming down the wide staircase, Ryan's awkward progress hampered still further by the fact he is ill-advisedly attempting to send some texts while he descends, his grip on one of his crutches less stable for it. He's not nearly so bundled -- gauzy black buttondown over a skintight red tank, slim-fit black trousers with just enough flare at the bottom to comfortably accommodate the hardware of the leg braces structured around his sturdy boots. "-- shit, Summers? Tell me you're here for the graffiti workshop." He's jamming his phone back into his pocket as he clomps his way over. "Graffiti -- workshop?" Well... Scott does not look nor sound as taken aback by this as he probably is; in the much warmer warehouse he is very slowly unzipping the parka (underneath it he is wearing a buttoned-up buffalo-checked flannel, also dark blue.) "Is Anahita around? I'm headed to the hotel later but figured I could stop in here. We're having a bit of a -- snafu up at the school, Horus said he had some friends that might be able to help." "Hey, you never know. Even the straightest of fucking roads got a little curve to it, end of the day." Ryan finds himself a comfortable section of wall to hitch up against, managing to make the lean tip more into casual-relaxed than immensely relieved, even when he's repositioning his crutches with a soft ease of a sigh. "Think she's probably out at L'Entente, swear every day that place sprouts whole new exciting flora I haven't seen before. Things okay out there?" is his first question, with a faintly anxious hitch of brows, and more casually after: "-- Horus been settling in good? Started at kind of a wild time." "Curvature of the Earth," maybe this was a joke. Scott doesn't remove the parka, just puts his hands in his pockets. "Mmgh. Been sprouting whole new exciting flora too," he says. "Apparently causing a bit of hoo-ha out in the woods, Horus was worried about the birds." He tilts his head to one side in what might have been an affirmative -- "I think so. Kids like him. Gets along with just about everyone. Got into the swing of things alright even without all of us around to orient him, and with these kids that's no small feat." "...How exciting is exciting?" Ryan is nodding along, and this time at least his relief does creep into his voice -- not so much his casual tone as the flutter of pleased empathic feedback that comes with it. "Oh, good. He's making friends, then? Feel like he's had to be more adaptable than most but still. Was a pretty big change." Scott shrugs -- "Well, we're still reasonably sure they're not sentient, but --" he removes one hand from its pocket to produce a small plastic tupperware from inside his coat, which contains one sad sliced parsnip, its flesh marbled like a ribeye steak. "-- weird, right?" His enjoyment in sharing this curiosity is faint but still noticeable. He pauses before he goes on, a little awkwardly. "Yeah, he's seemed pretty adaptable, he really stepped up while we were gone." "Damn!" Ryan's eyes have gone wide as he peers into the tupperware. He's leaning down, tilting his head one direction and then another as if a different angle might make better sense of the weird vegetable inside. "You're inventing whole new brands of weird out there, that's wild. No idea what's causing it? This kinda shit's gonna make veganism a little confusing." Probably this is in jest; he does not sound all that concerned. As he looks away from the strange turnip he is furrowing his brow again, a small uncertainty slipping into his tone. "Stepped up? I mean," he's gamely attempting to charitably place this assertion, "I guess everyone had to a little, and he -- does like making himself useful." He's shifting slightly awkward, now, where he leans, fidgeting with the crutch he doesn't currently have weight on. "But hopefully with y'all back he can focus on his social life a little. More." "Oh, no, we know what's causing it," Scott says reassuringly, "Still trying to figure out if she can reverse it." He stows the meatparsnip back in his coat and shakes his head, tilts it; there is finally some confused unease bleeding into his voice. "Well, we're -- I don't know that social life is our priority at the school." Ryan rolls his shoulder, sort of a stretch -- the joint does audibly pop -- but mostly an increasingly discomfited fidget. He's doggedly pleasant in his tone, though, which admittedly only serves to jar a little more noticeably with the awkward tension in its empathic register: "I mean, sure, obviously you're there to educate first but c'mon. Not everyone's --" He glances at Scott and then very deliberately swerves to a slightly different tack on this: "Having a balanced emotional life, friendships, community, that's just as important if not moreso for our folks than learning algebra, yeah?" The very slim amount of Scott's forehead visible twixt glasses and wooly hat is creasing; his voice is getting a little more awkward out loud even though empathically he is just growing more confused. "'Course it is, but we want the kids to -- I mean, it's -- really not our place as teachers to make those connections for them, we want them to find them on their own." "I -- yeah," Ryan is talking a little slower, here, as if there is some complicated algebra he hasn't quite figured out. "I'm not saying you should -- I mean, he's independent as hell, I doubt you even could --" His fingers are curling in harder against the grip of his crutch and then relaxing. "I mostly just kind of hoped he could have a little normalcy but I guess that is," he's looking at the tupperware of meatradish, "sorta a tall order." Scott is completely motionless for a moment, his head still at that slight tilt, his glasses obscuring anything indicative in his eyes. "What are you talking about?" "What? My fucking -- Horus! Enrolling at your goddamn -- the hell are you --" But here, very abruptly, there's a stark shift, not in his casual posture or easygoing tone but in the alarm clanging (slightly despairing) (wildly, giddily amused) in his empathic signature. "... what the fuck that bird been doing over there?" Though there's a bright alarm in the involuntary hff Scott lets out at the first swear word, his eyebrows rising slightly over his glasses, then there is -- again -- nothing at all. "Teaching," says Scott, with comprehension that is still struggling to attach itself to any emotion -- shock? vexation? giddy amusement, himself? sort of all of the above. With a vague sense of flailing for his conversational footing again: "I think I see where we've gotten mixed up." Ryan lifts a hand, scrubbing hard over his face. "Teach --" is a half muffled groan behind his hand before it falls with a thwack back to his side. "What he been -- 'course he been -- Summers, when I tell you that boy ain't been to one good goddamned day of school in his life. Sure don't doubt your kids were learning, though --" There's an odd tinge of pride creeping into the baffled amusement. He's digging his phone back out of his pocket. "-- Never boring over there, is it?" Scott shakes his head; he's fishing out his phone too, "-- I need to make some calls," has a very slight grumble in it that might as well have come with some petulant rock-kicking. "You might need to do some paperwork."