ArchivedLogs:What We Want

What We Want
Dramatis Personae Dusk, Laura
In Absentia	2014-11-20 '
Location <NYC> Creative Little Garden - Lower East Side
It's not a big park, really. A small secluded garden in the Lower East Side, quite close to Tompkins Square. The trees stretch overhead to both sides of the mulched paths, forming a leafy canopy through which New York's murky city-sky is visible. Between the paths the grounds spill over with an abundance of flowers, hedges, community-tended, in here. The paths all wind together into the small central clearing, a little circular retreat with fountain and benches. Laura is out for the night, its still early evening and she, armed with a book under her arm, walks quietly by herself looking at the various garden ambiance about her. It's chilly enough already and about to get chillier -- there's an abrupt /down/draft that the weather can't really account for, a cold gust stirred up by the pumping of /massive/ wings. Bigger than any New York bird -- at over seventeen feet of wingspan, bigger than /any/ bird, really -- the enormous bat-wings stir up fall leaves on the ground as Dusk touches down. They close again with a /snap/, folding in tight against his back. Aside from the wings he looks pretty normal, actually. Scruffy dark beard, shaggy dark hair sticking out from beneath a black fleece cap to frame a pale boyish face. Dark corduroy jacket, jeans, Vans sneakers, convertible mittens, fleecey scarf. A messenger-style bag, worn slung across his chest rather than across his back, for perhaps obvious reasons. His eyes have a very faint reflective /shine/ to them in the dim evening light, and they're widening slightly when he notices the woman there. "-- Oh. Oh, my bad, I didn't notice -- it's usually pretty empty here. Apologies, I didn't -- mean to interrupt." Laura looks up to the shaggy haired boy, she gives a moments pause as she takes in the entirerty of the other person, "No... no its ok. I suppose there are lots of reasons to try and find some place away from the den of humanity out there." she motions towards the vagueness of the rest of the city. Dusk's lips peel back, bright and amused as he flashes a warm -- very noticeably /sharp/, two pairs of /very/ keen fangs glinting in the evening light -- smile at Laura. His hand pats at the bag on his chest. "Coding, mostly. Harder to do with roommates pestering you every couple minutes. Why, you got some beef with people today? Need to escape?" Laura gives a little shrug and closes her book on her fingers, keeping her place but deciding the conversation is a more interesting way to go. "I'v had better years when dealing with them, but I suppose I can't really complain too much" She seems to indicate that Dusk may have more to complain about than her, "So... coding... thats for a computer right?" Shows how much she may know. "C'mon," Dusk replies with light amusement, "this is New York, if you can't find something to complain about you're not really a New Yorker." His eyes get just a little wider at the last question, his following laugh kind of startled. "Uh -- yeah. Yeah, that's, uh, that's for a computer. S'just. How I pay the bills, you know." His eyes flick down to the cover of Laura's book in open curiosity. The book appears to be of a dime store paperback variety and has the title, "The End is Come and Gone." Laura gives a little shrug at the asserting, "I suppose there is always something to complain about, I just don't know that what I have to complain about is enough to not make me sound like a stuck up bitch is all." Dusk's eyebrows hike up -- and /up/ -- at the book, his smile skewing lopsided and his eyes darting back up to Laura's face. "You got some /twisted/ taste in literature." It's hard to tell from his tone whether he's serious or amused; he sounds a little bit wry. At his back, his wings twitch-twitch-twitch, their looooong sharp upper claws jerking and then settling still. "I imagine everyone's problems feel pretty damn weighty. To them." Laura pulls back ever so slightly with the response from Dusk, she seems to not quite understand. "Did I do something wrong?" She then considers the book she has in her hands, "Oh, right... no I'm sorry, I... I can't even pick out a book these days without making a fool of myself it seems." The apology makes Dusk twitch again, but then he lifts one wing in a shrug, lips curling up in a crooked grin. His head shakes, dismissing the apology with an easier smile. "My neighbor still watches /The Walking Dead/," he admits. Still wry. "I don't know how he can stomach it. To each their own, I guess. But he works in fucking EMS, those people have strange senses of humour. Guess you have to, after a point." Laura says, "I kind of missed all of that," she comments in reference to either the zombies or the walking dead its unclear. "I really need to just go back and catch up with everything. Speaking of which, I suppose you heard about this push to humanize mutants." Dusk's eyebrows just raise. He rocks back a step, giving Laura a long and /incredibly/ unamused look. "Yeeeah." A pause. "I heard." Laura nods at the response, "Yea, sorry guess its a sore topic these days. I'm just wondering where this will all lead... I honestly had the hope that the hatred would blow over." Dusk's wings twitch at his back again, a small rumble of growl thrumming deep in his chest. When he speaks, the growl does not /stop/; with two sets of vocal cords it means it has the rather uncanny effect of having him speak with two voices at once, the words coming over top of the lower pitched growl. "You're shitting me, right? You're seriously going to sit there and talk to /me/ about how it's a fucking /sore topic/?" Yeeeah... maybe it's a sore topic. "Like, /one goddamn week/ after they sentenced me to /hack my fucking limbs off/?" Laura comes to a stop, she is taken aback and clearly had missed the obvious in the conversation, "Oh shit... no, I ... I'm so sorry I had no idea that it was... that it was you. But.. but they arnt really going to be able to do that right? I mean it can't be legal." Dusk's head dips, his wings tightening against his back. The growl in his voice tapers off, his eyes closing briefly as he shakes his head. His fist lifts, circling over his heart and then falling back to his side. "'pologies, I -- assumed -- No, I -- I don't know." He doesn't sound angry, now, just a little bit tired, giving Laura an uncertain shrug when he looks back up at her. "I mean, we don't really know anything. My lawyer is -- we're fighting it? And I mean, /Themis/, the -- /they/ don't even want to do it? Like, I already talked with them and that's not even what /they're/ about, you know? They pretty much told me they don't even want me there. They don't do /forced/ "therapy". I don't know if they could force me to do it with some random other doctor. Though I know well enough there's -- doctors," he sounds a little disgusted as he says that word, "out there who would. But it can't be legal. It'll be a fight, anyway." Laura takes heart with the conviction of Dusk, "And you need to... there is no way a society should allow itself to do something like that to one of its citizens. I'm not saying their right, but I at least understand the bigots and the haters, they have a stance, but to forcibly change what someone is... what makes them think they can even do this?" "I don't know. It's kind of sick. You know what scares me the most? I /get/ the people who hate us. The ones who are scared of us or just want to kill us all or -- I understand that, y'know? But I --" Dusk frowns, wings twitching once more. "I have a friend who was at my sentencing. A telepath. And he said. The judge, she -- was sympathetic. She felt sorry for me? Didn't think the conviction was entirely fair. Thought I was in a, a bad situation. That she was -- was /helping/. Like this woman seriously thought she was doing me a /favour/. That this was a step forward. Was going to make my life /better/. And /that/ scares me more than the crazy-ass Malthus Rogers fuckers who just want to kill us all dead. That this is what we get from the people who think they're doing /good/. What does /that/ say about the world? Nothing good." Laura bites her lip as the conversation continues down its dark path. Its... its almost imperceptible at first but the sounds of the city outside of their little conversation seems to have quieted down, cars don't go by as often, the sirens are less frequent. "That is a scary thing... to think that they believe we... that mutants want nothing more than to be normal people." Dusk's head tilts at that 'we'. His oddly reflective eyes focus in on Laura, a quick twitch of smile baring his fangs again. "What do you want?" Laura seems somewhat taken aback by the question and not sure what to make of it, "What do I want? How do you mean?" Dusk shrugs a wing. "If you don't just want to be a normal person. I mean, some of us --" Dusk's wings stretch outward, flaring not to their full length but just enough past his shoulders to be rather noticeable. "Can't. Some pass more easily. But what you /want/ to be, that's a different question. The world wants us all to be normal. Or dead. I want to fight it. I /like/ being me. And happy. And alive. And occasionally pretty freaking awesome. What do you want?" Laura thinks on this, seems her slip of the tung was well understood for what it was. "I want to be accepted for who I am," she answers at first, letting her utopian thoughts on the matter be known, "But the longer I live, the more I feel like I have to choose between allowed to live my life and being myself." Dusk's wings relax, draping more comfortably in against his shoulders. "Does kind of seem that's the choice the world wants us to make. S'a bullshit choice though. There's a whole lot of people out there, think we should do both. -- Hey. What do you do on Friday nights?" Laura shakes her head to clear the rush of thoughts that come through with the rapidly changing conversation, "Friday's... well.. not much at the moment, but what does that have to do with people trying to cut us up for experiments?" Dusk's teeth flash again, his smile warm and easy. He opens his backpack to get a bit of paper from inside -- a receipt from Evolve Cafe. A lot of coffee, evidently -- and scrawl an address on the back (an address that happens to be right down the block from the cafe, as it so happens!) "Nothing, really. Or everything, I don't know. It's just kind of a gathering. People who get it. Hang out. Talk, eat. Fight. A lot of fighting, really. But the friendly kind. It's good practice in an environment where people are okay with each other using their powers. Sometimes beer after. Or cocoa if you're not into the beer." He hands Mary the slip of paper -- and offers his hand, for a handshake. "I'm Dusk, by the way. I never said. My name." Laura says, "Wait, its a fight club? No, no thank you... I don't really think I'm up for getting my but handed to me all day then do it again in my off time." "Getting your butt handed to you all day?" Dusk gives Laura a curious look, at this, brows lifting. He drops his hand when she doesn't take it, head tipping downward and his wings lifting in a shrug. "It's a club. For mutants. To be themselves." Laura is confused by even the concept of such a place, "What? for mutants to just... be mutants... how come no one has burned the place down? Not that I'm suggesting they do, just seems like the kind of place that would get torched on a regular basis." "We don't exactly advertise," Dusk answer, wryly. "So I'd appreciate if you kind of keep it to yourself? We're not looking to get torched. Just a safe place to -- hang out. Practice. Spar. Drink beer with friends." There's a buzzing from his pocket, and he tugs his phone out to check it; whatever message is there draws another smile out of him. "Speaking of beer with friends." He taps out a quick reply, putting the phone back away. "I gotta fly. But maybe I'll see you? I'm down by Evolve a whole lot, even if off-hours fighting's not your thing." Literally fly -- another quick smile, and his wings spread, churning up another draft as he takes off, soon disappearing into the darkening twilit sky. Laura says, "yea, I'll see about showing up.. not so sure about the fighting thing though...."