ArchivedLogs:The White Whale

The White Whale
Dramatis Personae Shane, Lia, Kisha, Horus
In Absentia	2 February 2015 '
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. At the far back edges of the garden, a droning buzzing marks a few stacked white boxes as beehives. The world is cold and white and growing whiter in drifts and piles and fat slow flakes lazily dancing their way downdowndown. The gardens are already covered -- though this /particular/ snowfall hasn't been all that heavy yet, they weren't exactly /plowed/ after the last snowfall last week. Out in one bed a tiny figure bundled in dark peacoat, warm lined boots, blue-and-silver scarf and mittens, is working on a large snow sculpture. A mound near as tall as he is, a large sweeeeeep of head, a swooped up tail. Patpatpat, patpat/pat/. Poke? Shane carefully digs an eye out of his snow whale. He's talking absently /to/ it as he works. "Whales are remarkably similar to igloos. I bet it was downright cozy, for Pinocchio." Lia has been /out/ in the snow. The observant might see her coming in from a distance, rolling bodily down a hill before leaping to her feet and breaking into a dead run back toward the gardens. Lumps and clumps of snow cling to her powder blue parka (her latest acquisition from a secondhand shop when her wool coat proved inadequate to the task of rolling around in snow), the faux fur on its downed hood, her wildly-flying long hair left exposed by said hood, the not-quite-matching faux fur on her snow boots, white mittens, and black skinny jeans threaded through with curlicue patterns in metallic silver-copper-gold. If her lips are a little blue, as well, she doesn't seem to mind it. “Whale!” she calls out, perhaps by way of greeting. “White whale! Spotted it! Do I get a doubloon?” Her run ends in a skid, right onto her bottom to sit about a foot from the snow-whale, chest heaving with the prolonged exertion of her snow-scampering. Despite all the panic over the weather Kisha has been remarkably unconcerned with the snowpocalypse or whatever people have been calling it. Perhaps it's her Russian ancestry? Or maybe it's just that she has a Soviet military surplus coat (and matching hat) that are at least a size too big for her. Of course being unconcerned by the cold doesn't stop the litany of cursing as she stomps her way out of the workshop. Her trail and complaints both end as Lia comes bounding. "Doubloons? Were the Spanish involved with whaling?" "I could give you a doubloon but you'd have to join Puzzle Pirates first." Shane skirts around to the other side of the whale, poking it out a second eye. "-- Uh, well. I mean kinda yeah like the Basques /slaughtered/ in commercial whaling for centuries. Even up till more recently Sea Shepherd was kind of, um." His teeth flash in a small grin. "Scuttling Spanish whaling ships, they're kind of. Seriously badass." He pats at the side of the whale. "Sea Shepherd, I mean. Not the fucking whalers." “Mmmyes,” Lia answers the question of whaling. “But Ahab promised a gold doubloon to his first sailor to spot the white whale. Spotted.” With the reiteration, she points to the whale again. “Though I suppose I'm not a sailor. I like puzzles! Is that a puzzle club? I did not know we had a puzzle club.” Her mittened fingers pick absently at the snow clumps in her hair, pulling her hood back up once she is relatively certain this won't just cause lots of cold water to melt down her back and neck. “What does your whale eat? We should make it some food.” Kisha shifts from one foot to the other. "I can't imagine it's all that hard to scuttle a ship," she points out. "Ah. A literary reference, that would explain why I didn't follow. Moby-Dick is less my speed, I think the only 'nautical' book I have ever read is Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea." She shrugs. "If we don't have a puzzle club I'm sure you'd be able to set one up. It's not the sort of activity which would require much funding or oversight, so I can't imagine the teachers complaining." "No, not in itself. But harder to keep it up when bunches of different governments keen hounding you for terrorism for it. -- It's a video game. Where you're, uh, pirates that -- do -- puzzles." Shane's brows furrow, slightly. Uncertain. "I dunno my whale eats -- fruits and -- seeds and -- cupcakes and shit. Hot cocoa. Yo. Whale. Wake the fuck up dude. You hungry?" One mittened hand thumps against the slope of the snow-whale's side. "/My/ favourite nautical book is /The Scar/. Huge-ass floating pirate city. Also has a kind of -- whale thing. In that. But it was – bigger." "Sometimes in the rooms they would let you have /one/ book and it would be only one book for a long time. So I would pick the biggest one. It would last longer." Lia also reaches over to pet gently at the whale, not leaving any marks on its flank where her mittened hand makes contact. "Oh! I do not know much of the video games. Other than the one with the giant sticky ball and the little hammer alien. It is /sort of/ like a snow ball." Her eyebrows lift at Shane's whale menu. "I thought maybe fish. Perhaps this is a vegetarian whale. We could make it snow-cakes." Kisha does not quite flinch when Shane demands the whale come to life, but she does shuffle a little back away. "It's odd. Since coming to this school I have become increasingly wary of people telling usually inanimate objects to do things. Here they have a nasty habit of listening, so lets hope if it /is/ listening that it pays attention to the vegetarian part, too... Several of the books I have read include pirates, but they are /science pirates/ and have airships." "Nah, The Scar is just the oceany kind of pirates they chained all sorts of shit together to make a whole damn town for themselves." Beneath Lia's hand the snow /quivers/. Shane seems unsurprised by this. "Vegetarian whale, yeah. /I'll/ take any flesh you have, though." Chomp chomp, his teeth clack together. "Or cupcakes, really. I think my Pa brought chocolate-strawberry today. -- What do science pirates do? I mean, is that just regular pirates who /do/ science or is that people who /steal/ science?" “Oh!” Lia's eyes fly open wiiiide, staring down at her hand. This probably does nothing to allay Kisha's wariness. “Oh, whale! It breathed! Does it need a top hat? I have a snowperson hat in my closet. Or cupcakes? Snowcakes, real cakes. Oh! There are Fairyjax cakes?” Lia sort of /twitches/ in place with her hand still on the whale, unable to settle on which thing to do. Kisha does take a step back when it starts moving. "Maybe when I graduate from here I will do an online college course while sailing the seas. It seems like a decent way to see the world," she muses, taking a second step away from the whale. "Surely a top hat would slide off?" The mention of top hat turns the quiver into an outright shake. Tremble-shiver-shudder and now the snow is growing cracks in it, sloughing off in a sudden disconcerted /flapping/ of wings. A large beak shoves out of the top of the whale's head, the entire sculpture crumbling away as a very snow-crusted Horus flutters his way up out of it. Squawking sort of irritably, showering snow down on the others' heads as he goes to perch on a bench. He's /eying/ Lia, though, from this safe distance, preening snow off his feathers but in between it jabbing his beak in the direction of her head. Hopefully. "S'always cakes my dad is the /king/ of cakes master of cakes Grand High --" Shane devolves into laughing, somewhat stifled with his hand pressed to his lips, as Horus emerges. "I think Horus always votes yes to fancy hat -- how good is internet at sea? /I'd/ like living at sea." Lia squeals in shock and falls over backward at Horus's chest-burster-like entrance from within the whale. "Whale explosion!" She lies supine and blinking for some time, only taking in the fact that Horus is Horus once he is perched over on the bench. "Horus? Did the whale eat you? Shane said it ate fruit and cupcakes, not Horuses." She finally drags herself back into sitting, coated even more liberally in snow. "Are you okay? You didn't get digested?" It seems a mild sense of paranoia is just a basic Xavier school survival trait. At the least it stops Kisha falling on her ass in the snow, although it does not prevent some highly colourful Russian cursing the gist of which is both anatomically impossible and would cause a sailor to blush. "Ahem. I figure I could use a satellite uplink and solar power... Make frequent stops in various coastal areas with relaxed views on mutants... How on earth could you even breathe under there? Never mind avoid hypothermia." "Horus -- might be the actual one who ate the fruit and cupcakes. The whale is just snow it doesn't fucking eat." Shane is halfheartedly starting to gather the snow back together into a pile. Slowly. The Russian cursing earns a /smirk/, though. "-- I don't think that's even /possible/ -- well." He glances briefly down at himself. "Not for most people with actual skeletons?" On the back of the bench Horus is still preening. His squawking has died down to a low-level twittering, soft and slightly agitated. His head shakes, though, at the question of the whale eating him. "No it was like his own little cave. Hollow. Made him a tiny bird-igloo. Snow is a pretty fantastic place to take a nap. Dig yourself a tunnel, it's gorram /cozy/." Shane looks Kisha over thoughtfully, lips briefly pursing. "Huh. Sounds like fun. I bet B would come. Swim out. Visit. Do mad pirate science with you." The Russian flies blissfully over Lia's head. “Well, now it certainly doesn't. It exploded. If it was a cave, why did you fly out of its head, Horus? Are you sure you're okay?” Her dark little brows knit together firmly. “Do you want to borrow my coat? Shane said there are chocolate-strawberry Fairyjax cakes today. Um. Usually there is also fruit. And I know how to make cocoa! Cocoa /and/ tea.” She doesn't know so much about internet classes or mad science, unfortunately. "Just how far can you two swim?" Kisha wonders idly. "I mean if I'm going to see the world I may as well see all of it, not just the more touristy places. Who knows maybe I will find a small country where I can rule as a warlord." She spares a glance for the school building. "Dressed like this I feel like I should suggest we all go get some proper vodka. Although I imagine it is not easily accessible." "I don't -- know how to answer that question, really," Shane muses, uncertain. "I mean, in a day? In a week? In a month? Theoretically we could swim anywhere. We don't /have/ any actual physical needs that require coming onto land at all. -- it's possible," he adds on Horus's behalf, as the birdboy returns to his kind-of-huffy preening, "that he flew out of its head because after he fell asleep in there I closed off its mouth. Turned it into a whale instead of just a cave. But there's totally-totally chocolate strawberry fairy --" He catches himself with a small scrunch of eye. "I mean, cupcakes. Inside. I have hella vodka -- uh. Not. Here though. But I'd take some cocoa." “We do not have vodka in the kitchens. Adult drinks. Not allowed.” Lia's eyes widen again. “Shane, you /buried/ Horus? That is not very nice. He is a flyer, not a burrower. See? Wings.” Lia strips off her coat and holds it out to Horus, offering it as a kind of fluffy cape-drape. Fortunately, she is fairly decently layered with a tank and a henley and soft lavender sweater under the coat. “We can go in and I can make cocoa for everyone. Not vodka.” Kisha ponders. "Do you float when you sleep? If not that could cause some issues if you swam over an ocean trench and sank, the pressure could still be harmful to you at great depths. But anyway moving inside seems like a wise move, even if there is a lack of good drinks. Vodka should taste like you could run an engine on it and /really/ good vodka should actually be able to fuel an engine." Horus eyes the coat that Lia offers out, head tilting first to one side and then the other. Slow. Wary. And then he darts forward, snagging the coat and -- promptly flying off with it. Whoosh. "... hopefully he'll give that back later." Shane doesn't sound concerned but, well, it isn't /his/ coat. "Don't float, no. Usually just find some place to tuck away when we're sleeping in the ocean. Wouldn't work /seriously/ deep out where we can't find the damn ocean floor. Uh --" Now he's squinting at Kisha. "You and I maybe have different vodka tastes but. I guess I'll defer to your -- Russianosity." His head is shaking, his grin crooked. "But cocoa. Right. Fff. Even if it's vodka-free." He's tromping his way back towards the door, holding it open for the others. "I don't think engine fuel is good to drink. Mostly it is smelly." Lia squeaks just a /little/ when Horus suddenly makes off with the coat. "He looked really cold. But he has to come in for cocoa and cupcakes. I think probably he will show up soon for that." The girl gives a firm nod at the vodka-free pronouncement. "I promise no engine fuel in the cocoa." Wrapping her arms around her torso for warmth, she takes off at a quick pace for the door. Kisha shakes her head. "Engines smell like progress," she explains patiently as she stomps her way towards the door. "At least while they are working properly. If they are broken they smell like work. But anyway I digress. Even I can admit a warm non-alcoholic beverage has merit in weather like this."