ArchivedLogs:Overcoming

Overcoming
Dramatis Personae Dusk, Isra, Lyric
In Absentia	2015-10-26 'When did you get so wise?' (Follow-up visit to emails.) Flu Season TP.
Location <NYC> {Geekhaus} - Harbor Commons - Lower East Side
There's an open airy feel to the floorplan of this unit. The door opens up into a wide expanse of common space that is not so much divided up into rooms as it is simply multipurposed. Ash-grey resin flooring underfoot runs up against the paler grey of the exposed stone in the walls; between the stone support there are wide floor-to-ceiling windows looking out at the river on one side of the home and the Commons' central yard on the other. Half of the space has a ceiling at one-floor height, though half of the space is left open with a balcony up on the second floor overlooking the living space below. A slatted stairway heads up to the second floor balcony; on the other side of the room, a fireman's pole running straight down to the basement provides a quicker way /down/. The wide open space here is combination living and dining room; in a recessed pit near the windows there are a pair of couches and large armchair around a wide coffeetable; further off a steel-and-glass dining table is surrounded by eight tall black chairs. A full bathroom behind the stairway is done up in dark granite; the glass-doored bathtub/shower is rather expansively large. The kitchen is tucked off in back, beneath the half-height ceiling; in here the appliances and cabinets and shelving recessed into the wall are in brushed steel, wide grey sweeps of tempered glass countertops running around the edge of the room and a large central island holding stoves and oven and deep double sink. Adjacent to the kitchen, beneath the ceiling as well, is a sitting area structured largely around the enormous television against one wall, a wealth of video games for a number of consoles held on the shelves around the television. Crates and beanbags and one low futon folded against the floor are arranged in good viewing distance; opposite the television, a sturdy large pen built out of wood shrines a couch amid a sea of brightly colorful playpen balls. A door in one wall opens up to the apartment next door; a door opposite leads down to the basement. Outside, the afternoon sun shines warm and mild. The breeze blows pleasantly cool, with perhaps just a touch of chill if you stand sill in the shade with too much skin bared. Inside, the curtains block some of the autumn sunlight, and the air smells powerfully of rich coffee and mezze. Isra looks rather eyecatching this week, her wing membranes wholly healed now and newly painted a brilliant metallic rainbow spectrum as if to make up for the drab colors she wore for weeks. The horns spiraling back from her temples and the heavy talons that sprout from the ends of all 30 digits match the membranes. The rest of her skin does not look quite so flashy, soft lavender with a faint shimmer of pearlescence. She wears only a simple white himation, tied off with a golden rope belt. She may not cook, but she has busied herself transferring the food to actual plates and bowls then arranging these on the coffee table. Finally, settles herself down on a couch with her chipped black NASA mug full of thick black coffee and a (rather scratched-up) baby carrier tucked beside her. Its passenger, shrouded in a ratty but colorful knitted blanket, only stirs briefly in their sleep. Dusk is here -- nominally here, at least. He's fallen asleep in a nest of beanbags in the television room, his laptop half-buried with him in a tangle of blankets. Dressed in brown corduroys, thick warm grey socks, no shirt, the blankets have gotten somewhat twisted and snagged up around his talons. His wings are a far more subtle echo of Isra's, a rainbow iridescence to them, too, though fainter and shifting in the veined pattern of a dragonfly's wing. He shifts at the smell of coffee, a small rumble stirring in his throat, though he doesn't get up. The doorbell rings -- or, well, the doorbell is /pressed/, anyway, sending the Final Fantasy VI Random Encounter theme briefly sounding through the house. Isra's phone buzzes in nearly the same moment with a text from Lyric: 'Hello! I'm outside.' The teenager is waiting on the front doorstep, arms crossed over her chest mostly to protect against the strong gust of wind buffeting her outside. It would be a nice day if not so windy, sunny and clear; she has a pale grey peacoat on that would be overkill if the wind ever died down. A deep pink and pale green scarf is carefully tucked and wound around her head; her long grey trousers are paired with chunky-heeled tan ankle boots. She tucks her phone back into her purse (it has been intricately embroidered with a brightly coloured pattern of an owl) as she waits, a reusable shopping bag slung over her other arm. Isra opens the door, her eyes instinctively scrunching--probably against the sunlight rather than the sudden blast of chilly wind that sweeps in. She smiles all the same, though, siging 'Welcome' with her free hand while more casually waving Lyric in with one shiny rainbow wing that. Once she has closed the door behind her former student, the same wing unfurls further in the offer of a hug. 'That wind has a bite!' with both hands, now, her expression and body language more /impressed/ than put off by the blustery weather. 'Would you like a warm drink? I have coffee on the stove, and we have many teas and cocoa.' The blanket on the baby carrier twitches again, and emits a series of low, grumpy clicks. Lyric scurries inside, pausing briefly in the entryway to openly gawk at the house, though not for long before her attention turns to Isra. 'It's ridiculous! Coming from the subway people's things were flying all over. /I'm/ still having a good hair day, though.' She grins brightly, one hand patting at the side of her scarf. 'What if we mixed coffee with cocoa?' Her eyes widen hopefully. 'Are they /all/ this pretty? The Common house is great and Shane and B's but --' She puffs out a breath, curled fingers waving briefly beside her cheek. Isra's smile quirks sideways, crooked. 'Me, too!' The same hand that produces that sign sweeps over her smooth skull as if tossing back nonexistent hair. Her wing stretches out toward the kitchen. 'Probably,' this with an /almost/ serious expression, 'it will be delicious. But we shall see.' Indicating the mezze as she passes, she adds, 'Have some if you like. It's halal.' She turns the heat back on under the coffee, which had not cooled much yet, and takes out a jar of cocoa powder. 'The houses here?' Her bare eyebrow ridges rise up slightly. 'Yes, but all in different ways. At least in /architecture/. Do you know Hive? He designed them all.' Then with a glance toward the basement door. 'And lives here.' On the stove, the coffee returns to a low boil, and the aroma blooms again to fill the air. Isra dumps cocoa and sugar into a cup. 'Any classes you are particularly enjoying this term?' Lyric laughs, a short rough bark of sound as she pulls off her coat. She stoops to take her boots off as well, thick grey tights on underneath. Following after Isra towards the kitchen -- and nabbing a piece of kibbeh as she passes, she leaves her coat on a stool and slides up onto it, sitting across the counter from Isra. She sets her shopping bag up on the counter, extracting two containers from it -- one full of a couple different types of halwa, the other with a mess of very coconutty looking sweet. 'I only saw the twins and once Ines's house. All very different. This is nice.' She nibbles on the kibbeh, setting it down before answering. 'I like calculus. It takes some work but numbers are sensible.' Her toes rest on a rung of the stool, eyes tracking Isra as the older woman moves around the kitchen. 'I know /of/ Hive. Because Flicker --' Her brows furrow. 'You live here now, too? All the time?' There's more stirring over in the beanbag at the additional movement in the house. Dusk shifts, grumbling something not very coherent; a deep rumble of growl stirs in his chest as his wings twitch and then pull back in. Rrr. It takes a moment longer for him to actually extract them from their ensnaring blanket covering; he scrubs his hand across his eyes, blinking groggily over at their visitor. "Mmp." Stifling a yawn, he gets to his feet, leaving his laptop where it is and folding his wings tight and cloaklike around his torso. Shuffleshuffleshuffle, he makes his way through the kitchen, stopping to peer bleary-eyed at the gift of TREATS. He tips his head up to Lyric before bopping it back down against Isra's shoulder. Sleeepily. He points at the containers, brows lifting. 'Those what? They have milk?' 'My cousins run a restaurant and catering business. They make the best kibbeh in town.' Isra lifts the pot from the stove and pours the coffe--still boiling--into the cocoa mix she had prepared, the dips a small whisk in to agitate the mixture. 'Do you prefer cow's milk?' she signs one-handed. 'Or cashew, or...' Frowning, she looks at the refrigerator and finally just peeks into it. 'Coconut? I do not usually put coconut in coffee, but maybe it will go well with that?' This last indicating the container beside the halwa. To Lyric's assessment of math, she gives a satisfied smile. 'I agree. I'm afraid numbers get a little less sensible if you go into higher mathematics, but calculus is solid.' Her wing curls around Dusk. 'I live here--most of the time, yes. I have an apartment uptown, but it is so far from everything I care about.' She shrugs, a small hitch of colorful wings. Then, to Dusk, 'Coffee?' 'Milk yes,' Lyric points to the halwa first, 'but those are fine. Kashaato. Coconut. Really yummy. Oh. Coconut milk? I'll try that, coconut milk mocha and kashaato. Excellent.' Her eyes are focusing just a little longer on Dusk than is necessary, drifting back over him as she is signing. She blinks, shakes her head, smiles back at Isra. 'I don't really know what I'm going to go into. I swear so many people are already deciding and I barely even know where I want to /apply/. I mean. No. I know where I /want/ to apply.' Frown. Shrug. 'The kibbeh /is/ fantastic.' Said just before she polishes it off. Dusk shakes his head, bopping his face against Isra's shoulder again. Then nuzzling at her neck. There's an unusual bit of warmth to his touch, foreead running hotter than his norm. 'Coffee, who on earth wants to be awake. This awful -- awful -- /awful/. Hour.' His eyes are still a little squinty, scowling out in the general direction of /windows/. His wings wrap tighter around himself, and he suppresses a faint shiver as he pulls away, opening up the kashaato to steal a piece. 'Where?' Isra ducks back into the refrigerator and comes out with a carton of coconut milk. The cocoa-coffee concoction froths up a little when she whisks in the milk, and she slides it over to Lyric. 'Can add more sugar. I tend not to put in enough for people who like it.' She picks out a chunk of halwa daintily between thumb and index talons. 'You don't need to know now--either where or what you want to study. A lot of people take a semester or even a year after high school to sort things out before going to college. Or not go at all. But if you have a dream school already, that is a start.' She nibbles at the confection, nodding appreciatively. 'This /halwa/ is fantastic. And you...' Her wings squeezes down on Dusk. '.../can/ go back to sleep in short order if you are so exhausted.' 'Gallaudet,' Lyric's reply is very prompt. 'I don't even know if I want to go to college or I'm expected to go to college but it'd be nice to be -- not.' Her nose wrinkles, cheeks flushing a little darker. 'There. Anymore.' She reaches for the coffee, pulling it closer. 'I go back home in the summers and it's nice. And I can give you the recipe! It's not hard. Like my always-time have-around-the-house dessert. Okay maybe not always always time but especially when things are gross. And /you/ said things weren't good here either.' 'My mom teaches there.' Dusk says this rather neutrally. Just sort of matter-of-fact. 'Good place.' His brows furrow slightly. 'Nice to be --' There's a bit of confusion in his expression before, "Oh." 'School? X-S?' He buries his face against Isra's shoulder again, straightening with a small sniffle. "Mmmn. Yeah." 'I sleep. Tired. Thanks.' For the dessert. He is nibbling at it as he shuffles away up the stairs. 'High school will be done whether you go on to college or not.' Isra constructs that sentence a bit clumsily, falling back on English grammar. 'Have you visited Gallaudet? That would a good way to help ground your feelings about it, I think.' She picks up her own coffee, takes a long pull from it, smiling faintly again. 'I will give it a try if you promise an easy recipe. My cooking skills--terrible.' Her face twists into the appropriate expression for the last word, rather more extremely than she usually does while signing. She's just /that/ terrible, apparently. 'But...XS?' She nods, ears pressing flat against her skull. Her wing squeezing down hard over Dusk's shoulder, talons digging in for a moment before she releases him. 'Certainly I had my own problems with the school. What are yours? If you want to discuss it.' Settling her wings down over her shoulders, she sort of hunches around halwa and coffee alike. 'I'm not sure it's that things are bad /here/ so much as they are bad...everywhere. My brother--he wants to fix it all. And I fear he will get hurt very badly trying.' 'Still pretty,' Lyric informs Isra seriously as Dusk shuffles away. She lifts her coffee, sniffing at it then taking a sip. Then a longer one. 'Coconut good.' Mmm. 'No more problems than any other hearing people. It's just hard? Outside of class not a lot of people to talk to. Used to be more. Most of the good ones graduated.' Her nose wrinkles up, eyes sliding briefly over to the open door to the adjoining unit, but then back to Isra. 'It's good to fix things. But there's a /lot/ of world to fix. You could help maybe? Keep him safe? More safe?' Isra nods her agreement. 'Every time I see him.' To the coconut mocha she gives a more /appraising/ nod. I shall have to offer that to Jax some time, as a dessert coffee drink.' Here she frowns. 'In a way, it surprises me that your classmates do not do /worse/ than hearing humans. Xavier encourages a certain way of thinking about mutations--it's in the very name of the school: /gifted./' She spells this last word instead of signing it. 'Even if your classmates did not think you were a mutant--and they probably do--they might still see your deafness as something a school full of extraordinary /gifts/ can easily overcome. But...' She frowns more deeply. 'Maybe in the end that is little different from hearing people thinking of it as a something /technology/ can easily overcome. The mistake is the same: a failure to understand what needs overcoming' Taking a big swig of the coffee, she snickers. 'I can say the same about how most people see most problems. My brother...well, I'm not sure he's wrong. But /you/ are right.' She stands up a little straighter, stately even without reaching her full height. 'I can keep him more safe.' A tired smile, a flash of fang. 'When did you get so wise?' 'Hard to do worse than not trying at all. That's kind of the baseline I measure from.' Lyric says this with a giggle rather than any particular sadness. 'And that's how it's like almost all the time. Almost! Sometimes /one/ person will remember I exist and start writing. With one small part of the conversation. The rest? Who cares if I miss it. Not-important, never-mind. I don't think it's that they see my deafness as something that could be overcome. I don't think they see my deafness at all.' She shakes her head, pausing as she takes a sip of the coffee and then sets it back down. 'And it's hard to really know how to bring /up/ how frustrating it is when --' She breaks off, frowning down at her drink There's a smile back on her face when she looks up again, though. Another rough huff of laughter. 'I had,' she replies earnestly, 'a good advisor.' 'I started there,' Isra indicates a point in the air--lowish, almost at counter-level, then picks another point half-way up through her signing space. 'I made it this far, and surely not all for health and safety reasons. I hope that more of your classmates will rise to that challenge--however they do it.' Her raises her eyebrow ridges fractionally. 'But in the meantime, there is also spending more time off campus when you feel isolated there. It /is/ a Senior's prerogative. Come,' She gestures in the direction of mezze--with halwa in hand, 'you must explain this recipe to me...'