ArchivedLogs:Manifest

Manifest
Dramatis Personae Isra, Jax, Steve
In Absentia	2015-12-07 "I think it's pretty intuitive to want to /create/ when there's so much destruction all around."
Location <NYC> Harbor Commons - Arts and Crafts Room - Lower East Side
The art studio of the Harbor Commons is fairly neutral in base coloration. Easy to clean linoleum tiles in soft gray run up against darker gray baseboard. Overhead is a simple ceiling, unfinished but sprayed with a protecting paint to keep moisture, dirt, and other assorted substances do not stick. There is an exhaust fan to carry heavier fumes up and out, keeping the workspace usable all year. Where they can be seen, the walls are the color of white chalk, flecked here and there with paint, but for the most part, the walls are stacked with supplies, storage, and equipment. There's a small section for wood working, places to store canvases and larger drawings, and cabinets a plenty. In the center of the room, there are work tables aplenty, three at sitting height with a third set up for standing height, next to the open space for the easels. Two deep, stainless steel sinks face off against wide tall windows that open the craft room up to the outside, allowing air and sunlight in, weather permitting. Outside, the afternoon of a mild day has waned and a crisp breeze warns of the oncoming evening. Despite the failing light, Isra has not bothered with much in the way of extra illumination. The remnants of the daylight and the overhead lighting play very differently on her jewel-beetle toned skin, and on the rainbow crystal facets of the wings mantled loosely around her as she sits at one of the worktables in front of a sewing machine, passing a tremendous length of scarlet fabric steadily under the needle. A soft, rhythmic whirring issues from the machine, occasionally interrupted as she repositions the fabric. Jax is quiet as he slips into the room, still kind of pale, though less overtly unsteady than he has been in past weeks. He's dressed plainly; black sweatshirt, half-zipped over red and black tee underneath, black jeans, hiking boots. A small folded zippered black case in his hands that he fidgets with restlessly as he lingers by the door. He glances to Isra's work, then to the windows. "D'you mind?" His voice is quiet, a little rough, a little apologetic. "Um, if I turn the light. On." Down the hall, a door can be heard opening. A moment later, Steve appears at the threshold to the art room, hesitates for a fraction of a second, then enters himself. He's wearing a plain black t-shirt a size too small for his muscular torso, and dark blue jeans that fit perfectly but need a little mending here and there. He looks...reasonably well, all things considered, his cheeks rosy and his gait steady, though there's a touch of weariness about the corners of his pale blue eyes. "{Hello}," in Spanish, as he nods his greetings to the other two. "{Is okay if I take some paper? I run out. For drawing.}" Isra looks up at Jax, inclining her head. The slanting sunlight glints off of her shimmering rainbow horns. "I do not mind." Her voice comes low and soft. When Steve enters, her ears flatten back very slightly, and her hairless brow ridges raise up. "{You have both finished treatment, yes?}" she switches to Spanish, as well. "{And I never fell ill. You may speak English safely here, if you please. As for the paper...}" She shrugs, wings hitching up and opening a little, one of them extending to indicate the shelves where he might find them. "{How do you feel?}" Though no longer looking at either men as she returns her attention to her project, she uses a plural pronoun. "I finished." Jax clicks the knob of the light, turning the lights in the room -- halfway on, at least, a small relaxation creeping into his shoulders once there is more illumination in the room. He exhales slowly, turning to watch the glimmer of light flash off Isra's horns, a warm smile lighting his expression. "I don't know. Hungry. Queasy. I made a bunch of applesauce downstairs. Dinner -- later. If you want..." He slips further into the room, settling down on a stool by an easel, a blank new canvas on it. "What are you making?" He nods to Isra's sewing, before giving Steve a smile. "Yeah. I don't know if you've noticed but we're kind of filthy communists here. You can take whatever, in the common house. Nobody will care." "Oh! Yes, I completed the treatment, as well." Steve blushes, running a hand through already slightly mussed blond hair. "I'm...hungry, mostly. Restless. Volunteer shift was quiet today." Then adds, rather hastily, "Which is /good/, of course. How are you?" The mention of apple sauce and dinner piques his interest. "I can help with dinner prep. Within the limits of my skills. So...chopping, mostly." He heads over to the shelves and runs his fingers over the top pages of the various papers in the supply trays. "I'd /kind/ of noticed, in general," he replies, grinning, "but since folks were here, I thought I'd ask. I don't think it's filthy..." The last part a bit more quietly. "I suppose plenty of people do, though." Isra closes her eyes briefly when the lights go up, then opens them gradualy, ears turning down as if /they/ would shy away from the brightness. Her pupil contract, and in a few moments she returns her gaze to the fabric beneath her hands again. "Very good. Ion has finished his, as well." Though her expression remains blank, her ears swivel until upright again, her tail sway once, fast. "This?" She disengages the needle and cuts the thread with a neat flick of a fingernail. "A cloak. One of the wardrobe items I will want replaced before the weather turns truly cold. I also mean to make some new garments for Gremlin. They have started growing..." She frowns, as if groping for the right word. ".../rapidly./" Looking up again from her finished work, she studies Jax. "Will the noise distract you?" "I won't mind help chopping. I shredded so many potatoes yesterday my hands still haven't un-cramped." Jax rests his toes on a lower rung of his stool, knees bouncing restlessly up and down. His fingers fidget, restless too, with the zipper of his pouch. "OK. I /did/ shower. I'm a squeaky-clean communist." The mention of Egg puts a smile back on his face. "Oh. Oh, good. I mean, that they're doing -- Ion'll be. Glad. I mean, if he's better, he'll -- probably ain't been easy on him. All this time of --" One awkward shrug. He shakes his head in answer to the question. "I ain't honestly even sure what I want to be /doing/. Restless, too, I guess. 'tween my head being all a muddle an' then bein' all hospital-bed-y, I jus' -- feel like I should make /somethin'." Steve picks up a stack of paper, fanning it with a slight, meditative frown. "Gremlin?" He looks back at Isra. "This is the same -- /Ion's/ child, right? I've heard so many names for...them?" He locates a brown accordion folder for the papers, tucking them in and closing the flap. "I think it's pretty intuitive to want to /create/ when there's so much destruction all around." He's staring at Jax's canvas as if he already sees something on its immaculate surface. "Drawing helps me to be still. I was so sickly as a boy, often it was my only entertainment. My way to access /doing/ all the things I couldn't do." He chuckles self-consciously, bringing the folder and a box of pencils over to one of the work tables. "Sometimes I just...draw circles and lines. Until they turn into something -- or not. Probably doesn't work /quite/ as well with paint, though." Isra checks the seams of her immense red cloak, and, standing up, drapes it over her shoulders. "He has had a difficult time of it, but...you know him." Her wings fold in tight, then wiggle out through the slits in the bottom layer of the cloak, covered nicely by the shorter overcape. "Ion's child," she agrees, her voice soft and neutral, though the tips of her phalanges tremble when she stretches her wings out--only to half their full span, let she knock anything over. "They answer to Gremlin, Goblin, Dragon, Egg, Omelette, Fritatta...probably any word, in the right context." Evidentally satisfied with the range of motion afforded, she sheds the newly completed garment and sets it aside. "But yes, the child has returned to their father's care just in time for this growth spurt. He has taken it to mean they will fly soon." Her tone suggests some doubt, though she does finally smile, flashing only the tips of sharp fangs. She takes the next bundle of fabrics from a basket by her feet--soft blue fleece with white snowflakes--but stops in the midst of unrolling it to look at Steve. For a moment, she does not move at all save for breathing--an eerie effect soon broken with an evident effort. "Hard to imagine you a small, sickly boy," she says mildly, her expression inscrutable. "You, all sickly, that's --" Jax's nose crinkles up, his head shaking. "Well. Sure a /lotta/ us changed plenty when we --" He hesitates, teeth scraping over his lip before the slower finishing, "... manifested." He looks back to his canvas with a sudden deep flushing of his cheeks. "You'd be surprised, really." His words are quicker, now, more confident /here/. "Paint with oils, it kinda is like that. Can layer on colour over colour over colour and it starts kinda formless until -- until it /ain't/." Jax lifts a hand when Isra's wing stretches, reaching a palm to briefly rest against one long bone of the cloak-draped limb. "Oh, gosh. Well. With Ion behind 'em, maybe they jus' will. Sure ain't /short/ on positive models to learn from." Steve doesn't /quite/ manage to master the lift of his eyebrows when Isra lists Egg's nicknames -- especially the last few. "Forgive me if I pry, but are you related to Ion, or the child?" he asks as he pulls a piece of paper from his folder and smooths a hand over it on the table before him. "I'm not sure what 'manifest' means, in this context, but many people do grow out of childhood sickliness. Just...not me." Blushes, looks down at the blank page before him. "That frail little kid who couldn't run half a block, though? He's still with me. Every day." He taps the left side of his chest with an index finger. "Reminding me not to take this strength for granted, or use it for ill." His eyes lift back up to the canvas. "Really? I'd always had this notion that I'd learn how to paint someday. After the war. I had a lot of notions, I guess, but...maybe I will someday." Isra tilts her head at Steve. "Egg is my biological offspring by Dusk; Ion has no blood relation to either of us, but we count ourselves family, as I imagine you have put together." She gives a barely perceptible nod when Jax mentions manifesting, her ears pressed back nearly flat against her skull. "In our community, 'manifesting' refers to the expression of an X-gene-mediated trait not present from birth." Her wings twitch, then settle against her back. "'Mutant,' in Latin, means 'changing,'" she adds, finally unrolling the bundle of fleece, already cut out into the shapes demanded by some pattern. "But one can change for many reasons and in many ways. Some more acceptable to the eyes of men than others." She looks up at Jax, the corner of her mouth tugging toward something almost like a smile. "Their role models have also inclined them toward recklessness and a perhaps unhealthy comfort with electricity and...fire." Even so, she does finally smiles again, not bothering to hide her fangs at all this time, "But they'll not lack for fierceness." Jax's lips twitch slightly at Isra's response. "It's the first time your mutant powers show up. For most of us, it's --" He lifts a shoulder, one leg still bouncing up and down, jittery. "Kind of life-changing." He lifts a hand, scuffing it over the smooth top of his inked skull. "Their role models is teachin' 'em a lotta things. Fierceness among 'em." His smile is far less /toothy/ than Isra's. Bright and warm. His eyes shift back to the canvas after, a small tightening to his shoulders. "... we count a lotta people family around here. I --" He shakes his head very quickly, straightens up on his stool. His smile returns, a little /firmer/. "I teach, you know? Um, when there -- ain't zombies an' the world fallin' apart. Art. Drawin' an' paintin' both. If you -- was interested. Ain't like you don't already /got/ a good eye for /form/. I could show you how --" He gestures towards the canvas. "The tools work." Steve blinks rapidly as Isra speaks, trying to follow her explanation. Whether he would have figured it out on his own eventually is hard to say, since Jax translated it into plain English in short order. "Ah, I see." He frowns slightly. "I can't imagine -- or, I can, but it's...only imagining. My change happened by choice, with forewarning, at the hands of men. It didn't really prepare me, but...still." He smiles down at the paper, seeing something in it blank surface, perhaps. "I had put that together, yes. About family." He tears his eyes from the still-empty page, a twinge of pain in his smile. Pushes away from the table and stands. "I knew you taught, but it hadn't occurred to me to ask. Been a lot going on, and I didn't want to impose...more." He walks over, pulls another stool up near Jax's. "If you don't mind, I'd love to."