ArchivedLogs:Refreshing Silence

Refreshing Silence
Dramatis Personae Kisha, Kyinha, Liv, Rasa
In Absentia	2016-03-06 "I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but you look a little bit like you are slowly dying from something."
Location <XS> Conservatory
Tall panes of glass keep this large indoor garden warm year round. Tended to by the school's groundskeeper, the conservatory is lush with plant life, a carefully cultivated paradise within Xavier's walls. The room serves as a classroom as well; in the center of the garden a ring of seats forms a small circle, a favorite locale for some teachers to hold court. It's a bright and mild afternoon, only a bit of chill on the breeze outside. Kyinha has just made his way inside and collapsed onto the first bench he sees, shivering all the while. He's wearing a three-quarters length aqua coat, long black circle skirt with triangular blue panels, blue space-dyed scarf and matching beanie. His brown skin is pale and sickly-looking, much as it has been these last few weeks, but his wavy black hair is still glossy where it protrudes from beneath his cap. He slowly ducks out from under the strap of the bright green messenger bag he wears across his chest, setting it down beside him and pulling out a black thermos to drink. Rasa is in the conservatory, enjoying the bright afternoon through the windows rather than being out in the elements hirself. Ze is sitting on another bench eating a sandwich. Ze is wearing a pair of wrap pants, batik-dyed many different colors and designs, with a black, long, bell sleeved tunic. Bare feet tickle the ground, patting out the beat from the music pouring from a pair of wireless headphones. Ze looks up when Kyinha comes in and flops on the bench nearby. Hir head tilts and ze crooks a finger under hir earbud to pull it out. "You okay?" Wrapped up in a Russian military surplus coat and wearing old style aviator goggles with a bunch of tech enhancements Kisha stomps in from the cold. A small drone buzzes around her head projecting a hologram, which she keeps poking at and muttering under her breath. It takes a moment before she notices the Conservatory is so crowded and urgently swats the hologram away. In a little nook on the ground, Liv sits crossed legged with a book propped open in her lap, very focused on whatever she's reading to the point of near oblivion of everything else around her. Wearing a pink knitted poncho, black leggings, and brown ankle boots, she actually looks pretty content, surrounded by plant life that seems to look alive and alert near her, her hair finally once again matching the plants in color and intensity. Despite her focus, the sounds of people talking break her focus and she looks up, smiling as she recognizes her math professor and roommate amongst the occupants. She slips a bookmark in her book and closes it, deciding now is a good time as any to take a reading break. Kyinha lowers the thermos to the bench beside him, as if it's just too heavy for him to hold up. His warm brown eyes track to Rasa -- sluggishly -- and his smile follows, none too quickly. "Oh, I am fine, thank you. Just a bit tired. Didn't mean to disturb you." He pulls the beanie from his head and runs a hand through his hair to get it out of his face. Seeing the two students, he gives a weak little wave. "Liv, Kisha! Enjoying your break so far?" Rasa's head tilts in the other direction, getting to hir feet and wandering closer. "Just a little bit? Okay." Ze wets hir lips and looks beyond Kyinha to the door and raises a hand to wave at Kisha. "Just looked a bit like you were running away from zombies or something. If you're okay, that's good." Ze steps back and stretches hir hands behind hir back. Hir blue-green skin ripples with a wave of powder pink that disappears under hir scalp. Kisha tilts her head. "I don't take breaks," she says solemnly. "If anything I am doing more now class isn't wasting my time." She returns the wave. "Hi Rasa, I was unaware you would be visiting. How have you been?" She makes another gesture in the air and a different hologram appears in the air which she proceeds to begin tinkering with. Liv chuckles a bit at Kisha's response. "Well, /I'm/ enjoying my break. I'm not sure what was more stressful, zombies or homework. Though I am a little worried about my grades last term. Especially pre-calc." She turns her head towards Rasa, looking over them curiously before recognition sets in and she offers hir a warm smile. "Oh! Hello!" "There would be more flailing, probably, if I were running from zombies," Kyinha assures Rasa with a rueful smile. "I wind easily these days." Honestly, he doesn't really look like he'd be very successful in running from zombies (or anything else) at the moment. "I meant the break from class, but that amounts to a yes, then! Ah, the grades, yes -- due in a couple of days." He nods, lifting his thermos for another sip. "Not sure if this makes you feel much better, but unless something very bizarre happened with the finals, I don't think anyone failed that class this term." "You get used to her drive. She doesn't sleep after all." Rasa shrugs and scuffs hir hand through the tuff of evergreen hair. Ze wrinkles hir nose as ze looks to Liv and smiles and then looks to Kyinha when he speaks. "Oh, the good old, you survived a plague, you get a passing grade thing. I remember those days. It was... utterly frustrating because I worked very hard to catch up and kind of made things worse on myself." Ze coughs. "Anyway, just enjoy it as best you can." Kisha shrugs. "Math is extremely easy. Enjoyable, but easy. So I'm sure you'll do fine." The hologram absorbs her attention for a few moments, then she glances at Kyinha. "I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but you look a little bit like you are slowly dying from something." Liv shrugs slightly. "Normally I don't have too much trouble with math but with all the...things this past term. Pretty sure I fell behind on a few things and if all it takes is surviving the apocalypse to pass then I'm ok with that." She grins, glancing to Kisha at Rasa's comment about not sleeping. "Trust me, I know. Took a few weeks getting used to." Kyinha shakes his head slowly, another shiver running through him that perhaps has nothing to do with the cold. "As few faculty members as we had here during the crisis, and as many refugees we hosted, I hardly see how any teacher can be said to have been at their best -- I was very sick, myself." He shrugs. "But it isn't that I'm passing students who would have failed otherwise, just trimming down the curriculum to what we were actually able to cover." To Kisha he grins -- it doesn't really have quite the same eerie effect as when he glows from the inside, as is his wont. "No more than all mortal men, though winter makes me look the worse for it. But in all likelihood winter will expire before I, this time around." Rasa laughs softly, and shakes hir head. "Okay. Well, I think I have passed the torch of worry to someone else, so I am less needed here. Especailly with the talk of grades. Anyway. Glad you're all enjoying your breaks. I still have to catch a train back home, so I'll see you later." Ze returns to hir sandwich and picks it up. Ze waves with hir other hand as ze takes a bite. "How I envy you, being out in the city and away from this place. We shall have to meet up some time and... do lunch? That is how people say it, right?" Kisha wonders aloud. "But anyway travel safely Rasa. I do not know why everyone found the zombies so distracting either, the silence was most refreshing." Liv can't help but raise a brow at Kisha at her comments. "Oh sure, the zombies were wonderful. Other than my boyfriend dying, not dying, and almost being bit in the process, the zombies were so much fun." This is said with an appropriate amount of sarcasm before she turns back to Rasa, her smile returning though not quite as naturally. "Safe travels." "Have a safe trip." Kyinha salutes Rasa with his thermos, then brings it back down to take another sip. Tilts his head at Kisha, brows knitting tight. Does not reply at once. "I suspect," he says finally, evenly, "that some combination of worrying about dying of the plague, worrying about friends dying of the plague, worrying about getting eaten, learning to communicate without spreading the illness, starving under the rationing measures, and crowding in with over a hundred extra people, all cranky and none happy to be here, probably cancelled out whatever refreshing silence the outbreak might have offered. Your experience of it puts you in a small minority." /He/ doesn't actually sound sarcastic -- just weary. "Though, as crowded as the school was, I can only credit your noise-cancellation technology if you actually thought it quieter then." Kisha coughs. "Ah yes, I recall you had personal complications. Please forgive my careless comment.. It's hard to keep track of who I am speaking with when I am multitasking like this.. Most of my attention is directed to the workshop right now." She glances back at Kyinha. "Presumably you mean this winter rather than winter as a concept? Is your mutation linked to the seasons? Or is the problem more around the general temperature?" She shakes her head. "Uhm. That is if it isn't rude of me to ask.. And for the record I do indeed have some industrial grade noise cancellation headphones. If I didn't it would be unsafe to operate a pneumatic hammer." "It's...fine," Liv says, rather stiffly but she clears her throat faintly, picking up her backpack. "I um, I should get going. Stop by the kitchens for a snack." She glances to Kyinha with a smile. "I hope you, um, make it through the rest of the winter okay." To Kisha, her smile is a little less genuine but there's still an attempt. "See you later." She then turns to make her way out of the conservatory. "/This/ winter, yes," Kyinha confirms. "My hubris is not so strong as all that...yet. It's in part my mutation -- I need light. Gives seasonal affective disorder a bit of an extra kick, it does." This he said rather mildly. Then, with a nod and a thin smile to Liv. "Take care, Liv, and I'll do my best. Getting out of the cold and downing some hot cocoa is doing wonders." He regardes Kisha curiously, one eyebrow slightly uplifted now. "For your reference, though, I think it's fairly safe to assume that /most/ people with whom you speak are going to have some unpleasant memories about the outbreaks. How you address that is still your decision, of course." He doesn't try to smile here, but he isn't frowning, either. Just looking a little distant, and still weary, though not quite as ashen as when he came in. "Well, I think I've worked up the strength to make it back upstairs. Do have a good afternoon, Kisha -- and please have a mind for /other/ people's ears, too, if you decide to operate a pneumatic hammer." He puts the thermos away, shoulders the bag, and rises. Waves, then totters unsteadily toward the mansion proper. Kisha tilts her head curiously. "Whatever would I need a pneumatic hammer for?" she wonders to herself as everyone departs. "Some people are more than a little peculiar."