Logs:Kind Of Future Plans

Kind Of Future Plans
Dramatis Personae Astrid, Nessie
In Absentia	2020-10-09 "You’d be surprised at what people play."
Location <XAV> Gardens - Xs Grounds
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. It’s a crisp fall afternoon - the type of weather that is just perfect for a hoodie or light jacket. Classes have gotten out for the day and parents week is on the horizon, so there is an energy buzzing about the student body that normally is not present. Of course not everyone is excited, and though Astrid is more than happy to see her mom, she carries on with her normal low energy. For those that do not know her well, which is still just about everyone, there would be zero indication of excitement. Instead she is doing what she loves most - spending time outdoors on her skateboard. The gardens have been a perfect spot for this as of late. She’s focused as she attempts the trick “walk-the-dog,” keeping her left foot planted center on the board while her right pushed down on the front lip to swing the board 180 degrees moving both rider and board forward. Repeat ad nauseam. She’s moving around with a sort of grace that one would not expect from such a gangly looking teen. Something she tries to hide in her oversized black hoodie, but definitely does not in her dark blue skinny jeans. There's a rapid skittering-click along the stone pathways, audible before Nessie actually comes into view. It's readily apparent once she's there what was making that noise, her many chitinous legs coming to a halt after each other. She's dressed only in an ancient tatty royal blue zip-up hoodie, a faded emblem still visible on the chest of a heart ringed with thorns and crowned in fire. Her large barbed tail has been curled in close to her back but unfurls higher as her many eyes light on Astrid. There's a sketchpad in her arms that now she clutches closer to her flat chest, her most forward pair of eyes darting curiously after the skateboarding figure. "Is that hard?" Lost in her own world, Astrid continues to move forward, rotating the skateboard 180 degrees at a time. She ponders the question, eyes focused down on her foot movements instead of in the direction of the words, rotating the board a couple more times before responding. “It was at first…” her voice is low and on the verge of monotone. Her head tilts slightly, trying to catch a peek of who she is talking to as the voice is unfamiliar, while still trying to keep an eye on her feet and skateboard. And what she sees is unexpected. So unexpected that she is caught off guard from the glimpse of the many legged, chitinous teen, and quickly loses her balance, going straight down to the ground with a less than muffled “Oh shit!” Her skateboard flings forward into the bushes as she scrambles back up to her feet. Nessie's eyes widen, her "Ohshoot!" a near echo of Astrid's. She holds her sketchpad closer, legs moving in disconcerting arrhythm as she scurries several steps backwards. "Ummmm sorry? I didn't mean to -- um --" From beneath the hem of her sweatshirt another arm appears (this one has more joints than her already visible pair, tipped in a sharp pincer instead of a hand) to wave toward the disappearing skateboard. "I just thought it was neat. Have you tried the flying ones? My friend has a --" She waves one hand parallel to the ground in a zooming motion -- possibly this is meant to indicate a hoverboard. "They look fun." Astrid goes through the usual routine of doing a quick extremity check to make sure everything is still in its correct place before readjusting her large, black plastic framed glasses which despite several attempts, still end up crooked. “Oh… no, you don’t need to apologize.” She bites into her bottom lip, wiggling her nose in one last failed attempt to adjust her frames. “I just wasn’t…. well… yeah, I guess sometimes that still is hard to do.” She laughs while flashing a toothy grin, eyes moving from pincers claw to the direction her skateboard went. “Flying ones…” she echoes, eyes now glued to the bush the board disappeared in, trying her hardest not to stare at the scorpion-esque teen. Then she has a lightbulb moment. “Oh, you mean a hoverboard! Naw, haven’t tried one yet, but they do look fun. Have… you?” The question is dripping with hesitation. Nessie has been watching this limb-check with some apprehension, brows furrowing deeper. Astrid's grin puts a mirroring one on her own face, though, only brief but bright while it lasts. "Yeah! The hoverboards. I --" She hesitates, lips twisting up to one side. "Wellll they don't really come in my size but I did sit on one while someone towed it on a motorcycle. I don't think that's what you're supposed to do but it's like -- land jet-skiing, right? At any rate it's fun. Did you know --" There's a more hushed excitement to her voice here, "the person who invented them used to go here? How cool is that?" Astrid’s eyes light up at the mention of a hoverboard being towed by a motorcycle and the wheels slowly start turning. “Really? That sounds awesome and fun.” She scratches her head then tries to tuck her wavy, dirty blond hair behind her ears, but it is far too unruly to stay put long. Then her eyes dart from side to side on the lookout for any interlopers as she too lowers her voice. “Any hoverboards and motorcycles still around? Land..uh.. jet skiing would be real fun.” Again see smiles, her head nodding in a continuous bob as more and more hoverboard information is pushed her way. “Now that is cool.” She responds to comments on the inventor having attended Xavier’s. “Do you know them? Then you could convince them to make you a larger board.” "Ohmygosh it was so much fun," Nessie agrees,bouncing slightly in place before settling back down into a lower crouch on her many legs. "You should definitely try it -- well I don't have a board or a motorcycle," she's considering this inconvenient fact with a small scrunch of brows, that passes soon into the brighter: "but my friends totally do! I bet we could convince them to do it again if you want to try." Her tail is slowly curling itself back down, smaller, towards her back. "I do kiiind of know them, but they're a teeny bit in jail right now so that might be like a, future, plan. Oh! I'm Nessie by the way. How long have you been doing that you look pretty good at it." “I can’t even imagine! Well… I sort of can. My Pops got run over hanging onto the side of his friend's car on a skateboard. Would have been better if he was being towed with a tether, right?” Astrid’s head keeps bobbing up and down as the excitement of this idea keeps building. “Oh, and he is fine.” She quickly adds, realizing how easily her comment on her dad could be taken. “I think we’ll need to hit this friend of yours up…” her head shifts to the side, “... once out of jail. Which is soon I hope?” She catches a glimpse of Nessie’s tail curl within itself and smiles. She thinks about how her family really has no idea where she ended up. Idle hands are shoved down into hoodie pockets. “I’m Astrid.” She takes a step forward, left hand pulled free and stretched out for a shake. “I know it is cliched to say I’ve been skating as long as I can walk… but I’ve basically been skating as long as I can walk.” Again that toothy grin appears. "Ohmygosh that's horrible is--," Nessie's eyes are growing wider before the reassurance about Astrid's dad, at which point she misses exactly zero beats, shifting instead seamlessly to: "-- oh yeah you definitely need a solid tether motorcycles are swervy! Anyway I'm sure it won't be too long she's, like, a genius." What that has to do with Jail Time is anyone's guess. Nessie eyes Astrid's outstretched hand for a moment in confusion before suddenly seeming to remember what to do with it, sketchpad shifted to one hand so that she can squeeze the other girl's hand briefly. "Woooah that is a long time. I don't think I've been doing anything that long sometimes I try things but then I forget about them. Like I tried to learn guitar? That lasted, like, three weeks. I'm impressed." “Well… my parents were pretty young when they had me. My Pops mostly hangs out at a skatepark, so when it was his turn to watch me, he just dragged me along.” Astrid replaces her hand back into the hoodie pocket as she eyes the sketch pad, but opts not to bring attention to it yet. “Three weeks? That’s not bad.” Suddenly her head jerks toward the bush, like she suddenly remembered there is a skateboard somewhere in there. Immediately heading toward the area where the board disappeared, her upper half disappears only to reemerge seconds later with the skateboard. She heads back to where she was just standing and drops the board onto the ground. “I’ve been trying to teach myself how to play banjo. I guess I’m ok at it.” She follows the direction of the board and sits down on it. “What made you quit?” "Oh that's so cool though! My parents don't really do anything cool. I mean, they're great, but not like --" Nessie's nose wrinkles up as she shrugs. "Oh! Banjo! Have you met Harm? He's -- they're -- they love playing music with people. Um the witchy -- hippie -- who's like, always knitting -- actually," she admits with a small laugh, "I totally started trying to knit instead and forgot all about the guitar. I think the knitting lasted at least a month." Her head ducks, her smile a little crooked. "Maybe I should go back to one of the things I forgot about. How hard is it to teach yourself an instrument?" “It is pretty cool I guess… maybe not so much when you’d rather have a parent around.” Astrid laughs before leaning forward to wrap her arms around her knees, fingers laced together. “Yes! I have met Harm!” Excitement briefly returns before the usual monotone kicks back in. “They were in fact knitting when we met. Didn’t know they played music though.” Feet remain planted as she starts moving the skateboard beneath her back and forth. “You definitely should. I think teaching yourself an instrument isn’t that hard if I am any indication. Would probably want to take lessons if your goal was to get, like good though.” Nessie's mouth opens into a small round o, her brown cheeks flushing suddenly darker. "Oh..." is as far as she gets before a relieved smile returns. "Yeah! Yeah they play all kinds of, um, hippie things. Ukelele? Until they got here I didn't know people actually played that outside of Williamsburg." Her shrug is small. "Getting good would be cool, but I think mostly -- there's just something about music, you know? Like -- creating something! With people! That's pretty neat." “You’d be surprised at what people play. Back home, there is a guy known as the Unipiper. He rides around on a unicycle playing Bagpipes that shoot flames while wearing a Darth Vader mask.” Astrid nods her head slowly, chewing into the side of her mouth. She pauses, thinking back to the thick, almost suffocatingly green of home. “So the ukulele isn’t all that strange... I think?” She rocks back and forth a couple more times on the skateboard. “Hey, maybe we should practice together? You guitar and me banjo? I bet it would be more fun than practicing alone, right?” That typical vibration of a cell phone begins buzzing from her left front pocket cutting Astrid off. Legs are let go and pushed forward as she begins digging for her phone. Once free of denim, the alarm is turned off and the buzzing stops. “Well… I should probably get going. Want to get a head start on my homework before my Moms shows up this weekend.” Slowly standing up, the phone is shoved back onto her pocket and one foot placed on the skateboard. “We should hang out again soon.” "What? Shoots flames on a unicycle?" Nessie's eyes go huge again, her brows hiking way up. "Oh my gosh I don't know whether that's, like, insane or goals but wow." Her head bobs repeatedly, animated. "Oh yeah! I'd love that! I'm gonna suck at first but that's fine." She bounces just a little, again, her smile returning and staying this time. "Totally! I'll see you round?" She's still hugging her skateboard to her chest as she scuttles further into the garden. “Definitely!” Astrid says with a smile before hopping onto the skateboard and pushing off back towards the school, the sound of hard plastic wheels scraping along concrete slowly getting quieter.