Logs:Bless Me With Peace

Bless Me With Peace
Dramatis Personae Blink, Jade, Joshua
In Absentia	2024-11-22 "I mean I try not to judge but,"
Location <NYC> Tompkins Square Park - East Village
Small but popular, this tree-lined park is a perfect centerpiece to the eclectic neighborhood it resides in. Home to a number of playgrounds and courts from handball to basketball, it also houses a dog park and chess tables, providing excellent space for people watching -- especially during its frequent and often eccentric festivals, from Wigstock to its yearly Allen Ginsberg tribute Howl festival. The brisk chill in the air has not made Tompkins Square Park any less lively, this evening. In the center of the park there's a lively show going on, some kind of Afro-Latin ensemble that has got quite an enthusiastic crowd dancing in the center square. Not so very far away, on a lawn, a cluster of mostly-younger Jewish people are equally enthusiastically singing Shalom Aleichem, the joyful singing blending odd but exuberant with the concert. There are folding tables set up near them, laden heavy with a potluck of meal. As the singing ends, Joshua is peeling off, grabbing himself a plate with an eclectic mix of foods -- curried chickpea buss up shut jostling with kugel, crispy vegetable spring rolls alongside hoppin' john. He's dressed semi-casually -- thick-waled grey corduroys and a blue waffle-weave long-sleeve shirt under a comfortable wool blanket coat embroidered intricately with a beautiful and brightly colored geometric Mixtec design. There's a similarly colorfully embroidered kippah pinned to his shaggy hair. After exchanging a few words with a young woman in his prayer group he is wandering away from the Shabbat Dinner Crowd to fetch up a little closer to the concert, standing a bit away from the actual dancing but tapping his foot absently to the energetic beat. The cool wind in the air was the perfect setting to get away and just relax. The supposed festival for Afro-Latinas, culminating in the middle of the square was a great sight to see. The Jewish community, or rather a small gathering in another part of the park celebrating. This was very calming, especially for a certain woman after a certain incident. She tried to get it off her mind, shaking her head from side to side and sitting at a tree about 20 feet away, facing away from the noise. Jade scrolled on her phone, finding a newly published article about the fire at the library downtown. She sighed, putting her backside against the tree and slowly sliding down until she was on her butt. Hair a mess, almost all of it covering her eyes, a crimson red cardigan with a blank white tee underneath. She was wearing no earrings this time, while her piercings were still on. As was customary with her, Jade had on some sweatpants. Specifically, some white baggy fluffy tie dyed sweatpants. The woman had brought a book as well. She had on some black thong flipflops with a red accent on the side of it. Jade slowly kicked them off to where they were in front of her, planting her left foot on the ground in front of her, putting her right lower leg on her left thigh. Jade took a heavy sigh before grabbing her book, flipping to where she last left off, bouncing her right foot as she commenced reading. Blink has been dancing exuberantly in the midst of the crowd. She's wearing a pink bell-sleeve blouse, purple high-low wrap skirt, and black ankle boots. Her magenta-streaked black hair is braided and twisted up in a bun, and she has several thin bangles on both wrists and ankles that jingle brightly with every step. During a lull in the music she ducks out to get herself a drink from an enterprising young person with a cooler full of bottled sorrel, and spots Joshua on her way back in. She waves and threads her way through the crowd to him. "Shabbat shalom, partner!" She peers at his plate. "Damn, your food smells so good." The woman looked to see a familiar face dancing in the middle of the gathering. She couldn't quite make out who the person was as there were a lot of people dancing about. She shrugged and went back to reading for a second, wishing she had either brought some headphones or could really ignore the sounds. Out of the corner of her eye, Jade saw that it was Blink, the woman from a few weeks ago who she 'saved' the mall with. She began to speak, raising her upper half and lifting her left hand up, "H-" The woman stopped herself and went back to her book, wondering why she did so. Maybe it was for a reason. She decided to say something without getting up. "Hey, Blink." A moderate but not loud voice would say from a bit away. Joshua gives Blink an exaggerated wink and an even more exaggerated thumbs-up -- both very animated gestures look an oddly jarring contrast with the fact that his expression continues to bear a strong resemblance to a basset hound whose owner just kicked it. "Hungry? Got plenty." He gestures back to the potluck table in open invitation. He's kind of half-pivoting when Jade addresses Blink, squinting towards the pyrokinetic and then back towards Blink. "... you friends?" Blink returns the exaggerated wink with the opposite eye and a thumbs-up with the opposite hand, like a mirror image. "Thanks. I really danced myself up an appetite." She's about to head over to the potluck tables when her ears twitch toward the sound of her name and she sees Jade. It takes her a moment before she's able to place the face who'd spoken the name. "Oh! No, I ran into her while I was doing recon for that dancing fruit girl." She waves back. "Hey...Spitfire?" The woman slipped her shoes back on and stood up as she clutched her book. She waved back at Blink and smiled, seeing the fancy outfit, at least to her, that she was wearing. The woman took a few steps forward and waved at Joshua. "Call me Jade, and thanks again man, sorry for ma outburst." Jade apologized again, fixing a strand of hair back behind her right ear. It was so awkward, so she just stood there, waiting for something even though she knew it wouldn't affect the man at all. Joshua holds his plate out towards Blink, in easy reach of pilfering. 'Spitfire', he's mouthing silently. He's looking Jade over again with a lift of eyebrows. "Shit, she's the --" He does not finish the sentence, but there's a startled recognition in his wider eyes. He huffs quiet, almost a laugh. "Damn." His chin lifts to Jade. "Roast any good books lately?" "Yesss thank you." Blink pinches some buss up shut and nods her serious agreement. "Wait, roast any good -- books?" She glances in the direction of the library on Hudson Street, then back to Jade. "Oh shit. I thought you were exaggerating about putting people in danger. Um..." She smiles weakly. "At least it wasn't the...Lower East Side...?" The woman looked at the other and lifted her eyebrow in a questioning manner as he began with the jokes. She felt a flame swirl up in her right palm, but was easily able to extinguish it this time. Wow, it was kinda that easy. Jade exhaled before replying to the man calmly. "It was one time, and it won't be again." She looked back over to Blink and nodded. "No one was hurt, thank goodness but it was jus a bad bad, very inconveniently timed migraine." "... in danger?" Joshua's brows are hiking up higher, then lowering flat. "What do you mean?" He's looking right at Blink with this question. His eyes stray back to the flame, and there's just a small tightening of his arms until the fire extinguishes. His head bobs, slow, nodding. "Hope your head's better." "No one was hurt?" Blink raises her eyebrows -- right at Joshua. "Yeah she said her powers were going haywire and she was afraid of hurting people." She looks back at Jade again. "I thought maybe you were being overly anxious. Like, you can't tell now, but I really do get what it's like to have a dangerous power. I'm sorry I --" She stops and frowns. "Wait. Why were you in a library?" The woman was looking on her phone whilst the other woman looked at the man. She was looking at all the news articles before looking up and sighing. Jade exhaled and calmly asked. "Ah was reading, and ah didn't know that ma powers would go haywire there o' all places." She exhaled once more calmly, internally annoyed by Blinks face and her tone. "Huh." It's a very flat huh. "Cool." Joshua's head is still bobbing, in time to the music now rather than a nod. "... told me it had never happened before." He scoops some of the black eyed peas onto his plastic spoon and eats them slow. He glances to Blink, glances back to the stage. "I had a patient once. Smoking a cigarette hooked up to her oxygen tank. Wicked burns. Totally shocked that it happened to her." "I mean I try not to judge but," Blink says, with the tone of someone who's definitely kind of judging. "If you're worried about people surviving your flare-ups, a building full of books seems like a really terrible place to be." She bites her lower lip and takes a bit more of Joshua's roti. "It's not exactly the same, but at least oxygen tank lady only set herself on fire." The woman nodded and let it roll off her back. She sighed a sigh of annoyance. Why were mutants at least here so...uncaring to newbies. I mean they didn't have to hold her fucking hand for Christ sake, but at least give her some grace if you please. 'There couldn't be times where their powers didn't flare up, and probably not inna secluded place' Jade thought. "True, but...nevermind." Joshua shakes his head, regarding his plate mournfully as he says: "Four alarm fire. Entire apartment building gone." He takes another mouthful of his dinner. His mouth twitches to the side. He waggles his spoon in Jade's direction. "You, uh. Still having -- problems?" "Nevermind what?" Blink frowns at Jade. "I'm not trying to be discouraging. I really do know I -- I hurt my brother really badly when I was little. And I couldn't control my power." She summons a swirl of purple light into the palm of her hand. "Remember what I said about managing the danger? Sometimes we make the wrong choice, that's inevitable. But it doesn't make you not responsible." She looked as the other wagged his spoon in her direction. Thankfully the woman wasn't experiencing the same problems as before, due to her actually working on it. It would be somewhat of a long road, but Jade could definitely try to control it as much as he could. "No, it was a bad flare up, haven' had that since last year when ah was in Georgia still. Ah know, ah don' do well when people keep bringin' ma mistake up is all. Just lemme live wit it." Jade said politely, knowing it was her fault but not liking it being brought up every few seconds, well what seemed like seconds to her. The news article would remind her enough. "Habit," Joshua says, and it's not apologetic exactly but it is mildly conciliatory. "Spend a lot of time helping coach new mutants through, uh, power troubles." His shoulder hitches in a small shrug. "Shouldn't get in your business, sorry." Blink opens her mouth, and shuts it again. "Okay. Yeah, you're right." She plucks half a spring roll off of Joshua's plate. "I'm not trying to pick on you. It's just...it's not like there's a manual for this kind of thing. We kind of have to...be that. For each other." "It helps uh, whatever ya name is, Blink, thank ya'll nonetheless." Jade said, giggling as she saw Blink over the course of the time they were talking take more and more, the morsels on the others plate was slowly but surely fading away. That reminded her, she didn't get much food for herself before heading out here. Oh, well the woman would just find something to eat after she left. Despite her lean appearing build, she could stand to eat a tiny bit less. "I'm writing a zine." Joshua sounds very serious about this. He jerks his head back towards the Shabbat gathering, brows lifting to Blink. "C'mon. Get a proper plate." His head dips to Jade, polite, though his dour expression hasn't shifted. "Take care, yeah? Hope I don't, uh. See you again too soon. 'least not on the job." Then -- poof -- he has vanished -- -- admittedly not far, but where he's reappeared over among the Shabbat gathering is still solidly Too Far for conversation. "You're...welcome?" Blink only sounds slightly uncertain, but the uncertainty dissolves into a faint snicker at the suggestion of a zine. "I would read that," she tells Joshua. "Oh sweet, maybe you can introduce me to whoever made your buss up shut because that is bomb." She's very blasé about Joshua's vanishing act, and turns to Jade. "Hey. Good luck, see you around!" She vanishes in a swirl of purple light and appears from an identical one by the tables with the food. The woman understood why Blink would be confused, it was normal though. She confused her self more than she would have ever thought. She nodded at the other as they wished her good luck and vanished as well, appearing the tables of food. Jade smiled as the two looked like they were having a great time. She took her book and started down the path to the right, eager to sleep now. And eat. She was muttering to herself. "Well, this has been an eventful almost-week. Hopefully now ah I can start making friends instead of causin' some unwarranted trouble."