Logs:Flower Power
| Flower Power | |
|---|---|
| Dramatis Personae | |
| In Absentia | 2024-12-05 "Everyone can see blood. I mean, it's not invisible." |
| Location
<XAV> Batcave - Residence Hall | |
Accessible by sliding pole or elevator from the rec room above, the dormitory basement is austere, with concrete walls and industrial lighting that throws the exposed steel and ductwork into stark relief. Along one wall is a row of computers with a massive holographic interface, the chassis detailed in blue and yellow, with swivelling office chairs upholstered in black leather. Branching off from the computer room is a well-outfitted training gym. Guarding the door to the students' garage next door is an enormous animatronic T-rex, periodically wagging its tail or yawning. It's early in the afternoon and it's cold outside and it's bustling in here, in the daytime lull between classes and dinner. There's a cluster of kids at the computers sharing (or making) new memes about what healthcare CEO's ought to get got next. The sounds coming from the gym sound far too Macho and Enthusiastic, it is definitely Very Intense Bro Time in there. The animatronic T-Rex currently looks a little bit like something out of a horror movie. Out of its open mouth is tumbling -- well, it was someone's little hanging string-of-pearls plant but the normally innocuous houseplant does not seem to be behaving quite as would be expected. A couple of the kids are mock-fencing the T-Rex, jabbing at it with Nerf swords when it opens its mouth, and the long tendrils of the plant that spill out of its huge jaws are lashing out, grabbing at the blades. They leave startlingly bloody-red streaks on the foam, writhing a few seconds even after the "weapons" are pulled away. It's only after the plant actually tears one of the foam blades clear off that this game loses its charm; one of the fencers, touching the plant, makes it wither up into a husk of a thing. "-- C'mon," says the other, as if this is the biggest problem with whatever-the-fuck was going on with the plant, "-- I was gonna take it to the store for a refund." "I'll buy you another plant that one was wack," says their friend, "I do not think it was supposed to do that." Nahida has been seated on a spinny chair nearby, in rich wide-leg turquoise pants and soft cream sweater, pink-and-grey-and-turqoise scarves elegantly layered and draped around her head and neck and left in one long fluttery tail down over a shoulder, makeup neat as ever. She waggles her phone towards the kids: "I recorded it, if you need," will the hapless garden store accept this, probably not, but she's emailing it to them anyway. Roscoe -- well, most probably that is Roscoe in the DBZ sweatshirt, though not much of his face is actually visible with the hood's drawstrings yanked this tight -- has been seated in a spinny chair too, though what he was doing on the computer there is not immediately obvious -- his display is showing nothing but multicolored monospaced text and he's sized the font down until it is meaninglessly compact. Perhaps this is why he is not bothering to close any of his windows as he drags his chair out with his heels like this will make a huge difference in his view of the event, and then just gets up and goes to inspect it way close up, produces a cheap ballpoint pen from his pocket, with which to poke at the shriveled coil of houseplant, and agrees, "...wack." As someone who has had their world oh so recently turned upside down, it's not exactly clear whether the sight of an attack plant shriveling at the touch of a fellow student reassures Abigail or simply reduces the stimulous that brings her discomfort to the surface. She simply standing there when the other students disperse, arms drawn inward to her chest, shifting back and forth between firmly planted feet. She's wearing a rather dull dress in cornflower blue with little yellow flowers dotted sporadically across the weave. The cut is very modest, but no where near the length the ultra modest fashion trends are tending -- she's showing off her forearms and calves, for heaven's sake. Boots with decent tread clad her feet and swim around her ankles. She stumbles back when there's suddenly a voice nearby - Roscoe's - cluing her in to the fact that there are still people here, watching. After glancing quickly to Nahida, she retrains her gaze on the plant. "Is it..." She asks quietly, unsure, "actual blood?" She should be able to tell but isn't confident enough to reach out yet. Nahida has unfolded her phone so that on the larger screen she can do some quick-and-dirty editing -- nothing too fancy for actual public posting but at least a bit of rapid-fired humor for the group chats, and she is glancing up from this important task with a quizzical pinch of brow. "Hm? Oh, I don't -- how would I -- ah -- I don't have any kind of --" Her accent is quite thick, probably not specifically placeable to a majority of Americans though it it's heavily South Asian in general flavor. She glances to the shriveled plant, and then to Roscoe, and then back to Abigail. "It's very-very weird. I was not exactly microscoping it, you know?" She shrugs, a little apologetic, if not all that much. "You are that new Allred, yah? Ten thousand of you now." This sounds more approving than anything else. Roscoe is rising up on his toes, spinning the pen in his hand to use the pointier end to lift the tendril of plant out of the dino's teeth. "Well, whatever it is, this one is all dried out now anyway," he says, with a tone of faint disapproval; he tugs at the bow under his chin to unravel it, pulls the window of his hood wider; his face, coming more into view, is pinched into a deep frown. He looks from the plant over to Abigail -- "Oh, that's you? Dallen says you can see blood," he says, now (curiously, though very carefully) extending the dangling piece of plant toward her for inspection. "Oh. I am sorry. I didn't expect you to know know something like that -- just maybe you had heard someone else say something. This is all so..." weird? freaky? "new to me I guess it didn't really occur that the plant thingy is new to you, too." Abigail isn't rushed to poke at the dessicated organic matter even when it's presented to her. Her lips work across her face like they are trying to run from the corner they appear trapped in. Her tone is a bit hollow as she takes a breath and then utters, "We are Legion, which seems fitting since a good deal of my family decided I've now joined the demon ranks. I'm Abigail." She glances from Nahida to Roscoe, her lips parted for a good moment as she decides what to say next. "Everyone can see blood. I mean, it's not invisible." "That is a weird thing to say," Nahida is agreeing with Abigail. "You also can see --" She's tilting her head, reconsidering who she is talking to: "I also can see blood. Well. When it comes out --" She is now reconsidering all over again, eying her hand uncertainly. "I don't know if Dallen should just go about telling people that, though, people might get one bit worried if you are sizing up only just their blood like some kind of vamp -- oh oh oh they are saying this one other new kid is a vampire, though, do you know them oh no sorry is that rude. I just mean that you're both very new and they are very --" She waggles her fingers towards her face as if this should indicate something. For a moment she strains for words. "... Distinct." Roscoe does not seem bothered that his offering of dead plant is not being accepted with much enthusiasm; he lowers it down to chest level. "Dallen is weird," he says, with a dismissive shrug. "It's more fun in the demon ranks. Endless good times." He shifts a little uncomfortably, glancing around at the ceiling, at the discussion of the new vamp kid. "Are we sure that's legit, though?" he says. "I think they might be stereotyping him. Fruit bats also have fangs." "Oh. A vampire?" Abigail pales as she considers what that might mean for her. "Uh. No. I haven't met the other new student yet. Or if I have, I'm incredibly rude in forgetting. My first few days were very... overwhelming." She's not cluing into what Nahida means by distinctive, so any of the kids she's met could have been the other new one, right? "Who's a fruit bag? What?" She presses her lips together hard as she swallows. "Dallen isn't weird. She's very normal, I mean, for someone who everything is kind of changing for. But, I've also known her for a long time -- however infrequently." Instead of continuing to struggle with her words, she shifts and grabs at the plant in Roscoe's hands, rubbing her fingers in the broken down, crispy dried material. "Huh." "People say so many of us are demon, I think that word has turned so meaningless. If Dallen can be demon demons have gotten very pathetic -- no offense I just mean they are meant to be a bit scary, no? Dallen is just one harmless little thing and her brothers very nice also. Demon maybe saying a bit more about the callers than about you all, I think." She taps her nails lightly against the screen of her phone and concedes with a small waggle of her head, "It could be one stereotype. Lots of kids here are anyway a bit fruity, I wouldn't be half surprised." "I'unno, Dallen's a little weird," Roscoe says doggedly. "Basically everyone here has gone through some kind of everything-changing era. Kind of comes with the mutant freak boarding school, right?" He's twitching with surprise as she reaches for the string-of-pearls, extending his elbow so that the crumbly, flaky bits of dead plant are falling to the floor and not onto his shoes. "Huh? What's that 'Huh'." "Yeah. kinda feels like they're the angry and vicious ones," Abigail agrees. She glances up at Roscoe when he repeats back her initial assessment and straightens up. "Uh. Well, huh. It actually seems to be blood. It's kind of confusing. Did the plant cut someone? Or did this actually come from the plant?" She rubs her fingers together then brushes them awkwardly off on her skirt, leaving a smudge in their wake. "Uh. I can't see that. I just. Um. Feel it." "I think maybe if you are also a Mormon then Dallen is normal, yah? For so many of the whites my family is very weird." Nahida shrugs again. She is pulling her wheely chair a little bit closer, peering more intently at the crumbling plant. "I don't think the plant actually hurt anyone. It's just one very weird plant only. I don't know why it is like that." Roscoe glances aside at Nahida, then back away. "I think it came from the plant," he says; he's lifting the plant back up to his eye level, his head dropping into an exaggerated tilt to peer squintily at it, then holding it out for Nahida to see. "But it doesn't have veins, right, it still has, like, plant... shape. Structure. You took Biology yet?" He asks Nahida this very consideringly, like this kind of thing would surely be in the curriculum. "I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if we have mutant freak plants too." His squint narrows again, and then he is wandering off, back to his computer, taking his shriveled planthusk with him, to do some weird Googling (there's still plenty dangling from the T-rex's teeth, if the girls are still curious.) "Oh. Yeah. I guess I should say 'normal for a Morman.' That is my baseline for judging anything." Abigail frowns a little deeper and takes a step back, making a note to go back to any questions about Nahida's family. "Plants do have veins. They're just - there's no circulatory system like animals have. So it's ... just... creating blood?" She gives a little shiver and watches Roscoe just excuse himself, cringing with his use of the term freak. "That actually is a terrible thought. They just... killed the poor thing, without any consideration. I mean, maybe it wasn't better than a mouse, but..." She turns to look at Nahida once more. "Sorry." "Boya geche, do you -- not -- eat -- food?" Around this school, maybe this is not exactly a rhetorical question, even if Nahida's brows have hiked a little bit up at Abigail's censure. "Swat mosquitos? I think probably here and there some plants have died for us and not even first attacked anyone." Probably better than whatever gondogol would have happened if it got to grow out of hand, yah?" She's glancing down at her phone as it buzzes, and her eyes go a little wide. She hops quickly up out of her seat. "Oh dear I need to be across the planet in a few minutes. Welcome to freak school, yah? It doesn't get less crazy, but it gets less overwhelming." She offers Abigail a quick smile, and then she's slipping off. "Well. I mean!" Abigail stammers a bit, her gaze shifting upward as if looking for help from an outside source. She turns red, too - that blush in her cheeks is the color of blood vessels bursting under several layers of skin. She stands still as Nahida excuses herself and only finds her words after the other teen is gone. "I mean... It could have been growing a consciousness but we won't know now because it's dead. Gah. How hard is it to say words? Now they're going to think I'm a weird hippie." She pauses and exhales. "There are worse things." | |
