ArchivedLogs:Two mutants in Paris

Two mutants in Paris
Dramatis Personae Kurt, Aloke
In Absentia	2013-05-13 Kurt welcomes the new faculty to campus. Aloke reciprocates.
Location <XS> Art Room - FL2
Smells of paints and chalks and turpentine mingle freely in this room, well-used, well-stocked. Natural light flows in, plentiful through the large windows. The long counter-like tables are speckled with spots of color, and half finished projects often stand on easels or propped in corners. The many cupboards lining the walls are crammed full of art supplies. The art room looks pretty much like it usually does, though a few things have been moved around. Puttering about is Aloke Suresh, the newest addition to the faculty, and recent author of the note slipped under Kurt's door this afternoon. He's setting a fresh charcoal drawing of the mansion's lakeside against the wall, and rearranging some paints which clearly don't need to rearranged. Is the fancy NYU professor actually /nervous/ about starting here? Could be... Enter the fuzzy elf. Kurt pokes his head in first, although it's easy to see the flickering edge of his tail as it comes into and out of view--it never really stops moving, that tail, never stops offering more insight into Kurt's state of mind than he most likely appreciates. "Hallo, Herr...Suresh?" He calls, his accent just as obvious as the rest of him. "I have gotten your note..." "Oh, Mr. Wagner!" Aloke turns, smiling, and actually pronouncing the 'W' like a 'V'. How cultured! His rearranging is slightly bobbled, but he sets everything to sit still and walks across the room. There is a brief pause as he adjusts and takes in what he must have heard about Kurt, and reconciles it with his realtime opinion of things. He steps forward to close the last of the distance, and offers his hand. "Thanks for coming, I know you must be busy." The pronunciation of his last name seems to encourage Kurt. His tail takes a bit of an uptick in motion, and he steps into the room so that he can shake Aloke's hand. It's a bit awkward, of course, because Kurt doesn't have the right number of fingers, but he does his best. "Hallo! Just Kurt is fine, really. Welcome to Xavier's. I am not too busy to make new friends. What can I do for you?" He seems to be the kind of man who bulls right past any discomfort people might have with his unique appearance via aggressive cheerfulness. Aloke's smile is genuine when he says, "And call me 'Aloke', please." The relatively dim light of the room makes it easy to see the orangey-amber light which seems to originate from behind the man's eyes. He probably had to wear sunglasses out in the 'real world'. Hardly much of an inconvenience compared to what Kurt must experience, of course, but there it is. "I ran into one of your students, today. Faelan was practicing by the lake, sending rocks, and twigs. That sort of thing. I was glad to hear he had a mentor like you at the school, and honestly, I've been hoping to meet you since I moved in. Other people will think you and I move around in similar ways, and I - " Aloke glances down and back up again. "Well actually, I'm just babbling. I'm sorry. I've been 'passing' for 20 years, and I'm not used to being able to talk so openly about these things..." Aloke trails off, at loss for how to continue. "Ah, yes, Faelan! I hope he is making progress, I know he has been frustrated with his issues with targeting lately." Kurt smiles himself, eyebrows lifting. "Ja, I can understand a thing or two about getting used to hiding. It took me a week to move around the campus without a very long coat and a hat. I felt very naked at the time--although I wasn't, I assure you, I'm not /that/ kind of elf." Whatever kind of elf that means. "But I have read your file, you also do some sort of teleportation? But I understand without the great, big, stinky cloud and the loud noises. Which must be convenient!" When he laughs, it becomes obvious he has /fangs/ as well as all of the /rest/ of his very many physical differences. Aloke swallows and covers his recovering discomfort at the display of fangs with his own laugh. He's new here, and certainly doesn't want to offend his new potential friend, or hurt his feelings. "Yes, apparently what I do /looks/ like teleportation to other people. I'm actually fascinated to be able to have others study the phenomena now that I'm here. But actually," A flash of white light about as bright as a camera flash and Aloke is on the far side of the room. "I become a beam of light," Another flash as he's back next to Kurt. "And cross the distance. Just... very quickly. And not through walls, of course, which might pay for itself with any noise or scent." He grins, openly pleased on so many levels. The ability to discuss mutation, the possibility of a new friend in a strange place, and maybe even just being in a friendly place. Kurt is probably very used to people not being comfortable with the way he looks. There's something vaguely sinister about his appearance and the way shadows tend to cling to him, when he isn't laughing. Fortunately he does smile and laugh often. "Oh! Oh that is marvelous, far less smelly than how I do it. I prefer not to go through walls either; I can technically teleport to anywhere in range which I have a good mental image of, but I prefer to go line-of-sight. You never know when your mental image may be incorrect and you materalize inside of something. I do not think I wish to find out what happens when there is a chair in the middle of my leg. Oh, I have many questions, how does it feel, to become light? Do you still feel sensations? Can you steer, or must you decide where you are going first?" The more questions he asks, the more Kurt's tail picks up the same angle and momentum a curious cat's might have. Aloke's eyes brighten and he seems eager to discuss all of this. Suddenly he seems to realizes they're just standing around in the doorway. "Interesting questions... I've never had to describe it before." He rubs at his chin and says, "Won't you come in and sit? I had some hot water on for tea, if you want some?" He points, and indeed, one of those cheap element-in hot water pots is plugged in over by the paints, near a small box of tea bags and heavy paper cups. It looks like all he has is Assam. A traditionalist, perhaps? "I can definitely steer, and I can even go quite high, although I haven't tested that very far. It's terrifying really. But... what does it /feel/ like to become light... I've never had to put it into words before." He trails off, leaving the sitting area to pour either one or two cups of tea, depending. "Tea would be lovely, danke schoen." Kurt accepts Aloke's offer just as cheerfully as he seems to do anything else, stepping in through the doorway and into the art room. The elf is only slightly more choosey about where he sits, if he can afford to be, looking for a chair that either has no back or has enough space for him to let his tail hang out the back rather than end up trapped between his back and the chair itself. Not that the tail seems to need much minding from the elf, for all that it seems to have a mind of its own when it comes to expressing his emotions, it never comes in any danger of knocking anything over. "I can be most patient, I find it fascinating. I find it much easier to understand teleportation or things very like it than other mutations, perhaps because it is what I do? I do not know. Can you also control the speed and direction you are going when you reform, or must you conserve your original momentum? Can you take passengers?" Aloke is deep in thought, considering all of the questions as he pours the tea, and carries the steaming cups over to an artist's stool near Kurt's tail-safe chair. The Assam smells spicy and exotic, and Aloke doesn't think to offer milk or sugar. "I'll answer the easy ones first - I can emerge - hm, yes, I guess that's the right word - I can emerge facing the direction I mean to, but any momentum I had before shifting is lost. I've never /tried/ to carry a passenger, but I /have/ taken a big suitcase with me. I'm assuming it's anything I can pick up? Again, I'm eager to test the limits with the staff here. But what does it feel like... ?" Aloke sighs, looking like someone who has to explain bliss to someone who's never known a nice day in their life. "Every ounce of my mass flutters away in a cloud of sparking light." He laughs suddenly, breaking his reverie, remembering something. "It was terrifying the first few times! I was twelve, and I was craning to see into the girl's apartment across the street from us. We'd grown up across from each other for years and she had really outpaced me..." He clears his throat meaningfully and sips at his tea. "Anyway, lecherous twelve-year old Aloke is trying to catch of glimpse of her bedroom, and suddenly I'm /in/ her bedroom. Cue the running and screaming - for /both of us!" Aloke loses the thread of his story, laughing out loud. Kurt accepts the tea with both hands, carefully, and then brings his tail around to help secure his grip on the mug more surely. It's obvious even in that motion that he's got more fine dexterity with it than he does with his big fingers. He listens to Aloke very intently, his featureless eyes still somehow full of delight. Kurt Wagner very clearly likes story time. He laughs at the retelling of the travails of twelve-year-old Aloke. "Oh, it was not nearly so interesting for me, when my mutation activated. I teleported myself out of the back of the trailer into the mud in the middle of the night. Luckily we were at the end of the caravan that time or I would have been run over flat, I think. I would have much prefered a daring escape from a beautiful maiden's boudoir!" Sighing, and wiping at tears in the corners of his eyes, Aloke nods. "In the end, it wasn't such a bad thing. They thought I must have climbed up the fire escape, and it all blew over. Wow. I haven't thought about that in /years/. Thank you for that, Kurt." He grips Kurt's shoulder briefly and then sips at his tea. "And yeah, I think it beats a lot of possible alternatives. The second time I flashed myself into the night sky out of my parents' car. I fell a long way before I got enough control to flash back down to the ground." He shakes his head ruefully, remembering. "Mutations can be a tricky thing." Kurt says amusedly over the lip of his mug of tea, before he takes a delicate sip from it. If the strength of the tea bothers him, he doesn't let it show on his face. "Luckily for my mother, she was a bit prepared that I might do extraordinary things later in life. I was born with this very charming face, you see, and the equally as charming tail and bendiness. So when it came to light that also sometimes I disappear and reappear in a cloud of smoke, she was not very shocked. Only I was not allowed to do it in the wagon, the smell of sulfur was overwhelming in such a small place. Have you met Sophie yet? She is a student here." Listening closely to Kurt's story of his youth, Aloke blinks and seems derailed by Kurt's apparently non-sequitor question about Sophie. He recovers after a brief pause sipping at his tea and says, "No, I haven't met her yet. Is she an art student?" "I honestly do not know." Kurt's eyebrows lift a little, as if he's admitting a dark secret. "I have been...you know, German language, and Fencing, nothing to do with art. I lack the particular finesse for arts and crafts." Nightcrawler detaches one hand from his cup to wiggle its two fingers at Aloke amicably. His tail keeps a good grip on the tea in the mean time. "But ... she has been having a bit of trouble with her power lately. She came to me for help because she is my advisee, but her power...she projects her consciousness to the astral plane. It is not like teleportation at all and I struggle on occasion to figure out what her powers are /like/ enough to give her advice. I thought perhaps converting oneself into pure light might be at least as similar. If you have been "hiding" for twenty years you must have a reasonable handle on not using your powers unconsciously, maybe you could give her some pointers." Aloke nods, considering the dilemma. "That is fascinating... But of course, I'd be more than happy to talk with her. I was lucky enough to get a handle on things early enough, and started wearing sunglasses as much as possible. Maybe that's where I'll be most helpful around here - giving out passing grades in 'passing'." He grins and sips at his tea, and then Kurt's bobbing tail gets his attention. He has something to say, stops himself, and then just bulls ahead. "Lack the finesse... but I wonder - have you just been using the wrong tool for the job? If I tried to paint right-handed..." Aloke makes a face. Apparently the results would not be good. "Your grip there... you haven't spilled a drop. Do you think you could hold a pen, or a brush?" Kurt blinks, once, and follows Aloke's line of gaze to his tail. True to the other mutant's observations, Kurt /hasn't/ spilled a drop of his tea. The mug hasn't even so much as wobbled, at least not any more than it would have in someone's hand, not even when the elf removes both of his hands carefully from the mug. "You know, I have never tried. Always I have used my tail for things such as this, there are many things designed for hands such as yours, where my fingers will not fit and so my tail has to compensate for me. I can fence with it as well as I can fence with either hand. But people tend to stare at you even funnier if you try to sign for packages with your tail than with your hand, so I have always written with my hands. Pens I handle well enough, it is mostly picking up very small things that is my biggest issue. To tell you the truth, part of it is also I have never really expressed my artistic side in such a fashion. I have a great respect for artists of that nature, mind you, but I grew up in a circus...to be truely happy, I must be moving more than simply my fingers or the tip of my tail. Stillness does not come naturally to me." There he gives a little laugh. Aloke listens attentively, before finally nodding. It's true, it's not for everyone. And I know I'd be hopeless trying to express myself through dance or singing. Oh god... not singing." Aloke laughs. "But if you ever want to try it, I promise not to tell the students. Unless you turn out to be brilliant, of course." Aloke winks and sips at his tea. "I'm glad you stopped by, Kurt. I haven't met many people here yet. I think we'll get along well, you and me." It's not the sort of 'thanks for stopping by, too bad you're leaving' comment, either. Just a moment of genuine appreciation. Sometimes those are awkward. Aloke plays it pretty natural. "I am only a good singer when I am very drunk and singing in German." Kurt agrees, laughing quietly still. He has a natural, easy laugh that reaches his eyes quickly and stays there. "Perhaps one day I will give it a try. And then perhaps I will persuade you into the gym and you can pretend you are a great trapeze artist, ja? Mein Freund, I am brilliant always, I may simply also be very poor at painting." His teeth show again when he smiles, but there's truly no malice at all in the gesture. "I am glad I stopped by also! And that you have come to the school, I too believe we can become the most famous of friends. I should ask, what made you decide for the change of pace? Tired of hiding, or was the decision rather made for you?" "Oh /god/ was I tired of hiding! There are finally things about mutants in the news now, but I spent most of my life thinking I was alone." Aloke finishes off the rest of his tea and makes a gesture that seems to indicate refilling one cup is as easy as two, if Kurt were interested in a refill, that is. "It's just nice to finally not be living behind a facade." He sighs, mid-refill. "I know. Obviously it was relatively simple for me to pass. I'm sorry, that was insensitive of me. How much can I complain, right?" He returns and sits with his tea. "But all the same, it was tense, all the time. Some people figured they understood, or assumed I was gay because I was always single - which, by the way, certainly wouldn't need to be a big secret in the art department at NYU." He chuckles and shrugs. "But it was that thin veneer of a lie, all the time, just on the surface of everything I did. The stress added up over time. And I'm glad to be here. But please don't think I compare what I went through to anything you must have had to deal with. I know its not the same." He smiles his best attempt at an empathetic smile, even knowing he couldn't possibly know Kurt's experience. And Kurt...Kurt just laughs. He has to take the mug from his tail with both hands so that he can let said tail flick behind him, back and forth, in a gesture that is clearly an expression of amusement. "Let me tell you something, mein Freund, and put your mind at ease. I grew up in a traveling circus that roamed all over Europe but spent the worst of the winter in Munich. We were of many races, cultures, levels of freakishness, if you wish to call it that. It was a word some of us embraced, I think, 'freak', something like 'queer' has become a word a large part of that community has embraced and reclaimed for their own. Anyway, most of us were Sinti, Roma people of German descent. There are not many of us left, not after the Third Reich was done with us." The elf sips at his tea, thoughtfully, for just a moment. "But..the circus was a joy. They are my family, and they never treated me poorly. Perhaps I was a bit stranger than most, with my fur and my tail, but they understood what it meant to be judged by the rest of the world just because I was formed as the Lord saw fit to form me. They did not pester me, except to have me climb up very tall things to fetch items they could not get, sometimes. We had our sideshow but it was all volunteers, and I did not perform there. I was an acrobat. The star of the Munich circus, even as a boy. My childhood was happy, I did not suffer much...at least not until I got it into my fool head to leave my home to try my luck elsewhere. I found not every Ringmaster was as understanding as the one I had always known. Still, this is not my point." He lifts one hand now to make an almost dismissive, casting-away motion. "You must not apologize for your experiences, your thoughts or feelings. I cannot understand the tension in such a life, in thinking you are getting away with something but never knowing if you have been caught out. There is no 'getting away' for me. In a way, this is easier. I am what I am, I cannot even hide it so I need not waste so much energy putting up a false face. Things like this, they tear at people on the inside. I have been fortunate, I am...relatively untattered." Aloke's smile is pure gratitude. Grateful to be understood, to be allowed his awkward stumblings, and to be met with empathy from someone so different. Or perhaps the two men were not so different, really. "That's kind of you. Thank you for sharing that." Aloke looks into the black depth of his tea a moment before taking another sip. And without any more than a beat, he asks, "How much do you weigh, Kurt?" "Think nothing of it." The elf demures with an expression of amusement. Of course, the amusement seems to fade into something more like confusion, and Kurt looks down at himself. "Uhm. I have not weighed myself all /that/ recently. About sixty-nine, seventy kilos? Ach, sorry, you Americans and your strange measurements...a little over a hundred and fifty pounds. Why do you ask?" A twinkle in Aloke's eye precedes a blurring of his form as he becomes very bright for a moment, and then refocuses himself, no longer emitting light, except as normal from his eyes. "My old suitcase was at least 60, maybe 70 pounds. I carried that in one hand. It was a struggle, but I carried it, and it came with me." Aloke eyes the other man, and glances back toward the windows he had left slightly ajar to air out the classroom. "Maybe piggy-back..." he says, almost under his breath, still looking at the window. Then he turns back around. "It's early morning in Paris, you know. The best bakeries are just now opening. Fancy a pastry?" Kurt's eyebrows make a desperate gambit to make a new home in his hair. His whole body goes still, a combination of eagerness, curiosity, and trepidation. "Are...are you certain? I cannot teleport nearly so far, and I really would rather not leave almost a hundred pounds of myself behind in the art room. Imagine how messy this would be for whatever poor person found that..." The elf actually shudders, there, his fur sticking up along his 'hackles' and the line of his spine. Not that this is obvious except over his tail. Aloke nods thoughtfully, reining in his initial recklessness, but not fully dissuaded. "A fair point, but yes, I think it could work. Hang on though. Let me find something I can't pick up..." He glances around the room and finally notices the cabinet full of modeling clay. It's mobile, as in it's on wheels, but it must weigh hundreds of pounds. Aloke walks around it thoughtfully, and finally sets his cup down. Before he can be talked out of it, he squats down in the position someone would take if they were trying to lift the whole stupid cabinet. Someone like Beast, maybe. He strains against it, and lines of bright light erupt all around him, before he finally vanishes in a flash, leaving the whole cabinet behind. In another flash he reappears in the room, nodding happily. "There you go. If its too much, it's all left behind! I never knew that before." He grins, triumphantly. "So what do you say? I'm hungry." Setting his mug aside entirely now, Kurt shifts his weight around so that he can perch on the chair, his feet on the seat and one hand gripping its edge. His expression is intense and very interested when Aloke conducts his little experiment, tail sweeping back and forth behind him in a radius that's almost becoming dangerous, it's so big. His eyes redirect to Aloke when the experiment is complete, and he grins. "Brilliant! Literally, I should say, that is very good to know. I..." He wants to. /Oh/ does Kurt want to, this is clear on his face. He thinks about it, looking at Aloke with his mouth pressed into a line. He looks down at his hands. "Give me...give me /one moment/." He says eventually, holding one finger up as if his new friend does nto understand what 'one' means. Then he simply vanishes, in a thunderclap of collapsing air--BAMF!--and the leftover scent of brimstone. Kurt reappears in more or less the same place, a few inches off of the chair. Now, he is dressed in a long frock coat, and somewhere he has found /shoes/ for his strange feet. He has a pair of reflective sunglasses and a fedora that helps mash his hair down over the tips of his ears. It isn't perfect, but it does a lot to hide his strange appearance from at least casual observation, especially with his tail tucked up under the jacket. "Here. Now I am ready as I will ever be. Will it hurt, do you think?" "Hurt?" Aloke wonders. He had observed Kurts going and return with a similar sort of glee, fascinated by the process. So much to learn! "I wouldn't think so, but then, I'm the only person I've ever done this with, and I think it feels fantastic. But the good news - we'll be there in less than a second, if there is any discomfort. Its sort of hard to explain, but time is weird, when I do it. It seems to stop, and I can make the trip /feel/ slow or fast. Also, I don't breathe when I'm traveling, because I don't need to." Aloke stands, considering everything for a moment. "I've got an idea. Lets try it to the lake and back, and see how it goes? I really don't want to injure you." "I would rather not be injured either!" Kurt assures Aloke, looking only vaguely nervous about the entire affair. "You say I must be carried. I can handle this part, if you do not feel it is too invasive, I am very clingy. I think a test run is a very good idea. That way I am still close to the Mansion and Herr Doktor McCoy if this turns out to be a transporter accident like in Star Trek." There is another brief shudder there, with lifted ur, as Kurt thinks of /that/ particular mental image. Of course, if Aloke agrees, he bamfs again, from the chair to just above Aloke. The sound is loud, but not unbearable--much like the scent of sulfur is strong but not overwhelming. Kurt drops less than an inch to Aloke's shoulders, and true to claim /clings/ there. It's a bit awkward-looking, all in all, but the elf's balance is downright impeccable, easily compensating for any lack-of-balance Aloke might be feeling. One gets the impression Kurt could stay on top of a fitness ball made of flubber falling down an avalanche. Aloke nods, and stumbles a little more from his reaction to the noise than the added weight, but then, he's also no Atlas. But either way, even skinny artist-types go piggy-back from time-to-time. "Ok, so, just don't try to breathe. I'll make this trip as fast as I'm capable." The silly looking pair are surrounded in a nimbus of light, and Aloke can easily be felt tensing under the effort, but in no time at all, the transformation begins. Aloke converts himself and his passenger, molecule by molecule, into the particles and waves of a beam of coherent light. The beam streaks out through the gap in the windows, across the lawns, and out to the lake. The whole trip takes less than a fraction of a second of course, yet the two are able to perceive so much as the world around them seems to be frozen in time. A surprised looking bat suspended mid-air, the frozen ripples of the lake, even fireflies caught mid-blink, all flick by faster than imagination, and yet crawl by slow enough to be inspected in great detail. Aloke's flight zigzags across the lawn some, but the two wind up back in the art room, taking form in an instant that could have lasted for an hour, reassembling moment by moment, but the clock on the wall says no time passed at all. Aloke gasps, and then lets out a triumphant whoop! Poor Aloke. The acrobat elf is practically a stranger, but he's clinging to Aloke's back, both arms extended to brace against the light-based mutant's chest. He's been holding his breath as instructed, for what /feels/ like hours but also like no time at all. His eyes are open wide and his tail, when it rematerializes counterbalancing his arms, is an enormous bottle-brush fruff of fur. For a few seconds he /remains/ utterly still, only moving as he has to to adjust his balance, before suddenly he's laughing, trying not to grab at Aloke's shirt too much. "Un/glaubich/, that was...that was fantastich, amazing, I have never seen..." Here is Kurt Wagner, so overwhelmed he's at a loss for words. Suffice to say, it probably did not /hurt/ him, given his reaction. Aloke just stands there, grinning like an idiot for a full thirty seconds. "We did it... we did it!" He woops again, and offers Kurt a high 5 for which Aloke would technically be owed change, but it doesn't seem to occur to him. Then he's grabbing his wallet off the counter and stuffing it in his pocket. "Well, I know this little place right by the river. I..." Aloke blushes a little, "I actually travel quite a bit, depending on my moods." He shrugs and follows up with, "All aboard!" And the two vanish into the Westchester night with hardly more than a slight flash. A few minutes after they leave, the motion detectors in the art room, detecting no motion, silently turn out the lights.