ArchivedLogs:Parley and the Spider

Parley and the Spider
Dramatis Personae Parley, Peter
In Absentia	2013-03-31 Parley discusses Peter shennanigans.
Location <XS> Forest
Quiet and shady, the trees rise all around here high and thick. In stillness, woodland creatures make appearances, though sudden noises scare them back into the cover. Dappled sunlight filters down between the thick foliage, and the ground underfoot is heavily overgrown, though here and there paths have been worn, by deer or years of students wandering familiar trails. Along the well-worn path that leads deep into the heart of the woods that surround Xavier's, there is an occasional -- and rather unusual -- sound. It's scarcely audible above the constant chatter of birds and insects -- easily enough mistaken for the sound of a scurrying rodent, except for its strange /consistency/ coupled with its steady, staccato beat: THWP. THWP. THWP. Anyone investigating this noise by wandering from the path -- and plunging a bit further into the woods -- may be greeted by an unusual sight. Long lengths of greyish 'string' dangling from the trees, like so much discarded silly string -- except wispier, more organic -- like strands from discarded caterpillar coccoons. They dangle from dozens of branches, some of them coming so close to the ground they nearly touch. And then, there's another -- THWP! -- followed by the unusual sound of sneakers scuffing bark. Peter Parker is landing upon a particular thick tree branch, having just swung to it along one of those silky strands; he is somewhere around 25 yards off the ground, perched like a mad little frog -- hands grasping the sturdy timber, knees thrust out, torso bent and crouched. He is clad in a black hoodie (the hood is up and tightly tied), blue jeans, sneakers, and a tightly bound nylon backpack -- also black. The visits have grown less frequent, subject to the inevitable fray of time and diverging paths. It's been a while, since Parley has visited any of the school-bound fellow refugees - long enough that news has come and news has gone, leaving these newest students restless, worried, curious, frustrated; all wanting to know about the Oscorp gala, the Oscorp /assault/, the nature of a certain opinion piece that left some frowning from hard, to harder. But news is news. And breathless, they'd pressed in, and dutifully, Parley had accounted and maybe there was little great joy for the visit so much as a prolonged armistice. He's branched off since; toured the lake, pausing with hands in pockets and a lazy wind tugging and hoisting his gray flannel and hair and then dropping it again at long intervals. A path leads on, and he places one foot before the other to conform to its course. Sunlight trail shatters into dappled shadows and with a cant of his head, a pausing of his feet, a curious rhythmic sound coaxing him on. Eventually, as easily as he devoted himself to this steady trail, he abandons it without a backward glance. Swelling open his mind like a lung opening to fill with air, his presence in turn washes out like a sigh and equalizes with his environs. It takes some looking, even with the scuff of sneakers, to notice the shape of the young man far above. His mouth opens - /heights/, even after all these weeks, the concept of /heights/ is something novel and exotic. Quietly, he crosses his arms and leans a hip against a tree far below. And for a moment, just... watches, eyes slitted through the broken light through the branches. And then the teenager -- his face still hidden beneath that tightly *pulled* hoodie, fiercely tied until nothing but a narrow aperture is left to peer out of -- lifts one of his hands toward a distant tree-top. Around his wrist, secured by a strap of leather, is an unusually large, crudely fashioned wrist-watch -- soldered together from spare parts and various nick-nacks. Extending from it is a barely-visible strip of skin-colored wiring, wrapped in latex with two contact points neatly 'taped' to the center of his palm; the teen's ring-finger and middle-finger now descend, lightly 'tapping' the points twice. And then... THWP. The strand spits out, connecting to a distant tree top with a tiny little *BLP*. And then... FWOOSH. He's leaping, /swinging/ like a mad Tarzan, from one tree branch to the other -- landing on a tree branch only 5 yards from the ground. Except this time, as he lands, the branch makes a rather dubious creaking sound -- timber splintering. The boy manages a mumbled curse before jumping off the branch and hitting the ground -- knees bending, rolling down into a crouch. A second later and he's getting up, brushing off his jeans, like nothing ever happened. Well, this /is/ Xavier's. It's not that there is /no/ sound; a body passing over leaf litter will rustle some, even with a subtle grasp of inherent balance. But Parley's noise has a way of dismissing itself, falling off to the side of most awareness. Positioning himself a few yards behind Peter, he may have always been there, arms crossed and head tipped down: "That's remarkable." Peter Parker proceeds to jump 30 feet into the air. Straight up. The only sound he makes while doing this is a breathless little squeal; that, and the soft, abrasive *SMACK* of palms hitting bark as he seizes hold of the branch over him and *hurls* himself atop of it, staring down at Parley with eyes so big they seem ready to pop out of the tiny hole his hoodie affords him. "WHAT. WHO. HOW. What-- ?!" Panic, raw and unfettered; it instantly vanishes as Peter gets ahold of himself. "You totally snuck up on me," he says, his voice just a /bit/ meek; the way he says it -- he's not offended, just confused. Being snuck up on isn't something Peter's accustom to. Pwuff. Parley's /face/ locks into a rictus dead-ahead stare. His fur is far less composed - it jumps at the same time Peter does, fluffing out into /spikes/ with his shoulders bound up around his neck. Slow blink. "Ah-." His eyes rotate upward, and he reaches behind his neck reflexively to level the bristled grain, "-Sorry. I'm quiet." He doesn't seem entirely aware he's speaking, his attention scanning over the teenager with overt, puzzled curiosity. "Do you do this every day?" Some thought is also present; a weight like a stone behind his eyes. Thinking. "What? Yes. No. Yes. Sometimes," Peter finishes; his tone indicates confusion -- some attempt at subterfuge -- but the end result is that he tells the truth. His thoughts are frazzled -- he doesn't recognize Parley. And he's been /trying/ not to expose his 'identity' to everyone he meets. But then -- suddenly -- he slides off the branch, letting himself tumble head-first. There's another THWP; now, Peter is dangling in front of Parley, upside down -- ankles crossed over the thread, clutching it in both fists. "Who are you?" Parley's hands partways jump forward to /catch/ Peter before he realizes he is not, in fact, falling. He folds them back against his chest, crammed under his armpits with expression remaining kind of tense-fixed alert, if toying thoughtful. He uproots one foot to slip forward, circling beneath the teenager to consider him from many sides, "I'm Parley. I'm -- a friend of some of the new students that arrived this term." Reserved in saying, but he allows the pause in his narrative flow intentionally. There rather /is/ a sudden, large group of new students this quarter, after all. "I stop in, sometimes, to visit. You are?" Peter attempts to rotate so as to keep his eyes on Parley -- but the fact of the matter is, he has no idea how to make himself spin while dangling from a tree brach like this. So what's supposed to be a tense stare-off ends up being just a lot of wriggling from Peter's end, followed by a somewhat chaotic swaying. He eventually gives up. At the mention of the new students -- Peter tenses, briefly, head twisting 'round to do what his body can't manage -- to face Parley. "You're -- oh, were you -- with /them/?" he asks, before adding: "The ones who... got free?" Tinier, now. Cautious. Prodding to see if Parley knows what he's talking about. "I'm -- uh, just a student," Peter says, somewhat defensively. He waffles on which identity to give, then decides: "Peter." When behind him, Parley isn't looking at Peter, but the thin thread that /suspends/ him. The corners of his eyes pinch into a slight thinning of gaze, a moment of deep silence filled by Peter talking. When he is within sight again, he's only looking curiously at the teen's face again. At least, until the question is asked, and he looks away to stare long at the crosshatched view of branches and green of the woods, "...yes." He then looks back, smiling tightly, "Though I'd rather not define myself by it." Very nearly a censure, but not hard, and the smile wanes. "'Just a student.' Mmh. I don't think there are many things here that are 'just' anything. How long have you been attending here? Are you enjoying your studies?" Conversing with a young man hanging upside down? This seems to be a feat he's simply decided to /accept/, in a great big mental 'Very Well' to the universe. "I--" Twitchy eyes regard Parley with care. "--just a few months. And yeah." Peter begins to sway; it's subtle, but noticeable -- the branch above him produces a reluctant creak, in time to the steady sweep of his motions. And then: "I'm not -- supposed to be doing this," he confesses; one hand releases to gesture to the silver line he's dangling from. While the gesture is meant to be frivolous, it's hard to miss that, for a moment, Peter's holding himself upright (well, downright) with only /one/ hand. The kid's either very light, or /unusually/ strong. "I mean, I'm supposed to only be doing it -- indoors. Under supervision. You won't, uh..." "No," Parley closes his eyes, smiling privately, gently. "I won't. It's not my business." He settles down then, sitting on the forest floor to rest his back against the trunk of a maple tree. There are delicate spring shoots to run his fingertips over, his eyes opened to set unwavering at the tensile /strength/ that must be in that one hand - and then overtly looks up the length of the line he's suspended from. He is silent for a long moment, then comments frankly, "I've seen thread like that before, recently." "Huh?" Peter looks up at the cord, then back to Parley. "Oh--" And /then/, quite promptly, he releases -- legs swinging over and down as he lands in a crouch. Sneakers whump down on dirt. "--oh, uh, it's just -- a science project is all --" He dances around the corner of the truth, but it's there in his voice, nibbling around the corners: (stolen) (dangerous) (gift from an evil man) Hm. There's coy, and then there's not. Parley ops for the later, stating without theatrics, "--An Oscorp science project, I think?" He withdraws a roll of Rolo caramels from an inner pocket and tears open the top. Already, before Peter even responds, he's holding up a a staying hand, "It debuted at his gala. If it's not public already, it will be." He then pops a Rolo into his mouth, pinning it between his left upper and lower molars. And extends the roll to Peter, like coaxing a bit of wild life closer with promises of /treats/. He must have missed the Do not Feed The Spiders sign. His eyes are harder, a calculated mistrust, "How do you know about us escaping." Peter is not good at these sort of games. Or is he? The rolos are eyed with hesitant suspicion; reluctantly, the boy reaches for one -- plucking it out with quick, agile fingers. He doesn't eat it, not yet -- instead, he seems to chew on Parley's question, instead: "I know -- some of the people involved." That hard look from Parley is enough to prompt Peter to tell more; the boy's almost overeager to placate the suspicions and fears of others: "I gave them, um, some information. About the place." (theft) (looking for someone) (found something else) Inwardly running gears rapidly, Parley watches the remaining gossamer thread drift away on a light breeze after Peter drops from it, coiling and raveling like a silky ribbon of smoke. He chews during this time, and the faint rolling downward-upward motion in his throat marks the point that he swallows. Then his eyes snap to Peter's face, near the end, "-you gave?" He lowers the candy, "As in, you helped them to-?" His gesture off to one side is... reluctant, eyes remaining fixed on Peter's. "Find the place," Peter says, and he seems to want to leave it at that; as if to punctuate this decision, he pops the rolo in his mouth. It makes a clunking sound as he rattles it inside his teeth, tongue swishing and batting it every-which way. But then -- speaking around the rolo -- he continues anyway: "Parley. That's -- is that, like, your birth-name? I mean, I'm just asking because sometimes the people here, they like take on /second/ names or something, like a theme..." Peter's delicately trying to shift the discussion /away/ from his various acts of petty larceny. Although, at the same time, his gaze on Parley is close and scrutinizing; the boy's simultaneously both frivolously scatter-brained yet intensely /focused/. Parley is rapt by this rapid dichotomy, glancing back up along the trees. The type of rapid movement the boy does would /require/ a mind on a hairtrigger, he speculates. Hm. But that canniness... that's just /him/, isn't it. "Mno, Parley is what I go by now. It's more an identity for me than who I was before. My mutation is -- interpretive. I owe you my thanks, then. For my freedom. That's an incredibly clever device on your hands," he holds his hand out, palm cupped patiently, "may I see it?" "Interpretive?" Peter asks. "So, you, like -- interpret things?" As he asks this question -- with almost no thought at all -- Peter's unbuckling the leather wrist-watch on his left hand, palming it over to Parley. It's -- a crudely constructed thing, something clearly hammered out through more brute trial and error than the application of surgical craft; it's been soldered together -- a sort of miniature 'pressure-gun' with two brass cannisters on either side. A stretch of orange-insulated wiring with some adhesive on it protrudes from one end, with two contact points -- delicate little metal 'buttons' -- serving as the activation switch. "Oh -- uh, you have to -- tap it twice, um, be careful," Peter quickly adds, as if only just realizing the potential for mischief. "It's /really/ hard to get off. Also if you only hit one contact point, it'll just -- shoot a glueball." Peter makes no mention at Parley's thanks for his freedom. The boy's mind is flicking through thoughts a mile a minute. Parley does not tap it at all, neither once nor twice. But he does hold it close, studying each component part with open, vibrant interest; his eyes are large, head turned slightly down to consider it beneath his lowered eyelids. "It's remarkable. You made it yourself?" Instant heat hits Peter's cheeks! "I -- I mean, no -- /this/ one, yes, but not the first one -- I had help with the first one. This one I've been trying to -- make my own version, because I wanted to try -- some, uh, variants..." The words carry concepts; the glue-ball -- an assailant being glued to the ground. A pair of children, their wrists glued together, so they can better hold on to someone's neck as they slide down out of a burning building. And then -- just on the /corner/ of Peter's mind -- something green, and horrible, with yellow, gleaming eyes -- its face suddenly *SPLTED*, briefly subdued. Parley does not shiver. He just allows a very slow breath out his nose. And, still turning the clever little device over in his hands, makes a mild, off-hand comment. "He's looking for you." Peter stiffens. His posture alone communicates volumes -- a flood of thoughts, many of them so fast, so furious, so /overwhelming/ that it's nearly impossible to sort through them all at once. Sewers. Blood. Electricity. A cackling giggle. A man in a hosital ward, bringing a gift. He's no longer breathing. But then, he draws in a slow, conscious breath... and watches Parley with extraordinary caution. "He doesn't have to. He knows where I live." "But." Parley doesn't lift his eyes from the device. But he's not rotating it anymore, his face hidden beneath his down-turned brows. "Does he know yet where you go to school?" "I don't... know." Peter chooses his words carefully. "I don't think so. I don't think..." The sentiment trails off, but its flavor lingers; Xavier's -- the students -- an image of some green-faced creature, its jaws hungrily open. "I don't know." Parley extends the device back to Peter, hung off the forward-most digit of his index finger, "I want to make life complicated for Mr. Norman Osborn, Peter. I think you can help me do this." Peter accepts the device; in an instant, agile hands have slipped and buckled it back to his wrist. The boy frowns at Parley's words -- but the frown isn't directed at him. "...how?" "I need you to tell me everything you know," Parley's actions are to dig for a rolo, but the way his thumb circles the narrower truncated top of the next candy in the roll make the gesture something of a redirection of tension. His eyes solemnly meet Peter's, his voice gentle, but firm, self-possessed, "And I need you to tell me who /else/ knows what you know." "Everything I know," Peter repeats the words, his eyebrows meeting at the point just above the bridge of his nose. "And everyone who knows what /I/ know." He takes a slow breath -- and exhales: "I think Norman Osborn might be a monster." Then, he blinks, realizing his error: "I mean, /literally/. A giant, green, nigh-unkillable monster." Caramel delight pauses its trajectory to Parley's mouth, supported by thumb and forefinger. His lips shift, open, close. And he exhales, tucking the candy into the side pouch of his cheek. "I think you should start at the beginning."