ArchivedLogs:Patience

Patience
Dramatis Personae Dynamite, Lyric, Rasa
In Absentia	2014-01-07 '
Location <XS> Rec Room - FL2
School this may be, but life for Xavier's students certainly isn't all studying. Outside classes, this is a popular spot to find students in their downtime. An enormous tribute to slacking off, this room is a wealth of fun and relaxation. Comfortable armchairs, couches, and beanbags offer plentiful seating scattered throughout the room, and the cushioned windowseats by the high windows offer a cozy nook to curl up and look out on the grounds. The room is often filled with the noises of gaming -- whether it comes from the big-screen television (tall racks of DVDs beside it, if nothing can be found on the multitude of cable channels), tricked out with consoles from retro to the latest releases, or the less electronic clatter and thump of the pool table, air hockey, or foosball. For those a little more subdued in their gaming, the cabinets hold stacks and stacks of board and card games, ranging as classic as chess and go to as esoteric as Dixit, Catan, and Gloom. More days than not, there's some variety of snacks to be found on a table beside the gaming cabinet -- quite often in the form of fresh-baked desserts. Dinner is just ending on this severely cold day in January and all of the food is hefty and filling to match. The spices from meaty chilis and various curries prepared for the day still permeate the air, clinging to the clothes of those who recently ate. Rasa wanders in to the Red Room a curious shade of yellow-gray, like a kneaded eraser that ended up getting smooshed onto a highlighter. Hir clothes are double layered, pajamas peeking out from the bottoms of hir sweat pants, a bright blue plaid under thicker gray thermal wear, while the tails of hir pink and yellow top peek from the bottom of hir navy Xavier's sweat shirt. Hir feet are unshod, but are covered in the fuzziest of socks, a magenta color. Hir tail, as ze does have one, slithers out from under the layers, skimming the ground behind hir as ze walks. Hir hands move to pull the weird yellow locks of hair out of hir face and into a pony tail, hir mouth occupied by a bar of chocolate. Ze takes one look around the room then lets out a sigh and heads for the tv, looking for a video game controller. Lyric still /has/ a bowl of dinner with her, a steaming helping of chili ladled over rice. Her first stop in the rec room is the table where /often/ there are Delicious Treats, though -- today only a bowl of fruit and no cookies. Her expression shifts into disappointment and then a quiet /sigh/ as she remembers just where the Producer Of Cookies has gone. She does take a clementine, though, holding bowl in one hand and fruit in the other. She wears long flowery blue-and-white skirt, blue sweater, gauzy white scarf wrapped about her head. She glances around the room briefly, teeth sinking down against her lip as she sights Rasa, slipping over to take a seat on the floor /by/ the couch with a wave once she's set her bowl down. Dynamite is in her usual sort of clothing. She smells much less heavily of chili. In this case, it's because there's so very little of her there. Right now, she drags a rolling backpack with a handle behind her with a gingersnap sitting on top of it. She even signs at Lyric, going in,'What's up?' Then she drags the stuff over to a couch, climbs on top of the backpack, then from there on top of the couch, then drags the backpack up with her. Rasa's hair, once seen, gets a little bit of a 'squeee',"It's so pretty! Oh! What are you looking for? There's, like, three remotes, and a couple of controlly thingies under your tv table." Rasa gives Lyric a small wave as ze continues to look around for the controller. Ze's pretty distracted, so hir first indication that Dynamite is anywhere near by is when she helps her out, pointing out what ze is looking for. Ze gets down on hir hands and knees and fetches the controller out from under the table, then backs hirself back to the couch, looking down at the ground and Dynamite's backpack so ze doesn't sit on her. Once settled though, Rasa turns hir head and stares for a moment, surprising turning hir skin and hair pure white. Ze opens hir mouth to speak, then looks back to the TV before settling in a little more comfortably. "Thanks. Um. Haven't seen you around before. I'm Rasa. That's Lyric." Instead of turning on the xbox, Rasa starts signing as ze speaks. Mmm. Practice. Ze is lousy at it. Lyric just shrugs at the question of what is up, looking down to her bowl of chili in indication. She picks up her spoon,taking a large mouthful, and watches the exchange between the others with a small pensive furrow of brow. 'We met earlier,' she puts down her spoon to sign. Slowly, as has become her habit with a school full of beginning signers. 'D-y-n-a-m-i-t-e. She's new. What were you going to play?' Dynamite even includes her namesign for Rasa's benefit, speaking and signing at the same time, now,"My actual name is Dyna, but she's right. Everyone calls me Dynamite." She reaches out for her gingersnap and begins munching on it noisily, before speaking to hir,"Rasa? Neat." Rasa begins to grow more rosy, pinks and corals flooding into hir milky skin until it shifts quickly past standard human shades into something more like the colors a small child might use to describe embarrassment. Ze is a little flustered as ze smiles and nods a couple times. "Nice to meet you, Dyna." As it is the easier - or at least one of the first few signs taught, ze performs this greeting well enough. "Apologies," 'sorry,' ze continues. "I didn't see you. Got startled." Hir eyes glance toward the game console and considers. "Oh. I don't know. Peter was playing something with hooks and all sorts of crazy zip lines that I wanted to try. Don't know what it's called though." 'I'm not very good,' Lyric admits, with a nod towards the TV. And then a giggle: 'Aren't things with crazy zip lines just /every day/ for Peter?' Her nose crinkles up in amusement as she looks towards the screen, and then towards Rasa. She dips her head for another hungry mouthful of chili. 'Have you seen the twins?' she asks Rasa, a little more uncertainly. 'I was supposed to have tutoring with Bastian for computers but he didn't come.' She fidgets with a small note of discomfort at this topic, but adds more comfortably: '... I'm not very good at that class.' 'Ditto. Me and computers, I suck at them. I suck at... well... everything, mostly, except for clothes and dolls. Oh, and the theramin. It's stupid-fun.' Dynamite tilts her head to watch the colors on Rasa change, and then asks one of her silliest questions to date,"Nice to meet you. Do the colors mean anything? So who's this Peter?" "Oh." Rasa shifts hir gaze between the two and considers. Ze respells 'theramin' and asks 'what?' before looking to the TV and smile-shrugging. "Peter is a kid in our school," ze starts explaining, spelling out Peter, then mimicking the sign. "Really smart and has great reflexes. He pretty much swings everywhere like Tarzan." Ze exhales and stops speaking along. 'B-science and S-violin with family. Don't know return. You and I study. Do homework together. Yes?' Oooops. Ze used 'married' instead of couple and doesn't notice. 'Theramin?' Lyric also looks confused at this. Her eyes light at the offer of a study partner, though she giggles and corrects Rasa's signing witha quick smile. 'Maybe after you play?' she asks hopefully. There's a quiz tomorrow. She's probably not ready. She gets to her feet, taking her bowl with her. 'I'll eat. Bring computer. You play. Then study?' She looks to Rasa witha pleading press of hands. 'Theramin. Theramin... music thing. You don't touch it to play it.' She clarrifies,"The ONLY instrument you play without touching." Dyna flops back on the couch then, streeeetches out,"I apologize for asking. Anyway, I'm no help with typey stuff, you know? Peter. Is he cute?" Rasa laughs softly and nods, repeating the 'together' without marital complications and nods again. "Okay, I'll play..." Ze draws in a deep breath and presses the button on the controller to turn on the console. Ze waves at Lyric and turns hir attention back toward the now glowing screen. "What? Apologize for asking about what?" It takes hir a moment before ze tears hir attention away from the loading screen and studies Dynamite. "My colors? Oh. Well. Um. I guess. Sorry. It's okay to ask. I just say no when I don't want to talk about it. We - Lyric and I have a quiz tomorrow. I got distracted." Ze erases a slot on the memory and starts up a new game, taking a moment to organize hir thoughts. "Um. Well. I change based on what my brain is processing. When I concentrate and want to do things, it works really well. The rest of the time, I get impressions and colors that come across kind of like a mood ring, but... um, not." Lyric nods approvingly at the signed correction. 'Peter looks like a bug,' she informs Dynamite, 'but kind of a cute bug. Only I think,' she adds this with an uncomfortable fidget, 'that he's a little gay. But it's hard to tell because Shane is dating half the school.' This last explanation looks a little bit confused, but she shrugs it off. And takes her chili to trot out of the room! Probably to return later for Studying. "Oh! That's neat! That could really useful. I have to work hard on not breaking things. I broke a window when I first got here trying to leap onto a counter, so now I climb everywhere. I have a pocket grappling hook." Dyna makes a face,"I got placed with the freshmen. I... kind of slow." She makes a face, then waves as Lyric departs. She notes to Rasa,"Shane is mean... Sebastian is kind of a cutie though." She shrugs helplessly. "Huh?" Rasa glances over at Dyna when the opening sequence starts, hir nose wrinkling up. "Sebastian's a cutie, but his identical twin brother isn't?" Ze chuckles a little and watches the story start to play out on the screen. "Maybe you just prefer a little more flare in the wardrobe. Shane does dress much more... well, snobby, I guess." Hir brows waggle up and down before settling in a look of concentration. The salmon pink color shifts into something of a neutral orange over time, some of the instructions from the screen transferring to the skin of hir hands as ze learns the buttons. "I wouldn't worry about school. I mean, when we get out of here, what's available for us? We might as well learn as much as we can for as long as we can, right?" Ze pauses. "Oh, and a pocket grappling hook sounds amazing. I have intro to circus acrobatics this semester. It's so much fun up on the trapeze." Dynamite makes a face,"I think Sebastian is cute because he's nice and kind to me. Shane called me stupid. I HATE it when people call me stupid." Dyna reclaims her gingersnap and bites a small piece out of it,"I... I want to learn. I just can't. You know dyslexia? Slow index processing? I have them both, bad. I worry about school ALL the time. And then I end up putting things off, and it's just... Eh. Nevermind. Wanna see?" Indeed, what she pulls out of her pocket is a tiny, long pronged grappling hook, fit for her pocket, and then pulls another item from a different pocket on the dress' side,"Braided kevlar rope. That way I don't snap it too frequently." "I didn't say you didn't want to learn, Dyna. I just... well, I meant that there's no rush. Take the time you need to get what you can." Rasa pauses the game to look over at the rope and hook that Dynamite produces, a single eyebrow rising as ze examines it. "So, do you break stuff often? Oh, and you can't let Shane get to you. He's going through some pretty rough shit right now. And pretty much always. But he's a good guy and he's a good friend, once you get used to the way his words bite." Ze wets hir lips and turns back to hir game unpausing and starting to sail through the tutorial. "Words hurt. A lot. Everyone called me stupid, before. It's what... triggered everything." She makes a face, but otherwise, Dyna just tucks her tools away,"I used to break more. I'm breaking stuff less and less. Last thing was the door of my mom's car. My leverage is all messed up. Yeah. That's the word." Clearly, Shane IS getting to her. "It doesn't matter. I keep reminding myself I gotta be patient. I'm not good at that." "Being patient is super frustrating," Rasa admits. "But I figure if you don't learn it with the small stuff, the universe will find a way to teach you patience that'll hurt a lot more." Ze exhales as ze shifts hir weight, pulling hir tail out from underneath hir and finding another way to sit, one that doesn't put pressure on hir tailbone. "So, tell me about this instrument thing. Theramine? What does it sound like?" "It feels like a lot of exercising while never getting to rest. I feel like I got lucky though. I got tiny, but I actually like how I look now better than I did before." Dyna straightens up,"Theramin? It's... the best way I can describe it is the thing that makes all those space alien and weird science sounds." She suddenly bursts out with the question,"Are you a boy or a girl?" "Oh, God. What?" Rasa's video game person looses hold of his zip line and falls off into forever. As the game resets, ze lets out a little groan and tears hir eyes away. "What are you? You got a penis under your clothes or not?" "Genetically? Male. But no penis no. I'm a girl. I have your name. But I don't know what your prono-thingies are. Someone told me I'm supposed to ask rather than assume. In counseling. You're pretty, but I'm not sure that counts." Oddly, Dyna doesn't seem particularly offended by the question, oddly enough. "Eh." Rasa replies, trying to get hir character up and running again, hir lips pressed into a fine line, hir skin darkening into a metallic shade of bronze. "Yeah, it's polite to ask someone what pronouns they prefer, but there's so much more than just 'boy' and 'girl.'" Ze relaxes a little when Dyna starts explaining her physical make up. "Besides, most people just seem to want to know if I have a dick. Sorry." Ze presses pause and gathers hir thoughts once more before admitting. "Neither. Not boy or girl. If you want to refer to me how I prefer, it's 'hir' instead of his or her, and 'ze' instead of he or she. I'm in the boys dorm this term. I don't know. I might change later. It mostly depends on whether or not B and Shane want to room together again." Dynamite nods slowly,"Well, if you want a free room, I've got spare room and then some. I don't know what to do with most of it. I don't have many full-size things. My parents have them commissioned in smaller sizes." She makes a face though, and chirps,"Dick is a rude word." Riiight. "I'll try to remember what to call you. You'll correct me if I get it wrong?" "I say lots of rude words." Rasa replies, reaching up a hand to itch at hir nose. Then ze turns off the game and sighs. "Play, she says. Got a quiz tomorrow, but relaaax. Sure, Lyric. I can't focus on this thing." Ze leans forward to put the controller down and stand up, stretching. "I appreciate the offer, but right now, I'm good. I merely meant if B moves out, then I'll think about it. Anyway. I gotta go study for that quiz. I'll see you around?" Dynamite nods emphatically at Rasa, then hops up on the couch arm and holds out a hand, leaning way over the open space. It's obviously too small to actually shake, but she's offering anyway,"Go have fun, okay! I'm apologize if I distracted you from your videogames!" Rasa offers a finger to shake Dynamite's hand before moving away carefully and then running to catch up with Lyric.