ArchivedLogs:Bitter Fruit

Bitter Fruit
Dramatis Personae Kai, Kris
In Absentia	2013-05-26 '
Location <XS> Treehouse
Built by enterprising students of yesteryear, this treehouse has weathered generations of Xaviers' students coming up here to study -- or escape from studying. A cozy retreat, its wood planks are sturdy and well-sanded, fit snug together to keep out draft. Snacks occasionally find their way up here, and the roof keeps the rain off well enough to pass a night -- so long as the teachers don't catch any students at it. For anyone agile enough to make the jump, a lucky leap juuust might carry them from here to the school rooftop, so long as they're careful of the drop... She's got a truly awful singing voice on most days. Usually because it sounds like a man trying to sing like a woman: "-And some days I can't even trust myself. It's killing me to see you this way-" Except, the voice isn't coming up the ladder. Certainly, it's coming up the TREE. Just not the ladder. Indeed, that's the sound of Kris CLIMBING the tree without using the ladder. Doesn't sound as if it's giving her much trouble, either. The reason the voice sounds so close? Probably because Kris just pulled herself onto a branch outside a treehouse window rather than come in the normal way. Right now, she's conservatively dressed in sweatpants, a ponytail, and a black sports bra, rather than a skirt. She peeks her head in. Why? Simply to see if Kai is in there. Apparently the weather doesn't bother her all that much. Kai is indeed inside. Apparently, the weather doesn't bother him, either. He's been pretty much absent from the halls over the weekend, only ghosting through a couple of times a day, usually at mealtimes. In fact, from the looks of the pallet of blankets and pillows, he's been /sleeping/ out here that whole time. Even now, he lies in the nest of wadded blankets, dressed in jeans and a big sweatshirt; a pillow folded in half under his head as he lies on his side, staring blankly at the window. When Kris' face appears, there's no immediate sign of recognition. Just a steady, empty stare. Maybe he's looking THROUGH her. Kris hitches a hand right over the window and swings into the 'nest' now, thumping to a stop on the ground. Her tall, somewhat slender form is puffing by the time she hits the floor. Then she drops to the ground in front of Kai, cross her legs lotus style, and matches his stare with her own wide-eyed one. Not a word. Staring contest time? If it is, challenged ACCEPTED. Kai's blank stare shifts slightly when Kris settles herself, and he regards the girl silently for a long moment. His lips press together lightly, and there's a small adjusting of his thin frame. Then he speaks, and his voice is low and hoarse. Like he hasn't used it in a couple of days. Which he probably hasn't. "Is it Tuesday, yet?" Kris reaches for the water bottle hanging from her waist and hands it over to Kai,"Nearly two more days to go." Pause. "You're waiting for your friends to get back then. You are upset they didn't take you with them." It's barely even a question, really." Pause. "There are better ways to spend your time." Another pause and then she asks,"Kai... When you're with us... does Foom go away, or is he still inside you?" She seems to have SOMETHING turning over in her head at least. "They would not have been able to take me," Kai says sadly, looking at the water bottle for a long moment before he reaches out to take it. "They were going with Mister Jax, and his sons do not like me. And there is Foom to think of." He says these things with a certain weight to the words. Maybe they're what are holding him down in this spot. "But I missed Peter, too." There's a small, shaky inhalation as he turns his head and takes a drink of water. Kris' question gets a curious look, and then Kai slides his eyes closed. "Foom is always listening," he says, recapping the bottle. "And whispering to me." Kris tilts her head slightly,"That does not mean you are not upset that they didn't take you. The truth of one thing does not negate the truth of another just because they clash." She relinquishes the water bottle for the time being, instead offering,"Then perhaps you should write him, draw him a picture, or make him some cookies so that when he comes back, he will know just how much you have missed him." As for Foom... "Please do not think me rude, Kai. These next words are not for you." She bows from her sitting position in a respectful way,"Please forgive my mose uncourteous failure to greet you all this time, Master Foom. It was not my intention to exclude you. Your ways are subtle and incomprehensible to simple folk such as myself." Her people, like many asian cultures, have their own legends about dragons. But then she's addressing Kai again,"Sometimes I feel something whispering to me. I felt it more when I would fight. The more people I ended, the louder it got. Eventually, when I slept, it was almost like they were shouting, moving my hands for me, telling me what to do, and I could do little bit obey. Now... now they always whisper. But they only shout when I sleep sometimes, and sometimes when I am startled. There are many of them, but they still feel lonely. They desire brothers and sisters." Kai sighs shakily again, and nods. "I do wish that I could have gone," he admits. "But it would have been selfish to ask for it. They will be back soon." He nods again, as if this is convincing himself of that fact. Again. When Kris begins addressing Foom, the boy's eyes widen, and he sits up slowly with a look of worry on his face. Yellow light zigs around the edges of his irises while she speaks, and then he blinks slowly. "It is not necessary to greet Foom in such a manner," he says in a mildly horrified voice, pulling blankets over his lap. "He is always listening, but he does not care for the honor of monkeys. He is content to watch, and whisper to me." He listens as she explains, and the yellow zigs around his irises again. "Foom does not move me in such a manner," he says. "He may shout and he may whisper, but this form is mine to control. Just as yours belongs to you." He smiles, then, although it's vague and doesn't reach his eyes. "It does not matter what /they/ whisper," he says. "It only matters what /we/ do. This is a thing which the Professor has told me." Kris raises an eyebrow at Kai,"I did not wish to be rude. But you are my friend, Kai, and I trust your judgement on this matter. I will go back to my normal method of ignoring Foom, then. I do not suspect I would much care to hear anything he would have to say to me. Assuming his communication would bear words rather than teeth and claws is perhaps a faulty assumption." Truth be told, she knows little about Foom. "It is mine to control, yes." She closes eyes in a sort of tired, smiling expression,"I have done many wrong things Kai. The further I move myself from ever doing them again, however, the more troubled I am that I ever did them in the first place. Memories are burdens you cannot put down when you're tired." With a tired expression, she flops back on the ground. "Kai. I feel, sometimes, as if those who held me cheated me of the person I was meant to be. Do you ever feel that way? So many people in this place, they shove freedom and hope at me that I might grasp it, but for the life of me, I have only the vaguest ideas of what to do once I have it. I am already far gone from the future I was born wanting, and further still from the future my parents wanted for me." Kai's smile this time is a little looser, and he shakes his head. "No. You would not care to speak to Foom," he says. "He has only used words with one person, and he does not like that person at all." He shakes his head solemnly. "So I do not think speaking to him would be a very good idea at all." He's quiet a long time after Kris finishes speaking, and he steeples his fingers thoughtfully. "My family's farm was very small," he says at last, his voice low. "And I was the youngest of three sons. If Foom had not come, and I lived, I do not think I would have had very much of a future. Perhaps one of my brothers would have kept me on, but they did not like me." He takes a deep breath. "So I do not know if the future I lost is worth regretting. The path I have traveled has led me to a much better one." He frowns as he thinks about that. "Freedom and hope are hard concepts to consider," he says. "But it is important to remember that they are easy to speak of, when it is those who have never had them stripped away who are talking." Kris chews on her lower lip for a time. "I value many things... Because until I came here, I had gotten used to not having anything. My power was my first possession. Even now as I detest its use, I miss the familiar weight of my machete, the warm feeling of safety when my Mossberg roared. The thready sound of my pulse in my ears as muzzles flashed at me. The kava pounding through my blood. I grew to love those encounters where I was wounded, because it meant a respite from the activity, but even then I would grow to be restless again." "And yet, most days, these are easy things to get over. Here they call me girl, give me dresses and medicines, and take me to doctors of great talent. My biggest worries are whether I will pass math, or if I will go to the dance with someone. And then I remember, and I feel... petty." She stares up at the ceiling, and lifts her legs, kicking them in the air above her in a lazy, idle manner,"Had my future gone differently, I would probably be shorter, more curvy. I would already speak as a girl should, and know how to walk and dress as a girl should, properly instead of having to study that, too. My parents would be alive, and maybe Cebu would've had better politicians for a few seasons." She covers her face suddenly,"But then I would not have met so many new friends and family. My life would have been poorer for not knowing any of you." Kai nods. "I find much value in many things that others do not consider," he says with a small smile. "Because I have also never had anything. But I do not miss the times when Foom is here." He tilts his head thoughtfully. "But it is right that you should miss something that is familiar. But I wonder -- do you miss it because you enjoy killing, or do you miss it because it allowed you to forget you were born a boy?" His lips press together, and his brow furrows. "I do not think I am saying that correctly. What I mean is, do you miss it because you lacked identity as a killer? That you were not measured boy or girl -- just by the volume of the blood you shed?" He scrunches his nose. "I am sorry if that is a rude question, but it seems like a thing in which a person who was not happy with themselves would find great comfort." When she covers her face, he chews on his lip thoughtfully, and he curls slightly as his spine relaxes. He leans forward, then, to place a soft hand on the girl's knee. "Your life can not be poorer for what you have never had," he says. "But I am glad it is made richer for you at this school." Kris nods ever so slowly as if this made some sort of odd sense, though his questions get her sitting bolt upright. The expression in her face says it all. She's not sure whether she should be angry, upset, or calm,"When I was shooting and hacking... I was a killer. That WAS my identity. And it was not one that was out of line with how I saw myself in the world, after a very short time. No one was shouting 'boy', or 'girl'. I knew I was a killer, and gender played little part in it. The more bathed in blood I was when I returned to camp, the more praise and affection I was given. I craved it desperately even from the people wronging me. I could be a killer for them. But no matter how tall and strong I grew, no matter how full the beard, or how crude my language... I could never feel I was a boy for them. And I tried. I cried myself to sleep many nights because of it, but a boy was the one thing I could not be for anyone. How can you be a thing you never had inside you?" She scrubs her hands against her face as if to wash away some old stain. She stops, surprised at first by the hand on her knee, then smiles in an oddly quiet and shy sort of way,"I'm glad for it, certainly. I will wonder often about what I might've had, but I will never wish for it. I just accept that what I have now both here and ahead of me... is good. I have good friends like you. And I am lucky enough to have a friend, like you, who understands things others would not." Kai listens, and while he might not understand Kris' particular plight, he recognizes something, and he leans forward. "And now you are in a strange place with new things asked of you, and new people you wish to impress," he says with a nod. "It is your training that whispers to you. It tells you that if you cover yourself in more blood, perhaps Professor Xavier will think more of you, and the strange things will not seem so intimidating. It is much the same as the things that Foom whispers." He nods sagely, and drops his voice like there might be EAVESDROPPERS. "I will tell you a thing. There are times when I will lie in my bed, and imagine that I am back with the bad doctors," he confesses. "Because /their/ ways are terrible, but they seem much less strange than school dances or Slurpees." Kris actually looks away from the boy at this point,"Am I so damaged that being allowed to be the person I know I am, as I have ached for, for so long seems strange to me? It should be like slipping into an old skin. I am told these feelings are normal. That people like me are constantly more aware of our flaws than others are, but I keep thinking someone will name me a counterfeit woman most days." She reaches for her waterbottle to drink now. "I think the world of Professor Xavier. To have his approval in... anything means... it is... I have... sometimes I believe that if he approves of a thing, then it IS success. What I am, he neither approves or disapproves, only accepts it as truth. It is a reaction I am not used to dealing with. More often now. But still not... familiar." Still, Kai is sharing things, so she supposes she will,"Sometimes when things become difficult here, I find my fingers aching for the weight of my machete. Before, when someone hurt or upset me, I would draw it and cut off their fingers or slice their throat. It was wrong, and vile, and brutal, but it was simple. I think, perhaps, that often times the reason violence is not a last resort is that people do not resort to enough of it. Still, the fruit of violence rarely has a taste other than bitter." "Sometimes it is a frightening thing, to have things you wish for come to you," Kai says. "And it is easy to go to where you have found comfort before. This I know to be a true thing." He smiles, and pats his hand on Kris' knee encouragingly. "I am like the Professor in the way I think about you. What you were before does not matter to me, because you will always be my good friend. You are not counter...whatever that word is that you used." His hand withdraws then, and Kai twists his blanket between his fingers. "When you long for those things, it is just your fear speaking to you. You know the fruit is bitter, yet you crave it because it is all you ate for so long." Kris smiles a little bit. Thankfully, she doesn't freak out at physical contact with friends like Kai. She's been prone to it in other cases, after all,"You really do not know, I think, how much it means to me to hear that from time to time. Counterfeit, by the way, is a fake thing meant to fool others into thinking it is a real thing." Pause. "North Korea, for example, produces most of the world's counterfeit US dollars." Citing example! "Do you mind if I rest here, or would you prefer to sleep alone, my friend. I think, perhaps, you need to not be alone." Kai smiles and blushes a bit at the thanks, and he ducks his head. "You are being yourself," he points out. "If you are true to that, then you are not fake, and people will see that. Unless they are ignorant." He chuckles, and and lifts a shoulder. "And if they are ignorant, it does not matter what they think." At the question, he pushes aside the blankets to make room, digging out a pillow and placing it next to his. "I do not mind if you stay," he says. "I have extra blankets and pillows, and it is not too cold tonight." Once the nest is properly expanded, he burrows back down, and offers a shy smile. "Thank you for being a good friend, Kris." Kris moves over to flop down on the pillow placed next to Kai's, and stretch out as much as her height can manage,"Thank you, Kai. I appreciate your honesty and world view. I think many people would benefit from such a view." She rolls over onto her side, finding a comfortable position,"Do not thank me for being a good friend until such time as you cease being worthy of friendship. There are no debts between friends."