ArchivedLogs:Festive

Festive
Dramatis Personae Sophie, Rasa
In Absentia	2013-10-23 shhh
Location <XS> Rec Room
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. Judging by the sudden presence in themely directions, /somebody/ has gotten into the Halloween spirit this afternoon. Orange and black streamers have been hung up in the rec room, perhaps a /bit/ inexpertly, and there is a small pile of -- more streamers, paper decorations, and glitter containers that likely serve to indicate that there's only more to come. It's easy enough to work out the perpetrator of this change in decor; one need only follow the paper trail to see Sophie, standing on top of a chair in a black skirt, rainbow leggings, and bright orange T-shirt, humming 'Jingle Bells' quietly as she tapes up another section of twisted crepe. Halloween doesn't have many good songs, okay. Rasa wanders by after hir after class activities and pauses when ze sees Sophie at work in the room. Ze considers for a moment and then turns and heads on to hir room. A few minutes later, ze reappears at the door. Ze's changed hir clothes, now wearing purple yoga pants and a baggy t-shirt, black with orange pumpkins on it, hir tail swinging from hir back. Ze is a white color, but ze looks a little bit like ze is made of patchwork. Ze is also carrying a dvd. Without saying a word, ze turns on the tv, pops the dvd into the player and turns it on. After a moment, the movie 'Nightmare before Christmas' starts playing with a rousingly spooky rendition of 'This is Halloween.' Oh yeah, there are some Halloween songs. Sophie isn't /quite/ in the zone enough not to notice Rasa's presence, but also doesn't make any comments to the metamorph as ze makes hir way from the rec room to the dorms and back. By the time Rasa does return, Sophie has climbed back down off the chair, moving it several feet down to tape up the last length of crepe paper, and working on completing the circle around the room. She's just getting it taped up when she notices the DVD, tilting her head to watch Rasa curiously -- and when the movie starts up, she breaks out in a wide, if somewhat sheepish grin, the song serving to make her realize the incongruity between the decor and her music choice. With that last piece of paper taped up, though, she climbs back down and heads over to the table, holding up a small stack of paper cutouts - jack-o-lanterns, bats, spiders and webs - and offers it to the other teen, with an inquisitive noise. Rasa grins and turns up the volume a bit, letting the sound system in the tv override some of the other conversation in the room. Ze nods and moves forward to examine the cut outs. Ze points to the windows, unwilling to interrupt the new soundtrack with words. Whether Sophie answers or not, ze moves over to one of the windows and pastes on a couple bats with clear tape. Then, ze starts positioning more around it so it looks like bats in group, in flight. There's another grin when Rasa comes over to help, and when the windows are pointed to, Sophie just raises her eyebrows - her expression one of mild surprise - and nods encouragingly, her grin widening. For her own part, she gathers up some of the spiderwebs and another roll of tape, grabbing her chair and moving over to a corner of the room. A web goes up, with a big happy spider taped up nearby. When Rasa is done with the bats on the window, ze places the roll of tape in hir teeth and shakes out hir hands, letting them, and hir feet, transform into more wall crawling types, then places one hand against the wall. Ze is careful with hir first few steps, making sure ze has the forms right, then pulls hirself up, crawling along until ze gets to the ceiling, then moves over to where Sophie is. Ze starts to stretch out the other student's webs a little further, taping them to the walls and the ceiling. Ze also starts humming, as the song ends and moves on to dialog. At first, Sophie doesn't notice the change in Rasa's form, focused now both on getting those webs taped up and on not falling from her chair in the process. So when she does start to climb down, in turning around she catches sight of Rasa up on the ceiling and lets out a little yelp of surprise, eyes widening again, but if nothing else she manages not to fall over in her shock. Instead she scratches the back of her neck with one hand, eventually offering a sheepish little smile, lowering her eyes apologetically, for a moment, before returning back to her pile-o-cutouts. This time she is eyeballing a paper ghost and one of the glitter containers, humming thoughtfully. Rasa scurries down, cringing a little at Sophie's shock and trying to be there if she lands in a heap. Thankfully, this is not the case and Rasa's discomfort disappears quickly. Ze tilts hir head to one side as the other student examines the rest of the supplies, but hir attention drifts as Jack manages to find Christmas Town and revels in some shock of his own. Ze smiles, transfixed. Perhaps Sophie's earlier rendition is not so out of place. Digging through her craft pile, Sophie finds herself a glue stick, though once she finds it she also finds herself a bit preoccupied with looking up and watching the movie herself. So while she does continue to fiddle with the decorations, it's slow going while most of her attention is focused on the TV. However in the meantime she does spread a few streaks of glue on the ghost in question, sprinkling on a generous application of glitter - a green-and-purple assortment, along with larger flecks shaped like cats, ghosts, and tiny pumpkins. Once these are applied, she lets it dry for a moment, giving it a little shake to make sure nothing's going to fall off; this ghost gets taped up to the outside of the rec room door, and then, abruptly, Sophie disappears down the hallway. Rasa watches Sophie from time to time, but when she gets up and leaves, Rasa scoots hirself over to the glue stick and cut outs. Ze decides to create a very special pumpkin, starting to trace spiderweb in as delicate of motions as ze can manage with a glue stick, then starts dashing it with glitter as well. Ze pulls the cats and ghosts out and starts rearranging those glittery pumpkin shapes on the cut out pumpkin, lips pressing into a fine line as ze works, trying to affix them only where the webs meet up. When Sophie returns a few minutes later, she's carrying a small stuffed goat under one arm, her other arm wrapped around a tub filled with small cookies. She's about on a beeline for the couch, but when she spots Rasa back at the craft table she changes her route midway. Heading over to the table, she sets the cookie tub down, pulling the lid off and gesturing for Rasa to take some, should ze choose, but otherwise she just stands there, leaning against the table with her head in her hands, the goat comfortable enough with being wedged between table and arm as Sophie watches Rasa work. By the time Sophie gets back, they are well into the 'Making Christmas' song, one that has Rasa's head bopping from side to side and fueling on hir artsy crafty side. Ze is moving on to another pumpkin, trying to get right what ze did wrong the first time. When Sophie sets those cookies out, though, hir attention span is shot. Ze steals a cookie and grins hir thanks to the provider, moving a little away from the table and watching the movie while ze nibbles. Sophie returns that grin to Rasa, taking a cookie of her own, and as Rasa's attention is grabbed by the movie again, Sophie starts cleaning up some of the craft clutter, stuffing it into a brown paper bag, but she does leave behind the things that Rasa was working with, should ze choose to return hir attention to the pumpkins. But regardless of Rasa's actions, Sophie takes that cookie tub and heads over to the couch in front of the TV, curling up against one of the arms, setting the tub on the cushion next to her, and focusing on the movie for now. Rasa leaves hir crafts a little more, for the time being, moving to curl up on the couch as well. The movie isn't that long. More decorating can happen later.