ArchivedLogs:Freak Out

Freak Out
Dramatis Personae Isra, Paige	2016-11-14 "I never imagined I would be -here-, with -mutants-, -as a mutant-."
Location <NYC> Harbor Commons - Commonhaus - Lower East Side
Accessible to all residents of the Commons via electronic keycard, this three-story building holds a number of facilities freely available for the shared use of all Commons residents. The stone-floored foyer is high ceilinged -- balconies on the two upper floors look down into this entrance, leaving just the wide skylit ceiling three stories up to trickle light down through the whole of the house. Through wide wood-and-glass doors the spacious dining area is visible on the left; on the right, heavier doors beside the elevator lead to the similarly large kitchens. There are four single-user toilets on this floor, two apiece by the foyer and the dining room. Though a wide staircase runs all the way up, there is also an elevator tucked to one side. For the adventurous, though, there's another way up through the house -- through the center of the house where the balconies look down, an enormous climbing structure has been erected, solid wood platforms softened with carpeting, held together with strong spiderwebbed steel cables. Interlaced in an intricate maze that spirals up through the whole of the house and down to the basement, it provides a crazily winding path to duck and wriggle and worm through, with exits -- if you can /find/ them -- dispensed out onto each upper balcony and into the basement below. It's late afternoon, the sky growing dark already and the chill in the air intensifying. Isra sweeps in the wide front doors of the house like a figure out of myth, voluminous green cloak billowing and then settling as she shuts out the wind that tries to follow her. The generous hood does not completely conceal the gleaming gold horns that spiral back from her temples, and she pushes it back to reveal a smooth, hairless pate. Her skin is light blue on the ventral surfaces, darking in mottled patterns to purple on the ventral side--what little is now visible. Her wings shake out from beneath the outer capelet of her cloak, jet black and patterned with blazing white stars and purple-blue-pink nebulae. The savory scent of heavily spiced Mediterranean food follows her in, the source soon revealed as two laden canvas bags she carries over her shoulders. Shoulders tense, hands in the large pocket of her sweatshirt, Paige would appear to be milling around looking about the inside of the estate's entrance. She seemed rather lost in her own thoughts until the doors practically burst open to reveal...something -- someone -- new. The young woman gives a start in fright; after all, the person who just walked in looks very different from others she has met before. Her eyes glance about the features of Isra's form, wings, odd skin, and...horns? These seem to easily capture Paige's attention, her own horns covered, but not hidden, by her hood. But staring is rude and she's been doing it for too long. "Uh...hi," she offers, trying to be more friendly than her nerves tell her to be. "Do you, uh, need help with one of those bags?" Isra had stopped near the door to shed her cloak, unclasping it with the golden talons of her long-fingered hands and using the heavy thumb claws (likewise golden) of her wings to lift the garmen from her shoulders. Beneath she wears a purple layered wrap dress with a cowl neckline and an asymmetrical hem that ends just below her knees, revealing digitigrade legs that end in clawed feet wrapped in some kind of black heavy-duty fabric that nevertheless leave the tips of huge gold talons visible. Though now the bags do in fact appear to be somewhat in her way, and she inclines her head at Paige. "{Hello, and thank you,}" she says in Spanish with an Argentinian accent, then switches to English, "Do have a care, they are heavy." Even so saying, she hefts one bag toward Paige with seemingly no effort at all. "I am Isra," she adds with a small but friendly smile, showing only the tips of sharp canines, "and you must be Paige." "I...yes?" the shorter woman responds, quite bemused by the mention of her name, and yet -thankful- that she -doesn't- understand the Spanish. "I am. How do you ... know that?" Half of her does not want that question answered, for fear that this Isra could be a telepath. She accepts the bag which, despite the warning, is much heavier than she was expecting. Still, Paige manages to lift it far enough off the ground with two hands. While doing so, her eyes are cast towards the ground and wander over to briefly examine Isra's feet. They seem a little similar to her own, but she holds her curiosity and comments in check for the moment. "I live with Dusk and Hive," Isra replies evenly. "Though, all that aside, it is a small community and gossip travels fast." One hand freed, she shrugs out of the cloak easily by passing her remaining bag from one hand to the other, then hangs the heavy garment in the closet. "These go in the kitchen, if you wouldn't mind stepping this way?" She extends one immense wing toward the kitchen and starts that way herself, her strides long and her gait oddly smooth, if definitely alien. A long, tapered tail emerges from one of the mid layers of her dress and sways behind her as she walks. "I understand you had a bit of a shock arriving here." "Dusk and Hive," Paige echoes under her breath, shivering at the latter's name, as she follows Isra's guidance. The large wings and the creepy tail make her uneasy, but at least she's not dealing with another telepath, and she's starting to get a little better at suppressing her fears. However, with a sigh, she says, "So you've heard. Here I was kind of wishing my 'freak out' would be kept secret. It's just that everything is so freaking new and I never..." The woman trails off as she tries to keep up with her companion. Then, with a deep breath, she continues. "I never imagined I would be -here-, with -mutants-, -as a mutant-. I've never had someone else in my mind before." One of Isra's ears swivels back toward Paige as she speaks. Entering the kitchen, she sets her bag down on the counter and begins unloading the tupperware containers within, separating them into two stacks. The smell of mezze grows stronger, tantalizing. "The children informed me that you had most excellent and chewable horns and that you fell down a bit." She pauses for a moment and studies Paige, her eyes seeming not to blink as often as they ought. "I wasn't under the impression that you 'freaked out', as such, but I did hear that you seemed new to mutant community at large. That itself takes adjusting." Her hands go back to shuffling food containers. "As does manifesting. Alas, most of us are born into human families and communities, surrounded by their biases and bigotry. Some amount of it we inevitably internalize." Paige manages to heft her bag onto the counter near the other one. "The children?" she inquires as she follows Isra's example and starts unloading the contents of her bag. "Oh...CHILDREN?!" The young woman's shock and surprise comes through quite loudly. "I had no idea that...Oh, fuck. Please ignore me. Forget I said that. -Please-." There's not much she can do to recover from that one. "Yeah, the ... uh, little one seemed quite enthralled by my horns. They even said they were pretty. And the falling happens a lot," she admits with a shrug. "My feet aren't really...how they were before. As for family?" For this, she takes her attention away from the emptying and faces Isra. "My family would rather me dead. At least, that's very highly likely to be the case." "In fairness to you, Egg looks less like a baby and more like a flying lemur from hell." Isra grins with fierce pride, her sharp fangs quite visible now. "I think everything in that bag is vegan, so no need to separate them out." So saying, she takes a roll of blank stickers along with a sharpie from a drawer and begins writing labels for the boxes in beautiful flowing script. "Your change is recent, then? It took me years to re-learn how to walk, but I had other encumbrances." She mantles her wings out by way of illustration before folding them against her back again. But then she also stops and looks up from her work, marker tip poised above a new label, preternaturally still. "In that case, they do not even deserve the title of 'family.'" Paige nods to Isra's words, both the apt description of the one called Egg and the instructions as she completes digging everything out of the bag. She is -extremely- relieved that no offense was taken by her misspeaking but the display of pointed teeth is a off-setting. "Recent," the short woman agrees. "Well, I kind of..." Again trailing off, she sighs. "You're right. But I still miss them. And, geeze, I really hope it doesn't take me years. I was hoping the changes would stop with the horns, but then I realized that weird stuff had been slowly going on with my feet and with my legs." A deep breath. "I don't even know what is or how to stop it or what to do about it. I can't run at all now, I know that much. And if I get too distracted when I take a step, or I get flustered - it's just...I don't get it." Isra finishes labeling her first stack of containers in red sharpie with the date, the names of the dishes (mulukhiyah, djaj mechwi, kibbeh, and so on) and the word 'MEAT' (sometimes 'DAIRY' as well) underneath. She switches the marker for a blue on and starts in on the second pile. "It is understandable," she says equably. "They do not deserve your affection, but such habits are hard to break. I think it will get easier when you find new family." Her long, pointed ears press back against the sides of her head. "You could probably benefit from a specialized physical therapist--I can give you some information. As for what it is..." Her head tilts to one side, a quizzical gesture that looks just a bit predatory coming from a winged gargoyle woman. "...For better or worse, it is /you/. This change is written in your DNA, and there is probably nothing you can do to stop it. Surgical interventions are possible, but highly inadvisible for features still developing, and exorbitantly expensive to boot." A low, low growl thrums in her chest. "Besides, I question the ethics and motivation any doctor who performs such procedures." The growling does not cease while she speaks, but then dies away. Her expression softens. "There's a lot to sort through, and I don't mean that you must agree with me on such matters. But I do think some of my experiences may be relevant to what you're going through now, and I would like to offer you any support I can." What Paige had said had come out in a flustered rush, her mind had been racing faster than her mouth. Thus, it is not mere small interest with which she listens to the tall gargoyle address each and every one of her statements. In fact, her eyes are riveted on the other woman and Isra's feelings on the family and medical issues come through clearly. Unfortunately, at least in Paige's mind, the mention of the prohibitive cost restrictions seem all too logical. She feels ashamed of having even brought up the idea before thinking about who her audience was. "I..." she begins. "I...I guess I could use a physical therapist for...this. I just wish it -wasn't- in my DNA. I liked being ... me. Just Paige. Paige with no horns and no annoying feet. I don't know if I agree with you on the family side and I can't just 'find' a 'new family'." There might be a smidge of resentment mingled into that last statement. "And while I really hope I don't just grow wings overnight or anything, I could really use some support." Isra settles her wings down over her shoulders, letting the star-studded membranes drape like a leathery cloak over her. "It may be hard to believe, with all this mutant pride and solidarity I like to spout, but I was...a lot like you, only a few years ago." She frowns down at the box of lebne in her hands as though it had offended her. "I bound my wings and hid as much of my body as I could. I loathed what I saw--what I had been /taught/ to see--as my deformities. There are many good reasons to dislike our bodies or what they do, but I have learned in time that whenever I find myself agreeing with humans on that front, I take a long, close look at it." She flexes her hand, heavy talons gleaming in the light. "I'm not telling you it's going to get better or turn out alright in the end; I don't know that it will. I ought not to assume that you will find a family here as I have done, either. But you can find acceptance here, and friendship, and love, if you want those things." She finally puts the lebne down and moves on. "I will listen if you wish to talk, and offer my own experiences if they're relevant. And, for what it's worth," she smiles gently, "you may freak out as much as you need to."