ArchivedLogs:Mnemonics

Mnemonics
Dramatis Personae Ducky, Lyric
In Absentia	2013-09-16 '
Location <XS> Karolina, Ducky, and Lyric's Dorm - FL2
Tucked into a spire at the end of the girls' hall, this dorm is one of the few three-student suites. Spacious, its arrangement in the oddly circular room is nonstandard; two lofted beds sit near two of the room's many windows, with their respective desks tucked beneath. The third bed, a regular twin, sits across the room, next to a desk of its own. There is plenty of space in the room's three closets, and one of the tall windows even has a very tiny accompanying balcony just outside. For all the potential oddness that can go on at Xavier's, with the regular kidnapping of students that you could nearly set your watch by, the quirks of both students and teachers alike - it was at its heart, a school, and as with any school, there is always homework. Curfew is approaching, and most of the students have retreated into the relative quiet of their rooms to at least pretend that they are working on scholarly ventures. The thumping thrum of bass from down the hall, and the occasional outbursts of laughter from neighboring rooms - however - implies that not /all/ students are quite so studious. Tonight, Ducky is doing her part to be a good student, squinting at her text book, propped open on her desk, open to what looks like a relatively simple lesson in ASL. The dappled gray and white pigeon is, for once, not sitting on her head or shoulder, instead perched just behind the book, watching Ducky struggling through her lesson. Ducky herself is dressed in a pair of faded gray pajama pants, and a loose yellow tank top that sort of hangs off her thin, somewhat freckled shoulders. "I /know/ I'm not doing it right. That's why I'm trying to practice," the girl grouses at the pigeon, after a particularly halting series of signs, attempting to mimic the images in the book, her tongue stuck out the side of her mouth in concentration. "I'd like to see you try and do it, since you're such a critic," she grumbles at the bird, attempting to finger spell out what she was saying, although she substitutes 'x' for 'r' throughout, making it make precious little sense to any watching. Her phone buzzes across the desktop, and she welcomes the distraction, picking up the phone and tapping out a response with a happily distracted grin. Lyric /had/ been doing homework at some point, that much is evident from the geometry textbook open on her desk, the notebook beside it filled with neatly printed theorems. Her computer is open, too, though at the moment its screen only features a screensaver of brightly colored fish swimming around an aquarium. Lyric herself has been absent for a half hour or so, but the door is pushed open as she slips back in, rubber flipflops on her feet and a towel turban-wrapped around her large poof of hair. The scent of rose clings faintly to her skin as she drops old clothes into her hamper and then moves to drops back down into her desk chair. She spins it first one direction then the other, brushing a hand down against her own soft mint-green pajama pants (paired, at the moment, with a deep pink t-shirt) and watching Ducky quietly. She lifts a hand, absently re-fingerspelling Ducky's words with the correct letters this time. "{Who's calling?}" she signs afterwards, shamelessly curious as she points at the phone. Ducky glances up and offers a wave as Lyric reenters the room, attempting to mimic the corrected fingerspelling with an admittedly halting manner, before nodding and replying sheepishly, "Thank you. I get those two mixed up." She gets the sign for "Thank you" right, but shortens the second part to 'my bad' and a glare at the offending letters. The phone, of course, buzzes again, as though it could tell it was being pointed at, at which point in time Ducky smacks it, flattening it to the desk to continue to buzz futily against the wooden surface. "A friend, um, a friend from back when I lived in the city," she explains, making sure to face Lyric, but also attempting to sign what she knows - namely 'friend' and 'city'. There's a slight pinkish blush to her cheeks as the phone buzzes yet again, "He just got a way to text. Havne't really gotten to talk to him since I came here. So he's been apparently texting a lot." A slight shrug as she snags the phone from the desk, attempting to keep it from dancing off the end of the table. 'I used to get G and Q mixed up when I was little. M and N, too.' Lyric signs slowly, though she doesn't stop twisting back and forth in her chair as she does. 'Friend? Good friend?' Her twirling finally stops, and she rotates her chair partway so that she can glance to her desk but keep an eye on Ducky as well. A swipe of her finger across her mousepad, and she types in her password rapidly, screen unlocking onto HARD WORK. Or, actually, a paused episode of Once Upon a Time on Hulu and a lot of IM windows. 'I wouldn't stop texting the first time I had a cellphone, too. Very exciting.' Ducky nods, "I'm ok with M and N, it's like the letters, three down, and two down. X and R throw me off, because X looks like a lower case R if you look at it funny," she says, fingerspelling after she finishes speaking, her tongue sticking out the side of her mouth in concentration. "Yeah. One of the only friends my age I made in the city, really," Ducky says, looking to the side, slightly, attempting to sign along, fingerspelling what she doesn't know the words for, "Don't know him as well as I'd like, but he's nice. He doesn't get to talk to a lot of people, but now he can. And it's really awesome." She takes a moment to answer the text on her phone, grinning a bit, "And, admittedly, this is the first time /I've/ had someone to text. Never had a phone before here, and never had people to text after I had one." Even though it is pretty halting, she manages to get the gist of it across in signs, forcing herself to practice while she can - she does avert her eyes when Lyric signs into her computer, not looking at the screen or its contents as a courtesy. Lyric's eyes widen abruptly. She raises her own hand, fingers shifting into M. Then N. Then M. Then N. M-N-M-N-M-N. 'Oh wow.' M-N-M-N. Her face splits into a wide grin. 'I never saw that! /Cool/!' There's bright laughter in her expression as she drops her hand back to her keyboard, typing out a message and then minimizing the IM windows to switch the television show to fullscreen. 'I guess you don't have to text many people here since you live with all of us. I text my brother more than anything. Most all my friends live here, too.' Her head tilts to the side at the mention of Ducky's friend not talking to people before he could text. 'Is your friend deaf, too?' Ducky grins and giggles slightly in response to Lyric's reaction, "I know, it seems kinda silly, but it helps me remember it, and means I'm at least less likely to mix them up with other letters. Now if I can do that for the rest of language, I'll be good to go." She offers a sheepish shrug, ruffling her hand through her hair "Sometimes my memory isn't the greatest, so I have to come up with little tricks, otherwise I forget what I was supposed to be learning." The question about her friend gets a slightly uncertain look, as she tries to figure out how to explain Horus, "Um, no, not deaf. He's, well, his mutation sort of keeps him from being able to speak English clearly, so phones are sort of rough. But his mutation overlaps enough with mine, that I can talk to him in person. Just makes phone conversations impossible, since I don't have a good range on my ability?" There isn't so much of an attempt to sign that statement, although occasionally a word or two is signed, somewhat un clearly, as though uncertain. Lyric tips her head to one side, brows furrowing faintly as she studies Ducky's explanation about Horus. 'Oh.' Just that, for a moment; her hands fall to her lap as she considers this. 'Some mutations are pretty difficult, aren't they? I mean I don't mind not talking but it's hard not to have anyone to talk /to/.' She unwinds the towel from her hair, finally, draping it at the back of her chair. 'I do that with math. Little-tricks thing. Otherwise I'd forget /everything/. Actually I still forget everything,' she admits with a laugh, 'but -- only /half/ of everything.' She still signs slow, watching Ducky carefully for understanding -- on words that seem trickier, she's gotten in the habit of pausing to fingerspell them as well, to help with both understanding and learning the actual signs. 'He's your age? Could he come here?' Ducky just nods, carefully watching Lyric sign, "Yeah. I... I don't know his whole story. But he kinda doesn't really have many people he can talk to. First time I met him he was with a kinda mean telepath. Nice to him. Grumpy as hell, though to everyone else in the area." She frowns at the memory, continuing to sign, alternating between known words and fingerspellings. "Some mutations kinda suck. I mean, mine isn't bad, it just makes spring horrible. But there are some here who have it kinda bad, I guess," she agrees, wrinkling her nose slightly in thought. "I'm decent at Math. Better-ish at Science, but it's taking me time to get used to it again. Missed about a year of school when I ran away." There's a pondering look at the age question, and she shrugs, "I'm pretty sure he's my age, or close. He... he knows people here. That's how he got my number. But.... too many people. He doesn't like being around people." She frowns, curious now, a glance back at her phone, which has finally stopped buzzing /quite/ as much. 'I only know nice telepaths,' Lyric muses, 'mean ones sound scary. What's wrong with spring?' She glances over towards Ducky's pigeon companion curiously. 'Spring's lovely. Everything waking up. I like fall best, though.' She nods at the mention of too many people, though her nose crinkles up slightly. 'I love people. But I get that. My brother is really shy. It can be hard when people don't speak your language.' She spins once more in her seat, stabilizing her chair facing the desk again. 'You should totally try astronomy, it's so much fun. It's science /and/ stars. -- Oh oops I should. /Actually/ finish this before sleep.' Presumably she means the homework, she's /gesturing/ towards her open notebook. Except even as she picks up her pencil to continue the math work she is unpausing her TV show, volume muted but the captions on as it starts to play again. Ducky starts to explain the spring statement, but instead just shakes her head, and turns her attention back to her homework. Or rather, her phone, but she faces her homework, so that counts for something, right?