ArchivedLogs:Quiet and Cake

Quiet and Cake
Dramatis Personae Ducky, Faelan	2013-08-15 Cake is meant to be shared.
Location XS - Back Porch
The back patio is a restful place to sit and relax, in most weather. Ample seating comes in the form of umbrella'd deck chairs and a cushioned porch swing, and the neighboring gardens attract butterflies and hummingbirds to make the viewing pleasant. The hot tub is usually open for use, though in snowy weather the transition in and out is a shivery one! The sun is dipping just below the tree-line, bathing the back porch of Xavier's in a cheery golden glow, the sky painted a myriad of colors that shift gradually as the sun continues to set. Despite it being late August, the air is slightly chill this evening, with just the slightest touch of a damp breeze blowing in and bringing the promise of rain on the far horizon. Since it is the month break between summer and fall semesters, the school is a bit on the empty side, leaving the back porch vacant of all but one student. Well, one student and a handful of birds. Ducky sits at one of the umbrella covered tables, a small spiral bound notebook balanced on her lap while she chews idly on the cap of the neon green pen in her hand. She wears a light weight long sleeve shirt in a pale blue beneath a heathered gray hooded vest, paired with a pair of black skinny jeans; sandals are abandoned to one side of the porch, leaving her barefoot in her seat. Her mousy blond hair is a ruffled mess, which the dappled gray and white pigeon on her shoulder is currently trying to smooth back into complacency - it is a losing battle. One the table in front of her on a large plate, largely untouched, is a round cake, covered in brilliant yellow icing, protected beneath a glass dome. A stack of smaller plates and napkins sit beneath a book to keep them from blowing away, a small pile of forks beside them. Around the edges of the porch, on the neighboring chairs and rooftop, are a not small number of birds, all watching Ducky intently as they sit, still as statues. Making his way out onto the back porch, Faelan is dressed for the lovely weather, in that he's wearing longer black baggy pants and a dark grey baggy tee shirt. With a can of coke in hand, he lugs a messenger bag out onto the patio, looking to see what seating is to be had. Seeing it mostly empty aside from Ducky and the birds, he raises a hand in greeting before noticing the cake. "Evening there, were you working on something out here?" he says with a glance to the notebook as he leans against one of the chairs. "I didn't think anyone assigned summer home work this break." Ducky blinks up at Faelan, taking a long moment to focus on the other student before answering, "Oh, um, 'snot homework. It's, um, it's a letter." She ruffles a hand through her hair, looking a bit sheepish as she does, tilting her head at Faelan, "You can sit, if, uh, if you wan't to. I'm kinda stuck on what to say, so I welcome the distraction, really." There's a bit of a half hearted gesture at one of the vacant chairs with the pen holding hand, "Birds aren't gonna do anything to you - they're just watching and stuff. Um, you want some cake? I'm not going to eat all of it, and I think it's chocolate, so I shouldn't let the birds eat it too much." "Ah, well if you aren't bothered by it I will gladly join you," Faelan says as drags out a chair to plop into. "Who was the letter to? Was it a pen pal? Maybe you can have one of the pigeons deliver it." There is a smile at that as he picks up the glass of the case, sniffing at the cake before getting a small piece for himself. "And thank you for the cake. I haven't had much in the way of baked goods since the girls stopped making them so often. I guess people can get bored with baking if they do it enough." Cutting off a little chunk of the slice with the edge of the fork, he pops it into his mouth. "Trying to write it to my parents. Operative word being trying, in this case," Ducky answers, twirling the pen around in her hands while she stares at the note book with a frustrated expression. A lopsided grin crosses her features as she looks up at Faelan, chuckling, "That was actually part of the plan, sending a pigeon with the letter. Pigeons can't really be traced, since they don't have a post mark or anything. Might take a bit longer than sending it via post, but, well, they can't find me here." She shrugs slightly, ruffling her hair again with a chuckle, "Yeah. It's good cake. Mister Jackson made it for me, so I'm glad to get to share it around. Just need to save at least a piece for Kai. 'cause I promised." Pausing mid-bite at the talk of sending a letter to her parents, Faelan frowns and nods. "I hope that it goes as you wish. I guess though you're having issues figuring out what to say to them?" He tilts his head a moment, and mushes a bit of the cakey portion down to flatness. "Do you think the pigeon will know how to get there? I don't really know how carrier pigeons used to work, but I guess if it worked for long enough they must have had a good delivery system worked out." Scooping the flattened piece into his mouth, he washes it down with a pull of coke from the can he brought out. "Mister Jackson is pretty nice, I never had many classes with him though. I'm not that good at art, so I focused more on the other things." Ducky nods, finally setting aside her book and pen on the table to slice herself some cake, before settling back into her chair. "Yeah. Not sure what exactly to say. 'Hi, I ran away because you thought I was crazy. I'm not. I'm also not dead. Thought you out to know.' seems a bit flippant and somewhat, um, mean spirited?" Ducky says, taking a bite of her cake as she does, mulling it over, "I'll get it eventually. Or not. And my pigeons are good about getting to places. I don't use them often, but I kinda adopted them, after their previous owner abandoned them. I just have to describe a direction, and what something looks like to the best I can, preferably with some really good colors and details. I've got an edge up on normal pigeon couriers, since, well, I can talk to them. Usually they're trained for specific colors to deliver to." She takes another bite of cake, grinning and nodding, "He is nice. He got assigned to being my adviser, so, um, he apparently, cake. Guess my birthday is on my records." "Maybe you can use the google street view and satellite images to show them how it will look? I mean if they are flying they will see the aerial anyway." Faelan nods to himself at that, then gives a shrug. "And well, mean spirited sometimes is the appropriate response to parents. I don't want to see mine, but if you don't want to be mean to yours I hope the letter does what you intend." Finishing off his piece of cake, he does give a slightly smile at the adviser comment. "That's nice of him. I had Miss Gall as my adviser, since well, she was safe from any accidents I might have had. I'm glad Jax is a good adviser to you. Oh, and he prefers being called that, I don't think he wants to be called Mister yet. Or at least, he told me to call him that." "It's an option. Haven't thought of trying that before. Might be worth a shot. Should, um, probably try local stuff first, before I try and get the pigeons to head for Chicago. Bit of a long trip for them," Ducky muses around bites of cake, nodding. "And... yeah. I don't know what I want to do about it. Figure it's worth a shot. At the very least, getting my thoughts out in writing is a good thing. Or so my therapist tells me. Even if I don't send it, it's kinda helpful to just write it out." She yawns slightly, munching on another bite of cake, "Can't say I've met Miss Gall. Dunno what classes she teaches, since I only took summer stuff, anyway." Another ruffle of her hair, causing the pigeon to ruffle up in frustration, "He hasn't told me to call him that yet, so I'll keep calling him Mister Jackson. Also, um, aren't you kinda staff, now? So 'course you'd get to call the teachers by informal stuff, right?" "Writing out your feelings does tend to help. Though I just put mine through a shredder afterwards, wasn't really going to send anything like that." Frowning a little at that, Faelan lets out a sigh. "Still, if you can get the birds used to learning a location via the mapping stuff, you'll be able to get them to deliver stuff all over the city without much issue. I think they mapped it all pretty good." Finishing off his coke he shakes the can a little before sliding it out of the way. "She taught history and languages and stuff. Kinda like a British Indiana Jones, but without the snakes and randomly getting called away from class due to nazis. She knows a lot of good books." Smiling a little at that, he makes a face at the staff comment. "I don't know if being the assistant librarian counts enough for being staff. And well, I was still a student like 3 months ago. You don't just start calling people Chuck when you were calling them Professor just months ago." Faelan has partially disconnected. There's a shrug of Ducky's be-pigeoned shoulders at Faelan's statement, "Oh, this is probably the fourth or fifth letter I've tried writing /today/ - I don't shread them, though, I just use it to line the bottom of Kushi's cage. Same thing, pretty much, though." She munches on more cake as she talks, "And she sounds pretty awesome. Probly will end up taking more language classes. I'm supposed to take ASL this coming semester. Which will in theory help me not talk so much with the birds. At least out loud." The professor mention gets a chuckle and a grin, "Ok, fair enough. But still, you're on staff. That totally makes it kinda different, well, at least sorta. I mean, you've got a job, and they're your co-workers, instead of being, y'know, your teachers?" "Yeah, I guess lining a cage is pretty good for getting rid of extraneous papers. If nothing else the bird poo will hide everything you don't want someone else to see." Faelan puts his trash into a pile as he raises up out of the chair. "She's pretty cool yeah, though she's a really busy person. Most of the teachers have a lot of extra activities that they see to on top of their instruction so getting them outside of their hours can be difficult." Shaking his head at the staff comment, he smiles and gives a shrug. "I guess one could call it that. It was something that I could do and stay on campus, since well, I don't think I'm ready for the outside world yet. That and I need to save up for college, to at least not feel like too much of a moocher. They've helped me out a lot here, its the least I could do. Still, I should let you write your letter, or at least get it out of your head. Thank you for the cake." Ducky grins, "If nothing else, it does get destroyed. And no one in their right mind is going to sift through that to find the inner thoughts of a bird-brained teen." She finishes off the last bite of her cake, and sighs slightly, "Alright. I should probably pack up and head inside before too long. Didja want some cake to take with you? Otherwise I'm just going to put it on the counter and let the rest of the school have at it. After I get a slice for Kai, first, anyway. Then the rest of the school can have the rest." Ducky closes her notebook around the pen she was writing with, standing up and stacking things neatly, keeping the clean plates seperate from her trash. "And thank you, for sitting out here with me. And eating some of the cake," she says with a grin. Shaking his head at the offer for more cake, Faelan picks up his plate of trash. "That's alright, I don't need too much cake. A lot of sugar can give me the jitters, and I don't need to be twitchier than I can be." Pushing the chair back in with his foot, he glances to the stuff she has. "I can try and carry some of that if you want. Save a trip that way and all. And I am sure Kai will appreciate the cake, especially if you mention the yellow and brown being like chunky monkey," he says with a chuckle before helping to carry things in.