ArchivedLogs:Secret Team

Secret Team
Dramatis Personae Flicker, Tian-shin
In Absentia	2015-10-09 "Seriously? What do you think Joshua's been doing with you all this while?"
Location <XS> Gardens
From indoor gardens to outdoor, though without the protective greenhouse glass the back gardens do not last all year round. Still, the gardens out here are well-tended and well-worth spending time in, as well. The paths wending through the beds of flowers and herbs and vegetables spread out through the school's back grounds, tended by students as a credit class. Benches offer seating and a small pond is home to koi and turtles, as well as a few frogs. At the far back edges of the garden, a droning buzzing marks a few stacked white boxes as beehives. The weather's skewed back towards springlike, again. Bright and warm. Sunny. The perfect time to be not-in-class. It's quiet out on the grounds -- much of the /students/ occupied with being shut up in classrooms. With the gardens mostly deserted, Flicker is taking the opportunity to enjoy some peace. Evidently some post-workout peace; he's kind of sweaty, kind of flushed, dressed in black convertible cargo pants, boots, white undershirt that in its dampened state easily shows the outline of the harness beneath that straps his (leaf-green and gold) mechanical arm to his side. Right now he's teetering on the rocks by the edge of the pond. Fidgety. Restless. An unstable shimmer where he stands, kind of a blur of jittery motion at the water's edge. He has a colorful Sigg water bottle in his hand, sipping from it as he darts from stone to stone in erratic blip around the circumference of the pond. Emerging from the Conservatory and blinking in the light, Tian-shin does not initially notice Flicker. She has her long black hair bound up in an elaborate bun and held in place with a simple bamboo hair stick. She wears a red short-sleeve tunic of Chinese fashion, covered in stylized black brocoade bats, and black jeans over red canvas shoes also decorated with bats. The bulging black messenger bag slung over her shoulder sports patches an elaborate red knotwork charm that holds a luminous light green jade bi. When she does spot Flicker, she changes course and approaches him. "Hi, stranger." This with a slight bow, hardly more than a nod. "How goes?" The rapid flit of movement settles down as another person draws near. Flicker stops on one large flat rock. Still restless, though, there's a small bounce in his posture. Updownupdown on his toes. A quick smile lights his face. "Hey. Uh. Woah. So batty." He squints up at the sky. "Not sure. Maybe good? Maybe okay. How's -- teaching?" "Batty?" Tian-shin blinks, then gives a silent 'ah' of comprehension, looking down at her tunic. "Yeah, they symbolize good fortune, but honestly...I just like bats." She unslings the bag from her shoulder and sets it down on a bench, though she does not herself sit. "I guess there's worse things than maybe-okay. Teaching is...kind of exhausting sometimes. Fun, but I get kind of stir-crazy if I have to spend too much of any day in a classroom. So..." Her dark brown eyes track one of the larger koi gliding silently through the water. "...I know your team is kind of a secret. Team." She puts her hand over her mouth to cover the snicker. "But do you train together here? I mean--I'm guessing you've been training." She looks at Flicker's sweat-soaked undershirt, then, blushing faintly, back at the fish. "Why are they good luck?" Flicker glances back down to Tian-shin's shoes, his grin curling up wider. "I mean. The bats in /my/ life have been pretty rad." He sinks down into a crouch, flesh arm curling around his knees. "How many classes do you have? Hopefully plenty of time to -- get fresh air, between." His eyes turn to the water. Small tug at the corner of his mouth. "Not a very /good/ secret. I mean. Maybe I've just been taking a dip in the koi pond." He shakes his head after this, though. "Yeah. We train. Uh. Not the koi. The team." "It's a pun--a lot of Chinese symbolism is based on puns." Tian-shin leans against the back of the bench, still not sitting. "'Bian fu' is bat, and 'fu'--same sound, different character--also means 'blessing.'" She arches slim eyebrows at him, flashes a sudden grin. "Tag and I used to go to this Buddhist retreat upstate every summer. The nuns who ran it trained their koi to do tricks, with an underwater obstacle course and everything." Drifting closer to the water's edge, she looks down at the fish again. "So--physical fitness stuff, obviously, but you also train for combat?" Only the faintest uplift of tone at the last word suggests a question. "Bian fu." Flicker echoes this carefully but still doesn't have the tone quite right. "Wait, holy carp, really? /Trick/ fish? I didn't think they were smart enough. I may have to rethink what I know about fish." He rubs at the back of his neck. Sucks his cheeks inward to gnaw briefly at them. "We train for --" A beat of hesitatin. "Yeah. No. Yeah. I mean, a lot of things. Combat, but --" His shoulder hitches up. "Disaster relief. Search and rescue. All kinds of ways we can be useful." "/Bian/ fu," Tian-shin corrects, then blushes. "Lo siento, it's kind of reflexive--from teaching." She slaps her hand over her mouth again, but still laughs aloud. "Holy carp! Maybe /enlightened/ carp, even. But yes, they're pretty smart, as fish go. I heard they can outlive humans, and even if most don't, a lot of those koi were definitely older than the kids who came to visit them. Some were bigger, too." Nodding, she sits down cross-legged by the pond, dipping her fingers into the water. "I kind of got that idea. Joshua's not been terribly secretive about it to me, but for the longest time I thought he was talking about Jax's team--his Prometheus team." A large kohaku koi swims lazily up to her, nosing at her submerged fingers expectantly. "Do you recruit?" "Bian fu." This time, correctly. With a hint of color in his cheeks, though Flicker doesn't seem to mind the correction. He /does/ laugh, blush deepening, when Tian-shin covers her mouth. "Oh. /Oh/. Oh man I swear I didn't even -- I just. That was -- /unintentionally/ apt. Oh /man/." His grin is bright, though. "Better than resistance carp." He looks back down to the water. His fingers scrunch up against his pants. "Seriously?" There's a small upward tick of brows. "What do you think Joshua's been doing with you all this while?" "Wait, is 'holy carp' just a normal interjection for you? That's fantastic!" Tian-shin doesn't bother covering her mouth when she laughs this time. "But I think my housmates prefer resistance carp. They're forever trying to recruit me, in a really lackadaisical way." She runs her fingers lightly over the koi's head, and along its flanks. It does not seem to mind, and lingers near the edge of the pond, perhaps still hopeful of food. "Joshua? I thought he was just /really/ invested in protecting the Commons from my accidental chemical warfare. Admittedly, so am I." She looks up at Flicker, brows wrinkling lightly. "Well, he did teleport us into your secret team headquarters that one time, but it was kind of an emergency." Flicker's smile turns a small bit sheepish. "Well -- yeah. It seems -- politer." He shifts position, leaning to the side to rest his hand against the rock. "I'm sure he's keen on not weaponizing the /air/ in your house, /too/, but --" There's a pause, here. Brie snort of laughter. "We don't have -- VI-Pizza cards. Just, uh." Here his blush returns. "Well. Uniforms, mostly. If we're secret we're really. Not. Very good at it. I think most all the kids here know. And now you." His eyes slide back up to Tian-shin. "... I guess that means he's never, like. /Asked/ if you were -- /interested/? It's not exactly the most glamorous gig." "Secret to the extent that you're not public knowledge, either, but obviously not /that/ secret if you don't have VI-Pizza cards." Tian-shin snaps the fingers of her free hand. "Oh well. A girl can dream." The koi finally swims away with a few lazy strokes of its tail. "No, he's never asked explicitly, but I am. And, fortunately, I'm not looking for glamor." She lifts her hand out of the water, watching droplets fall from each fingertip back into the pond, watching the ripples expand and overlap. "There are troubles ahead, and I know myself too well: I can't just sit and wait it out. I'd probably be a lot more use working alongside others who want to help." Her mouth quirks in a rueful smile. "...and not just rushing headfirst with sword-a-blazing like I would probably do, left to my own devices." "Jax /did/ beadazzle his uniform. That's something like glamor." Flicker's musing comes with a chuckle. He watches the ripples in the water, too. His hand drops, fingertips flicking in light skim at the surface of the pond. "Does your sword really blaze? Because I want to see that. You probably /could/, right? Though I guess it'd be way bad for the integrity of the metal to light it up on the regular." He shoots Tian-shin a sidelong grin. "... probably that wasn't the point. Look. If you want a VI-Pizza card. We can make you one." "I'd be startled and disappointed if he /didn't/ have a glamorous uniform." The film of water remaining on Tian-shin's hand evaporates rapidly with a faint zap and a whiff of ozone. She moves her hand with a flourish and a small puff of flame flashes in the air for just a fraction of a second, there and gone. "I don't usually set my sword on fire, and if I were going to, I'd probably want a specially designed sword. Sorry to disappoint." She straightens up. "That's acceptable; I'll also settle for just the pizza. Now I'm hungry." She shoulders her messenger bag. "Were you getting ready to head home? I was planning on making stir-fry." Then a pause, just for a beat. "Do you want to join us for dinner?" The look on Flicker's ace at the brief flash of flame is purely delighted. "Hey look. If you're going to do that we can /get/ you a specially designed sword. I'm sure we can hack that." He's on his feet in a second at the mention of food. "-- I was just going to order pizza. Stir-fry sounds /way/ better."