ArchivedLogs:Visibly Curious

Visibly Curious
Dramatis Personae Ducky, Faelan	2013-07-21 In which Ducky asks a crap ton of questions
Location ,<XS> - Playground
Set on the still-expansive grounds around the side of the school, this area is to the outdoors rather what the rec room is to the indoors. There's a large basketball court out here; a fenced-off tennis court adjacent. Further distant there are setups for other sports -- a large track, a soccer field. Closer in to the school, though, in its own large enclosure adjacent to the basketball and tennis courts, is the playground, a huge expanse of equipment set up on alternating plots of slightly squishy flooring and mulch. Centrally there is a large sprinkler-fountain, not always /on/ but it can be turned on with a push of a button; spreading out around this is the actual playground equipment, sturdy and varied. A huge dome constructed in honeycombed interlocked poles and rope netting rises hiiiigh for climbing; a large swingset holds four pairs of swings. A large roundabout in bright colours stands in one corner near a long see-saw. The huge bridge-and-tunnel castle structure at one end has many routes of entry, from poles to climb up (or slide down) to a small climbing /wall/. Monkeybars. Four different slides of varying lengths and spiraling. For the adventurous, between things to climb on and jump between and bounce across it is probably possible to skirt one end of the playground and back without touching the ground, though it might take a particularly adept feat of balance and agility. Or possibly wings. The sun is starting to lower to the horizon, casting long shadows over the grounds of the school, although the playground is still quite brilliantly illuminated. Thunder rumbles in the distance as a storm threatens to move in from the west, potentially providing some respite from the summer heat and humidity of the day, although the clouds aren't even visible from the school yet. Classes are out for the weekend, although they still loom on the horizon, as Monday quickly approaches - many students have taken to their rooms to finish the long procrastinated homework before school tomorrow. Ducky, apparently, has finished her work for the weekend, or is procrastinating further by her presence on the playground after dinner. She is currently hanging upside down from one of the higher sets of the monkey bars, legs looped over one bar and feet latched onto the next to keep her securely in place - the front of her plain gray t-shirt is tucked into her army-green cargo shorts to keep it from flipping up over her face. The dappled gray and white pigeon that usually sits on her shoulder is perched on the monkey bars above Ducky, dark eyes keeping a watch over the surrounding area. A yellow backpack is leaned against the foot of the bars a short distance away, and a small horde of starlings is currently making an attempt wiggle their way into the bag. "Hey! Hey! C'mon! No. I said I'd give you food /if/ you would talk to me. Not I'd give you food so you'd talk to me. C'mon guys. Stop. Stoppit. No, dudes, really, not good. My homework is in there with the bird seed," Ducky calls out, flailing an arm rather helplessly towards the starlings, "No! C'mon, that doesn't mean you should dig harder! Get out of there!" An exasperated sigh escapes her lips as she crosses her arms over her chest, moping and glaring at the birds for a long moment, as though trying to will them away from the backpack. "See if I give you anymore birdseed you little jerk faces." Dressed in a pair of comfortable shorts and a grey tee-shirt with the Xavier's logo on it, Faelan decides that perhaps thunder is a good time to get away from the track field. Cutting through the play ground to get back to campus quicker, he tilts his head at the birds trying to climb into Ducky's backpack. Blinking and shaking his head, he makes his way towards her and raises his hand in greeting. "Having trouble with your compatriots?" He keeps back just in case the birds decide it is time to attack him, though he isn't sure if he should be concerned or not. Ducky glances over towards Faelan, blinking for a moment before answering, "Yeah. They, um, well, I can't actually /control/ them, especially not that many of them. So, they're just being little jerkfaces right now." She scowls in the direction of starlings for a long moment, grumbling indistinctly as she does. "And of course, the longer I'm outside, the more of them show up. Specially since the little buggers keep telling their friends I promised them seeds if they talked to me." She reaches up and grabs hold up the bars above her, unhooking her legs and swinging down, still holding on to the bars over head for a moment, before dropping to land on the ground. Stalking over towards the starlings and her backpack, at which point the birds scatter in different directions, giving the mousey haired girl a chance to rescue her backpack. "You ok?" she asks, slinging her backpack over her back before climbing back up on top of the monkey bars to perch this time, "The birds aren't gonna attack. Starlings may swarm, but they aren't aggressive unless you are near their nests or something. And even then, they just kind swarm noisily." "I'm fine, just I prefer to not give things an opportunity to be a problem." Faelan gives a shrug at that and watches the starlings as they fly off. "Maybe you shouldn't keep the birdseed in your bag? Or at least use something that will lock it." He walked over towards the monkey bars a moment before he looks towards the storm clouds, then backs away from the metal. "I was getting ready to head on in before the storm hits. I don't think your feathered friends will want to stay out much longer anyway, so it may be a good idea to head in." Nodding, he has on his responsible face. "I keep the birdseed around because sometimes I have to bribe the birds to sit and actually talk to me more than just 'hey food food food' thing," Ducky explains, digging the bag of bird seed out and offering some to the pigeon who is still near her. "'Sok, some people don't like birds. Just was checking to make sure something wasn't wrong," she says with a nod, before glancing up to the sky for a moment, wrinkling her nose, "Shouldn't be coming in quite yet, don't think. It's a bit off yet." Ruffling a hand through her hair, Ducky nods, shrugging, "You can sit up here if you wanted to. You can see how far off the clouds are from here." "Oh I wasn't really worried about the birds," Faelan says with a nod, though he probably was just abit. "I'll stay down here for now. The summer storms have been moving in pretty quickly, though they move out quick enough afterwards I guess." He lets out a shrug at that, but stays where he was. "So have you been doing alright? I know you haven't been at the school that long, and sometimes it takes some getting used to. But its really nice here." He offers a slight smile. Ducky raises an eyebrow, "'Kay. Just checking. 'Sides, you could just make them vanish, like you did the sand dude at the berry farm." She drops back down to hang upside down, latching her ankles on the adjacent bars so that she is facing Faelan, "Poof," she adds, holding up her hands in a mimic of something vanishing. A lopsided grin crosses her face as she continues to hang upside down for a moment, watching Faelan curiously. "I like it here. The teachers are nice, and the students have all been pretty nice so far. Kinda not so fond of leaving campus, 'cause every time I do that something funky happens. But yeah, been doing all right, so long as I do't leave campus. So far I've had a vulture ma barf at me and the sand man thing go on. Which is kinda odd. Never had that sorta thing happen in the city. The birdmen there are nice." "Swarms are bad for that. By the time I can get through half of them I've exhausted myself." Faelan shakes his head again. "Usually best for me to get away from that situation. It just means I don't know where I will end up." Watching her as she shifts about upside down, he nods again. "Yeah, there are a lot of dangerous things off the campus. Its only really been happening in the last few years though. Maybe it will all go away in a awhile if things settle down, or we can just hide here for awhile. I don't think the teachers will let anything happen to us." Tilting her head to the side curiously, Ducky regards Faelan, still hanging upside down, "Huh. Guess it would be kinda exhausting. I mean, well, I can't really do with that many birds at one time, 'cause it makes my head hurt. Guess it's kinda the same thing with you and moving lots of things?" Ducky takes a moment to shift back to sitting atop the monkey bars, leaning her elbows on her knees so she can look at Faelan, "There's not dangerous things off campus, too, really. It's just, well, stuff is kinda crazy right now everwhere." She ruffles her hair again, sighing, "I do feel safe here, at least. I don't think my parents can find me, and they can't send people after me, whcih is kinda nice." "My powers protect me my, but they protect me only so much as I don't do something stupid." Faelan shrugs at that. "But yeah, you get headaches, I want to take a nap if I use it too much." As she shifts to sit on top the monkey bars, he steps back to be able to look up at her easier. "I don't think my parents care to look for me, and if they sent anyone after me, well I'll send them back." He nods at that, then lets out a sigh. "I don't want to leave campus more than I have to. I'm glad I have a job here for now." Ducky drops down from the monkey bars when Faelan steps back to have to look up at her, figuring it was better to be on even ground. "I've never really tried to see how far or how much I can do with my power. 'Snot like I'm exactly all powerful or anything," she says, wiggling her fingers as the dappled pigeon settles in on her shoulder, "Pretty sure I'm just gonna end up with a more severe headache if I push it. I guess a nap would be kinda niceish, as long as you're somewhere safe. Is it just from the teleporting, or can you wear yourself out from the invisibility thing too?" She tilts her head slightly, giggling a little bit, "I get kinda chattery and annoying. Or, well, kinda get less talkative like a people, more like a bird. I have trouble focusing on actually talking to people when there are lots of birds. Makes me chattery." She tilts her head slightly and grins, "Uh, kinda like now. Uh, sorry." She frowns slightly, ruffling her hair as she looks sheepish for a moment, changing the subject, "I know my parents were looking for me at one point, at least. I kinda hope they've given up by now. 'm worried that the men in the white coats are gonna find me again. They didn't seem as nice as the psychologists here." "The invisibility is easier, it feels kinda different ya know? Like teleporting is a sudden rush all at once. Invisibility feels like I'm trying not to miss a spot icing a cake." Faelan frowns, trying to figure out if that was the best way to describe it. "Teleporting is reflex, invisibility is something I control a lot better. But then, well yeah." He gives the girl a smile at the chattery bit and shakes his head. "Its alright, I don't mind talking. Peter talks much faster when he is chattery, and you don't end up causing trouble for it." Nodding to the therapist comment, he smiles. "They are very nice here. They get a lot of work though, I think most of us visit them a few times, but I've been seeing them for a few years. They've had a few people but you get used to them at least." "Huh. Neat. So what's it like being invisible? I mean, does it feel or look different? I mean, do you /know/ you're invisible, other than the whole, y'know, knowing you made yourself ivisible?" Ducky asks, tilting her head curiously as she looks at Faelan, her motions birdlike. "Oh, uh, sorry. I, um, y'don't have to answer if you don't want to. Just kinda curious. It's neat how different people's powers work and stuff." She grins again, looking a bit cheery, tilting her head. "Sorry, 'gain." Ruffling a hand through her hair, she shrugs, "They listen, and let me talk, which is kinda nice, and keeps me from annoying everyone else with all the chattering and stuff normally." A guilty look passes over her features and she scuffles her foot at the sand of the playground. "Well you kinda notice when you can't see your own hands and feet anymore." Faelan waggles his own fingers at that. "But well, I don't know what other people do and don't see themselves. I just know there's nothing to see myself." He lets out a shrug, and when more thunder rumbles, he holds back an eep as he looks skywards. "I think I ought to be heading back inside before it starts raining. Don't stay out too long, you don't want to get too wet out here. " Ducky looks at her hand and the back at Faelan, "Cool. I imagine that's kinda disconcerting a bit, at least the first time. And second time. And, well, yeah, that's probably kinda odd, no matter how you slice it." She glances up at the clouds that have started to roll in, tilting her head to listen to the birds, crinkling her nose, "Huh. Thought we had more time. Should probably head in, you're right." She smirks slightly and tilts her head as he suppresses the eep, "Issok. I'll walk in with you. It'll actually get me inside, instead of, y'know, waiting until it's torrential down-pouring and stuff. Again." "Its kinda hard to move if you think about it. Teachers actually gave me good advice about it though, just don't think about it. Like how you go up and down stairs just fine, until you think about doing it. Same goes with walking, and moving around. If you think about it, and try and watch where you're putting your feet, you'll mess up, because you can't see it. But if you just walk like normal, its fine." Faelan starts heading in as Ducky says she'll come with. "Though I can't teleport someone or make them invisible unless I can see them. Which I guess makes sense, since well how do you know if something is invisible in the dark, or if you can't see it in the first place." His eyes continually glance skywards for stray lightning or rain drops as he heads for the building. "That makes sense. A lotta stuff is hard to do if you actually concentrate too much on what you're doing. Like breathing. If you think too hard about the rhythm of breathing, it gets weird until you forget to think about it again, ad then it goes back to normal," Ducky adds, nodding emphatically as she follows Faelan up towards the mansion proper. "So, I assume that means you can't see the stuff you make invisible? Since you say it's hard to move. How do you re-visible things, then? I mean, you can make them show up again, right?" Ducky asks, continuing the chain of questions as they march towards the building, ahead of the storm. She'll keep asking questions for as long as Faelan lets her, continuing the incessant chatter well into the evening.