ArchivedLogs:Vivaldi Over... Dinner

Vivaldi Over... Dinner
Dramatis Personae Karolina, Shane
In Absentia	2013-07-17 Karolina, upon hearing odd sounds from the music room, happens to meet Shane. A slightly uncomfortable conversation ensues.
Location <XS> Music Room - FL2
Wide and spacious, seating in this soundproofed room comes largely on the sweep of gentle risers that afford the teacher an easy view of all the budding performers, and add another dimension to the acoustics of the room. Instruments of all types are carefully stored around the room, and a grand piano, immaculately upkept, takes the position of prize near the back. In a nod to the eclectic studies of the students, digital mixing equipment and turntables rub shoulders with the classical instruments. Music stands sit in front of most of the seats, and the only windows look out out over the side of the school grounds. Classes have long since finished for the day; very shortly, dinner will be served. Students are starting to gravitate Great-Hall-wards, already summoned by the rich smells Savita has drummed up in the kitchen; it's mouth-watering, really, it usually /is/, it lures hungry teenagers out to loiter even before the dinner bell has rung. But though /that/ music has yet to officially summon anyone anywhere, there is other music drifting through the second floor hallway, from the /almost/ but not quite closed door of the music room. Sombre and dissonant, it is not a /cheery/ piece on the violin, the first movement of Prokofiev's Symphony No. 6 in E-flat minor. It's a piece that would be at home in a graveyard. What would /not/ be quite at home there is the occasional jarring interruption when the otherwise well-played piece hits a snag, is caught, stops in time with a muttered /stream/ of invective half in English ("-- frakking son of a /cockmunching/ whoreson") and half in something definitively Not English before rewinding a few measures and starting again. Whoever is playing is -- /good/, perhaps! But. Not. Very /patient/ with himself. Karolina tended to arrive at dinner on time, certainly. The smells of food were usually less of an exciting thing for her - as usually they were the smells of cooking meat of some sort or another. Xavier's did provide specially for her particular vegan diet, which kinda made her feel slightly worse sometimes, for having to be catered to. Ahem. Long story short, she'd arrive more or less on time, in spite of the rich smells in the halls. As such, Karolina Dean was wandering back to her dorm, to pick up something quick before dinner - her little music player, actually, when she passed by the music room. It was that faint sound of a violin that causes her to stop, the multicolored young woman lingering by the doorway briefly. A beat, and she sticks her head in, seeing... "Okay. That must be one of the sharktwins," she says, more or less to herself. Karolina was dressed comfortably, if a bit warmly - a long-sleeved turtleneck, and a pair of flared jeans, and comfortable sneakers, with a variety of bracelets around her wrists. The colors didn't matter so much, because her clothes, hair - her entire body, was effused with a rainbow sort of energy, the colors swirling and washing over her, in patterns seemingly at the whim of the heavens. It was with a quiet step that she would step into the listening portion of the music room then - she was fairly obvious through the glass, due to lighting alone. Lifting up a hand to wave - which would be a pointless gesture if Shane does not look up, Karolina lifts her voice to try to carry, at least, while he is at a break in his piece here. "That was wonderful playing - you're very very good," she says. "Fucking goddamn /Frithrah/," Shane answers this polite compliment with, his bow swishing down irritably through the air but his violin still tucked beneath his chin. The tiny blue sharkboy is rather neatly dressed; slacks in pale cream, short-sleeved dress shirt, darker vest. Deep crimson collar buckled around his neck. "Ugh, no, I fuck up the same gorram -- jesus Christ," he says this as he looks up at Karolina for the first time. Admittedly, he says it with a more awed than appalled tone, pupilless black eyes widening to dominate his pixieish face. They narrow again shortly, though. He places his bow to strings once more, but doesn't play. "You're the fucking hippie, right." This is bland-flat, it comes without much weight of judgment, despite the profanity sprinkled in there like punctuation. "Noooo fucking /wonder/ they sent Jax after you. Shouldn't you be eating?" Karolina pauses a moment, suddenly exceedingly grateful for the glass between herself and him suddenly. He could probably see that momentary look of surprise on her features: the widening eyes, mouth slightly falling open - before she breathes out a long sigh, and tugs the corners of her lips up. It was a gentle little smile. One short-lived when Shane's pupilless eyes narrow once more. "W-well," says Karolina Dean, bringing up a hand to kinda absently play with the end of a strand of hair, curling it around a fingertip - a nervous gesture. "I can't say I've ever been called a /hippie/ before, but... hang on, this is bothering me," she says. Talking to him through glass had the side effect of feeling, you know, a bit wrong in spite of the 'protection' that it gave (which felt a little bit silly, now that the initial surge of shock had given way to nervousness) and Karolina steps towards the door, pulling it open, to standa t the threshhold of the little room. "Well, what about you? Aren't you hungry?" she asks at first, before continuing, "But you have, uh... heard of me, then? I'm Karolina Dean - Peter spoke rather highly of you, if you are who I think you are," she says, the corners of her lips bearing the hint of a smile again. Shane's lips peel back. It's proooobably a smile, it's wide and /bright/ but it makes it /abundantly/ clear the /shark/ part of sharktwins; his /twin/ might not be in evidence but his mouth is very very full of more than his fair share of /exceedingly/ sharp sharkteeth. "I'm," he says, none too reassuringly as she steps inside, "always hungry." He lowers his bow hand. "I know who you are, dude, there's like. Ten fucking people in this school, it's hard /not/ to know who everyone is. Y'met Peter already?" The smile widens. "I don't always eat. With the others. You settling in alright?" He untucks the violin from his shoulder, drops it to his side, too. He ambles closer -- not much, admittedly, just enough to fetch a hip up against a nearby chair to halfway sit. "Peter's a moron, though, you shouldn't listen to him." Somehow, he makes 'moron' sound /fond/. "He loves everyone. Fucking unhealthy, really. You play at all?" He waves his bow around the music room. Frankly, that smile was a bit unnerving for Karolina Dean. And if Shane was looking for it, he'd probably see the little cues in her demeanor that would suggest that she was unnerved, but soldiering through regardless. The tensed shoulders, the slight jumpiness, the way her eyes kept flicking away from his own, as she tries to maintain that contact. So when he says what he does about being hungry, Karolina does laugh, but it likewise bears the sound of relief, more than anything. "Yeah, I... I guess you're right. About there only being like ten students around here, but I still manage to have not, well, met a lot of you guys," she says, her smile becoming a bit stronger by the moment, fixed upon Shane. "Yeah, I met him like... three times already. He's /everywhere/," says Karolina, with a bit of a further laugh. "He's pretty smart, and really friendly, though, so - I like him," she says. "So far, yeah, I'm settling in great," she says with a wider smile. "It's... nice not having to worry about silly things like food, and wondering if I'll wake up and not be surrounded by angry people, stuff like that," she says, kinda waving a hand to one side, bracelets clacking together. The way he calls Peter a moron, though? It takes Karolina a second or two to kinda catch on to the meaning within the meaning, staring kinda dumbfoundedly at Shane a moment. "Well, or he tries to see the good in people. That's not a bad thing, I feel - it's... the kinda attitude we'll need to get past all this hate and stuff," she says. A beat. "Well, I play a little bit, but - I never was any good at it. My dad, uh..." she pauses. "Got me a guitar for my birthday before the world got complicated, so I've only practiced a little. You, though - you must have been practicing all your life, right?" "Yeah," for a moment the brash-rough slips out of Shane's tone, leaving it softer. His smile curls crooked, softer too for all it /can/ be soft with its continued complement of gleaming sharp teeth. "He does. That. Tries to see --" He shakes his head quickly. "He can be sweet /and/ a moron," he points out to Karolina. "Fuck, he can be smart and a moron." "My brother plays guitar," he says then, switching topics with a shrug. "You good? They have pretty alright classes here, I think. Haven't taken too many. I'm kinda shit at class. When is the world ever not complicated?" The softness that enters his tone and demeanor did help draw a bit of the tension out of Karolina, the young woman releasing a heady sigh a bit. The little smile that dances up on her expression when he talks about Peter, though - that was heartfelt enough, she could see. "You believe differently, about... well... about all that?" she asks, tilting her head just so. "I'm not good at all," she says then. "But yeah - I was looking at taking actual guitar classes here," she says, "Learn more than just kinda plinking away at the strings," although her eyes kinda widen. "You learned to play like that... without any classes at all?" She sounded impressed. "Have you /met/ people? People will fuck you the hell /over/. They will fuck you over with a smile on their faces and walk over your bleeding body when they are done with you. C'mon," Shane drops down more heavily to sit in the chair, twisting it around backwards to drape his arms over its back, violin hanging lazily from one hand. "What's /your/ story, if people were all --" He hooks a crooked smile upwards, "sunshine and daisies to /you/, /Pa/ wouldn't have brought you in here, your folks would've." The question about the violin draws a startled laugh, a quick shake of his head. "Oh, oh-oh-oh, oh no, sorry, I'm not, shiiiit no. I'm not no fucking -- no way. I'm bad at /school/. I don't have any particular genius, I learned normal. My neighbor at home's a fucking genius, I learned the normal way from him. I'm just bad with -- this shit," he waves the violin around the music room. "He's chill, though, he taught me kinda casual." There was a moment, before Karolina nods her head slowly. "Yeah. I've... met people," says the young woman, brushing a wayward lock of her psychadelic hair out of her eyes. "But... I... um," she pauses a moment. "For everyone who took everything they could from me, or were horrified of me, there was another that could see past their... fear, I guess, and saw that we were, well, hungry and tired," she says, slowly, "But then we all got caught, and my friends ended up..." Karolina's eyes were essentially glued to the ground at this point. "No, my parents were..." Karolina bites her lower lip, daring a glance up to him. "A lie, essentially. I'm so glad Jackson..." Karolina pauses a bit, her brow furrowing. "He's your father?" asks Karolina, a note of surprise in her voice. "He's amazing!" She carries on. "Or, well, seems that way, I really haven't met him much," she adds. "But... about your playing?" Karolina says, "I guess you'd know better if you're bad at it. The song was a little depressing, but - I'd listen to more, if you'd like to play more." "Bad with classrooms," Shane clarifies this last part first, a cocky stretch to his lopsided smile, "I fucking rock on the strings. It's teachers I lose patience with." His arm stretches along the back of the chair, small pointed chin propping against his forearm. His black eyes focus on Karolina, drifting half-closed as he watches her sparkles. "Pa's fucking amazing. He's -- sortayeah. I mean not by /blood/ or anything, he's barely older than we are. But he's." Shrug. "What's up with your parents, are they shitbags too? I'm starting to think most parents are shitbags. Seems to be how things go. Maybe it's not parents, though. Maybe it's just a fucking /coin/-toss if /people/ are going to be shitbags or amazing." His smile stretches again. Wider. He digs in his pocket for a quarter, and lies his violin on the ground at his feet. The quarter lies lazily against his thumb. He studies Karolina thoughtfully. "What're you?" "He's like a superhero," Karolina finishes when Shane doesn't finish his 'but' sentence. As opposed to his chair-lounging, Karolina was keeping a respectable distance from the other, fingertips tucked into the pockets of her jeans. With time, though, her demeanor had settled down from the tension of before, leaving her almost casual. Although there were flickers of it returning when he grinned. "I... well," says Karolina, running her tongue over her lips. "Parents, yeah. I... don't understand a lot. But yeah, they were serious..." Karolina pauses for a moment, seeming to compose herself. "All my life they seemed to be great. They were fine, they were nice - and they seemed to love me. But. They were involved, and had always been involved, in pretty bad stuff that would hurt a lot of people. And when I found out, I just... ran. With a bunch of my friends whose parents were in the same kinda craziness. And it only got worse from there. It's... so hard to believe sometimes, it's like from a bad action movie or whatever," says Karolina, her voice quieting. "But they were kind to me. So, I'm lucky, in many ways," she says, breathing a little heavier as she wraps a lock of hair around a fingertip. The question he poses her causes her to furrow her brow briefly, glancing up to him as she frees that lock of hair. "Well, I hope to not be a... um... a... 'shitbag'," says Karolina, "But I do stupid stuff sometimes, you know?" "He is a superhero. He saved my life. Our lives." This is much softer, Shane's eyes dipping to the ground. They lift back to Karolina; his words quiet as he actually gives her story his attention. His lips press together, slow, hiding his teeth behind a thinning grimace. "-- So they were like super-fucking-/villains/, man, that's -- heavy. Shit. Uh. I feel like life's a bad action movie a lot lately. You got out, though. What happened to your friends?" His finger wiggles at the coin indecisively. "Everyone does stupid shit. Pretty much /all/ I do," he admits, "is stupid shit." "I don't /know/, but I guess they were," says Karolina, sounding a bit exasperated. "None of us knew any of it, we were all just normal kids," says Karolina, pausing a moment afterwards to just be more or less composed. Bringing up a hand again to her hair, she runs her fingers through it. "It's still surreal, and I just keep expecting, you know, my mom and my dad to show up, and tell me this was all a..." says Karolina, closing her eyes, and releasing a breath. A beat, and she opens her eyes again. "I'm sorry," she says, with a little smile. "The police picked us all up," says Karolina, finally grabbing another chair. "One by one - they weren't all mutants like me, some were human, and we weren't going to attack the police at all," she says, setting herself down in her newly acquired seat. "I don't know where they are at - probably somewhere in the foster system, now," she says, pursing her lips somewhat. But she allows the last thing that they were speaking about to draw smiles back to her lips, glancing back up to him. "Well. About stupid stuff? YOLO or something, right?" she says, a snerking little laugh leaving her lips as she then releases a bit of a sigh, the smile fleeing her. Staying Connected. "Fuck the police," is Shane's automatic reflexive answer to this, harsh and sharp. "/I'd/ attack 'em even if you wouldn't. The fuck's a yoh-loh." His head turns to the side, cheek pressed against his arm. There's a shift beneath the fabric of his collar, muscles flexing in his neck and for a moment he quiets, his eyes closing. This pauses, he waits for it to subside before he speaks again. "Well." His tone is abruptly cheerful. SO cheerful. /Bright/. Brittle-bright. "S'all over now, right? You've reached the promised land. S'like mutant paradise now and all your problems're gonna be gone." SMILE. Bright, bright, toothy smile. "Good thing my pa picked you up or you'd've been -- where the fuck were you, anyway? /Texas/? /That's/ like a fate worse than death if I ever heard one. You got bright shining plans for the future?" Karolina nods her head once to his initial statement, her features growing a bit serious. Opening her mouth, she pauses a moment, and then closes it again. "How about you? What sort of place did you come from?" asks Karolina, pursing her lips a moment. "The yoh-loh thing is just something stupid that was going around my high school before it all went bad. I was trying to be stupid-funny," she says, the colors around her cheeks veering more towards the yellows/reds than anything. Although she notices the little fit, if it could be called that, Karolina falling into uncomfortable silence before she draws a breath as if to gingerly ask - when the cheeriness comes. "W-well," Karolina begins to say, the change in attitude perhaps one of the more alarming things so far. "Are you okay Shane? Do you need me to get you some water, or something to eat?" she asks, the corners of her lips turning down in a bit of a frown. Yeah, she kinda ignored the battery of questions at the end, there. "Was it funny?" Shane's sharp smile remains. "Should I laugh?" He stoops to pick up his violin again, though his bow is laid across his knees, his other hand still balancing the quarter atop it. "S'funny, you know, I think Peter's pretty much just started carrying snack-meat everywhere around us. Juuust in case," he says lightly. "I'm good, though. I just hate this motherfucking place. The PR bullshit they feed to all the newkids. Happy-feely crap I'm sure my dad fed you. I mean, don't get me wrong," his eyes close, breath pushed out heavy through his nose. "I love my pa to fucking death. But fuck. People here are shitbags the same as people anywhere else." "If you ask most people... not really, I suppose," says Karolina, pursing her rainbow lips together and glancing down, and to one side. The mention of the snack meat has Karolina looking up again - this time with a note of concern not for herself in her eyes. "Does that lead you to feel like you're a little more... well, dangerous, now that Peter's doing that?" asks Karolina, her tone falling soft. Nodding her head, she accepts all the words from him, before she breathes out softly. "Why do you feel that way? Have people here been treating you poorly? Or taking things from you?" asks she. Shane considers this, fingers drumming against his knees. "Always been dangerous," he decides in the end. "I think it makes me glad. That he's got the foresight to recognize it. I /know/ he loves me. He's just being careful about it now." He turns his hand over, setting the quarter down on his knees, and picks up his bow again. He settles his violin back into place, taking a moment to get it comfortably tucked beneath his chin. "What kinda mood you in?" he wants to know. The second string of questions earns a slower smile. It has teeth, too, but this time it's incidental, a sliver-flash that is soon vanished again. "Maaan, /I'm/ an asshole. If people treat me poorly it's because I fucking deserve it. Probably not many people at this school I /haven't/ insulted. B, though, he's the /sweetest/ fucking -- nngh." His head shakes. "You watch the news much?" There was a little pause, and Karolina nods her head slowly from where she sits, trying to bring back the little smile that had fled her earlier. "He's a smart guy," Karolina says, "Sometimes, people can be too smart, and miss the obvious for their thinking going... you know, everywhere but here in reality, but I feel that Peter has a good head on his shoulders," says Karolina, relaxing a bit from the scare of moments prior. "Do you know any Vivaldi? Anything from the seasons has always been a favorite of mine, classical-wise," says Karolina, that smile returning. "I haven't seen the news much at all, recently. I find it more depressing than interesting mostly - what happened on the news?" she asks, tilting her head a bit to the side. "How strong's your stomach?" Shane isn't starting to play, yet. He's pulling a phone out of his pocket. Pulling up youtube. Queueing up a video and offering the phone to Karolina /before/ setting his bow back to his strings. "If the answer is 'not very', don't hit play. But, mmmnh. That video was all the fuck over the news countrywide." His eyes slip towards shut as he starts to play -- but only halfway, watching Karolina through a halfway lidded gaze. The stormy final movement of summer. "Is this the video with the octopus person?" says Karolina - clenching her jaw. A moment's time, and a little bit of a shudder from her, and she sets the phone on her lap. Without pressing play. "I've, um... heard of this one. From Kisha," she says, sitting back in her chair. A beat, though, and before he starts playing, she asks, voice just a touch hollow, "Why did you do it?" When that last movement comes out of the violin, Karolina cannot help but sit up straighter - it was a movement that almost forced one to be entirely on edge in spite of its flow, and Karolina was not unaffected by it. Shane's teeth bare again. Kiiind of like a smile. "I was hungry," he answers levelly, without missing a beat, in answer or in the rather chaotic draw of bow across strings. One might get the sense that Karolina was paling, overall. Her features were immensely serious, and the colors in her aura 'cool', drawing more towards the blue and purples of the spectrum, overall. Regardless of such things, she folds her hands in her lap, over his phone, and sits back in the chair, her gaze going a bit faraway - faraway and thoughtful, all at once. Shane's eyes stay fixed on Karolina, through this. He is silent, though his violin is not, continuing to play out the storm through its thunderous climax. The music surges through the room, roiling up; it makes it almost jarring when it dies away. His bow stays poised just over his strings. "Like I said," breaks the silence afterwards, "if people here treat me poorly --" Another brief sliverflash of teeth, though this isn't really a smile. His lips peel back, for sure, but it is more just a brief pull backwards than upwards, and then they close. "You're missing dinner." Karolina rises slowly to a stand, setting his phone on the seat after she rises up. Motions almost too controlled - but there was no smile on her lips. "Thank you for the piece of music," she says, taking a step towards the open door - the young woman lifting up a hand to touch the frame of the doorway. There was a moment, and she glances back over her shoulder towards him, nodding her head as she does so. "You should come eat with all of us. I am certain you would be welcomed..." she says, jaw clenching a bit. "I am certain that you would be welcome," she repeats, as if trying to convince herself. "...I am glad to have met you, Shane," she says. "You're kind," Shane says, with a quick sharp smile and a tone that actually sounds warm as he sets his bow back to his strings. The same piece he was practicing when Karolina came in, dirge-somber. Wind through gravestones. "See you round, Karolina."