Logs:Different

Different
Dramatis Personae Fiona, Ion, Isra	2019-04-28 "This place is crazy, I've never seen people with wings before, and now I've seen two!"
Location <NYC> Lower East Side
Historically characterized by crime and immigrant families crammed into cramped tenement buildings, the Lower East Side is often identified with its working-class roots. Today, it plays host to many of New York's mutant poor, although even here they are still often forced into hiding. New York... what a wonderful town... More like a concrete maze. After wandering for another day or so, Fiona has finally found her way to the lower east side that Steve and Dusk had mentioned. This 'Evolves' places sure would be easier to find if her phone hadn't been stolen back in Ohio... Not that the streets are /particularly/ hard to navigate, being at right angles and all. At least the rain has let up, making it a somewhat nice Saturday afternoon... meaning tons of people. The better for her to get lost in the crowd. This gorgeous spring day finds Ion making his way the streets, unbothered by the crowds with the practiced habit of a long time city dweller. He's weaving easily down the sidewalk, a large cardboard tray in one hand that is full up with dumplings laden with several sauces and chopped scallions. He's dressed in faded old jeans, tough scuffed boots, a plain white tee with a very much abused and patched leather vest over top (MUTANT MONGRELS MC, reads a patch over the large horned and fanged skull on the back, and PRESIDENT, the patch over his chest). "Fucking /discrimination/ can you believe it! Next time them pigs arrest me I'm trying it!" Ion's deep rumbly voice is rich with laughter. He's waving one of the dumplings, animated, in the air, held between a cheap wooden pair of chopsticks. "Like shit it wasn't all the murdering or nothing it was obviously just because of -- yooo, girl," he's coming to an abrupt halt now, stopping to take note of Fiona -- her face maaaybe standing out a bit even among many other similar Lost sort of expressions on overwhelmed tourists. "You looking for something? Someone?" Walking beside Ion in a smooth, gliding gait that calls to mind a stalking predator, Isra has nearly finished her tray of dumplings. Always eye-catching just by virtue of stature and conformation, she fairly dazzles today with the brightness of her colors. She wears a simple white backless sundress, but her skin is a gradient of iridescent blue-purple splashed with drifts of fine silver spots that glimmer in the sunlight, highlighting rather than hiding the sharp angles of her inhuman body. The membranes of her immense batlike wings are night-black and spangled with silver stars that seem to twinkle as she moves. The caprine horns that spiral back from her temples and the heavy sharp talons that tip her fingers, toes, and each digit of her wings gleam a bright polished silver. "I suspect they may not receive it very well," she replies dryly, "but if it is worth the laugh to you I cannot see why not." Her cat-green eyes track to Fiona about the same time Ion approaches her. Her long tail swishes side to side beneath the hem of her skirt as she takes in the girl's appearance. "We have some familiarity with the area." Fiona startles as she's spoken directly to - something that definitely doesn't happen much while she's walking along, unless she's in the 'wrong neighborhood' so to speak. She looks up at Ion and then over at Isra, blinking. Her mouth opens, revealing her fangs, and then shuts. Her tail swishes nervously beneath her trench coat. Then opens again, "Ah, ah, s-someone named Steve told me there was a place called Evolves around here, that was safe." She scuffs one of her boots against the ground, shifting the weight of her pack on her shoulder. Her eyes kind of involuntarily are drawn to Isra and climb up to the top of her horns, then trace the wings. Then back down to the ground. "Someone called Steve, huh?" Ion grins broadly, taking a large bite of his dumpling. "Well, girl, someone called Steve did not lead you wrong. Evolve as safe as safe gets. We ain't far, we can show you. /Is/ kind of hard to find if you don't know what you're looking for. Guess that's a good thing if you don't want random human wander in." He polishes off the dumpling, licking stray chili sauce from his lip. "And what's the fun of getting arrested," this is casually tossed back to Isra, "if you don't even get no laugh out of it?" "Even Evolve isn't immune from unwanted attention, but the employees know how to deal with it." Isra's voice is calm and equable. "Besides, the community looks after the place, too." Here she allows a small smile--just enough to show her own fangs--and unfurls one wing to give Ion an affectionate squeeze across the shoulders without relinquishing her dumplings or setting down her chopsticks. "Come along." The wing gestures down the street before folding back in against her back. "What is your name, young lady?" Then, with a solemn tip of her hairless head at Ion, "That is an excellent question. I expect most people would say nothing at all." Fiona seems relieved that someone else knows about this place and and seems ready to follow Ion, then pauses. "Arrested?" She looks quizzical. She would rather not BE arrested - the best case scenario that could happen there is she'd be sent back home. Then all of a sudden she's called young lady and she comes to the realization that Isra must be much older than her. Memories of home and better times well up and are pushed back down. "Fiona," she offers, "Firecam," she adds awkwardly. "Who are you guys? This place is crazy, I've never seen people with wings before, and now I've seen two!" "Nothing at all!" Ion agrees triumphantly, but immediately reconsiders: "Jail got beds in, that been useful, some nights." He shakes his head, waving his hand with the now empty chopsticks still in it as he starts leading the way down the street. "Nah nah nah nobody getting arrested, the pigs they're fucking incompetent anyway. I'm Ion. Where you come in from? Is many people around here with wings." Isra nods, emitting a small affirmative noise. "It is good to meet you, Fiona, and welcome to New York. I am Isra." She tilts her head thoughtfully. "I have many winged persons in my acquaintance, though my sample is surely skewed. But if you spend enough time around Evolve, you are bound to meet more. How long have you been in town?" "About a week and change," Fiona offers, "I'm from the Midwest," she looks back and forth between her as hey walk, "J-just a little town in southern Missouri." She speaks with just the slightest of twangs. "That's what Steve said... He was really nice. Made me a sandwich. I kinda ran outta money." "Oh, so you /brand/ fucking new then! Welcome! New York it's a nonsense place, eats through money like BAM. Plenty of work to find here, though, that's something." Ion shakes his head, plucking up another dumpling. "Better than Missouri though! Couple week ago, big storm happened, I went there on accident. What's in Missouri? /Nothing/. Not the place I land in BUT --" Excitedly, now, he bounces on his toes, tapping the back of his hand eagerly against Isra's shoulder, "the smallsharks they tell me in St. Louis there's a big like. Museum with huge tunnels to climb, giant metal slinky, big steel climbing domes! I would zoom through that whole ass thing!" Isra's eyes skid aside to Fiona as they walk. "You have come a long way, then." Her pointed ears press back, then prick up again. "Not everyone travels so readily or so...randomly as Ion, but many come to New York all the same." She pauses a beat. "What brings you here, if you would not mind saying?" "I uh," Fiona stammers, "Things at home weren't going so great..." She trails off. "I didn't want my family to get hurt, so I left... We had a few really close calls before that. And, I always hear how much better things are here for people who're different. I'm not sure if it was a good idea but at least mom and dad are probably safe..." Ion's eyebrows raise. "Your dad white? 'St. Louis dangerous' sound like the kind of ain't-shit nonsense white people say about cities with black people in 'em." His tone is very offhand-casual, here. He downs the last of his dumplings, crumpling the cardboard and tossing it into the next trash can they pass. "And here, though..." He snorts, giving Isra a long look. "Sorry, New Girl, who tell you things here /better/, they telling you a whole bucket of lies. There's more of us here so we fight harder. That's some kind of better, I guess. But there's more of us here, so people hate us harder, too. What's better mean? We got community, that ain't nothing. Hell of more likely to get yourself killed here than anywhere else and that ain't shit either." "Your concern for your family is commendable, to be sure." Isra cocks her head slightly to one side, studying the girl, eyes unblinking. "Do they know where you are, or how you fare?" Her tail flicks faster now, though her face betrays little, her expression almost alien in its blank serenity. "Alas, I cannot disagree with Ion on that point. I am safer by far in Ithaca, my home town, yet I would not trade the community I have here for the security I have there." An odd, soft rumble rises low in her throat, and does not die away when she adds, "Besides, there is more than one kind of safety." "Yeah, we-" Fiona pauses, looking at the back of her hand, "My family is white," she corrects herself, looking up at Ion, "You're probably right... But he's still my dad..." She looks over at Isra, "No, they have no idea I'm in New York... I lost my phone a month or two ago. I'm sure my dad would freak out if he knew I was here... But I should give him a call at some point. I dunno." This time Ion does stop walking, /also/ looking at Fiona's hand in mirror of the glance she had just given it. "You kidding me with that, right?" Very flat. "You think you stop being white because you red? You don't." He rubs at the back of his neck, fingers scrunching into his messy dark hair, and exhales heavily before he starts walking again. "You need a phone? Phones is cheap. Sure your family is worried about you." "I do appreciate what it might be like to feel alienated from a family you do not physically resemble," Isra adds equably. Stopping abruptly seems a more complicated operation for her than her four-limbed companions, her wings mantling and her tail rising slightly for balance. "But keep in mind that race is not so simple as the color of your skin. It takes real work to learn these things, but I think it is worthwhile and will help you navigate life here. Our community consists of people from a tremendous variety of backgrounds, and our differences do not vanish simply because we are all freaks." Fiona kind of pauses, swallowing. "I suppose you're correct about that... When I was younger everyone treated me just like anybody else, evem though I've always looked like this." She agrees. "And, I wouldn't say I don't look like them... I mean aside from the whole rest of it..." She shakes her head. "Anyway, I'm not sure... It's hard talking to them, they just want me to go home. We usually end up arguing about it. He thinks he can just wave a wand and make everything better if I would just do what he says, but he's the one who got fucking shot last time and almost died." Her tail swishes somewhat angrily and wisps of black smoke trail out of the sides of her mouth. "He's your dad, girl. Gonna guess that almost shot or no, he gonna worry. Part of his job, yeah? Sometimes in family you get little bit shot for each other. He /probably/ not worrying less if you just go silent and don't even let him know you still alive. The library, it'll let you on the internet for free, you know. Send emails." They've turned down a side street, narrower and far more sparsely populated than the previously busy thoroughfare. The storefront Ion stops in front of is nondescript. "This your stop. Good coffee, good foods. People post up gigs and shit on the bulletin board, too, you need a cash. Good luck." Isra's hairless eyebrow ridges lift up slightly. "I do also appreciate that it is difficult to talk to parents who do not understand what you must face as a mutant. Still, I truly doubt if letting them know your situation will put them in any danger." She taps her lower lip with her chopsticks, thoughtful. If she's alarmed at all at the smoke pouring from Fiona's face, she gives no obvious indication. "I imagine I would also want you to come home, in their position. But if you refuse, they would probably rather wire you some money than leave you to sleep on the street. Especially if they've not heard from you in a while." She nods at the cozy little shop Ion indicates. "The pay-what-you-can menu items are exactly that, gratis if that's what you need at this moment. Good luck, and again, welcome to the City." "Hmm, I will... Think about it," Fiona replies, "Thanks for the help!" She brightens up, disappearing around the corner into the shop.