Logs:Of Ghosts and Gardens (Or, A Cardboard World)

Of Ghosts and Gardens (Or, A Cardboard World)
Dramatis Personae Asva, Beau, Kavalam
In Absentia	2023-03-22 "What makes you think I won’t remember, though?"
Location <XAV> Gardens - Xs Grounds
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 ambience here is comforting to one of the students; currently sprawled on his back atop a bench placed next to some strong scented herbs. He’s dressed in a light pair of jeans, head resting on the hood of his oversized green hoodie as he routinely throws a red ball up in the air above his face. He’s reminded of the endless hours he’d spend in his garden back home, the sounds of nature permeating the nothingness allowing him to dissociate easily, to relax. Settling in to a school such as this is tiresome at times after all, and the change of pace is exactly what he needs to unwind. With Fleetwood Mac playing lightly in his right earphone, he might be inclined to say this moment is blissful. Peace at Xavier’s is, more often than not, short lived. “Watch out below!” Beau bellows before smashing into the ground feet first, leaving behind a trench that thankfully avoids the flower beds before the momentum wins and sends the giant of a teenager tumbling headfirst into a tree. After a couple of seconds he pops back up and dusts himself off, “I definitely overshot that one, gonna have to fill this hole back in.” he mutters mostly to himself. Instead of his usual attire he’s dressed in a grey Xavier’s jogging suit and black athletic shoes. The sudden shudder of the ground seems to stir up more than just dirt. Just beside where Beau landed, Kavalam -- doesn't exactly suddenly appear. His presence simply inserts itself, at once surreal and oddly seamless, into the others' minds -- it feels less like someone becoming abruptly visible and more like suddenly noticing something that was there all along. He is currently irritably brushing some stray dirt from his yellow sweater vest. "What on earth are you doing?" There's bewilderment, more than anything else, in his heavily accented voice. “Helvete!” Asva exclaims as the booming voice fails to give him enough warning of the impact to follow. He feels the familiar pull of his body slipping out of the Gardens slightly as the other student crashes into the tree, and soon falls himself, haphazardly through the bench on which he perched. He sits up soon after hitting the ground, his heaving chest clipping the surface of the bench as he raises a hand to calm his heart. He’d been getting used to the hustle and bustle of the school, but this seems to be a new level of disruption. As abrupt as the encounter is, it succeeds in bringing his attention to the other boy not far from him, prompting a slight confusion as to why he hadn’t noticed him before. Perhaps too lost in his arduous task of solo catch? Regardless, Asva stands and brushes himself off, his first priority being to check on the commotion and the student at the forefront of it all. “Are you okay?” His brow knits into a concerned expression, fighting the urge to reach out and help the guy up. He’s not even sure if he’s tangible right now to do so. Beau slow blinks at Kavalam, bringing a large finger up to point at himself almost questioningly. “…jumping. Was in a more secluded open area, but I hit the gas a little too hard and launched myself.” At the very least he does look a little ashamed about it. When Asva inquired about his well-being he simply flops his hand dismissively, “I’m fine. Sorry for scaring y’all and slinging dirt everywhere.” "Jumping? Not... fleeing anything. Just -- so?" Kavalam looks no less confused at this explanation. His vest, at least, seems ultimately unharmed once the crumbs of dirt have been brushed off. He moves away from the trench to perch himself on a flat rock, legs crossing beneath him. "Chaos is just how this school operates," he tells Asva, this time with amusement. Asva chuckles, willing himself back to physicality so that he can perch on the end of the bench once again. “You can say that again.” He glances back to the crater now carved into the ground between the three of them, and can’t help but wonder how many others puncture the school’s premises from similar, if not identical events. “No, but you never know when you’ll have to.” Beau shrugs, kicking some of the dirt back into the hole. “Probably shouldn’t have been doing it over here, but hadn’t expected to run into anybody. Should’ve known better though.” "Hadn't expected to run into anybody -- in -- the garden on a lovely spring day." Kavalam's brows tick just slightly up, here. "Huh." Then, a little wider-eyed, a little more earnest: "If you are also new here, I should let you know there are truly massive grounds free to destroy farther out from the mansion. Fields. Woods. Cliffs, if you have a mind to jump off things." He turns his attention away from Beau, then, leaning slightly forward with elbows propped on his knees as he watches Asva re-take the bench he had fallen through. "Are you also a ghost?" Oddly, this question sounds kind of hopeful. Asva makes a note to check out these fields and woods himself, having only explored the essential school grounds so far. He wouldn’t be doing any destruction of said places like Beau of course, but it sounds like a good place to actually get some peace and quite if he wants it. He turns his attention back to Kavalam, noting his expression lighting up slightly with his question, “Essentially, yeah. I guess you could call it ghost walking, or something.” He runs a hand through his brown locks, a sign of his insecurity when it comes to the lack of control he seems to have over his ability compared to others. “You said also, does that mean I’m talking to a fellow ghost?” “Definitely not new, was just wishful thinking on my end.” Beau rubs at the back of his neck, falling silent as the conversation turns towards being a ghost. “Walking through walls would be pretty cool. I mean, I can get through most of them, but I’m breaking it in the process.” "I cannot walk through walls, but." Kavalam gives a small side-to-side wobble of his head with this statement. "I am quite good at disappearing. Are there other essential Ghost Skills? We could make a club." He squints over at Beau, pushes his glasses up higher on his nose, and reconsiders: "If that method counts, I can walk through walls as well. I know how to use one hammer, no?" Asva can’t help but let a chuckle out at Beau’s comment, imagining him busting through every wall from here to the other side of the school. It doesn’t seem like he’d have much issue with it either, physically at least. “Hey, at least you always know that you’re going to actually touch everything you interact with. This control thing is pretty difficult, the amount of times I’ve just phased through the chairs in class is laughable.” Asva says with a grin, his mix of accents only aiding in his attempt to make his larger companion feel a little better about his tendency for destroying things. “Well, I guess if you count this-“ He adds in response to Kavalam, standing up once again and suddenly disappearing from sight. Before too long, he returns at least halfway to the physical plane once again, his voice a little quieter as he adds “I’m sure there are plenty of others with similar abilities. A club could be fun!” Despite just talking about his lack of control, this was somehow a lot easier than it had been in the past. Perhaps he’s at ease with these two. “Fair,” Beau dips his head towards Kavalam, “besides I’d have to get to a run first. Don’t think I could just step through.” He clicks his tongue as he thinks about it, “Actually I probably could.” He simply shrugs before looking at Asva, “Felt. I crushed and broke so many things when I had first gotten here. It’s like living in a world made out of cardboard.” Kavalam looks -- a little pointedly -- from Beau to the large trench gutted into the previously beautifully-manicured garden. Back to Beau. A beat, before the dry echo: "When you had first gotten here." Asva's demonstration does earn a wisp of a smile that lightens Kavalam's saturnine features. "Mmm... plenty, I don't know. But you should start a club, perhaps. If you remember." He sounds fairly skeptical of this possibility. “I’m sure the school could do with a few refurbs anyway. Couple open plan classrooms doesn’t sound awful, even if it had a you-shaped hole in the wall.” Asva chuckled. “We’ll see, still finding my footing after all! What makes you think I won’t remember, though?” He asks Kavalam with a puzzled expression. “Accidents happen.” Beau says with a shrug. “I’ll fix it up best I can and let one of the teachers know so the Professor can call his people. Gotta cost rich people money where you can.” Beau's words just make Kavalam's expression go noticeably more pinched. He removes his glasses, head shaking slowly as he wipes their lenses with an edge of his sweater. "Well," he is addressing this to Asva now, his smile a little wan, "the thing about my powers is --" Perhaps this sentence finishes, perhaps it does not, but the others will never know. When Kavalam vanishes it is much less impressive than when Asva did it only moments before: he disappears not just from sight but from mind and from memory, an erasure that in its completeness does not seem at all unusual or even noticeable. Beau and Asva may as well have been the only ones in this garden all this time, as far as either of them are aware. Asva’s brow unfurls, suddenly and blissfully unaware of the student and encounter that erased themselves from his mind. Instead he focuses on Beau’s last words, scoffing at the bluntness in which he addresses ‘the rich’. “That sounds like a good idea, luckily it’s not too bad. That tree might disagree though - you hit it pretty hard, sure you’re alright?” Beau’s expression slackens for a moment, snapping back when Asva addresses him. “Oh, uh, yeah. That time I got blown up was way worse.” He waves a hand, “That’s not usual though, really on the very extreme end of things to expect while here. Don’t count it out though, we get all kinds of mutations here with various levels on control. The teachers do their best to make sure everybody is safe though.” “Blown up?!” Asva exclaims, his Norwegian roots more noticeable the more expressive his voice becomes, “Jeez, I’m not as surprised that a tree didn’t take you out anymore.” A warm smile soon follows, “That’s reassuring, though I for one would prefer to get a hold on them sooner rather than later - accidentally disappearing at every minor inconvenience is very… well, inconvenient.” “Oh yeah, plenty of time to practice. We have some alumni that could phase through stuff, so worst case the school might be able to get them to give you a few pointers.” Beau says as reassuringly as he can muster. “Took me a couple years to get the hang of mine, seemed like I kept getting stronger every few years. Should be done with surprise mutations by now though.” Having met one of the Alumni with a similar power to him already, Asva only felt more reassured by Beau’s words; his shoulders visibly relaxing as he fetches the ball he was playing with earlier from under the bench, “One surprise mutation is enough for now, I think. Glad to hear yours have come to a halt too, sure the teachers would appreciate your craters not getting any bigger, huh.”