Logs:Wednesday's Children

Wednesday's Children
Dramatis Personae Ace, Nanami, Sera	2022-12-11 "Anyway, I bet if there was lots of murder here, the Professor would just -- Conveniently help us not-notice, yeah?"
Location <XAV> Rec Room - Xs Second Floor
School this may be, but life for Xavier's students certainly isn't all studying. Outside classes, this is a popular spot to find students in their downtime. An enormous tribute to slacking off, this room is a wealth of fun and relaxation. Comfortable armchairs, couches, and beanbags offer plentiful seating scattered throughout the room, and the cushioned windowseats by the high windows offer a cozy nook to curl up and look out on the grounds. The room is often filled with the noises of gaming -- whether it comes from the big-screen television (tall racks of DVDs beside it, if nothing can be found on the multitude of cable channels), tricked out with consoles from retro to the latest releases, or the less electronic clatter and thump of the pool table, air hockey, or foosball. For those a little more subdued in their gaming, the cabinets hold stacks and stacks of board and card games, ranging as classic as chess and go to as esoteric as Dixit, Catan, and Gloom. More days than not, there's some variety of snacks to be found on a table beside the gaming cabinet -- quite often in the form of fresh-baked desserts. Alice, better known as Ace by her classmates heads to the recreational room after an entire school day of studying. She plops her entire body into one of the beanbags and faces the ceiling, too tired for any pranks, troublemaking or truancy that she would normally do to pass time. The girl with bicolored hair of black and white finds herself alone in the entire room, nobody else seems to be occupying this place. She then puts on music on her phone and privately listens to it with earbuds on as she plays with 3 colored orbs of light on the tips of her fingers of her right hand. Her right index finger holds a red orb, her middle finger a green orb and her ring finger a blue orb The rec room door opens again soon after. Judging by the flecks of damp still melting on her glossy black hair, Nanami looks like she's just recently been outside and none too happy about it, turning a sullen glare towards the windows where a very paltry dusting of snow is halfheartedly drifting down to turn to slush and mud on the school grounds beyond. She's still dressed like she's ready to tackle the cold, fleece-lined heart-dotted leggings under her pleated black skirt, scrunchy thick pink and white and purple striped knee-high socks over those, a wide knit pink sweater soft and loose over a black and purple shirt beneath. She stops on her way into the room to hesitate beside the snack table -- a box of mint chocolate chip oreos is three-quarters empty beside an optimistically placed and barely touched tray of sliced veggies -- and gives the Oreos a glare before reaching instead to take one singular celery stick and cart it with her to the couch. She's dropped heavily down onto the cushions, her bag dropping with a THUD beside her, and is aaaalmost about to reach for the remote -- but doesn't, instead squinting at Alice and her glowing orbs of light. Her fingers tap restlessly at the remote control buttons but do not press any. "Do those like. Do. Anything." It comes with a small jerk of her chin toward the light. "Like. Are they color coded." Sera sweeps in with a book tucked under her arm, perhaps just a touch too peppy for a cold, dreary day at a boarding school a week before winter break. Her pixie cut has grown shaggy over her bright green eyes, and she's wearing a pale blue Montreal Canadiens sweater over black corduroys. She fetches up at the side of the couch but does not plop herself down, her eyes darting to Nanami, then to Ace's lights at the question. Her smile is quick and bright, her engagement subtle but sensible. "Ok, well now I gotta know, too." Alice rested at the beanbag for about half an hour and she played with the different wavelengths of light of the orbs, thus changing their color. Despite all the delicious snacks in the recreation room, the black and white-haired girl didn't feel like eating anything and continued to entertain herself until Namami then showed up to the room, and then came Sera She too appeared to have dropped down to one of the beanbags and then about to turn on the TV, only to find her squinting at Alice. She didn't particularly like the way she was being looked at. Isn't she going to turn on the TV? Sera seemed to be nicer than the other girl though. She leans foward to face to two gil "These? Just different wavelengths of light, they don't do anything particularly special but hey, they do produce pretty colors which I like to do for fun. But I can focus them into burning lasers and shit though. Anyways what do you guys do?" She spoke in a mostly bored, apathetic tone. Her eyes are heterochromatic, her left eye being dark brown and her right being a bluish-gray color. She wears a grey champions hoodie and tracksuit bottoms, along with black sneakers. She also omitted the fact that the light is only half of her mutation. "Huh." Nanami settles back, tucking her celery stick between blush-pink lips. She lifts her chin again, this time to Sera as the other girl enters, a very brief flicker of warmth lightening her otherwise dreary mood. "So like Mr. Holland, I guess." Her teeth worry at the edge of the celery stick. She scoots to one side, making more room there for Sera. "Do? Uh, right now, probably watch couple episodes of Wednesday and pretend like Monday isn't tomorrow. Weekend it's never long enough, huh?" There's nothing of it in her expression or carriage, but Sera just seems sad at Ace's explanation. But only for a split second. The mention of their absent teacher's name brightens her smile. "That is pretty. And pretty cool!" She settles down on the couch and gives one small bounce at the proposition of watching Wednesday. "Yes, let's do that! Have you seen that show? It's so good!" "I know right. They're just not enough time to rest in a weekend. By the way that's only half of I can do. I've also got this." She uses her left side and her body turns completely pitch black, with the only thing visible are her eyes. She has become a shadow and stretched and morphed her body to the other side to join the girls and watch Wednesday. She replies while still in her darkness form "Never seen it before, but sure I'll watch" There's an almost inaudible pop, tiny and crackling and nearly lost under Nanami's startled eep. Her eyes have gone wide and she's pressed herself against the arm of the sofa in surprise, the remote control clattering uselessly to the floor. For a second she is silent. Her cheeks burn furious crimson, and she exhales slow, deliberately relaxing back into the couch. "Um." Another blink, her fingers picking at the hem of her skirt, now. "It's a -- have you seen the Addams Family? Anyway, it's a show about, uhhhhhh -- some weirdo kid at a school for freaks." Her mouth twists to one side, eyes cutting briefly to Ace and then away. A little wryly she adds, "... don't think Mr. Holland do none of that." The half-and-half mutant stops using her dark half of her powers reverts back to her normal form. Looks like her shadow form seemed to have spooked Nanami, and staying in this form for too long isn't good for Ace's mental health. Ace isn't particularly familiar with TV shows, but the Addams Family did pique her interest. She did however feel the term 'school for freaks' to be a reference for mutants and not in an especially good light. That is unfortunately the reality of this world though. "Haven't heard of that either. When they say freaks though, they probably mean us, right?" Sera's surprise is physically subtler but feels quite outsized before it quite suddenly vanishes. "Oh! Wow, no. But he could make it look like he could do that which..." Her eyebrow furl slightly, but she physically shakes it clear and reaches down to pluck up the remote. "I mean, they don't say the word 'mutant', and it's all supposed to be magic, but it really feels very on the nose." "The school is basically just like this one, except with more style and also more murder." "Oh, nah, they say outcasts and --" Nanami flutters a hand toward Sera in agreement. "They can't make it seem too much like they mean mutants or else someone might get upset they're getting too political," she sounds a little derisive at this thought. "But they toootally mean freak school like ours and --" She sits up with a sudden scrunch of her nose. "How do we know-know how much murder goes on here? I mean we gottem terrorists and vigilantes for teachers and people always up and disappearing for ages and just boom! We're supposed to keep going to freaking painting class like we don't notice there's some garbage sub who barely knows what the color wheel is! Anyway, I bet if there was lots of murder here, the Professor would just --" She waggles her hand towards her own head this time. "Conveniently help us not-notice, yeah?" "It's actually pretty heavy-handed, I'm kind of surprised they are getting away with it." Sera's eyes go wide, with a spill of wonder and a thrill of fear, both overwhelmed by inquisitive curiosity. "Oh my God he so would! We could be the secret gothy freak school in real life and not even know it." WIth a dramatic flourish she clicks the remote control at the screen and -- -- nothing happens. "Some were murdered, some died in accidents or in action and others were probably arrested or kidnapped by the authorities. These are just my guesses how these people probably disappeared." She turns to Sera "And yeah we maybe that school in the show. After all I can't think of a place more famous than Xavier's that keeps and teaches mutants. Anyways lets" She shrugs as she relaxes on the beanbag with the other girls. The show apparently is somewhat based on the mutants and this school, only magical and spookier. Just as she thought she was about to watch the show, the screen didn't turn on. "Huh? Why won't it turn on?" "I mean, some them obviously arrested it wasn't no kine secret when they bust in here to take Mr. Holland and I always hear all kine rumors about the places mutants get kidnap to but --" Nanami lifts one shoulder in an oddly nonchalant shrug given their choice of conversation topic. Her kind of confused,"-- famous?" does not get clarified before she's distracted by Sera trying to turn the television on. Her head ducks, another blush sheepishly creeping into her cheeks. "Chee, that was probably me. Sorry, uh, they really should keep a whole stock of extra those things by now." Her nose wrinkles up juuust slightly, eyes briefly cutting towards Ace with a faint flutter of guilt that only Sera can feel. "Or make the rec room like, a no-jump-scares zone." "Well, they took him because he was busting other mutants out." Sera is chewing on her lower lip, unease rippling out from her in slow waves. "There was a good reason for that to be secret, although it kind of isn't anymore." She frowns down at the remote and clicks it a few more times until Nanami's admission, at which point she mouths a silent "ohhhh". She's blushing a little herself now, second-hand embarrassment passing along to Ace. "Oh right. I think there is a spare somewhere. Unless this was the spare. Whatever, the school can afford more." She peers at the neat row of gaming consoles stowed in the cabinet under the TV, uncertain. "I've seen other kids use the controllers for watching TV, too. Not exactly sure how to make that work, though." "I'll go find a spare.." Ace stands up and searches the room for a spare, but she finds out that searching for one is not as easy as she thought. She frustratingly looks through any many nooks and cranny in the room till she eventually finds another a spare that was placed somewhere very inconvenient. "Got it, let's hope it works" She pushes the top red button on the remote and this time the TV turned on. "Yes!" She says to herself before almost literally jumping back on the beanbag. Nanami executes a sloooow slide back down into a slouch in the corner of the couch as Ace searches for a new remote. Her expression has twisted itself into a somewhat rueful smile by the time the other girl returns. "Sorry," comes out just a little bit wry. She's standing now, scooping her bag back up to hitch it onto her shoulder. "I'll let you two watch, get outta here before I break the TV too, huh? Maybe a good sign to stop procrastinating on my history essay anyway." She jerks her chin up to Sera and Ace, and tucks her hands caaarefully into her skirt pockets as she skirts back out toward the exit. Sera fidgets with her book, and despite the faint smile she keeps up she's radiating more and more discomfort, until it cuts out all at once. "It's okay," she tells Nanami quietly. "I...I'll see you later." It's a small delay before she spools her smile back up a little toward Ace. "We can start at episode one. I don't mind watching it over."