180/Settling into the Dorms

Settling into the Dorms
Date of Scene:	27 April 2017
Location:	Metropolis
Synopsis:	Summary needed.
Cast of Characters:	Raven, 139

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Raven has posed:
    The trip to Metropolis isn't that long, in Miss Frost's self-driving car. Rachel sits in the front passenger's seat to give you two time to talk about who knows what. It seems like a good time to meditate and clear her mind of the weird jealousy she's feeling, not to mention the exhaustion of having to be a salesperson to you. While focusing on her inner calm, Rachel misses pretty much everything you're talking about (except maybe subconsciously, but that's not very useful) up until the moment the car pulls into the school, with its Apple Store aesthetic. She zones back in to reality at about the point where Miss Frost is explaining how she'll send your parents' car back anonymously.
    Rachel gets out of the car, stretches her legs, grimaces at the sun shining off the reflective buildings. Miss Frost is quick to do the same. She looks over the car at Rachel and commands, "Help Irene get situated, Rachel. I have some business to take care of. It will take me the rest of the day, so don't disturb me, but come by my apartment tonight." Rachel nods without saying anything (her reticence to speak might be the reason her voice creaks like that), and waits patiently by the trunk of the car for you to grab your things from it.

Irene van Dalen (139) has posed:
Irene doesn't talk a great deal on the trip, so that much is easy. Now that she's here, safe, looking up at this glossy smartphone of a building, Irene doesn't get out of the car right away.

But she does, of course, eventually, and walks around. Her eyes turn upwards back to the building several times, then to Rachel. Inside of the car's trunk is a large backpack full of wrinkled, dirty laundry and a phone charger. Nothing else.

"... so you live here," she says to Rachel finally, as she puts a hand on the back handle of the backpack.

Raven has posed:
    Rachel nods. "You do too," she points out, accurately. "Let me get that." She makes a strange flinging gesture at your backpack with fingers fanned, and a black aura of anti-light that somehow makes each line of your backpack clearer surrounds your luggage and sets it to hovering at Rachel's side, close enough to make her wrinkle her nose. "Let's get started in the laundry room," she suggests, and moves the the bag a few feet further away from her, though it keeps pace with her like a (flying) dog on a leash as she starts walking you across the campus.

Irene van Dalen (139) has posed:
"... yeah," Irene says, pulling up the hood of her sweatshirt. "Good idea." The car, abandoned, will no doubt drive off to serve the dark will of Elon Musk or Tony Stark or whoever built an army of self-driving cars.

"I guess I do live here now. Do I have to sign a form or something? I have an ID," she continues, though she sounds oddly defensive. Her attention's on the ground about ten paces ahead of her.

Raven has posed:
    Rachel shakes her head, not in negation but to signal she doesn't know. "If we're hiding you from your parents, then we're probably not going to put you on the books." The campus is pretty big, but Rachel sets a quick, steady pace. "We'll just find you a room when we've started washing your clothes. Do you need a shower or anything?"

Irene van Dalen (139) has posed:
"Yeah, probably," Irene mutters.

"So... how long have you been going here?" she asks during the walk, though not terribly quickly. They're probably just about into the building by the time she asks.

Raven has posed:
    "A couple of weeks. Not long," Rachel says. The silence doesn't bother her. In a lot of ways, she appreciates it, though her empathy is stretched out in your direction, listening to your feelings. The laundromat on the first floor ("There's one on each floor, for each set of dorms," she explains) has about twenty washers and dryers each, and none of them require quarters to operate, though the vending machines do need money to work. Rachel dips into the hip pocket of her ripped jeans and pulls out two relatively fresh, double-folded singles and feeds them into the machine without asking your approval to buy a small box of detergent. As she's doing that, she floats your backpack back into your hands, maybe to distract you from noticing what she's doing or maybe to keep your hands too busy to object.

Irene van Dalen (139) has posed:
The laundry is returned to her. Irene catches it, though the bag makes her sway slightly. Ugh, she thinks to herself. She probably thinks I'm disgusting. Great. What a wonderful first impression.

"... Why do we have to pay for the laundry shit if the washers are free," Irene ends up asking, rather than anything important or heartfelt.

Raven has posed:
    Rachel pauses. "I don't know," she says slowly. "Maybe the washers are a one-time expenditure and the soap needs to keep being purchased again?" She decides it's probably not important--though it is a thing it wouldn't hurt to learn--and walks over to where you're loading your washer, tearing the strange plastic/cardboard seal off the box and setting it on the washer's rim, next to you. If Rachel thinks you're disgusting, she's not really showing it.
    "Once you have your load started, we can find you a room. Don't worry about anyone stealing your wash. People don't steal clothes from a school run by a telepath." She pauses. "Or at least, they don't do it twice."

Irene van Dalen (139) has posed:
Irene unzips the backpack and, with a sort of strangely huffy shaking gesture, dumps everything in there. She reaches in to shift around shirts and jeans and dirty underpants to be approximately uniform, scowling as she does. After this, she dumps the entire box of soap into it.

"Does it start itself?" That happens in some newer models, Irene thinks. Then she looks back at Rachel. "How many roommates are there? Like, usually."

Raven has posed:
    "Not many," Rachel admits as she reaches across the washer without comment to turn the dials. The washer will start once the lid is closed. "Miss Frost doesn't talk about it much, but I get the feeling this is a new school and she's still recruiting. But there could be more people that I don't see because I keep to myself." She pauses. "So, you know, you can have some alone time too if you want it."

Irene van Dalen (139) has posed:
"I'd probably just fuck up their stuff if I spent too much time around it," Irene says, the lid closing with a CLANG. Even if it wouldn't do it normally, Irene is vehement.

"I screwed up my room pretty bad," she explains. "Before everything. So, like. I don't know, I might do it all in my sleep or something."

Raven has posed:
    Rachel nods slowly as she considers you, albeit a bit abstractly; her gaze seems to go right through you. "How does it work? By touch?"

Irene van Dalen (139) has posed:
"I guess. Kind of? I try... not, to," Irene says, haltingly. Her hands curl and uncurl loosely. "Like... it's not /direct/ touch, I know that much."

Raven has posed:
    Rachel nods. "Okay, so floating you in your sleep won't help," she says. Then she shrugs. "Oh well, we'll think of something. Did you already talk to Miss Frost about this?"

Irene van Dalen (139) has posed:
"... no, was I supposed to?" Irene says, looking up. For a moment she seems terrified, although it passes quickly.

"I just... Why the fuck did this all have to happen to ME!" Irene moves as if she's about to kick the washer, but the movement is aborted before she can really swing her leg back forwards.

Raven has posed:
    Rachel shakes her head at you. "There's no why. Stuff just happens, and you get to deal with it. That's what this school is for, to teach you to deal with it." She considers you a moment, then asks, "Want me to show you a little bit?"

Irene van Dalen (139) has posed:
Irene makes a sort of wet noise that's trying not to be aborted crying either, but ends up sounding like she has sinus problems. She doesn't look at Rachel while doing it.

But then she does. Or at least looks towards her. "A little bit of what," she says, dully.

Raven has posed:
    "Come on. Let's get you to a room," Rachel says instead of answering. She takes you down the hall, looking at the name tags on the walls near the doors until she finds a room that has none. She presses her fingertips to the wood and black anti-light floods out of the lock as Rachel uses her magic to press the tumblers until they unlock; then she opens the door and invites you in. It's a simple dorm, one bedroom with two beds, a living room, a little kitchenette, and a bathroom. There's enough furniture to be seated on, and a pair of desks to work at; and the room, despite being unused, doesn't smell shut in. Someone must come in and air it out regularly. That's nice.
    "This can be your room, it looks like," Rachel says, glancing around. "I'll see about getting you a key. But first, I want to show you something a little weird. Don't be scared."
    That suggestion always helps, doesn't it? Heh. Especially when the girl standing in front of you releases an enormous, bird-shaped blast of that black anti-light from her chest, but this time it doesn't illuminate anything, this time it makes a void where Rachel was and the bird's claws are grabbing for you, big enough to wrap around you and hold you like a popsicle. What do you do?

Irene van Dalen (139) has posed:
Irene comes along. She pauses when the lock is picked, popped upwards, and she steps inside, looking around at the neat, clean, efficient place...

Her arms fold tightly. She seems to mistrust it.

But she looks towards Rachel, blinking. When the sudden bird-shaped burst of light comes towards her, she lets out a shriek of surprise, toppling backwards, and her hands come up as if in self defense, fingers crooked --

/Something/ radiates out. It is exhausting, entropic, erosive. A field, maybe; some of it intersects a nearby piece of furniture that could be a nightstand or a high coffee table, and discolors it significantly. To this horrid manifestation of anti-light it may not do very much beyond feeling unpleasant, although it does tend to make energy dissipate quite readily.

From her face, Irene is breaking that 'don't be scared' rule a tiny little bit.

Raven has posed:
    The blacklight bird is not affected by your power. It seizes you in its talons and draws you in...to itself? It pulls you into the void as it seems to shrink at the same time, and then you're through some membrane or another and floating in darkness. It's like outer space, all darkness and far-away stars, but the geometry of it is wrong: it's like the blackness is some infinite sheet of black paper, and the stars aren't stars at all but are holes in that fake sky where the howling light behind it burns. Long, thin strips of rock twist organically through this voidscape, like a path of some kind...and Rachel is floating next to you, but dressed like a super or maybe like a cultist. She greets, "Hey. So, this is my mind. Welcome in." She looks a bit tired, but doesn't complain. "I wanted to show you how I deal with my powers. Please be careful with yours. You kind of wore me out just then."

Irene van Dalen (139) has posed:
Irene has, by the time she encounters 'Rachel' again, stopped gibbering. She certainly doesn't look like she's sullen any more. "Your MIND?!" she half-shrieks, her head snapping around to look at all of the stone, the strange void -

"Your mind is in space?" Irene says finally, looking back at Rachel. She is still adapting, it seems, even if she's not actually thrashing and screaming. She even awaits a reply!

Raven has posed:
    Rachel takes your hand and starts drifting toward the stony path with you in tow. "Yeah. I built it myself. That white fire at the edges, that look like stars? That's the core of my power. It wants to burn everything. The monks taught me how to control it by building a universe to keep it out, to shut it away in silence, with only those little pinpricks can get through, focused into the shapes I choose for them." She touches down on the stone, and you do too; and if it's any comfort to you, gravity seems to work while you're here. You're not floating any more, anyway.
    "My power is different from yours, so what worked for me might not work for you. But I wanted to show you, it can be done. And we want to help you."

Irene van Dalen (139) has posed:
Irene's hand is not immediately lethal to the touch. "You built space?" she says, incomprehending. She looks towards that white fire.

"... Monks?" she asks, baflfled now, even as she stands on stone. But it's coming to her. She's adjusting easily, which is something. She doesn't even shift into that guarded pose again, looking round and asking, "That fire can't... hurt us, can it?"

She looks back at Rachel, then. "... So your power... it's that... shadow bird, thing?" Now her arms are folding up, but she's not hunching over again; not just yet.

Raven has posed:
    "It's all visualization. It's choosing a way to see my mind, and learning how to believe in the visualization until I can manipulate what's in here." She sounds faintly proud of herself. "The things in here can hurt me, but not you. It's not your mind. You're just an observer. The worst that can happen to you is you might fall on your butt when you get back to your real body. And the bird...it isn't really my power, but let's say it is because it's kind of close and this is weird enough to take in all at once."