8266/Do All Pools Have Glass Sharks

Do All Pools Have Glass Sharks
Date of Scene:	11 July 2019
Location:	Pool - Xavier's School
Synopsis:	Illyana, Sam, and Betsy relax by the pool. Sam shares the details of his leather hobby.
Cast of Characters:	Psylocke, Magik, Cannonball

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Psylocke has posed:
Betsy Braddock loves the pool, and the pool loves her. They are together and will be married. But their rival houses conspire against one another! So often, Betsy has to go to the city where the pools are crowded and bandaid-ridden. The pool must make do with students splashing its waters out onto the surrounding paving stones or running dangerously when the sign clearly says not to run around the pool. A tragedy worthy of the Bard.

Betsy's swimsuit is fashionable, and it doesn't all that much to the imagination. When your regular costume used to be a swimsuit, upping your actual swimsuit game is Cold War-style arms race. She lays on her back in the water, floating lazy circles as a pair of oversized, purple sunglasses shield her eyes from the sun.

Magik has posed:
Illyana arriving in some odd fashion is normal by most estimations, so when she arrives normally, it is in fact odd by comparison. The straight haired blonde walks barefoot towards the pool area, padding quietly along the warm cement, wearing a long t-shirt over whatever it is she intends to swim in. The benefit of having her suddenly appear is that most children of any good sense immediately find somewhere else to be.

She is scary. Not in the oh no, she'll hurt us way, but in she's from hell and gives me the creeps way that speaks to lizard brain.

So whatever crowd would risk Betsy's ire to see Betsy in a bathingsuit, think the better of it when she arrives. She is good to have around for solitude. Plus she's quiet.

Standing at the edge of the pool staring at Betsy float on an inflatable with a pair of comically big sunglasses on her face, quiet.

Cannonball has posed:
Samuel Guthrie does not come into the pool in pool party fashion so there is no mega cannonball into the pool, just Sam walking up in shorts, with a pair of sunglasses propped up on his forehead much like his goggles normally are. He has a paperback book with him, and a tablet, as well as a towel over his shoulder. He looks over to the ladies and waves a hand "Ill, Betsy." He will add in greeting.

Psylocke has posed:
"No, I feel fine, thanks, Sam, I -"

Beneath her oversized (but fashionable, big sunglasses are fashionable) sunglasses, Betsy opens her eyes and turns to face Sam. Instead of finding him, though, she finds Illyana standing over her at the side of the pool and staring at her. The purple-haired telepath startles, eyes widening as she yells 'bloody hell!' before rolling off the inflatable and into the water with a splash.

A moment later she emerges, hair long and straight and plastered to her head and face. She looks up at the Queen of Limbo, offering her biggest and brightest smile even if there may not be a lot of sincerity behind it.

"Nice to see you're relaxing, Illyana."

Her sunglasses float by on the choppy water.

Magik has posed:
Illyana watches the response to her staring with no reaction. She certainly didn't mean for Batsy to end up in the water... she may not even be aware she's the reason for it. Sam greets them both and the Queen of Limbo turns to regard him with a fixed stare. "Hello Samuel." One hand up in a motionless wave. This hand grabs the bottom of her long shirt and pulls it off in one fluid motion that pushes her glasses off her face.

Beneath she's wearing a black two piece on an entirely too pale body. A very real skull at the front of each breast because of course there is. "I am too goth for this pool." She sighs, shoulders slumping forward. Glasses righted back over her face, one toe dipping in to test the water.

Cannonball has posed:
Samuel Guthrie smirks a bit at the two, and will shakes his head a bit to this. He finds himself a seat setting his stuff down on the table near it. Will head over to the grill area to a mini fridge grabbing himself a cold water to drink, looking back and asks "Either of you want a water or a soda?"

Psylocke has posed:
"I'll have a bottle of water, thank you," Betsy calls over to Sam, still resting her arms on the edge of the pool and looking up at Illyana as though she were twenty feet tall. When the t-shirt comes off and the bathing suit is revealed, the telepath cannot help but raise two sharp, violet eyebrows in surprise.

"Are those real?" she catches herself and quickly adds, practically shouting, "Skulls! Real skulls. Are those real skulls on your bathing suit?"

Illyana's lament causes her to wave a hand dismissively through the air, no longer as unnerved by her presence as she once was: "Nonsense. The pool is plenty goth enough. Hop in."

Magik has posed:
"Blagodaryu vas" Illyana half turns to Sam, shaking her head, "Thank you. I am fine." Looking back to Betsy, canting her head at the woman leaning against the edge of the pool near her. More so when asked if the skulls on her bathing suit are real, "Da, they are real." She motions with unpainted nails at the skulls, "Idle hands should be avoided. This is meaning of sparrow." Not exactly a bat or crow, but... still skulls.

She still regards the water despite Betsy's assurance that the water is fine. She nods once and that is the single indication that she's going to step right off the edge and sink to the bottom like a bag full of stones until she's standing beneath looking up with that same ehterial unblinking stare. Her hair ghosts around her face like whisps in the weightless quality of the water.

Cannonball has posed:
Samuel Guthrie will walk over with two bottles of water, and as he gets near he will squat down in front of Betsy to give her one of the waters. He grins a bit and says "Glad to see Ah'm not the only one with foot and mouth some times." He grins looking over towards Illyana, and hmms, "Ok know she can swim." He says.

Psylocke has posed:
"I am not a barnyard animal, Samuel," Betsy chides, taking the offered water bottle, "Ta. I am sure I have only ever been, and only ever will be, the picture of linguistic eloquence. I was just admiring Illyana's nice skulls."

<And if you say anything else about it,> she speaks now directly into Sam's brain, <I'll box your bloody ears.>

It's all meant in jest, of course. Expecting Illyana to rise to the surface, when she doesn't do so immediately Betsy glances down at the sub-nautical Hell Queen. Idly wishing the lower half of her swimsuit weren't quite as bereft of material as it is, she turns it all into a lazy spin as she rests both elbows behind her on the edge of the pool and presses her butt against the side.

"I'm sure she can but will she remember she can?"

Magik has posed:
That's really the thing isn't it?

Illyana knows how to do a lot of things, but whether or not she remembers is a completely different thing entirely. Besides, when is this Illyana? Limbo is a weird place and time for her is not linear as it is most anywhere else. She might walk in twenty and come back out thirty seven, she could be here completely unaware of ever having learned to swim at all.

It is a good thing that she does remember.

Her arms slide across the edge off the pool as quietly as she padded across the concrete. Water dripping down her face where she's not wiped it away after rising up from the depths while all around her her hair is curtained out like a fan in the water. "Betsy is telling truth about water. It is very fine." First said to Samual, but then she nods to Betsy as well. "You are wearing very leetle."

Cannonball has posed:
Samuel Guthrie maybe giving Betsy a bit of a show himself, not intending to with his squatting position, and chuckles a bit to her words and thoughts "Yes ma'am." He says still finding humor in her words. At Illyana he looks over, and says ""Well smaller clothes, less weight and drag from the water when your swimming." He offers giving a logical answer. and if Betsy is still in there she might pick up a bit of thought about less clothes not being a bad thing at all.

Psylocke has posed:
Betsy peers at Sam, and projects herself mentally into his head. Suddenly, the image of Less Bathing Suit Betsy is replaced by a nude and decidedly hairy Logan. She has no frame of reference, but it isn't hard to take some artist's license while overriding Cannonball's imagination for just a moment. The Imaginary Logan locks eyes with Sam, winks and in a gravelly voice mutters: 'Come get some, bub.' And then Betsy is no longer intervening with the young man's thoughts and the mental illusion dissipates as quickly as it comes.

She cannot help but wrinkle her nose as she laughs, reaching out to slap him lightly on the forearm: "Mind your P's and Q's, or you'll get another visit from your Fairy Sniktmother."

To Illyana, she simply sighs and shrugs her shoulders: "It's fashion. I am but its humble slave."

Magik has posed:
Illyana is unsure what has transpired between Betsy and Samuel, but it appears to be some form of mental trickery to which she is not privy. Mental shields not-withstanding, she looks between the other mutants with as blank an expression as ever. "Why does he need to know alphabet?" She asks Betsy, furrowing her brow. Sniktmother goes right over her head.

"Oh." She says, slapping away a drop of water from her own cheek and pushing hair back from out of her eye. "I will never understand fashion.. or technology. Neither make much sense."

Cannonball has posed:
Samuel Guthrie will shakes his head a bit to clear it and says "Oh not fair, not fair at all." He tells the woman in the pool. " He looks over and says "Means behave basicly Ill, P Ah think stands for proper, Q Ah have no clue about to be honest." He will move over to sit down feet in the pool a few feet from the ladies but close enough to chat. "Yea fashion can be past me too, if Ah am dressed in something fashionable, it is either cause something Ah was already wearing came into style, or someone else picked it out for me.

Psylocke has posed:
"You forgot being fashionable by accident, Sam," Betsy points out, a smug little smile on her face at her own ingenuity. Kwannon would have just punched him.

She looks from the Dixie-fried Cannoball to the pale and blonde Magik, considering them both in silence for a moment with narrowed eyes that almost look like she's trying to read their minds. But there's no obvious intrusion, and after a moment she says.

"You know, you've both got a sort of blonde, Ingmar Bergman vibe that I've noticed. Dark colours, maybe. No patterns. I could make you pop if you wanted." She shifts her hips, bumping the side of her thigh against Illyana's as she tries a show of potentially misguided camaraderie, "What do you think?"

Magik has posed:
Illyana is listening, but it's like the lights have been turned off when Betsy begins to disect her style into matters of particular elements which can be manipulated into something fashionable. It isn't overt or intentional how distantly she's staring at Betsy, but reactionary in nature. She's gone to her happy place where black skirts and the occational ironic pink sundress with combat boots are neither seasonal nor scorned by the general population of models the world over.

"What?" She asks, light returning to her pale blue eyes focusing back upon Bats face when she bumps comaraderielly thigh to thigh. "What am I thinking?" Her expression is childlike, like nobody has ever asked her that and she's not sure what to say. Her smile is different. It isn't dark or evil, but certainly not wholesome or appropriate to the rest of her expression. "I do not know words for what I am thinking." Her lips press together a moment, looking down at her folded arms.

Before she speaks, she bumps her thigh against Betsy's and murmurs quietly to herself, "To, chto milliardy neyronov mgnovenno strelyayut, a malen'kiye trimmery strelyayut mne v bedro. Lyudi ne trogayut menya, i ya ne znayu, kak eto obrabatyvat'...."

Cannonball has posed:
Samuel Guthrie listens to this as he tries to follow, his Russian not the best, but he says "Someone tried to shoot you?" He seems to have not got much out of it, but looking at her face, he says "Ah don't think Ah got that right." He looks over to Betsy and says "Well Ah broke out the old leathers for few nights at the club the other night. Actually could probably use a few outfits for nights we have bigger names there.

Psylocke has posed:
"Leathers?" Betsy raises her eyebrows, "I didn't fancy you the chaps and riding crop sort of fellow, Samuel. Did you bring your own ball gag or did they supply one?"

She's certainly getting her fill teasing the man today, but the way she smiles suggests that it's something of a relief. Those who know her have noticed a lot weighing her down regardless of how well she tries to hide it, and a show of genuine mirth from her is a rarity these days.

She pointedly moves away from Illyanna. Not so far as to be isolating, but so far as to not be withing bumping range. Despite having next to no Russian, she already gets the vibe that Illyanna doesn't much like being touch and resolves not to do so anymore.

"Well," Betsy begins gingerly, picking carefully amongst the wreckage of the conversation for survivors, "I suppose you've got an inimitable style all of your own, Illyana."

Magik has posed:
Illyana is actually smiling, even if that smile isn't exactly the most pleasant expression, when she glances up at Samuel. On God, she almost laughs at his translations, which is about as out of character for her as is mirth on Betsy's face recently. The laugh never comes, "Nyet, not shot. Shooting n-.." The waves shift around her and she looks over at Betsy sliding away along the wall as if she's not sure what happened.

The smile is gone, the laugh is definitely gone, and all that's left is... well it might be a hurt look but it's so hard to tell. "I do not understand.." Her hands go palm down and push, hoisting her directly out of the water like a dolphin leaping out of the surf.

Everything is suddenly in a hurry, looking around frantically for a towel she didn't bring, but settling for the shirt she discarded. "Move." She seeths at Samuel, nearly snarling as she storms towards the chair where her shirt is, quickly slides it on and brings her hand up to summon a teleportation disc.

With a slap to the left, she disappear in a rush of air that leaves the ground where she was standing visibly hot.

Cannonball has posed:
Samuel Guthrie will start to say something and stop, blinking a moment, and sighs "Ah swear sometimes Ah can't figure her out. " He sighs and says "You know it is hard not being able to just make things right for her." He looks sadened a bit but adds "And no not a ball gag, leather pants and vest, spikes collar more that type of thing."

Psylocke has posed:
"She has a lot on her shoulders," Betsy says with a sigh, pulling herself up and out of the pool so effortlessly she may as well be floating. She swings her long, shapely legs off to one side and sends a light spray of water pattering across the paving stones. She rises to her feet, scooping up a lavendar-coloured towel and wrapping it about her waist to afford herself a little modesty without the pool to conceal her, "I can't read her mind but I don't think I need to. I'm not sure she's moving in the same direction as we are. Leastways not all the time."

The violet telepath looks where Illyana was and disappeared from, sighing and making a mental note to seek her out and try to fix ... something. Even if it's buying her a nice hat. She lifts her shoulders in a shrug, letting that worry slough away for the moment rather than add to her already hefty burden.

"I'm afraid I should be off, Samuel. I've got my own leather party to get to."

She doesn't, but why pour salt on his imagination?

Cannonball has posed:
Samuel Guthrie chuckles a bit at the last comment, but gets a bit serious and says "She always has, it is tough on her, and her running to limbo makes things worse to be honest. She feels she is needed there so lets her justify it, but she needs to be around people more. Might have to see if Kitty can get her to stay out in our side of things more.