Players: Connor, David & Jinx
Summary: Too much mind, and not enough heart pushes away once more at a friend, even as someone realizes this too late.
Date: October 8, 2010
Log Title: Logic Fault
Rating: PG
Salem - Old Dirt Road
The dirt road is a few miles long and circles around to meet itself again. There are several farms that have been run down, burned and abandoned along the way. Fences and stonewalls run along side the road in the over grown grass to mark where properties begin. A few old wooden wheels sit among the over run grass and are half sunken into the earth. Hoof prints dent the old dirt road leaving it a bit uneven. Trees blow in the breeze as they sporadically line the road. There's a small ditch on each side of the dirt road for water draining.
With the days and nights hard to gauge in the heavy, leaden cloud cover of the land, guard postings have strayed further out to ensure the safety of the farm, especially with Emma Frost now on station acting as an telepathic alarm and tracking station for those students and staff who are here. Taking his shift out on the far watch, Connor is propped against the fence leading into the farmstead, watching down the road… occasionally flickering as he focuses on himself, causing him to become opaque for several moments and then reappearing. Ever vigilant on himself, he seems to be doing some minor powers training to keep himself awake and perceptive.
Jinx wanders down the dirt road. She has a cloak slung around her shoulders and the hood up over her head. Her tail is tucked under, and she looks like any other dark and scuttling shape moving along the ground. The flickering catches her eye and she lifts her head, changing course to head his direction. "Hey Connor," she says softly.
Connor's eyes caught some of the motion of the cloak and brought himself around as one last flicker-flash goes through him. Lifting up a hand, something is tossed into the air, and then begins to shine a pale blue-green light around the area, adding some more brightness to the din as he attempts to make out Jinx's face. Once the mephit muzzle is seen more clearly, the aggressive stance is lowered slightly as he says softly, "I thought you wouldn't come. I was beginning to think we'd imagined you and your friend…"
Watching from his post opposite Connor's, David watches the approach and was able to glean from skills earlier adapted that it is indeed Jinx that approaches. Making his way in that direction, the Xavier institute staffer offers a hearty welcome to the female, "Jinx. I am glad to see you alive and well!" He is dressed in period clothing as his normal clothing was all but torn to shreds.
"My friend?" Jinx furrows her brow. "Oh, you mean James? Yeah, he's not real interested in participating in someone else's pity-party. I think he'd rather just survive and stuff," she holds the cloak around herself tightly. On seeing David, her brows rise. "Oh, hello, sir. You raided Jane Eyre too, huh?"
Connor grumbles just loud enough for Jinx to hear, "If he was really James, and if he really trusted us… he would have shown us he could change instead of letting you play mouthpiece." But shaking his head he backs off, and goes to where his things are, coming back with a glass container that looks like it should be holding preserves or something from town. It's been cleaned and is full of water, "Here… we boil some daily so everyone has something to drink or clean with. You don't want to see it when it comes out of the ground… trust me."
"You have a sense of humor in the place…that is much needed." He laughs, "I think the worst thing to have happened to us considering everything…is the bad fashion sense." He jokes but when Connor goes for the water and returns, "Yes, what is this I hear about James? Tell me everything that been going on in that Asylum."
Jinx takes the water from Connor. "Thanks. Nice to have clean water again," she eyes Connor closely though. "Who do you think James is to want or need to prove anything to anyone? He is not some dancing dog that is going to perform on queue and you should know that, Connor. Maybe it's YOU who aren't real," she gestures to him with the glass. To David, she rolls her shoulder in a shrug. "It's a pretty creepy place. But we've just been hanging out. James kills black things when he can catch them."
David hmmmns and takes in all she has said, "Regarding James, it's just weird. This sudden transformation, but if you believe it is him and trust him enough to stay with him, then good. But we will be checking out the asylum soon. I already investigated it personally while I was there. But Cyclops will be leading a group up there. It would be good to see James, either before than with him coming down here or then we get there." He shifts his weight to his side, "What black things? And how did James know about the evil pumpkin?"
Jinx nods her head to what David has said, and sips from the glass of water. "Okay. I will tell him that he should present himself or be possibly considered an enemy… and beats me about this change. It's sorta what he's always wanted," she rolls a shoulder in a shrug. "I don't know how he knew about the pumpkin. He says a lot of things that people sorta blow off as crazy, then are shown to be fact. I certainly do it…. oh, the black things are… well… like things? I dunno, a wolf was chasing me on the moors and he stabbed it and it turned into black slime-ooze crap."
"Kisha was eaten by a pumpkin monster yesterday, Jinx… I wasn't blowing him off, but the information didn't get out to certain people in time." Connor says quietly from his side of the road, looking up into the sky, then back down towards the group, "We haven't seen anything like that, but we can't discount it. There's a reason we're all here… whatever it is still hasn't been revealed yet, but this place is too cliche. There's too much that seems to… fit. Ooze creatures, pumpkin monsters… a warped version of everything familiar. This kind of thing builds up a lot of negative emotion… and I'm sure there's things out there that eat it up."
When Kisha's name is mentioned David looks down. He feels responsible as he was the only non-student around when it happened, "Yes, Kisha is gone eaten by a pumpkin that we killed, but she is nowhere to be found currently….we don't want to lose anyone else, so ..with regard to James we won't consider him an enemy…" David says and then thinks to himself, (I hope we don't have to.) David continues, "How're with supplies? Do and James need anything? We have food, clothes, water, and have commandeered three places for ourselves in the little town."
Jinx's brows arch upwards. "Pumpkin….monster?" She looks between both males. "You're kidding, right? Kisha?" She glances between again. "How giant was this thing?" She asks, then looks around. "I think you are right about cliche's, Connor. I think you can assume if Hollywood has done it, it's probably here." She twitches her nose, and wonders silently if saying Beetlejuice three times will envoke a mischievious sprite. "I think we're okay. Eating what we find. He and I are pretty good foragers," she smiles. "Are there any residents besides the creepies?"
After a few more moments of silence, Connor then says, "Miss Frost is doing something at the House… she pretty much sits there with her eyes closed most of the time. It makes us not notice the weird things going on around us, makes it all feel a little better. She's also helping Robyn, and paying attention to the three of us." Then he just shrugs, "Has this whole mother wolf thing going on… it can be downright creepy, if you ask me."
David sighs, "I wish we were kidding, but there was literally a giant pumpkin monster that ate Kisha and was about to eat Robyn when Hosea was able to kill it. The thing exploded, but we found no sign of Kisha though we saw everything else that thing ate, so I have feeling she's not dead as much as she is somewhere else." He smirks, "Who knows…maybe she is back home…" He acknowledges what Connor says and then blinks, "Oh have you seen any trees with doors on them that have an X?"
Jinx snorts. "Hey, sir. That was my joke," she teases David about the tree with an X. "Okay. Kisha got eaten but you found no remains. So, she is probably *somewhere*, but just not visable. Maybe she is in some ghoul's lair?" Jinx suggests helpfully, getting into the spirit. "Neither of you answered my question about the locals. Anyone seen the people who built this town, or wore these clothes," a flick of her fingers towards the Victorian outfits.
Connor shakes his head once more, "There are no people… or rather… if there are, we're out of synch with them. Haven't you noticed in town when you passed through? It's as if people are there, right on the edge of you vision, but when you turn to look they're gone. Floorboards creak, things occasionally move… subtle hints here and there, but I think that's more to keep us all uneasy than anything else. Places like this don't help either. It constantly feels like it's about to storm, but it doesn't."
"That was a joke?" He seems devastated for a moment and thought maybe just maybe there was a door home. He sighs, "Well, maybe we really are dead then and in that movie….Jeez who would have thought that Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman would have gotten it right." He turns, "Well, either way, we know we're not on our Earth. I'm pretty sure we are not on Counter Earth either." He ponders, "Robyn thought this might be one of the hell dimensions, but then again, how would we ever know? This could be someone's version of hell, but whose?"
Jinx thinks through their words and holds up her hand. "Okay so, wait.." she puts her thumb against her lip to consider. "Okay. So what if these bad things *are* the residents?" she asks, looking between the guys again. Her violet eyes shift. "Maybe they see us as monsters, and we see them as monsters? Or maybe we're in someone's head…" she has a sudden epiphany. "You said Miss Frost was just sitting and being all quiet and stuff? Maybe it's her way of testing us all. maybe we're in her head."
There's a moment where Connor just stares at the girl, and then gives her a flat look, "Okay, seriously? I wouldn't believe that for a second… especially not with this kind of headgame…" He actually then turns away from her and looks back towards the farmhouse, "I am not going to give in to any paranoia I've already got growing in my head, and if you were half the friend you're supposed to be, then you'd see how that's completely counterproductive." Perhaps it's spite, or something else that makes him say then, "But hey… I'm not off with the Last of the Mohicans… I'm here trying to do my part and help everyone."
David shakes his head, "No. Scott, Emma, and I spoke. Whatever this is. It's not a test. Or a test they're giving. I'm not a student anymore. Kenta and I wouldn't be here." He then looks to Connor and seems to think the boy is hurt…his feelings anyway, "Jinx, why are you staying up there with James and not here with the rest of us?" Though David actually thinks it is best for Jinx to be up there with James.
Jinx looks at Connor, her ears folding back. "Nice racial slur. Bye," She tosses the glass down onto the ground, not hard enough to break but not really caring one way or another. Though probably the spill of water will grow poisonous thorns. Her eyes shift to David, hot and angry. "If you had your choice of staying with one crazy person with a spear who cared about you, or a whole nest of selfish *racists*, what would you do?" Not waiting for an answer, she turns, her cloak swirling around her and tail a flash of black and white. "I'm going back to the wigwam now and gonna make me some frybread!"
Connor immediately bites back, "Why?! So you can wait to find out how he changed back, and who did it?! You wanna stand on your high horse, that's all fine and dandy for you… but what about how helpful you could have been here?! How about what you could have done for us! He finds out that his FRIENDS ARE HERE… and the first thing he does is BLOW US OFF! Robyn… who he's known longer than any of us… what the hell does that say, huh? Or are you deliberately blinding yourself on the chance that you'll get whatever he got out of this sick deal!"
Jinx turns back to Connor long enough. "Whenever I see you, you end up yelling at me for all the things you expect me to do. Or in this case, for the things someone *else* isn't doing up to your standards of perfection. I don't need you to be my mom, Connor. Fuck you and the horse you rode in on," Jinx backs her words up with an obvious gesture of a single finger. "Go ahead and have the last word. I won't be coming back." She moves off towards the asylum, and does not turn back.
Connor looks away as Jinx departs, shaking his head as he takes a breath, mumbling to himself, "Why can't you just see I'm worried for you… why can't you see I think you're in a dangerous situation, Jinx. Fine… you might not come back, but I'm not abandoning you to him… not when you could be blinding yourself… not when you could be using your heart too much when you should be using your head." Grumbling once more, he keeps his own counsel, letting her leave in a huff, "But I deserve your anger… even if I think it's unwarranted. You're walking away from people who need someone like you. Someone better than me."
Jinx keeps on walking!
