2012-04-24: Moon Over Water

Players: Cale and Heather

Cale_icon.jpg Heather_icon.jpg

Summary: Cale quietly contemplates where life has led him while sitting on the edge of the dock at Xavier's. Then, Heather shows up! Conversation ensues.

Date: April 24, 2012

Log Title: Moon Over Water

Rating: G


Xavier Mansion - Boathouse on the Dock


A wooden dock stretches fifteen feet out into the water. Students can fish from the dock, or dive off if they like. A few rowboats, canoes, and paddle boats are tied to the docks for the students to use. A boat house where students can find paddles and life jackets sits at the edge of the water.


Players: Cale (IC), Heather (IC)


[R]eturn to [S]tables [S]puyer [D]evil [C]ove

It's evening, a nice clear night and not too cold out. The moon (whatever stage it is in) reflects off the water which has gone mostly still without the sun to whip up winds. It laps gently against the wooden piers of the dock that Cale sits on. The boy dangles his legs off of it, feet bare with his usual sandals sitting beside him, occasionally dipping his toes into the still-chilly water; it's not really late enough in the season yet to wanna swim. Nor did he bring his suit. A small pile of rocks sits next to him on the dock, an occasionally he skips one across the water, emerald eyes watching the ripples.

There is a pitter patter of feet of ever increasing volume as Heather Brown makes her way onto the scene. She stops near the shore, peering towards the surface of the water and then frowning at it. She takes a few steps back, and then heads towards where Cale is to say, "It seems cold. Who are you? I am Heather Brown, codename: Timeslip."

This is, of course, said through the speaker system that is mounted to her, speaking through a headset.

The boy looks up slowly from his pile of rocks (it must be agonizingly slow from Heather's point of view) to note Heather. "I'm Cale Black… I um, don't have a codename. Or anything," he shrugs, picking up another one of the rounded, flat rocks in his hand and slinging it towards the water. He scrutinizes Heather for a moment, "I suppose that's because you're so fast, though." He figures out the purpose of the headset rather quickly. Because he's smart like that sometimes.

Heather tilts her head slightly at the response and then reaches down to take one of the rocks and examine it. "Yes. I am fast and I talk fast and most people do not get that I apparently sound like a chipmunk without the aid of my translation device. A manic chipmunk. Except when I am in a manic state, in which case… a more manic chipmunk. I have graduated from here. I am a volunteer security officer on campus, as well as a patient of their counselors. It is nice to meet you Cale Black."

"That's silly, it's clearly just a computer that takes a high bitrate recording of whatever you say and then slows it down." Cale picks up another rock, and slings it across the water. Whereas the last one failed and simply splashed, this one skips quite nicely, getting a good half dozen bounces before it drops. "Like that." He seems satisfied with himself. For once.

"Yes, this one is a computer. I used to use magnetic tape for my translations," says Heather, nodding with some satisfaction, "I helped build it. I am proud of my design, though it's impossible for kisses I have been told." She shrugs slightly at that and says, "but I can flip the mouthpiece up."

Cale blushes a little when she mentions that last bit, "You mean, you can't? Yeah, I guess that might be a little bit unpleasant…" He dabbles a toe in the water, swishing it around. "You did? That's pretty cool. I like modding electronics. It's a hobby of mine. I've never made anything useful though like that though. Not really."

"I have a lot of time on my hand. I have little skill on the matter, but the time makes up for it," admits Heather, shrugging slightly, "And I enlisted the help of a mad scientist who used to go here before she killed a man with a screwdriver." This is all stated quite matter-of-factly. "It helped. And I can't kiss with this on, not that I am a big kisser."

"Well, you can always take it off, I suppose," Cale suggests. "It's not like people do a ton of talking while they are kissing anyway, right? I mean… not that I'd know but, I mean. It seems logical," the mutant nods. "How did you get your codename, anyway? I've been here a little while and I haven't even been assigned to a class or anything. Seems as if there's some kind of beaurocratic snafu or something."

"I assigned myself my codename when I was thirteen years old. I had a lot of time on my hands, and very very little to do. I thought it was a good name, and my parents had codenames, so I thought it was the logical approach," decides Heather, nodding a couple of times at that, "It is rather interchangeable with my name."

"Your parents had codenames?" Cale looks puzzled at this. His parents were just parents. "What were they… military, or something?" he wonders, skipping another rock out across the water.

"Supervillains," says Heather, shrugging her shoulders. "Cheryl Brown, codename: Upgrade, Dan Brown, codename: Mindbender. Currently being detained, but if they broke out it would not be the first time."

"Oh…" Cale trails off. "I… literally don't know what to say to that, honestly," he decides that, as usual, fiddling with his ponytail (untying and retying it) is the proper course of action. Yes! "I've never met anybody with supervillain parents before. Nor have I ever seen a supervillain, either, I guess."

"I guess not. I suppose I am not good at smalltalk if you don't know what to say. I have never been good at conversations, it is not in my repertoire of skills to keep people interested and entertained," decides Heather, shrugging a shoulder lightly.

"Well, what was it like? I mean, having supervillains for parents. What did they do? Did they make you rob banks or something?" Cale seems to have a slightly simplistic view of villains - that sort of thing was always much more of a New York or even West Coast thing to him. Sure, there were probably a few low level mutants and whatnot, but in general, Colorado was pretty quiet…

"No, certainly not. They locked me inside my home inside of a world of illusions," says Heather, shrugging lightly, "And then when they were first caught, I was sent to a White Prison, and then I came here. Generally, my parents just took control of underworld gangs. It was their hobby."

"Oh…" Cale says again, that answer perhaps not being all that he expected. "That sounds pretty awful. I guess a lot of mutants end up with pretty awful childhoods, one way or another, huh? That sucks…" he picks up another rock, and flings it particularly viciously this time, sending it twice as far as it has ever gone before! Take that, rock!

Heather shrugs at Cale and then says, "It was more a matter of being related to crazy people than being a mutant." She throws the rock that she was examining and it just flies off, skipping off of the water just from sheer velocity. "I do not understand what you are doing."

"You mean, with the rocks? It's pretty simple. You just throw it, and you spin it, and it bounces off the water. It's fun," he eyes the rock that she just threw as it flies off into the distance, "Though, I never though that it would be possible to throw one TOO hard… maybe you need to adjust the angle just a little bit…"

Heather shakes her head and says, "I think I understand what you mean. Perhaps it's not something I'm well suited for. There is a certain amount of distance, however, that I can run on water in the same manner."

"Really? That's pretty cool. I… well, I can't run on water. But I can run on a glass wall if I wanted to! … well, sorta." Okay, so it'd probably be more of a four-limbed lope. It's probably the first time though, that Cale thought maybe his powers were kinda cool. It's an unusual feeling, for him.

"Well, I cannot run up very many things. I tend to just bounce off of them," admits Heather, looking off in the distance, "It is fairly impressive to be able to scale glass, if what I understand about the friction coefficient for glass is true."

"Well I can climb pretty much anything. It's like…" Cale holds up his hand, "Well I haven't had a lot of practice with it, honestly. But I can stick to just about anything, as long as it's not too loose/dusty or wet. Sometimes, it happens on accident… It's erm… actually… why I don't wear shoes and socks anymore…"

"Oh, I see," says Heather, nodding her head slowly, or at least for her, it's actually a very rapid nod, "Well, it is a good ability to be able to climb things. It's good to overcome vertical obstacles."

"And… other stuff…" Cale yawns, laying down on the dock and staring straight up at the night sky. It's a pretty night sky, but not quite as pretty as the ones he remembers from home, where there's less air pollution and in fact just less air to obstruct the glow of the stars. "You should sit down and relax. It's nice out here. Do you ever do that?"

"Sit and relax?" says Heather, tilting her head, "Not really. It's not in my nature to be relaxed. I am always somewhat tense, ready for whatever will happen next. It is usually nothing, but it could be something." She fidgets with her machine slightly and then sits down. "I have watched movies though."

"Really? Do you watch them at the normal speed, or sped up like with your machine?" inquires Cale, thinking about that. It would be pretty awful to watch a movie at the regular framerate if you were actually going a lot faster than that…

"I watch them at normal speed, I suppose, if your speed is the one considered normal. I would consider mine to be the standard, though," says Heather, a bit flatly, "I listen through the headset I wear, though.

"Doesn't that… i mean, isn't that annoying? Isn't it basically like a series of stopped pictures, if you watch it at the normal framerate…?" Cale wonders. "Come to think of it, MOST TV must look that way to you, I bet…"

"Yes. I tend to just watch it with subtitles and watch the sequences of frozen images that way," says Heather, shrugging lightly, "It's all the television I've ever watched. I've never watched it any other way."

"Gosh that's…" Cale pulls one of his feet up to the edge of the dock, wiggling his slightly wet toes idly, "That's kinda crazy. You've never watched TV the normal way? I mean. That's sorta completely ruining the point of it! It would be like showing me a bunch of posters." Suddenly, he sits up, "We should make you one! That operates at your speed, I mean."

"That seems like a fine project to me," says Heather, shrugging her shoulders. "I didn't have a television in the White Prison, or in the World of Illusions… Only after the White Prison did I see television for the first time."

"Really? That's pretty horrible. I mean, it's really starting to go obsolete kinda, but!" Cale pauses, "But, there're still a lot of good shows out there. It kinda ruins them watching them in slideshow mode, or at least… well, it would if you'd seem them before, I guess. Just, how to do that…" Of course, Cale's not exactly an an engineer, so this is like nearly impossible.

"I suppose. I still watch them. It's just a form of media to me, I put on the subtitles and look at the screen every once in awhile," says Heather, shrugging with a little bit of indifference. "If it is important to you, I will work with you on your project…"

Cale scratches his cheek a little, "Well actually," murmurs the boy, "Like… I don't know how to do that, I mean, a monitor with a super-high refresh rate. Maybe some computer monitors go up to one-twenty… but…" he rolls his eyes a little in thought. "I don't actually know how to build something like that." Yet.

"I don't really know how either," says Heather, crossing her arms and then shrugging her shoulders a couple of times, "It is kind of you to think about it, but I will likely spend more time reading and writing than anything…"

"Well that's definitely good… I like to write sometimes too, well, I read a lot more than I write, really!" Cale pushes his index fingers together, figuring that Heather really does not need to hear about his horrible anime fan-fictions. Which he knows are horrible! "Anyway…" he trails off, "I should probably be getting back to the dorms." He slips his sandals back on, rocking back and forth in them a little to make sure they're on right, and then starts the somewhat lengthy trudge back to the mansion.

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License