Players:
Summary: Squad-mates meet for the first time!
Date: August 7, 2010
Log Title: Nice Meeting You
Rating: G
Xavier Mansion - Kitchen
This kitchen was designed to feed large numbers of people, and looks it with its bright white walls and stainless steel appliances. The stove, refrigerator, and dishwasher are all larger than normal. There is an island with stools around it for people to sit and eat around along with a table for twelve by the windows in back. Along the wall is a hole in the wall looking into the dining room so food can be passed back and fourth. Anything you want to cook or eat in the kitchen you will find the food and supplies to do so.
Somewhere in the kitchen, a radio is on. Loud enough to be heard from the hall outside, The Rascals singing about needing "good lovin'". Obviously feeling the beat, Jill is bouncing lightly on the balls of her feet, setting her dark blue hair into rhythmic bounces as well, as she hums along and builds an elaborate salad. Really, just about everything she could drag out of the fridge is out and open on the kitchen's little island. Lettuce, shredded carrot, black olives, banana peppers, blue cheese dressing, et cetera. For the most part, she's oblivious to everything else around her, just doing her thing and listening to the radio.
Mikhail can hear the music from the dorms, but that’s not what’s drawn him to the kitchen it's food, over the last month or so he's started slipping into his old hunting habits, but veggies are part of a healthy diet, so he's come to find some, he's dressed in dark blue jeans, black sneakers, a white long sleeve shirt with two blue stripes halfway down the upper arm and 42 on the chest and back, at the door he watches the blue girl for a few seconds.
"I said, doctor, doctor!" Jill sings along, swaying her hips to the music. She's dressed simply, a natural cotton colored blouse with little wooden beads sewn in patterns and hip-hugger jeans. The clothes, at least, mark her as a person and not some bizarre biological experiment. "Mister M.D. Can you tell me… what's ailin' me?" She's totally in her own little world, tearing the top off a plastic bag of croutons and shaking a few out into the salad bowl. "All you need, all you really need is good lo-" In a mid-pirouette, she freezes on catching sight of someone in the door, spilling a few croutons on the tile floor. A moment of silence ensues, except for the music.
Mikhail understands that his mutation has made him an excellent hunter, which includes being able to sneak up on his prey almost silently, but he still has some trouble understanding how other people can be so unobservant, either way he grins a fanged grin when Jill notices him, "You dropped something".
Jill's mouth moves but no sound is forthcoming. "Uh," she finally manages to make noise and looks down at the spilled croutons, or maybe just away from the fangs. "S-sorry," she mumbles and crouches down to start picking them up one by one. "I was just… you… uh… I didn't hear anybody come in."
"That’s because you were singing, I could hear it from the dorms", Mikhail walks forwards into the kitchen and crouches down to help Jill pick up the croutons, "I'm Mikhail, but most people call me Mik."
The blue girl makes a soft squeak of embarrassment, sucking on her bottom lip as if to keep herself from singing any more. "Jill. Jill Pervinca," the girl offers, not unkindly, gathering up the spill and dumping them into the trash. "Mikhail," she repeats thoughtfully, her eyes rolling to the ceiling to aid her memory. "Mikhail Ka… Kal-… I think you're in the same group as me. The Corsairs, right?"
Mikhail nods while continuing to pick up the croutons, "Yes, I was on Alpha Squadron but I was recently transferred to Corsairs, that makes us teammates, nice to meet you Jill Pervinca", he throws the dirty croutons in the trash.
"Just Jill," the girl assures him. "And thanks for helping me clean up, Mik." The mess having been cleaned up, or as cleaned up as it will get without a broom and dustpan, she glides over to the radio and turns it down just as The Monkees' 'I'm a Believer' comes on. Must be some classic hits station. "Nice to finally meet you. I guess I probably won't be able to meet everyone else until the school year actually starts?" With a deliberate slowness, she goes back to preparing her salad. It seems to be more a collection of toppings with just enough lettuce to be qualified as a salad. Her eyes flick to meet his, trying to be polite about taking in the boy's mutant qualities.
Mikhail smiles, "No problem Jill", he wanders over to the fridge and grabs an apple, waiting for vegetables to cook is irritating, "Probably not, but I’m glad it's the holidays, Shakespeare is very confusing", he doesn't believe it's English, he doesn't comment on how Jill looks as he takes a bite of the apple, one of his former roommates look similar.
"Shakespeare was a hack," Jill asserts definitively. Then she backs off a bit and looks sheepish. "Or that's what my nana says." She starts to put all of the salad fixings away, closing jars and plastic bags and stuffing them into the refrigerator wherever they might fit. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't ask. Did you want any?" The bag of pre-cut lettuce is held out and shaken to draw attention to it.
Mikhail raises an eyebrow, "Like a saw?", he still doesn't quite understand certain terms, at the offer of the salad he shakes his head, "No thanks, looks too much like leaves".
This gives Jill pause. She literally just stops moving for a whole second. "No," she corrects gently, patiently. "Like, he only wrote his plays 'cause he got paid for them. And it's an accident we still have copies." Shaking her head, she stuffs the lettuce back in the fridge, not caring that there's a drawer specifically for it. "Suit yourself." Grabbing up a fork, she hauls herself onto a stool next to the kitchen island and stirs her salad around to get dressing onto everything. "So are you, umm, having a good summer?" Quite a lame starter, but she's trying to be pleasant and conversational.
Mikhail nods, "So a hack is an insult?, ok I’ll remember that", he sits himself on the other side of the island, "Not a lots happening, but I’m enjoying my summer yes, are you?"
Jill spears a black olive and pauses before putting it in her mouth. "It's… going better than I thought it would. This is a nice school and all, especially right now when there aren't any classes." She hmms to herself, resting her chin in the palm of her free hand. "I mean, it's nice to basically have the whole place to myself, what with most people being gone."
"But the classes are fun, except for English, that tends to start to get confusing, oh and Algebra makes no sense", yeah, Mikhail is one of those weird kids who actually likes learning.
"Oh, I hate math too," Jill commiserates. Deciding she can wait no longer, she digs into the salad. "Have you been here long?" she asks between bites. "Most people would start in the fall, but I'm kind of a special case. And there's still more people here than I thought there'd be, being summer and all."
Mikhail shrugs, "That depends on what you call long, I’ve been here since December, is that long?", he laughs when Jill says she's a special case, "I think we're all special cases at Xavier’s".
"Longer than I've been here, so *I* would say that's a long time, yeah." Jill twirls her fork in the salad bowl idly, toying with it. She shoots a look across the island at Mik. "You know what I mean. I didn't want to stay at home any more and the sooner I got here, the better. I was kinda hoping for, I don't know, a quick fix and I could go back to a normal school." She exhales a breath in a derisive sound. "That didn't pan out, obviously."
Mikhail raises an eyebrow again, "This is a normal school, it's just the students that are a little different, there’s nothing wrong with us though", personally he'd rather be who he is than a normal person 'cause if he was, he wouldn't be him, would he?
"I didn't mean there's anything *wrong* with us. I just liked my old school. All my friends went there." Jill pauses to chew thoughtfully on her salad, then points the fork across at Mik. "Though the school uniforms kind of sucked. They don't have that here, so that's definitely a plus."
Mikhail didn't have any friends or personal attachments before he came to Xavier’s, so he can't really understand why Jill wants to go back to her old school, "Yes, clothes are definitely a plus", he may have misunderstood Jill a little, "Where are you from?"
The first comment earns Mikhail an odd look from the blue girl. "Right," she agrees hesitantly, wondering if this is some kind of joke she just doesn't get. "Well, I was born in Seattle, but I've lived in and around San Francisco for the past… oh, almost 10 years now with my great aunt. I went to the same school ever since I got there. They do K through 12 and it's where I met almost everybody I know. How about you?"
Mikhail nods, he's learned roughly where those places are and he understands the basics of the grade system, he doesn't quite understand what exactly make Jill's aunt great but that doesn't really matter, "I'm from somewhere in Romania, I’m not really sure where though".
Jill pauses with a bite of salad centimeters from her mouth. "You don't know?" As an American, the thought of not knowing things like that is just… odd. It's like not knowing your own birthday. "I don't know much about Romania," Jill offers, just to have something to say. "I don't even know where it is. Well, I sort of do, but I couldn't point it out on a map."
Mikhail shakes his head, "Nope, it would be nice to know where I came from exactly but I’m not sure what I’d find if I did find out", he focuses his black eyes on Jill's food, "Do you have to eat or do you do it out of habit?"
A little saddened by Mikhail's confession, Jill toys with a shred of carrot. For a moment they're both staring at it. "Uh?" Shaken from her brief reverie, Jill looks down and is reminded that she's supposed to be eating. "Oh, no. I still do. I just don't get as hungry as I used to. I mean, I like food. I *love* food. But I don't even have to eat every day anymore." She taps the edge of the bowl with the fork to make a soft ringing sound. "This'll probably hold me until tomorrow. I just don't think about it much because I don't feel hungry."
Mikhail nods, "I was just wandering because Aleksky didn't and he looked like you", he didn't really interact with that particular roommate much but he knew a little about his powers.
"Mmm-mmm," Jill shakes her head. "I still have to. I'm still, like, alive and stuff. I gotta breathe, and eat, and drink water and stuff. I just look like this." Finally she can take it no more and just asks. "Your… mutation," she begins a little awkwardly. "Is that it? Like, your eyes and the…" She opens her mouth to point a finger at her canine teeth, which are surprisingly normal. They're even white, even if her gums are blue. "Sorry, I think I'm required to or something."
Mikhail shakes his head, "My teeth and nails are much stronger than normal, I can easily bite though flesh and bone, I’m much stronger and faster than a normal human, my sight, smell, hearing, reflexes and stamina are also heightened and a scratch or bite from me is poisonous, overall my mutation has made me more or less a perfect hunter".
"Wow," the blue girl breathes in clear admiration. "You've, like, got it all. Better, stronger, faster." Wait, there was something in there. Jill blinks twice as it hits her. "You're poisonous?" Her hands draw back, away from Mikhail's side of the kitchen island, afraid of even being too close to those fangs and claws now.
Mikhail nods, "Yes I'm poisonous", he watches as she moves her hand away, "I'm not gonna attack you though, just because I can doesn't mean I will", geez calm down.
Looking a little chagrined, Jill puts her hands back. But not as close as they were before. "Accidents happen," she tries to explain weakly and focuses her attention on the last bits of salad in her bowl. 'California Girls' plays softly in the background. "I didn't really think you'd do it on purpose or anything…"
"Don't worry, I’ll be careful, I’ve only ever poisoned two people anyways", Mikhail looks at the clock, "Oh I’d better be going, I’ve got a couple of things to do, it was nice meeting though", he gives Jill a wave, gets up and heads out.
Jill scoops up her salad bowl and goes to wash it out in the sink. "Okay, sure. And once the semester starts up, I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot more of each other." She turns, beaming a smile to show there's no hard feelings. "Nice meeting you too, Mik."
