2013.07.04 - First Class Museum Visit

It was a sunny summer afternoon in Metropolis. Jocelyn was just coming out of the New York Public Library, having picked up a few books. She'd gotten a couple of actual honest-to-goodness acceptance letters for college, and now she was trying to figure out which one she was going to choose. So she had gone to the library to dig around for some information on the differences in the school's programs. Sure, she could have done that at the manor, but she needed to get out and about. Besides, she was going to be in the area anyway. Jocelyn didn't hang around the institute just for the sake of hanging around. While she did, of course, have the tracker on per instructions, she wasn't actually under restrictions. She was also hopeful that if there was something weird going on, she'd pick up on it with her sight before it actually took her powers away.

Regardless, she knew which students were old enough to come out alone, and she'd noticed that the Metropolitan Museum of Art had a special exhibit up for the Titanic. Sure, Jocelyn was reasonably sure it was meant to draw in the tourists, but the woman had to admit to having some passing curiosity. She recalled that Merle seemed to be rather into artistic stuff, and so she pulls out her cell phone and sends a text to her.

"I'm over near the Metro. Museum of Art. Special Titanic exhibit. Interested?"

Not too far away, towards the southern end of Midtown from the library, Merle is 'window shopping' at the Manhattan Mall (OOC: located at Broadway and 33rd; http://www.manhattanmallny.com/) when her 'phone' chirps. Actually part of her transformed uniform, she pulls it out of her pocket and checks the message. After reading the message she quickly types back to her fellow X-Man and finds a discrete corner of the mall to cast her teleportation spell.

The message? "Sure. Meet you at the Obelisk?"

Her destination? Not quite so discrete. She pamphs -- in her civvies -- into the space just above the trees to the north of the obelisk and falls though the foliage, catching and spinning around the limbs of trees to control her descent to the ground.

Well, Merle wouldn't be too hard to find. Jocelyn just turns in the general direction of the Obelisk and starts walking in that direction. She arrives at the Obelisk a little bit after the girl, however. She didn't have the benefit of teleportation spells, and really, she didn't feel like randomly taking flight in the middle of a bunch of civilians. That would just be a bad, bad way to attract some extra attention.

Once Jocelyn arrives, she waves at Merle. "Hey Merle. Hope I didn't pull you away from anything too interesting, but I saw the exhibit was only here for a couple weeks. Thought you might be interested," the teenager tells Merle. It wasn't Jocelyn's usual cup of tea, but she'd been working to expand her horizons a little bit, so to speak. And having someone who knew about these sorts of things would make it more interesting for Jocelyn.

Merle, magically disguised with pale skin and black hair, is near the railing that is supposed to keep the public from approaching the Obelisk taking pictures of a Japanese couple with their camera when Jocelyn approaches. She smiles when she sees the redhead and hands the man his camera. "Hope you enjoy your stay in New York sir," she says as she disengages from them. "Sure, Jocelyn, sounds good."

For her part, Jocelyn doesn't really react to the disguise. It was just that, a disguise, and Jocelyn was used to that sort of thing. Some of the mutants used the Image Inducers. Of course, Merle had magic, so that meant she had other options available to her. Regardless, the magic was noticeable, and Jocelyn didn't have a problem recognizing her.

"Sounds good," Jocelyn says, starting to lead the way back. "What've you been up to?" she asks casually. She hadn't seen Merle for a bit, really. Of course, Jocelyn had been in and out a lot, so she was hard to pin down at times. At the least it made it hard for Jocelyn to just be randomly run into while hanging out back at the institute.

"I took a trip to England actually." Strange world. A living version of her post-apocalyptic North America. She sought some sights and sounds from her childhood. "Took a couple of weeks on the other side of the pond. The past couple of nights I patrolled Mutant Town. How've you been doing?"

"Never been over that way really," Jocelyn says. Flown over it in the Blackbird a few times, but that's about it. "Been keeping busy with the usual things. Was actually just in New Orleans meeting up with a friend. Ran into Amanda and some others by chance and got some work in". Easy enough, Jocelyn is guessing, for Merle to decode what she meant. "Attended a couple of friends' wedding and been dealing with getting ready for college. So keeping busy," Jocelyn explains as they walk.

"What did you see over in England?" Jocelyn asks out of curiosity. They're coming up on the museum at this point. They weren't that far away from it, and Jocelyn had gotten pretty good at navigating the city in her time here, so she knew the quickest ways to some of the city's landmarks.

Merle chuckles. "Museums. Pubs. Shopping. Basic local flavor stuff. Also a drive by or two of the Braddock Manor and a boat ride or two past Muir Island... visiting childhood haunts." She sounds like she thinks it is sort of lame as she says it. "I just needed to see if I could reconnect with myself basically," she adds as they approach the main entrance of the museum.

"Braddock. As in Elizabeth?" Jocelyn questions. "She's in town now". Jocelyn thought Merle might find that interesting, if she was going by the Braddock home in England. That sounded like a somewhat odd coincidence to Jocelyn. "Sounds rather interesting, actually. As I said, I've never been there. I'd reconnect with my old home, but I don't really think reconnecting with that mess is the best of ideas". Because reconnecting with drug dealers and worse usually didn't work out so well!

Jocelyn opens the door to the main entrance, holding it for an elderly couple, before she starts to lead the way in and purchases the tickets, both for general admission and for the special exhibit. "So, you want to check out the special exhibit first, or you want to browse a bit first?" she asks.

"Let's see Liverpool's biggest failed export first?" Merle says with a slight chuckle and then with a wink she adds "Hope it out does Cameron's movie of course."

"I realize I'm probably one of a handful of people in the country who haven't seen it, but don't spoil the ending for me. I'd rather be surprised as to if it sinks or not," Jocelyn responds with a small smirk on her face. One of the benefits to not having much pop culture exposure was that she avoided certain movies, and Titanic was one of them.

The girl starts to lead the way down towards the hall towards where they have the exhibit set up. There is actually a replica boarding area, where they will each be issued a pass with the name of an actual passenger on the Titanic, and it proceeds into a room detailing the construction of the ship. The room is set up to look like the hallway of the actual Titanic. It was one of those exhibits that traveled a lot, due to its setup and the demand for it.

Merle is kind enough to laugh at Jocelyn's joke. More seriously she says, "I'll not spoil the ending for you.... and there are bigger things that could be spoiled than the status of the ship," smiling as she does so however. Looking at her ticket she exclaims, "A first class passenger, wow!"

"Ahh, I've got a third class," Jocelyn responds easily enough. Yeah, the joke was more funny in the 90's when the movie was released. They start moving through the exhibit a little bit now, as the construction section focuses on how it took three years and over five thousand people to build the ship. The next section details life aboard the ship, complete with photographs from the era. People playing various games, socializing, and even formal dancing are on display.

"So, out of curiosity, you doing anything regarding college or anything like that?" Jocelyn questions. She wasn't sure what Merle's plans were for the long-term. "Or are you taking a different approach to your time here?" She'd known time travelers to take it both ways, long and short term, so she was curious.

"Well, college would be hard I suspect, since I have no proof of existence or education in this time frame," Merle says softly enough so that... hopefully... nobody around her hears as she looks around the exhibit with Jocelyn.

"That is something that is perfectly solvable," Jocelyn assures her. "If you wanted it". Jocelyn knows people. Lots of people. "Not your fault you forgot to pack those things," the teen offers. Jocelyn was pretty good at talking about such things in code. It wasn't like the Institute had never done that for someone before, and there were other ways of doing it, too. She didn't actually have such a casual belief about it, but in order to cover in case anyone hears them. Also, Jocelyn could keep sound from getting past them if she needed it to.

They continue walking, looking at the exhibits. "So do you head to museums a lot? They don't have nearly as many or as good of ones in Detroit," Jocelyn tells Merle. "Unless you really like automobiles, that is".

"No actually. But mom and dad took me to the Museum of London a few times and I really felt the need to see what was the same and what was different there... and, well, sometimes I find it good to connect to the past." She grins and stage whispers "Even before I was living in it" with a wink. Of course, it's more complicated than that, but this is definitely not the place to discuss that in detail.

Raising an eyebrow, Jocelyn just nods easily to the girl's statement. "Ahh, my mistake then. I thought you were into these sorts of things," Jocelyn offers with a laugh. Ahh well, mistakes happen. She continues walking, and they enter a replica of a first-class passenger's cabin. "So, this is where you'd be staying," the woman comments as she looks around. "Not bad, for a cabin on a ship". She wasn't sure what would be a bad cabin, but that was probably what her passenger had.

"So, what sorts of things do you do for downtime?" she asks. Jocelyn was curious now what the not-currently-blue girl did for fun.

"Oh! Don't get me wrong. I love museums. Just can't go to the same one over and over again... that gets boring. Haven't been to this one before... at least not in this condition," Merle explains quickly before she and Jocelyn enter the first class cabin.

As the downtime question is asked the disguised mutant looks down at her hands for a moment and then back up at her friend and companion. "Sports, reading.... going to the theater," that last one puts a smile on her lips again as she remembers her first outing with Jocelyn. "And I have a boyfriend back home also," she says softly.

"Ahh. Had me worried I had completely misread you," Jocelyn says with a smile. She was usually reasonably decent at reading a person. A nod is given as Merle explains she doesn't tend to repeat museums. "That makes sense. Probably only worth a repeat for a special exhibit or something," Jocelyn offers casually.

A nod is given when Merle lists what she enjoys. "What sports?" she questions. Jocelyn enjoys sports herself, so she was curious if there was a common interest there. "I have to admit I didn't grow up with much theatre experience. Those tickets are expensive, and you could say I didn't have a lot of culture growing up".

She offers a sympathetic nod when Merle mentions she has someone back home. "Sorry to hear that," Jocelyn says. Getting pulled to another universe was jarring enough. Not being able to be with your significant other was way worse. "You need anything, let me know".

"My favorite sports are gymnastics, handball and swimming actually," Merle says. "Although, most sports have their appeal. Not so hot on American Football or baseball though... give me football and cricket any day over those two 'sports'."

"I enjoy swimming. Gymnastics I'd enjoy if the fact that I'm way too tall to be anything but average at it wasn't a factor. I like basketball well enough, but again, some of that comes from the fact I'm good at it. Never tried handball," Jocelyn offers as they move through the cabins. They enter a third-class passenger's cabin, which is much more basic than the one they were in. "We should go swimming sometime. Head out to the lake or something," Jocelyn suggests. "I'll agree with you on American Football, but baseball does have a certain appeal to it," she says. "Just requires a different mindset than some other sports, I think".

"I'd like that," Merle says. "I need to get more involved at the Institute I think. Be a part of something." She sounds distant as she says that.

Tilting her head, Jocelyn nods. "Well, how about tomorrow morning we hit the lake?" Jocelyn suggests as they move through the exhibit. They're now coming up near the end, and there is a wall where they can see if their passenger survived or if they perished in the sinking. There's a certain irony in talking about swimming and seeing an exhibit on the Titanic, it occurs to Jocelyn.

Merle grins and says, eyes sparkling as she speaks, "Sure. Gives me an excellent excuse to stop by the mall again. Swimsuit shopping." Yes, she's been bitten by the shopping bug, that's certain.

"I should get a new one too. Go with you after we finish up here?" Jocelyn suggests. She usually isn't a big shopper, but she did need a new swimsuit herself. And it was always better to go with someone else! Jocelyn has partially disconnected.