2012-11-16 Garden Variety Awkwardness

Wandering the streets of the Bronx and looking for signs of impending robot invasion got old after half an hour or so--which is, coincidentally, around when Xavin's meanderings brought him near the New York Botanical Garden.

On the up side, he managed to snag $1.62 and a couple of subway tokens from confused passersby who figured the strange young man poking around between buildings and murmuring to himself in strange(one might even say /alien/) tongues was just a crazy homeless person; nowhere near enough for a ticket, but invisibility skirted that issue cleanly enough. All he'd have to do is avoid doing anything to call attention to himself, and for the first couple hours of his visit, he succeeded.

And then he discovered an intricate, limited time exhibit filled with vibrant Japanese Chrysanthemums. His first twenty or so minutes were spent gazing in awe at the many colours and similar, but not quite /identical/ blossoms growing everywhere; now that he's actually strolling through the exhibit, though, the occasional diminutive 'mum begins to sprout atop his head, only to curl up and shrink back into short, curly black locks some seconds - or minutes, depending on how distracted he is - later.

Life can sometimes be unpleasant. For some lost souls, it can be unpleasant quite often. An exhibit like this one, tucked away within the Bronx of all places, invites all sorts. Some of them are the wealthy sort. Some are the sort that would sure love to get their hands on some of that wealth.

Noriko is in amongst the gathering, though she's not paying nearly as much attention to the plants as she is to the other people that happen to be so intimately focused on the plants. While no master pickpocket, she can usually do enough to get by. Barely. Hawkeye's designer jacket is still thrown over everything else she wears, lending some additional credibility, the ragged hoodie seeming more like a cherished article that's up there in the years rather than the only thing she happens to have for an overlayer. Fancier duds means she gets to pick from a more select crowd.

Or she would, if she had the nerve to go through with any of it. Hitting up ATM's is so much easier, no one gets hurt and she only needs to do it once a month to be able to coast along. She's losing hope with this crowd up until she spots some peculiar ..shifting of one of the others in the area. She only knows of one other that can shift into botanical displays. Could it be the same..? As long as she's here she'll go check it out. There's always the chance of bumping into a familiar face.

Xavin's hands are stashed comfortably in the pockets of his black windbreaker as he drifts across a bridge that seems to be made /entirely/ of flowers. Touching the exhibits might, he figures, be frowned upon; they /are/ rather on the delicate side, after all. Sprouting some of the more interesting specimens himself is the next best thing, anyway, and the practice could come in handy if he ever runs into anyone from her last visit to Central Park again.

The alien shakes his head and clucks his tongue as he steps off of the bridge; he's certainly learned his lesson about napping in unfamiliar places(not to mention forms). Seeing more of the world is great, and all, but such carelessness can only lead to further complications.

Complications like being too preoccupied with the particular shade of red he sees in the planter he's winding his way around after leaving the bridge to notice the blue haired girl coming his way until they're just a few feet away from each other--at which point he does a double take at her and stops in his tracks.

The brilliantly red flower unfurling from his brow bobs a little when he plants his feet.

"--ah," he exhales as a tight-lipped smile crosses his lips. He follows it up with a stiff wave. "I--was not expecting--" He glances to his hand, which is pertty much just hanging in the air beside his head, then jams it back into his pocket and tries to soften his smile up a little.

"Hello," he quietly tries again.

Oh yeah, this is definitely the same guy (girl..? Tree?) from before. One of Nori's hands comes out in turn, almost looking lost with the left-to-right then done wave she offers back. "Hey."

Hand returning to hiding, she lowers her voice slightly and says "You should really be more careful about ..um. Sprouting. In public. Someone might notice, at which point very bad things are likely to happen. These guys aren't quite ready for what you're showing them."

As if to drive her point home, Nori does a quick but discrete glance around the two, confirming that, for the moment, things are looking to be okay. Knowing that, a tiny smile tugs its way back upon her lips. "Wasn't expecting to find you here, either. Any luck tracking down those nasty robots?"

After that last conversation, she just has to assume that's what brought you here.

"I--"

Xavin's eyes flick up, he frowns, and briskly brushes a hand back over his scalp; when it falls, the wee, bobbing flower is a fluffy tuft of dark hair--and even /that/ shrinks down to sit more evenly with the rest of his curly crew cut.

"--thank you," he murmurs when he sets his eyes on Noriko again. "I was just... admiring them." The flowers, of course--though he sweeps a hand across the exhibit anyway as he says it. "It won't happen again; I've been--well." The shapeshifter sharply exhales.

"It will not happen again," he repeats. "It's just a matter of discipline." He tries to offer another smile, but it's so plainly awkward and tinged with nerves that he ends up just wiping it away in favour of no expression at all.

"And the robots are, as we were told, gone, likely for good; I've yet to find any sign at all of them."

Flat, neutral expression or no, it's pretty readily apparent how disappointing he finds the lack of deadly magical robots in the borough.

Trying to understand one like you is a slightly painful journey, as far as looming headaches go. "Nothing to be sorry over, it's not like I have the best control over things," Nori says in what she hopes is a reassuring manner. Then, with a glance around, she offers "Yeah..I suppose it's all fancy and alright. I'm sure some people get a real kick out of this stuff." It may well be that she isn't one of them, for some reason or another.

No giant, killer robots? "We should be glad for that," she says with another tiny smile. "Exciting or not, that would make a mess. One which I don't have any interest in cleaning up after."

A small pause follows before Nori looks back to you with a small frown. "You -are- a mutant, right..? It would explain your tricks, but something isn't all there." The very thought process that you seem to employ, it's just..off. -Different.- Not the sort of thing that should be affected by such mutation.

"Yes," Xavin tentatively replies, quietly aghast at the words that are coming out of his own mouth, "I am a mutant." A hand is briskly swept up and down before his body. "This - taking human form - it's my mutation." After a beat, his eyes shift away as he flatly adds, "It's a wonderful gift; the other flora is incredibly jealous," and slides his hand back into his coat.

Only after getting that out is he able to look Noriko in the eye again, and rather than dwell any longer on life as a tree, he tries to shift the subject slightly by remarking, "It's hardly on a level with hurling electricity around, anyway: I have the power to walk and talk: you have the power to shoot things from the sky with a gesture." Or so he assumes; the commotion in the park did a great job of waking him up, but the details from before his introduction are a little fuzzy;, what with the--well--waking up.

"I... think that you may have me beat," he concludes with a small, sheepish smile.

Blink. Blinkblink. "You're..a mutant -plant?-" Noriko's mind is officially blown. This..thing, mutation! It can affect things other than humans? And now there's a sentient, shape-shifting -plant.-

"Yah..no, I'm not even gonna try to figure out which one is more cool than the other. Apples versus oranges, you know?" Or..maybe you don't have any idea what she's talking about. "So..okay. You're a plant that can change into a person, gender of your choosing. If you can survive by taking what you need right out of the ground..what do you do with yourself? Day to day stuff, don't you get bored?" No worries about a job, or having a place to live, just take root somewhere and shift back to your default state. For someone that's living in a dark and grimy tunnel more often than not, it's a very appealing thought. One which she might be willing to give up her own gifts for.

A dismissive look is eventually given, "Mine gets in the way more often than not. The whole thing's one huge burdeon. Yours is all good stuff, isn't it?"

While Noriko tries to process her shock, Xavin does his best to maintain that humble smile while trying to stave off mounting feelings of guilt. Deception is commonplace for Xavin's people - as natural born shapeshifters and warmongers, a well-executed lie is one of their most potent weapons - but Noriko's enthusiasm draws what was already an embarassing mix up further and further into territory that he isn't entirely sure of how to navigate.

"Ah," he quietly exhales after she asks her questions. A hand creeps up from his pocket to massage the back of his neck, and he tries - somewhat half-heartedly - to summon up years of teachings in the art of misdirection. "Well. I travel the city--and other cities. I search for interesting new things, ideas." His smile twitches a little wider. "People. Anything that I can find, that's worth knowing about. I... have... only been sentient for a few months, now, but they have not been boring." Cold, sure. Stressful, certainly; he, like Noriko, knows a few things about the bare comforts of sleeping in dark, cozy tunnels.

"Perhaps not all good," he adds, "but not--boring." He pulls his hand from his neck and gestures in Noriko's direction a little. "Just as I'm sure your gift isn't all /bad/, burden or not; it's still uniquely /yours/, isn't it? That, at least, is /something/."

Someone here is quite interested in what you have to say. It's more than interesting, it's also an escape. A chance to get another's perspective in dealing with what she's led to believe as being a very similar ordeal. Just..from a plant's view. Because that's something she can totally relate to.

Right.

"Travel makes sense, after being--I would assume?--stuck in the same place for so long. To finally have freedom to wander?" Still, it's inevitable that things would come back to her before long. Nori's expression takes on a light scowl, "I've yet to find anything good from it. I mean--I can kinda charge the battery on my phone, but half of the reason for it always being dead is me. I'm afraid to shake another's hand for fear of zapping them. I have ..I have trouble controlling it. No matter what I do, it's still -doing- things. You've caught me on good days."

Xavin swallows and nods. 'Stuck in the same place' is apt--even if that place is 'the middle of a full scale war with another race of alien warmongers' instead of 'the ground'.

Either way, not an ideal place to spend one's entire existence.

"I'm certainly grateful," he quietly admits. "A little sad; it's hardly fair for so many other--trees--to be stuck for their whole lives." That sadness shows through in the smile he then offers her.

"I'm sorry that your gift has given you so much more trouble than mine," he continues. "Perhaps with enough time, dedication--/anything/ is possible, given enough practice; it's just a matter of discipline." His smile widens a little as he recalls his declaration from earlier; never mind that accidental electrocution is a few degrees more serious than inadvertant blooming.

"I could help, if you like," he adds, holding his hand out towards Noriko again--this time offer it, rather than make more gestures. "I'm an /awful/ conductor; you could even ask Billy." Beat. "Or... science, I suppose."

What a little world Noriko lives in. By comparison to some people and/or creatures out in the world at large. For her, Central Park is still a vast and frightening place. Perhaps slightly less now, knowing that any one of those trees might suddenly turn out to be an ally in some fashion.

"Time, yah," Nori grumbles. "I'd sure hope so. It gets a little old, ya know? Heh. Discipline." That alone seems rather foreign a concept. What, like actually -try- to use it in order to get better at it? She'd really rather just try and ignore the whole thing, does that work?

When you offer your hand she looks down to it with a blank expression, not sure what it is that you're trying to do. "Should I..I mean..what?" There's the faint jingle of metal objects as she extracts a hand from a hoodie pocket, holding it in a way that one might if they just placed their own hand into something most unpleasant. Are you just offering to shake her hand? There's an awful lot of light in this place, light coming from a power source, a source that's tied into the city.

She should be alright. -Should- be. Those pills are good for six hours. Where's she at now, two..two and a half?

Biting the corner of a lip, Nori goes for the plunge and grasps your hand in her own. Breath held.

So far, so good.

"..I get mixed results whenever I do this," she timidly admits.

"Well." Xavin glances down at his hand, then back up at Noriko; her uncertainty seems to be infectious, because his sympathetic smile is slipping away as he tries to scrape together an answer. The offered hand is a show of faith, a gesture of good will to accompany - even ratify - the offer of assisted practice; that he'd need to figure out how to justify it didn't even cross his mind.

"I was--" he begins to murmur before Noriko grabs his hand and saves him the trouble of cobbling together an explanation. After another look down at his hand - /their/ hands, now - he replies, "I got that impression, yes; I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable," slips his hand away, and lets out a breath. "I just--assumed--that it was customary: shaking hands to signify an agreement." A curious glance is cast towards the hoodie pocket, now that that particular bit of uncertainty has passed. "Is--" He squints. "Is that not awkward, or troublesome, with your lack of control?"

Your expression has changed. Why..has it... Nori looks down at the joined hands, promptly letting go and returning her own hand into hiding within that pocket. "Sorry, um--. Yah. Usually it is. I'm just. Y'know. Not so good with that stuff. Or formalities."

Stop talking now.

"It's very awkward," she quickly replies. "Really it's best to try and avoid contact with others as much as possible, thing has a mind of its own. Then sometimes it gets to be a bit ..-too- much. Makes my mind race, hard to think straight. Impossible to keep it held back. Something has to give, you know? Every day, -every-..ergh! I need to get rid of it before I can sleep. Usually again when I wake up. It's gotta come out, gotta go somewhere where it won't cause any problems. Very troublesome, very."

And, every once in a blue moon, it's also good for zapping would-be muggers.

Xavin purses his lips as he listens and tries to imagine being where Noriko is, struggling with restlessness and isolation day in and day out due to nothing more than a quirk of genetics.

"You must be quite strong, then, to live with your burden as you do," he quietly replies, electing to share his conclusion aloud. "To have survived it for however long you have; you should be proud of yourself for that." With a sympathetic little smile he adds, "It's hard enough, sometimes, for me to figure out the right things to do when my mind is /not/ racing."

Noriko makes a short but forced laugh, shoulders rolling beneath the layers of fabric draped over them. "I haven't had a choice. You do what you have ti, it's ..all you really -can- do. Maybe I'm not 'disciplined' or anything, but I have to find a way to keep living." Nope, not going to take the compliment that easily.

Hey, wait a moment, here... "Your thoughts race, too? Any reason for it, or are you just thinking about things a lot? I guess I thought that wasn't the sort of problem that anyone else had."

Awfully insightful, for a tree!

"No, no," Xavin quickly corrects as he puts his palms towards Noriko and tries to wave the notion away. "Focusing on only one thing at a time is not such a problem; focusing on the /correct/ thing, though..." He smiles briefly and stashes his hands in his jacket rather than finish the thought.

"Regardless: there's no honor in downplaying what you've accomplished. You've /survived/; that's a choice. You could have quit at any time; you still could. You haven't; that's significant."