Viti and Aqua in the infirmary

[griot]

 Who: Viti and Aqua. I guess someone who happens to be in the infirmary could say something too.

What: Viti and Aqua talking the best they can, considering Aqua’s sick, and there are two walls of transparent, but hard plastic between them.

Where: The infirmary

When: Sometime during the same week as the District X new feed thread.

Rating: Don’t know. Above G.

Warnings: Image of a sick person.

 

Viti sat in a corner with one leg curled up the other was splayed out. He had a cell phone to his ear.

“Mom, I’m pretty sure I’m not sick.  The quarantine is just a precaution.”

There was silence as Viti listened to the response.

“I don’t know,” Viti replied with a rising tone. “I tried to tell them it was a misunderstanding, but they took me in anyways."  More silence.

“Well I guess, because, I was in the same room as someone who might have been sick.”

Viti had to pull the phone away from his ear, because, the voice coming out of it was so loud. His ear rung from being just a split second too late.

It took a few minutes before he could bring the cell phone close enough to speak. “Mom, he probably wasn’t sick. Besides I’m in the safest place in the world right now, even the CDC doesn’t have all the high tech gear and powers that the X-men have. You can’t take me out anyways…ok…ok…ok….I love you too, mom…and dad. I will talk to you later.”

Viti turned off his phone and sighed.  His head fell back in exhaustion. “Well, I hope Liir got my letter.” For minute he just sat in the corner of his room, letting the florescent light warm him. Eventually, he thought to stand up, and look through the clear plastic walls to see who might be quarantined with him. 

Comments

[aquawayfinder]

"Focus," she said. "Focus on the place, on the way it makes you feel. Keep that, hold that."

[griot]

Viti's gritted his teeth, his knuckles began to turn white, he growled slightly, but slowly let out another deep breath. His muscles began to loosen, his body began to relax, but not for long.

His thoughts came back with a vengeance. He growled like a beast, all his muscles tensed. He gripped hi hair, he gritted his teeth again to stop from yelling.

"Someone knock me out! It's after you, it's after you."

[aquawayfinder]

"Calm down," she said firmly, pulling to her feet and walking to the divider. "There is nothing here but you and I. Nothing after us. Calm," she ordered. "Control."

[griot]

"I can't...I can't..." Viti seemed paralyzed in an angry state, with all his muscles pulling against each other. The strain showed on his face. He stayed there a moment, then suddenly relaxed.

He gasped. His head fell, his arms collapsed, and his eyes burst open.

"That was just bizarre. I get that you told me not to say what I was seeing, but you have to understand that my power wasn't just trying to know a few words about you this time, it was trying to open the book on your life."

Viti leaned back again. "I think I stopped it though. So we're ok."

[aquawayfinder]

"Normally I would push to explore, so you can learn how to stop it without pain, and eventually without undue effort, however, given the illness, this is not the time to practice that.

[griot]

Viti narrowed his eyes. "So this virus makes is harder to use your mutant power. That is very suspicious." Viti growled.

"Well then it would be wise for you to rest." The boy looked out of his cell, with his arms crossed over his heart.

"I haven't had much luck forming my cure team, but as soon as I get out of here I will keep at it. I promise one way or another we're going to fix you up?"

[aquawayfinder]

"That is not what I said. In my personal experience, using my mutant abilities has hastened the onset and increased the severity of the symptoms. That is a sample size of one. I want you to be careful, in case the use of mutant abilities does trigger these things in people other than myself as well. However, even if it does, it could be natural."

"Think of it this way. Imagine people born without eyes. Just imagine if half the people in the world were born not just blind, but without eyes. To them we have powers and abilities that they do not have. We can see. We can blink, we can do things they have trouble even imagining."

"Now imagine there is..." she tried to think of how to say it, "On my island we call it puff eyes. Well... that's a close translation. It is an illness that sometimes makes eyes itch and swell until they are nearly or fully closed. There are people in this theoretic world with no eyes that might resent us. It could seem suspicious that this illness only attacks those with eyes, but it is simply because in the others there is nothing to attack. It is still a natural ailment, no one set it upon us."

"So too with this. Even if using mutant powers triggers a worsening in most or all who are ill, that makes not it suspicious, because it might be tied to the DNA that makes us mutants, or to some muscle or abilities that lets us use our powers that they lack."

"There are plenty of people working to cure this. Do not take the weight upon your shoulders. You are yet untrained and young. Focus first on mastery. Rushing always forward when there are others to do that while you learn will only make your road harder."

[griot]

Viti snapped.

"What kind of sick Fuck would I have to be to just let you die, huh?! What kind of sociopath lunatic does that, watches a person die and does nothing!? I sure as hell wish someone recklessly charges in to save my life when I'm in danger!"

Viti's had nearly lept out of bed he was so angry. His heart was pounding, and his body was ready for war, but then suddenly the bright red in his face started to drain. His angry scowl started to fade, and he realized...

He had a tear in his eye.

He realized he had just shouted at someone who could be dying. He looked away feeling too guilty to face the person he just shouted at.

It took time before he could speak again.

"Maybe it's all just as well. No one wants to work with me. Everyone's happy pretending this virus doesn't exist.Maybe I should to..."

[aquawayfinder]

"Swearing will get you nowhere, and getting worked up will not help you. You wish to learn Mastery, then master yourself. Speak to me again, when you are ready to be calm."

That said, she closed her eyes and sank into her own meditation.

[griot]

The 13 year old boy's mouth dropped. His feelings occelated between anger, at pouring his heart out and having it thrown into his face, and, guilt for just having shouted at a friend who was dying.

With a huff he turned his back on Aqua and wound his arms tightly over his chest. His thoughts moved to angry places. He dwelled on the failures and frustrations he accumulated since coming to the institute. He thought how no one would listen to him about the disease, how he could not save even one life, and he amassed angry rivals without even meaning too.

As his mind became a darker place, he curled his knees closer and closer to his chin, and tightened his arms around his body. By the time he had concluded he hated the world and everyone in it, he had become a perfect sphere of bitterness. Hot tears began to run over his cheeks, and wet his pillow. He quivered.

Then his eyes suddenly bulged. He turned around.

"Ah Professor Aqua. Sorry to bother you when I am not feeling calm, but my powers are starting to go haywire. Can I have help?"

[aquawayfinder]

She had been waiting for him to find control, or ask for help. She had not expected him to have an issue with his powers, but she would not leave him suffering.

"What is wrong, and how does one help?"

This is OOC, not an RP post

[aquawayfinder]

(I'm not going to reply here yet, because I think that you should really talk to the mods about if this is possible for your character before we go any further. I would hate for you to be told no after we have played a while, forcing you to retcon everything.

I do not think that it is possible, with his power, for him to get information from her mind that she herself does not posses. Also, honestly, as a player, I would have loved if you had asked before dredging up this particular memory of hers, especially if you want her to be in any shape to assist him. Especially as I, and she, have no clue how to do that as things stand anyway.

I know you are fairly new to this, so you might want to look into what they call a permissions post, since it is a good way to discuss OOC what can and cannot happen between characters, in a safe environment that both can reference later. If you had one already, for example, I would have warned you about Tiamaris, so that perhaps Viti would not have sparked him the way he did when you joined in that other thread. Permissions posts are really great ways to hash that sort of thing out, and I tend to post mine into my top post of any thread with someone new, though some people just leave them in their journals. A lot of the characters whose powers affect or draw from another player use these. The Krista player has a fairly good one, if you want to look at her journal which is http://martyrerkomplex.dreamwidth.org/977.html#cutid1 <--- Here.

A good example from another game (donated by my friend for this purpose) http://genkireaper.dreamwidth.org/4061.html

There are a lot of ways to do them, and I think you might find it helpful in the future.

But I would check with the mods, if I were you, about the limits on his power, before we continue, since if he could not get this, he would be reacting differently. Please let me know how they respond.

Thank you.)

[griot]

Viti was suddenly paralyzed. His pupils dilated. When he could finally move, he gripped his forehead in agony.

"aaaarrraa!" Viti blurted out thirty geometric field equations so fast that he sounded like he was talking in tongues.

He turned to Aqua and reached for her, but she started to appear blurry. "Huuurrrk!" He rolled off the bed and landed with a plop, but all he could feel was the throbbing pain in his head

Then he saw it in his mind’s eye. Something tiny, dark, and hot. Then light. His mind calculated the expansion of everything.

His whole life Viti never felt such agony, but in his pain he clenched his fist, pressed them into the floor and started to rise.

"Don't call for help!" Viti stated.

Viti shook in pain, but still forced himself to rise to his knees.

"My power is absorbing more information than I can take arrrrrrr!"

Viti fell back down, but caught himself before his head hit the floor.

"But I need to learn how to rein this power in, even if I can't do it on my own. So please...please...guide me through this because...it hurts"

Viti forced himself to look in Aqua's cobalt colored eyes.

"Tell me how you control your powers and if that fails aaaaarrrhhh…!” Viti ‘s head fell again, but still he wouldn’t let it hit the floor.
“…Then talk to me…talk to me about whatever you want. Call me an idiot if you have to, but please talk to me.”

Stealing from how another character would teach this, cause they are much alike

[aquawayfinder]

She rolled off the bed and made her way to the divider

"Picture the extra information you can't handle as riding in your hands instead of in your head. Shape it into a form you can hold in your hand."

[griot]

Viti forced his eyes shut, trying to see his power. He opened his palm as if he were holding something. He was told that it was a portal in his brain that what gave him his data, so he imagined a black hole with a single ray of light escaping from the center.

In that ray of light he saw it, heard it. The data. It was a steady stream of white numbers and letters read to him in monotone. It was beautiful, but then he got to close, and it hurt!

"Ahhhh!"

The portal was taking on more information in a second than one hundred people would take in a lifetime. For a second Viti growled, but he stopped himself, when he opened his eyes and saw Aqua. He forced a deep, quivering breath, and came up with an idea.

"Professor Aqua...Please talk to me. Say anything you want to, and please say as much as you can...please."

Tears were rolling down Viti's cheeks. It was more than the boy could handle.

[aquawayfinder]

"Alright then, if it will help, I will tell you a story."

She closed her eyes and spoke softly.

"Once there was a young man from a distant land. He wandered, knowing no home, no land, no family of his own. No one knew why he wandered, but all knew him simply as a wanderer from a distant land."

"As he traveled, he learned, speaking the tongues of all he met," she continued, translating on the fly. It was one of the stories the students like to tell to imagine how the island began. The Master never confirmed or denied any of the stories. Aqua privately believed they amused him.

"He could speak to any he met after a time, and he did. He collected stories from everywhere he went, and learned how the people in each place lived, how they loved, who they were."

"And for a time, he was happy. Then one day he found a child who was starving. A small girl who had no family. He tried to find her a home, but no one in the town would take her in, and for the first time in years, doors would close on him. He knew not why."

"So he took the child traveling with him. But wherever they went, the doors closed to them, and he knew not why. Families he had supped with no longer would break bread. Finally one day, another child, a little boy, explained to him. The child said that the families were afraid of the girl because her hair was purple."

"This made no sense to the man. He had seen people with yellow hair, brown hair, red hair, white hair, grey hair, no hair even. The child who explained it said that people were scared of those who were different sometimes. The wanderer was different, but they accepted him. Still, he did not doubt the child's words. The small boy showed off how he was different, by making a small fire in his hands. Someone saw this and was alarmed. The wanderer and the little girl were chased from the village."

"When he returned, some several months later, to the village, the child who had helped him found him again and begged to be allowed to travel with him. The child had wounds and signs of neglect, and was starving. The wanderer left town at once, vowing never to return to such a place. Two children came with him."

"It was hard, traveling with two children, but there was no where he could trust that would take them in. Maybe he needed to widen his search. So he bartered and traded until he owned a boat. And the children took cabins and they lived on the boat. And the boy who made fires could practice when they found small islands where no one was, and the girl turned out to be able to talk to dolphins. They ate well, a feast of fish, as the dolphins helped the odd wandering member of their various pods in her human ship."

"As he came to more and more ports, instead of finding homes for these children, he found instead more children who needed homes, because they were different. He found a child who could make portals into time, and one who could shield a place so that none could enter or leave. He found water cleansers and floaters..."

"Soon he had ore children than the boat could easily care for, even with the fish. He kept trying to find them homes until one day, the purple haired girl - a young woman now - begged him to stop. None of the children wanted to be placed with another family. They had a family now, one that had grown around him."

"With all their various talents, they found an island, large, with all they needed for habitation. No one else was there, or had been for some time. So they set up camp and built their homes there. And the wanderer, was a wanderer no longer. He built the island with plans that those who lived there would move on, go out and do good in the world, and that there would always be space for those children from other lands who could not stay in their homes. He named it the Isle of Departure, to remind us that when we were of age, we were expected to go out into the world and do good. To use what we had learned to help others."

"At least, that is one of the stories we tell. We are pretty sure there are some reasons that could not be possible, but... it makes a nice story all the same."

[griot]

Viti's eyes were sealed shut. His head was being flooding with an ocean of monotone voices, all clamoring for his attention, but through them he heard one voice that had feeling, one voice that had meaning, one voice worth listening to.

In his mind's eye he waded waist deep in numbers. He cut though words and facts, and heard light. It came in the form of a story.

Slowly, the image of a man, holding hands with a shadowy girl, whose purple hair flowed with the wind, began to materialize before him. Light shined from them, and the facts began to dissolve in it.

Viti reached for Aqua in the real world, but in his mind he reached for the two people. He stretched his arm until his tendons were strained, but he felt something pulling back on his leg.

Both in his mind, and in real life he turned his body to look behind him. The facts not dissolved, had twisted into tentacles, and pulled on his leg. In real life he seemed to growl back at his bed, but in truth he hissed at the facts.

He turned back to the people. Other children joined along with the man, but they seemed to be floating away from Viti as he was pulled.

With renewed vigor he crawled forward, hissing and growling as he did so, catching up with the people, but the tentacles pulled harder, so he reached.

He reached, stretching his every muscle right up to his finger tips. It wasn't enough, but he would not give up.

Finally, the man, who's face was covered in shadow, extended his hand. The tentacles yanked harder, but so did Viti.

"I get it now!" Viti said aloud both in his mind and real life.

Gasping and growling he said, "People aren't the trigger."

His eyes bloodshot, he smiled through his gritting teeth.

"People...arrrrreee....the...anchorrrrrr!!"

Viti gave one last powerful pull, and cupped his hand in the one that reached for him. There was white flash that consumed everything, and suddenly Viti was back in the world.

He blinked bewildered, when he found his hot hand flat against the cold plastic. His face flushed red with embarrassment, and his eyes shifted away from Aqua, who was before him.

"Ummmmmm. What did I just do?"

[aquawayfinder]

"I am uncertain," she admitted. "But whatever it is, it cost. Are you going to be alright?"

[griot]

Viti graced his face with a huge smile.

"You bet! I finally figured it out. I thought talking with other people triggered my power, but now I know that talking with other people keeps my power grounded.

When I reject other people my power goes scouring the universe for facts that have nothing to do with anything, but when I talk to someone my power filters away the useless information. My only regret..."

Viti stepped back, and placed a hand on his hot forehead. "...Is that my power gave me such a huge headache."

Viti stumbled backwards, fumbled back into his bed.

"uuuuhhhh. Does you power give you headaches like this?"

[aquawayfinder]

"It can before you learn to master it."

[griot]

With his hand still on his forehead, he gave Aqua a glance.

"I see. Well thank you for guiding me through that situation. I still don't have much control, but thanks to you I have an understanding."

He covered his eyes. The light above him just seemed too bright. It made his headache worse.

[aquawayfinder]

"Rest now, if you can. Sleep should help."

[griot]

"Fine, fine. But before I conk out I have one last question. What is your power?"

[aquawayfinder]

She gave a small smile. "Perhaps I shall tell you when you wake up."