etrayalogs | [OPEN] X-Mansion clean-up

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[OPEN] X-Mansion clean-up

WHO: Storm and you!
WHEN: Late May-Early June
WHERE: Xavier Institute for Mutant Education and Outreach
WHAT: Come bother a lonely goddess in a blast from the past mansion!
NOTES\WARNINGS: N/A for now, but this is the X-Men - discussion of death, bigotry, and discrimination likely.

A new building has popped up in Etraya - easily visible from the Hospital and Apartment Complex on the main island. Ororo spends a few days flying back and forth from the main island and to the Institute, investigating its exterior and interior, before finally just taking one of the bedrooms in the main mansion.

⏵ i. indoors;

The gate and the doors are, actually, left unlocked for now. Ororo is alone, and isn't too worried about security just yet - it was just her in this large, lonely mansion and she could take on anyone who might feel like trespassing -- not that there was anyone like that here, she'd found. She can imagine people like Scott or Logan or even Hank berating her for being careless anyway, but... she isn't worried. She's more concerned about how much of the institute is even real - and thus, how safe everything actually is.

So, she goes through the entire building one room at a time - testing light switches, checking stoves or microwaves, looking through the computers in the old staff offices (they switch on, but there's nothing saved in them), turning beds so she can offer them to people who might be sick of the apartments... It's a large place, so this takes her a couple of days. It won't be hard to run into her walking through the halls with a little clipboard and a pen -- she'd had a brief moment of missing the modern conveniences of Henry and Forge's tablets -- and a smile for anyone who'd wandered in after her.

"Hello. Come to help me investigate?"

However, if she sees anyone approaching the main elevator, she calls out instead in a sharp warning -- "The sub-levels are restricted. If you'd like to go there, you'll need me to key in some biometrics to access them."

⏵ ii. pool;

The Olympic-size pool is easily seen from surrounding islands. It's dry and empty when Ororo first discovers the Institute, and not yet very clean. She considers putting up a message on the network to ask for help, but... perhaps that'd be better suited for when the pool is actually usable, instead?

So when she's done poking through the inside of the mansion, she figures it's time for a more mundane use of her powers. She blasts the tiles with wind and water to wash away any grime or dirt left between the crevices. Filling it up with clean water later was no trouble at all either, with a convenient cloud of fresh rain.

Maybe she should work on clearing out spaces for some tables and chairs next? But that'll involve more hands than she has, so it'll have to be a project for another day, maybe.

⏵ iii. rooftop;

Between self-imposed chores to make the mansion feel a little less shadowed and a little more lived-in, Ororo takes her breaks on the east wing's roof. She's taken a pool lounger and set it up here, and lies under the sun or the moon or in the shade of one of those odd, chrome structures in nothing but her underwear and a pair of sunglasses, sipping from an insulated tumbler she'd picked up at Kwiktrip and a paperback she'd taken from Corrine's (she'll return it! eventually!)

It's the last place she expects anyone to find her, really, but... people could always surprise her.

⏵ iv. wildcard;

Feel free to mix-and-match or tag in with something else completely, or use the X-Mansion as set dressing for other threads! ♥ If we have previous CR, you can also assume Ororo has messaged your character in some way to help her check the place out. Message me on almondlychee if you want something more specific.

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[ That's definitely one word for it.

Jean looks a little amused, but the answer is swift. ]

Yes. I consider your father very dear.
[ One of the two (three?) most dear to her heart. ]

You have me curious. What else did your comic say about me?

[She considers the few comics she has in her possession.]

... You like making food float to you. [Leave it to a child to have that be the first thing she notices. But as she dwells on the rest of the pages, she adds:] You're proud to be a mutant, and you take care of your own. And you can read people's thoughts, but you are — nice about it.

[She had been a little wary of that, at first. Her mind is probably a very messy and sad place, not somewhere anyone with powers should spend any time. Even at her age, she figures as much. Not only that, but... what happened to Logan... to Charles... to the X-Men? It feels wrong to tell them all of the bad things.]

I very much try to be.

My gifts don't give me the right to abuse people's privacy.

[ Nor does the scale they are at—at the point when she can still hear the thoughts of the people on Earth from the moon—mean she has the right to use whatever it is she can't help overhearing. She lives in people's most private spaces and does all she can to protect and respect them.

Jean's hands brushed her pants, even though she hadn't been on the ground. ]

How do you feel about cookies, Laura?

I baked some earlier, and they should be well-cooled by now.

I like cookies.

[It's an immediate answer. And though her expression tends to be rather muted, there's a slight shift into genuine anticipation at the thought of having some today; the way to this child's heart is her stomach, that much has been verified by her time here so far.]

I took a whole box, when the robots put them in the hospital.

Hid them in my room. But they're gone now.

[... As in, eaten. She ravenously consumed them.]

I thought you might.

[ Jean can't help the smile. Or the thought about how much this small, younger version of Laura is so reminiscent of Gabby. There'd been a time when Laura was younger, while with the X-Men, but she'd been ... gone then. Still both in the ground, and scattered across the ominverse. Collecting her pieces.

And yet. Hadn't she been driven to meet Laura immediately, even then?
Even when she returned to Scott and Logan both already passed beyond, too. ]

I'll make sure they're added to the future grocery lists.

I know your metabolism is probably as good as your father's,
but you'll still have to eat more than just cookies, too.

[She nods. Make no mistake, this child is a ravenous creature that will consume everything on a table. Logan didn't exactly have the longest time to teach her manners, either; not that he tended to have a lot of them himself. Not at the time. It's very impolite to ditch your daughter on multiple occasions, anyway.

But he did do some nice things. Like put another coin in the horse ride.

(Or... maybe that was to stop her from slashing the coinbox to pieces.)]

I've had other things, sometimes.

Like cereal.

[Oh, dear. The diet with this one.

Ororo has no doubt tried her best, but Laura is a restless stomach and a sweet-powered tooth. The one good side to this, of course, is just how curious she is about the things she's never gotten to have before. The lab always had the usual plain meals — rectangular plates brought by nurses, with the essential food groups. There's a whole world past glorified hospital food, though, and she's here to take it.]

[ Jean's eyebrows go up slightly in an expression that is absolutely a mother's. Whether over her children or the hundreds of children she's helped oversee in the Mansion and on Krakoa. Because, no, cookies and cereal aren't going to cut it under this roof. She won't even call it her roof, because it's not hers, and she's certain Scott and Ororo would agree.

Jean gestured with her hand and the doors across the lawn from them open, even before they've reached the steps to the house. (At the same time, even though Laura can't see it, pieces are already moving in the kitchen. Cookies are deposited onto two plates. Two glasses of milk are being poured. Napkins are pulled from drawers and refolded in midair to land soundlessly by those plates and glasses.) ]

What else do you like?

We certainly are going to need much more than that.

[Laura is always extremely earnest about everything asked from and about her. In this instance, there's a clear aura of concentration — she's combing through the scarce collection of foods she's been given over the years.]

... Chicken. Potatoes. Pie. Potato chips. Green beans. Corn...

[Okay, so she's also just listing the last few things she's consumed.

But at least it's proof that there's some good options in her history? This is a little exciting, though. It's like something a daughter says. She can play pretend for a minute, just like Connor said she should.]

[ There's not much there, even as the girl focuses, and maybe Jean learns too much from both how little the options are in her head and how much Laura is at least pushing herself to try and be helpful, even about so little a thing as what food to put in the house. It's not even a list of foods she likes, so much as simply foods she's eaten before. There's no relish like with the cookies or cereal. No specific preference.

There's a soft ache in Jean's heart for what that actively reveals about some of her past just through logical assumption, but it is a thing Jean can help with through an effort she was already going to make, without much aim rather than requirement before. ]

I'll add those to the list.

Did your comics have that this school used to be home to many students, too? We've catered to many different preferences over the years. How would you feel about me picking up an assortment of things I know were favorites of theirs, and maybe some of mine, to sample and see what you might like?

[She nods.]

The Institute. It's as big here as the comics make it look.

[It's an awe-inspiring thing, for someone her size and years. Transigen wasn't small to the people who worked there, but it was incredibly small for the children who were allowed in a limited amount of halls. And not without scrutiny. She wishes the other children could see it...]

... I would like that. Now I can try anything I want, yes?

[Freedom, it feels good.

Even if takes running long and hard to keep up with it.]

Of course.

[ Jean closed the doors whisper silent behind them once they'd steps into the foyer. ]
Within reason and what's available here, of course, too. You know—

[ Jean slid her small companion a curious look, while directing their steps towards the wing with the kitchen. ]

You could come with me next time, if you'd like that?

[An eager nod.]

I would.

[It feels nice, to belong. And she's yearned to be wanted, to be considered. She's never really understood the warm, good feeling of being asked to come along somewhere special. It makes her all the more eager to chase it now, like a little high born from a place where such a thing as going to the store was fantastical.]

And it's not stealing here. We can have anything in the store without money.

Good. Then that's settled.

[ Once they reach the kitchen, Laura will find the cookies, milk, and napkins already laid out on the kitchen island before a set of stools. ]

True, it's not stealing, but not being stealing is not the same as a carte blanche directive to take everything on the shelves. Firstly, we take what we need and only that, and leave it to others to take what they need as well, and second, within that, we get what we know won't spoil, because we know we can return for more when things begin to be scarce.

That's how communities work, especially if we want to be part of fostering a cohesive one that is supportive of everyone else who finds themselves in this predicament, too.

[How exciting, to rush into a room and find treats waiting for you. She doesn't even have half a mind to be envious of normal kids, not when the tantalizing smell of baked goods carries her away to the stool. But as she picks up one of the cookies and takes a too-large bite, she considers Jean's words more carefully.

Take what they need?]

How do you know? How much is enough.

[She's never had to think that way before.]

Trial and error. [ There's a note of high amusement in those three words as Laura rushes for her plate, and so much of the cookie goes iintoher mouth immediately. ] And the experience of being at it for several years before now.

If anything, I may end up with a little too much the first few times because of it. We're a smaller number than I've ever been part of in this house long term before. The smallest was always six, even way back at the beginning of the X-Men. Though— [ Jean adds with a rye edge of teasing. ] —I know you may eat for more than two of us.

I've fed a Wolverine or two in my days.

[ Five precisely.

Yes, she still counts Talon.
None of them ever don't count on her watch. ]

[At that, Laura's smile is fuller than usual. It pinches the corners of her eyes a little.]

Wolverines clean their plate.

I promise to try and use spoons and forks this time.

[It's easy to forget about those pesky tools, anyway.]

[ Jean can't help the tug of a smile at that. There's some sad about it, buried deeper down, about what that means for the past. But she lets her part-smile ride free of that, against Laura's smile and the pride of a promise to try. ]

That'll be good.

[ And she'll plan to mix a little bit of implement-free food in between to make that easier to adjust to, too: fruits, snacks of so many kinds, hamburgers, hot dogs, tacos. There are several ways to let Laura have a little fun and a few breaks in between while she's still learning. ]

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[OPEN] X-Mansion clean-up

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