The X-men run missions and work together with the NYPD, striving to maintain a peaceful balance between humans and mutants. When it comes to a fight, they won't back down from protecting those who need their help.
Haven presents itself as a humanitarian organization for activists, leaders, and high society, yet mutants are the secret leaders working to protect and serve their kind. Behind the scenes they bring their goals into reality.
From the time when mutants became known to the world, SUPER was founded as a black-ops division of the CIA in an attempt to classify, observe, and learn more about this new and rising threat.
The Syndicate works to help bring mutantkind to the forefront of the world. They work from the shadows, a beacon of hope for mutants, but a bane to mankind. With their guiding hand, humanity will finally find extinction.
Since the existence of mutants was first revealed in the nineties, the world has become a changed place. Whether they're genetic misfits or the next stage in humanity's evolution, there's no denying their growing numbers, especially in hubs like New York City. The NYPD has a division devoted to mutant related crimes. Super-powered vigilantes help to maintain the peace. Those who style themselves as Homo Superior work to tear society apart for rebuilding in their own image.
MRO is an intermediate to advanced writing level original character, original plot X-Men RPG. We've been open and active since October of 2005. You can play as a mutant, human, or Adapted— one of the rare humans who nullify mutant powers by their very existence. Goodies, baddies, and neutrals are all welcome.
Short Term Plots:Are They Coming for You?
There have been whispers on the streets lately of a boogeyman... mutant and humans, young and old, all have been targets of trafficking.
The Fountain of Youth
A chemical serum has been released that's shaving a few years off of the population. In some cases, found to be temporary, and in others...?
MRO MOVES WITH CURRENT TIME: What month and year it is now in real life, it's the same for MRO, too.
Fuegogrande: "Fuegogrande" player of The Ranger, Ion, Rhia, and Null
Neopolitan: "Aly" player of Rebecca Grey, Stephanie Graves, Marisol Cervantes, Vanessa Bookman, Chrysanthemum Van Hart, Sabine Sang, Eupraxia
Ongoing Plots
Magic and Mystics
After the events of the 2020 Harvest Moon and the following Winter Solstice, magic has started manifesting in the MROvere! With the efforts of the Welldrinker Cult, people are being converted into Mystics, a species of people genetically disposed to be great conduits for magical energy.
The Welldrinker Cult
A shadowy group is gaining power, drawing in people who are curious, vulnerable, or malicious, and turning them into Mystics. They are recruiting people into their ranks to spread the influence of magic in the world, but for what end goal?
Are They Coming for You?
There have been whispers on the streets lately of a boogeyman... mutant and humans, young and old, all have been targets of trafficking.
Adapteds
What if the human race began to adapt to the mutant threat? What if the human race changed ever so subtly... without the x-gene.
Atlanteans
The lost city of Atlantis has been found! Refugees from this undersea mutant dystopia have started to filter in to New York as citizens and businessfolk. You may make one as a player character of run into one on the street.
Got a plot in mind?
MRO plots are player-created the Mods facilitate and organize the big ones, but we get the ideas from you. Do you have a plot in mind, and want to know whether it needs Mod approval? Check out our plot guidelines.
((ooc: Open to two other players, then closed so as to keep things non-bogged-downy.
Crane count continued from the foldin' at the end of [url=http://theultimatexmen.proboards26.com/index.cgi?board=neutralcharactersarea&action=display&thread=1973&page=1#51759[/url] Slate's Hobby[/url].))
The brown haired eighteen year old was clearly Italian, with a few hints around his face of other places in Europe--a nose that only a Romani could love, perhaps, and a mouth that could drink Guinness in its hometown with the best of them. He was sitting cross-legged on the grass beneath an elderly tree's shade; his baby blue eyes were intensely focused on the methodical work of his chronically thin hands.
The boy in question was not dressed particularly well for the weather. It was late August, with a New York sun to match; even in the shade, it was sweltering. The boy had chosen to wear full-length pants, a blue dress shirt, and a gray scarf around his neck out of habit, not intelligence. He beginning to acknowledge that, but it would still be a while before he admitted his upcoming heat stroke and went back to his air conditioned apartment. His sandals had been neatly set under the tree, leaving his feet blissfully bare. There was a half-filled bottle of ice water next to him, and the remains of a hot dog eaten plain. In front of him, there was an army of origami cranes.
They were spread out in a loose semi-circle, all of them facing towards him. Except for a light pink one--a child had tried to join him for a little bit, until her mother had dragged her away from the big bad scrawny strange boy. The light pink crane was exactly forty-four degrees out of sync with the others, and of distinctly poorer craftsmanship. ...Though in all fairness, it looked better than his first attempt, back on Christmas Eve.
There was a stack of colorful paper squares about a foot and a half behind the brown-haired boy, spilling quite invitingly across the grass from a carefully opened plastic package. They were set quite distinctly in his blind spot; hence why he had failed to notice the little girl intently miming his folds until she'd protested he was going too fast.
Slate finished his latest crane, and held it up to the speckled sunlight for careful inspection. Hmm. Hmmmm. ...He supposed it would do. He carefully added it to the end of his semi-circle, then reached for another piece of paper. There was a legend about folding paper cranes that a twelve year old girl had told him, once. If one simply folded a thousand of them, then one would be granted any wish. Slate most certainly did not believe in this legend. Supposing he did, though, he would have exactly 879 to go.
Today, Petunia was a butterfly. A beautiful monarch butterfly that was fluttering around the park. Butterflies have a couple legends connected to them. One is that they grant wishes when they land on your head. Another, that is connected to the monarch species, is that they are a way for the dead to communicate with the living, and petunia wouldn’t be doing her civil duties as a but imitator, if she didn’t keep giving humans false hope by landing on their heads. The problem is that, one, not everyone know about these butterfly legends like they should, and two, Must human’s, that were grown ups, didn’t take notice in her. So the best chance to be noticed, was by children.
Children Fascinated Pix. You could watch them all day and they could have their own world. Pix steered Petunia’s wings down to the sand box, where she landed on the hand of a little four year old. Her wings closed and shut to act as flags
Four year old stared at Petunia the butterfly and petunia the butterfly stared up at the four year old girl.
A scene that would be perfect to decorate the pages of a children’s picture book. There Pix was. Looking pretty on the arm of a little four year old, who had been playing in a sand box. The innocent one, when her big brother came over.
“It’s a bug. KILL IT!”
Petunia’s body flopped straight up into the air as a pair of pudgy hands clapped together, right where she had been perched.
Why that no good little…
*Flop Flutter Clap*
*Flop Flutter Clap*
Peace of…
*Flop Flutter Clap*
Meat!
Pix rose in the air out of those clapping hands’ reach. Steaming inside as the little boy jumped up and down on his tippy toes trying to reach her. His little sister had burst into tears, and the mother was leaning back on a park bench with her nose stuck in the latest Janet Evanovich book. (Shameless addition of one of my favorite authors.) “Now Jake. Leave that butterfly alone.” Of course he wasn’t listening as his hand were still clapping and his toes were still tipping.
Pix shook inside. Here she was being nice and planting false hope in the minds of those that believed in those legends and her life was being threatened by a 6 year old named Jake. I mean how many all powerful mutants could say that they survived the giant smashing clutches of a 6 year old named Jake? Petunia shook her little mandible at the clapping kid as she let her body flop higher into the air. Jake chased her for a short distance till mother called him back and he lost interest. Some kids really needed to be taught some respect because obviously mother wasn’t doing her job. Pix had a good idea to turn to a mosquito and make little Jake look like he had the chicken pox. Maybe give him fleas that his mother could blame on his dog. Oh and what about lice. Yeah lice would be fun. Then she could-- OH LOOK, CRANES!
In her fluttering and drifting away from little Jake, the brother of the sister she liked, Pix had floated over a man with a pile of cranes. She dropped, flopped, and fluttered in a circle as she admired all the pretty colors. Swooping over the semicircle then flicking back. Taking in the perfection and the creases of the folds. It was almost hard to tell the different ones apart in her passes. Except for the colors. She rose a foot above the line up, preparing to swoop above them again, when a lonely little pink crane caught her eye. Not only was it facing a different direction from the others, that all stood like soldiers, but it was more distinct.
Petunia landed on it making it tip with the last flop of her wings, ten crawled over it’s back and to the other wing in her careful inspection of this perfection of difference. After all. The world would be boring if everything was the same. Just like the other cranes. Petunie stood on the back of the crane, making it balance on the center, though this was not an easy feat as any light breeze caught her wings like a kite.
Pix leaned forward to forward to examine where a crease in the paper ended along the head. Her wings opened to assist with balance. Forgetting where the paper was supported by the ground, Petunia’s weight shifted making the crane fall forward and her butterfly body flop over like a pancake onto the ground. She let go of the crane witch rocked back into position with it’s beak pointed down. Mocking her as she kicked her little legs and pushed her wings together, in an attempt to get off of her back. How embarrassing. Goddess of insects, stuck on her back, and being mocked by a special deformed, pink, crane.
Posted by Cheshire on Aug 28, 2008 16:55:25 GMT -6
Mutant God
3,233
18
Sept 24, 2018 19:41:05 GMT -6
Calley
The butterfly flew over the curving arc of cranes. Slate saw it in the edges of his vision--a bright fluttering of black, orange, and white. He glanced up at it, and his hands missed a fold.
Tch.
He lowered his head, smoothed out the errant crease, and continued on. The butterfly settled unobtrusively atop of the little girl's pink crane. Good. Slate turned his head slightly away from it, so that the slow openings and closings of its paper-thin wings did not feature so prominently in the corner of his eyes. A frown crossed his face: he realized he did not know the next fold.
Hmph.
He unfolded the past three creases, found his place again, and--keeping his head tilted quite distinctly away from the small creature--completed his one hundred and twenty-fifth crane. He held it up to the speckled sunlight for inspection. Hmm. Imperfect lines creased surfaces meant for singular smoothness. Hmmm. Hrrrm. It bore no fault for its imperfection. Slate set it down at its proper position at the end of the arc of cranes, using both hands to adjust it to the proper angle. Its neck tilted to the side due to an errant fold, as if to question its own existence amongst all these other perfectly made cranes. As if the ability to ask such questions could somehow redeem its worth. Imperfection. Slate's hands curled into tight fists in the grass. The sounds of the park surrounded him. Low hums of conversations punctuated by lazy staccato footfalls, laughter, angry one-sided bursts of noise into a cell phone receiver. A dog barked. Birds twittered. And there sat Slate, cross-legged on the grass, quietly intruding upon their existence by folding his cranes as if they made some sort of difference. His frowned deepened. His head turned towards the pink crane and the butterfly--both of whom had toppled. The butterfly's legs wiggled inanely in the air with natural-born entitlement: those legs belonged to it and it alone, and it could do with them what it pleased at any time it pleased. Slate felt the selfish urge to stomp the heel of his hand down on the thing. Another pointless action. One which he had no right to do. Instead, he offered out a finger to the little creature's wiggling legs; an aid to getting upright, if it chose to accept it.
"I believe I feel jealous of you," Slate informed it quietly. His skill at identifying emotions had a somewhat more polished nature, lately. Not that it changed much. Jealousy equated to jealousy, whether or not he could name it. Hope totaled to merely hope, and felt achingly good while it still lived. Slate tried not to think beyond that thousandth crane.
Ok kicking indignantly was the answer to solve any problem as a bug on the ground. Kicking indignantly made everything feel better. Right? Wrong! Kicking indignantly was just kicking indignantly. Petunia could turn herself back to her human form and get up any time she chose to but that would one, require her to smoosh the little pink crane. While it did mock her, she didn’t want the pink cranes life to end with a simple smooshing. Second, Petunia would be a nude human appearing from a little innocent butterfly. Petunia wrote the tabloids, she didn’t need to be part of them.
So despite her frustrations and embarrassment of being the queen of the insect world stuck on her back, the digit was accepted as something to help her up. Better accepting help than being stomped on by a 6 year old boy named Jake. So with the finger’s help, Petunia let her little feet cling to the boy’s skin, and let it lift her up. Her wings flopped open and closed showing her frustrations. Feet stomping up and down as she passed because queens and gods shouldn’t need help. Yes they should demand help but the pity party wasn’t something someone like Pix deserved.
She paced twice then stopped so that she was facing this hero of pancake style flipped butterflies. Letting out a sigh with the extension of her ringlet shaped butterfly tongue.
"I believe I feel jealous of you,"
Petunia’s head tilted, witch considering there wasn’t much of a neck in a butterfly form, meant her hole body had to do the same. This man was talking to a butterfly, and admitting jealousy of an insect nonetheless. Quite curious. She opened her wings and steered to the man’s nose, where she took a closer inspection of him, Trying to land, and let that curly tongue swipe across his nose. Would he taste different than other humans?
“I’d like to know why that is.” Her voice was high pitched and hardly above a whisper. Her annunciation wasn’t perfect but butterflies didn’t have lips, so the sound had to vibrate trough that curled tongue.
(Realized after I left, that I had it under the wrong user name.)
Posted by Cheshire on Aug 29, 2008 17:23:11 GMT -6
Mutant God
3,233
18
Sept 24, 2018 19:41:05 GMT -6
Calley
The butterfly accepted his help, and seemed content to remain. More than content. After a bit of pacing and listing, it fluttered... to his nose. Slate remained still as it assumed its perch, his baby blue eyes crossing in an attempt to focus on it. Heh. He felt suddenly lighter, though he did not know why--an insect on his nose seemed too simple of a reason.
>> “I’d like to know why that is.”
"Hmm," Slate replied, eyebrows rising curiously. Unexpected. After a moment of thought--or a moment where he knew he should think, but couldn't think quite what to think--Slate slowly flopped back onto the shaded grass, his arms spread-eagle. Slowly, of course, so as not to disturb the butterfly's post.
"Without going into details," he finally answered, deciding not to comment on his conversational partner's distinctive genus, "you seem an independent party. Suffice it to say that I would very much like to have that sort of freedom. Do you like it?" He asked. "Do you even think about it--that you can make your own decisions? You can, can't you?"
The sky above looked very blue, and very bright, through the dark overlay of leaves.
This conversation was one reason why Pix would never make a good private eye. She was too nosey for nosey’s sake, she was highly distractible, even from her own desires and plans, (Especially when she became a house fly.) And she was impulsive. Thus starting the conversation in the first place while any human knows that butterflies don’t talk, and if they think butterflies talked, they were locked up. Not that pix would know anything about getting people locked up, with the petunia personality/image that she put out, as a sort of shield.
Petunia looked back and forth between the crossed eyes. Imagining exactly how this might look from farther away. Not that she was going to move. The nose was a more comfortable place to sit than one would think. Especially for a butterfly. Because she could sit on the ridge, where the cartilage met the bone, and balance her wings to the side without worrying if they would catch and have to be lifted off of any part of the man’s face.
"Hmm,"
Hmm wasn’t exactly the answer that Pix was looking for. But it could mean something good and juicy.
"Without going into details, you seem an independent party. Suffice it to say that I would very much like to have that sort of freedom. Do you like it? Do you even think about it--that you can make your own decisions? You can, can't you?"
Ok. Not the grand, juicy, answer she had expected where she, the butterfly, was declared hi leader, or anything like that, but it was interesting. “Of course I’m free and I make my own decisions. I’m a talking bug.” Bug taking on more than one definition of the word. “No body will ever tell me what I am to do.” A front leg roe and came back down on the nose. “If anything, I make the rules, and enforce them. So what stops you? I could demand you to find that freedom. It’s your own fault for not taking it anyways.”
Pix moved her wings to adjust to the new position on his nose, now that he was laying on hi back. Ha! Pinned him, she thought to herself... Oh right... bug form... Her wings spread open again, this time casting red shadows over his cheeks from the filtered light above, coming through her wings.
Posted by Cheshire on Aug 30, 2008 21:21:50 GMT -6
Mutant God
3,233
18
Sept 24, 2018 19:41:05 GMT -6
Calley
>> “Of course I’m free and I make my own decisions. I’m a talking bug.”
Slate entertained slight doubts on that subject, but he felt no need to call the creature on it: a talking bug or a mutant in bug form, it made no difference to this conversation.
>> “No body will ever tell me what I am to do.”
"Hmm," Slate said simply, closing his eyes to mere slits. The world changed: textures and forms slid together, becoming only lights and darks, colors and shades behind his dark eyelashes.
The tickle of the bug's stomping foot caused the edges of his mouth to twitch briefly upwards.
>> “If anything, I make the rules, and enforce them. So what stops you? I could demand you to find that freedom. It’s your own fault for not taking it anyways.”
The light through his eyelashes changed into darkness, and a certain shade of accusing orange. His lips settled into a neutral line.
"What stops me... Hmm," he began, his voice level. The grass tickled at the bare soles of his feet. A cool line of sweat ran out from under his unnecessary gray scarf and down the side of his neck. "My brother," he answered finally. "He... controls my actions, a great deal of the time. The rest of the time, I control his." Slate crossed his arms behind his head, his eyes opening again. Accusing orange resolved itself into a butterfly with spread wings. "Without going into details, again; for my entire life he has controlled me, at least some of the time. It..." He shifted, running a sleeved hand over his forehead to clear it of sweat; even in the shade, the temperature continued to rise. "...I cannot get free of him. Even if I could, I... I do not know what I would do. I do not think I would know what to do with complete freedom." His chest felt tight; he took in a deep breath, but it did not relieve the pressure. His skills at naming his emotions had become more polished, indeed, but he refused to admit that this one went by 'fear'.
Hmmm? He ha to think about this. Yes Pix was distractible but she always knew who to blame. How could one not know who to blame? For instance Petunia could blame that rash on her back side, that she had for a week, to a talking rabbit. Not that this individual was connected at all to a talking rabbit of any kind.
"My brother, He... controls my actions, a great deal of the time. The rest of the time, I control his."
“Oh” Pix said. Funny. They both had siblings. “He must be a bigger older brother? I have a bigger older brother. At one time, our arguments were quite physical.” But Pix ha taken care of that. Who would blame bugs on cute, sweet Petunia?
"Without going into details, again; for my entire life he has controlled me, at least some of the time. It… I cannot get free of him. Even if I could, I... I do not know what I would do. I do not think I would know what to do with complete freedom."
“You see. It’s thinking like that, that will keep you under his control.” Petunia’s foot stomped again, though with how light the butterfly form was this had to tickle. “Did he tell you it was alright to come to the park today and make cranes? Because if he is controlling your actions right now, I’d rather talk to him.” Petunia remembered back to the bump on her head, and the shove into the door frame that gained her the bump on her head. “You’d probably just do what you want to do when he tells you something else. Like if you want a cherry popsicle and he wants to you eat cookie dough ice cream… with chocolate saws, and red peppers because it all comes in one box.”
“Where is hi?” Petunia pulled her wings straight up, together, on her back, and started walking a circle. “You-whhooo. Brother of the dude with the cranes. Hey you big bully!”
>> “Oh. ...He must be a bigger older brother? I have a bigger older brother. At one time, our arguments were quite physical.”
Slate's right leg itched, just the slightest bit. When he noticed it, it flared into a minor inferno which demanded immediate and decisive action. Slate set himself to ignoring it.
>> “You see. It’s thinking like that, that will keep you under his control.”
The butterfly's foot stomped again, causing a small tickle. A small, small tickle. He had yet to address the itch on his leg; somehow, this prompted the aforementioned brief tickle to convert into a fanatical itch. His nose twitched of its own violation, but he did not move to scratch it.
>> “Did he tell you it was alright to come to the park today and make cranes? Because if he is controlling your actions right now, I’d rather talk to him.”
Slate's expression remained its neutrality. He took in a deep breath, and felt the distinctly hot air enter his lungs and leave with approximately the same temperature. He was very, very hot. "He is not controlling my actions right now, in any measurable way. Today... is one of my days."
>> “You’d probably just do what you want to do when he tells you something else. Like if you want a cherry popsicle and he wants to you eat cookie dough ice cream… with chocolate saws, and red peppers because it all comes in one box.”
The corners of his mouth twitched, then were still. The brief movement sent a ripple up his nose. The itch there became thoroughly infuriated. "I... have done some things of that sort, yes. I dissected a Blackberry at Christmas because he told me not to. I do not use contractions in my speech because it annoys him." A small grin started on his face and did not die immediately. "He has not admitted it yet, but I know it annoys him."
>> “Where is he? You-whhooo. Brother of the dude with the cranes. Hey you big bully!”
The butterfly's circular steps touched on the itch; touched off; touched again. Slate's shoulder blades twitched, but he succeeded in keeping his arms crossed under his head. He spread his legs a half and inch further apart--he had not forgotten that itch, either, and he would not give in to it. This was war.
Only after he was done resettling himself did the butterfly's words set in. He closed his eyes again. Opened them. Turned his head slightly to the side, though avoiding the gaze of a creature on your nose was impractical. "I... would rather you do not meet him, if it is all the same. I am not entirely certain that I would be able to come back again today, if you did."
Calley was getting better at breaking out of Slate's mental barriers all on his own; the last thing Slate wanted to do was voluntarily release him. It was such a lovely day, after all. Never mind that he could feel the sweat stain growing on the back of his shirt. It was a lovely day to be himself for awhile.
The big dude’s nose wiggled o Petunia crawled closer up to his eye brows and turned so that her head faced his mouth, and she could see his upside down eyes. Her wings stretched back to the sides so that she was shading his forehead and eyes, again, with the red shades.
"He is not controlling my actions right now, in any measurable way. Today... is one of my days."
“Huh…” All her days were her days. Why did this guy have to give any up? At least from his last fraise, that’s what it sounded like. Like he was giving up entire days? Unless this brother of his was paying him good money, why would he have to give up days? Pix wouldn’t do that. Sure the attitude she put out that friends new as Petunia wasn’t as stern as she could be, Pix still never let the personality petunia get taken advantage of. Petunia was a tool to take everyone else.
"I... have done some things of that sort, yes. I dissected a Blackberry at Christmas because he told me not to. I do not use contractions in my speech because it annoys him."
“Really?”
"He has not admitted it yet, but I know it annoys him."
“You a devious one.” Pix replied. Then again look who was talking. The butterfly who was just attacked by a boy named Jake, with pudgy hands. Someone she still had to get her revenge on. “What does the inside of a blackberry look like anyways?”
The big guys head turned but petunia was still there on his face. In perfect area for chit chat. One of the many advantages to being tiny… and sitting on the face that you were talking to…
"I... would rather you do not meet him, if it is all the same. I am not entirely certain that I would be able to come back again today, if you did."
“Oh I get it. Not a fan on insects? Normally people say that about cats.”
Slate honestly could not tell if she was being sarcastic or not. Sarcasm was still a bit above him. He suspected she might be, however, since most people did not appreciate the subtle role of grammatical quirks in irking a person.
>> “What does the inside of a blackberry look like anyways?”
"Much the same as the inside of any electronical device," Slate replied, with a sigh that was truly unfortunate. It had been both curious and curiously disappointing.
>> “Oh I get it. Not a fan on insects? Normally people say that about cats.”
"Something like that," Slate replied. It was more simple than explaining. The last thing he wished to do was explain about Calley, just as the last thing Calley wanted to do was explain about Slate. It was just an unpleasantly complex topic, all around. Thus did that topic end.
The ending left Slate's mind free to move to any topic it wished. The first thing that came out was this:
"Is it wrong to kill people?" He asked curiously. Not that he had been contemplating anything of the sort.
"Much the same as the inside of any electronically device,"
“Bummer. Well that saves me a lot of exploring the insides of electronics as a flee.” Pix sighed a butterfly style sigh, and that curly tongue stretched before curling back into place.
"Is it wrong to kill people?"
“Of course it isssszzzzzz….n’t” it was but it wasn’t and Pix really didn’t care about most people anyways. No missing on her part, but others… Why would she care about others missing the dead?
Petunia casually turned around so that she was facing Slate’s hair and playing with individual strand. Soon she had three between her front legs, and was giving him tiny little, tight braids over his right temple. “Killing’s messy business, but sometimes you cant avoid it. It’s kill or be killed. Trust me, I know. Today, I’m a butterfly.”
Her first braid was already an inch long, and she let the tightness of the strands hold themselves together, smoothing out what was left so that is clung together, and she moved to the next. Like what little girls did at sleepovers as they gossiped. Pix always wanted a sleep over. She had the best Pajamas. Covered in cows… Cows tasted good. She was a butterfly… She would know…
“Of course it entirely depends on why you’re killing them. For instance by brother. I could have killed him because he could have killed me, but I got rid of him instead. My reasoning for not killing him? He’s my brother. A girl’s got to have boundaries after all.”
>> “Bummer. Well that saves me a lot of exploring the insides of electronics as a flea.”
Presuming that this butterfly was someone who he had met before, than Slate could venture a guess as to who it was. The fact that she could appear as a flea did not change this hypothetical guess. Hypothetically, if this was the same individual, then she was not being nearly so annoying this time; therefore, he did not find himself minding her presence. Not even if it happened to be on his own forehead. The light coming through the butterfly's wings was quite an enjoyable shade, even if the shade itself did nothing to stop his continued temperature rise.
>> “Of course it isssszzzzzz….n’t"
A third tickle joined the insistent one on his nose and the fiery one on his leg: the butterfly was doing something with the hair of his right temple. He consciously refrained from movement, allowing her to continue. He was self-control embodied. He was not about to give into sensations so infuriatingly insistent and beyond his conscious control to prevent as itches.
>> “Killing’s messy business, but sometimes you can't avoid it. It’s kill or be killed. Trust me, I know. Today, I’m a butterfly.”
Kill or be killed, was it? He was not sure that applied to the individual he had in mind.
>> “Of course it entirely depends on why you’re killing them. For instance by brother. I could have killed him because he could have killed me, but I got rid of him instead. My reasoning for not killing him? He’s my brother. A girl’s got to have boundaries after all.”
"Ah," Slate said, fluidly rolling to a sitting position. "So it is wrong to kill siblings, then? Thank you," he said sincerely. He had suspected as much, but it was good to hear his suspicions confirmed by another. Another who was more entitled to holding opinions than he was. Slate reached for his water bottle, and took a sip. The warm liquid did nothing to cool him down. He sat a moment longer. Then he turned, and picked his origami paper off of the ground. Neatly tapped its edges into a well-defined stack with his palms. Stood, and--with a brief look at the cranes he was leaving behind--began walking down the path. He dropped his water bottle into a trash can along his way. Very socially conscious.
"I am returning to my apartment," he stated simply. "I require a change of clothing." A shower as well, perhaps. Slate... was not a fan of odors, and his own was beginning to grow quite strong under his long-sleeved dress shirt. He did not give the butterfly an invitation to accompany him. He made no move to discourage any such behavior, however. He simply walked, and asked another question: "Have you ever lost a limb?" Amputation was a subject he found fascinating. He suspected that he could regenerate any lost limb, but Calley was not keen on him trying it.
"Ah, So it is wrong to kill siblings, then? Thank you,"
“Well everyone is different I suppose. I just sent my brother to the asylum. He’s still breathing, I get to sneak in at night, with a few friends, and scare the pegebies out of him, and he gets all happy because they up his medication when I do that, witch, from my day time visits, makes him all happy. It’s a win, win.” Petunia jabbered on, as the tall man (Tall for her because everyone is tall when you’re a butterfly for the day) sat forward. She slowly adjusted her weight so that she wouldn’t topple backwards from the weight of her wings. His forehead was getting harder to hold on to with his sweat.
"I am returning to my apartment, I require a change of clothing."
Despite all of the movement, Petunia refused to lean her comfortable perch. She shifted so that she sat on his head, nestled in his hair, and could see where they were going instead. This was also the perfect place to continue her braid work. Besides, he didn’t say she had to get off, and even if he did, it would take a threat of a palm coming down on his head, for her to flutter off. Of course then, that would mean war.
The truth is, his head was comfortable. Pix could guaranty that 9 out of 10 butterflies would agree, sitting on a warm man’s head felt good. Even on a hot day the sun didn’t give her this much energy or make her feel this loose. Making her own heat was too tiring. Heat given to her was like her own caffeinated energy drink that she got to partake in, while sitting in a hot tub. The experience was spa worthy. Besides, since he was asking another question, she took it as an invitation to enjoy her free ride. Nothing at any amusement park could ever compete with riding on the top of someone’s head.
"Have you ever lost a limb?"
“Yeah.” Petunia signed, a butterfly sigh, as the warmth of the un shifted over her wings. “I have. Mostly part of my wings. The other part’s I’ve lost were middle legs, Not from legs, that made her hands, or back legs that made her human legs, but the middle ones that grew from her stomach when she changed. “The wings always take a few days to repair themselves.” Normally if Sacrificing limbs was concerned, Pix instructed one of her bugs to do the sacrificing for Petunia. The problem had barely ever come up.
