We're rooming with a parrot too? (Elizabeth)

The brunette was immediately greeted by a smiling face and a rather large, gray parrot. She let in the rest of her body while appraising the moderately-sized room. It was quite spacious for a dorm room, and she noticed that her new roommate’s side of the room was pretty clean. On her side, there was a multitude of bags piled high on her bed, and she cringed inwardly. Stacking them that way made them all look larger, and made her look more spoiled. It was going to be a pain to unpack everything.

>>>“Hello there, Haylee. I’m Elizabeth Sundance. And this here is Nico.”

“Nice to meet you Elizabeth, and hey there, Nico,” the girl replied, putting a smile on even though she wasn’t very sure about the parrot. Are we even allowed to bring pets in here…? She thought with slight irritation. Pushing thoughts of parrots aside, she evaluated the girl in front of her. She looked younger than Haylee, and had a natural kind of beauty in her face. And she seemed pretty nice, if not outstandingly cheerful.

>>>“So I guess we’re going to be roommates, huh? Neat!”

Oh yes, so very cheerful. Almost a little too cheerful. The teen tried to mirror Elizabeth’s enthusiasm, but found it impossible for her to smile that wide. “So what year are you? I’m going to be in twelfth.” Haylee asked as she started moving her (many) bags to the floor.

>>>“I’m going to be in tenth grade. It’ll be weird, going to school at the same place you live.”

“Yeah it is. I’m going to assume this is your first boarding school, then? It’s mine too,” Haylee replied with a light chuckle. She could take a roommate who was a little talkative. If anything it made things less awkward. The younger girl seemed attached to her parrot, who stayed perched on her arm until she tried to move him to the other one. The brunette narrowed her eyes as the bird flew over to her side of the room, on her dresser. Um…can someone get that bird off?

>>>“Do you need help with any of that?”

“Huh? Oh no it’s fine. I’m just getting all of this off the bed for now. Unpacking is where the real problem’s going to start,” she replied, making a not-so-subtle gesture towards the Nico-occupied dresser. It suddenly occurred to the teen to inquire about Elizabeth’s mutation. That was why she was here, wasn’t it? Wait, so how does one even ask that? “Uh, so… what’s your mutation?” Haylee asked, not exactly sure how to go about these things, “I’m a walking thermostat, if that makes any sense.” She grinned, trying to cover up the way she had uneasily asked her question. Hopefully her new roommate was equally as new to this as she was.

The girl ran a hand through her long hair, removing the last of her things and falling down in a collapsing heap onto her new bed. She was actually going to be living here, this was her actual bed. It was strange to wrap her head around it.

Haylee watched from the corner of her eye as Elizabeth went up to her dresser and picked the gray parrot of its perch. She hoped she didn’t seem like a bird-hater or anything, she just wasn’t…comfortable being around them. One time when she was an elementary-school student, her neighbor let her over to see his pet parakeet. Well, the parakeet decided that it wanted to take a taste of the young girl’s flesh, and decidedly bit her square on the nose, hard. Needless to say, she had been wary of birds ever since.

It was a little odd, seeing the relationship between pet and owner. Not odd in a bad way, just odd in a different way. It was almost as if they had a telepathic bond and Elizabeth was wordlessly telling her bird to calm down.

>>>“I can sense and control the emotions of animals. I can take over an animal’s mind and body via physical contact.”

Ah, that explains the bond. “That’s really cool,” the brunette replied, not actually knowing what to think of it. She didn’t really know if she was supposed to be proud or scared or indifferent about mutants, and her own mutation. “So does that mean you can talk to them, or just understand how they feel?” So she was just a tad curious, could you blame her? Frankly, talking to animals would be pretty exciting.

>>>“So does that mean you can control the temperature around you? And freeze stuff or make them hot?”

Haylee frowned slightly. Her roommate actually seemed to take an interest in her power, even though Elizabeth’s was so much more fascinating. “Well, not exactly. It’s more of an internal thing, inside the body. I can’t do much for the outside environment. Otherwise…I don’t really know what to tell you.” Perhaps it was time she actually started reading those books that counselor had gotten her on biology and thermoregulation. She didn’t like being clueless about her mutation, regardless of how she felt about it.

>>>“Actually, it’s not really that awesome. I can only understand how animals feel. I can’t communicate with them any better than you can. It’s more of a hassle than a gift, because I’m constantly harassed by feelings that aren’t my own and I lose control easy.”

The older girl nodded her head, understanding the general gist of Elizabeth’s explanation. She had to admit, she was a little let down when her roommate said she couldn’t talk to animals. It would have been interesting, to say the least. “When did you first find out you were a mutant…?” It sounded as if she had just found out, like Haylee had, from her lack of control.

>>>“So, you can control your own temperature. Radical!”

And here we go with the cheery, again, the brunette thought as her eyebrows shot up a little. Her mutation really wasn’t that interesting…a nice perk maybe, but not much else. “Uh, it’s really not that great. Honestly,” Haylee answered while pulling herself up into a sitting position, “And I hardly even know that much about what I can do, just surface facts. I haven’t really had time to experiment or anything.” Did she even want to? She hadn’t exactly come to the school with a “ooh, I want to learn more about my ‘special powers’” kind of mindset.

>> “So where you from? I’m from Jersey City myself.”

“I’m from Chicago. Well, from the suburbs really, but most people haven’t heard about those,” the teen replied, pleased with how outgoing her roommate was. Sure, she talked a bit much, but Haylee would prefer that over a quiet, mousy girl any day.

>>>“I came home one day and my parents told me some terrible news. It was horrible so I locked myself in my room and cried. Hours later, I think, I was just petting and holding my cat when I suddenly transferred my consciousness to him. And now my cat hates me.”

One glimpse of Elizabeth’s eyes made the older girl regret asking her anything. Of course there would be other mutants with sad mutant beginning stories! She mentally kicked herself for being so careless and unthinking, and helplessly watched her roommate’s eyes grow misty, saddened by whatever memory she had been forced to conjure up. “I’m so sorry. It must have been such a horrible time for you to discover your mutation.” She could only guess what the “terrible news” was, but she assumed it had something to do with a loss.

>>>“What’s your origin story?”

Ah, she should’ve expected the question to be redirected at her. She should have been prepared to face the consequences of her curiosity. No matter what she should’ve been, the girl was still completely taken aback when she got asked the question. It took her a few seconds to recover her composure and plan exactly what she was going to say before she opened her mouth to respond. Unfortunately, her answer was going to be just as painful to utter as Elizabeth’s, and not as concise.

“Well, I thought I was going crazy when I started seeing all these people with thermometers in their brains. It didn’t help that I saw them all multi-colored like I was using infrared vision, either. So I panicked and went to see a school counselor for help; turns out I went to the one who was secretly a mutant. Weird coincidence, right?” She paused, readying herself for the painful part of her tale, “The counselor confirmed that I was a mutant, which thoroughly freaked me out. My school doesn’t have a high tolerance for mutants, you see, so I really didn’t know much about them. Aside from negative things, that is. I ran out terrified and told the only person I thought I could trust, my best friend. Well, I guess she’s my former best friend now…” Haylee cleared her throat and tried to stop her hands from shaking, “Long story short, she told everyone and I became the school pariah.”

She took a deep breath when she finished her story, stuffing her hands in her pockets to try and mask their convulsing. She was normally an honest girl, but in this case she didn’t mind sugar-coating the truth a little. Telling it in this lighter way almost made her believe things didn’t happen as badly as they did. There was a lot she left out too, but the brunette hadn’t exactly known her story-swapping companion for that long.

>>>“I didn’t know Chicago had suburbs. I always thought it was giant buildings, active crime scene, and a fast-paced life. Kinda like New York, really.”

Haylee was relieved when her roommate lightened the mood with her curious comment about Chicago. “Hah, I get that a lot, actually. The city might be a little crazy, but the suburbs are pretty calm and boring. New York is probably infinitely crazier than Chicago is.”

She could sense that her roommate still had things she wanted to ask her, and she admittedly still had things she wanted to ask her roommate. These were dangerous waters to tread though, as any simple question could lead to a depressing, past-filled answer. She watched as Elizabeth seemed to grow happier, her smile starting to glow with more and more sincerity. Haylee followed her eyes to Nico, and then understood what was happening. Ah, she can connect with her bird and soak up some happy… She thought with a little envy, I want to get some happy…

>>>“Why don’t we head down to the kitchen and see if we can rustle up something chocolate? I think there’s some Oreos in one of the cabinets. I tend to hoard some whenever we get a new package.”

Aha! Chocolate was another good method for getting happy. “Hah, I’m going to guess those kinds of things tend to get eaten through pretty fast?” The teen replied with a light chuckle, “Then we better grab some before everyone else does. And save a bit for Nico too.” The older girl uncrossed her legs and hopped off her bed (which was surprisingly comfier than expected), stretching her arms as her head adjusted to getting up so quickly. “Please lead the way.”