Convictions and Confusion (Shin/open)

As she walked, Twyla stared at her shoes. Inside of them, she knew, were her feet and the monkey toes that everyone said all the Ashby children had. And all six of them did in fact have similar feet and very similar looking toes and that is why Twyla Ashby was so confused. If she was supposed to be so much better than her siblings then why did the all have the same feet? It didn’t make any sense. If she was so ‘advanced’ why was she the plainest of all her sisters and the dumbest? It was ridiculous to put yourself on such a pedestal. On the other side of that coin, how could she be so much less than her siblings if they all had the same feet? How were any of them better than her? Because of their genes? Because of one gene? That argument didn’t last very long in water either and Twyla was still left fishing for an ideology that fit her logic.

Who said she needed one anyway? She could coast along if she wanted to, not making life any better or any worse for herself or her kind, couldn’t she? Did she want to? Would it be easier to–“Oof.” All confusing thoughts and lofty logic were put aside for a moment as Twyla collided with something solid. Something solid that talked and had a familiar voice. “Oh… uh, hey. Didn’t see you coming.” The Solid Something said. “Most don’t.” She uttered quietly before looking up. Yep, the Solid Something did have a familiar voice because the Solid Something was familiar. “Were you… just now?” Tetsuya Shinbo, the first face of the Mansion, asked her. “Oh gosh no!” Twyla spoke hurriedly, the brick coloring returning to her legs as she got flustered.. “I was just...observing...Were you?” Her brow was wrinkled in confusion. That would be weird. Twyla didn’t get any mutant supremist vibes from the mansion greeter.

It felt foolish when she spoke her reason for being at the rally. Which it was, especially for a teenage girl without an active power. It would be interesting to see his reaction though, not that there was much she could do if he was upset or disappointed or anything like that. She found herself hoping he wouldn’t be upset, she respected him after their first encounter. But in the end what was done was done and although Twyla had learned nothing she had further cemented her beliefs regarding any supremacy issues. No one was better than anyone as far as she was concerned. Here genes didn’t make her feet superior to the feet of her siblings and they weren’t supposed to.

With a skill otherwise known only to her brother Nate, Shin’s reply made Twyla’s stomach clench in guilt. "I was just on my way to work. Saw you, though. And wondered why." It was the tone, or more the lack of one that reminded her of her older brother. Nate had a way of making you feel guilty without actually using a disappointed tone; with him it was always the offhanded comments that cut deeper than any of the angry and direct words of her older sisters. Twyla’s eyes lowered automatically and her mouth opened slightly in preparation for a pathetic teenage excuse. She didn’t give one though and let her mouth close instead around her bottom lip in a bite. Nate she probably would have argued with, but that was because Nate was only two years her senior and he didn’t know much better than she did. This man was older than Nate by a year or two and he just so happened not to be her brother. Twyla remained silent and watched as a bus pulled up to the curb.

She saw it coming but she still jumped with the whoosh of air and the creak that announced that the bus door was open. "If you're curious about mutant rights and mutant-human relations, you should come to work with me. Maybe we could talk?" This startled her almost as much as the door. The part of her that was still embarrassed about being caught in such bad circumstances wanted to say ‘no’ and get as far away from her guilt as possible but the ever practical part of her brain argued those emotions down. She wanted to get as many sides of the issue as possible, right? Obviously his view was different from the one expressed by the people she had been most recently studying so it made sense that they should talk, right? She should glean as much information from as many sources as possible and then find the bits that made the most sense to her, right? Right. Logic beat emotion, and not for the first time, inside of Twyla’s young head. “That’s probably a good idea.” The words sheepishly exited her lips and hung in the air for a moment while she waited to see if this was their bus or not.

Twyla followed Shin onto the bus and muttered a quiet “Thank you.” when he paid for her way. She followed him to a pair of seats a few rows behind the driver and followed his example when he sat down. It was then that Twyla noticed that she had done a lot of following in her life. She followed her siblings around when she was little, followed her friends to parties she knew she shouldn’t be at, followed her fear when it told her to run away from home, and now she was following Shin around like a lost puppy. How far would she let someone lead her? That was too deep a thought tangent for her at the moment–one big thing at a time, she reminded herself. When the bus pulled away from the curb, Twyla swayed with its motions. She felt like a buoy, in more ways than one.

A couple with mohawks took the seats ahead of them. For a moment Twyla didn’t notice that her companion was speaking, instead she sat staring transfixed at the pink spikes that the girl ahead of her had coming from her head. As if by its own accord a hand went up to her own brown hair that needed trimming. Pink? The focused part of her brain brought the hand down and opened her mouth so she could reply to the question directed at her. She had many questions and they were all written down...somewhere. A few moments of rummaging in the front pocket of her jeans yielded nothing but a murmured “Sorry.” and pink cheeks. An awkward half stand in her seat allowed her to search her back pockets, which proved to be more fruitful when her fingers closed around a crumpled piece of paper.

The paper was carefully smoothed out in her lap and was revealed to be a notebook page full of half sentences, crossed out phrases, and many questions–some of them highlighted in neon pink. The pink in her cheeks intensified and she sent Shin an embarrassed half smile. “Usually it’s lists.” She scanned the page and then decided on her first question. This was something she had been wondering about for a very long time and it was one of her most important questions. No one had been able to answer it thus far, it was time to find out if anyone could. “Why are humans and mutants so different?” She didn’t elaborate on it, there was no embellishment, it was a simple question that was infinite in its implications. It was also, and she knew this, very unfair to ask anyone. She glanced at Shin's face to see if she could find an answer there before he spoke.

A moment after she finished her question Twyla almost apologized for it but the truth was, she wasn’t sorry. The urge came from habit, from not wanting to make waves with anyone. If she was being honest with herself at that moment she was feeling hopeful and slightly guilty for asking such an immense question--but that wasn’t the same as being sorry. She was searching for answers, and the only way she’d get them was by asking her questions. Shin turned away from the window and faced her before he began to speak. And then it was answers she got. Or was it just one multi-faced answer? Either way, it was more than she had had a moment ago.

When he began speaking something stirred up some distant biology class notes and she followed what he was saying by piecing the information he gave together with her random remeberings. At the mention of mutations being passed on through offspring Twyla realized how little must be known about these particular human mutations. Out of six children, she was the only mutant, as far as she knew. (She was also the only one with her father’s brown hair but she didn’t think that the two were linked.) This went against basic genetics, making the concept very complicated. Past the obvious mutant gifts it didn’t seem like there was anything that scientifically separated humans from mutants. They were all technically human, like the flies were all just flies, some just were more ‘average’ than others. She was following this; it made a lot more sense than some of the other theories she had heard.

The urge to apologize re-surged when she saw the look that her question had put on her answerer’s face. Twyla resisted the urge and let him continue speaking. A few nods accompanied his example of Whites dehumanizing Africans–this stirred up history class notes. Her teacher had explained that it was easier to treat other people harshly and terribly if you didn’t think of them as people. There was less guilt if you couldn’t link yourself to what you were terrorizing. ‘Regular’ people could hate mutants because they didn’t let themselves see the bond that existed between them. They didn’t have to understand, so long as mutants were different.

Suddenly, his hazel eyes met her brown eyes and she could tell that his next words would be important."And mutants try and do it right back." They did. The rally that morning proved it. It was this statement that lighted sparks in her brain. The proverbial lightbulb went off above her head and Twyla Ashby had her epiphany. There were no victims in this situation. Or maybe everyone was a victim. There was no ‘good’ side or ‘bad’ side, a concept that Twyla had been struggling with--mutants and humans were the same in their reactions to each other. They were the same in their hatred and misunderstandings. They were the same. They were the barriers driven between each other and it would take work on both sides to tear them down. Twyla’s mind began whirring with this realization.

Shin turned away from her and looked out the window. His next words reiterated the conclusion that she had come to only seconds before. They were the same in their reactions to each other. It was everyone who was the victim. “...It's amazing... how a parent can disown their own kid just because... just because he can control razor-sharp barriers with his mind..." The voice that had been strong throughout the whole speech now fell and the speaker lowered his head and bit his lip. Twyla had seen this pose many times before, mostly in the reflection of train car windows. Shin was trying not to cry. Her stomach clenched in guilt and sadness. It wasn’t fair how some families could deal with their children’s mutations and others could not. Twyla had been one of the lucky ones; her mother wasn’t telling the neighbors but she was still talking to her daughter. A hand reached out in hesitant comfort. “I’m so sorry.” She said as she lightly patted his shoulder a few times. The words were in different context than she usually used them–the apology was sincere but it didn’t make the situation any different.

The hesitant hand made it’s way back to it’s place next to its twin in her lap. Her stomach clenched again as he spoke. His story made her feel terrible and she searched for words to give him something...anything to make him feel a little better. This, she soon found, she was not good at. She didn’t have the life experience to give him a super-duper-response that would give him waves of comfort and understanding but she made an attempt after a few moments of careful thought. “The world might not be at an awesome place right now but that doesn’t mean that it can’t ever get better, right? And at least you told your parents, right? You gave them the option to decide for themselves and they didn’t respond how you wanted them to but anything can change, right?” She wasn’t exactly sure if that was the reply she was going for, but it was the reply that came out and it’s not like she could really take it back, right? At least she got the tone right, it was softly cheery and conveyed a sense of optimism. Hopefully he’d get the idea, right?

"Anyways... were there any other questions on that list of yours for me?" He asked a moment after the bus jerked them around and he shook his head. An attempt was made to peak at her notebook page and she didn’t bother to cover it up with the hands in her lap. If he could decipher her chicken scratch penmanship then he deserved the peak. Not that most people could read her writing, but if he did then he would still have to make sense of the half finished thoughts scrawled all over the page.“Well...That was my biggest question...” She scanned the page again. There were a few questions there that he had answered with his first answer and now all that was left was to find the questions that he could answer and get those answers. Quickly a question that was circled in several highlighter colors and had the name ‘Koga’ written next to it was found and brought to her lips. “What are the X-men?”

Ever since Koga had mentioned the group to Twyla her first afternoon at the Mansion the girl had been curious. Shin worked at the Mansion, so she figured that he would know more about this group that Koga spoke so highly of than she did. She hadn’t yet had the time in her mutant rights research to really get any real information on the X-men. She had gotten distracted and really freaked out by all the newspaper articles about violent crimes mutants had committed against humans that she had found. This led her to stop using Google as her main source, which in turn led her to getting her information first hand, yadda yadda yadda, and now she was on a bus getting information from a safer firsthand source that couldn’t show her scary pictures of dead cops. Actually, if you wanted to get technical, he probably could...She seriously hoped that her companion was not the type to carry those types of things around with him.

Twyla nodded. Of course there was possibility for change. That’s how things worked. Maybe not always people...but then again she had changed from the girl she was back home, hadn’t she?

Oops. Big. Fat. Oops. Asking about the X-men was apparently a bad plan based on Shin's reaction. Twyla's face tinged a bit pink but she didn't say anything, just waited to see if he would answer the question or pretend like she hadn't asked it. It's not like she could take it back, so no use crying over spilt milk and all that. She wasn't sure if she was in trouble or not, but he answered her question in a low voice that she had to lean in closer to hear. His reply was the fancy version of what Koga had told her and she was left without much more information. Except the little tidbit about the speaker being a member, that was news. Still left a bit wanting, Twyla nevertheless made the executive decision not to pursue the subject further so as not to cause some kind of tizzy. Maybe she’d just have to do her own research on the subject of this illusive group called the X-men. Oh well, she tried.

"Just who told you about the X-men?" Uh-oh, moral dilemma alert. Still not sure if she had crossed some invisible line in the sand, Twyla struggled for a moment with whether or not she should reveal her source. She didn't want to get Koga in trouble, but at the same time...Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. And just for good measure...crap. Twyla looked down at her lap for a moment, as if the correct answer was hidden in the weave of her jeans. "A boy at school..." Please tell me I'm not getting him in trouble. "His name's Koga."