Allison’s recent schedule had been more than a bit unusual. Or, perhaps more accurately, she hadn’t really had a schedule; she found things to do, most of which involved ink in some way, but there wasn’t really anything she had to do. Anything that had been planned in the last (or next) week had been canceled while she was missing, and she wasn’t particularly inclined to plan more reasons to leave Sanctuary yet. It was unfortunate that Aura couldn’t just go with her….

She couldn’t, though, so there was no point wasting time worrying over that. Instead, Allison had spent some of her time wandering Sanctuary, exploring all the places she hadn’t previously gotten around to, and the rest of it experimenting with ink. She couldn’t do quite as well as she had in the dream yet, but she wanted to get back to that level of ability soon. Though how she’d test that short of finding people to practice killing, she wasn’t sure.

And the new… whatever had happened while she was kidnapped. Power growth, she supposed. She could still control the (must be) ink that her skin was producing… though she was mostly leaving it alone, as removing it made her look disturbingly pale. What she did remove, though, was a dark, gold-brown color; like tans, and left in a small glass bottle for her to experiment with later. She’d started noticing darker, colored shadows around her eyes and on her hands, too; all the places where she most often put ink, the ink that her skin produced seemed to be slowly changing colors. Generally, to weird, muddy colors. Allison had removed all the ink around her eyes and on her hands this morning, drawing swirling, asymmetrical black and green patterns instead. The contrast with the now pale skin was mildly disturbing, but looked good apart from that.

Of course, the roots of her hair seemed to all be growing out white, so Allison wasn’t looking precisely normal anyway. The fact was bothering her a bit more than she was willing to show or admit.

It was not bothering her enough for her to do anything about it, though, beyond leaving most of the skin-produced ink in place where it hadn’t started turning odd colors. It was enough for her to be distinctly conscious of her posture as she walked to the cafeteria, got food, and sat down, and of all the people around her, who weren’t looking, really, but she was used to being looked at when there was anything unusual about her--which meant all the time, really, with the tattoos she liked to create, and it was hard to convince herself that no one was staring, and that it didn’t really matter if she looked confident or not.

Which was annoying. Allison glared down at her food for a few minutes before giving up, and shifting so she could pull out a set of tiny bottles of ink from her pockets. One hand was laid on the table, the bottles were opened, and she cleared another space on her arm of the skin-made ink, absently absorbing the ink into her side instead. She began drawing tiny amounts of ink out of the bottles, manipulating the shining, jewel-bright colors into an image; emerald wings, pearl body and ruby throat. The basic outline done, she frowned at it; it needed more detail. Sapphire could make the outlines of feathers, but the only hummingbirds’ eyes she knew were black, and that was really kind of boring. And the beak and head; gold, maybe? That was logical, but something in her mind was arguing; she wanted to be more creative than that. Should its tongue be sticking out? Add a flower, maybe?

A mutant has to eat, right? Of course they do! And that was why Shade was not-so-patiently waiting in line for his chance to get some of the chow that was currently being served. Not one to complain, but Shade had noticed that a lot more mutants than usual were hanging around the Sanctuary. It might have been the simple fact that he himself had just recently returned, more or less, from an extended vacation due to changes in the management of the place. Or it could have been that there was just an influx of poor, homeless mutants. Most were pathetic to look at with horribly visible mutations that made them look like monsters out of a children's book. However, there was the occasional (and proverbial) diamond in the rough.

Finally reaching the front of the line, Shade quickly grabbed his quantity of slob that they were serving today. He had to talk with Syn about this. Members of the Order needed their own mess hall. They were the ones creating the cash flow for this place anyway. They could at least get front-of-the-line privileges.

After receiving his food, Shade then had to look for a place to eat. The cafe was surprisingly full. Refusing to sit anywhere near something that resembled an oversized lizardman, the shadow mutant was left with two options: a seat adjacent to a young woman drawing on herself or a man's whose mutation was his head looked like it belonged on a shark. So the young girl won the contest.

Shade set his tray down and clambered into the seat that was just too small with a sigh. After poking at his food several times, the shadow mutant had to slide it away. His eyes immediately drifted in the young woman's direction. Her food was pushed away from her too.

"Can't eat this crap either? I think it gets worse by the day." Shade said, chuckling at his own joke.

Allison, generally, had decent senses. Or, at least, decent hearing, smell, taste, and touch; her sight was below average on the right, and abysmal on the left. Which, most likely, was why her other senses were better--or at least, why she was better at paying attention to them. She’d hear things approaching well before she saw them, and could feel details that she didn’t always see.

Despite that, Allison had grown up in a culture that was very, very visual, and was of a species that may or may not be genetically inclined to favor vision, depending on who you asked. Between that and the habit of tuning out everything else when concentrating, especially when concentrating in an area full of distractions, she could be much more oblivious than most would expect. And, as a result, she wasn’t aware of the person sitting next to her until he spoke.

Allison blinked, sitting up and glancing over, eyeing him before responding. “High school is worse. I did forget about it, though.”

High school. The memory brought Shade back several different schools in his mind. As an orphan for must of his life, Shade had been a student at close to eight different high schools, sometimes only for as long as a week or two. It was weird to think back to such times. Things stood out like his favorite teacher during his freshman year, the numerous bullies that picked on the skinny white kid, and the young girls who never gave them the time of day. Shaking his head, he cleared the memories out of his mind.

As the young woman moved up, she revealed what she had been working on. It was the image of a hummingbird. However, she was not drawing it. She was tattooing it on her skin. The realization caused Shade to remember seeing this mutant around the Sanctuary before. She was always walking around with different patterns etched into her skin. The young woman did appear a little worse for wear than usual, but many residents of the Sanctuary had that same problem.

"Hey, you are the tattoo girl! I've actually been looking for you. Do you do requests?"

Allison had only been to one high school, and that one had been known as one of the better ones in the city. She was, generally, relatively pleased with that; her school had been bad enough, she didn’t want to know what a worse one would have been like. How the food could have been worse, though….

Well, she’d been assured that it could be. She’d prefer not to test the belief, really.

“Uh.” Allison blinked at the question, turning to actually look at the guy next to her. “Depends on what you’re requesting.”

Allison, of course, meant whether he was requesting a tattoo, a document, or something else entirely. If he assumed she only mean what tattoo, though, she certainly wasn’t going to correct him. If he was asking for something else, then that conversation was not going to be continued in the cafeteria, regardless of what he thought.

Allison might know of the Order now, but she also knew perfectly well that it wasn’t all of Sanctuary. And while she might never have been inclined to go running to the police, that did not at all mean that no one else would. Allison was fond of not being suspected of anything, thank you.

"Hold on for a second, and I'll show you." Shade replied quickly diving is hand into the back pocket of his jeans. When he withdrew his hand, he was holding a piece of printer paper folded twice in order for it to fit in his pocket.

"Here, you go. That's the general idea. I'm such with your mutation for can come up with a few nice adjustments." Shade said, handing the piece of paper to Alli. The shadow mutant had been thinking about getting the tattoo done for several months now, but he did not know where to go. Plus, he didn't exactly want a human to be messing with his skin like that. The stupid Homo sapiens would probably do something mutant hate symbolism in the tattoo, and then Shade would have to kill him then find another guy to fix. Just so much hassle. That was when he had remembered that they was a mutant in the Sanctuary that could manipulate ink.

"Do you think you could do it?"

Well that was… simpler than she’d expected. And more straightforward. Allison eyed the paper and shrugged. “It’d be easy. It’d just take some time.” And… well, that ought to be obvious, but far too many people missed the obvious for Allison to let it go unsaid, so she continued. “And I don’t have the ink I’d need with me.”

There. That should be clear enough.

"That's no problem." Shade replied instantly in response to the time issue. "I have nothing to do during the day. I tend to spend more of my time at night. Whenever is good for you is good for me."

Her next statement gave the shadow mutant a slight pause. Was she thinking that he wanted to get the tattoo here...in the dining hall? Or was she trying to avoid the situation all together? It just seemed a rather random statement to say. Maybe, she was just a little didsy. Whatever it was, Shade just pushed through it.\

"That's fine. I can meet you later somewhere. Wherever you would like. Just name the time and place." Shade said, looking to the teenager to see if she had anymore concerns.

“Any time works for me.” It was tempting to suggest ‘now,’ but Allison couldn’t actually remember whether she’d eaten breakfast that day or not. Which probably meant not. So she began closing and repacking the tiny ink bottles, in order to then go back to picking at… she’d forgotten what food she’d gotten. She glanced down. Lasagna, apparently. Or something trying to be it. “After lunch, maybe?”

After lunch, apparently, worked, so Allison led the way to her room. It… was not set up for giving tattoos. Or, really, for anything that involved more than one person being there. She frowned at it a moment, then pulled the chair away from her desk and pushed it toward… huh. She hadn’t gotten his name yet, had she? Well then. “You apparently know I’m Allison already.” And hopefully he’d get the hint from that comment. If not, she’d ask.

She pulled the picture of the tattoo back out and eyed it. It was solid black… but he had said she could improve on it. And, since Allison felt like showing off, and the room was small enough, she only had to reach, apparently casually, in the right direction for her hand to be in range and several bottles of ink, much larger than the ones she’d carried with her, to float quickly over to her and settle on the desk.

"Alright, sounds good." Shade replied as the young woman returned to her previously forgotten meal. As Alli finished her meal, Shade managed to eat a few more bites, but by the time, the redhead was finished, the cafeteria food had eliminated the shadow mutant's appetite although more than half of his meal had not been eaten yet. Tossing the remaining food in the trash, the night stalker followed the bubbly ink mutant through the halls of the Sanctuary to her dwelling place.

Stepping inside Allison's room, Shade could immediately tell a girl inhabited it. They were literally clothes everywhere. On the floor, on her bed, stuffed under her bed...was that a bra hanging from the ceiling fan? Shade quickly diverted his eyeless gaze from the sight as the young woman pushed a chair in his direction.

"I'm Shade." The shadow mutant replied to the unasked question.

"Are we doing this here...?" He asked, questionably as she pulled out several large jars of ink from the depths of her closet. Shade could only guess how many more clothes were crammed inside of that abyss. the jars of ink mysteriously floated across her room and settled upon the only open space available on her desk. The rest of the desk was covered in women's magazines and tools to battle her hair with in the morning. Attached to the mirror and walls of the room were many pictures of ink drawings that Shade assumed were either inspirations or original drawings down by the ink master herself.

"Those are very good." The shadow mutant commented motioning with his head to a couple of drawings pinned to the mirror.

"Did you make them yourself?"

Allison paused to raise an eyebrow at… well, at the wall in front of her, as she wasn’t facing Shade. Still. “We could go to the rec room if you want.” Her tone, to someone who knew her, would have registered as entirely too bland not to be sarcastic.

Then again, Allison wasn’t sure Aura really understood sarcasm that well, and until she found the Amazons again, no one really new her. Even if she did find them again, she wasn’t exactly the same as she was.

So, the tone sounded genuine. Whatever; the words were too absurd to take seriously.

Allison did turn at the next question, since she couldn’t tell what he was pointing at otherwise. He turned out not to actually be pointing, so it still took a second. “Oh. Yeah, I was practicing.”

Practicing tattoos, practicing realistic drawing, practicing the detailed control needed to perfectly copy a signature… he could assume what he wanted.

"It just...I kind of feel...out of place in here." Shade said truthfully. He wasn't sure if it were the bright colors or the undergarments hanging from the ceiling or the hint of girlie fragrance that permeated from the room. The only thing he knew was that he would definitely prefer the rec room to this as a spot to spend an hour or two as a the mutant tattooist did her work on the large piece that was to spread across his shoulder and midsection.

"Is it okay if we move to the Rec Room? It's not going to throw off your vibe or anything?" The shadow mutant asked. She was the artist and some artists had a problem finding 'inspiration' outside of their work space. Hopefully, the redhead was not one of the those artists.

…He thought she was serious.

How could he possibly think she was serious? Even Allison had more of a sense of shame than that. Even Naked Boy Number Two had more of a sense of shame than that. Even--

…Actually, Lady Isabel might not have had more of a sense of shame than that.

Well, whatever. Allison had been serious in one way, at least; it didn’t bother her where they were at all. So she shrugged, picking up as many of the ink bottles as she easily could and floated the rest next to her. It was tempting to just carry them all that way, but with all the different jars...it’d risk crashing them into each other and having them break. “It won’t make any difference to me.” Even if the rec room had somehow been able to kill what artistic inclinations she had, she could always just copy the picture he’d given her.

The rec room was, fortunately, empty; Allison wasn’t sure that things would have gone well if, say, a collection of fourteen year olds had been there. There was, at least, much more space, and places to sit. And tables; Allison dragged a convenient one over and set the ink on it, beginning to open the bottles. “Pick a chair.”

Shade really wasn't thinking about shame. What was to be shameful about taking his shirt off in front of people. Yeah, he might be very white, but he had learned to live with his physical mutation years ago. Plus, there was probably no one in the recreation room. There was never anyone in the recreaction room...well usually, no one was in the rec room.

If there was one thing Shade hated more than the light, it was walking. It was SO slow!! The shadow mutant knew how to almost instantly get around the Sanctuary at this point, after living here for over three years, and to walk the entire way across took several minutes to long. They finally arrived in the Rec room after an annoying four minutes. As suspected the room was entirely empty. Just the usual tables, chairs, and enteratinment devices.

Before picking a chair, Shade quickly refused his hoodie and black shirt with one swift motion, revealing the large scars that slashed across his back along with the bullet hole scar through his left shoulder. Tossing the hoodie and shirt onto the table, the shadow mutant grabbed a nearby chair and spun it around so he was facing away from Allison.

"Ready when you are."

“Stay still.” Most people who wanted tattoos were aware that they hurt… but many of them didn’t realize how much, or assumed that Allison could somehow prevent forcing ink through nerves from hurting. Because mutants were magic, apparently.

The tattoo was fairly simple, if large; abstract designs were always easier for Allison to create than realistic images. It was also, while elegant, a bit boring; the pattern was entirely in black.

Allison liked black, more than most colors really. But it was far too plain by itself. Even if it did stand out very well against his skin. So, she added to it. The edges of the design became bright blue, with a pearl white line through the center of each branch of the pattern, and a similarly pearlescent bit of blue at each point.

Quite nice, in Allison’s opinion. And subtler than what she’d do for herself; she had a suspicion that anyone going by the name “Shade” probably wouldn’t appreciate hummingbirds nearly as much as he ought to. Even if tattoos that covered half a guy’s chest and more of his back weren’t generally considered subtle.

How long it took to get all of the top portion of the tattoo done, Allison wasn’t sure; judging by her knees, though, it had probably been a while. The light seemed a bit different too, but that might have just been from the minor disorientation when she stood up, stretched, and looked back at Shade. “Okay, pants off.”

She still couldn’t believe he was that shameless.