People.

Everywhere.

This wasn't Aiden's first time in the swollen rage of humanity that called itself New York City, but day-long shopping trips couldn't even hold a candle's flame to actually having to live in it. Sure, he might officially live in an isolated piece of it, but there were no normal people there. Even a place like NYC, renowned for its high populations of not-normal people, had to have a better mix than to be found there.

He had guessed right, that this sprawling park that had required a decent hike from the nearest bus stop wouldn't be as crowded as the true streets and restless heart of the city. Of course... he could still see people wherever he looked, but at least he couldn't see three dozen, where at least ten of them looked like they were a freak in one way or another.

The only way he could stop seeing people and still leave his eyes open was to stare upwards, and even that only worked when he was far enough from the city's famous skyscrapers that they didn't intrude. Could he see them here? A sliver of silver-grey sky, the blue that should herald spring still cowering behind the trailing clouds of the late blizzard, peaked from between the trees' barren branches, but even out here a glint of metal and glass was visible.

There really was no -

escaping from the city. Ai finished the though on his hands and knees, wincing at what felt like an elbow to his kidney. A weighty, pointy elbow to his kidney. He squinted around as he stood, not quite realizing that his sunglasses were sitting next to his foot, but he couldn't tell who had run into him. There certainly wasn't anyone stopping and apologizing, at least.

He sighed. Cities were wonderful things, weren't they? He glanced at the sky again. Would rain follow the ill-fated snow?

Allison was not a normal sight, for a number of reasons. By this point the two inches of hair closest to her head were pure white while the rest was orange, her skin was as close to white as skin could get, though hidden in most places by swirls of red and black, and her eyes were distinctly purple (and she really hoped they'd stop changing now, it was a nice color, but they hadn't stopped the last dozen times she wished it, so she doubted they would now). Not all of that was quite possible to pass as human, but it was mostly subtle enough to avoid being stared at by people over ten or so feet away. The fact that she was perched neatly fifteen feet up a tree was a little less subtle.

Of course, if Allison cared whether she was stared at, she'd have done quite a few things differently. So she ignored the looks, picking her way around the tree to a new branch to sit on. Oh, and someone was staring up at her; that was... a bit more blatant than most people were. So probably they wanted a response. Or were just shameless; either way, they were getting one. Allison leaned toward him, holding onto another nearby branch for balance. "Hello!" Oh, and now that she could see, "cool eyes."

Did the clouds really look like rain? Ai really wasn't enough of a weather nut to be able to tell. Rain would be kind of appropriate though. Keep things miserable.

"Hello! Cool eyes!"

WHATTHEFERFUDGETHEREWASSOMEONEINTHETREE. Staring at the exceedingly boldly coloured girl, Aiden tried to process the situation. Either the tree had just gotten taller or he had fallen down again. Judging by the fact that he was sprawled on his butt and his hands were covered in mud, it was probably safe to go with the latter. Okay, that was one thing down.

The second thing to deal with would have to be either her colouring or what she said. What had she said? Something about his eyes- oh no. His muddy hands flew to his face, but his sunglasses were indeed gone. When had they fallen off? Where were they? Right eye clenched as tightly closed as he could, he pulled himself to his knees, heedless of the ice-cold water and mud starting to smear most of his body, and frantically tried to find his sunglasses. They must have fallen off when that person ran into him. Why hadn't he noticed? They had to be around here somewhe-

His fingers closed around a sharp, irregular piece of plastic. Even as the shattered lens - just the right lens, of all the luck - dug into his palm, he stared at them. His sunglasses. What was he supposed to do now? He didn't have any others, his parents would hardly give him money for more - and he wasn't going to ask them anyway - and what savings he had were still back at his parents', since they clearly hadn't been able to find the hidden box. Now what? He swallowed, still staring blankly at the broken sunglasses.

...Okay, maybe he was just really oblivious. Or blind, though the frantic looking implied some sort of face-based vision. Or a habit of it, anyway; Allison had found her head turning while she listened a few times when she was blinded.

"Er...." Allison... was not sure how to deal with this, really. People should not look that tragic at sunglasses. What did you say to that? I'm sorry, were they your friends? Are you okay? The only things Allison could think of were either stupidly obvious, inappropriately humorous, or both. And while Allison was fine with being inappropriate, she generally preferred not to hurt people with it. Not until they'd offended her, anyway.

Well, climbing down from the tree bought her time, anyway. It took a few minutes before her feet touched the ground near the guy, but unfortunately she hadn't thought of anything particularly good to say with the time.

Well, silence wouldn't help. "That... doesn't look very repairable." Still not a helpful comment at all, but hopefully it would be enough for him to say something she could think of a better response to.

He'd have to try to sell or trade some of his computer games or something, he decided. It would be sad, but he could survive without a few of them. Just enough to cover the cost of some cheap sunglasses that would cover his eye. He'd have to find some way to sell them online or something, though, because he couldn't just walk into a game store and see how much they'd pay for his games.

"That... doesn't look very repairable."

"You think?" he muttered automatically. Wait, was that the girl from the tree? She was on the ground now? Ai quickly dropped his head and glance to the side, trying to hide his eye without being insanely obvious about it. Hopefully. "Er, sorry," he said after a moment. Being rude wasn't going to help the situation. Besides, city girls were supposed to be tough. What if she were part of a gang, and that was what all the crazy colours were for? Bad as things were, Ai really didn't feel like getting lynched in some back alley.

He closed his fingers over the broken sunglasses, more than a little unnerved by the idea. "I must have stepped on them," he said quietly, and then pushed himself to his feet. As he did so, the sheer amount of wet mud clinging to his pants finally made a bit of an impact, and he sighed again. "At least it's not that cold today," he muttered. Never mind that what snow was on the ground really wasn't melting, or that there were still ice crystals in some of the mud from overnight. It didn't feel cold - to Ai - and that would do.

Okay, Allison probably should have expected sarcasm in response to that comment. She wasn't sure how else she would have responded, for that matter. But she still hadn't done anything wrong, even if he was oddly upset for a pair of sunglasses. Probably hiding his eyes... hmph. Well, it was technically his decision, even if it was a bad one. Regardless, she hadn't earned the sarcasm, but he hadn't really earned retaliation. Bland it was, then. "Probably. I don't think I know anyone who could fix them... maybe that jacket mind reading kid, but I'm not talking to him." Probably he couldn't, anyway, but it was the closest mutation Allison could think of.

...A fixing-sunglasses mutation would suck. Allison just kept finding mutations worse than hers... even if this one was imaginary.

Allison shrugged at the apology. "'S fine. Do you need sunglasses? I have... a lot that I don't really wear." And by a lot she meant two. Maybe three. By not really wear she meant hadn't seen since she was given them. She knew what drawer they were in, though; one was dedicated to gifts she didn't want. "Unless they're some kind of prescription. I probably don't have that."

Allison eyed the mud, the snow, and the boy, and considered the two jackets she was wearing. "You... have an odd sense of temperature, kid."

Jacket.... mind... reading... kid? The phrase wasn't an easy one to process. What did jacket mind reading have to do with fixing sunglasses? How was someone supposed to go about jacket mind reading? Shortly before he managed to make the connection that the brightly coloured girl was involved with mutants and thought nothing of it, she continued, and he shrugged automatically.

"Wait, you do?" he said, surprised and more hopeful than he would have liked to admit. He dropped his head again and shifted slightly. "They're nothing special or anything... I just... don't like going around without them." That wasn't giving her anything new; she'd already seen what he was hiding, at least superficially. Why would she give replace his sunglasses, though? She didn't break them and didn't know him; in what way could she possibly feel responsible enough for the problem to give material aid?

Wait, what? Ai blinked at the girl and belated realized how heavily dressed she was, and then took a closer look at the ground around him. Sure, he was wearing a jacket himself - he'd have to be stupid to not grab one when heading out for who knew how long in this weather - but it did kind of look cold out. Except he didn't feel cold. At all. Even where his pants were obviously soaked and looked like they might be starting to freeze solid. What was going on?

The kid hadn't said anything, but the confusion was clear enough in his expression. And in the fact that he didn't say anything. Allison nodded, expression completely serious. And she was completely serious, though she might otherwise have acknowledged the absurdity of the idea of jacket mind reading.

"Yeah." Well that was... okay, it had been nice to see the kid slightly cheered up, until he started acting ashamed and trying to hide his eyes again. Bah. Did he really think humans had tattoos like hers? Or two inches of randomly white hair next to their head? Or... well he was probably too busy hiding his own eyes to notice hers. But at least the tattoos ought to be a hint that she was perhaps less than completely normal. And seeing as she was normal in every way but being a mutant... well, and relationships, but that wasn't dramatic enough for anyone to notice but Aura. ...Anyway! That she was a mutant was not exactly something she tried to hide. "People kept giving me free accessories to advertise for a while, and it was summer... never used most of them, but I've still got them." And she distinctly remembered at least one pair of those sunglasses fitting and one not, so hopefully one would fit him fairly well. If not... well he was probably out of luck, but at least he'd know about Sanctuary. More people needed to know about Sanctuary.

...And another expression. Did this kid not know his own mutation, or was he just permanently confused about everything? Or it could be just developing, she supposed... or he could have been too distracted to notice the cold and it had nothing to do with mutation at all. Allison was weirdly unable to feel warm with no mutational involvement; no reason he couldn't be similarly resistant to cold. So maybe it wasn't mutation related. Maybe.

...He really needed to stop looking like a lost puppy, though. He was at least half a foot taller than her, there was no reason for her to be thinking of him as a poor little kid. Except for how he kind of was. And he needed to stop; Allison was not--

...Okay, so Allison was going to have to be motherly soon anyway. Still, she wasn't also adopting a teenage kid, even if he looked like a puppy. No, no, no. She'd show him Sanctuary and be nice, and if he needed someone to mother him he could find someone else. Not Allison.

"Do you know where Sanctuary is?"

She did advertising? Was she a model or actress or something, then? He struggled to assimilate that with the potential mob-girl view he had held. It didn't work. Models weren't mobsters, not even in anime. It just didn't work.

He tried to distract himself from the puzzle by poking a wet stretch of jean, but that really didn't help. It might have, if they had been just wet and cold like they should have been, but instead it was rock hard... and didn't feel particularly cold, even against his hand. Seriously? Was there cement in this mud or something that he hadn't noticed? No, he could still move his hands without issue, and they were smeared with mud as well.

"Do you know where Sanctuary is?"

Ai looked up at the girl from beneath his eyelashes. "Sanctuary?" he asked quietly and with a bit of confusion. You know, she kind of seemed a bit too... colourful to be an actress or normal model. If she were an anime character, she'd probably be some super-tough giant robot mechanic or one of the higher-ups of a rich, powerful underworld gang. Since the real world didn't have giant robots, that still left the gang scenario. Except she said she did advertising.

People were so confusing.

Okay, it was official: this kid just was never not confused. Had he hit his head when he fell or something? Or maybe his mutation had just woken up today, and he was still disoriented? Hiding it seemed to be a habit though; it'd take more than a few hours to form that sort of habit.

Well, whatever. Allison nodded again. "Sanctuary is..." Sanctuary. A little complicated to explain, and to decide what to explain. She shrugged. "It's where I live, I'll show you. Sunglasses are there anyway." She turned, away from the most populated area of the park, and wove between the trees as she thought of another comparison. "Do you know the Mansion?"

The neighborhoods drifted on the way to Sanctuary; from houses that were city-small, but well kept and middle class, to a little more worn down, to apartments. Graffiti showed up, though not as much as might be expected; most mutants had better things to do than graffiti if they felt like rebelling. Damage was more common, though how much was deliberate and how much was accident wasn't something Allison could tell. Despite that, there were only a few lurking people hanging around the streets, and then none; people either went to Sanctuary, or stayed out of its area. And despite the often old buildings approaching it, Sanctuary itself was....

...Well, not undamaged. It did house mutants, after all. But it was repaired, most of the repairs were only subtly visible, and the golden doors were bright.

Go to where the strange, potentially-mob girl lived? That sounded like an absolutely perfect opening for some big dramatic, probably lethal incident. Any half-decent storyline would have something big happen, unless the author wanted to be really sneaky and suspenseful, in which case nothing would happen but it would keep seeming like something would happen, over and over, until everyone starts to give up and relax, and then everything explodes in their face and was actually there all along.

But she said she could replace his sunglasses.

Maybe those movies where people walked right into the trap weren't so stupid after all. Ai was already moving, and not away from the girl. Well, if things started to look dangerous, he could always make a break for it. It wasn't like he was horribly out of shape, and there was nothing wrong with his legs, despite the weirdly frozen state his jeans were in.

The mansion? It almost sounded like she was verbally capitalizing the word. Trying to think of important mansion-like places in the city, Aiden could only thing of the sweeping grounds and building his parents had condemned him to. She wouldn't be referring to that place, though, could she? No, there must be something else. "Does it have another name?" he asked, hesitated, and continued. "I haven't been in this city long." As they kept walking, Aiden started to notice less and less well-kept properties, more damage and vandalism, and a general decrease in projected safety.

Glancing nervously around him, Aiden did his best to stick fairly close to the girl. He might not know anything about her, but she clearly knew where she was going, and even if that was into something horrible and nasty he would really, really, really rather not get lost in this part of town. Whatever part this was. He didn't have the slightest cue where he was anymore. Finally catching sight of Sanctuary - or at least noticing a distinctly better cared-for building with excessively ostentatious doors - he hesitated for a moment before catching up with the girl again. With all the damage around, the building's relatively good repair kind of stuck out like a sore thumb, even without the brightly painted doors.

"I... think so, but I'm not sure what it is. Something about being a school?" It just was the Mansion, as far as she'd ever heard. Either you knew what it was, or you were shown; Allison was sure it had another name, but she didn't know it.

They'd reached Sanctuary, though, so the comparison wouldn't be needed. Another might be, though... Allison slowed on the way to the building, though already on the grounds. "By the way. Sanctuary is pretty much all about being for mutants, and a... sanctuary... from prejudice." There just wasn't a way around that pun. "Which also generally means a sanctuary from shame. So, stop trying to hide your eyes while you're here, we get enough reminders of what the outside is like without anyone acting like the bigots are right."

The doors needed a shove to open; Allison was perpetually annoyed by that, though with the size of some mutants she couldn't really complain. She could open the doors, anyway, even if it was difficult; as long as she could, she'd let it go.

Lisa was at her desk, as always. Allison sometimes wondered if she wasn't a clone maker, and the clones took turns. But she looked up, then back down; apparently new faces didn't necessarily require questions when they were accompanied by someone more reliable than Caleb the Puppy Menace. Or, alternately, when their mutation was more blatant then tattoos....

A school.

What was the probability that there were two mansion-like schools in New York City? Actually, considering the size of the city, probably pretty high. Yeah, he'd go with that, and just shrug. Nice and noncommittal. Besides, the conversation, such as it was, was moving onwards.

And was soon accompanied by a chorus of less polite words than were likely to ever meet his vocal cords, in several different languages. This place was for mutants too. Mutants+gang/model girl? Could nothing be simple?

Stop trying to hide his eyes? Was she insane? Really? Glancing around, however, and taking note of just how damaged the area was, he had to accept that this was probably a place that housed some rather dangerous mutants. Maybe playing by their rules until he had a pair of functional sunglasses and could get out of there wouldn't be such a bad idea after all. Nevertheless, he hung back warily as the girl forced the heavy-looking doors open, and only followed her in hesitantly. Though he forced himself to breathe more or less evenly, he was undeniably tense. He tried to do as directed and not hide his freak eye, but could only manage to glance away from the girl's heels in momentary flickers. Breathe. He had to breathe. Everything was calm and quiet still. There was still a chance it could stay that way, that nothing would happen.

Okay, even Allison was starting to get annoyed by the kid's hiding. Granted, hiding annoyed her, but she generally liked to think of herself as being quite patient about things that annoyed her. At least, when she recognized that they weren't as significant as they felt, or not her business. When she knew they were significant... then there was no need to be patient. Regardless, this kid's eyes were his business to hide. And she really couldn't complain too much when she was giving him sunglasses.

The hallways weren't empty or crowded; the people that were around were ones that Allison either didn't know, or only knew distantly; the sort of acquaintance that you was and waved to three times a day for years, but never spoke to or learned the name of. She waved or nodded to the ones she recognized, but didn't stop to talk.

Her room was... normal. The bed wasn't freshly made, not everything was put away, but it wasn't messy, really. Books and papers were on the desk, a book was on the floor, a jacket was on the bed; the normal look of a room that wasn't prepared for someone to see, to Allison's knowledge.

Papers were stacked on the dresser too, the same mix of abstract drawings (manipulations?) and patterns as the desk had, though older. The bottom drawer had the unwanted gifts she'd stored; it didn't take a full minute to pull out four pairs of sunglasses. She'd forgotten about the one covered in rhinestones... and she suspected the kid wouldn't want it, but nonetheless held the full set out to him to pick from. "Here; they aren't all the same size, so one ought to fit."

...Also, maybe she ought to know something more specific than 'the kid.' She blinked, coughed and gave a deliberately, slightly sheepish smile. "Oh. I'm Allison, by the way."

The further into the building the girl took him, the less certain Aiden was that this was really the best way to replace his sunglasses. Seriously, he was in a horribly run-down and undoubtedly extremely dangerous part of town, and now stuck in this building and its winding hallways and surrounded by undoubtedly extremely dangerous mutants. Whenever they passed one in the halls, the girl nodding or waving to some of them, Aiden did his best to just walk past them. He did succeed in not jumping at the sight of any of them - though to be fair he intentionally didn't look at any of them, and couldn't have described many, if any, of them - so hopefully that would satisfy the girl.

When they reached her room, Ai was relieved. Very relieved. Rooms had doors that could close. With the door closed, he could stop thinking about and noticing all of... that. After a moment of relaxing (had he really been that tense? he hadn't thought so at the time) he looked around while the girl dig in a dresser drawer. The room was reassuringly normal. Books and paper and clothing. Normal. Normal was a nice change from all the recent insanity he had been subjected to.

At the sight of the sunglasses on offer, Aiden couldn't help but wince a bit at the rhinestone-studded one. Now that was one gaudy bit of eye protection. No wonder it was buried and unused. "Thanks," he said quietly, and picked up a far more sober pair to try on. Well... they were kind of tight in the temples and dug into his ears. Hopefully one of the other two sane pairs was a bit larger.

Allison? Aiden paused in the middle of taking a second pair to try on, and actually looked at the girl's face for a moment. Y'know, other than the weird colours, she really did seem pretty normal. Maybe the colours were just some city fashion thing. City people were weird like that. He studied the glasses in his hands for a moment before responding. "Er... I'm Aiden," he eventually said.