A little community of shops was holding a street fair today. Tents and tables lined both sides of a blocked off road, racks of clothes and other goods scattered in between. People mulled about from all walks of life. It was late, just a starting to get dark as the sun dipped behind taller buildings and the sky deepened in color.

A teenager with her hands stuffed in the pockets of a high school jacket she had pilfered off of a jerk who didn't deserve it wandered slowly through, looking over the various wares with a disinterested expression on her face. People were peddling the usual crap. Scarves, jackets, lacy tops, wallets, and nick knacks. She wasn't terribly interested in what she was seeing.

That is.... until she passed by a little table in the middle. The printed cloth banner that hung from the top of the tent proclaimed it as 'Zoe's Antiques'. A silver glimmer caught the teen's among the other baubles, and she stopped to look. Mere curiosity quite suddenly turned to anger. The silver gleam belonged to a necklace, one she recognized easily. The style was of her people. Silver wrapped around an eagles talon, painstakingly hammered and formed into an eagles head at the other end. Turquoise and red coral stones embellished the front and feathers carved from pink shell hung from the side. 

She sputtered for a moment, hands flexing at her sides as she tried to think of an excuse as to why that particular necklace would be sitting on a street fair table instead of at home in a trinket box, with the rest of the family heirlooms. Unless there was duplicate floating around, it should have been with the rest of her Grandfathers jewelry.

"Do you see something you like?"

Dark eyes rolled up to meet aged blue. The woman running the stand, possibly even the ower, was smiling at her in a pinched sort of way. She probably suspected that the Native girl was planning on trying to pocket something.

She was right, but that didn't matter. 

".... That necklace belongs to my family. Where did you get it?" Elke couldn't have kept the sneer out of her voice if she had wanted to. The woman had the audacity to scoff at her in return, before reaching out and plucking the necklace from the stand and out of Elke's reach. 

"What business it of yours where I get my collection from?"

The Native girl took a threatening step toward the woman, slapping one hand down on the table hard enough to rattle it. Then, she paused. She was in an active market. Drawing attention to herself here would only cause more trouble than she wanted right now. Instead, her eyes narrowed at the woman. "If you stole it from my people, it's my business... and how very like a white woman to think she can take and sell what Natives rightly own. This isn't over, Ota"

As she stepped back from the started woman, who turned to tuck the necklace away, Elke swiped a jade pin off the table. She scooted off, melding into the people around her before the shopkeep could figure out something was missing.

While a street fair wasn't her idea of a great time, it was a good opportunity for Colleen to hopefully make some friends and possibly get out of living in the alleyway off of 36th in Queens.

"Don't count on it." Olivia, the voice in her head said in response to the thought.

Though, Olivia wasn't a believer, Colleen was sure that Mutantkind took care of each other.

"You're wrong. Even if the mutants of this city are a community, we are outsiders and will be treated as such." Olivia continued.

"Shut up, you don't know anything." Colleen said outloud, drawing stares from the fair goers around her. Embaressed, she ducked alongsaide a table in an effort to avoiud drawing any more attention.


"I'll shut up for an image." For reasons that Colleen couldn't understand, Olivia could not see through her eyes. She just existed somewhere within Colleen's brain, seeing nothing, hearing nothing but the thoughts Colleen sent her way.

Colleen looked around the fair for something interesting to show Olivia. Colleen's eyes settled on a turquoise and coral pendant a young woman was pointing at until the seller snatched it up.

Colleen winced as she 'sent' the memory to Olivia mentally.

"Hey!" Olivia cried and Colleen decided something went wrong with the transmission on account of the scene between the young woman and the vendor unfolding commanded her attention.

She was fascinated, the woman insisted that the vendor had stolen the pendant from her, or her family, she wasn't sure. But the result was that the vendor had no intention of admitting wrongdoing and the young one stormed off.

Instinctively, Colleen followed the angry woman away from the fair and onto a less than glamourous street that reminded her of the main Avenue her home alley was located off of.

"You're following someone." Olivia declared within Colleen's mind.

"I know." Colleen growled.

"Why?"

She had no intent of explaining herself to Olivia, but even if she wanted to, Colleen was unsure why she was following the young woman. She settled on general curiosity, she only had part of the story and wanted to know more. But then, there was the hope that she was following a fellow mutant.

"It's a long shot, mutants are a minority, most likely she's just another human." Olivia chimed in.

But Colleen had to know for sure. All she had to do was get one brush of skin contact and her own power would do its magic and she would know the story behind the necklace and whether or not the woman was a mutant or at least if she could at least lead Colleen to some mutants.