Tses was having quite a week, and she was testy, at best. Her emotions were haywire, her brain felt like it was going a hundred miles a minutes, and nothing seemed to make sense to her right now. Ty was gone. There was nothing else to it, and she had to accept he probably wasn't coming back. She didn't know if something had happened to him, or if he just moved on and was done trying to deal with her. One way or the other, she had to let go, and try to find some way to cope with the loss.

It was a fairly sunny day, still cold, but lacking some of the blizzard-like snow that seemed to take over New York at this time of year. Tses caught a cab for the long trip, and found herself heading north towards what she felt was one of the 'mutant manor's. To her, both the sanctuary and the mansion seemed the same; a place for freaks to gather and compare their little 'powers'. While the sanctuary seemed a little darker, the mansion was where she had taken Serena to quite a few weeks earlier.

Getting out of the cab, and moving to the gate, she shuffled and tried to get the attention of someone on the inside. She wasn't sure exactly how this worked, especially since it was daytime and there were more people around, but she wanted to make sure they weren't treating the kid to badly.

She was a little protective, after all, even under her tough skin.

After a few minutes, she thought she saw someone coming, and shifted, waiting for them to get closer. She tried to be on her fest behavior, which meant she avoided looking annoyed and pissed off for the wait... at least for now.

First few days inside the mansion weren't bad, getting readjusted to a new location was probably the hardest, remembering where things were, who lived beside her, what times meals were served, thank goodness she wasn't teaching yet. But in any case, it was a new place, one that was accepting her, but still, it was a lot noisier than she expected: lots of kids running around, some respectful, some not so much, and a lot of them did treat it like a home, but the placed lacked the refinement she expected of a Mansion of this caliber. The places she usually stayed at, even the homes she enjoyed, were a lot more upper class, certainly refined and certainly special in their own right to Sophia. Hopefully this place would be one day too, but for now, it was a challenge just to get situated and set up.

Passing through the mansion, she was lost again. She should have been by the kitchen at this point, but she wasn't, so where was she. It didn't particularly matter, it was frustrating enough not knowing where you were in a big place, but it didn't help that there was no one to ask question of to find out where you where. Still, Sophia would trace her steps backwards, she'd find the kitchen regardless, even if it meant taking the whole day to do it, she'd find the kitchen on her own. Still, this wasn't helping, neither was the person by the door, waving their arms, tapping on the door, it was everything short of the doorbell. Did the mansion have a doorbell? Maybe not, but it was all a bit annoying, to see someone outside not coming inside for whatever reason. So it left Sophia with the duty of trying to figure it out.

"Yes?" she opened the door, perhaps not with the best intent either. Her eye were a bit glazed in annoyance, not from the guest, but with herself. And her voice seemed angered, less so to the dismissal of this visitor, and more so to the extent that she couldn't source out the nature of the kitchen. The blonde, she looked like a teenager, a friend of someone's perhaps, though her very dismissive sounding voice didn't help. Clearly Sophia was not interested in this person, though she was in reality, just not in appearance. And hopefully the girl wouldn't take it poorly.

Tses blinked a bit with surprise as the door opened, and the response was one typical of Tses, not one of these little mansionite people. She wasn't sure what they were called, but they were like a cult in her opinion, one she's deposited a mostly innocent girl into. Trying to suppress her irritation. She crossed her arms across her chest and adjusted her stance. "I'm looking for a girl named Serena. She's supposed to be here... somewhere, but I don't exactly know where." Tses said, her voice clipped short. In a way, her attitude was similar to that of the strangers, but hers was not from frustration to find the kitchen. Tses was just naturally sharp tongued, and it got her into trouble on more than one occasion.

Tses took a second to size up the stranger. She seemed to be well dressed, and definitely took more pride in her appearance than Tses did. With her jeans, t-shirt, then the cloths of fabric she had wrapped up the length of her arms, Tses looked a bit like the riff-raff a place like this would try to keep out. The stranger seemed to fit in; you can always tell people who came from a better type of living. Their posture was straighter, their voice sounded 'neater', and they had a way of snubbing their nose at you. At least, that was how Tses always saw them. she wondered if she should close the door and try again for someone different. She wasn't sure this strange was going to be very helpful.Or maybe it was she wasn't sure she wanted to find out.

Clearly, this girl didn’t belong to the house. From the clothes she wore, the awkward looking tattered scraps of cloths around her arms, it would have appeared like she belonged to some home, perhaps not this one, otherwise she wouldn’t have been waiting quite like she did in front of the house as so. She had seen no fewer than a dozen kids run through that front door as though it didn’t ever stay shut, why today it had been, but it was neither here nor there. This girl, wasn’t quite the type Sophia would have expected to come by for a visit, both of them looked at other, and it was clearly Sophia’s job to be the nice house greeter, as she shifted her glasses around with her hand to push them up to her nose. The motion of her hand gave her enough time to look inquisitive as she paused before the door, but also mask her annoyance of having to play chaperone all the sudden.

"That may very well be two of us. How is it that you know this Serena girl?” though wondering aloud, she was more or less uninterested, she just didn’t want to welcome someone in to the house unless someone took ownership of them. Sophia was not about to take ownership for someone unfamiliar to her, and surely it would have been essentially very rude to do so when she herself was new to her house. Still, if you had to ask around, some details were better. Thinking back to the mock tour, she had seen plenty of girls that looked like they would have been about the age of this girl, and certainly the name Serena had been shouted before as someone passed down the halls, Sophia never turned back to see which of the girls in the school it was. Looking back at the girl, there was a very obvious annoyed look across her face, something akin to wanting to say ‘No’ to Girl Scout, mixed with the annoyance of said Scouts bothering her.

Tses felt the corner of her mouth twitch just ever so slightly, and she tried to keep herself calm. Deep breathe in, deep breathe out. Don't try to blow up someone in front of the building you were trying to get into. That would be a bad first impression. It took some managing, but for now, she was civil, and proud of her self, especially by the way the other woman was sizing her up. It felt like another of those 'princess and the pauper' moments, but Tses actually liked Chyrs for the most part, even if she was completely psychotic. She would take crazy over stuck up any day, and if she had to deal with the later.... well, she may just leave and come back.

"Met her wandering around the city, after she found out she was a mutant. Knew this place was like, mutant manor or something like this, so helped her find the way here. Just tryin' to make sure she's like, still alive and all that." Tses gave a suspicious glance back at the woman, and matched the annoyance. Her expression was more of the 'I really don't want to have to cause trouble' type annoyance. But she wasn't going to let someone just snob her off because of her appearance. She got enough of that from humans. she didn't need a mutant doing the same.

“Hmmm…” the gentle humming of person who had difficultly believing in a story that seemed so suspicious, let alone the type of story that was otherwise filled with holes. Even the look in her eyes gave the impression that she was used to threatening or intimidating her way in to getting what she wanted. It very well may have been the case for someone like her, and Sophia didn’t really want to have a scene on the front porch either. The harm wasn’t a real bother either, it was the information one could gather if they toured the property looking for a room of a person Sophia wasn’t entirely even certain that existed.

“Why don’t you come in then, Miss…” what ever name she was going to be given was probably going to be a fake, one Sophia anticipated, but if this were like any normal school, camera existed, it would catch what was necessary. Stepping aside, Sophia allowed the doorway to open wider, more than enough for the girl to slip inside. Once insider, Sophia made she didn’t get too far, looking at her, one could only imagine what kind of powers she had that would have let her run wild in the school. It was only obvious that this girl had to be a mutant, why else come to a mutant school, most human avoid the mansion, anyone here, must have visited it before, or atleast been mutant enough to be aware of the mansion’s purpose.

“Since you’re not familiar with where Serena is, and I’m most certainly unaware of who Serena is, I’ll be escorting through the hallways until we locate her. That shouldn’t be a problem for you?” throwing the question out there. If Serena knew this girl was coming to visit her, surely they must have been in contact. But since this girl was dubious if Serena still even existed or was alive, it seemed unlikely. In any case, Sophia was going to have to take responsibility, but she’d stay close to the windows and glass, better safe then sorry.

There was one expression Tses was rather good at noting, and that was distrust. She saw it in store owner's faces, she saw it in cops, she saw it in most humans. It was natural, and probably well founded when it came to her, but there was certainly a small amount of pride that came into play when she saw someone distrusted her. Oh sure, the distrust was probably warranted, but she liked when people at least gave her a chance to prove she was distrustful. She liked the pride of screwing things up all on her own, thank you very much.

"Name's Tses. T-s-e-s. First S is silent." Tses said, and was relieved to step into the building. Now, if she could just ditch this over-distrustful door greater, she could actually find Serena. The kid had to be here some....where.... Crap, it looked even bigger on the inside. She glanced around, chewing on her lip for a second and letting out a slight whistle. "Well, you guys certainly seem to keep things prim and proper here don'tcha?" She put her hands on her hips, and did a little turn, then glanced back as the woman spoke again.

"Sure, whatever. Escort away. I don't know where we'll find her, but it's not THAT big of a place. She can't be too far away, right?" Secretly, she wished the girl would go away though. She hated having someone hovering around her. Honestly, it reminded her of those little earrings stores that were so skinny the store employees were practically breathing down your neck. Do you know how hard it was to steal earrings while the employee is staring at you? Pretty hard. and trying to find Serena with this uh... who in the world was this anyway?

"So do you have a name or something, or do you just get the illustrious door greater title?" Tses asked. She mentally high fived herself for using a big word. Now she wouldn't look completely uncultured. At least, that was what she hoped.

She really needed to practice her formal interaction abilities. Or whatever you would call what she needed to have to deal with this girl.

There was a twitch in Sophia's left eye, hearing that she was some sort of 'Illustrious Door Greeter', which if you asked her was the last thing she ever wanted to be called, much less thought of. Sophia was nobodies house servant, she was very certain of that, and to be thought of one, well, that was just horrible. She felt it necessary to get the record straight, and quickly, "Hardly… I am Professor Stratford. Misses Stratford will be fine though."

While not necessarily a professor of anything, a teacher perhaps, but not a professor. Though her doctorate work was probably close enough to get her a professor position, if just a small position as a college level teacher. Certainly it was something not far out of her reach, here though, hopefully the title would stick, and it would have been nice if it did.

One thing Sophia to note was this Tses girl's choice of words, nothing elaborate or hints of otherwise carefully crafted choices. Rather she was very flippant, saying the first things that came to her mind, no real thought at all behind her thoughts or actions at all, just quick to reply to whatever she could. A sign of youth these days, they never paused to think to themselves before shouting out the first thing that came to them. It was also a sign of poor education standards, though her use of the word 'illustrious' was clever, but seemed incorrectly used: using it more as a title like a well known magician, rather than its proper meaning. If Sophia had been a 'illustrious' door greeter, than she'd be one of the best known ones, an introduction would hardly be necessary. That in point, if Sophia really wanted to, she could simply use big words to put this girl in her place properly, "This mansion is actually quite like a labyrinth, it feel like it goes forever, and some hallways seem indistinguishable from others. We might want to consider starting at the Dormitory wing of the mansion and see if we find your friend there."

Misses Straford. Tses mentally mocked the name. It seemed fitting though for the person standing in front of her. Although, Professor Seemed to be a bit too classy, even for the polished individual. The way it was said seemed like a bit of a white lie, but Tses didn't call her on it. She was picking her fights carefully today. Mock the door greater: check. Now try to find Serena and behave the rest of the time: still in progress.

Then.... the girl had to be a show off. Tses wasn't dumb, but a few of the words were a little on the large side, and it took her some time to process them. She made sure not to show her confusion on the outside, and gave a casual shrug and spun in a circle walking backwards for a few steps then forwards again. "Hey, you're the one who decided I needed a tour guide. Lead away Misses Straford." She tried hard to be polite, but she couldn't control herself all the way. She probably came across as a snotty teenager instead of being in her twenties, but it was just Tses' way of dealing with stressful situations. She hated being caught trying to be nice, and was perhaps being a bit brattier than normal. She wouldn't be surprised if she got kicked out, to be honest. But she was sure going to try to make this work out.

"I could leave you outside instead if you'd rather, and I can find Serena for you instead," little patience for things that weren't her problem. She was doing Tses a favor, the least she could be was gracious to Sophia for doing it. Mindful, Serena better have been easy to find, much longer with this brat, and Sophia would probably resort to something she didn't want to do. But then again, she was the adult, she had to set a proper example, so as she started down the hall way, calling for Tses to follow along, "Lets hurry up now."

Traveling down the hallway, Sophia ensured that she was just alongside Tses the entire time trying to make sure that neither of them got split up at all, making sure that Tses didn't just happen to bolt down one hallway and in to another randomly. Because if she did, there was little way of running after her, after all, Sophia didn't know this place very well yet either. As they traveled, it was an awkward silence, one seemed to not want to talk to the other more than necessary, but Sophia, a creature of knowledge, felt she wanted more of it, and so wondered aloud to herself, even if others did not want to reply, "So if you're here to ensure that someone is still alive, why not simply call and ensure. After all, if this person is important, you'd think you would have exchanged means of communication. Though if you think we've done something to her, you'd be a lot more defensive about being chaperoned down the halls…"

Sophia mused to herself, hoping that her intent of rambling about logical probabilities would eventually hit the nail and bother Tses enough to confessing something. Children had a manner about setting the manner straight when defending themselves, so if it were the case, Tses might do the same, that remained to be seen though.

>>"I could leave you outside instead if you'd rather[...]"

Tses felt her eyebrows knit together for a second, and she tried not to get annoyed. But Sophia wasn't the only one lacking patience, and this encounter seemed doomed to fail. Deep breath in, deep breath out. Gees, this was going to be a looong treasure hunt unless Serena magically appeared out of a corner or something. "Fine, I'm coming." She resisted grumbling as they kept walking.

Sophia stayed too close for Tses to try to sneak off on her own, and it was like having a cop breathe down her neck. She hated that feeling, and wanted to shoo the woman away, but her focus kept her frustration under control for now. She did feel irritation prickle a little as Sophia spoke. "Call? Never had a phone, so there isn't a way to get a hold of her, or give her a way to get a hold of me. I live a little outside the 'send me an e-mail' realm, so dropping by is the easiest thing. And I gave you people the benefit of the doubt. I wouldn't have just left the kid anywhere. Didn't drop her off at the Sanctuary or anything." She murmured, and rolled her eyes. The questions seemed a bit odd to her, but that was mostly because Tses never questioned her actions. She just did. When people tried to analyze her and make sense of why she did one thing or the other, they both just ended up confused. Why did you blow up that trash can? I don't know, why DIDN'T you blow up that trash can?

"It sounds far more reasonable you trusted one party over another. If you believe Sanctuary was better you would have taken her there, so you have a distrust of that place, but believe in this one. Not enough to be a student yourself, but enough to bring a person you're not familiar with to a place you're hoping we would take good care of her," it was logic for Sophia. A game she loved to play were anything logical, where a rational answer could otherwise, and eventually, be found. Math puzzles were her favorite, but only because she'd stare for an hour only to come up with the same idea she did three days ago.

Though in hindsight, it probably seemed rude to analyze a person's motives and movements out loud as you were trying to do her a favor. Though if she were doing her a favor, then to make up for it, Sophia could conjecture all she wanted about Tses's purpose and role here. She could do it all she wanted, but part of her didn't want to make what was already awkward even more so, "Which brings an interesting question, I would assume you're a mutant, how else would have a working knowledge of Sanctuary and then decided that this mansion would be a better place for Serena to be. Well several, but I think it perhaps rude to ask too many."

"So, why aren't you a student here?" it was suddenly a not so agitated Sophia, and more a concerned one instead. Rather than testing the waters by laying out her motives, for which Sophia could be here all day with, part of Sophia wondered herself why she wasn't a student in the school. Certainly there were students who were shuttled from the city to the mansion regularly, but why not this one? Maybe there was another reason, but now Sophia was wondering. Why would someone go through all the trouble of bring a stranger to the mansion, realizing the benefits of it, but not be a part of it themselves?

Tses found herself looking more intently for Serena, uncertain how long she could keep up her 'friendly' attitude. She hated when people made judgement's about her, and she kept feeling prickles of annoyance with Misses Stratford. She seemed way too sure of herself. It may have been one of those situations where you were annoyed by things you had in common, but Tses would deny that. There was no way she was that snotty....right? "Everyone should have the opportunity to make their own choices. I gave her one." Tses shrugged. She glanced at walls as they passed, looking for pictures or something that would make this place seem 'homey'. She was surprised they hadn't run into many people yet, but surprised didn't mean she wasn't glad.

The next few questions made her emotionally bristle, and she was starting to feel like a porcupine was curling up inside her, pricking at her temper. "I'm not a student here because I don't like schools. Don't like rules, and don't like people telling me what to do. Like I said, everyone should have the chance to make their own choices. I made mine long ago. Not really a vigilante, just kinda stick to myself." She was starting to feel like an animal in a cage, and Sophia was poking through the bars trying to figure her out. The only thing she was succeeding at though was adding a dislike for the mansion and their occupants to Tses mind.

"I find that very hard to believe," though an off handed comment, she disagreed greatly that this girl didn't believe in rules. There were rules to everything, Sophia knew this very well, considering she lived in rules all the time, though the rules of physics and math more or less. But math was a universal constant, something even the most bug-eyed aliens and anamorphic aliens could all agree with, even if they could never communicate. Ofcourse, math made sense, it always did, and math was based on rules, someone believing they didn't believe in them only lied to themselves, "Everyone believes in some type of rules, even those who don't believe in them. For example, rather than just walk in to the house, you waited outside for someone to let you in. It may not be a hard set rule, but it's a social rule, you don't enter other people's house without their permission. And you're listening to me, so you listening to my rules. I even bet you walk on the sidewalk and sleep at night… social rules…"

"Though if you'd like to live without rules, there's only a two ways to do it, make it so you're so powerful that you don't have to follow the rules, or go some to a remote location where people don't exist, and thus no one to enforce any rules, except for yourself," though this wasn't the answer, social isolation was never a good answer, even Sophia knew this. Sophia loved people, wanted to be around them and interact with them, though people of her choosing, everyone else could simply crowd around and marvel at her instead. Which was the natural order of things for Sophia, there were few people that Sophia looked up to, and those she didn't look up to, oppositely, needed to look up to her. And when they didn't, their either had to be a good reason, or someone was just lying about their position and pecking order in the world. For now, Sophia wondered if Tses didn't realize her place just yet, or once again, lying to herself.

"Makes me wonder though… why do you don't believe in having or living by rules? First thing that comes to mind is that you dislike authority, an otherwise natural observation. But the rule of science is never to assume, because you know what that makes you?" almost singing the natural answer to the reply, though never saying it. It probably would have been rude in company, but she hummed and said it as though in song, certainly she remember the phrase and knew the answer, but now she was curious about this Tses. Maybe there was more to Tses, and if Sophia knew, maybe this was a chance to prove her usefulness to the mansion and the school a bit more, recruiting someone who didn't want to be here, "But there are quite a bit of benefits from following the rules. Maybe you've just not been introduced to such benefits."

As annoyed as Tses was, she did listen to what Misses Stratfod said. Misses Stratford... She sure didn't seem that much older than Tses, but she had a way of talking that seemed she'd certainly done much more with herself. Tses encounted that problem more often then she'd like to admit. How many 22 year olds couldn't read? Or had never been to school at that. Her life on the streets had taken some things from her, and they were never coming back. That was just a fact. She couldn't be sophisticated and elegant. All she could be was herself, and if people hated her, well, they hated her.

>>"Everyone believes in some type of rules, even those who don't believe in them."

That....made no logical sense to Tses, then again, logic was always so elusive and fickle. Social rules, ok, she could see that, but to Tses, she didn't act how she did because someone told her to; she did it because she wanted to. She always felt there was a difference. As Sophia kept talking and wondering, Tses let her mind wander a bit, considering it. Were there still rules even when she chose what those rules were? Maybe she just had her own rules, and they happened to agree with society. She always just felt she was above rules, but stopping to knock on the door had showed otherwise. She had some boundaries, and she had some barriers. It just depended on the situation. "Well, maybe I'll just reword it then. I don't like being told what to do. Whether it's a rule or an order...I want to do it because I feel like it. I may stop and knock on a door, but it's because I know barging in won't give the the right result. I do it because it'll help in the long run." She paused and glanced around a corner, then back at Sophia.

"Authority has never helped me, why should I help it? Everyone will tell you something different.... some people will insist that cops are there to help, or that rules are there to protect you. But if I respected authority I would be dead by now, because life isn't gentle to a mutant. You rely on yourself, you're the only one who can let you down." It was a simple enough idea to her. She wondered what it was like in that calculated brain of Professor Stratford. She probably thought Tses was ridiculous, first of all, with the strips of cloth wrapped clear to her elbows, holding down a long sleeved undershirt, and topped with a t-shirt. The only skin that showed were the tips of her fingertips, her neck and her face. But even on the edge of her shirt tiny little scars peaked past. She doubted this girl ever had to really survive on her own. She could sure talk about rules, but she was born into privilege. It was easy to listen to rules when they benefit you.

"I think benefits really depend on the person. For instance, you tell a kid not to take an apple out of a bowl. That's a rule. But if they're going to have dinner later, that will be better than the apple, it's not much of a choice because they have an alternative. But take that same kid, starve them for a few days, and then tell them not to take the apple. They have no food, no other hope of food. They're not going to care what you tell them to do. They're going to choose to survive. Rules can benefit you, but they are meant to restrict you." There were some things you could unlearn, sure, but Tses didn't know how to unlearn her habits. It was easy for people to judge when they lived on the other side of the fence. They weren't the one loosing anything. She'd seen the city from the skylines, an infinite horizon of fire during a sunset; she'd seen the city in a snowstorm, a wall of white that bit like fire but froze like ice; she had the city in the palm of her hand, a playground to explore. Why would she surrender that for four walls and some rules? The trials were what made her strong.