Masque had grown to deeply resent winter.  It hadn't always been the case, of course.  Back in a distant time and a past life when he always had a warm place to stay and new clothes without holes in them, winter was just another time of year.  Sometimes it was even a fun time of year where he was free to play and frolic in the snow and there was something sort of enchanting about the way a new snowfall made everything sparkle in the sunlight.  That was a long time ago, however, and now it was a constant struggle just to stay warm.  He was more fortunate than some because he did have a dry place to sleep, although that wasn't always the case, but he was still forced to remain outside for hours on end, panhandling and begging in order to ensure he kept his humble abode and was actually able to eat regular meals.  

It was just starting to get dark and Masque was walking back purchasing some warmer clothing.  It was second hand as almost all this clothing was; there was no telling what he would do if that wasn't an option.  Steal, most likely, and that wasn't something he especially wanted to be forced into.  It was't that he was any stranger to breaking the law since he was well aware that the occasional income he brought in through his hacking skills wasn't exactly legal, but there was just something that felt different about breaking the law digitally and doing so up front in person.  Maybe it was the fact that he didn't have to see his victim's faces when it was all done through a computer.  Besides, he had never been much of a fighter.

Snow had begun to fall some time ago, the first real snowfall of the season, and Masque wrapped his arms miserably around himself trying by willpower alone to prevent the flakes from melting through his jacket.  He walked with his head down, not paying a lot of attention to where he was going.  Soon he'd be home and once he was home he'd be able to get warm again, at least for a little while.

Snow! Real, natural snow that didn't stop however many feet away from him, but just kept falling from the sky!

Considering what had happened the last time there had been a normal snowfall, Aiden's euphoria might be just a little excessive. Just a little. But still, his relief was dizzying and he'd already spent several hours just wandering around in the endless snow, just a faint white ghost drifting through the drifting white fog of snow.

At some point, he had wandered right off the Mansion's grounds. He was paying absolutely no attention to where he was going, and simply reveling in the endless white. Hm. The sensation and knowledge that he was in absolutely peak physical condition and would remain so as long as it kept snowing might be an element of that. So be it! It wasn't like he was likely to get hurt-

His thoughts were abruptly interrupted by walking straight into something or someone. He lurched sideways, corrected his balance, and turned back. By the time he realized that it was a someone rather than a something, he had already entirely forgotten that he'd hit hard enough to bruise himself a bit under normal conditions. "I'm sorry," he said quickly, "Are you okay?"

Just a little bit further were the words that kept repeating inside Masque's head.  Over and over again the litany continued, as if trying to convince himself that the more he thought the words the truer they'd become.  If he had proper winter wear then it wouldn't be quite so bad, but his experience had long proven that wishes didn't  take you very far in life.  Only a little bit further and he'd make his way home and curl up in some warm blankets away from the miserable weather.

Miserable thoughts were abruptly interrupted when he collided unexpectedly with something slightly soft feeling of which words of apology suggested was human.  His hard skin protected him quite soundly from such minor incidents so the collision was far more startling then it was actually painful.  Before he could think to prevent it, thick red and black lines of shock appeared all over his usually pale white body, an unconscious reaction to the emotion of startlement.

"I'm sorry, Are you okay?"

Masque quickly nodded his reassurance, feeling confused as he heard the words clearly and felt the solidness of a body clearly but didn't immediately see anything.  It took a moment for his eyes to focus on what was in front of him and the truth became clear.  He wasn't the only mutant on the path, the other appearing to be something of a living snowman.  Sort of.  No wonder he hadn't seen him immediately.

The flush of red and black in the endless white of the snow was a very good indicator that Aiden had the fortune to have run into a mutant and not a human. Given his current state of declaration, it was a very good thing. Although, in retrospect, why was he wandering around outside the mansion like this?

Oh right, the snow went to his head. Yeah.

The other mutant nodded but didn't speak, and didn't seem to be looking at him - oh. There. Aiden glanced down at himself and did have to admit he really wasn't exactly obvious at the moment, even to his own eyes. "I should have been watching where I was going," he admitted. "The break from the heat kind of... well, it kind of went to my head." He rubbed the back of his neck, torn between sheepishness at being so distracted as to walk into someone, awkwardness at being so open with a stranger, and stubbornness at forcing himself to keep being open. Standing orders and all.

Masque didn't quite know what the other person meant when he said the break from the heat went to his head but maybe it was some kind of funny mutant thing.  Feeling slightly confused or not, it always paid to be polite so he nodded and smiled his understanding.  Well, as much understanding as he could claim given the surreal situation, anyway.

Feeling it necessary to offer an apology of his own and despite the cold, Masque rolled up a sleeve so that the lower part of his arm was exposed.  His arm faded back to white and his usual neat black writing appeared upon it.  'I should have been paying attention as well.  Apologies.'  The writing faded a few moments later and he bowed towards the stranger, offering a sheepish smile of his own.

It struck Masque, not for the first time, that his life had recently taken upon a very strange turn.  'You know you are almost invisible out here.'  The words appeared and then faded.  Yes, he probably was proclaiming the obvious.

Seeing someone who was obviously not as comfortable with the cold as he himself was baring more skin was kind of awkward. Aiden shifted in confusion until black appeared on the exposed arm. Oh, writing! That was curious. Interesting. Had a certain versatility, but if this guy was choosing to let more cold in to do it, it probably came with its own array of limitations.

He supposed he was hard to see, wasn't he? It was never a huge issue in the danger room, since it was only his own snow, which rarely got very heavy (and tended to be followed by fainting rather than dizziness, so when he could help it he avoided making it heavy) and had a definite a.o.e. thing going on, but out here... All the white kind of just blended together, didn't it?

"I should probably find some way to be more obvious," he admitted, "but anything I wear just turns white too. I only look like this when it's snowing."

Despite the misery of the cold, Masque couldn't help himself a smile at the idea of clothing changing along with skin.  No, he had no idea if this stranger's power worked anything like his own except replace snow with, well, anything he desired really but how useful would it be if his clothing changed along with his skin?  The chameleon aspect of his own power was somewhat limited given the fact that his clothing remained as bright or as dull as it ever did, but it seemed this other person didn't have the same limitation.

With a thought, the bright streaks that had appeared on his skin disappeared just as quickly as they had appeared.  From its usual slightly off coloured white, he modified its shade to more properly match that of the snow, a more clean white compared to his usual slightly off white.  If the texture of his skin still wasn't quite right and the shade was just a little bit off of snow, he knew it was still a pretty good imitation.  He grinned at the snowman mutant, ignoring the shiver that went down him.

'I wish my clothing would change colour too but I guess I can see how sometimes it may not be needed'.  The writing appeared on his arm before reverting to the particular shade of white he had chosen to assume for the moment.  'I guess in some ways the grass is always greener, so to speak'.  Or to write, as the case usually was with him.

Aiden found himself actually smiling as the colour-changing stranger sharpened to a fair approximation of his own current tone. The expression was short-lived, but then it was the most positive one to find its way to his face in a long time. There was something... curiously uplifting about a total stranger mirroring you, with no detectable hint of derision, condescension, or insult. But still. He wasn't an outgoing or overly cheerful person, and his life had plenty of nasty stuff still. No smiles. Nope.

"I wouldn't mind them changing to other colours than white," Aiden admitted, "but I suppose it is the only thing that makes sense with the snow, and random colours would kind of make me awkwardly obvious in the snow." He shrugged. "At any rate, green grass usually means it's too warm out for me. This weather isn't for everyone, but it is more my speed."

Masque got the distinct impression that the young mutant's power had more to do with the snow than just changing colour to match it.  Was it polite to ask a fellow mutant about the particulars of their powers?  He really wasn't certain, not having had enough interaction with the mutant community to know what was considered polite and what wasn't.

'It must be hard to function if its too warm most of the time,' Masque mentally wrote upon his arm.  Summer was a pleasant time of year for him and one he wished would come back although he knew such wasn't too likely.  Maybe he'd move some place tropical one day.

'My name is Masque, by the way.'  Introductions at least seemed a safe bet.  He extended the hand in which he wasn't writing on for shaking.

"This past summer was pretty bad," Aiden admitted. "I spent most of it holed up in the coolest, quietest corner I could find. Fortunately, I didn't have a lot to do at the time. Next summer will probably be worse." He shrugged. "Better understanding, though."

Oh, introductions. Right. Normal social stuff. "Aiden," he replied, taking Masque's hand with a hesitant but not limp grip. "Nice to meet you. I hope I didn't interrupt anything," he said quickly, belatedly realizing that he'd just been standing around talking for a while. Weird... Anyway. "Were you heading somewhere in particular?"

'Why should next summer be worse?'  The letters appeared and Masque couldn't help feeling a bit bad for him.  'I guess it might be tough when your ideal environment isn't the same as others.'  While he himself didn't much like these cold winter days, at least he didn't have to worry about that being much different than those around him.  It wasn't exactly uncommon, after all for people to dislike winter.

'You didn't interrupt anything,' Masque answered.  The handshake he received was a bit tentative but he had never been the sort to judge a person by how they shook hands.  Where would the logic in that even be?  'I was just heading home.  Nothing important at all.'  Home wasn't much but it was all he had in the world at that moment.

Why? "Demands on my time and required exercise, mostly. Harder to hole up all the time." And by next summer, he wouldn't be quite as useless a trainee as he was now. More experience, legally able to do more things, no longer a high school student... Yeah. Chances were he'd have a ton more to do and could well be even more susceptible to heat, from what he'd heard (vaguely) about how often mutations were a bit unstable. Especially following their initial emergence. Aiden was definitely hoping his had sorted everything out in the one go.

"Oh. Well, that's good." Yes. It was good that he didn't mess up some random person's schedule as well as run into them. Very good. Almost as good as letting Masque go on his way would be.

'More busy equals less solitude," Masque nodded the words appearing in his usual neat and tidy script. It made sense.  'Solitude is one thing I have plenty of now days.'  The words tinted blue with the emotion drawn from that fact.  It wasn't that he disliked solitude; he was something of an introvert, after all.  The problem was when solitude was his always and every day, when there was no one in the world to call friend or family.  That was his life and there seemed little prospect in that changing anytime soon.

'Well, I suppose I should let you go back to whatever it was you were doing,' Masque wrote.  He didn't want to let him go, didn't want to go back to his home all alone again but he knew he had no right to ask anything of this stranger and certainly had no right to expect him to keep him company just because he was busy feeling sorry for himself.  He looked at the ground, feeling uncertain.  

Oh, what a horror it would be to have more solitude. Too much of a good thing wasn't such a good thing, though. Aiden did know that, even if he would almost invariably cling with all his might to solitude over socialization.

Masque seemed less certain about it, though. Aiden was about to agree and continue on his way, but Masque definitely looked less than happy. He hesitated. He had nothing to offer the older mutant, as far as he knew, and he didn't have the social skills to work out either what he could do or even what was really going on. Stay and make things awkward on the off chance he might be able to fix... something, or take the opening and go home.

Yeah, he had no clue what to do. Maybe next time this sort of thing came up he would be able to handle it better. For now, though, he just nodded politely. "See you around," he said neutrally, and headed off through the snow again.

"See you around,"

Masque couldn't blame him for wanting to be gone.  After all, they were complete strangers with only the fact that they were both mutants tying them together.  It had been a chance encounter on a random night.  No, he really couldn't blame him at all.

'See you around,' Masque wrote before turning back around to make his way back home.  It would be another cold and lonely night but he was used to them by now.  Such was his life and that was just the way things were.  No use in making more out of simple reality than that.