"There's too much here. People."

Alex nodded in understanding, there was a lot more stimulus here than there was out there. New York was a busy city but that didn't mean you had to stick around. There was a whole world out there. Which reminded him, he needed to bother Sam, no his dad now, about doing camping some time. He hadn't spent any significant amount of time in the outdoors in a long time.

He was listening to Adder answer his question when Maya's book sudden dropped and the woman...well became cloud-like. It seemed that simply holding a normal shape was hard for some people. He couldn't imagine how long it she had been holding herself together like that. He watched, along with Adder, as Maya and her plate floated over to the sink.

He glanced over at Adder, the tension in the young man was practically palatable. Adder seemed ready to spring out of the chair and run screaming in the other direction. He saw Adder glance his way and he could only shrug in response before going back to his own plate of food as calmly as he could.

She was not oblivious to the change in Adder, since she'd been watching him closely, but she tried not to get her feelings all muddled about it. Turning into a cloud was weird. But then again, they were at the Mansion where weird was actually normal. So he could just... get over it.

"Play nice you two." She didn't mean to have it sound like a threat, but it could be interpreted that way.

Maya deposited her plate into the sink and breezed herself away.

They were just kids. It was fine. They probably wouldn't hurt each other just because she was no longer chaperoning.

...The person who had given him food and tea left. Adder remained as he'd been for a few moments longer, almost-maybe-not-really-but-kind-of hoping she'd come back, but her scent faded with the speed of the fully gone. Just the traces of fuzzy-tingly-sharp-air drifted through the room now, probably stronger where she'd been but it wasn't like her smell would do things like get food and tea.

He also didn't need food or tea now. He'd had them both. So Maya leaving wasn't that bad. But it still felt a little bit odd.

He shook himself. It was just being left alone with a strange person. That was the odd part. He tilted his head at the younger guy who had given him food and smelled of ground and old things. Now what was he supposed to do? What did Maya mean by 'play nice?' Was it a warning not to fight? He wasn't looking for a fight.

Did that mean that this guy looked for fights? Was he going to attack?

And then she was going, throwing out, "Play nice you two." like they were going to fight otherwise. It didn't seem to help Adder's tension, the fear he seemed to hold. He needed to find someway to calm the other down before the poor guy tackled him or ran out of the room screaming. But he really couldn't think of anything, well not a whole lot more than just play it cool.

No need to interrogate the kid or startle him with any sudden movements. So he just kept eating with one hand and went back to work on his paper with the other. "Don't worry, I'm not the type to attack without cause. You don't attack me, I won't attack me. Simple as that."he said, feeling that it needed to be said.

Hopefully his calm demeanor and words were enough to keep the wolfish boy from acting on some self defense instinct. He was not prepared to have a fight this early in the morning. He hadn't been for some time, to be honest.

Apparently Maya was just chattering and didn't mean anything by the play-nice comment. Adder snorted and settled back into the chair.

...

Now what? Should he stay here? Should he go back to his room or wander around or-

What was the other guy doing? He shifted, trying to make himself a little taller without just standing up on the chair. He could see the paper and that he was writing on it, but that was it. That wasn't enough to know what he was doing. It most likely wasn't anything worth doing himself, whatever it was, but it was a more immediate maybe-option than anything else he had.

"What are you doing?" he eventually asked.

Alex glanced over at him then back at the paper before sliding it over. Right now he was working on the anatomy portion of his biology homework, the classic picture of the dissected frog splayed out for labeling. "Biology homework, a lot of years behind in school but they make it interesting enough to catch me up. Bio is probably the one section I'm at grade level for my age."

He rested his cheek on his fist, letting Adder look however much he wanted. "Probably not that interesting for you though."he added off hand, knowing that right now Adder must find the idea of homework baffling. No apparent survival worth in filling out a worksheet after all.

Adder stiffened a little bit when the other guy started to move, but held off bolting until he saw it was just to pass the paper. It was... a frog? A picture of a frog, kind of, with lines everywhere. He wasn't used to people drawing frog guts, or really anything guts. He was much more used to pictures of healthy, perfect-seeming things.

"You're... behind in school?" And why worry about frog guts? They were all equally slimy but edible. And there wasn't really anything dangerous about them. Maybe that they could swim underwater and were slimy enough to be hard to catch. Learning about rats seemed more useful. They at least had nasty teeth. Or birds. How they flew, maybe.

"Why frogs?" Maybe there was actually some reason to it.

He supposed to someone on the outside looking in, the picture must have been strange. The dissected frog with the blanks half filled in gruesome in comparison to what was usually out there. But for school, and for him especially it was a refresher on what was going on below the surface. The skin on top only showed so much, the inner structure was just as important.

"Yeah, I'm about 3 or so years behind on school. Not up to the level I should be for my age, but I'm catching up."he said with a shrug. For Adder, he was guessing that it was far, far longer. The feral seeming boy might never catch up unless he intensely put himself into work as soon as possible. But it was doubtful that the other boy saw any value in it.

"Frogs because, well one it's a biology class basic and two, the inner anatomy gives us incite to our own anatomy. For instance..."he paused a moment to pick an organ from the picture then point to it on himself, "The frog has a liver here and so do we, right under the rib cage. It's not an exact match but it's similar. Also, it kind of helps with my mutation."

He pulled what he had left of his plate over. "Now don't freak out, I just want to show you."he said softly, knowing how jumpy the other boy was. It barely took a thought, turning what was left of his food into a single large bullfrog, similar to the one in the picture. Not with it's guts splayed of course, but alive and breathing.

Three years. Long enough to be vague, not long enough to be like Before. Vague like 'biology basic class.' And the words Adder didn't know. He could piece things together quickly, though: he knew what a lot of innards looked like, and he connected the line drawing with the actual shape and colour and scent and taste. Lots of animals he'd eaten had had that organ. It really was very similar.

Adder blinked once at the 'biology' guy. Mutation display? With no indication of threat. Okay. Adder's ears perked forward a bit, and then suddenly instead of food there was a frog. An actual frog.

There were still traces of food-smell, but he definitely smelled frog now. He inhaled deeply. Very much frog.

"Can you make bad food into frogs too?" he asked, still watching the frog. Imagine that. Turning rotten, sickening food into live things, not-rotten moving food.

He watched the other boy sniff at his creation curiously. He probably was picking up on a lot of things that Alex couldn't sense. But he could tell that what he had said previously had probably flown right over Adder's head. Another hint at the feral boy's past, he had been out of school far longer than Alex. Long enough that a simple word like liver wasn't recognizable but the idea was there.

He was getting the feeling that Adder was going to need a lot of help integrating back in to normal life. If he even wanted to. Adder might be too far gone, might not be comfortable or happy with school and who was he to judge.

"Can you make bad food into frogs too?"

"Oh I can make more than just frogs, depending on how much material I have to work with I can make quite a few animals. Though, keep in mind...you can't eat them."he said before gently picking up the frog. "I'm connect with everything I create, if they were hurt or killed I would feel it too, and ultimately I might loose them." He released the connection, letting the frog crumble to dust in his hands.

Adder reconsidered biology-earthy-kid. He could make animals. It seemed strange, even for a mutant, but Adder had just seen it happen. There was a breathing frog right there.

He was less impressed by the lack of nommability. That made the made-animals less useful, but not useless. This place did have lots of food, he supposed, so there could be other uses for things. Maybe the animals could be really good at going and getting food without being harassed. Or if they were harassed, they still weren't him.

Adder's ears flicked as an idea rolled around the side of his mind. "Do you feel everything they feel? What happens to them, what's around them? What they can smell and hear-" hey, they were super important to him even if most people didn't seem to smell anything ever "- what they see? Can you be somewhere without being there yourself?" Pain was survivable, but some situations weren't. And sometimes it was hard to tell how survivable a situation was until you were right smack in the middle of it.

Now he really had Adder's attention, this was something mutual they could work off of. Maybe establish a connection. Alex didn't know why but he wanted to help this kid, get him better oriented. Adder's chances of survival were much better here than out there, struggling for every little scrap of food.

"Yeah, to a degree I do sense what they sense. I can smell, hear, see, and feel what they feel. I can tell them what to do and even ask them to hunt for me. But if they get hurt I feel that too and if it's fatal I have to let them go. Otherwise I might pass out."he explained. There was always a catch, no power was without one.

He had to wonder, what was Adder's catch? What was his weakness? Hell was was his power? The wolf-like qualities were there, heightened senses, most likely revolving around scent. But could he see better in the dark, was his jaw stronger, was he faster than an average human? If he did have wolf-like qualities, did that mean he had wolf-like tendencies, like needed a pack or avoiding eye contact?

These questions buzzed in his head but he held them in, not wanting to overwhelm the other boy.

This was definitely getting more interesting, and a lot more complex than just turning bad food into good food, however useful that would be. Which was a lot. Turning bad food into good food was incredibly useful and he might even be open to trading his mutation for it. As long as it didn't come with drawbacks that countered the usefulness. His mutation didn't really have any drawbacks that he could think of. Except maybe things being too loud and distracting. And not being able to hold a shift if there was too much going on around him. And people being stupid and not being able to tell the difference between a shifted wolf and a predator to run away from while screaming for police or animal control or God.

Although... people screaming for God to help them just because they'd crossed paths with him in the dark was usually pretty funny. So there was that.

"So you could use them to go and get things for you," he mused aloud, trying to shift himself back to the present and away from general considerations. "Or do they have to stay where you can see them or something?" He'd met mutants who manipulated things that weren't part of them, things that couldn't be manipulated in that way by other people, but a lot of them were very range-limited. Corners were great when being chased by people like that. Also when being chased by people with guns. Corners were also very useful against guns.

"So you could use them to go and get things for you, or do they have to stay where you can see them or something?"

Alex shrugged, "Generally, yes I can. If I keep them small enough I can send them out hours ahead of me to scout a route ahead or if a place is safe to stay. I've actually mapped the vents of this whole building using insects so I don't get lost." There was more to it than that but he didn't want to spell out everything. He was sure Adder was smart enough to infer what all that meant.

For himself, the pros of his powers definitely outweighed the cons. He never was without company, his power allowed him a variety of strategies, and if need be he could always count on a construct to quickly find him help. Though, the necessary food consumption and sleep required to maintain it all was difficult. Being here had allowed him flexibility and a safe place to practice and get stronger. But even after all this time, consumption was his greatest weakness. He was always in need of more.

Still, it was nice to see Adder was fascinated by his ability and was now openly engaged in conversation with him.

Adder could maybe approve of how this guy thought, even if he hadn't been on the street for all that long. He had some sense, at least. The wolf shifter leaned in a bit closer. He didn't fit through vents, but then he could map places like this, with such a variety of people in residence, by scent instead. Different abilities, different advantages.

He tilted his head a bit. Now that he had learned more about this guy's powers, he couldn't find a way of actually using the information. He had been curious, and it wasn't as if he were bored, but now that he knew... what should he do with it? He had already known that this place had vents, but he also already knew that he couldn't travel through them. The most he could do was listen and scent through them. Hm. If he had the vents mapped, then he could better predict where scents and sounds were coming from, what part of the building, maybe even what room.

Not a ton of uses for that here, but it was a resource. Knowledge about local environments was a resource, and one that didn't get used up when he used it. More the opposite. The more he used it, the more of it he had.

He supposed knowledge about people could maybe be like that too, but he'd mostly rather just not be around people. So yeah.