A riddle? Maya tried to unpack that thought but zebras and horses were effectively the same to her right now. Sort of blackish and lumpy with a bit of gray at the nostrils. Maybe zebras were a little chubbier? Or context! Maybe he meant context! Zebras were found at a zoo...

None of that made sense when she tried to apply it to this situation in the here and now.

Maya swirled. If it had been a help, then they'd need to try again. If not then maybe she should just go already. "Should I come back to solid? Or, is this okay?" She wasn't feeling particularly friendly toward solidity at the moment. Solid meant he'd see her frown. She'd feel a lot more embarrassed with the physiological effects added back into the mix.

It didn't take Maya too long to realize that she was being a baby about this. He had shown signs of panic. Just because she was used to her every day didn't mean that anyone else had to be. "I don't feel like I have the whole picture, Aiden. I'm sorry if that was too much."

While Maya worked on the whole zebra/horse thing, Aiden took some time to repackage his stress and even put some bigger locks and chains on the boxes. His breathing eased and his colour, such as it was even with the tan he'd painfully gathered, crept back into his skin.

Okay. That wasn't as bad as what had triggered his nightmares, or even the nightmares themselves. He could convince himself of that. It was just going to take a little bit more work.

"Whatever's more comfortable," he said. Apparently he didn't quite have his air supply properly balanced against just yet. A little bit more intentional breathing. That felt better.

He tried again. "That was... closer than I had expected," he said quietly. He still had to sort out the experience into words. "Just. With stripes?" He rubbed his head. Words were not working right now. "That... it reminded me. A lot. A lot more than I expected. It's not exactly the same, but it's definitely closer than... seeing. Actually using eyes, I mean. This was closer to what happened than it is to everyday."

Maya stayed a cloud. It really was more comfortable despite the fact that everyone else hated the sensation. She sighed and the sound slithered unnaturally through the Danger Room as it rode Ghost's power.

She waited without comment while Aiden tried to put things into words. This might really be why they were here. Not actual training. Or rather, good training usually had a basis in psychological need. Maya knew she needed to train more to hone her reactions. She'd let herself slip until her natural inclination was to be as useful as a civilian when things got really hairy. She hadn't always been this bad, but she had taken off a few years.

So had Aiden. Unintentionally.

"So..." She tried to reconstruct his words in plain English again for the benefit of their mutual understanding. "The way that I see reminded you of when you were gone. When you had little or no control?" That part was a guess based on the breathing.

"It's not the same, but it's also not every day for you like it is for me." She couldn't help but throw that last part in because it was true. She could remember that Cafas' hair was pink, but it'd been weeks since she'd actually seen it. Was Rowan's skin still growing darker? Was the sun rising earlier? What color flowers had Cafas left for her on the table at home? 'Oh, they're beautiful.' didn't quite cover it. He was probably starting to suspect...

And all that was very much not why they were here. "Was anything else the same, but with stripes?" If Maya's cloud had been dough, she'd be well kneaded by now. She fidgeted in human shape. She fidgeted in her incorporeal one too.

"Yes," Aiden agreed, grateful for Maya's translation. He'd find a consistent, accurate way of explaining and describing this eventually, he'd have to, but for now it made him feel a lot better about the whole mess if Maya could piece together the little bits he could manage and bounce them back as a more cohesive chunk.

And then he could expand on that. "Zero control. Control's never really been a factor with my mutation. It's always just done what it does when its requirements are met, and the only control I have is to do or avoid those requirements." How he moved, basically; he gave one arm a sort of swooshy gesture, graceful enough for a handful of snowflakes to wink into existence behind its path and drift around before they fell against his chest and stuck there, and then gradually faded as more snow failed to follow.

Another careful breath, but he felt pretty much back to normal now. Aiden pushed himself back to his feet, and didn't wobble. "I could feel more of me with this than before. Before, there wasn't anything to me, nothing physical. I couldn't move because there was nothing to move. I think." Well, that was a lot of talking all in one rush.

Something still felt like it was missing, though. He couldn't put a finger on it, literally or mentally, but there was definitely something somewhere. He tapped the fingers of one hand against his other elbow, arms crossed as he tried to suss it out.

Nope, couldn't catch it. All right then. He looked back up at the roiling cloud of Maya. "Can we try again?"

Huh. Maya supposed that some mutations did work like that, the no control thing. It was a foreign concept to her, though. She'd been raised on control. Her mutation had to be locked up tight at all times. Not that Maya would recommend that to this next generation, it was just interesting to see the consequences of a free-er existence for mutant-kind.

"We can absolutely try again if that's what you think will help. Just remember the stripes, I guess. It's my power, so I'm the one directing you. I move you. Though, I guess you can still move around as far as not letting go takes you." Maya was filling time with her babble really, she had to first form her cloud into a person shape. This was troublesome for her once, but now as simple as thinking about what she looked like in a mirror.

"Give me a sec to form up. If I change someone else I have to start from solid." And the next step, that was packing her pieces in tighter and tighter. She put on weight and sank until Maya touched down, toes first. She went through a quick mental check, touching herself as she went. Clothes? Check. Hair? Check. Had she been wearing shoes before? Uhh. She drew her skirt back and out of the way so that she could check, but honestly she couldn't remember. So, that was probably fine.

"Okay. We're good to go." Maya stepped in and offered her arms again. If the positioning was a tiny bit different, they could be dancing. If they were both incorporeal at the time, would that make them a snow cloud?

Considering that they were effectively standing around and chatting, Aiden seemed to be doing a lot of breathing; as Maya spoke and grew denser, more person-shaped (not that she wasn't a person all the time; was it more or less appropriate to call a mutant human; why was he even thinking about this right now? Standing around and talking aside, this was work) he drew in another measured breath to steady himself just a little bit more.

Okay.

Now that he had a better idea of what to expect, including a lack of unpleasant-to-him heat from Maya's hands, Aiden was able to step up and grasp the senior x-man's wrists again.

This time, he started with his eyes closed, trying to focus on himself without the distraction of literally watching himself disappear. And who knew, maybe Maya's air-sight would be less of a disorienting abrupt w-t-f if it weren't replacing regular sight, but instead taking the place of darkness?

Worth a shot, anyway, and it definitely was helping with his nerves so far.

"Okay. Here we go."

Gasp.

Nothing changed in Maya's vision, but her perception of her body and Aiden's hands changed. She felt less except for their point of contact felt just about as solid as ever. Maya knew from experience that she could grab onto Aiden's foot and she'd feel that too assuming it was already incorporeal. But first, she had to get there.

Maya breathed and the ghosting expanded. She breathed his arms into nothing all the way down to his shoulders before hesitating. This was the point where things got a little hairy last time.

"Still okay?" She inhaled the ghosting into Aiden's torso and let it spread slower than last time. Maybe slow would help? She breathed the ghosting up to the top of his head before she started ghosting down.

With his eyes closed, it was definitely a lot less weird. Sensations he hadn't noticed he sort of noticed as being absent, but couldn't place what exactly they were, and yet Maya's hands remained just as present. Despite the part where he should now be touching her with air instead of skin.

That was thinking into this too much, and probably going to mess it up again. So less thinking, more observing. Calm observation. He wasn't going to try to do anything, just observe it. Objectively. Without distress.

"Still okay," he confirmed when she checked in. Then the off-dullness spread a little further and Maya's style of vision kicked in. He flinched, more at the abrupt awareness really, but now that he had 'seen' what to expect it was a lot easier to just keep breathing normally.

This was how she saw things. Which meant that this did actually represent what was around them, this not-colour stretch that admittedly did do a number on his head. It wasn't just in front of him. It didn't make sense if it was just in front of him, because -

that was the chair

And it was obvious, once he'd made the connection. Especially if he didn't think about how he could sort of see all the way around it at once. But that was undeniably the shape of a chair, specifically the chair he'd made to wait in not so very long ago, and that specific chair was undeniably behind him.

Mechanics aside, this was three dimensional, three-sixty-degree-squared... sight? It was and it wasn't. It definitely wasn't sight as he thought of it, as he'd always thought of it... but then again, he had once thought that mutants were evil somehow, so he should probably not base this on historical assumptions too much.

He was stressing himself out a little too much. Calm. That was the chair, so the... absence attached to it was the floor. Orientation was good. If he paid attention to just that absence, then he could follow it and he should hit a wall. This was the Danger Room; it was an enclosed space.

Aiden exhaled gently, still not thinking too deeply into the idea of breathing while air. "Less disorienting the second time around," he said, almost drily enough to be making a joke.

Whatever he was doing or feeling, it was quiet work. Maybe he was concerned with interrupting her? So Maya gave it her all in going slow and in being thorough all the way through to his toes. There would be no translation errors of clothing or body.

He noted the difference in his comfort level this time and Maya nodded before realizing that even if he could "see" like she could, he wouldn't have the experience to translate incorporeal body language. "Much. I started by seeing less detail than this and it definitely took a while to pull myself together the first time. I didn't have the control to take clothes back and forth, either. So. You know. Baby steps and all that." There was a smile in her voice, easily translated without having to see it.

"You want to see something interesting?" Maya was careful not to move her hands or adjust her grip or anything that might make Aiden think she was going to abandon him. She enough control to make the wind blow without extravagant hand motions or dancing. Not that there was anything wrong with that. She'd just learned to hide everything from the very beginning.

The summoned breeze showed as a sandy ripple, little speckles of movement. She made it swirl and curl and spin out by itself in the vast expanse of whiteness that was the open air of the Danger Room.

"Even when you talk..." There were small bits of... something. She echoed and excited that something the next time she spoke and as a result her next words were incredibly loud. "that's something translated through the air."

So she got baby steps but everyone else got to jump into the deep end blindfolded. Greeeeaaaat.

Well, at least one person got a tutorial of sorts? That was better than no one, he supposed. It did put a lot of weight on that one person to then teach everyone else, which wasn't so fair.

What sort of "Interesting?" What was she going to do? A sliver of almost-suspicion crept in, and he tried to 'watch' everything despite still feeling like he'd rather cling to the floor, at least visually. Physically he very much did not want to let go of Maya's hands just yet. Or as long as she kept him like this. Even if it was getting less disorienting as time went on. As long as he didn't think too much about it.

Or at all about it.

And then the open space exploded in on itself, swirling and coiling like snowflakes on a breeze. Because it... was a breeze. It only took a few... dozen... attempts to remind himself of that and soften his grip. A little piece of his mind was frantically waving a pay attention to this seemingly random cutscene flag at him, but there was kind of a surplus of nope and his head was really starting to hurt.

Maybe this had been a good idea, but it was tiring. At least he'd withstood the sensory overload of the -

and now Maya was shouting. Kind of. He winced away from the aerial movement, although there really wasn't an away from air. Just like there wasn't an away from what had happened to him before.

Calm breathing.

"How do you keep track of it all?" he asked once most of the dizzying movement had subsided. Whether his voice was intentionally quiet or just his usual tone was arguable, but it definitely didn't move as much air as Maya's yell. "There's so much"

Was that a cringe? If she could tell he was cringing then it had to be a pretty big motion.

"Sorry!" Quieter. She was much, much quieter now. "Sorry. It's just, nobody ever gets to see this stuff and only a few ever ask about it." Not even other mutants cared much unless their powers interacted with hers in some way. So... maybe she'd gone a bit far in showing off.

Maya cut the wind show and let the Danger Room fall into stillness. Stillness was weird. Sort of like wearing shoes had never quite felt right to her.

> "How do you keep track of it all? There's so [/i]much.[/i]"

That was a good question. Mega-multi-tasking had become a normal part of Maya's routine at this point. And yet... "I don't want to discourage you, but even now stuff gets away from me, Aiden. I don't always pack myself back together just right. I have a lot more control and raw power than I started with. More than I ever expected to have to juggle. So... I guess the answer is that I don't keep track of it all. I just try to do the best that I can." That wasn't the pep talk she'd intended, but at least it was realistic.

"Remember baby steps? Just... try to focus on the immediate first. My mom always used to say when stuff was terrible that she was going to keep trying stubbornly and stupidly until things worked out." She'd meant that she would decide to stay hopeful even when she shouldn't have. Which... kind of explained a lot of things, actually.

Maya realized that she hadn't thought about her mom in months, if not years... too long.

Oh, she was excited. Aiden... Aiden could understand that. Sometimes it was awesome to be able to just share something with someone, anyone, and given how overwhelming Maya's air vision had just been, with baby steps and explanations and all, well. He could see why a lot of people wouldn't be thrilled to give it a try.

He was also here to work, though. So he had to focus. Not keep track of it all? Maybe that was the trick after all. Filter out the extra. But how did you filter out what you couldn't not see?

Well, even when he was looking at something with his actual physical eyes he wasn't seeing everything in his range of vision. He only focused on one part at a time. He did it automatically, but maybe it was something he could learn to do at will as well. It would probably take a lot of practicing, and practicing would probably make his nightmares worse... but if that was what it took. To get this under control. To be a better part of the team. To be better himself.

Okay, the third part really wasn't much of a motivator for him. But the rest mattered. Okay.

"I think I have my head around it at least," he said. "Which means the next part, I guess, is trying to figure out how I get into whatever state that does... that. For me. Or whatever."

Well, there went useful words.

"So, how to trigger your alternate form?" Maya was getting kinda good at this translation thing, if she did think so herself.

"The most logical way might be to recreate your conditions the first time it happened?" Which, she was going to guess, did not include incorporeality. "I'm going to set you down now unless you'd like to keep looking around."

How best to do this? There was the chair. Dropping people out of incorporeality worked best over softer surfaces. Instead, Ghost moved her hands one at a time until she had captured Aiden's hands in her own. She gave them a squeeze while she tried to keep their forms as together and as close to the ground as possible.

"Make sure you think you're standing and then let go when you're ready. Shouldn't be more than an inch drop."

Recreate the conditions. That was... what he thought and what he'd irrationally wanted to avoid. How else would he go about it, really? Only problem was...

"I really don't remember much in the way of useful details from right before. I guess maybe something happened really suddenly, but I couldn't say what." Just - gone.

First things first, though. Stopping being air. He'd almost managed to forget. Somehow. Air in, air out, air into air but he wasn't going to think about that right now. That was better. So. Make sure he thought he was standing, she said. How did he make sure he thought he was standing? He felt like he was standing, kind of.

Know what? Even if he was upside down, he was pretty sure he was close to the ground and this was also the Danger Room. They wouldn't even need to get Doc Prof if he somehow managed to hurt himself. Maya could just yell at the computer to make it snow and he'd be fine.

Aaaaand hands released.

He was not as upright as he'd thought, but the chair was soft enough for the side of his head.

Oops. "Ack! Are you okay? Are you bleeding? Talk to me." She had told him to think "standing." It wasn't her fault that he hadn't quite mastered visualization.

Hm. Maybe that was part of his problem?

Maya began the process of bringing herself back to her physical form. The more weight she filled in, the more fatigue she felt. She didn't usually do this much back and forth right away. Certainly not with a passenger.

"So you were camping? Right? Do you want to make the Danger Room like that? Maybe it'll jog... something?" A memory or... something.