Good, she had an appointment in the wings. Sometimes it was booking in that was the hardest part. Although, the fact that she would need a buddy did complicated things a bit. Hopefully it meant that she would make it to the appointments though. The fact that the counsellor was police appointed was good as well. She didn’t doubt the X-men or their abilities for getting stuff done, but she worried a little about their post-incident support.

Nightmares plagued her still. But they had been worse before.

“I always dreamt that I was suffocating. Getting out of the situation I was in helped most of all. I was on sleeping tablets for a while, which helped with the sleeping bit but not so much the nightmares.”

In fact, not being able to wake up from the nightmares was almost as bad as not sleeping at all.

“I guess removing as much of the issue as you can, then trying to be peacefully resting before actually going to sleep. I sleep better with someone else, but that’s not always an option.”

The childlike reaction of ‘I’m scared, can I sleep with you?’ only worked to a certain age, after which certain trade-offs were assumed. She wasn’t ashamed to admit sometimes she had made those trades just to get a good nights’ sleep. It was really only as selfish as the other participants’ side of the deal.

“At the beginning I made little rules as well- ‘he can’t hurt me if my phone is on the charger’ or ‘I’ll be fine as long as I take my vitamins’.”

Perhaps it was unwise to share the actions of terror. But at least then Shelby would have something to hold onto until she got to the shrink.

She nodded along, attentively listening. "I can try that." She replied. She hadn't tried sleeping anywhere other than her assigned room, in her assigned bed. She made a mental note to try 'napping' places.

The bit about sleeping with someone else she knew all too well. She was just to terrified to ask someone about it, considering she only knew a handful of the people at this place. She liked the idea about making herself rules too. "Thank you. I hope maybe incorporating some of those ideas of yours into my routine will help." She chuckled, "It's getting really hard to hide it." It was a hollow laugh.

She cast a glance to the side, unsure if she should address what the woman had said. The 'he can't hurt me' part, specifically. Not like she was in any position to offer advice. The very sight of a package of gummy worms filled her with dread.

"Normally I paint when i'm like this," She angled a glance down at her feet, at the unfinished painting. "It used to help." She frowned and sipped at her milk again, debating just how much she was allowed to spill to the nurse.

Zinnia nodded along with the hollow laughter. It was marginally better than tears. Marginally.

“I hope so too. And I hope you don’t have to hide it for too long.”

Not that she could really talk. Only a few people knew the details of just how bad her abusive relationship had become before she escaped it. It was something she rarely spoke about. It also wasn’t stopping her from eating, drinking or carrying about her business though. So.

“Painting is good, it uses the other side of your brain and literally takes your mind off things. Lots of people colour for the same reason. Plus lots of people aren’t as good at painting as you are.”

Even unfinished she could see the skill behind the brush strokes. It was way better than anything she could dream of doing. It helped that the subject was one she held in highest regard too.

“When it’s finished I’d be interested in buying it, if it’s not promised to anyone else.”

She needed more nice artwork to hang, bare walls were just so… empty.

“Do you feel safer here at least?” Sometimes it was hard to distance oneself from the fear enough to actually realise that this was a safe space. The girl managed to force down some more milk and Zinnia was proud of her effort. It wasn’t much, but for an empty stomach anything was a boon. With gummy worms seemingly off the menu she cast about for anything else easy to eat. She needed plain rice and sugar. A chef she was not, but even as handicapped in the kitchen as she was she could make a mean rice pudding.

She simply smiled at the woman, a short brittle smile. There wasn't much she could say other than 'me too.'

"Can't say i'm not happy to hear that. Last three years of college would have been a waste, otherwise." A true smile this time. "I'm in my third year toward my BFA." She paused, thinking over that, and then clarified. "Bachelors of fine arts degree. Pratt Institute."

Fiddling with her cup, she moved her eyes around the room. Then the offer to buy the piece caught her attention and drew it back. "Really?" She blinked, sitting up a little higher in her chair. "I mean, I would need to get permission from the model before I could sell it. She doesn't exactly know that i'm painting her... yet..." That would be a discussion for another time.

"Safe?" She echoed, gaze growing distant again. "I feel safer here than anywhere else, but..." She blinked away sudden tears, and breathed out slowly through her nose. "I dunno. I guess the whole world just feels upside down right now." She laughed again, this time with actual feeling in it. "If it helps, Saph pretty much swore to me that this was the safest place on earth, and anyone who attacked it would have to be a complete idiot."

BFA=… Best Friends Applesauce? Pinkie clarified and she resisted the urge to smack herself in the head with a ‘duh’. Of course it was an arts degree, that made much more sense. Zinnia let out a tiny chuckle as Shelby admitted this was a sneaky piece.

“Sure, just don’t tell her her girlfriend is buying it, that would ruin the surprise!”

She winked conspiratorially. She hadn’t actually checked with Jac if they were referring to each other as girlfriends in public now, but Shelby seemed like she could keep the secret. Plus she seemed like a little bit of humour would do her good. Zinnia moved to put the milk into the fridge as Shelby agreed that the Mansion was a safehouse. If she wasn’t safe here she wasn’t safe anywhere.

“I agree with the idiot statement. It takes ages just to get let in!”

She rummaged about in the fridge and found a few ingredients which might tempt the pink one into eating, although if gummy worms wouldn’t do the trick, what would?

“Do you want porridge or rice pudding?”

It was like giving a kid the option between carrots or broccoli. They didn’t actually have a choice about eating their veggies, but they –felt- like they did. She moved to the cupboard and retrieved the grains. Even if Shelby only managed two spoonfuls it would satisfy her. A girl can live on bread alone, you know.

... Girlfriends? She blinked and then her mouth made a little 'o' and she fully understood. Jack was Zinnia's significant other. They were a couple! She giggled to herself, nodding, "Gotcha. Scouts honor I won't spill the beans."

When it came to what she liked better, she had to think about what her brain would really let her eat. "...uh.. plain porridge? I don't know if I can handle anything super sweet." Or anything green. Or anything even remotely vinegar. Or meat.

Thinking about it was making her sick, she forcefully turned her attention elsewhere.

The tiny giggle made her grin into the pantry. Thinking about Jac did that to her anyway, but the fact that the thought seemed to have cheered up Shelby made her doubly pleased. Plain porridge it was. She scooped the oats into the pot, measured out some milk and stirred carefully until there was a smooth consistency to the grain paste. She sprinkled in a little salt for flavour and tested a little bit on a teaspoon to make sure it was done before tossing the teaspoon into the sink and dishing the porridge evenly into two bowls. She set a pot of honey and a banana between them and added a banana to her own bowl in neat slices.

“You don’t have to eat it all,” she encouraged, “just enough that you aren’t running on empty”.

It was hard to make good decisions on an empty stomach, and the last thing she wanted was to find out later the girl had done something stupid because she was too hungry to think better of it. She had been in that position too.

“Have you always been artistic?”

Taking up an art degree didn’t seem like something you just did for no reason. Plus, it was a safe topic. She hoped.

"Thank you." The plain porridge was much different from other foods, she noticed. She hadn't eaten anything like it in a long, long while. Her diet at the dorms had basically consisted of eggo waffles and however much ramen she was able to get into her stomach. Not the healthiest, and certainly the most stereotypical... but also the cheapest thing you could buy.

When it was set in front of her she wrinkled her nose, expecting the worst... but one taste and she found that it wasn't much different from drinking water. It had it's own taste, sure... but it was super bland as well. She didn't have much trouble getting at least a few bites down before she gave it a pause.

"I'm sure if you were to ever ask my mom, she would say yes." She chuckled, "but really I only started taking art seriously in Middle school." She could still remember the defining moment when she had decided that she wanted to be able to draw. Not just good, but at all. She'd forced herself to learn the basics through a few years of tracing and repetition, before a creative flare had taken her over and she started to develop her own style.

"I grew up in Seattle, not here. New York is bigger, obviously, but Seattle manages to pack a lot of stuff into a very small space." She envisioned the lights. The street art, and the various shops that littered the patchwork streets. "There is a huge focus on art."

Good, good, let the oats flow through you… She ate her own porridge with occasional nods at Shelby to encourage her. She had a little more colour in her face now, and didn’t look like she was about to upchuck. All in all a success.

“That’s pretty far. Did you come to New York to study... or…?”

Or because it was one of the largest mutant hubs and one of the most accepting, despite the riots and the occasional disappearance. That was nothing compared to the hate some places dished out.

“What’s your mutation? If you don’t mind me asking…”

Some people did mind. For some it was the registration act still too raw a wound, for others it was too personal a question, still others had powers that just didn’t bear talking about. Like the fart-mancer in her class a year ago. Man, she wished she’d never asked about that particular mutation.

"Came here for school." She let her spoon dip into the bowl and played with her food a little. "Don't get me wrong, there were plenty of schools in Seattle." lopsided smirk graced her lips. "There just weren't many offering the degree I wanted. A lot of the art scene over there was focused on graphic artists, animation, and the like. I was looking for more of a conventional 'fine art' angle. Old school."

The next question caught her off guard and she blinked owlishly at the woman. "...Mutation?"

Then it all came back to her and her cheeks flushed red. The cover story! Oh s%$t! She'd forgotten all about it, practically. A nervous laugh proceeded what she was about to say, and she scratched at her chin. "Promise not to tell?"

A beat passed. "I'm not actually a mutant... but I've got a pretty powerful mutant after me. Saph, that guy I keep mentioning? He's the one who originally saved me, and set the whole thing up. My cover name is 'Heidi', by the way."

Nervously she shifted in her seat. "Kinda forgot about that whole thing while talking too you." She smiled, and hoped that the news wasn't going to turn their interaction sour in any way. So far she really liked Zinnia. The woman seemed really very caring. It was nice to see the school cared enough about their students to make sure to hire good people.

Tradiiiiiition. Tradition! So she was more of a fruit bowl and windmill type of gal, and less of a manga and mutations type. Apparently very less on the mutations type. She dipped her head in agreement to be secret keeper. So it was witness-protection-from-a-mutant type deal.

She couldn’t imagine how scary that would be, to be utterly powerless against the person who pursued you. Mutants so often operated outside the law too. Perhaps that was why the X-men had taken her in, dealing with what the law couldn’t. As often was the case.

“Heh, secret’s safe with me, Heidi. Do you have a cover mutation? Power yodelling?”

Was that racist? She couldn’t remember anything other than the cover of the book entitled by the same name. But it definitely had goats and a mountain on it.

“I’m glad to get your mind off it for a bit. And glad they’ve got you in here. For sure if there was anywhere to be safe from a mutant it’s surrounded by them. I don’t believe in the METAs, to be honest, ever since one tried to arrest me for breathing, but the X-men,” she shrugged, “the ones I’ve met are nice guys.”

Even though she had only met one fully-fledged X, and the other was a trainee and had punched her in the face the first time they met. But still.

A grin caught somewhere between embarrassed and entertained slowly crept onto her lips. "Whenever I breath out I make the room slightly warmer."

She chuckled, "Not the most creative thing, but also pretty hard to disprove."

She cringed at the mention of the bots. "I've run into a few." Hadn't really been much of a help in retrospect. "Good intentions really, but I don't anything beats a good ol'fashion brain."

Not to mention the many cases of them malfunctioning, which it sounded like Zinnia had personal experience with. "Did a bot really try to arrest you for that?!"

Ah, breath powers, a mutation close to her… lungs. She nodded to the mention of proving it. No point going big and flashy at a school where people were sure to ask for a demonstration. Better to go with something subdued, heavens knows she couldn’t prove her own power without so pretty flashy medical instruments. Or a METAbot, but the further those trashcans with guns stayed away from her the happier she was.

“Yeah unfortunately. IDed me as a mutant, demanded that I shut my mutation off and then chased me down with a gun when I couldn’t. Scary stuff. My mutation is a little similar to your cover – I can breathe gases other than oxygen. Difficult to prove, impossible to switch off.”

Definitely not something to be chased down and shot at for.

“If they only had a brain… On paper they sound, fine, I guess. They just have too many problems and I don’t like that they could just be compiling a big list of mutants and their mutation somewhere. Just a big too much like registration, if you get my meaning.”

Could anyone who wasn’t a mutant truly know the terror of hiding an X-gene, knowing you were being hunted for what you couldn’t control by someone you couldn’t understand?... Well, if there was anyone who would understand perhaps it would be someone who was being hunted down by a mutant.

"Wow." She blinked, and spooned some more bland gruel into her mouth. "Was that when they first started going glitchy?" She'd read stories about them, little snippets from newspapers, magazines, and online. Apparently it was more common than people in charge let on. As a x-gene-less person, though, she rarely had to think about it.

At the mention of the the potential for a list somewhere, she nodded. "I had wondered about that." Dropping her spoon, she sipped her milk again. It was nearly gone. "I woulda thought that they would need permission for that, you know... Then again, you don't need it when out taking pictures on public property, so... maybe they just found a loophole."

She got it alright, and it really, really sucked. She didn't know a whole lot about it, though. She tended to avoid big depressing things that didn't involve her. She had that luxury, and willfully abused it in most cases.

"Really hope it doesn't turn out like that." Was all she could mutter, pushing her glasses back up her nose. "Not that I have any faith in some unknown company who makes glitchybots for the police... it would just be such a dickish move. Painting something as a blessing when it's not."

“Yeah, it was the first META I ever saw in real life. Kinda put them in a bad light in my opinion. But what can you do, we’re a scary species, people like to feel safe”

She imagined if there was a list it would hardly be publicised, nor need to comply with any laws. Probably just live streamed into a bunker full of data somewhere, to be dragged out if there was a mass mutant hunt, or something on a larger scale. For now all the ‘wanted’ adverts she had seen still featured grainy, security camera type footage of fugitives, mutant or otherwise, and she hadn’t recognised the viewpoint of a META.

“Yep, it would suck for sure. They could be a pretty big asset, if they could just get the glitching under control.”

Shelby had almost finished her milk, and made a solid effort on the porridge. Zinnia only hoped she could manage to keep it down long enough to gain some nutrients from it. It wasn’t good to be hungry for such a prolonged period. The body started to shut down and only focus on the essentials like breathing and a beating heart, and less on things like thinking and having the willpower to eat. It was a dangerous spiral.

“So are you studying by distance while you’re staying here?”

Could you take an art degree by distance? Scanning assessments, or sending photos of them just seemed so contrary to the traditional practice she had mentioned.