Skye hadn't been having a good time as of late. She'd only recently gotten back to New York after an impromptu trip to Maine. 

..Impromptu...wasn't the term. She'd gotten word her mother had died, and had to go back 'home' for the funeral and the will reading. Skye's Mom had treated her horribly once her powers surfaced, and they'd never really made things right. Nor did Skye want to. But she went, if only to see her family again. She had been...numb to losing her mom, if she was honest. She wasn't hurt. She felt no pain from it. What had made her feel bad was that she hadn't felt anything. And then after all that...her Dad was just....a shell of his former self. He'd spent the entire two weeks she was there at the bottom of a bottle. It was...heartbreaking, but again...she just felt numb, and any sadness or sorrow was just guilt because she felt numb. 

She'd been back a few days and to be honest, she'd spent most of the time just closed up in her room. Alone. She hadn't wanted to talk to or see anyone. Until now. But....

She was sitting at the food court table, eating a burger that was loaded with bacon, cheese, French fried onions, jalapeños, mustard, ketchup, pickles...the works. And that was accented with a side of loaded bacon cheese fries. And a large chocolate shake. Of course. And yet...she was alone. Her hair was very solidly blue, and the immediate area around her was bathed in a sad, blue light. But she didn't know who to call. 

She pulled out her phone, and scrolled through the contacts. Her finger stopped on Lenna. Yeah. She hadn't hung out with her....protege? Mentee? Pupil? Her teen friend. She hadn't just hung out with her teen friend in awhile. And maybe just hanging out would be what Skye needed. 

So she opened her text messages. "Hey. I'm at the mall food court. Gonna be here awhile if you're free to hang. " 

Lenna was most certainly free to hang.

It was interesting that her cellular phone still worked after all of this time. Without a plan. At least, one she had to regularly pay cash money for. The man she had stolen it from had cancelled his credit card, but his phone? No.

Yes, she realized he could probably trace its location and track her with it. Yes, she knew he was affiliated with SUPER. She had already moved her things from her apartment, to avoid SUPER bothering her in that location. But a part of her thought.., well, it just thought that if they wished to try and track her down to start something, there was going to be something. They could simply, what was the phrase? “Bring it.” She could live dangerously. It was not as if that were something she had never done a day in her life.

Skye asked if she could swing by the mall food court, and Lenna said “Yes!”

Arranging the ride to go to the mall was far simpler than it would have been, had it been any other location in the city. She had grown proficient at utilizing a bus schedule. And if she had to, Amelia had taught her UBER. Her funds were limited.

Had she found a job yet? No. Fast food restaurants found her too much something. She was uncertain what that something was... but believed it to be ‘honest.’ Fools should be alerted to the fact that they are fools. Why should anyone take exception to this piece of self help? But she had money enough to get by.

Her other self had left a stash of cash in a cleverly concealed location, alongside gold bouillon and easily liquidated small gems. Ferreted away for a rainy day or emergencies, very practical! Anything else she needed, she could get by selling old clothes and items she had previously owned. One could not keep it all in a small mansion room. Especially if one were to be suddenly assigned a roommate. Which was always a possibility hanging in the air.

She arrived and walked to the aforementioned location, breezily. She wore a white long-sleeved shirt with black stripes, and a pair of black pants. She found Skye, and ... Now, this was interesting.

For Lenna, everything she saw was always orange. But only physical objects. The light waves she witnessed, were their own colors. Something she had noted with mama Skye many a time : Skyes lights were the bomb. And they were many colors. Whatever she wished or felt. At that moment, Skye was blue. Or at least, surrounded and suffused by a cold blue light. Like the Force, only visible. Did Lenna know the socio-cultural connotation of the color blue corresponding to the emotional state of a human being? Sure! She had also recently heard that damn song.

Da bo dee da. Damn mansion kids.

Lenna slid into the table on the side opposite Skye, leaned forward, propping her chin on her arm, and said ”yo listen up. What is the story about a blue girl that lives in a blue world. You look quite blue from over here?” And all day and all night and every thing she did was just blue, like her. Inside and outside, Lenna’s mind finished the lyrics for her.

The kids had jokes. Jokes they told. And the moment they had learned of her orange thing, what pray tell do you think they referenced all day and all night for a week at the mansion?

She smiled thinly, and added cheekily ”Da bo dee da. Seriously; what is wrong?” And who did she have to kill to get a hamburger such as that?

It honestly didn't take Lenna long to show up and slide into the seat across from Skye, who was only about half done with her burger by this point. Skye had just wanted to hang out, but the blue was kind of hard to ignore, she supposed. But again, she just wanted to hang out, not discuss her issues. She had to give the girl props for the song reference, she was going to be humming that she was blue every time she was well...blue. picked up

Skye put the half eaten ginormous burger down, and picked up a fry. She took a breath as the lights began to pulse a little. "I...it's nothing. I'll be okay," she replied, though her voice wasn't the bubbly, bouncy tombre that she was known for. It cracked, it sounded weak, and it was just....tired.

She shook her head. "I've been gone for...what two weeks? It's been awhile. How are things? Your boyfriend still doing okay?" She was trying to dodge the question, though maybe she wasn't very good at it. Her voice was still strained and tired, but she didn't want to focus on that, she wanted to ignore that...

Was the light in fact a reflection of mood? Or had Lenna misunderstood some thing somewhere? She was not really a child of the 90s, so any such thing as a mood ring was beyond the pale of her imagination. But she had heard lounge singers and cowboys speak of being Blue. Was it actually a thing? Or had they simply all gotten together and chosen to be literal in concert with each other? Hmmm.

The pulsing lights and all that flagrant evasion cued Lenna in to the possibility that she was closer than she had thought. And Skye’s tone... no, she did some seem like her usual self.

Lenna’s brow did not furrow, but she did look at the other girl impassively. Listening, yet giving nothing in return. A poker face.

Puh puh puh poker face. She had all the songs today. Yes.

Two weeks felt like much, much longer. But Lenna did not say that. What she did say was: ”He is fine. And you are evading. I can tell. I know a thing or two about evasion.” Both the literal and the figurative types. ”I can see your lights and I have been told blue is ‘sad.’ So. I will look at you seriously and ask you why you are sad. Because I do not like it.”

Lenna did as she said, and looked. Seriously.

Skye sighed, now merely picking at her fries. She had called Lenna because she'd thought it would be a good means to just forget everything. Emily would have easily picked up on Skye's emotion which wouldn't have been good for either of them. But somewhere down the line, Skye must have forgotten that she was an open book. And Lenna was not the average teenager.

So now the girl with the lights was put in the spotlight, in more ways than one, and she bit her lip, awkwardly looking at Lenna for a moment. "That's good he's doing well." And then the silence set in, and Skye's blue never wavered, never changed colors.

"Okay, fine...I was gone for two weeks because my Mom died, and I had to go back to Maine for the funeral and get things squared away. Remember my mom? Abusive, hated mutants, all around not a good person? Yeah...her. I felt nothing. Though I feel guilty because I feel nothing. The rest of my family is in shambles, and honestly...nothing really clicked until I got home a few days ago. So I just wanted to hang out, and forget this shit, ya know? And then being me, I have to choke my emotion down to prevent exploding and blinding everyone within arm's reach, and because I decided to move to new ****ing York, that's a lot of people..."

She sighed again, the lights growing more intense, threatening to reach critical mass before she closed her eyes, breathed, and regained her focus so the blue was down to a steady pulse. "Ugh...sometimes I just....I wish I couldn't feel anything!" she practically shrieked.

And then...Something...happened.

As soon as the words left her mouth and Skye felt all that emotion bubbling up and threatening to literally explode...

Her hair turned stark white. As white as snow. And the lights stopped. In fact, there were none, which with Skye was a rarity in of itself, but this hair color was new. She'd never been white before. And to make things even stranger, she felt....

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Huh. How about that..." she remarked, looking at her hands and then her reflection in the metal napkin holder. Her voice was...flat. Monotonous. Lacking any inflection, and the usual, natural bubbly bounce in her voice was gone. Even her facial expression had gone completely blank. No feeling, no emotion. Nothing...

Her mother had died. Did she remember Skye’s mother? Yes. They had spoken of it. She remembered how Skye had told her of her pains, of when her mutation had first activated. And Lenna had shared her pains, in turn.

A complicated thing, then. There was much at play. Many memories. Many feelings. Feelings Lenna felt were somewhat out of her depths... ones she was trying to become better at dealing with. Because before, she had been taught not to feel very much at all. To compartmentalize and repress. Because it was healthy... for the good health of all those around her. Those that depended upon her.

She had never had a true mother, abusive or otherwise. None she could remember, beyond vague warmth if she strained... and that may have been a fabrication. Lenna knew a thing or two of mental abuse, however. She could share Skye’s sentiments well enough.

Lenna knew of feeling nothing, too. ‘Nothing’ had been a large part of her childhood. After being taken in by Cortez, by his lies. By his truths. ‘Nothing.’ It takes people to help one move beyond that. People, or time.

Lenna was people.

Lenna could help with the forgetting of shit. Though first, they needs handle the bright lights that were causing her to squint and not directly look at Skye. The woman handled her skylight, and brought it down. Lenna had high perception and could tell the act had cost something. The question was, what?

Her grip on the table had tightened briefly as Skye had spoken. But she had not feared the woman. After all, she was Skye. MamaSkye. Her fingers tightened once more as Skye erupted in a shout.

Lenna could not see the change in hair color. To her, it remained orange. Maybe a lighter shade. All things in her world were orange. Like if she had been in the dark, relying on her dark vision. A million shades of gray. She did notice the lights, however. Or, their... absence.

“Huh, how about that?” Skye had said.

How about... what? Lenna did not know. What she did know, she said.

”When I was young, if I had a problem I had to keep it bottled. Act as if I felt nothing even if I wanted to scream and release it. Could not keep it contained. Would always erupt eventually. I do not know if you know this of me, but I have anger...” she smiled thinly as if this amused her. But not much.

Lenna was quiet for a moment, but then she went on. Her voice was suddenly hard. Like when you plunge into water from a fall of several hundred feet. It got better... ”When that happened, they beat me down. With words more often than fists. But there WERE fists. It hurt, but... no. Ultimately I do not recommend feeling nothing. The pain comes out, eventually. It’s worse if it builds up. I am lucky now, that I have a good Cowboy, and friends, to help me out.”

It had not been what Lenna had expected to face come out. It came out, all the same. She looked to Skye to see what the woman would think.

(OOC and Skye said “meh.”))