When Twyla Ashby woke up that morning her first thought was that she was sick of being a follower. She was sick of following her friends, her siblings, her fear–everything. Her remedy for that sickness was to take fifty dollars out of her bank account and go to the city. On the solo bus trip she had almost chickened out and given up on her plan but she had reminded herself of the feeling that bloomed in the pit of her stomach when she realized how much of a follower she was. She was going through with this for herself. To take control of herself she had to make a change. And what a change it was going to be.

The little bell on the door behind her tinkled as she let it close. Having just spent the better part of three hours sitting in a salon chair she squinted her eyes against the sudden brightness that always seems to accompany clear autumn days. Through the squint she was smiling. Twyla had started the smile in the chair when Tammy Fay had turned her around to look at herself and she hadn’t stopped smiling since. The last three hours had been very productive. A woman named Tammy Fay, originally-from-Louisiana-who-moved-to-Delaware-and-then-met-her-husband-who-lived-in-New-York-where-they-moved-and-now-she-has-two-wonderful-children-that-are-adorable-and-have-their-mother’s-bright-green-eyes-all-in-one-breath, had helped her take back control of herself. Twyla had finally done something she had always wanted to do, having always wanted to know what she would look like this way. Her hair was now blonde. No longer was she the only Ashby child with brown hair. And boy did it feel good to be a blonde. But it wasn’t just blonde--no--she and Tammy Fay had not stopped there. Plain Jane Twyla Ashby now had bright blonde hair and bubble gum pink highlights.

The never-ceasing smile broadened as she caught sight of her reflection in the window of the small salon in Manhattan. A new girl smiled back. A new girl with pink highlights that perfectly matched the lettering on her purple tee that read ‘We be jammin’’ and had a picture of some pieces of toast and jam on it. This new girl was obviously wearing her favorite pair of jeans because they were hugging her curves in all the right ways and her camouflaged Chuck Taylors were clean and as wonderful as Converse shoes usually were. She looked good and she knew it. Twyla turned away from her reflection and began walking down the street. She wasn’t sure where she was going yet but she wasn’t concerned with that. All that mattered was that she felt like herself again. More than herself even. For the first time in a long time she felt crazy confident and it showed in the dance in her step.

Randomly as she walked along Twyla stopped to marvel at her new reflection. Usually she wasn’t very concerned with her appearance but the new hair...she wasn’t sure what it did...she just knew that whatever it was was making her feel intensely good.

And her reflection smiled back at her.
In the way happy people's reflections usually do.

Mirror didn't usually notice people on the street - most of time it was hard enough to make sure they didn't notice the extra reflection in the shop windows. But the girl with the blond-and-pink hair had a special bounce in her steps that made Mirror stop and stare.
It was not really because she looked good - living a life in reflecting surfaces meant meeting a lot of good looking people face to face - it was the cheerful, careless way she smiled, apparently very pleased with herself. That haircut looked fresh, and the fact that she kept stopping to admire it meant she was just after a major change.
Interesting.
If Mirror had to sum up life in one single word, 'change' would have been a likely choice. Changing home, name, school, sex every day became a routine, because it wasn't a choice. Maybe that's why the young mutant was so fascinated by people who were able to enjoy it. Like the girl with the bubblegum pink highlights.
Mirror slipped from the shop window into the next, and waited for her to walk by. Merging into her reflection, the mirage on the glass walked with Twyla down the street, copying her movements, the smile, the bounce in her steps, and waited for a chance to say 'hi'.
The good thing about being a shifter like Mirror (maybe the only real good thing) was that you got to make a first impression twice.
Which proved to be extremely useful, because today was Maya-day.
Thinking about a way to leave the mirrors and talk to her in person, Maya didn't realize in time that the girl turned a corner. If Twyla decided to look at herself again, she'd see a very curious vision indeed: her reflection arrived just a few seconds too late. For a usual reflection, that is. Muttering something that curiously sounded like...
"Dammit."

As Twyla walked and wondered at herself she got the weird feeling that someone was watching her, but she ignored it. She was in a city of millions after all, she’d never really be anywhere where absolutely no one was watching her–not with all the security cameras and things like that everywhere. Despite any weird feelings she was still feeling really good and she focused on that as she half walked half pranced down the pavement. She walked on the side of the street closest to the buildings and made other people walk around her for a change.

This particular building was doing wonders for Twyla’s good mood. All of the windows at street level were just reflective enough that she could see herself and her new hair in them. So instead of crossing the street like she had been planning on doing she turned the corner so as not to lose the still new and exciting sight. Her plan backfired when her reflection failed to instantly follow...Wait...That didn’t make any sense..."Dammit." in a muttered tone was heard very close to her ear...That made even less sense. There was no one right next to her. Twyla stopped walking and stared confusedly curious at the window. A hand came up to cup her chin and cover her mouth as she tried to make sense of what was had just happened. What to say to the situation was a conundrum in itself. “Um...excuse me?” She said to the window.

This was ridiculous. Reflections didn’t speak and they certainly didn’t arrive late. There had to be some sensible explanation for this. Her mind was probably playing tricks on her, that was it. Some optical illusion in the window had made her think that she didn’t have a reflection and she had heard someone else on the street say “Dammit.” That made much more sense than her initial thoughts and now she looked like an idiot, standing around talking to herself. Twyla shook her head to clear the whole thing from her head and rolled her eyes at herself.

Of course she noticed. Duh.

Mirror had a routine for situations like this. Kinda. Sorta. Not like it happened every day that she saw a cheerful girl walking down the street, decided to tag along, then was stupid enough to botch the whole stealing-your-reflection trick because she was too busy staring.
Blame it on the double dose of teenage hormones.
Yeah, right.
At least she had one last chance to save the day before Bubblegum decided she was loosing it. Or decided to scream and break down.
It happens.

Twyla's reflection stared back at her, covering her mouth; it mirrored her confused movements as perfectly as well-trained reflections should. There were people passing by in the background, appearing on one side of the mirror, then crossing the whole picture - the usual city street scene. A girl in a green baseball cap, baggy pants, black tank top and a backpack flung over her shoulder just happened to appear on the left of Twyla's reflection as if she'd always been there somewhere, just not visible behind her back. She stopped and looked at her with a mischievous smile playing on her lips, and waved.
Maya waited for the natural reaction to follow.
Turn around, turn around, turn around.
She only needed a second of diversion. If Bubblegum turned away from the mirror to look at the girl who seemed to be behind her back, Maya would have time to exit the mirror and... invent a plausible explanation in the next thirty seconds why she wasn't where she was supposed to be.
Hopefully.
You can always call it an optical illusion.

It had all been in her head, that was the conclusion Twyla came to after a few moments of her reflection behaving normally again. She rolled her brown eyes at herself one more time and was about to continue walking when she noticed who else she was sharing the window with. There was a girl standing behind her, waving and smiling impishly. Had she been there a moment ago? Had she heard Twyla talking to herself? Startled and with burning cheeks, Twyla whipped around to face the stranger...And then she turned in a circle again....there was no one there. What. The. Hell?

Maybe the hair dye and bleach had somehow seeped into her brain and now she was having some weird kind of salon-induced hallucinations? Or maybe she was just going nuts. Either way, Twyla was getting sick of it and fast. “Alright, this is ridiculous.” She told herself aloud in an annoyed tone as she ran her fingers through her still shampoo-soft hair distractedly. This reminded her of the good mood she had just been in and the everlasting-smile came back as chipper as ever. The last few minutes had been weird, but life’s too short to worry about those moments. There were more important things to worry about...like a new haircut, for example. Giving her best ‘whatever’ shrug, Twyla turned back towards the direction she had previously been walking in.

Bubblegum reacted as she was supposed to. The first success of the day.
As soon as she turned away from the window, Maya silently slipped out of her own little world, and landed on the pavement. The way the blonde-pink girl whipped around suggested she was truly and utterly confused now - people usually are, when their reflections stop cooperating.
Good news is, you can always turn confusion to your advantage. Lesson number one of a runaway mirrormancer's life.
Maya was a dancer. (So was Gawain for that matter, although neither of them received any professional training - not that they needed any) It only took a few small steps and good balance to find the position she needed.
When Bubblegum finally decided it was all in her head and turned around, accidentally she walked straight into Maya.
Accidentally.
"Hey!..." the teenage girl stepped back and put a hand on Twyla's shoulder to keep her from tripping "Sooorry, didn't mean to scare ya. Y'all right?"
Smooth, gal, real smooth.

It all happened in a blur. First Twyla was turning and then there was an impact, an “Uff!” from Twyla, a female voice saying: “Hey!...”, and then there was supposed to be a stumble and a fall but those didn’t happen. In their place there was a hand on her shoulder and the words: "Sooorry, didn't mean to scare ya. Y'all right?" It took Twyla a moment to focus and as soon as she did she realized that she had run into what looked suspiciously like the girl who had been behind her--but wasn’t...and now she was?...This was all getting very jumbled.

A few blinks later and she was focusing again. The cool part of her brain nudged her to reply to the comments directed at her so she plastered an apologetic smile on her face. “It’s all good, I’m pretty sure that was my fault.” I’m just a little confused is all. And as far as fine goes, I’m not actually. I think I’m going crazy. “I’m fine. No worries.” Thankfully, most people can’t read between the lines when the lines themselves are only in your head. Not that the girl didn’t probably already think that Twyla was a nutcase, but on the off-chance that she didn’t it was best not to lead her to that conclusion. “I’m sorry, I’ve been a little distracted.” She added after a second. More like seeing things and attacking random strangers, but distracted is as good a word as any.

>>“I’m sorry, I’ve been a little distracted.”

I bet.
Maya bit back a frown as she let go of Bubblegum's shoulder - after making sure she won't fall. She might have overdid the whole thing. As far as illusions and messing with people went, she was kind of an expert - but dealing with folks face to face was waaay trickier than that. And now she managed to mess with the cheerful girl she wanted to meet. Yay.
Biting her lip, she racked her brain for something to say. For doing that, first she needed to get her mind on the right track - namely, the Maya track. There were different patterns for talking girl-to-girl and boy-to-girl. Gawain might have been able to charm the pretty lady right then and there. From Maya, the whole thing would have looked just weird.
You'd better get in straight this time, gal.

Maya smiled at Bubblegum.
"Don't worry about it. Happens. 'sides, I was not all there either. Guess it's the big City, huh?" she looked around with a shrug - reading between the lines, she just admitted she was new to the place. Turning back to Twyla, she tilted her head and smiled in a cheerful, girly way.
"Nice haircut, by the way."

The girl wasn’t an angry pedestrian, that was good. Twyla would have been upset if she had bumped into the type of person who yells at random strangers–not only would it have ruined her mood but she probably would have yelled back due to the fact that she was apparently a crazy person. Most of the time Twyla didn’t like being the center of attention and a situation like that she could not handle. Luckily, the girl she had tripped all over wasn't this type. In fact, the girl seemed rather friendly because she smiled at Twyla before she said: "Don't worry about it. Happens. 'sides, I was not all there either. Guess it's the big City, huh?"

It WAS the big City. This Twyla could relate to. A few months ago...wait, it had been almost a year now since she had...She cleared these thoughts from her head. Now was not the time to rehash old decisions. Anyway, what mattered was that there was a time in her life where Twyla had walked around with her eyes everywhere but where she was going. Now she was less amazed by the sights and sounds of cities and had much better focus...most of the time. Maybe this girl was new to New York? That’s the impression Twyla got from the statement but at the same time the girl could be one of the suburbia kids who lived just outside the city or something or many other scenarios. It wasn’t good to assume things and if the girl was an actual New Yorker then she’d be very offended if Twyla made any comment alluding to the possibility that she wasn’t.

When Girl-with-baseball-cap brought her attention back to Twyla she instantly brought back the good mood that was still waiting in the wings for its next scene. "Nice haircut, by the way." A broad smile was the first reply to this and out of the corner of her eye Twyla glanced at the reflection of her highlights in the window next to her. “Thanks.” She said in a tone that was sincere, bright and excited but not vain. A hand went through the locks in a casual gesture. The BLONDE locks. Blonde and PINK. Yay. “So...um, yeah.” An awkward smile and an eye roll were thrown in after this unfinished sentence in the hopes of stalling for time or creating an opening for conversation from the receiving end. “You were probably headed somewhere, sorry to keep you.” There was an awkward pause in which Twyla shuffled her feet a bit and bit her lip for a second.

Maya's smile broadened - the comment on the haircut was a win. From time to time the mirrormancer managed to surprise herself/himself by chancing upon a girl thing and using it right. Although Mirror was half-and-half in almost everything, girl talk was not her strong suit. To say the least.

Bubblegum seemed to be a bit uncertain about talking to her; even with a new hairstyle like that, she was shy. Maybe it was caused by all the confusion a minute ago. But at least now they were getting somewhere.

>> “You were probably headed somewhere, sorry to keep you.”

Or not.
The only way to find out was to smile and keep talking.
Maya shook her head.

"Never mind. I just arrived, and I was kinda looking around, y'know, getting to know the place."

It was true. Kinda Sorta. Really. Time to change the subject.

"You live here?"

Looking at Bubblegum, she felt like there was something else to be added to keep the conversation from failing again.

"Name's Maya, by the way."

And another friendly smile.

Ooooh, she was exploring. Twyla didn’t feel so bad. The bubbly mood made her want to be social, so she was glad that the conversation continued with the girl asking her a question. "You live here?"

How best to answer that one? The Xavier’s Sister School was just outside the city and technically she HAD lived in New York for a while. Well, more like she had been homeless in New York, but it was the same idea. For all intensive purposes she lived in New York and she could navigate around pretty well, having explored a lot when she was staying at the Sanctuary. At the same time, this place wasn’t home. Twyla wasn’t sure if she had a place to call that word anymore.

"Name's Maya, by the way." This pulled Twyla from the mental dilemma, she returned the friendly smile and gave Maya the first reply that came to her head. “I kinda live here, I guess. I go to school near the city.” Not that she would share the name of the school, it’s not always the best first impression to admit that you’re a mutant. “Well, it’s nice to bump into you, Maya. I’m Twyla.” She added with a small laugh. Twyla was getting better at the making conversation with random strangers thing, but some of her shier tendencies were hard to suppress and when she laughed it was hesitant, as if she was only admitting it was funny if it was funny to everyone else. Although her confidence level had been rising, she still had some things to work on. She was more comfortable talking when she was at the Mansion. Most of the people that she had met at the Mansion were guys, maybe it was easier to talk with a boy? Girl’s WERE usually waay more judgmental. Either way, Maya was turned into practice, poor girl.

“So have you seen all the sights yet?” Yuck, tourist-y question. If only there was a fast-forward button for social situations.

>> “Well, it’s nice to bump into you, Maya. I’m Twyla.”

Maya kept smiling. Twyla. What a nice name. The mental note was soon followed by a mental slap to herself. Cheesy-ness alert. Get a grip, cowboy... Cowgirl.
Damn.

>> “So have you seen all the sights yet?”

The ice was officially broken. Time to swim.
Well, she'd seen some sights, but she doubted any of those would be included in any kind of travel guide. And although she really hoped she'd seen all of them, she was pretty sure she did not.
So she shook her head.

"Nah, not really. To tell the truth, I don't even know what's worth seeing around here. And I'm kinda lost too."

That was kinda true too. And kinda implying she could have used some company, trying to find a way to... wherever she wanted to go.

"Nah, not really. To tell the truth, I don't even know what's worth seeing around here. And I'm kinda lost too." Lost was she? That’s never good. Twyla was used to the feeling, you’re always lost when you’re in a new city. Things only become familiar if you stay long enough to let them, sometimes this is challenging. Lost she could help, most definitely.

“Well, there’s plenty worth seeing, but it depends on your point fo view I suppose.” The best thing about New York that Twyla had found was all the things that could only be found by walking on paths not usually trodden by tourists. She had found a few of these, like the one that led to the bakery that sold only different varieties of cupcakes or the one that led to the shop in the Village that sold antique wedding dresses. But maybe his Maya girl wouldn’t appreciate the excitement in such things, it was always hard to tell with first impressions. In any case, Twyla knew the tourist paths as well as some of the ones less obvious.

A quick appraisal of the girl to check for any warning signs. Nothing flared up, so Twyla concluded that the girl could be safe and she was roughly near to herself in age. “Maybe I can help get you to wherever you’re wandering to? I don’t know how to get everywhere but I’m pretty sure I can b.s. it.” She shrugged as if saying ‘I’ll survive if you decline and laugh in my face’. The laughing in her face part Twyla probably wouldn’t tolerate, but either way she’d survive–all she was doing was trying to be helpful.

>> “Maybe I can help get you to wherever you’re wandering to? I don’t know how to get everywhere but I’m pretty sure I can b.s. it.”

Maya laughed at her.
In a cheerful, friendly way that didn't really come naturally to her, mostly because she rarely had anyone to laugh with. But right now, seeing that Twlya was probably just as uncertain as she was about the whole making-friends thing, she started to relax into the situation. And because Bubblegum offered to accompany her to... wherever she wanted to go, the day started to turn more lucky by every minute.

"Well, y'know, tourist sights are all right I guess, but the thing is, I'm starving. Know a good place to grab some food?"

Felt like a good plan - get something to eat, chat, get to know each other, and go from there. Not like Maya didn't know a place where she could grab food. Without paying for it, that is. But today was her lucky day - she had some money to spend, mostly because she just woke up this morning with a dancing spirit, and earned some change from the tourists who seemed to stop and stare at everything that looked like entertainment. The pockets of her baggy pants were jingling with coins as she tapped her foot (dancing was still in her movements - when she got like this, it seldom left her before she went to sleep).

"... I mean, real food. I've been living on junk for days." she added with a grin. She failed to mention the home-made food that a certain anti-human zealot cooked for her - technically, him - but that didn't really matter right now. Not like there was anything wrong with junk food. But it usually didn't last long enough to cover a decent conversation with someone.

Twyla did get a laugh, but not the hurtful kind. This was of course deal-withable so her self-esteem didn’t instantly wither and die. "Well, y'know, tourist sights are all right I guess, but the thing is, I'm starving. Know a good place to grab some food?" Twyla could go for some food and even though she hadn’t really eaten in most of the amazing restaurants in New York she had table scored and raided the Dumpsters behind a few of them. The idea of doing that sounded gross to her at this point, but before she had made her way to the Sanctuary and then to the Mansion she hadn’t had very much money at all. It was either stealing or sucking it up and Twyla was no kind of thief.

"... I mean, real food. I've been living on junk for days." The girl added with a wide grin. Real food she could find easily. The hard part was making the decision.

“Well, do you like Italian food?” Twyla asked, as she began walking down the street to re-catch her bearings. “I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t, but assuming is never a good idea.” Bearing re-caught, she thought of their other options. “There’s a place not far from here with pretty good Italian, or if you don’t mind walking a little farther there’s a Chinese place that’s really cheap past that–the menus aren’t in English, but that’s half the fun.” A smile crept to turn up the corners of her mouth as she racked her brains for anything else in their general vicinity. “Thee’s always delis too...” It was weird actually having money for a meal for a change, it was even weirder to be getting a meal with someone else. Usually Twyla’s trips to the city were solo but today was a different kind of day, a new kind of day. A hand went up again to smooth down her bangs.