continued from here

The walk to the mansion didn't take long, Raina was always grateful for how close it was to central New York because she hated taking the subway. So smelly, so many people, and all that trash.

She motioned for Kai and the girl to follow her through the center into the kitchen. It was empty at this time of night. "I've been here about 3 years." she explained "Well, next month will be 3 years." small talk while she searched the cupboards for the hot chocolate mix. She found a bag of ginger snap cookies.

"It's been really great, it's a really friendly place. A lot of people your age too." she said to the girl. Finally. The hot chocolate. She pulled it down, filled up the kettle and plugged it in. She got a few mugs and some marshmallows wow she waited.

The dog whined impatiently reminding her it was here. "Oh." she reached up again and got a small bowl then filled it with water. "Kinda looks like a kangaroo." she observed out loud looking at the dogs unusually pointed ears, large eyes, and colouring.

She placed the bowl of water on the floor and motioned for Kai to let him down. "Looks like a joey to me." she laughed knowing the irony of such a statement for her personally.

The kettle whistled and she whirred around to unplug it and fill the mugs. Soon she had them placed at the table with marshmallows and a plate of cookies. "Help yourselves!"

He entered the building still completely focused on the dog in his arms. For the moment, it was inspecting its- his surroundings and therefore Kai’s face was safe. He figured he could spare a glance around. Something about the place seemed very… homey, albeit large. Raina bustled around the kitchen while they stood against the cupboards, trying to stay out of the way.

One of the products of her scrounging around the cupboards was a bowl- now filled with water for the little dog. Kai set him down and he galloped eagerly over to it.

>>"Kinda looks like a kangaroo. Looks like a Joey to me."

Kai gave a little chuckle. “Yeah I guess so. He’s pretty cute.” His thoughts were interrupted by the whistle of the kettle, indicating their hot chocolate was nearly ready. He moved to get mugs, then realized that he didn’t know where they were and contented himself with sitting at the table next to the younger girl.

Soon the table was piled high with cookies and hot chocolate. He grabbed one that appeared to be chocolate chip and stuffed it into his mouth as he waited for the hot chocolate to cool down a little. He would never spread it around, but Kai was kind of a wus when it came to burning his taste buds off. He much preferred ‘slightly warmer than room temperature’ chocolate.

“’Fo,” he started, his mouth full of cookie-deliciousness, “wat ‘id ‘ou say ‘our name was?” An innocent inquiry, given their comfy surroundings.

So, this was a mutant school.

It looked like a normal school, for the most part.

Breeze was disappointed. She was hoping to see something exceptional, something that would match the expectations of mystery and danger that came with the word "mutant." Hadn't these people just been talking about how mutants had destroyed central park with a giant monster? Hadn't the news people said that the mutants were blowing things up in... that country whose name started with an 'R?' She wanted to see some exciting mutant stuff!

But now they were arriving at the kitchen, and the girl's disappointment was promptly shoved into its rightful place at an insignificant back corner of her mind. Hot Chocolate. Cookies. Marshmallows. Raina was saying something about how the school had kids her age and it was super great and stuff, and the puppy was making a cute little monster of itself, but Breeze wasn't paying much attention. With her stomach grumbling and all of these sugar-loaded treats surrounding her, little else mattered.

Finally, the time to eat had arrived.

"Help yourselves!"

The girl didn't need to be told twice. As soon as the plate of sweets touched the table, she didn't just start eating them. She inhaled them.

"Fo, wat ‘id ‘ou say ‘our name was?"

Odd. She hadn't told him her name. "Breeze," she said, taking a short break from her sugar-inhaling to answer. "It's a weird name, I know, but I just got it." Taking her cup of hot chocolate in both hands, she took a big gulp -- and quickly learned why it was called "hot."

"Ah! Ow!" she dropped the mug in her surprise, and with a crash, hot chocolate and sharp little pieces of cup covered the floor. With a terrified look, she quickly turned to Raina, afraid of making her host angry.

"Oh hey careful." cooed Raina turning when she heard the crash "it's hot." Her name was Breeze. It certainly sounded like the type of mutant code name they all seemed to call each other. "here, stand back." she said watching the puddle of hot chocolate spread across the floor and into and out of the ceramic mug and it's pieces. "Hold our friend Kai? So he wont get any pieces in his paws?" she motioned to the dog.

Then, Raina started singing. It was like a little soft lullaby but steam came out of her mouth as the air around them got a little cold. She was singing to the puddle and mess. It began to freeze. It froze until the whole broken mug and hot chocolate and marshmallows was a ice block. Then she stopped singing and picked the thing up as one piece and put it in the sink. Then she poured new hot chocolate and sang again to it, cooling it down.

She placed it in front of Breeze. There was a bit of a twinkle in her eye as the room temperature went back to normal. "It can come in handy being a mutant" she said nonchalantly. "It's not all giant park wrecking monsters." she winked.

A loud Crash! startled Kai for a second. He took a large swallow to keep cookie bits securely in his mouth and jumped up to help. “Are there paper towe-?”

>>"Hold our friend Kai? So he won’t get any pieces in his paws?"

Obediently, Kai grabbed the dog again. Thinking, The last time I pet a dog was our old black lab back home, Shepherd. He kind of liked dogs, but there was no room for one in their tiny second floor apartment over the shop. He scratched Joey behind the ears to distract him. And asked “Are you ok, Breeze?” to distract her.
And in a flash the mess was cleaned up. He didn’t see exactly how she did it, but Raina lifted the whole puddle in one piece- shards of cup and all.

>>"It can come in handy being a mutant. It's not all giant park wrecking monsters."

Kai nodded in agreement. And sipped his cocoa. Content for now to let the girls chat.

The girl let out a small sigh of relief; Raina wasn't upset.

Breeze's first instinct was to get up and help clean her mess, but the two adults seemed to be moving in that direction already, so she kept herself firmly planted in her seat. They would take care of it. Or at least Raina would, with Kai's arms occupied by the puppy.

Then, Raina began to do something that Breeze thought was very strange. She began to sing, and the room got colder. The puppy yipped at this, squirming a little bit in Kai's arms.

“Are you ok, Breeze?”

She nodded. "U-huh. But I just burned my tongue a little... I'm okay." The whole time, she was staring at what Raina was doing. Judging from how the room got colder as Raina sang, Breeze guessed that her singing was what turned the mess into a chocolatey ice-block. At the very least, the singing and freezing were related. Accurate though her guesses may have been, there was still one question at the front of her mind: 'what just happened?'

"It can come in handy being a mutant. It's not all giant park wrecking monsters."

Even more questions arose in the girl's mind at this remark. After taking a tiny sip of her second cup of cocoa, she decided to ask the most pressing ones. "Ms. Raina," she began, "What's a mutant? And what did you just do to all of the... um..." words briefly failing her, she gestured towards the space where her mess had been just moments before.

Raina stared at Breeze. Where to start? "Well I'm a mutant Breeze." she explained. Well that left asking the young girl if she was a mutant pretty much out of the question. "It means that something in my DNA is different than yours. You know DNA- the stuff that makes up a person?" she sat down to sip her hot chocolate while she spoke.

"What I just did was use my mutant power. There are lots of mutants. Sometimes it's something small like different coloured eyes, maybe they have a bit too much hair, maybe they have strange marks.... but sometimes people can be very different and have tails, or wings, or a super power." super power was about the best way she could think to describe this to a child.

"Do you have any special powers Breeze?" it was pretty forward but she asked it innocently enough. Either way she'd help the child, but if she was a mutant then Raina would know what she was dealing with. She exchanged a glance with Kai. Come to think of it she wondered if he was a mutant too. Who else would be out so late?

>>“What’s a mutant?” Breezed had asked, sounding completely innocent.

Good question, Kai thought. After all, each and every mutant was different as far as he knew. Sure Cameron’s power was similar to his because they were twins, but still. So how to explain a complex phenomena to a young girl?

Raina started right in with the differences in DNA. Kai listened to that part with rapt attention- he loved chemistry and biology, though she didn’t go into a lot of detail.

>>"Do you have any special powers Breeze?"

Kai cocked his head to the side. “It doesn’t have to be like Raina’s. But if you get scared, does anything out of the ordinary happen? Or does anything talk to you but no one else understands. For example, I always thought people were kidding when they said they couldn’t hear trees. But the strange looks eventually convinced me that they were telling the truth. Did anything like that ever happen to you?” He kind of hoped not. He had been the laughing stock of his third grade class before he had learned to shut up and had tried to be ‘normal’ after that by ignoring his powers-He winced- kind of like he’d been doing lately.

Breeze did not know anything about DNA, but from what Raina just said, Breeze learned that people who either look different or have super powers are actually mutants.

The girl glanced at Raina's hair with new perspective. Red hair wasn't very common, so one could say that people with red hair look "different," like Raina, who also had a mutant power because she was a mutant. Did that mean that all people with red hair were actually mutants like Raina?

Am I a mutant?

The two adults' questions seemed to be movinging in the same direction as her own: Did she have special powers? Did anything incredible happen when she got scared? Did she believe that trees talked to her?

Wait. What was that last question again? Something about hearing voices coming from trees? Breeze gave Kai a funny look. Was he a crazy person? Crazy people hear voices that aren't there, and she'd certainly never heard a tree talking before. "I... don't think that I've ever heard a tree talking to me before," she said cautiously. She didn't want to upset the possibly crazy person. Crazy people do crazy things when they get upset.

As for those other two questions, the first thing that came to mind was that dead guy in the apartment. She didn't know who that guy was, but she thought that she had killed him somehow. There was a bang, or some sort of noise like that, and then his head got splattered against the wall. And Breeze felt responsible for it. She shuddered. No, she wouldn't talk about that. It sounded like a "special power," but she didn't want to talk about it. Breeze decided to attack her own question from a different angle:

"And... I don't think that I have super powers..." the girl began, looking to Raina as she did so, "But I have red hair like yours. Does that mean that I'm a mutant?"

ooc: Im having a of trouble with my keyboard today. IT BF even tried to fix it with no luck. Something is stuck so a lot of my attempts to write correctly result in è or È despite language change attempts. So forgive me for not using quotations etc. Last time this happened it went on for a while so I cannot really afford to wait for it to go back to normal.

ic:

Raina shifted her glance to Kai for a moment. He was a mutant after all. A plant mutant. She had thought Martin was a plant based mutant when she first met him because he seemed so enthralled by plants. But here she had a real one. She wondered what it would be like to have plants talk to you and tell you stories. Probably annoying some of the time honestly, and sad then when he was at the park. Overall it sounded like a hard mutation to deal with.

Well... she started to say I suppose in a way having red hair is a form of mutation but only very minor. I do not think the first tribes of people had red hair, probably black or brown. So blond and red would be evolved forms. But who knows...

she gave a shrug. She still had a suspicion about Breeze, like she was holding out on them but she would let it go.

Mutations can be scary. She said. Sometimes when you are just trying to learn you can hurt someone. That is what this school is for. We help people with mutations and give them a safe place to stay. Even if you do not have a mutation Breeze you are more than welcome to stay here while you figure things out. And Kai that goes for you too.

She wasnt sure if Kai had been here or not. She was known for not being able to keep up with the new students though it was part of her job.

>>"I... don't think that I've ever heard a tree talking to me before…" Breeze sounded skeptical, not the he could blame her for that. Some mutations were more straight forward that others. His dealt with living things which added a whole separate dimension from simply ‘making’ things happen. Why is it so much harder to believe in powers that remain unseen?

He shrugged to show he took no offense, and really didn’t expect her to have the same mutation he did. It was really just an example.

Breeze went on to ask about hair color and, Kai had to admit that Raina handled the question really well. He might have just said ‘no’ and not really explained why if she had directed the question to him. Raina certainly had a way of explaining things… though maybe that came from living and working at a school. Which he was being invited to stay at even now.

“I’ve been around a few times. Thinking about it, but my brother is kind of holding out. He likes living above the flower shop we own, kind of a comfort thing.” He explained. Then interpreting a significant glance, he added “It might be good to stay here tonight, though. It’s getting kind of late. Do you have extra blankets and things? Breeze, how about you? I’m sure there’s plenty of space.”

Breeze nodded, to show that she understood. According to Raina, red- and blonde-haired people are more evolved than brown- and black-haired people. Therefore, Breeze and Raina were more evolved than Kai, since he had brown hair; Raina and Breeze were mutants, while Kai was not. She wasn't going to make this observation out loud, though, and especially not in front of Kai. He might do something crazy. There was still the distinct possibility that Kai was a crazy person, so she didn't want to say anything that might upset him.

As Raina said, this was a special place for mutants. Why, then, did she mention that Breeze could stay 'even if she wasn't a mutant?' Wasn't it already established that her red hair did, in fact, give her a mutant status? And what was this about mutations being able to hurt people when you're learning about them? Her hair wasn't particularly dangerous... or was it?

No, that's just silly. She must be talking about special powers again... Wait, why?

Maybe she was talking about other people's mutations. The ones who say that they have powers. Breeze could see how that could be scary and dangerous. She could empathize, even. Hers was both of those things.

None of this changed the fact that Raina just offerred both of them a place to stay, and Kai had taken this offer while Breeze had her head in the clouds. Kai seemed to be interested in having Breeze staying overnight. The girl probably would have accepted the offer anyway, since it had been a while since the last time she slept in a bed, but it sealed the deal to have Mr. Crazy act like he wanted her to stay. Somewhat intimidated, she said nothing and nodded in his direction. Sure, I'll stay, the nod seemed to say, so please don't do crazy things.

Raina smiled. "Well that's good then. At the very least you'll give my poor brain some peace of mine knowing that you're not out wandering about so late at night! Even special powers can't help against everything the world can throw at you."

There was a supply closet in the kitchen and just as Raina expected there were extra linens in it. She reached up and pulled down some heavy blankets and two pillows. She wondered where she would put Joey for the night. She knew there were other animals at the mansion too.

"Kai, you don't have to live here to attend classes and workshops." she explained "Maybe in the morning if your up for it I could give you the admission package to look over. With summer approaching we aren't taking on a lot of public curriculum students but we do have lots of people from all over who come to the mansion for training, classes in mutant education, and workshops." she passed the two of them some blankets and pillows. "I suppose Joey can walk." she grinned.

She led them out of the kitchen upstairs to the dormitories. There were two rooms next to the common area that were both vacant. "The bath rooms are just right there." she said pointing. "This end of the dorms is really vacant so I doubt you'll run into anyone. If you're still around in the morning breakfast is at 8." she smiled. "Well, go ahead. Check out the rooms!"

((OOC: Again, sorry it took so long.))

“Well, I’m glad you’re staying. It seems nice and cozy here.” Kai smiled, genuinely. If he had a little sister, he imagined… okay, so she wouldn’t look like Breeze, but still. He patted Breeze on the head and took a blanket, going into one of the rooms Raina indicated.

From what he could tell in the dark, the rooms were what you’d expect in your basic dorm-room. The only thing he really cared about was the bed. He fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. He dreamt of being rescued from a huge fire by hundreds of puppies.

In the morning, Kai did his best to find his way back to the kitchen. He cursed himself for not paying better attention to where he was going. It was just after eight when he poked his head into what he thought was the kitchen. “What’s for breakfast?” he asked bleary-eyed.

Kai's smiling and head-patting were making Breeze a little uncomfortable. He seemed... too happy about her staying. In spite of her own suspicions, she returned his smile with a sheepish one of her own. That was the polite thing to do. She didn't want to make the crazy person unhappy by being impolite.

While Kai made his way into his room, the girl looked up at Raina, deep in thought thinking.

Part of her wanted to mention her "special power," as Raina might call it, or whatever had sent that policeman into a statue and apartment-guy into the wall. Breeze wanted to know what it was and how to make it go away. It was terrible to keep it a secret, especially if Raina was able and willing to help.

Kai's door closed behind him, and Breeze was still looking up at Raina. She needed to say something.

"Thanks for letting us spend the night here, Ms. Raina."

The girl walked a little reluctantly into one of the empty rooms, careful to lock the door behind her when she got there. Just in case.

(ooc:Continued for Breeze in another thread; a link to which will be provided)