Pigeons were, Slate determined, not the most intelligent of creatures.

As he sat on the park bench, he observed the scene across the way. The elderly woman was tossing bread crumbs: the mass of grey feathers gathered at her feet. This part, he understood. The birds congregated to an easy food source.

Inserting predators into the equation, however, made things more difficult to understand.

The little boy, for a second time, ran through the midst of the flock. With disturbed clucks, they scurried away from his grasping hands; one or two even took to the air, for a few fluttering feet. Then they settled down again, like water in a boat’s wake.

An owner let his dog snap at the flock as they went past. A jogger trampled directly through them. Again, for a third time, the boy ran through. His mother finally noticed, and barked a half-hearted order for him to leave the disease-burdened rats alone.

There was a certain... mathematical nature to their scattering pattern. He was quite certain of it. It demanded a rigorous, scientific testing.

Slate slowly stood from his bench, approaching across the courtyard with sedately measured strides. As the well-dressed young man neared the feathered, rustling flock, he slowly stooped lower, his hands outstretched towards the ground. A few beady eyes turned his way, meeting his focused blue gaze: disturbed head bobs and coos warned of his approach.

Science. It was for purely scientific reasons, the most dignified of such, that the Kabal’s Leader was currently chasing pigeons in the park.

It was a pretty nice day and so, Deirdra had ventured outside. She needed some space from the Sanctuary. Though it was nice and the mutants there were tolerable, she wanted to be alone for a while. The blond could only take other noise-making people/mutants for so long. She had a room to herself, but it didn’t mean that she could go anywhere to get away from yelling and fighting. Fighting seemed to be some of the mutants’ favorite past times.

She was now walking outside and stopped when she noticed someone chasing pigeons. It wasn’t a kid chasing pigeons either. They looked to be close to her in age. Deirdra’s brows furrowed together as she watched him run around. One hip popped out to the side and she rested a hand on it. What in the world is that guy doing? After a moment, her right eyebrow raised up in question of what he was doing.

Deirdra sauntered toward the young man and stopped when she was about six or seven feet away. “Uh, I’ll probably regret this, but I have to ask. What exactly are you trying to do?” She glanced around at the park and park-goers. The woman noticed some of them watching and after a glare, most of them walked away. She rolled her eyes and turned back toward Slate.

The blond watched a few of the pigeons land on a nearby park bench, obviously not afraid of people. She hated pigeons and how they were so stupid that they weren’t scared of anything. It was so hard to get them to leave you alone if you had food.

Slate knew she was coming, and neither her footsteps nor the shadow she cast over him had anything to do with it. No. His method of detection was far more enlightened than that: he had noted the changes in the pigeon’s scattering pattern. Like a thermodynamic model of viscous liquid, they flowed not only in response to his own center of disturbance, but hers, as well. He had no need to look up at her: the pigeons told him all.

Fascinating.

>> “Uh, I’ll probably regret this, but I have to ask. What exactly are you trying to do?”

Her gender, of course, he did not ascertain until she spoke. If there was a difference in pigeon behavior base upon human gender, he was not yet able to discern it from the other factors affecting their movement. Even if he did notice one, he would be more inclined to believe it was in reaction to size difference and perceived threat level. Like many mammal species, the human female was simply the smaller, weaker, less aggressive element.

If she was a raptor or an insect, it would be different, of course. In those branches of the evolutionary tree, it was females who reigned.

She seemed to have stopped her approach: the feathery ripples of her movement were quieting. Slate finally looked up. She was blonde. Slightly older than he appeared to be. Her curves accentuated her thinness: he visibly sized her up, with a critical eye. At last his eyes rose to meet her blue gaze.

“How much do you weigh?”

Her own question was forgotten; trivia, compared to his. They were very nearly the same height. If their weights differed significantly, he could use her to begin more focused pigeon testing. He, of course, would be the control subject.

Instead of giving an answer to her question, he threw another question her way. This one was a bit of a personal question, especially to women. Is this guy serious? One hand still rested on her hip, but it had shifted to the opposite side. I think he may be completely serious. Dear, lord. A short laugh escaped her lips. “You have some nerve, I’ll tell you that.” She wasn’t really that mad, just surprised. “I weigh about 120 pounds, I think.” A smirk crept on her face. “How much do you weigh?”

She still wondered what he was doing, but it was obvious he had no interest in answering. Deirdra wasn’t the type of woman to harass someone unless they gave her a very good reason, or if they were an attractive man. The man chasing pigeons wasn’t bad looking, but the chasing itself was a bit of a turn-off in her opinion. Something about a man chasing birds just didn't catch her eye, at least not in a positive way.

((Sorry for the delay! ))

Some nerve? He had many nerves, as was proven during Garret and Ms. Morozova’s city-wide attack. Excuse that: accidental attack. If he did not have so many nerves, perhaps it would have been a more pleasant experience. Still, the amount contained in his body was average for a male human (or non-visibly mutated x-gene carrier), so far as he could tell. He did not grasp the relevance of—

“Ah. That is an expression.” He noted, clearly pleased with himself. He may have even heard that one before; it sounded familiar. Around them, park life continued: his momentary pigeon stalking was quickly forgotten in the flow of people in and out of their little courtyard. A balloon seller wandered in with his cart; it sent intriguing ripples through the feathery horde, in lines tantalizingly close to perpendicularity. A little boy and his mother ruined it, as she dragged him over to buy a balloon. A green balloon. He was very loud, and very insistent, upon it being a green balloon. The seller, not having any green balloons, smilingly handed him a blue one as his mother paid.

“Hmm. One twenty? Really?” Slate did not conceal his disappointment. “I had hoped you would weigh less,” he stated. “Or more. I am one hundred and thirty pounds. This is most inconvenient.” He paused, clearly thinking deeply. How could a pigeon tell weight, in any case? Clearly, the variable he was after was size.

Ah. That would do it.

With casual brilliance, Slate stole the scowling child’s balloon out of his pudgy-handed grip, and thrust it towards his new female acquaintance.

“Here: put this under your shirt. That should make you look bigger.” The blue-eyed young man was clearly pleased with his own inventiveness.

The boy’s mother was already hurrying him down the trail, and did not notice the thievery: the boy parted with his balloon with one last glare at its unwanted color. He liked green balloons.

Deirdra smirked when Slate stated that what she had said was an expression. He catches on quick.. He really didn’t seem to have much for social skills, but the blond found it interesting. She assumed he must not have had much need for interacting with others, which Deirdra could appreciate. If she could have avoided people for most of her life, she would’ve done so. Unfortunately, society was thrust upon her from a young age. She had known since she was young, that humans weren’t who she belonged with and when her mutation manifested, it just provided the proof.

The young man stole a balloon from a child and told her to put it up her shirt. Deirdra wondered if he was serious, but decided he probably wasn’t one for joking. The look on his face seemed very serious. “Since you’re going around demanding I put an inflated latex thing up my shirt, I do believe I get the right to ask why. So, why exactly do you want me to put this in my shirt?” After thinking about what he had said about weight and his chasing pigeons, she smiled. Shaking her head slightly, the blond laughed. “You want me to appear bigger to see if the pigeons act differently? Is that it? What exactly makes you so interested in what they do?”

The man in front of her was definitely interesting, that was for sure. “I’m Deirdra, Deirdra Sykes. And whom, may I ask, are you?” One eyebrow was raised slightly. With her hold still on the balloon, she tilted her head toward it. “If you tell me who you are, I’ll run at pigeons with this thing up my shirt. Sound good?” She wasn’t sure why she wanted to know his name, she just did. The blond wasn’t a fan of having a complete conversation with a person unless she knew their name. Not to mention that if this guy wanted her to run at pigeons with something up her shirt, she wanted a name.

Science, Slate concluded, was the way to make women put things up their shirts. For a moment, he felt that this discovery had broader applications. A cooing at his feet reclaimed his mind from these puzzling thoughts.

“Slate Swartz,” he answered, as their new bargain demanded. “I will run at them first. Wait a moment until they settle, and then follow me. Please do not wave your arms. We will save that for the next trial.”

With no further ado, the brown haired young man turned and ran across the square. The feathered gray sea parted before him, and closed behind.

Coo, coo.

The young man introduced himself as Slate Swartz and told Deirdra to wait a minute so he could run through the flock of birds. The blond, with a good-natured smirk on her face, shook her head slightly at the thought of what she was doing. It probably looked and, she was quite sure, seemed unusual, but she had nothing better to do.

Now she had an investment to see how this little experiment turned out. The birds landed and Deirdra ran silently through the flock and watched as they rose, and then took their places once again on the ground. The blond laughed slightly at the situation, but waited to see what Slate wanted to do next.