Central Park was quickly becoming the perfect field for scientific observation and experiments. Everything that was X, Mutant, Superhuman or just simply Weird (the latter, of course, not being a proper scientific definition for anything) was bound to find its/his/her way to the green heart of the city sooner that later.
It was the perfect place for a young witch to familiarize herself with the dynamics of the mutant world.
And, of course, there were always the humans.
Humans could be interesting too.
Susan just had a lot harder time understanding how they worked.
She learned to avoid rush hour too. The park had its own rush hours, just like the roads and streets, and the perfect time to be there in peace and quiet was just after dusk. It was late enough for the crowd to go home (and take the annoying kids with them), but early enough for interesting people to still be around.
So this is what Susan was doing on that particular evening in that particular place. Wandering around, waiting for science to happen.
And it did.

Central Park, Amber knew, was a great place for feeling a little closer to nature and have a little alone time, both of which had their definite advantages. She also knew that it was the perfect place to attempt to practice her powers, with all the wide open spaces available for running and the lack of people, compared to the busy New York City streets. There were more places to hide from far too interested eyes.

There were two main things to consider in Amber's current plan. The first was her skin but that was easily dealt with by waiting until the sun was setting to actually leave. The second was the fact that, as of yet, she hadn't been able to actually change at will, something that might be a little more difficult to combat. She was prepared, however, wearing only her loose fitting cloak, robes and veil. She had discovered, in the few times she'd transformed before, that her cloak would simply fall to the ground, more or less unharmed, where as more conventional clothing sometimes had a tendency to get damaged. Thus, in order to avoid potential damage, she decided to go without the more conventional clothes. Covered from head to tow as she was anyway, it wasn't like anyone would know the difference.

The subway ride to central park was thankfully uneventful. Now all that was left was for Amber to find a nice quiet out of the way place so that she could try to transform. Because she most certainly would succeed today because she wasn't prepared to take failure as an option.

Susan was patient.
She sat under a tree on a bench, ankles crossed and arms folded, waiting. She was not waiting for anything in particular; she was just... letting her senses flow.
And flow they did. Againts the background of the city noise the park tasted freshly green and cool as the evening shadows. Something was bound to happen sooner or later - but even if the night proved to be an exception to the rule, and thus uneventful, Susan still enjoyed being out there.
Switching her senses from one another systematically, she tried her best to maintain control over the changes. Whie she was waiting, she might as well practice, after all. She considered herself lucky that her powers didn't recquire any special props or circumstances... or even movements, really.
She could smell the X-gene.
It was faint, and smelled as if she was breathing in something cool and fresh, and a little bit spicy. Susan tilted her head, trying to tell where the scent cam from; there was bound to be a mutant nearby, although she could only see her with her nose yet. So she did the only reasonabe thing...
... she waited some more.

Despite the fact that the sun had very recently set, it was still early enough for Central Park to be relatively busy. The trick was going to be finding a place that was relatively quiet and out of the way. People, it seemed, were rather frightened of dinosaurs, even if they were dinosaurs no bigger than people. Maybe, Amber decided, she should practice trying to gain her Compsognathus form. Surely a dinosaur the size of a chicken couldn't be that scary, could it?

As Amber moved further into the heart of Central Park, the sounds of the city began to become more dim and people a little more rare. Finally she spotted a rather lovely tree that she thought would be pefect for her uses. Even better, there was only one person within direct site of her should she actually succeed with her experimentations, and that a brown haired woman probably not much older than she was, sitting on a bench. She smiled shyly at the woman, keeping her black eyes downcast, before sitting down in a nice patch of green grass under the tree. It was time for some hardcore concentration and dino-inspired thoughts.

Susan watched the weirdly dressed (who was she to judge?) girl approach, and returned her look with a shy smile of her own. She noticed the black eyes, and they immedietaly siked her curiosity; her own eyes swam black, covering the park in soft shadow-noises. She watched the girl, a mutant no doubt, come closer and sit down on the grass. She was about to do something, Susan was not sure what - meditate, think, use her powers... probably one of those. She didn't mind that the girl didn't try to start a conversation; she was here to observe, after all, and wait curiously till something happened that was worth conversing about.
So she just sat, watching the girl, waiting for science to happen.
Hopefully this one was not the violent kind.

Amber didn't notice as the stranger's eyes swam black nor did she realize that she had become the focus of the woman's attention. Had she she might have given up on her plans right then and there or, at the very least, found a more private place to sit and concentrate. As it was, however, she noticed nothing and in quick order forgot the woman entirely as she placed all her concentration into the intent of transforming. The only thing she did before getting properly started was remove her shows. Though she knew her robes would be safe, her shows may not have been quite so lucky.

In the past the only times Amber had been able to transform were when she was afraid and no matter how much she wanted to transform when not afraid, it had failed. Therefore, she decided on a different tact this time around, drawing her mind to everything in life that had ever scared her. She started with the bullies that had always picked on her, changed to the damaging and dangerous sun and finally wandered to humans attacking her because she was a mutant. With that final thought, she couldn't' help but recall what Aura had been forced to do in defending her and all the horrible horrible blood that had resulted.

Amber began to feel a tingling sensation across her hands and feet, which is where it had begun in the past. She clung to her blood-filled images, imagining what it would have been like had her sister died in defending her and the thugs had brought their horrible dangerous weapons to bear upon her small and fragile form. The tingling sensation expanded up her arms and legs, turning from discomfort to pain.

Susan observed, with all possible conminations of senses, the fascinating sight as the strange girl sat on the grass and did nothing.
At least that's how it looked from her point of observation. At first none of her senses picked up anything beyond the usual, not counting the X-gene.
And then she started to shift.
Susan's eyes widened a bit with curiosity - no doubt she was about to witness a new display of mutant powers, and she was more than excited to see what the girl was going to shift into, as well as how the process looked through all of her senses.
By this time, the young witch was on the edge of her seat, leaning closer and tilting her head, not daring to make any sound or sudden move. Just in case.
The sight grew more and more eciting by the second - colors, smells, sound shifted one after another, subtle and more visible changes building up to the shift itself.
As far as Susan could judge, it was only a matter of seconds now...

Amber wasn't aware that the woman sitting nearby to her was so interested in her attempted transformation. In fact, she wasn't aware of much of anything at that exact moment outside of the transformation process itself. It was painful to transform, agonizingly so, but at least she knew what to expect this time having changed more than once in the past and because she knew what to expect she managed to clamp her teeth shut and not utter a sound. The pain would go away as soon as the change was complete, she knew that also.

The pain extended from Amber's limbs to encompass her entire body. At first it was only her skin that changed, going from its usual very pale white to a scaly green gray. Her fingernails grew into actual claws and her face began to stretch forward as her teeth sharpened and additional needle-like teeth appeared in her mouth. Finally, a tail emerged from the end of her tailbone and she began to shrink until she stood in a pile of red robes, fully Compsognathus.

Having changed several times in the past, Amber was finally starting to feel comfortable in her new form. While she still wasn't sure that she'd be up to running an obstacle course, she was at least able to walk and run in a natural fashion. Transformation complete, she looked around and finally noticed she had an audience and chirped at her silent observer. As long as her admirer didn't try to attack her, capture her or start screaming she figured it was all right.

The shift was complete.
The girl turned into a dinsoaur.
Susan climbed a tree.

She had never climbed a tree before. She was not even sure about the proper way of doing it, and she had never been interested in trying. Most of the time climbing trees either looked dangerous, or boring.
Right now, it looked very, very logical.
It was done in dead silence, and later on even the witch herself was not sure how she'd done it - in skirts, and with considerable speed. One moment she was sitting on a bench, observing the shifting girl - the next, she was up seven or eight feet above ground level, straddling one of the lower branches of an oak tree. Blinking in utter surprise. At the dinosaur, as well as her newly acquired athletic abilities.
"You." the witch addressed the small animal that was chirping around under the tree. With politeness and dignity, of course. "Are extinct."
Or at least, she really should be.

Amber's admirer climbed up a tree. In fact, she didn't just climb up a tree, but all but scurried up the tree in a rather remarkable fashion, especially considering the skirt. Was she afraid of Amber? Afraid of her current form which was little larger than a cat? That was a fact that she found to be hilariously funny. No one had ever been afraid of her before, except when she was running for her life in her other much larger dino form and she had been far too frightened of the angry mob herself to really appreciate it.

"You. Are extinct."

Amber craned her neck up, to look at the woman high above her. Her eyes in this form, were rather remarkable. Everything was clearer than she was used to and, for once, she was actually in a position to appreciate that fact. She chirped again at the woman, nodding her head up and down. Yes, she was indeed supposed to be extinct. Except that she wasn't. And that was amazing. Because it meant she could terrify innocent by standards. Which was the must amusing thing every and she let out a sort of chirpy laugh.

The tiny dinosaur didn't follow her up the tree. Incy wincy Susan was much relieved.
She looked down at the chirping animal, and observed its relative size and probable weight, considering how much danger it would pose to a witch of average height and weight.
Calculations like that take some time.
The little one seemed to be laughing at her, even though she was fairly sure dinosaurs were not known to laugh. Then again, this specimen was also a mutant girl. With an intelligence level that hopefully set her above a real dinosaur.
"Do you understand me?" she asked, more like an experiment, looking down at the little one with her eyes swimming black. The chirps did have a pattern this way. She was also holding on to the branch with both hands so hart her knuckles turned white.
"I have no idea how I'm going to get down from here." she murmured to herself.
Great.

"Do you understand me?"

Amber nodded her little dinosaur head and chirped back up at the woman in the tree. The woman did realize that she was a mutant and not a real dinosaur, right? Surely she must since Amber was pretty sure she had been watching the entire transformation right from the beginning. The lack of talking thing was proving to be something of a difficulty. Yes or no questions were simple enough but how could she get across any other information? Chirping just wasn't cutting it.

"I have no idea how I'm going to get down from here."

Amber was pretty sure those particular words weren't meant for her ears but it seemed like her hearing was a little better than she was used in this form also. She chirped again, scratching at the tree truck with one of her forelimbs and realizing very quickly that Compsognathuses were not meant to climb trees. There simply wasn't anything she could do for the poor (and still highly amusing) woman.

All right, so the small creature still possessed the ability of understanding human speech, as well as a basic form of yes-and-no communication. It also couldn't climd trees. Susan didn't mind. Yet.
"All right, suppose I can climb down from here." she ventured "Would you attack me?"
It may have sounded blunt, but she had to simplifly things to the limited communication on the dinosaur's part. Also, one cannot be too elaborate when stuck on a tree. Climbing down was not really an option (yet), so the question was purely theoretical.
"You are a mutant." she added, her eyes still black, trying to catch a visible pattern in the chirps "You just shift into... a dinosaur."
Species to be determined at closer inspection later on.

"Would you attack me?"

Amber shook her head. At least her previously silent observer had gotten it through her head that Amber could both understand her speak and answer questions in a non-verbal fashion. Unless, of course, the woman had suddenly discovered how to speak dinosaur but something told her that was unlikely.

"You are a mutant.You just shift into... a dinosaur."

This time Amber nodded. The woman, despite first impressions, actually seemed to be moderately intelligent. Or at least had a little common sense, which was a real positive. Maybe she had just been so started by Amber's initial change that she hadn't displayed it at first but maybe she couldn't really be blamed for that. After all, it wasn't too often that dinosaurs appeared in Central Park. Or ever, as far as she was aware.

With a sudden moment of inspiration Amber scurried over to her discarded clump of robes and began rifling around until she found a pocket. A moment later she turned back to the three and the woman in the treetop, a triumphant gleam in her eye and a blackberry held in her mouth. She displayed it to the woman and then placed it carefully on the ground in front of her. Her dino arms and dino hands, while a little short and not quite as dexterous as her human hands, should be sufficient for some basic, of rather slow, texting. If the tree woman had a phone and the common sense to give her a number to text her on. She chirped up again, hoping to draw her attention.

No murderous intetnions. Good. Now Susan could move on to the next issue, namely her situation on the tree and the distance of the ground from where she was currently sitting. It wasn't all that far away. Susan had never experienced being afraid of heights before. She was also sure she didn't want to jump. The dinosaur might be friendly, but a wounded human could still come across as a form of temptation...
She watched the little creature produce a blackberry, and blinked at the surreal scene. What on Earth was she doing? She couldn't speak, so calling someone might...
Texting. Oh.
She hadn't thought of that. She never used her cellphone much, and she certainly didn't text as much as her roommates and sisters did. But she was familiar with the baiscs.
"You want to text me?" she guessed, arching an eyebrow at the dino. She reached into her bag, fishing out a cellphone. Balancing with only one hand gripping the brach was... uncomfortable. "All right, um. My number is..."
Am I really giving my number to a dinosaur?!
Once she finished listing the numbers, Susan watched the dinosaur... text. And she wondered if it really was the easiest solution.
"Are you unable to shift back into your human form?" she guessed.