The big oak tree stood at the front of the mansion lawn, just inside the brick wall. It's branches were perfectly spaced for climbing, almost as if the tree had held aspirations for becoming a staircase to the heavens ever sine it had been a sapling. Or at least a staircase to the top of the wall.

Katrina used the tree often for that purpose, when she wanted to be alone, or think, or read, or observe people. She'd climb the tree, cross over the gap using a branch as a bridge, then find a comfy spot on the top of the wall to sit, sometimes invisible, sometimes not. Sometimes on really hot days she never even made it past the branches; the shade and the breezes were simply so nice that she just perched in the branches for awhile.

Today was one of those hot days. It was too hot to be inside and too hot to be outside, so she would simply have to settle for the least hot place she could think of.

She had a paperback with her; some impossible zombie romance novel that required almost no brain cells to read. Predictable plot, corny jokes, and even cornier dialog. In short, perfect reading for a summer day. She clenched it between her teeth and tried not to drool on it as she climbed up the tree, hand over hand.

Branch, branch, branch, she followed the familiar path until something really confusing happened. Instead of a branch, her hand had grabbed a foot.

Now, that didn't belong here.

It was time. After the excitement of moving in and meeting a bunch of new people all the time, it was definitely time to seek a quiet place to just sit. He missed the solace of his apartment or the serenity of a greenhouse filled with plants. But really, what he missed most of all was when he could sit in a tree and do nothing. There was no house work or gardening that needed to be done, really no distractions of any kind. Trees had such few expectations of him.

He was also feeling like he needed to spend some time with some of the other trees on the grounds. The maple outside his room was very nice, but working so much with her and not even visiting the others seemed like too much favoritism. So Kai had set out on a quest to find the best tree to just sit in. Wandering around aimlessly, however, had no appeal to him. Instead, he reasoned that he could simply ask the trees who had the most visitors who would climb them. This close to a school, it was likely that all the climbable trees would be climbed.

A large oak near the wall was reputed to have some regular friends and several wide branches that could provide an excellent place to nestle in without fear of falling out if one should drift off into slumber. Kai headed that way and made his way up a ways until he found the perfect branch.

Is this the one? he asked, for he wanted to sit in the most comfortable spot for both of them.

It is where the wiggler always sits, the tree replied echoingly in his head.

Kai nodded. Then this was the best spot. He laid back, staring up through the maze of branches and let his feet dangle down.

His eyelids were just starting to get heavy when- “Wha-?” he sat straight up, up, and peered down at the something grabbing a hold of his foot. Man, is no place sacred?! “Uh… can I help you?”

The foot belonged to a boy. A boy sitting in her favorite spot. A boy with green eyes (she wouldn't hold that against him) and tousled brown hair that probably could use a trim. A boy with a curious expression on his face.

He was kind of a cute boy.

She could deal with this, really she could.

“Yu ingh by shpagh.” Oops.

She made sure her hand and footholds were secure before taking the book out of her mouth.

“You're in my spot,” she repeated, “or rather...” she didn't want to seem like she was trying to kick him out or anything, “I mean, it's where I always sit.” She blushed, kind of embarrassed that she was even so tongue tied suddenly.

There were other branches up here, really. She could find another one or even another tree if she had to. Except she kind of still wanted to sit here for some reason.

That meant it was probably time for introductions.

“Are you new around here? I'm Katrina.” Her hands were busy holding tree branches and books, so not offering to shake hands seemed very natural. She smiled instead.

All of a sudden, a little blonde book popped up. Or rather, a girl with a book. Now, Kai was learning all about girls and generally considered himself to be pretty at ease when in their presence. He hadn’t even really ever had a ‘crush’ before, but for a girl who habitually climbed trees… he might be willing to make an exception. Maybe, if this truly was the ‘wiggler,’ as the tree had described her. And here he’d imagined that it was some other boy’s spot.

At first she just sputtered some nonsense, on account of the book, but then it was confirmed. >>“You're in my spot, or rather... I mean, it's where I always sit.” She blushed cutely and Kai felt a strange fluttering nervous feeling. He also felt a little like his balance was not so great all of a sudden. He grabbed the next highest branch to keep himself stable as she introduced herself. All thoughts of solitude and finding his own private tree went flying away.

“Hi Katrina.” He returned the smile. “I moved in a little while ago. The name’s Kai. And there’s plenty of space up here.” He moved over on the branch to make room for her.

That was a very acceptable solution to their little dilemma. Sharing a branch. With a cute boy. Just a little older than herself.

“A genius,” she whispered, wishing she had thought of it herself. “Thanks,” she added a little bit louder. They maneuvered a bit and both were able to find spots on the branch. Oak trees were awesome like that, so accommodating to young teens as to provide spaces for two to sit. Katrina shoved her book between her knee so he couldn't see the title. (It was one of those uber-popular girly fad books that you didn't really want to admit to having read. Especially not to a boy.) Then she commenced swinging her legs back and forth.

“Welcome to the mansion. It's a pretty neat place to live, I hope you'll like it. It takes a little getting used to, always being at school and all, but it also means there's always some adventure or other to be had. It never gets dull. Well, almost never.” Today being as hot as it was, there probably wasn't a whole lot of people up to adventuring in such weather.

After a little rearranging of limbs (their own, not the tree’s) Kai was seated comfortably next to the girl. Actually, he could have been a little more comfortable with a little more elbow room. There was some space for him to move over, but then he would be farther away from Katrina. And, well, that was silly.

Kai opened his mouth to ask her what she was reading and thereby start a conversation, but now that she was up here she seemed less interested in her book, striking up conversation on her own.

His ears perked up when he heard the word adventure. “You like that kind of stuff? Adventuring, I mean.” Maybe that also meant that she would find his powers interesting. “Do you want to see something cool, then?” In his (vast) experience with the girls at the mansion, he’d noticed that they liked when he did something with his powers. It was kind of a unique gift and, Kai reasoned, the way to a woman’s heart was obviously through plants. Why else did they garden so much and like when they got flowers?

Room for two meant that their elbows were very close together, apparently. As long as that didn't become touching and turning Katrina into a duck for the rest of her life, that was fine.

She nodded, who didn't like a little adventuring? As for his something cool, “Sure, what have you got?” Her grey eyes were wide and expectant.

Ohh. An audience. Kai fully intended to take advantage of his moment in the spotlight. “Okay, see that leaf?” He pointed to one just above their heads, then paused for dramatic effect. “Now you don’t!” he announced, making the leaf ungrow as fast as he possibly could.

Now this next bit required concentration and a little theatrical flair. Kai reached behind Katrina’s ear, “Hmm, it looks like you didn’t wash this morning.” Then he drew has hand back kind of slowly to give the leaf now growing out the tip of his index finger. He wiggled it, bouncing the leaf playfully up and down.

His face beamed with happiness and maybe a little bit of smugness. He’d been practicing growing leaves and things on demand and he was pretty proud that he was able to do exactly what he wanted, and even make it happen faster than ever before! He looked at Katrina expectantly, waiting for her to join him in celebrating his success.

Katrina looked up, she saw the leaf he was pointing to. She wasn't sure what she was expecting it to do, maybe float down gently to land on her nose or something. She wasn't expecting it to simply disappear in the blink of an eye. That was actually pretty cool.

That was only half the trick, though, the next trick was to bring it back from behind her ear like a street corner magician. Was that really growing out of his finger?

Katrina smiled a half smile in amusement before catching sight of Kai's face. He looked just a little bit too proud of himself. Like he really wanted to impress her.

“That's pretty impressive,” she conceded, “but wait until you see this.” She pointed to the closest tree to them. Not the one they were sitting in, but a much smaller one just a bit closer to the mansion. It was probably a poplar. Maybe.

“See that tree?” She waited until she was sure he was looking at it. Then, she made it invisible. Just like his leaf had vanished, the tree was gone. Her pointing finger traced an arc of 180 degrees until it was pointing at the top of the wall behind them. A leaf appeared on a stem, but it didn't remain a sprout for long. It grew taller, stretching up towards the sky on hyperdrive. Four leaves, then forty, four hundred, an uncountable number... until the entire tree, just as it had been in the yard, now grew on the top of the brick wall.

Or rather, it looked like it grew there.

She turned back to Kai, her own face expectant now. How would he react to that?

Kai’s eyes nearly fell right out of his head when Katrina replicated what he did, but on a much more massive scale, moving a whole tree from where it was growing in the ground to growing on the wall. He just gaped at the towering poplar now on the wall for a full five seconds before… But… where are the roots? Things just didn’t seem quite right.

He cocked his head to the side like a confused puppy. The newly transplanted tree also didn’t feel like a tree. Well… when I grow them they don’t feel quite the same, either, he conceded. But they were just different in that case, his powers still registered them. This tree didn’t seem much like a tree at all.

“Uh… how did you do that?” He asked, more curious now than amazed.

Heh, oops. She wasn't really supposed to tell people what her mutation actually was. Somewhere along the line someone had planted a seed in her mind that a powerful mutation made for strong incentive to kidnap. Over time, the little idea had grown just like the tree that now stood on top of the wall. It was watered by an actual kidnapping experience, which, granted, hadn't had anything to do with her mutation but definitely made her want to avoid any similar experiences in the future. It was nourished by the rumors of other mansion residents that had been kidnapped and then released again, presumably because someone had been interested in their powers. The extra security didn't exactly put her mind at ease, since the added patrols that were supposed to be in effect hadn't really been patrolling as far as Katrina could tell.

The seed of caution had officially become a tree of paranoia.

There were time, though, that she really wished she could show people. She wanted to be proud of her powers and show off what she could do, like Kai seemed so comfortable with doing. It kind of felt like she was hiding her true self all the time, and it was beginning to get old.

“Uhh...” she responded. A dozen different responses vied for their spot on the tip of her tongue. Screw it. “It's an illusion.” Katrina plucked at the image of the tree then made a throwing motion towards where it originally stood. The pretend tree vanished and the real one reappeared in it's old spot.

“You have to promise not to tell anyone, though. I usually just tell people that I can turn stuff invisible. Only a few people know the whole truth.” Why was she telling him all this? There was something about him that seemed so open and honest and trustworthy and good. Even having just met him, she wanted to trust him right away. For once she wanted to start out with the truth, wanted someone to like her for who she really was.

It was probably a bad idea, but only time would tell.

Katrina seemed a bit skittish at first, almost as though she was shy, but then she explained her mutation. Illusions, huh? he thought that was pretty cool, but kind of useless in a lot of ways. Fake trees, after all, provided no benefits. Neither for the environment or for climbing, nor for shade.

But apparently it was a secret. His chest puffed up a little bit, unconsciously. She was confiding in him?! He felt so... special and important. “Don't worry,” he assured her, a little bit enthusiastically. “I am really good at keeping secrets!”

He leaned back against the tree again and considered the leaf on his finger. The skin around the base where it was attached was just starting to turn green. It was spreading extremely slowly, since the leaf could absorb sun on its own. “I don't want to seem rude or anything, since you said it was a secret... but why? I mean, I thought that here of all places you could just... be whatever. No one really seems to care that I can grow trees or that my roommate his giant wings growing out of his back. Your mutation isn't obvious, so why is it such a secret?”

Katrina shifted so an uncomfortable knot in the tree was no longer poking into her leg. It wasn't the only uncomfortable thing up in the tree. Now she had to explain why it was such a secret. She'd give it her best shot, even if it sounded weird.

“A friend told me that the less people know, the less likely they are to want to manipulate you into using your powers for evil. It's safer if people think your ability is less useful than it really is. Invisibility is only useful for spying on people, but illusions could be a whole lot more diverse.” In particular she remembered a dream she had once in which she had used illusory pain to torture someone. She hadn't liked who she had been in that dream and would do whatever she could to avoid becoming like that.

“It seems far fetched, but there are lots of mutants who have been kidnapped as kids, or even as grown ups, because people want to do tests on them or whatever. Didn't you hear about the mansion students that got snatched a couple months ago? They were released afterward, but their kidnappers stole blood samples. There have been extra patrols and everything since then.” At least, there had been in theory. Katrina was not so sure that the X-men were actually being very religious about those extra patrols.

And then she realized that if she explained everything about kidnapping and mutant testing and all the rest she might accidentally make Kai paranoid too. Err...

“But you shouldn't worry too much, probably the likelihood that anyone would kidnap you is pretty small.” She meant this to be reassuring and it wasn't at all a statement of Kai's relative value to potential kidnappers, even if it unintentionally sounded like that's exactly what it was.

He could tell that she was definitely watching too much news or something. Or perhaps she was 'in the loop' with people who knew more than he did. Kai had never even heard that students from the mansion had been taken. He shook his head, “Maybe that happened before I arrived here?” he suggested weakly, “I actually hadn't heard.”

Knowing the type of people that he'd met at the mansion so far, it wasn't hard to see how someone could try to manipulate their powers for bad. Take turning things into stone, for example. That one could definitely be abused. “I guess it makes a lot of sense. In the wrong hands, a mutation or a mutant can be used as a weapon,” he reflected, sadness creeping into his voice.

Still, he wasn't too paranoid. After all, how could being a good gardener be a twisted? Kai flinched slightly as he was reminded of his most recent dreams.

These really was too serious of a conversation for normal in-tree etiquette. He decided to try to lighten the mood. “Well, Katrina,” (he found that people took him more seriously if he addressed the by their name when he said something important) “I promise that I won't say anything to anybody about your powers.” Then he smiled playfully, and stated as though it were a grave secret, “If you won't say anything about mine.” Kai wiggled the finger-leaf.

Was it her imagination, or did his face get just a bit paler when he heard about the student kidnappings. It was pretty intense, after all.

Then he got as serious as pinky-swears on the playground. Katrina nodded solemnly, “I promise I won't tell anyone.” Her voice was serious to show that she really meant it. If he wanted his powers to be a secret, too, she would fully support his efforts.

“So... if you're new-ish, has anyone told you about the x-men and the younger generation branch, the x-kids?”