Only recently had Amber returned from, quite possibly, the worst experience of her entire short life. She had been captured, held prisoner against her will and forced to endure experiments and fight bears and wolves. It was a time of her life she would have much preferred to simply forget about. The one and only good thing about the experience, however, was the acquisition of a new form, something very different than anything she had ever acquired before. It was a flying lizard, only slightly larger than a rat. After extensive research, she decided that the form was probably that of a Mecistotrachelos apeoros, although there were several other options but that seemed to be the most likely. A new form, of course, meant something new to practice and this beautiful sunny day would make for just the right opportunity.

In her human form, of course, Amber was completely unable to go outside in the direct sunlight for more than a few minutes without her pale white albino skin painfully burning. While shifted, however, she had no such prohibitions and had come to realize that her skin sensitivities were, in some way, tied to her gift. She was tired of being trapped inside on beautiful days and her newly acquired lizard form would be perfect for journeying out into the daylight. Dinosaurs, as it turned out, tended to cause panic in the streets, even small dinosaurs. Lizards, however, were completely natural in the modern day world and even if her particular lizard was millions of years extinct and thus looked a little odd, she was pretty sure it looked normal enough that she wouldn't cause riots or attract angry mobs. Both of which were very good things.

The first order of business was to find a place to shift and stash her robes, not difficult while on Mansion grounds. She found an abandoned classroom with a convenient window, which she proceeded to open, before stripping herself of her robes. Once stripped she began concentrating and the familiar agony of a shift ripped through her body. The agony was short lived as it always was, however.

Amber ended her shift on the desk, positioned just under the window. Unlike her other forms, this one felt...tight, almost constricted, perhaps due to the fact that it was the smallest form she had ever tried. She moved tiny little lizard feet and spread her tiny yellow lizard wings, trying to get used to the unusual feeling. Once all parts were accounted for, it was time to exit out the window into the bright and glorious sunlight outside. This would be an eventful and wonderful day indeed and nothing was going to ruin it for her.

It came as no surprise that Gina was outside. Her shoulders had already darkened with dappling from their exposure to the sun, and she now spent much, if not all, of her free time either walking or flying as she desired. For now, she was walking-- flying during the day got too complicated for a human-sized creature. People would freak out unknowingly, and all of the undue panic wasn't worth the trouble for the young teen. So, as she'd taken to doing quite often, she was strolling about the grounds, waiting for the sun to set.

Today was a shorts-and-tank top kind of day, thus she was wearing one of each-- short, cutoff jean shorts and a couple layers of camisoles. She trailed along the edge of campus, along the fence, humming to herself in an off-key sort of way. There was no particular melody to the tune that she hummed, none that anyone else would recognize.

Gina passed by the side of the mansion, at a distance, now at an angle from which she could see the backside of Xavier's. She continued her stroll, unaware of the small lizard that was perched in one of the Mansion's many windows.

From her research and her limited experience with her new form, Amber knew that the lizard she presently was could glide. She had been in a form that allowed flight before and that form involved a certain amount of gliding, but not a form without self powered flight, not like her little lizard. The question was, how did one go about gliding when one couldn't fly? Was it just a matter of jumping and then spreading her wings and hoping for the best? But if she was wrong, wouldn't it hurt to splatter onto the ground?

Moving her little lizard head for a better view, Amber looked down from the window ledge to the ground. From her present perspective and given her present size, it seemed like a very long way down indeed. Raising her head for a better view of her surroundings, she looked to see if there was some target she might be able to jump to and thus test out her gliding capabilities. She spotted a tree a few feet away and decided that would be her best bet. It was either take a chance and jump for the tree, or climb down the wall and climb back up the tree. Climbing, at least, she had gotten the hang of. Jumping, however, sounded so much more fun.

Amber stood in the windowsill, trying to gauge the exact direction and velocity she would need to actually make it onto the distant tree. No one who could not turn into a lizard could possibly understand just how complicated jumping and gliding from one place to another truly was! Once she thought she had everything worked out, she walked back a few steps and began running, leaping from the window sill off and towards the treetop.

For a long moment Amber felt like she was falling, then her mind remembered her wings, which she proceeded to open and catch the air. Amazingly, she was no longer falling, but gliding in the air at high speeds. She felt her heart race with the danger and excitement of it all. It was, quite possibly, even more of a thrill than actual flight because there was no way to slow down or to easily change direction, she was at the mercy of the wind. Then she started to lose height, rather rapidly and felt a moment of panic when she realized she wasn't going to make it to the tree after all. Limbs windmilled in the air as she tried desperately to gain more height. And then, suddenly, she wasn't in the air anymore. She was on top of something warm and moving.

Gina moved beneath some trees, strolling along slowly. Had she been less involved in her thoughts and more aware of the impending aerial attack, she might have darted out of the way. Be that as it was, Gina was wrapped in her thoughts, and was not aware of the approaching, airborne lizard. In a strike of good timing, and perhaps a little bit of luck, the lizard landed squarely on Gina's head. She'd pulled her hair back into a tight, practical ponytail, so her curls were stretched straight over her skull, and had been warmed by the sun.

Something warm and heavy hit the crown of Gina's head, avoiding the horns as if by some miracle. Gina's heart leapt into her chest, and without knowing what it was that had hit her, she panicked. With a light flick of her wrist, she brushed whatever it was off of her head and onto the ground. It had been warm, heavy and definitely alive. She stepped back a few steps to survey whatever-it-was, trying to calm her hammering heart. It sat on the ground, splayed out in a fashion that made it easily discernible as an animal.

She dared to edge even closer, leaning over to survey what kind of creature it was. It seemed to be a... little white lizard, with thin membranes stretching from its wings. A flying lizard? Whatever it was, it was not natural. Gina smiled and chuckled-- a gargoyle, calling a flying lizard unnatural. Fancy that. It was a white lizard, about the size of a large rodent. Probably mutant. Something about it struck her as oddly familiar. However, any effort to determine exactly who or what the mutant was was overridden by the overwhelming realization that the lizard was cute.

"Sorry about that," Gina said, kneeling at the lizards side and leaning closer, "You okay?" She was resisting the urge to pick the lizard up, if it were actually a student, but she was sorely tempted and already losing her resolve. She had little resistance against cute things.

It didn't take Amber long to realize that the warm thing she had inadvertently landed on might just be someone's head. Under her feet, after all, was either the strangest grass she had ever seen (not for the least of which reasons that it wasn't green) or someone's hair. The pros of landing on someone's head were that she didn't get injured in the fall, the hair cushioning her landing. The cons were that she had probably scared that someone half to death, as evidence by the someone trying to throw her off of the head.

The world around Amber rocked and she tried desperately to grab onto the hair with her tiny lizard claws, failed to grab on sufficiently, and went flying. Lizard instincts saved her and her wings opened the moment her feet left solid ground and she landed several feet away from her unwilling perch, unscathed save for the near heart attack that resulted in suddenly being thrown from her landing place.

Once Amber was certain that her world was not going to throw her off again as well as the fact that she had landed on real grass this time rather than hair, she turned back around and looked up at whoever had thrown her off. She had to look way way up and realized that she recognized the face that was looking back down at her. Was it...she tried to search through her memory and was fairly certain the name of her saving grace was Gina.

"Sorry about that, you okay?"

A tiny lizard chirp and a bob of her tiny lizard head confirmed that she was, in fact, ok.

The lizard chirped and nodded. Good God, it was raining smart, white lizard mutants. At least she knew that it was a mutant now. Gina peered skyward, checking the sky for other, potential soaring lizards, but spotted none.

It dawned on Gina that the lizard seemed oddly familiar, but for some reason, she was simply just not connecting the dots. Her brain was a bit muddled from the fact that she was talking to a lizard, and a very adorable one at that.

"Have we, uh, met?" Gina tried, her brows furrowed. She remained knelt by the lizard, so that they were somewhat, sort of eye-to-eye, "I feel as though we have."

She allowed for the lizard to answer before continuing her inquiries.

"Did you fall out of that tree?" she asked. She'd been too distracted with her terror to notice the lizard gliding from her head, and therefore was unaware that it had done so. She did realize, though, that it had landed quite far from where she'd brushed it off, and was therefore under the impression that she'd thrown it quite far.

It was hard to tell exactly what the gargoyle mutant thought about the tiny Amber lizard falling on her given her perspective so low to the ground. Even her Compsognathus wasn't nearly so tiny and that had been her smallest form by far until she got her flying lizard and she wasn't entirely sure that she liked it. Sure, it was great to be able to climb and glide, but she also felt far more vulnerable than she did in any of other forms. Unless she was in a tree or something similar, she wasn't very fast or very strong and that just didn't seem very healthy.

"Have we, uh, met?I feel as though we have."

Amber nodded her tiny lizard head. She was feeling more and more like she'd really just rather return to her human form and converse normally, or at the very least she wished she was in a larger, more capable form. What if someone accidentally stepped on her? That didn't sound like much fun at all.

"Did you fall out of that tree?"

Once again Amber nodded her lizard head. Maybe the gargoyle would bring her back up to the window above so she could retain her usual form? With that thought in mind, she did her best to raise a foot and point up at the Mansion. She then attempted to gain purchase on the gargoyle mutant's leg in order to scurry up her body and onto her head. Maybe she might just be nice enough to provide her a free ride back up to where her robes were stashed. If she could only figure out how to get the message across.

The little lizard bobbed its head, but didn't move otherwise, as it was trying to decide what to do next. Gina couldn't figure out who the lizard was or how she knew it, but at least she knew that it was a mutant now.

The lizard bobbed its head to the second question as well, now gesturing towards the mansion. Gina looked towards the mansion inquiringly. She didn't quite understand what the lizard was implying up until the lizard skittered onto her clawed foot and began attempting to climb her bare leg. For any other, it might have hurt to have tiny lizard claws digging into their leg, but it was just slightly uncomfortable, if not mildly humorous.

"No need to be so pushy, I get it," Gina laughed, bending over and gingerly picking up the fellow mutant. She cupped both of her hands and let the lizard sit within them, holding it up to eye-level.

"Head or shoulders?" she inquired, asking the lizards preference of seating location. She wasn't going to carry this other mutant like this the whole way, for if she happened to trip, it'd be either uncomfortable, dangerous, or a little bit of both.

It was an interesting sensation looking someone in the eye while being held and a completely new sensation for Amber. In fact, it was pretty much a new sensation to be held by someone much larger in general and not an entirely comfortable one at that. Lizards, she decided, were at their best when they were scurrying around treetops avoiding large gargoyalish mutants, they were far too small and vulnerable to actually be held. She was fortunate that Gina was a good person, or at least she thought so from what little she knew of the gargoyle because if she wasn't she would be almost entirely defenseless.

As soon as Amber was given the opportunity, she scurried up her fellow mutant's arm and perched on top of her head. Now that was a position she was far more comfortable with, even if it wasn't any less strange. Little lizard claws clamped onto gargoyle hair and she was, overall, quite pleased with the view that her perch afforded her. Perhaps it was just a matter of finding how to act to be comfortable and safe, rather than righting off her gliding lizard form entirely.

There was, of course, still the problem of directing Gina to the location where her robes were stashed, but at least her ride appeared to be headed in the right direction. Maybe once they got inside she would be able to get off her perch and actually lead the way. Even as a tiny reptile, it couldn't be too difficult to get to the place, right?

At the inquiry, the lizard scurried down her arm, its little lizard claws pricking her flesh as it paused for only a moment on her shoulder before scrambling onto her head. She felt the lizard curl its little feet into her hair and settle down close to her skull. She smiled and chuckled at the idea of the lizard-hat which she now wore. Following the direction that the lizard had pointed, Gina turned and began to walk gingerly towards the Mansion.

It reminded her of those movies where some character was trying to learn how to walk like a proper lady. And so, to help educate her in this, they'd pile books up on her head and instruct her to walk without letting these books fall. When she was able to do so, her poise would be at a "ladylike" degree, or something like that. That is how Gina felt now, for she walked with fantastic posture, and tried desperately not to move her head too much. The lizard seemed to have a fairly good grasp on her hair, but Gina didn't want to risk throwing it off of her head again.

It was awkward, to be ambling up the grassy slopes towards the mansion, without much conversation, yet it was difficult to hold a conversation with a lizard as well. The closest to conversing that it could come would be a monologue, and though Gina didn't mind talking, it would probably drive the lizard insane. It was worth a shot anyways.

"So..." she trailed off as they got closer to the Mansion, "Once around the park, James?" Gina chuckled, fancying herself as no more than a chauffer or a ride. She went up the steps, steadily climbing them, as she awaited her next direction.

All that fear was useless, Amber decided. It was so much better just to enjoy the ride and so enjoy the ride she did. If she had facial muscles capable of grinning, that' exactly what she would have been doing right at that moment. Riding atop someone's head was a unique and strangely fun experience. Maybe she would have to do it again sometime, but only if she was certain to do so in a safe place like The Mansion.

Once back inside, Amber knew where to go and decided to try gliding one more time. With a few clicks of her lizard tongue, meant to be a warning although she wasn't certain how it might actually be interpreted, she jumped off the gargoyle's head and spread her wings. This time she was better able to control her glide and landed on the ground, unscathed, about 10 feet away.

Turning around to make sure that Gina was still there, she gestured with a very short arm that the gargoyle should proceed to follow her. Once certain she was being followed, she skittered off towards the steps that lead upstairs towards the classroom she had left her robes in. Hopefully either the door remained open as she had left it, or Gina would be able to open it for her. Lizards were somewhat lacking, as it turned out, in opposible thumbs.

As Gina slid in through the door, the lizard clicked at her, and jumped off of her head, gliding down to the the floor and landing a good distance away. Gina followed hesitantly. Was she meant to follow, or had she served her purpose and was now dismissed?

The lizard gestured with a "come hither" motion, and waited until it could see that Gina was following. Once within its proximity, the lizard began scampering off towards the stairway. Wouldn't i tbe easier for her to carry the lizard up the stairs.

Apparently not, for they began to ascend the staircase towards the classrooms. Gina kept a good couple of strides behind the lizard, careful to keep it in her range of vision so that she didn't unintentionally step on it.

"Have you tried the roof yet?" Gina inquired, under the assumption that the lizard had made use of one of the second-story classrooms, as she didn't know of any roof access from this wing of the building, "Gliding off of the roof could be fun."

With her acute lizard ears, there was no reason for Amber to look back in order to ensure that the gargoyle mutant was following her. As with many of her forms, her her lizard senses were much more potent than her mere human senses. Her eyesight wasn't exceptional, but she could hear much better and her sense of smell as she tasted the air with her tongue was nothing short of exceptional.

Once Amber made it to the stairs, she discovered that climbing them, while as tiny as she was, was something of a challenge. It involved more than a little strength as she first lifted the front portion of her body up above the step and then forced the back portion of her body to follow. Life certainly was more complicated when you were no bigger than a rat.

Amber registered Gina's idea of jumping off the roof and filed it for future experiments, nodding her tiny head. When capable of true flight she had jumped off the roof previously, but something told her the thrill would be even more intense if she jumped off it while only technically capable of gliding. The experience of self powered flight really was quite different.

Once at the top of the stairs, Amber scurried into the room she had left her robes in, pleased to see that the door remained open and her robes remained in a little coloured pile of fabric on the floor. She clicked and chirped at Gina, trying to convey the idea that the gargoyle should turn around and give her some privacy so she could regain human form. She even added in a circular motion with her tiny clawed foot, knowing all the while just how ridiculous it must look.

Gina followed the lizard the rest of the way up the stairs, surprised that it was still going at the pace that it was, and pursued it as it went down the hall and into one of the classrooms.

It was cool and dark, and all seemed to be in order. Rows of desks were unoccupied and cast in shadow, and an open window had barely allowed for the springtime warmth to creep in. The only thing that struck Gina as out-of-place was a pile of fabric on the floor.

The lizard scampered over to the pile of fabric, making some of its odd noises again and gesturing for Gina to turn around. Gina laughed and shrugged, pivotting on one foot so as to turn around and face the wall. A modest lizard, she considered, folding her arms as she waited.

It had yet to dawn on her that maybe this lizard were a dinosaur, that perhaps this lizard that was a dinosaur was Amber, even with the familiar pool of fabric on the floor.

((OOC: Apologies for the brevity, Amber. I had nothing else to write. ))

Amber waited patiently for Gina to turn around before starting her shift. She knew it must be quite an odd experience talking to a lizard who insisted upon privacy, but it would all make sense in a minute once she returned to human form. It struck her how quickly she had gotten used to the oddness of Mansion life and how quickly most of the students seemed to get used to it. How else could one explain being completely ok being a lizard talking to a living breathing gargoyle? It definitely wasn't something she would have been comfortable doing before she found out she was a mutant.

Once privacy was granted, the shift took Amber less than a minute. Whole no less horrifically painful than it always had been, she had at least mastered it sufficiently to do it quickly and efficiently. Scales disappeared back into pale white skin, teeth and tail likewise fled and her entire body grew to regular size. Despite the pain she was now used to, she didn't let any sound escape that might hint that what she was going through was far from pleasant. Once human form was regained it took only another handful of seconds to return to her robes.

"You can turn around now," Amber told the gargoyle, grinning broadly. Sure the experiment with her new form had started out a little badly, but after running around with the gargoyle woman in the safety of the Mansion, she realized that she actually did like the form after all, if only in certain environments. I hope that wasn't t-too strange for you."