The raptor chirped more, lowering its head, and its feathers fluffed up, so Allison figured she probably wasn’t going to be attacked immediately and started scratching lightly at the feathers above the raptor’s eyes. They were almost the same color as her hair, only a bit darker. Sam would be ecstatic to be able to prove that raptors had feathers. She started running her hands back along the raptor’s head and the beginning of its neck, feeling somewhat hypnotized by the surreality or the situation. I am standing in the middle of a New York neighborhood, petting a dinosaur, after being sort of involved in a fight without trying to run away, and probably being started at. And I’m not panicking. Have I missed anything else that’s off about the last ten minutes?

Allison blinked, looking down as a drop splashed against her leg, remembering the ink she’d let go of. Her hand stilled as she noticed it and she watched it run down her leg for a moment, then backed away, bending down to pull the trails from where ink had run down her leg into her skin, creating a new set of tattoos. She tilted her head, frowning slightly at the ink on the ground, then taking a few steps to run her hand over everywhere it had splashed, lifting it off the ground, her shoes and her clothes, holding it in an orb in the air and pulling of small threads to recreate tattoos. The original pattern and colors were lost, and she liked the dripping effect, so she started a pattern like makeup, with thick lines for eyeliner, and after a glance at the raptor, extremely thin ones branching off that like feathers. She started adding asymmetrical designs growing from the corners of her eyes, sometimes letting them begin to drip before pulling them into her skin.

It was an odd experiences being petted. Not a bad experience really, but certainly odd. In fact, Amber was inclined to put the experience in the good category. Maybe she would have to somehow work on her cuteness factor in order to gain herself more of such pets. There had to be some small and adorable feathered dinosaur out there in the world for her to acquire, right?

Amber watched in fascination as the woman who had been petting her only a moment before began manipulating the ink that had fallen to the ground around her. First it was all gathered into an orb in the air and then it was placed back onto her flesh. Not only was it a rather interesting display, but it also confirmed her suspicion that the woman was, in fact, a mutant.

Amber chirped at the woman again and lifted one finger to indicate that the would only be gone a minute. She then looked around to try and find some place somewhat sheltered in order to regain her human form. She found what she was looking for in the form of a small alleyway. Grabbing her robes in her mouth, she ran to the alley in preparation of regaining her human form. If the woman was a mutant then she had to speak to the woman.

Allison barely kept control of the ink as her concentration was broken by a chirp from the raptor, though she had to leave the latest line of ink sitting at the wrong point in her skin, still burning as she glanced over. The raptor... held up a claw? before picking up the fabric Allison hadn’t noticed until that point and running into an alley.

...Definitely not making the dinosaur from fabric, then. Allison blinked after the dinosaur for a moment, then went back to her ink, settling the line she’d been working on and then finishing her new pattern. Lies curled around her face and down her neck and arms, getting to drip more and more as they got further down, while her legs showed only drips and the occasional might-have-once-been-a-line. She hadn’t bothered with covering any skin that wasn’t visible; sinking the ink through her clothes and knowing how it would look was just too much of a pain to bother with, and it wouldn’t really matter anyway. That did, however, leave her with nearly half her ink unused, and she frowned at it for a moment. I have nowhere to put it, but I probably ought to keep it in case... but it’s not like ink is a great weapon, of all things... but really, how many times could I possibly be attacked... well, run into attacks, in one run? She tilted her head, then shrugged, and clapped the ink between her hands, absorbing it into the palms so that both were stained solid dark teal.

Shifting was never a pleasant experience, but at least it was a quick one. Amber didn't know that many other shifters so she didn't have much to compare her own power to. She knew Calley, of course, mean spiteful animal shifter that he was, but that was about it and Calley's shifts were rather different than her own. She gritted her teeth against the red hot pain that engulfed her as scales and feathers retreated, her tail teeth and fangs melted back into her flesh and her bones and muscles realigned herself. Half a minute after starting, she was left a naked human teenager, something rectified a moment later as she put her robes back safely on her person.

Once safely back to her usual form and clothed properly, Amber emerged from the shadows and walked back to the mutant that had helped her. Because, she decided, even if the other woman hadn't done that much, she had at least allowed her a chance to shift and deal with the problem. Her ribs felt bruised and she walked with a slight limp due to the pain in her lower leg from where the knife had slashed at her, but she was otherwise all right. Once she got back to The Mansion she would get her wounds addressed.

"Thank you for helping me and I'm s-sorry for getting you involved like that," Amber told the woman. It really hadn't been fair of her to involve an innocent bystander, not that she had meant to do so but still. She was supposed to be helping mutants now, right? Not accidentally getting them into trouble.

"Thank you for helping me and I'm s-sorry for getting you involved like that."

Allison blinked and turned as the woman returned, no longer a dinosaur and once again covered in far too many clothes for Allison to not question her sanity. She reached up, beginning to unbraid her hair as she answered. “No problem, nothing happened to me.” Which was a lie, her shoulder was still aching slightly where it had been hit, but that would go away in a few hours or less, and didn’t even hurt as much as her legs would after she finished running anyway. Which I need to do. I should be running, but I don’t want to be rude, and the run’s been pretty well interrupted already anyway.... “Are you alright? I saw one of the guys had a knife, and you have to be melting wearing that much....” She gave the cloth a skeptical look. I’m not sure even all of Alaska would be cold enough to wear that in now.

Amber felt a strange sort of pride to hear that the mutant woman before her was all right. Even if she was kind of in a round about way responsible for the danger she had been placed in, she was also responsible, mostly, for getting her out of it unscathed. Pride, as it turned out, was a very strange and rare emotion for her to feel. She couldn't remember the last time she had done something truly worthy of feeling any sort of pride over.

"I'm glad you're OK. My name's Amber." She extended a pale white hand to the woman, waiting to see if she would agree to make her own introduction. "I g-got a little scratch but I'm all right." So maybe it was a bit more than a scratch, but it wasn't really that much more and she didn't really have a right to complain that much anyway.

Amber noticed the look she got and knew it probably had to do with either her eyes or her unusual clothes. She squirmed, feeling uncomfortable. It was worse in the summer when everyone else got to wear next to nothing, being forced to be wrapped in so many layers, not only because of the heat but, even more so, because of the looks she recieved. Blessing though her mutation was, sometimes it was a little bit of a curse also.

"I'm glad you're OK. My name's Amber."

“I'm Allison, thanks for helping me.” Habit took over and Allison dropped her mostly undone brain to shake the woman’s hand, calculating the pressure to be slightly less than she normally used. She was trying to be friendly, not impressive. She automatically started to look for the scratch when the woman admitted to having one, then stopped herself as she remembered she wouldn’t be able to see anything. Why would anyone ever consider clothing like this to be practical for anything? Even if you need to stay that warm how could you move at all? Not that she didn’t seem to manage to....

Allison still couldn’t see enough of the other woman’s face to tell anything, but she caught the shift, and it seemed fairly similar to the way her posture changed when something went wrong and she went from a good mood to beginning to shut down and get away from everything living again. Though what could’ve caused that now, I have no idea. Still, distraction time. Um.... I can think of nothing. “So, um.... What were you doing? Before you ran into them, I mean.”

"Nice to meet you Allison." Amber was glad that at least the woman seemed nice even if she also still appeared to be a bit of a moron. Nor did she particularly like the odd looks she was getting, but maybe the other woman didn't even realize she was doing it or that it might be any sort of a bother. She vowed to try her best to ignore them. If she asked about her strange clothes she'd answer, but she wasn't about to be the one to bring it up.

“So, um.... What were you doing? Before you ran into them, I mean.”

"I was t-trying to go home," Amber answered. She sent a death glare in the direction of the now long departed thugs. "Until a few very stupid humans decided to come and cause trouble." Although she supposed they couldn't have been all that stupid since they did, at least, have the sense to flee from her once she showed just how dangerous she really was. She turned her attention back to Allison and pointedly tried to put the incident into the back of her mind. Now was not the time to dwell on the disrespect of humans.

"D-do you have a place to stay? I mean, I know you can pass for human and all so it's probably not all that bad for you but..." Amber's words petered out part way through her thought. She knew it was the right thing to do, to offer a fellow mutant shelter, but it still wasn't something she was exactly used to. It was one thing to offer Sanctuary to a visible mutant who clearly didn't have any other place to go, it was quite another to offer it to a confident and almost entirely human mutant.

"I was t-trying to go home. Until a few very stupid humans decided to come and cause trouble."

Allison nodded, reaching up to tug the last few weaves out of her braid and return it to a ponytail. There really wasn’t much she could say to that. Except it’s about the most iconic image of prejudice I can think of, there aren’t many more ‘just going about my own business’ activities than going home. Maybe grocery shopping, or working or going to class. And then a group of guys attack a young woman with no provocation or probably warning. Oh, and generic hateful, threatening speech. ...If with a less than usual conclusion. Allison considered for another moment before deciding that no, she really couldn’t think of much more iconic situations to display prejudice than the one she’d just stumbled into. Eeyah. Humans are idiots, as usual. Well, people in general really, but humans in this instance....

"D-do you have a place to stay? I mean, I know you can pass for human and all so it's probably not all that bad for you but..."

Allison blinked back to reality, then nodded. “Yeah. Well, I can pass for human for a day, then they notice the ink changes or whatever and start asking awkward questions. Generally involving why-are-you-not-an-artist, for some reason. Apparently it’s incomprehensible that I might control ink and still suck at art anyway. But, uh, yeah, I have an apartment, my parents helped get it, so it’s really small and there’s this extra insurance fee, but it’s there.” She shifted, suddenly conscious that she’d left it with books and dishes scattered around, and laundry mostly in the basket and completely unfolded. Oh well, at least it’s not my room. I don’t have space to be messy here. “Would, uh, you like to come over? It’s kind of a ways away, I think about four miles from here, but....”

“Would, uh, you like to come over? It’s kind of a ways away, I think about four miles from here, but....”

Amber blinked in surprise. She hadn't exactly been expecting an invite in Allison's apartment. Not too many people wanted to invite the strange little pale mutant with the eerie black eyes. Maybe saving lives (even if she was the route cause of the need to save lives to begin with) had its advantages. Maybe she'd even offer cake once she got there. Ya, cake sounded good after a hard night of fighting off evil human thugs.

"Sure. I mean, if you d-don't mind that is." If nothing else it would certainly be nice to get out of her hot robes for a little while. They were designed to be as cool as possible given the fact that they still had to cover every inch of flesh, but the marvels of modern science could only go so far. Maybe one day she'd be able to walk outside without them in safety, but that day didn't seem to be coming anytime soon.

"Sure. I mean, if you d-don't mind that is."

“No, it’s no problem. Uh....” Allison glanced around, trying to figure out exactly where she was. She knew the total length of her various running routes, and a few points along them, but not much in between. She was fairly certain she was around four miles out, which she could maybe cut down to three and a half or three and a quarter if she took the shortest routes, but some of those were through very mutant-unfriendly areas, or just everyone-unfriendly areas, so if she avoided them, the walk would be at least three and a half miles, unless she was wrong about how far out it was.... “It is pretty far though, and I was running, so um, do you mind walking?” She shifted, not wanting to force the woman to walk so far but not coming up with any other options.

Allison turned, peering at the sun to guess how much light was left. An hour? Forty five minutes? Hour and fifteen? But I include dusk as light....